Important Speech by Geert Wilders Coming Tomorrow

LAST WEEK Geert Wilders gave a speech in Rome, sponsored by the Magna Carta Foundation, an Italian think tank. Tomorrow I will publish the entire speech, which is long, but well worth reading (and sharing).

Every year, the Magna Carta Foundation invites "an eminent international personality" to give a keynote address on a topic on the agenda of public debate, before an audience composed of members of the political, economic, religious, cultural and scientific Italian leadership. With this keynote address, Magna Carta opens its annual course of studies, conferences and publications.

They chose Geert Wilders because he is leading the awakening of Europe. He says what few other public figures have the courage to say. He educated himself on Islam's doctrine and is willing to speak honestly about it, even though it endangers his life.

I signed up for Google News Alerts a few years ago, using the keywords "Geert Wilders," and the number of news stories about him has steadily increased. Of course, most of the headlines describe Wilders with derisive descriptions like, "Right-wing Racist, Geert Wilders Says..." But his message is being heard by more and more people.

Although he is constantly vilified by the press, he continues moving forward, speaking honestly and calmly and reasonably, continuing to try to help people understand, and that is what we must do.

Please read Geert Wilders' speech. Print it out and take the time to read the whole thing. You won't be disappointed. This is the best speech I've ever seen by Wilders.

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Print Friendly

AT THE BOTTOM of each article on Citizen Warrior online is a little green button that says "Print Friendly." This is a service that makes it easy to print a good copy of a blogger article. The Print Friendly company will show an ad while your article is printing — a small price to pay for the service.
Once you click on the Print Friendly button, you have some options. You can remove text blocks or pictures, create a PDF file, change the size of the font, and/or just print it. You don't have to do anything, however. You can just print; the default settings are just fine.
I hope this makes our work more accessible and shareable.

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Infidels Around the World Unite

Whoever is the most organized will win the conflict between orthodox Muslims and non-Muslims. And a new tool has been created to help the non-Muslims organize. It's called Infidels United. It will never censor you for posting something about Islam.

I don't recommend you give up Facebook, because we can use it to reach those friends and family who still need to be educated about Islam (here is how to use it for that purpose).

But for mutual support, for insider news, for sharing with each other good links, articles, and arguments — and for launching coordinated actions — Infidels United is helpful. All of us should sign up and get our fellow counterjihad friends to sign up too. You can use an alias freely at Infidels United, unlike Facebook. The creator of the site understands the danger of our work and respects our need for anonymity.

When coordinated action needs to be taken, it would be helpful to have a central communications hub where the message can get to everyone. Infidels United fits the bill.

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Do the Majority of Muslims Actually Believe What's in the Koran?

WE RECENTLY published an article: Self-Righteousness Impedes Our Educational Efforts, and a frequent commenter and long-time reader, Damien, made an excellent point. He wrote:

Citizen Warrior, Another thing we can do is show that we have the facts on our side, rather than just pulling stuff out of thin air. That way we will be less likely to seem self-righteous. In addition to quoting the really scary stuff from Koran, we can point out, for example, that according to some polling data, most Muslims do not support freedom of religion or the separation of Church and State. People can, after all, ask whether or not a majority of Muslims actually believe what's in the Koran. Here's a story on such a poll from The LA Times: Majority of Muslims want Islam in politics, poll says It also shows that a majority of Muslims support things that most non-Muslims, especially westerners, would find morally abhorrent. In addition, it's even more effective in those instances when the source is a highly a respected one and is considered trustworthy by large numbers of people, and isn't generally thought of as being anti-Islam or anti-Muslim.

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A Citizen Warrior Fighting the Good Fight in Terre Haute

A READER and dedicated counterjihadist named Ramachandra got a letter published in the Tribune Star on March 4, 2011. With his permission, we are republishing it along with our congratulations on his persistence and clarity. Here is his letter:

The pitfalls of understanding Islamic law

In the Feb. 6 Tribune-Star, syndicated columnist Diana West states (referring to the Islamic world) that “their freedom is not necessarily our freedom.” In fact, language is a major impediment in understanding Islam, as pointed out by Gregory Davis in his book, “Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World.”

Davis mentions the following issues:

When the Islamic world refers to the “establishment of justice,” it means the “the establishment of Sharia.” Sharia is Islamic law which mandates the subjugation, oppression and exploitation of non-Muslims and women; hardly something that the free world would term “justice.” Islamic law institutionalizes male Islamic supremacism, to the detriment of non-Muslims and women. Thus “Islamic justice” constitutes “injustice” for non-Muslims and women.

When Sayyid Qutb, the guiding light of the Muslim Brotherhood, affirmed that “Islam is a Religion of Peace” in his book, “Islam and Universal Peace,” what he meant was this: “Islam seeks the subjugation of the whole world under Sharia. When Sharia becomes universally triumphant, peace will reign; therefore Islam is a Religion of Peace.” Thus the “peace” of Islam can only be achieved after non-Muslim civilization has been destroyed.

