Transcript - 'Mosque in Athens' Debate (2012)

ꕤ Transcript SOURCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNo59pQcyKE 'Mosque in Athens' Debate  27 Nov 2012 Douglas Murray British writer, journalist and commentator atheist ('cultural Christian', formerly Anglican) Douglas Murray's comments re Islamic extremism in Netherlands mean that he has to have a police guard when travelling there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Murray_%28author%29 TRANSCRIPT [for quotations, confirm audio] 25:39 Douglas Murray There, that's better.  Apologies for not being able to speak Greek and for not being able to work the microphone. It's very nice to be in Athens. I want to open by thanking the organisers for inviting me, for inviting our side, particularly thank, obviously, Intelligence Squared and also the British Council. I should also say at the outset, I also feel rather sorry for our opponents tonight, who have been appallingly set up, clearly, by the motion that we have been given. The motion that we are debating tonight is not whether or not the mosque should be built, the motion is that only good can come from building it. And it seems to me, that the only people who could possibly believe that are people who are extraordinarily naive, people who are extraordinarily ignorant, or something altogether worse. Now, I'm not a cultural relativist. I don't believe that all civilisations are equal.  I don't believe all cultures are equal.   That doesn't mean I don't believe we can't all get along. But I don't believe that we have to pretend, among other things, in debating things like this evening's motion, that we do not ourselves in Europe have a history that we would wish to defend, a culture we might wish to be proud of and to protect, and even to make value judgements about other ideas, other religions, other cultures. Now, it's my belief that Europe is based on the fundamental principles of Judeo-Christian civilisation and of Greek culture, and from this wonderful symbiosis of values, the history of Europe, the culture of Europe, has emerged. I believe, furthermore, that states have the right to decide, to at least have a say, in their own future; that waves of illegal immigration do not mean that cultures which have had such immigration immediately have to concede to the incomers. It's also, I should stress at the outset, is an important debate to have, because there is a problem that Europe is experiencing with Islam.  And I think we have to tackle this head-on. Islam is a very, very complex thing. Let nobody say that we on this side are essentialising Muslims, or generalising about Muslims, or aren't aware of the huge variety of practices and beliefs within Islam. But to create a massive centre at public expense in Athens at this moment should at least be questioned. We should at least be able to address whether or not it would seem to us to be like a good idea. Let me give you an example -- from my own country, from Great Britain -- of this kind of thing going on, because in Britain we have many mosques, many Muslim organisations are funded by the government, and I wanted to give one example of the sort of thing which the Athens mosque might yet become on this benevolent idea that if the government is behind it, only good can come from it. There's a mosque in London called East London Mosque.  The London Muslim Centre is attached to it. It has received a lot of public funding.  It's routinely hosting all sorts of great dignitaries, from the British political class -- and outside. The American Ambassador in London recently graced it with a visit.  The shadow Justice Minister recently graced it with a visit.  The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, graced it with a visit.  Even Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, is a regular. There's a veritable drive time at this mosque.  It's hard to get to it for the number of dignitaries cars that are forever drawing up outside. But is it the case that despite all of these grand official benedictions, it is a place from only which good can come? No.  Not at all. You just have to look at the type of people who preach there. I'm just looking over the last few years. Recently, Sheikh Khalid Yasin a popular preacher, who also preaches the virtues of public beheading, saying that it would be a grand thing to have in Britain because it would teach people not to murder if they saw heads rolling down the streets. It's hosted Sheikh  Al-Sudais, who believes that Jews should be annihilated. It's hosted Yasir Khadi, who's a holocaust denier. It's hosted among others, Bilal Philips, who is a proponent of suicide bombing. And it's also, perhaps most famously, hosted Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who is currently on the kill or capture list of that notorious hawk, President Obama. Just earlier today in London, a young man called Rajib Karim, was convicted of an attempt to bring down airlines -- blow up airline planes -- with the assistance of that man, Anwar al-Awlaki. So, it's clearly not the case that just because officialdom is involved that mosques are centres of wonder, loveliness and peacefulness, a sort of Anglican Church meets the Green movement. [audience laughter] It's also, I think worth noting, one or two of the oddities of Islam internationally at the moment and particularly in this regard. Islam, when it is in a minority, is extremely good at talking about tolerance. In a minority, Islam loves to talk about the tolerance that people must show towards the minorities. One of the things, however, if you look around the world -- and I'm sure I don't need to tell you this -- is that whenever Islam is in the majority, minority rights are nowhere to be seen. It's a one-directional talk of minority rights. When Islam is in a minority, it talks of the importance of human rights. When it is in a majority, those human rights -- including the most basic human rights, like the rights of women to be considered equal beings -- are thrown right out the window. And I think we also have to bear in mind that there is a problem in the world today of the direction in which organised Islam across the globe is growing. I think that there are many problems in the religion, as in most religions. Most religions have problems of some type to get over. But in Islam there is a particular problem of a magnetic literalism, which keeps on drawing people back to the violent tenets of the faith. You'd better hope, ladies and gentlemen, that your mosque here is a first internationally and that nobody with any unpleasant statements -- any unpleasant ideas -- could possibly come to it. You'd better hope that it's not like the US, for instance, where the Muslim Brotherhood movement, for instance, which Tariq's grandfather founded, recently was unearthed as saying that the job of Muslims was to make a civilisation conquest in the West. You'd better hope, ladies and gentlemen, that nobody would agree with, for instance, with Prime Minister Erodogan -- not a minority, not an unimportant figure -- when he says the mosques are our barracks, the domes are helmets, the minarets are bayonets and the faithful are soldiers. And, finally, you'd better hope that one of the most influential men today in Islamic terms, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi wouldn't have anything to get near this mosque -- any excuse to get near it -- because he said just recently in a fatwa on the signs of victory of Islam:      It means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and a victor, after having been expelled from it twice.  Once from the south from Andalusia and a second time from the east, when it knocked several times on the doors of Athens. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't have to be naives and you don't have to be ignorant to notice that knock is happening again, and you don't have to open the door to it. Thank you. [applause] 34:35 ___________________________________ Khalid Yasin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Yasin Sheikh  Al-Sudais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Al-Sudais Anwar al-Awlaki (al-Qaeda), Yemen cause of death:  Hellfire missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Rajib Karim - British Airways terrorist plot http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/feb/28/british-airways-bomb-guilty-karim Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips  - Jamaican-born Canadian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Philips Said Ramadan Egyptian  - major figure Muslim Brotherhood {son-in-law of Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Banna} {father of Tariq Ramadan, prominent Egyptian-Swiss academic / Prof. Contemporary Islamic Studies} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_Ramadan Tariq Ramadan prominent Egyptian-Swiss academic Prof. Contemporary Islamic Studies Oxford lecturer Islamic Studies {MA in Philosophy & French literature / PhD in Arabic and Islamic studies} advisor to the EU on religious issues sought for advice by EU on commission on "Islam and Secularism" 2005 - UK government task force European Muslim Network - founder & President (Brussels-based think-tank that gathers European Muslim intellectuals and activists) Govt Prohibition List 2009 - persona non grata in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria. Persona non grata in Israel. prolific writer authored over 30 books, mainly in French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ramadan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..." 1998 conviction & minor jail-term for inciting religious hatred. [Isam-Watch] *Switzerland banned minarets in 30 November 2009 referendum, claiming that it's a symbol of Islam's political domination.  [Isam-Watch] Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi Egyptian Islamic theologian radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue based in Qatar http://archive.adl.org/nr/exeres/788c5421-70e3-4e4d-bff4-9be14e4a2e58,db7611a2-02cd-43af-8147-649e26813571,frameless.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- ꕤ