Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

‘Shameful Flight’ relates the history of the final years of the British Raj in India, including the partition of India into both Pakistan (West and East) and India, and the early hostility of the two new nations destined for perpetual warfare in such regions as the Kashmir.The history of this era of political instability on the subcontinent includes all the main players from Great Britain, India and Pakistan.These main players include Winston Churchill, Viceroy Louis Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah. There is not a single figure in this history of India’s partition who comes out of it in a good light, though several seem to have had very well-intentioned aims and motivations. It is the true story of lost opportunity and the devastating consequences of human pride and selfishness that have reverberated down through the decades to the present day and remain visible in the continuing clashes between India and Pakistan, as well as in the extremism expressed in both the Islamic and Hindu communities throughout the sub-continent. It is a story of perpetual tragedy and human suffering with no end in sight.

This book is extremely easy to read, passes on a wealth of historical information and whets the appetite for further research on the India/Pakistan situation. It provides enlightenment, by bringing understanding to the current political instability in both India and Pakistan, by clearly revealing the root of the problem – the manner of the birth of both nations out of British imperialism and that nation’s final haphazard departure aptly described as a ‘Shameful Flight.’ This is a great book for understanding the sub-continent and the wounds it still carries to this day.

This book was provided to me for review by Oxford University Press – www.oup.com

Over past two years, Pakistanis and entire world has been fed by Pakistani’s secular media that the military operations in northern tribal belt of Pakistan are against CIA and RAW supported elements who have nothing to do with Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Jihad therein.

Pakistani Mujahideen, from time to time, have been denying such allegations as “Lies” and “Defamatory Propaganda” to create support for military’s operations which broadly got planned and executed under American pressure and threats to stop millions of Dollars in aid.

Few days ago, a stunning report was published by Pakistani’s widely circulated newspaper which read:

“Pakistani and Afghan jehadi groups have decided to start “battle of evil and just”, as the Afghan fighters assured Pakistani militants of complete support in their fight against Pak army in South Waziristan.

According to sources, it was decided in a meeting of the commanders of al-Qaeda, Hakmatyar group, Afghan Taliban and Pakistani jehadi organisations, which was held in Afghanistan.

The meeting decided that the Pakistan security forces, which have been helping the American forces, would also be targeted and the Afghan fighters, who have been fighting in Afghanistan for the last eight years, for the first time decided to send manpower to Waziristan in support of Pakistan militants.”

To read full report, click here.

Pakistani soldiers [excluding sold-out high rank officers and their supporters] are our brothers, we believe that they have been misled by a systematic propaganda to convince them that they are NOT fighting America’s war. Being Muslims, we must encourage them to learn truth, refer to basics of Islam and request them to stop following un-Islamic orders of their corrupt officers. Be it Muslims of Pakistani tribes or young soldiers of Pakistan, both are assets of Pakistani nation which Kuffar are destroying through time test formula of “divide and rule”. It is only few corrupt elements in Army who deserve death of Ghaddar.

Over past two years, Pakistanis and entire world has been fed by Pakistani’s secular media that the military operations in northern tribal belt of Pakistan are against CIA and RAW supported elements who have nothing to do with Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Jihad therein.

Pakistani Mujahideen, from time to time, have been denying such allegations as “Lies” and “Defamatory Propaganda” to create support for military’s operations which broadly got planned and executed under American pressure and threats to stop millions of Dollars in aid.

Few days ago, a stunning report was published by Pakistani’s widely circulated newspaper which read:

“Pakistani and Afghan jehadi groups have decided to start “battle of evil and just”, as the Afghan fighters assured Pakistani militants of complete support in their fight against Pak army in South Waziristan.

According to sources, it was decided in a meeting of the commanders of al-Qaeda, Hakmatyar group, Afghan Taliban and Pakistani jehadi organisations, which was held in Afghanistan.

The meeting decided that the Pakistan security forces, which have been helping the American forces, would also be targeted and the Afghan fighters, who have been fighting in Afghanistan for the last eight years, for the first time decided to send manpower to Waziristan in support of Pakistan militants.”

To read full report, click here.

Pakistani soldiers [excluding sold-out high rank officers and their supporters] are our brothers, we believe that they have been misled by a systematic propaganda to convince them that they are NOT fighting America’s war. Being Muslims, we must encourage them to learn truth, refer to basics of Islam and request them to stop following un-Islamic orders of their corrupt officers. Be it Muslims of Pakistani tribes or young soldiers of Pakistan, both are assets of Pakistani nation which Kuffar are destroying through time test formula of “divide and rule”. It is only few corrupt elements in Army who deserve death of Ghaddar.