Islamic virtues such as “mercy,” “forgiveness,” “kindness,” etc. apply toward other Muslims, not to mankind in general. In fact, being unfriendly to non-Muslims is considered a virtue in Islam. (The Koran, Surah 5 Verse 51: “Believers, take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends”). Thus “virtue” in Islam is what would be considered “rude behavior” in the West.

Islam forbids suicide, but in Surah 9 Verse 111, The Koran promises paradise to those who “kill (non-Muslims) and are killed” in the cause of Allah. Thus while suicide is forbidden by Islam, it becomes a virtue in “suicide bombings,” if it results in the killing of non-Muslims.

Both Western society and Islam forbid rape, but “rape” means very different things in the two societies.

In the West, rape is any form of nonconsensual sexual intercourse. However, in Islam, consent is not required of “those women whom one’s right hand possesses,” that is, non-Muslim women captured during jihad (The Koran, Surah 33, Verse 52). Thus non-consensual sexual intercourse with non-Muslim women captured during jihad is lawful under Islamic Law. Thus what would be considered rape in the West is a lawful act in Islamic Law.

Indeed, language is an impediment in understanding Islam.

— Ramachandra

Are you looking for something you can do that would make a difference? Here's something: Write clear, persuasive letters to the editor of your local paper, and keep writing and clarifying and improving your ability to communicate until you get something published. This is not the first letter Ramachandra has written to the editor. This isn't even the first letter he's had published. He persists and he succeeds. He's an example for us all.

Here's another letter to the editor, published in Terre Haute: The contradictions of ‘peaceful’ Islam.

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Self-Righteousness Impedes Our Educational Efforts

WHEN SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS is expressed, it tends to evoke self-righteousness in the listener. Self-righteousness (also called holier-than-thou) is a feeling of smug moral superiority derived from a sense that one's beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person.

When you know a lot about Islam and your listener doesn't know anything (but thinks he does), self-righteousness is bound to crop up somewhere.

In a conversation, if someone expresses self-righteousness, that look on their face and that tone in their voice tends to arouse self-righteousness in you, doesn't it? And of course, any self-righteousness you express does the same to any listener who doesn't agree with you.

So ideally, you would not express any self-righteousness when you're trying to educate someone about the disturbing nature of Islam. The self-righteousness is a barrier to communication, making it almost impossible for your listener to accept what you say.

But Houston, we have a problem. You can't just suppress your own self-righteousness. If you feel self-righteous, it communicates whether you want it to or not. In order to not express self-righteousness, you actually have to feel no self-righteousness.

But how can you do that? There is only one way: You must develop genuine empathy for the other person. You cannot see them as an enemy, as an idiot, as a fool, or as anything derogatory. You have to see them as a good human being defending worthy values.

That's a big challenge, psychologically, especially when they are both ignorant about Islam and self-righteously thinking they know more than you. But you can do it. You can see them as a good human being defending worthy values. And when you do, your persuasive efficacy will increase tenfold.

You were once ignorant about Islam too, and you may also have had a difficult time believing a religion could be so intolerant in its core doctrines. I know I did. I did not want to believe it. Most of us felt that way in the beginning. And we felt that way for good reasons. In this culture, we are committed to fairness, to religious freedom, and to protecting the defenseless. These are some of the core values that make our culture worth defending.

You have to see that when a non-Muslim argues against what you're saying and tries to defend Islam, he or she is ultimately motivated by these core values — values that are so instinctive, the impulse to protect those values arises automatically and with heroic strength.

Now that you have learned more about Islam, you have not given up those values. You have simply added more information and more distinctions that you didn't have before.

You must see your interaction through this light. It will give you more empathy and less self-righteousness.

Your empathy will make your conversations much more pleasant and it will greatly improve your ability to educate. This ability to empathize is one of the things that makes a great leader great. And you are now a leader. You are leading people into the light of new knowledge, sometimes against their own resistance. That's what leaders do. You must see yourself as a leader and use empathy the way other great leaders have done.

To see a good example, watch the movie Invictus or read Mandela's Way or Long Walk to Freedom. Empathy is what made Nelson Mandela a great leader. His goals were against what people naturally wanted to do, especially people who were on his side. But he was able to see the world from his opponents' side, and was able to bring many of them onto his side. That's what a leader does.

If you want to increase your ability to educate people about Islam, you will cultivate a heartfelt, sincere, passionate empathy for your listener, and this will reduce or even eliminate self-righteousness as a barrier in your conversations.

Educating our fellow non-Muslims is the most important thing we civilians can do. Let's get it done.

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The Achilles' Heel of the West

Achilles was invincible, so the story goes. He was strong and lightning fast, and in every battle he was undefeatable. But when he was shot with an arrow through the back of his heel, he was momentarily disabled, and that gave his enemies enough time to finish him off.

