My heart sank when I heard president Obama’s recent statement at the UN: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” It was difficult to hear the president of the United States declare to the world that critics of Mohammed are wrong, they don’t have a cause, must not be heard, respected, taken seriously and will have no future in America.
I lived 30 years of my life hearing similar threats from Islamic sheikhs across the Middle East, telling us “You insult the prophet Mohammed, you die,” which is the law of Sharia. There are sharia books bought and sold in America that clearly state that “the penalty for insulting the prophet is death even if one repents.” What constitutes an insult of the prophet could be something minor, such as saying Mohammed married a 9-year-old, which is a fact, but if it is stated in a critical way, it is considered an insult. Sharia law condemns those who leave Islam to death, or to use Obama’s parlance, “have no future,” for simply stating they have left Islam and why. Islam considers stating why a person left Islam to be an insult to Islam and subversion of the Islamic state, which constitutes a capital crime.
Even though Obama’s threat was subtle and he did not use the word “death,” his message sounds just as threatening especially to former Muslims, who often get death threats from members of the “religion of peace.” After Obama’s UN speech, I talked to several former Muslims like myself and we all concluded that we do not feel safe under this administration. We are being told by the President of the United States to be silent about the religion we were born in and escaped from...But Nonie, what good is having free speech if it ends up making people feel angry and sad? Isn't it better, for the sake of peace and quiet I mean, to curb the "slander" and build bridges with those who despise you down to the core of their being? Hasn't history shown that that's always going to work in your favour? ;)
Er, Obama has cracked a non-Howard Zinn history book or two in his time, hasn't he?
As I noted when Obama uttered those deathless words at the UN, if the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam (that is, to those who dare to breech the sharia-decreed anti-blasphemy diktats deep-sixing free speech), then it will belong to Islam.
Update: Obama, the weasely appeaser, has no problemo allowing free speech to slip away. In fact, his government is doing its utmost to sink it:
At the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), one of the largest voting blocs in the U.N., has introduced multiple resolutions over many years in favor of bans on speech considered offensive to Islam.
More recently, the wording was altered to exclude defamation of religion, which is unacceptable to the West, where defamation applies to people, not concepts. Instead, the changes focused on incitement to discrimination. However, incitement defined in terms of a "test of consequences" in relation to the extent of the response, still leaves those who speak offensively against Islam open to prosecution. In spite of the unchanged threat to free speech, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the reworking of the resolution.
Today, with Islamist governments in control after the Arab Spring uprisings, the advance of authoritarian, sexist ideology is ever-present. The danger is amplified by rivalry with more extreme Islamists, the Salafists, who share power.
Extremists are in favor of anti-blasphemy laws and the issue is central to their demands. Most of the Muslim world supports such laws and agrees with the end result of the recent protests, if not with the methods. The campaign for criminalization is couched in terms of criticism of any religion but no faiths outside Islam have countered criticism with serious rage.
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