Today, I had a great holiday relaxing with my family. I napped, watched two football games and ate a ungodly amount of ham. When I got home and logged into Facebook, my profile was slammed with the ‘I’m thankful for’ statuses.

They mostly thanked God and family, but no one, not a single person, thanked themselves. I’m not saying family and friends aren’t vitally important, but today, think about what you have done for yourself.

Atheism doesn’t tell the whole story – I consider myself a secular humanist equally, as well as a atheist and naturalist. I am of the mindset that no one else except me is responsible for my successes and failures, and I will not give some faceless entity credit for what I have done – I should fully enjoy the fruit of my labor and fully take responsibility for the consequences of my mistakes. It’s how healthy people operate.

So everyone, thank yourself! You deserve it.

David Cameron defends his claim that government money is being used to fund schools run by an organisation with links to extremists…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: kindergarten. The blog is also related to: classes.

First, an important announcement:

Dmitry Vilensky & Alexei Penzin from Chto Delat/What Is to Be Done?
Lecture: Tuesday, December 1st at 6.00 pm
Small Hall / Cinema (to the side of Loafers)
Richard Hoggart Building
Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London SE14 6NW

Organised by Marxism in Culture and the Micropolitics Research Group, Goldsmiths, and supported by the Open University.

Second, to give Londoners a taste of what they might be hearing at the December 1 lecture, we are reprinting here Alexei Penzin’s essay “Under Suspicion,” from a recent issue of our newspaper entitled Another Commons: Living/Knowledge/Action. Sadly, what Alexei wrote this past summer has only gained in relevance and timeliness since then.

Alexei Penzin: Under Suspicion

When we peruse the timeline of the “merry month of May” 2009 in Russia—a laconic chronicle of arrests, detentions of activists, intellectuals and artists, but also of protests against these actions of the authorities—many difficult questions arise. Of course, the fragmentary and brief comments given below do not claim to be a definitive diagnosis. The incomplete and sketchy quality of these comments is rather a part of the problem itself. A fuller analysis will be possible when there is a systematic understanding of the post-Soviet political experience, which for now is a thing of the future. 

1. In medias res

It is very difficult to understand what is going on in medias res, from the inside: these are events that are in the process of development, that affect us personally and assail us from all sides without allowing us to assume the stance of a dispassionate observer. These events affect many of us, sometimes in the literal, physical sense. The command “Hands against the wall!” A stunning blow to the head in a bus filled with people nabbed at a demonstration. Or, for example, the indescribably grotesque intrusion of a detachment of armed, shouting men during the showing of a Godard film at a peaceful leftist seminar. For about a year now the solidarity networks have been constantly delivering reports of new arrests, unlawful summonses for “discussions,” and beatings of activists. It is possible, however, that we should not be so focused on ourselves. The bad news concerns not only the minority of activists and intellectuals. The news also comes from those who are not involved in politics, education or research—from “average citizens.” The very texture of post-Soviet society in recent years has been steeped in anonymous, free-floating violence committed by the “forces of law and order.” Violence against civilians has become a kind of collateral damage, an excess of the existing system of political management. Sometimes this anonymous violence takes on personal and transgressive features. For example, in the person of a police officer who shoots at customers in a supermarket with the cold-bloodedness of a character in a computer game.

2. Local and Global

The pressure of traumatic violence causes an introversion that is common to victims and occasionally forces us to overestimate how exceptional our own experience is. But should we see in these events only a local process dictated by a distant and recent pre-history? Here we immediately conjure up images of some “eternal” despotic Empire that treated its population as subjects rather than citizens who have a legal status and are capable of defending their human dignity. We are reminded of scenes of violence and mass reprisals during various historical periods. Notions of a fatal backwardness vis-à-vis the “west” in terms of a general level of “civilization,” rights and liberties, the public sphere, civil society, etc., are seemingly given fresh content. Such notions suit the liberals, who see post-Soviet society as a result of “failed reforms” or a constantly delayed modernization. They also suit the local nationalists, who think that post-Soviet societies actually are incurably different from the community of “developed countries.” Unlike the liberals, however, the nationalists are in favor of this difference.

Undoubtedly, these notions and positions should be critiqued. They must be historicized. For example, grim imperial images that present themselves as “eternal” conceal experiments in radical revolutionary politics, periods when—at very least, as during the early twenties in the USSR—major breakthroughs were made in rebuilding society on principles of justice and emancipation. The violence we are witnessing now is at first glance an almost “feudal” holdover. But it appears that this violence conceals a quite modern system of administration that is consistent with the latest forms of capital accumulation that have taken shape throughout the world in the neoliberal age.