The West seems invincible too. We have superior technology and war-making know-how. We seem undefeatable. But we have a weakness. It is known in North America as "white guilt." In Europe it's called "post-colonial guilt."

But this guilt is founded on a mistake we should all easily see. The mistake is a simple overgeneralization (the enemy of us all). If we looked at it from another angle, most of us could clearly recognize the error.

If someone said, "All Muslims should die because of what they did to us on 9/11," almost everyone could see something wrong with the statement. Not all Muslims were involved in bringing down the Twin Towers. Some Muslims hadn't even been born yet. So it would be a moral wrong to punish all Muslims for what some Muslims did.

Let's look at it from another angle. Let's say an African-American kills a European-American in a robbery. Should all African-Americans be punished for this? Should all African-Americans even feel guilty about it? No, absolutely not. Just because someone is a member of your race or religion does not mean you are responsible for what they do. They are individual human beings, and they choose their own destiny. All African-Americans should not be held responsible for what any individual African-American does.

We can easily see this. And yet what is white guilt?

For a "white" person, it says "because some people in the past lacked the same amount of skin pigment as you, and because they did some terrible things to people of dissimilar pigmentation (Native Americans or Africans, for example), then you should feel guilty about it, and feel responsible for it, and people your level of pigmentation should do something to make amends for it." Nobody says this explicitly, but it is an unspoken basic assumption in the hearts of a large percentage of people of European descent. It is a presupposition so widespread, it is almost never even spoken aloud, and yet it underlies much of what is spoken and done.

This guilt is a major weakness, and orthodox Muslims are aggressively exploiting it.

As long as we are paralyzed by this arrow through our heel, orthodox Muslims have the upper hand. We are vulnerable.

Many of us have familiarized ourselves with Islamic doctrine, and we seek to educate our fellow non-Muslims about the information, and we seek to propose solutions to the problem, but we are often labeled as "racists." It is an oxymoron. It doesn't make any sense. It's crazy. But it is effectively making many people in prominent places — politicians and news commentators, for example — back off from saying anything honest about Islam.

Very few people have examined the guilt clearly enough to recognize the unarticulated, mistaken assumption it is based on, so a public charge of racism can be devastating to a person's career. A sizable portion of the population is motivated to bend over backwards for Muslims because of an undiscerning guilt — a guilt that stems from a feeling that "we" have harmed people of other religions and races and that we can (and should) make it up to the "oppressed" and "downtrodden" underdogs of the world.

I heard a 19 year-old freshman in college talking the other day about his class in early American history. He was upset about all the terrible things "we" did to the Native Americans. He clearly felt appalled and guilty about it.

I asked him, "Have you ever done anything bad to a Native American?"

"No," he said, "but white people did."

"Are you somehow responsible for what other white people did?" I asked. He seemed confused. He had completely accepted the point of view of his teacher and textbook (it's the standard position of many teachers and textbook authors that "we" should feel guilty for what "we" did).

I asked him, "If you were transported back to those times, would you have done anything bad to the Native Americans?"

He said, "I don't think so."

I said, "Were any of your ancestors living in America at that time?"

"I don't know."

"So let me get this straight," I said, because I can't seem to leave well enough alone sometimes, "your ancestors may have still been living in Europe and had nothing to do with what other Europeans were doing to the Native Americans, and even if they were living in America at the time, you really are not responsible for what your great, great, great grandparents did anyway, are you? And yet here you are feeling guilty for something you would never do and have never done, and maybe even your ancestors never did it? Your ancestors might have even been working on the other side of that issue for all you know, trying to free slaves or fight for the rights of Native Americans! Doesn't that seem kind of crazy?"

People accept this point of view — this white guilt or post-colonial guilt — and they teach their children the same guilt. And it has consequences. When the Muslim Students Association wants to create their own prayer room just for Muslims on a college campus, they make their appeal to administrators who have a deep-seated, well-ingrained white guilt, and these Muslims know the administrators have this guilt, and they press on that sore spot. It usually doesn't take much before the administrators acquiesce. And a little Muslim enclave has just been created. A little piece of Sharia law has been implemented (every concession to Islam is an incremental establishment of Sharia law). And as time goes on, the concession becomes accepted as permanently established because it has "always been there."

Muslims are getting away with this sort of thing all over the free world. In this gradual way, Western culture is giving way to Islamic culture. Islam is a ratchet.

What causes Western culture to give way? The main culprit is white guilt. If a student had come in and said, "We are Scientologists and we want our own prayer room," the administrator would have chuckled and wondered how someone could be so stupid as to think they could demand such a thing on a college campus!

Why the different response? White guilt does not apply to Scientology. Or Catholicism. Or Protestantism.

Everywhere orthodox Muslims are pressing for concessions — concessions they would not get if they were Catholics or Scientologists — the white guilt blinders need to be removed so the request can be seen for what it is, and those special privileges and special considerations can then be refused in exactly the same way all the others would be refused, and with no guilt.

"We" don't owe anybody anything because of what "our" ancestors may have done. We are all here now. Let's move forward. When you're talking to your friends, keep your ears tuned to white guilt. You will often hear it as a presupposition in what they say. Point it out when you hear it. Shine some light on it. Ask them if they feel guilty. Ask them if they feel responsible for what other Americans or Europeans or Caucasians have done in the past. And make it clear to them that this is the same mistake — this is the identical mistake — that racists make when they say some derisive comment about a race.

Your friend's guilt arises from an overgeneralization. The more people who understand this, the more often orthodox Muslims will be thwarted in their efforts to gain concessions. Right now the free world is yielding to Muslim pressure. Let's put a stop to it every place we can.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here. 

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How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam

Talking to non-Muslims about Islam can sometimes be enormously satisfying. People are surprised and amazed and walk away from the conversation understanding more about the world. But at other times it can be incredibly frustrating and extremely upsetting.

For the sake of our future, you must keep speaking up anyway. This is where the battle will be won or lost — in personal, private, often upsetting conversations. That's part of the price we will pay for freedom.

When you feel upset, and your heart is pounding, and you just can't believe your own family member can be so stupid or arrogant or whatever, just remember, this is war. It's not a war against your family member. It is an ideological war, and war is unpleasant sometimes. You are a warrior and you've got to be brave. Take a deep breath and tough it out. This is what has to be done.

Throughout history, whenever something truly game-changing has been attempted, there was STRONG opposition to it. It's hard to believe, but there was strong opposition to the Declaration of Independence, to women getting the right to vote (that fight took 70 years — in the United States!), to establishing and enforcing laws against drunk driving, to gaining basic civil rights for African Americans, and on and on.

If something is good and right and needs to be done, it is not only possible, it is likely there will be intense opposition to it. Otherwise it would have been done already. So expect it. Expect resistance. Expect objections. Expect people to argue with you and try to put you down and do anything other than listening to what you're saying. It's part of the sacrifice in this war that you'll have to put up with, but you must not return like for like. You must not insult people or get angry at them. You must find a way to remain relaxed.

Think of what you're doing as a kind of "salt works protest." Remember the movie, Gandhi? If you haven't seen it, you should. The salt works protest is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. Gandhi organized a protest against the "salt works," a processing plant that made salt. Britain had an absolute legal control over salt, the most important commodity in India at the time. The campaign was organized by Gandhi. The plan was for the protesters to walk up to the salt processing plant, four at a time, and try to walk past the guards in order to claim the salt works as India's natural right. When they got in front of the guards, the guards pummeled them with their batons. The four marchers were bloodied, knocked out, knocked down, and fell to the wayside as four more Indians walked up bravely only to get knocked down.

Four by four they continued through the day and into the night, walking up with their heads held high, not raising their arms to protect themselves and not fighting back. But not stopping. They knew they would get hurt, but they also knew it would open peoples' eyes.

And it did.

It galvanized the world. It showed the British rulers that the Indian people would not accept British dominance any more. They were determined to resist British rule until the rulers of Britain saw the truth for themselves.

The lesson for us here is that you must understand, going into these conversations, that you will get abuse. You must absorb the pain for the sake of freedom, without giving any abuse back, without getting angry or sarcastic, without personal insults, without condescension or bitterness, and continue to speak the truth until the non-Muslims you are talking to see the truth for themselves.

This is difficult. It may be the most difficult thing you've ever done. And it may also be the most meaningful and important thing you've ever done. Below are some principles and coaching for you to help give you courage and guidance on this brave endeavor you have embarked on:

1. Talking about Islam is not necessarily upsetting. And arguing a point with someone you love is not necessarily upsetting. But arguing about Islam with someone you love can be extremely upsetting. But it is worth doing for many reasons. First of all, it will help motivate you to learn the information really well, and to learn to explain it more clearly. It "ups your game." It makes you take your learning and your articulation more seriously. It is trial by fire. Use that upset to make yourself better, more determined, more informed. In military training they push recruits to extreme limits. Why? It makes them better warriors.

2. Try to see your pounding heart as not necessarily a bad sign. How often do you ever do anything so courageous and meaningful that it makes your heart pound like that? Do not wish your conversation would end. Stay in it and keep educating. It's good for you even if you don't actually change that person's mind — the process helps you increase your ability to handle these conversations; it's good for increasing your skill at articulating points; and it's good for your motivation to learn.

3. Having a conversation in writing (through email or Facebook) is better in some ways than a face-to-face conversation (worse in some ways, too: they both have their advantages). In a written conversation, you can take your time to answer, and you should take your time. If you are upset and obsessing about it, don't try to get your mind off it. Print out the conversation so far and read it. Then re-read it and make notes. Look up facts. Write out your responses and edit them before sending. Get through to the person. Do your best. Think of it all as training.