So the many arrests on suspicion of “extremist” activity should not be seen merely as inventive tricks of a local authoritarianism (rooted in a centuries-long “despotic” tradition) seeking ever-newer excuses to block all grassroots protest movements. Only post-Soviet intellectual and political provincialism (in the negative sense of a narrow view of the situation) would affirm that this is the case. Progressive post-Soviet leftists must maintain a dialectical position on the question. It is important to understand how the mainstream of global capitalism is transformed in a specific way in our local context.

3. “Extremism” and Securitization

One undeniable worldwide tendency in recent times is the politics and ideology of securitization. Under the pretext of imagined or real threats (“terrorism,” military conflicts, migration, environmental catastrophes, epidemics, etc.) and, of course, “on behalf of and for the safety of citizens themselves” ever-newer emergency measures of control and management are introduced. At the same time, the list of “threats” grows longer. Securitization should be understood as a process of the continuous production of the sphere of the “dangerous” itself and, at the same time, of new techniques of “crisis” management. The politics of emergency measures has more and more influence on society, both on the public arena and on private space. In certain situations the action of formal legal institutions (presumption of innocence, civil liberties) is entirely suspended. Consequently, the authorities and law enforcement are given ever-greater powers, as well as technical capabilities for control and surveillance.[1]

The politics of security in its newest form was called into being by societal transformations that occurred under the influence of neoliberal capitalism. First, they are connected with the need to protect investments and the financial sphere in general, especially amidst the current economic crisis. Second, the anxiety of the ruling elites has a direct influence on the initiation of new emergency measures, for they are afraid of mass protests due to the consequences of the global economic collapse. Third, securitization is programmed on a deeper—structural, productional or even ontological—level. Increased workforce turnover, the rise of the uncertainty factor in all labor processes, precarization—i.e., the lack of minimum “social security,” stable labor relations, and living conditions—have become stakes in the political game. New conditions of exploitation give rise to particular types of subjugated subjectivity that seek reassurance, the conversion of the anxiety provoked by uncertainty. They cannot recognize the causes of this apprehension, and it is easily transformed into a specific fear that is linked to one or another specific figure of the “other,” the “enemy” (“terrorists,” “migrants,” “extremists”). Whereas classic nineteenth-century capitalism inflicted suffering only on the worker’s body (hunger, lack of sleep, poor housing and living conditions), the modern form encroaches on the entire person, operating on the affects, fears, and cares that capitalism itself creates. Martin Heidegger elaborated an “existential analysis” of this subjectivity during the severe economic crisis of the Weimar Republic and on the eve of the Great Depression. But now it seems that these existential structures are becoming the “fate” of all those who live amidst constant uncertainty and securitization. Government administrations, by introducing additional security measures and conducting ever-newer “anti-extremist” campaigns, propose and effectively use the symbolic compensation of the agonizing real uncertainties engendered by the very relations of production of modern capitalism.

Finally, the governance strategy that makes this politics so popular consists in the fact that from now on, any specific social, political or class antagonism expressed in a grassroots protest movement is presented as a threat to the state and public security and is equated with phenomena of a completely different nature (epidemics, manmade disasters). Hence the particular breadth and vagueness of the term “extremism,” which the authorities use with such abandon in order to legitimize their “special operations.”

4. “Managed Democracy” in Crisis

Having outlined these tendencies we can look at the situation from the perspective of how things stand on the local level. In post-SovietRussia the mantra of “stability” undoubtedly represents the local version of the politics of securitization broadly understood. In official rhetoric, the current “stability” is set against the uncertainty and “chaos” of the nineties as a genuine achievement of the current regime. It represents itself as the conqueror of “terrorism,” “extremism,” “armed separatism,” as well as the political and economic turbulence of the “transitional period.” The mythical narrative of the transition from “chaos” to “order” aspires to structure the popular perception of the historical moment. However, “stability” is an absolutely empty sign that is chiefly supported only by the images and rhetoric of the official mass media. This is the effect of a strategy of limitation that brackets off all elements that do not fit into the picture of the new order from media representation. Images of “stability” are produced in abundance even now. After all, as the state propagandists say with remarkable voluntarism, “The crisis isn’t in the economy, it’s in our heads.” These images are created via exclusion—exclusion of workers in state enterprises, pensioners, precaritized cultural and educational workers, as well as other “low-income” individuals.

The general political form of “stability” is a regime that, until recently, almost officially called itself “managed democracy.” In this model, the president and his administrative apparatus are seen as “crisis managers” of sorts whose main task is to maintain the manageability of the system by any means, including emergency measures. The managerial model spreads to the whole of the political arena, attempting to manage all political forces with whom it is “possible to negotiate.” Politics is just a “business” that has its own paid administrators and contractors. All other political forces that cannot be managed through “investments” and “projects” and who cannot be “negotiated” with are severely marginalized. How could it be otherwise? After all, those “unmanageable” elements dare to have their own projects for changing society! All situations in which violence is used in this system arise in zones of such “unmanageability.” Everything that cannot be managed, everything that contradicts this consolidated bureaucratic-administrative system causes the state to become aggressive and intervene. All that is unmanageable must be crushed: that is the maxim according to which law enforcement operates. It is possible to negotiate with everyone else.

A consequence of “stability” and “managed democracy” is the politics of normalization which, in recent times, has been penetrating to an even deeper social level. There are the “normal people” who make up a homogenous society, the “loyal majority.” But there are also those who are “abnormal.”[2] These people cannot be managed; they are incomprehensible, they criticize, they are frightening even in their small numbers. They are a grim reminder of the “bad conscience” of “managed democracy.” We can observe the rise of an entire group of new “abnormal” activists of grassroots civic and political movements, young subculture “freaks,” politicized intellectuals who are seen as a dangerous and incomprehensible “bohemian” crowd because of their complex language and way of life. At the same time, they are able to publicly make their voice heard. Their activity clearly doesn’t fit into a business model that a manager can understand. With their behavior they undermine the unspoken rules of loyalty, obedience, and the new, incredibly cynical post-Soviet “realism” and “pragmatism.”

So “stability” is actually only proof of greater consolidation and reinforcement of the “security” apparatus itself. Police interventions are intended to demonstrate a “monopoly on violence” as signs of the ubiquitous presence of a “strong state.” Anyone who disputes “stability” by virtue of their very existence, thinking, and behavior; anyone who openly casts doubt on it; anyone who expresses disagreement with it as the only possible order is potentially suspect. The recently launched campaign to identify “sources of destabilization” was the first reaction of this system to signs of the growing economic crisis and, as its consequence, the narrowing of the zone of manageability.

5. Violence as a Commodity

The new paradigm of “security” has been established on both the legal and institutional levels. After 9/11, like some other countries, Russia passed a law “On the Prevention of Extremism” (in 2002). However, many distinctive features can be seen in measures related to the institutional support and implementation of the law.

The real start of the active campaign against “extremism” was the creation, on the wave of crisis expectations in 2008, of a special network of “anti-extremist” centers throughout the country. They were formed from armed units previously used to fight organized crime, with all the methods typical of such units. In effect, those who fall under suspicion are treated by these new law enforcement agencies as non-citizens and preventively stripped of any legal status; the new units act against them essentially the way they used to act against the criminal mafia. Recently, independent political and trade union activists, organizers of antifascist rock concerts, engaged intellectuals, and artists have become objects of suspicion as “extremists.” The transition from the potentially troubling status of “unmanageable” to the status of persons stripped of civil rights during police raids and detention has been swift and sometimes shocking.

The operational logic of the “anti-extremist” centers grows out of the overall managerial strategy of “managed democracy.” This strategy creates innovations in the field of police-administrative control in the form of a “project” with a certain budget that has to prove it is “competitive” in a limited amount of time. The “anti-extremist” centers must quickly show the products of their work: inspections, raids, and acts of violence. And these have not been long in coming: in the past six months they can be counted in the dozens. In this situation, violence is a paradoxical commodity in a new segment of the “security” market. As a breakdown of the peaceful institutions of human society, as a brutal exposure of the “real,” and as the production of bare, vulnerable life, violence was always a means of demonstrating the prevailing balance of power without fail. In this case, it is also a sure means of showing the “efficacy” of the new police-administration project, of demonstrating its “competitive” edge over more traditional security services. We may suppose that the logic of this marketization and competition in the sphere of security politics should, in the final analysis, hasten the crisis of the very system of “managed democracy.”

6. Resistance, Activism, Subjectivity: What Kind of “Community” Do We Need?

When discussing the political contexts of the eventful “long May” of 2009 it is necessary to emphasize the significance of some other events. They had to do with resistance to the administrative “security” and “management” machine, which threw its disproportionately large and armed forces at the small and heterogeneous milieu of Russian leftist activists, intellectuals, and artists. Surrounded by constant news of detentions and beatings of people many of them know personally, the participants in these actions were also asymmetrical in their display of solidarity. Aside from well-known tactics, they were quite inventive in using the capabilities of modern visual and media culture while also circumventing the coarse filters of administrative control over access to the public arena (for example, getting permission for a picket). That is how the interesting experiments in translating political language into the language of engaged contemporary art practices arose—the hunger strike and street gatherings of artists that resulted in quite political works that very wittily unmasked “managed democracy” in action.