4. Err on the side of understatement rather than overstatement. You might think that overstatement is more powerful, but in its persuasive impact, it is less powerful.

5. Try to be as accurate as possible. Your listener often strongly wants what you're saying to not be true. They will desperately grasp at anything you say that they can invalidate so they don't have to accept the disturbing truth. So don't give them anything to grasp onto. Tell the strict truth.

6. Focus on teaching about Islamic doctrine, and how that doctrine is being used today. Always keep aiming your responses back to that one thing. Don't get sidetracked on other political issues. Keep your focus.

7. Be as kind as you can, as forgiving as you can, and as charitable as you can. Don't respond to their sarcasm or condescension if you can help it. Be bigger than that. Answer with facts as unemotionally as you can (except for empathy). Showing empathy for Muslims or empathy for the person you're talking to is a good thing to show. But if you can avoid it, restrain yourself from being angry or upset or intense in any way. Stay relaxed and stick to the facts.

8. Keep your class. Conduct yourself with honor. Take your time and think out your answers so you don't say something you'll regret.

9. Stick with what you know for sure. In writing, back up what you're saying with good links.

10. Use the Answers to Objections list to help you make your arguments.

11. Do not overwhelm your listener. In writing, don't send fifteen-page responses or a hundred links. Keep it simple and basic. Be selective and use only the best you can come up with.

12. Don't let people divert the conversation into a topic they want to debate. Stay clear on what you want to get across and use whatever they say as a jumping off point to get your message across. Make it your forum, follow your agenda, not theirs. This can be done without seeming obstinate or without the other person even knowing what you're doing. Just keep steering the conversation to what you want to talk about. People will often try to steer the conversation to some other issue because they're "losing."

13. If you can see your listener is starting to grasp the situation, and maybe feeling depressed, anxious, or upset about their new understandings about the supremacist nature of Islam (all of which are understandable responses), explain to them there are smart people working on this, and some good solutions have already been developed. But then say, "But of course none of these solutions can happen with so many of us in the dark about Islam. More people need to know about Islam." Turn your listener into an educator. Help them respond to their disturbance with purpose. Tie their intense reaction to a motivation to do something about it, and then tie that to the urgent need of more people to know about Islam's prime directive.

14. Think about your task like this: If you don't educate the person you're talking to, that person will be unwittingly on the side of the enemy. Personal conversations are probably the only way these people will be reached. Not many politicians have the guts to speak honestly about Islam. Not many mainstream media sources have the guts either. And most people who don't already know about Islam's prime directive are ignorant because they only expose themselves to sources of information that agree with what they already think. The only way for them to find out is to find out from you. Think about it that way to strengthen your determination.

15. This will be one of the most difficult and challenging things you've ever done. Don't get down on yourself for getting upset about it, for losing sleep over it, or for losing your cool. That all comes with the territory. You could keep your mouth shut like so many others do, and you wouldn't have so much trouble. But you're not like that, are you? So accept the difficulty and the challenge. Expect it. And cut yourself some slack when you feel powerful emotions about it. This is serious stuff. Powerful emotions are completely appropriate.

16. Push them to read the Koran. If you can see that your listener is never going to believe you, turn the conversation in a new direction. Focus on why they should read the Koran. Tell them about good versions of the Koran (by CSPI publishing), explain why they are good versions, and explain how they can stop listening to anybody's opinion about Islam and find out for themselves.

17. Get help. If you're having a particularly difficult time in a conversation, share it with us at Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims and ask people how they would deal with it. People will be glad to share their hard-earned experience with you. We can help each other.

18. When the approach you're using isn't working, use a different approach. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. Here are some ideas for different approaches. Everybody is different. Maybe an approach that worked well with one person won't work with another. So stay flexible and creative.

19. Print out this article and keep it around. Read it when you are upset by a conversation you've been involved in. If you have coached yourself successfully for this kind of work, if you have found things you tell yourself, or ways of looking at these interactions that make you more effective or give you courage, please share them with us at Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims, or send them to me via email and I can post them for you. We must tell our fellow non-Muslims the disturbing truth about Islam. Nobody else is going to do it. It's up to us. And they must be told in a way that will penetrate their already-existing barriers to listening. Let's get it done.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here.

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Dangerous Writing and Arrogant Ignorance

IN A RECENT article in Salon.com entitled, James Madison Would Be Horrified By Peter King, the authors write:

Haven’t we figured it out yet? It is not religion that makes a terrorist; it is belief in a radical ideology condoning violence, a perverted ideology promoting the killing of civilians, and even blowing up oneself, in the name of a cause.

What the authors obviously don't know (and arrogantly assume can't exist) is that a "religion" might itself be an ideology that condones violence and promotes the killing of civilians. Such a religious ideology exists and it is the source of almost all of the terrorism in the world.