Theorists who have turned to an analysis of the leftist movements cropping up amid the ruins of former communist parties and socialist states note the dual nature of their formation, which is at once active and reactive.[3] On the one hand, there is a moment of identification with the resistance to the blatant violence, abuse of power, brute force, and reckless audacity of the new capitalist “masters.” It has a defensive, protective character. On the other hand, just as important is the moment of transformation of this reactive, defensive movement that arises for particular reasons into an active movement that constitutes and creates a new field of agency that is relatively autonomous and generates both its own universal political projects and specific subjectivities capable of supporting and implementing them.

Here I can also speak on the basis of my own personal experience, including my experience as the person in charge of an unusual discussion of “leftist philosophy” at the educational seminar in Nizhny Novgorod that was raided by the “anti-extremist” center. The seminar was conceived as a “human community,” as a temporary “commune” whose experiment in living could be joined by anyone who came to the seminar. Fully restoring the work of the seminar after this violent interruption was an elementary act of resistance, but it was also the moment that changed the entire situation of what we had been talking about. Thus, in addition to exchanging and developing our knowledge, the very means of running the seminar as a “community” raised the question of the practices and forms of transforming our lives and our own subjectivities. This transformation proceeds through practices of self-organization, self-education, cooperation, and self-valorization, i.e., through those human capacities that no “privatization” or politics of “security” can appropriate or completely control.

Confronted with extremely prosaic and cruel things in the everyday world of post-Soviet managed democracy, which is monstrously distant from the experiments of emancipatory thought and the revolutionary practice of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, activists clearly should not shrink from “high-flown” philosophical formulations. The question of activist subjectivity is directly related to specific and practical things: to expanding the movement, to heightening awareness of its problems, to its political power, to new forms of community, language, and coordination. It is related to a simple question: what kind of life, what kind of larger “community” do we want not only for ourselves, but for others? Given our specific conditions, what kind of cooperative transformation of our lives are we capable of desiring? These conditions often seem distant from the great historical exemplars of revolutionary practice, political texts, and works of “leftist philosophy” that we have inherited. This is not only a question of programs and arguments of one organization or another, with the language and methods of formulating tasks borrowed from the “eastern” or “western,” “new” or “old” leftists of the twentieth century. This is a question of creating a common life without naïveté, with a critical approach to an unduly emotional, starry-eyed understanding of it, but with a negation of that ostensibly “realistic” cynicism and skepticism in whose deadening language we immerse ourselves on a daily basis.

[1] Of course, the paradigm of securitization is not new. It is more likely a modern excess of state apparatuses that has gradually emerged since the start of the process of capitalist modernization. In his lecture series Security, Territory, Population (1977–1978) Michel Foucault makes the distinction between the techniques and arrangement of disciplinary power on the one hand, and the mechanisms of “security” on the other. “Security” as a power strategy arises in connection with the formation of notions of the state as a kind of “living” social organism that must be protected from internal and external threats while preserving the “national interest.” As the ideologists of the bourgeois state supposed, police and “police science” (as a field of systematic population registration and computation) were necessary to guarantee this interest.

[2] We use this term not in a judgmental sense, but in the analytical sense that Michel Foucault gave it in his eponymous 1974–1975 lectures.

[3] See, for example, Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, 2004.

Just when I think the collective amnesia of Republicans can’t possibly come up with another blinding example of bullshit, another leftover from the Bush Administration trots out on a talking head tee-vee show and lets loose a whopper of biblical proportions…just like former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino did last night on GOP apologist Sean Hannity’s show.

Referring to the Ft. Hood shootings and murders, Perino made the claim that… just watch it for yourself:

Yup, you hears her correctly and in case you missed it:

We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during president Bush’s term. I hope they’re not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is.

Perhaps even more galling was that Hannity, who sees himself as a super-patriot, didn’t offer the slightest sign that Perino was way past disingenuous.

h/t:  www.talkingpointsmemo.com

Palestinian schoolchildren face daily settler attacks
Mel Frykberg

In a letter to Minivan News and also on their blog the Madkhali sect in the Maldives (know locally as the Super Salafis [SS]) have attacked the Mujahideen and those who wage Jihad in the Path of Allah.