The authors are professors of history. They may know a lot about history but they should either read the Koran or stop making assumptions. At the very least, they should stop making assumptions with so much arrogance and condescension. For those of us who have read the Koran, their article is a pathetic display of self-righteous ignorance.

This kind of writing is dangerous. Most of their readers obviously haven't read the Koran either, but because the authors are professors of history, and because they deliver their pronouncements with such absolute certainty, they are persuasive. They are leading people to believe Islam itself couldn't possibly be the problem. And with what result?

One result is more "homegrown" Islamic terrorists. And more Islamic enclaves in Western democracies. And more sleeper cells. But the consequences go beyond terrorism. Orthodox Muslims are working hard to gain concessions in free countries all over the world. Western values are yielding to Islamic values. Why? Because so many non-Muslims don't understand even basic facts about Islam. Why? Because so many writers and newscasters and teachers and even presidents are leading people to falsely believe Islam itself couldn't possibly be the problem. It is not religion that causes terrorists, after all. It is a "radical ideology."

I would say to the authors what I say to everyone: Take the Pledge and read the Koran. And then help us launch a new era in non-Muslim-Muslim relations.

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Stand and Deliver

LOTS OF NEW national and international policies need to be changed in order to halt the Islamization of the West. But for this to happen, more of us must become educated about Islam's prime directive. That's where you come in. Is this a tough assignment? You bet it is. Here's a little inspiration to help you... Jaime Escalante got out of the computer business because he wanted to teach high school. He got a job in East Los Angeles at a public school to teach computers, but there wasn't enough funding to buy the computers, so he ended up teaching math. His class consisted of mostly Chicanos (people whose parents or grandparents were Mexican immigrants). The class was rowdy and noisy, the students were rude — they threw papers, they talked out of turn, there was spray-painted graffiti on some of the chalkboards, and they weren't interested in learning math. But Escalante wanted to teach. And this class was what he had available for students. So he began to teach them math. But instead of doing it in a conventional way, he took into account the students. He customized his approach for this particular audience. So the next day he showed up looking like a chef, wearing a cook's hat and an apron. He had already cut up some apples in different proportions and placed them on the desks around the classroom. The whole thing made the students curious. He pointed to a student and said, "What do you have?" The answer was half. He pointed to somebody else, "What do you have?" She said, "Missing 25%." That was the beginning. Escalante used humor, he challenged his students, he built on their strengths, he used lots of class participation, and he was hard on the students sometimes. He used some rote repetition, and he relentlessly motivated them in every way that would reach them. Then he decided to teach them calculus. It wasn't normally taught in the school, and he did it against some of the administration's objections (they thought he would be lucky to teach the students basic math, or even just keep the students in their seats). But Escalante wanted to challenge the students and he wanted them to do something that brought them into the future. The reason he wanted to teach them calculus was that you could get college credit for passing the very difficult Advanced Placement Calculus Exam. He wanted them thinking about a college education. He wanted them to see themselves differently. He wanted to change their future. Less than two percent of all high school seniors nationwide even attempt to take the Calculus Exam. Most of the other teachers thought it was ridiculous and that the students would fail this challenge. The students didn't even have some of the prerequisites normally required for calculus. Trigonometry, for example. So Escalante taught them trigonometry during the summer so the following year they could take calculus. One of the reasons he wanted to teach them calculus is that it's a form of math used in the computer industry. He wanted to put their sights on a future goal rather than fulfilling the low expectations everyone else had for them. This was another way he motivated them. It was another way he found to reach them. He was creative. He found new ways, found what worked, and continued to innovate new ways to reach them. And he succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imagination. Out of the 18 students in Escalante's class, 18 of them passed the AP Calculus Exam! No other high school in Southern California had more students pass the test. But then when their scores were reviewed, the students were suspected of cheating because all their scores were so high and they all made similar mistakes. So they re-took the test under more strict and careful observation, and all 18 passed again. An inspiring movie was made about Escalante's amazing achievements, starring Edward James Olmos and Lou Diamond Phillips. The movie is called Stand and Deliver. (Watch the trailer here.) Escalante kept learning and innovating. The next year, 31 of his students passed the AP Calculus Exam. The year after that, 63 students passed. The year after that it was 77 students. And so it went. We are in a similar situation as Escalante. We often find ourselves trying to teach people things they don't want to learn. And the reasons they don't want to learn are not legitimate, but they don't know that. We may be able to use many of the specific techniques Escalante used with his students when we talk to people about Islam, but the more fundamental principle of commitment, innovation, thinking outside the box, and using whatever fits the personality of the person you're trying to reach — those are principles we should enthusiastically emulate. He could have given up like many teachers have done under similar circumstances. But instead he innovated and experimented, and that is what we must do.

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Getting Through to People: How to Get Listening Leverage

ONE OF THE most powerful things you can do to increase your ability to persuade is to do genuinely, physically helpful things for the person you want to persuade. To be kind in action — not making a show of it, but just doing it. Nothing says, "I'm on your side," with as much impact as a genuinely kind deed.
Everybody can use some help now and then. Just look for small things. Once you start looking, you'll find lots of opportunities to help.
Not only will this feel good, and not only will it be good for your health (because of the "helper's high" kind acts will give you), but for our purposes here, it also puts the other person in a position of obligation to you. Most people have a natural desire to reciprocate kindness. They will want to discharge their feeling of obligation to you, and you have a great deal of influence over how they discharge it. You can ask them to watch a DVD or read an article or watch an online video, for example. You can say, "I know you don't like this stuff, but just do it for me, okay?" If you have built up a sufficient feeling of obligation toward you, they will do it.
Doing kind, thoughtful things also makes them see you as a kind, thoughtful person, which helps prevent them from thinking of you as a "hater" or a "racist." This will help reduce their resistance to your influence.
Are you having a difficult time getting through to someone? Gain some listening leverage.

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A Chronological Qur'an

WHEN YOU want to look up something in the Qur'an, or share a passage with someone, or maybe you're ready to take the Pledge and read the Qur'an, here is a clean, professional site you can use:

A Chronological Qur'an

As it states in the site description: "One reason the Qur'an can be difficult to understand is that its chapters are generally arranged by size (longest chapters toward the front, shortest toward the back), rather than in chronological order (read more about this). This site presents the chapters chronologically, in a time-sequence accepted by scholars at the world's chief center of Islamic learning, Al-Azhar in Cairo. Below are three popular translations we have thus arranged."

In the right sidebar is a linked list of each Sura of the Qur'an (each chapter), in chronological order, along with the number of the Sura originally given to that Sura in a traditional Qur'an.

It's simple and useful.

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Whatever You Do, Don't Panic

WE GOT A COMMENT the other day on the article, How to Stay Relaxed and Feeling Good While Talking About Islam. The commenter said:

Citizen Warrior, do you expect people to feel relaxed when talking about an unpleasant, oppressive subject (that one has to tread carefully when talking about it for fear of offending their fanatical followers) that is related to a totalitarian ideology?

This commenter is bringing up an important point, and it's worth talking about. When you first grasp what's happening on the world stage, you feel upset, and if you're not prone to demoralization, you also feel highly motivated to do something about it. And then when you try to talk to others about it and they either don't have a clue, don't care, or have already made up their minds there's nothing to worry about, it is even more upsetting. Your feeling of urgency may rise to the level of panic. But then your feeling of urgency is perceived as hysteria, and since there are no actual bombs dropping on the person you're talking to at the moment, they look at you and think, "What a kook." Your panic has made your message even less likely to get across. And this can increase your sense of panic even more.

Many people handle this unendurable emotional spiral of frustration and panic by shutting it off. They decide "everyone is a moron" and "it will take a nuclear bomb going off in Chicago to get their attention." Or they just decide it's too much strain to deal with, so they stop trying to tell people about Islam.

The commenter above said, "Do you expect people to feel relaxed" when talking about such an ugly, disturbing subject? The answer I gave him was, "Yes. I expect all of us to do whatever we need to do to feel relaxed. "Let me put it this way: If your family was being held hostage and you had to walk into a bank and calmly — without arousing any suspicion — withdraw all your money to get your family back, would you be able to do it?

"You would find a way. That's what we need to do. If we can't get through to people because they won't listen to us because we're too hysterical, and all we are doing is blaming them for not listening to us, then shame on us.

"When the stakes are high, you do whatever you have to do. So find a way to stay calm and relaxed so you can be effective."

I know this is a tall order. I know it will take effort and it won't come naturally. But we've got some resources to help you:

To help you formulate answers to the responses you get, refer frequently to the Answers to Objections page.

To help you get ideas for how to approach this subject, read How to Approach a Conversation About Islam.

For ideas on how to go beyond the give-and-take of a normal argument, read How to Think Outside the Persuasion Box.

To find out how others are succeeding with their conversations, read Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims.

To get some ideas about what to do besides talking to people, read What Non-Muslims Can Do About Islam.

And to get some ideas about how to remain relaxed and feeling good even though you're participating in conversations about Islam, read How to Resist Islamic Encroachment and Still Be Happy.

We need to do whatever we need to do. We don't need every single person to understand Islam's prime directive, but we need many more to understand, and the sooner the better. So we need your participation. But luckily, you can't be perpetually upset and miserable while you're doing that. You're going to have to find a way to be relaxed and happy while you go about stopping orthodox Islam from invading the free world. Does that seem impossible? Then we're going to have to start getting more creative, starting now.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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Do What You Can Where You Are

Someone commented on What Non-Muslims Can Do About Islam, and I thought it was a point worth publishing. The author, who goes by the handle, "wri7913," wrote:

If you are unable debate, this should not stop you from being involved. There are many ways to be involved. Every person has a talent of some type they can use.