I will reply here to some of the points which they raised, not in the hope of persuading that they are wrong as these are the people of Taqleed (blind following) but rather to illustrate to others they deviant beliefs and methodology of this group. I will not go into too much detail for fear of making the article too long, however I will provide some links for those who seek to read further on this issue.

The letter begins:

Ahlul-athar.net expresses their utter disgust at any acts of extremism and terrorism committed by the Khawaarij and the likes, those that of Al-Qaedah and their ilk.

The Madkhalis make vague statements which hope to appeal to peoples emotions rather than address the actual situation of what is occurring in the world and what Islam has to say about this. They begin by comparing Al Qaeda to the khawarij and this is something which has absolutely no basis whatsoever and rather it is mere rhetoric on their part.

They know that the Muslims hate the khawarij and recognise them as extremist deviants and so they hope that by labelling the Mujahideen as khawarij they will transfer the peoples hate onto the Mujahideen. This is also a tactic of other deviant groups such as the sufis and modernists, but is there any truth to the claim?

To be considered part of any sect such as the khawarij then one has to adopt all the major principles of that sect and this was pointed out by Imam Shatibi in Al-I’etisam and it is also common sense. So to be considered khawarij a group must adopt the major principles of the khawarij which are two:

• The khawarij rebelled against Ali and they rebel against legitimate Muslim rulers (i.e. those ruling by the Sharia)

• The khawarij make takfeer of those who commit major sins and say that such a person should be killed as an apostate. For example if someone drunk alcohol then it is the belief of the khawarij sect that that person should be killed as an apostate. They also make takfeer for those who commit repeated minor sins.

There are also many minor principles of the khawarij such as the fact that they deny the punishment of the grave. So to be considered part of this sect one must at least adopt both major principles above, yet Al Qaeda adopts none of these!  Allah says in the Quran:

Present your evidence if you are truthful
Surah Al Baqarah 2:111

So can the Madkhalis show us where Al Qaeda have adopted both these principles? The actions and statements of that group have been recorded in minute detail and so if this claim against them is true then it would be simple to prove, it would merely take a google search.

Of course no doubt they will say that Al Qaeda and other Mujahideen have rebelled against Al Saud and other regimes in the Muslim world and so the first principle applies to them. We know that the Prophet (SAW) forbade us rebelling against a legitimate Muslim ruler even if he was a tyrant and this is something we follow. But this is depended upon the leader ruling by the Sharia. Whoever rules by other than the Sharia is an apostate and there is no obedience due to him.

The Madkhali have taken something which is in fact in the Quran and Sunnah (obedience to the ruler) and distorted it by removing from it the condition that the ruler must rule by the Sharia. Anyone familiar with them will know that this is a common tactic they use (distorting actual texts) which sets them apart and makes them more dangerous than many other sects who simply oppose what is in the Quran and Sunnah.

The Madkhali will tell you that they follow Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir yet both of these scholars have told us that we must rebel against the ruler who even changes one law of the Sharia and I have pointed this out in previous posts but I will provide these quotations once more:

Ibn Kathir  said in his Tafseer of the Quran:

“Allah denounces whoever renounces the Laws of Allah which are leading to all good and forbidding all evil, and sways away from it to Man-Made opinions and wishes and terms that Man put without reference to Shari’ah, as was the case with the kings of the Mongols who ruled with laws that were introduced by their king Genghis Khan that he put together in the “Yasaq”, which is a book that uses some of Jewish, Christian and Islamic Laws, and some of his own opinions, then these laws became the constitution for his successors to follow instead of the Shari’ah and the Sunnah of the Prophet . So, whoever does such a thing is a Kafir and it is an obligation to fight him until he goes back to Shari’ah, and rule according to it in small and large matters”.

and Sheikh ul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said:

Every group which leaves, changes, or refuses to implement any agreed upon, undisputed law of Islaam, whether it is these people or others, must be fought until they adhere to ALL the laws of Islaam. This is the rule even if they pronounce the Shahaadatayn and adhere to some of the Islaamic laws, as Abu Bakr as-Siddeeq and the Sahaabah(radiAllaahu anhum) waged war on those who withheld the Zakaah.

So if it is based on this issue alone that they call Al Qaeda Khawaarij then do they(The Madkhalis) also claim that Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir where Khawaarij? What about Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen who they make taqleed of on many issues and expect others to blindly follow  as well? Ibn Uthaymeen said that it is correct to rebel aganst many of the Muslim governments today:

so is he Khawaarij also?