As an example, I am a photographer so I can create images to get my points across. Others excel at graphic imaging, while many others have different talents. Use those talents to help the cause in whatever way you can. Even if your only skill is cooking good food, bring it to your next ACT for America! meeting.

That's right. Everyone needs to eat. That is such an important point. Everyone has something to share. You don't have to do what others are doing. Just take what you do best or feel most strongly needs to be done, and dive right in. It all needs to be done.

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A Slow-Motion Conquest by Stealth

YESTERDAY a commenter named Reilly left an interesting comment on the article, The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam, and I wanted to share it with you:

I started thinking about Islam as a dangerous, self-replicating "meme" a few years back.

The catalyst was a Muslim colleague who tried to convince me Islam was tolerant. His evidence was a source claiming that the Koran demanded that Muslim men could marry Christian/Jewish women and were obliged by the Koran NOT to interfere with their wive's religion (thus allegedly proving how tolerant Koran is).

But... the same source also declared that:

1 - Children should follow the father's religion.
2 - And while Muslim men were allowed to marry infidels, Muslim women were not.

And then I thought how those rules interacted with each other.

And then I realized that, under a thin disguise of supposed "tolerance", these rules gave an evolutionary/competitive advantage to the Muslims over the long term (ie: birthrate/religon of children).

In reality, these rules didn't facilitate "tolerance". They simply facilitated a steady, slow-motion conquest by stealth.

Now I don't know the providence of these claimed traditions, but when even the evidence shown to me directly by a "Moderate Muslim" clearly shows a Supremacist mindset, this is not encouraging!

And so my suspicion began...

Thank you for laying this all out so clearly and easy-to-understand in a single article.

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International Women's Day and the Counterjihad Movement

This Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. March 8th will see the highest level of global women's activity ever witnessed as groups celebrate the International Women's Day centenary. International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

The first International Women's Day events were run in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland in 1911. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. 100 years later, International Women's Day has become a global mainstream phenomena celebrated across many countries and is an official holiday in approximately 25 countries. IWD events are being held all over the world. The United Kingdom is staging more events than any other country, followed by Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

Why IWD started: Suffragettes campaigned for women's right to vote. The word 'Suffragette' is derived from the word "suffrage" meaning the right to vote. International Women's Day honours the work of the Suffragettes, celebrates women's success, and reminds of inequities still to be redressed.

And as you well know, in the Islamic world there is much to be redressed. Countries employing Sharia law have the worst women's rights records on the planet. In Saudi Arabia, for example, "Women are not allowed to drive, and they cannot travel, accept employment, or open a bank account without the approval of a male relative. In addition, Saudi women must be fully veiled from head to toe and from front to back, and they must submit to arranged child marriage and to polygamy," writes Phyllis Chesler in a recent article.

"Sharia law rules. Thus, adultery, choosing a husband of one’s own, or refusing to marry, might be privately punished by solitary confinement, beatings, or being honor murdered. Adultery or failure to veil might lead to execution by the religious police or by the state."

One of the most important things we can do to stop the global expansion of orthodox Islam is to promote women's rights. To whatever degree Islamic women have rights, to that degree there has been an overt deviation from the doctrines of Islam, which means orthodox Muslims have become more heterodox. The more heterodox they are, the better for everyone, especially Muslim women.

There are so many ways to fight this battle, you can choose whichever one speaks to you most strongly. Work to end FGM, or to stop honor killing, or to ban the practice of stoning or child marriage or forced marriages, or to curb any of the many ways women are repressed by orthodox Islam, and you are ultimately working against Islam's prime directive. A man cannot be an orthodox Muslim while allowing Muslim women to enjoy equal rights with men. Orthodoxy and women's rights cannot coexist. Increase one and you necessarily and ineluctably decrease the other.

With the upcoming international event, we have a good opportunity to talk about Islam with the people we know — and we don't even have to mention the word "Islam" to do it. If you know people who have absolutely refused to talk to you about this subject, or for whom conversations are so upsetting it is not worth it, talk about International Women's Day. Let them know how they can help women around the world gain more human rights. Tell them about The Girl Effect. Get them involved. They don't have to know anything at all about Islam to work against Islam's prime directive.

I suggest we all choose the subcategory of counterjihad causes that is dearest to our hearts, and find ways people can become involved, and then talk about it with people this week. Don't even mention Islam or Muslims, but share websites and Facebook pages with people and encourage them to subscribe. Share DVDs or articles or books and encourage them to read.

International Women's Day is an opportunity for the counterjihad to join with another movement in a common cause. Let's take advantage of it this week.

Here are some possible Facebook pages for subcategories of counterjihad causes to get you started:

Honor Killing is Pure Evil

2 Million people against Female Circumcision

The Stoning of Soraya M.

The Girl Effect

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