On the second issue of making takfeer of the one who commits a major sin then there is no evidence that the Mujahideen have done this and as far as I am aware no one has even made the claim that they do. If the people of taqleed have evidence to the contrary then they should present it, otherwise they should desist from trying to slander those who are fighting in the path of Allah.

The letter continues:

Such unjustified outbursts of wanton violence are against Islam and Islam does not ever justify kidnappings, suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism.

Unjustified? Are these people so blind and misguided that they do not believe that there is justification for the attacks which they mujahideen carry out upon the crusaders and apostates?

Over one million Iraqis have been killed by the enemies of Islam since the begining of the occupation. Half a million children died in the decade proceeding this as a result of UN sanctions. Every week we hear of innocent Muslims being slaughtered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya, Philippines, Thailand, China, Pakistan and numerous other countries throughout the world. Our people are being slaughtered, imprisoned, raped, tortured and all this because they say La Ilaha Il Allah. SubhanAllah! Your hearts are closed if you do not feel pain at what is happening to this Ummah and if you see no justification for the actions of the Mujahideen. Rather than attack the kuffar you attack those who are fighting them, those who are defending Islam and defending the Muslims.

As for the actions which you raise(kidnappings, suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism) then let us look at them.

Firstly upon the issue of terrorism I say that you have lied. Not only does Islam justify terrorism but calls us to terrorise our enemies:

Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.

Surah An Anfal 8:60

So Allah orders us to terrorise our enemies and the Madkhalis tell us there is no terrorism in Islam. Clearly they have denied part of the book in doing so.

Of course they may be talking of terrorism in the sense that the west defines it, that is targeting civilians. If that is what they are talking about then I must urge them to stick to the Islamic definition of words rather than adopting meanings given to them by the kuffar as this is not the way of the Muslims.

But even this kind of terrorism is not against Islam. It is certainly true that the Prophet (SAW) forbade the targeting of non combatants but there are cases in which this general rule does not apply. For example the Prophet (SAW) himself ordered that catapults be used against the people of a city knowing that this weapon does not discriminate between combatants and non combatants and non combatants would probably be killed.

When the kuffar kill our women and children then it is completely justified for us to retaliate by attacking their women and children. Allah said in the Quran:

Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is with the pious.
Surah Al Baqarah 2:194

Commenting on this issue (targeting civilians) Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen said:

The apparent [Thāhir] is that it is (permissible) for us to kill their women and children- even if it means that we lose profit/benefit from it [since keeping them alive is a profit/benefit because they become the property of the Muslims]; (and killing them in this situation is permissible) due to it threatening the hearts of the enemies and a humiliation for them.
And due to the generality of the Statement of Allāh:
ْمُكْيَلَع ىَدَتْعا اَم ِلْثِمِب ِهْيَلَع ْاوُدَتْعاَف ْمُكْيَلَع ىَدَتْعا ِنَمَف
“Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him”
And to (purposely) destroy property (which could later belong) for the Muslims (by killing them in this case) is nothing strange.

And due to this, the baggage, the baggage of the one who steals from the Ghanīmah is burned, even though in that, there is the loss of some property of one the fighters.
Then if someone says:
‘If they rape our women then do we rape their women?’
No, this, no, no we do not do it.
Why? Because this is prohibited as a (whole) category [i.e. it is forbidden within itself], and it is not possible for us to do it.
Meaning, it is not forbidden out of respect for the rights of others [i.e. not because we are respecting their rights] – rather, because it is forbidden as a category [i.e. the action of ‘intercourse’]. So it is not permissible for us to rape their women.
But if the dividing (of the Ghanīmah) takes place, and the woman from them ends up as a slave woman, then she becomes property of the right hand. The person can have intercourse with her as a right hand possession, which is permissible and there is nothing wrong with this”
Later on, the Shaykh was asked about the fact that the women being killed are not the ones who killed our women, so is this justice? So he answered:
ْمُكْيَلَع ىَدَتْعا ِنَمَفْمُكْيَلَع ىَدَتْعا اَم ِلْثِمِب ِهْيَلَع ْاوُدَتْعاَف
“Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him”
What is justice? Not at all. They kill our women, we kill their women. This is the justice. It’s not justice to say ‘if they kill our women we won’t kill your women.

Kitāb al-Jihād from Sharh Bulūgh al-Marām.

There are many other scholars who take this position. The reason I refer to Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen is because he is one of the Scholars who the Madkhalis blindly follow on many issues and one who the followers of this sect will respect, yet I would assume that most of them are not even aware of this position of the Sheikh. So given this opinion could we not conclude that in the very least there is a difference of opinion on this issue rather than saying that there is no justification whatsoever for it and saying it is against Islam. Is Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen against Islam?

On the issue of martyrdom operations which they refer to as “sucide bombs”, this is yet again an issue on which there is a difference of opinion. Many Scholars say that such attacks are justified under certain conditions, one of these Scholars being Sheikh Al Albani. His ruling:

The Shaykh, may Allah have mercy upon him, was asked:

“(A question) regarding modern day militant operations, there are some forces named, “Commandos” – and after this happening, the (Jewish) enemy represses the Muslims …. So these suicidal brigades wear explosives, and go to the tanks or such of the enemies, and then he gets killed… What’s the ruling regarding this, is this considered sucide, or something else?”

The Shaykh answered:

“This is not suicide. Becuase suicideis when a person kills himself to escape a hard life which he is going through. But as for this thing which you are asking about, this is not suicide – Rather, this is Jihad in the Path of Allah…..

But there is a note which should be considered – this type of action should not be carried out individually, or alone (based on ones own decisions). Rather, it should only be carried out according to the command of the leader of the Jaysh (i.e. Mujahideen)

So if the commander is not dependant upon the life of this Fida’i (self sacrificer), and the commander believes that even after losing this Mujahid, there is a great profit from another angle, meaning the killing of a large number of mushrikin and kuffar – then the decision is up to the commander, and it is obligatory (Wajib) to obey him. And this is (obligatory) even if the particular person (being ordered) does not want to do such an operation, it is still obligatory to obey him”

Questioner interrupts:

“So there is no problem in doing such?”

The Shaykh responds:

“No, there is no problem in doing such. We (the scholars) do not label this as “suicide”. And suicide is one of the worst sins which Islam has prohibited. No one does that, except one who is displeased with His Lord, and rejecting the Decree of Allah. And refuge is sought with Allah.

As for this (Mujahid), then he goes forth, as many of the As-Salaf As-Salih, and from amongst the Companions and those after them – used to go forth, plunging into the kuffar enemy, attacking them with his sword (alone), and used the sword against them , until they were killed, while they where patient and satisfed, because they believed that the Paradise are in front of them.

So what a difference there is! Between one who kills himself in this method of Jihad and one who escapes from a hard life by commiting suicide.

But if it is done haphazardly and one one’s own decision, then this goes under the warning of self destruction. But if it is done upon the command of the leader of army (of Mujahideen), the one who knows the realities of the battlefield, and its necessities, and its benefits, etc – then this is something permissable. No rather it is something virtuous”

- From “Silsilah Al Huda Wan Nur tape no. 134

And on the issue of kidnapping then we know that the Muslims have always taken hostages and when this occurs then their lives are in the hands of the Amir. Just because someone wants to label this as kidnapping and again resort to kuffar terminology does not make it forbidden and there are numerous examples of this throughout Islamic history and anyone with any understanding will see that there is no issue with it.

He goes on:

It is rather disheartening that some of the Maldvian youth are getting deluded into believing that these acts are Jihaad and from Islaam.

As shown above in brief, the very least we can say about these actions is that there is a difference of opinion upon them and I believe that yes they are from Islam and that is the position of the majority of the Scholars and it is even the position of the Scholars who the Madkhalis claim to follow. So we say Alhamdullilah that there are youth who recognise these actions for what they are and we ask Allah to guide more youth to this position and to save them from the deviant sects who misinterpret his ayats to suit their ideology.

I will address the rest of the misconceptions in this letter in the next few days InshaAllah

I wonder if back at the Clone Club HQ, this person-who-obviously-needs-a better-hobby-and-new-friends knows the Octo-Mom…

F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong… there’s plenty of second acts in America.

Efter gårdagens öppna möte på Stortorget i Vellinge är det en person som har gjort en polisanmälan mot mig för hets mot folkgrupp. Troligen tillhörde anmälaren den vänsterextrema grupp som var på plats för att, i strid med grundlagen, sabotera vårt möte.

Att man ö h t kan dömas för åsiktsbrott i Sverige är förstås bisarrt i sig. Det som gör detta ännu mer bisarrt är att jag blivit anmäld för någonting jag inte har sagt. Enligt anmälaren ska jag ha påstått att “alla flyktingar ljuger om sin ålder”. Om uppgiften stämmer så är det lögn och jag har därför anmält anmälaren för förtal. Jag har även gjort en polisanmälan mot den vänsterextrema motdemonstrationen som sådan, eftersom den saknade tillstånd.

Inslag i Rapport ifrån gårdagens möte: