PrintSeptember 15, 2010
Burning the Constitution with the Koran
My friend, writer Diana West has blogged about a breaking New York Daily News story which captures (or should, even for those who remain willfully blind to the burgeoning phenomenon) how local US state institutions are obsequiously imposing Sharia norms. New Jersey Transit worker Derek Fenton was summarily fired -- an 11 year career coming to a sudden end -- for his peaceful act of First Amendment protected protest (see the video here):
The protester who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero has been fired from NJ Transit, sources and authorities said Tuesday. Derek Fenton's 11-year career at the agency came to an abrupt halt Monday after photographs of him ripping pages from the Muslim holy book and setting them ablaze appeared in newspapers. Fenton, 39, of Bloomingdale, N.J., burned the book during a protest on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 outside Park51, the controversial mosque slated to be built near Ground Zero.
Fenton's common sense neighbor Jacqui Marquez opined, "Everybody's entitled to their opinion ... by firing him, they're sending a message that there's no freedom of speech. They're completely wrong for doing this." And alas, even the New York Civil Liberties Union's Chris Dunn appeared to have his head screwed on properly with regard to Fenton's egregious firing. If, as it appears, Fenton was fired for burning the Koran while off-duty, Dunn maintained his First Amendment rights probably were violated, as "The Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to burn the flag. As reprehensible as it may be, burning the Koran would be protected as well."
Of course Chris Dunn of the NYCLU is correct under US Constitutional Law, but not under Islamic (Sharia) Law, where such "blasphemous" acts have always been punished lethally, including within mythically enlightened Muslim Spain. Indeed, as I noted at The American Thinker in February, 2008, the global Muslim umma, as represented by its unique 57 member nation religio-political body, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the largest voting bloc in the United Nations, is seeking to overturn human rights constructs like our Bill of Rights, and impose Islamic blasphemy law, internationally.
The cultural relativist self-loathing in our society that abets this process -- as exemplified by the NJ Transit's firing of Mr. Fenton -- smacks of the submissive dhimmi mentality Islam imposes with the ongoing threat of violence upon non-Muslims living under the Sharia. This perverse spectacle brings to mind a remarkably candid assessment by the 18th century Moroccan Sufi "master" Ibn Ajibah from his Koranic commentary, a work I was made aware of by my colleague, Dr. Mark Durie. Describing unabashedly the purpose of the humiliating Koranic poll tax (as per Koran 9:29) of submission for non-Muslims brought under Islamic hegemony by jihad, Ibn Ajibah makes clear the ultimate goal of its imposition was to achieve what he called the death of the "soul", through the dhimmi's execution of their own humanity:
[The dhimmi] is commanded to put his soul, good fortune and desires to death. Above all he should kill the love of life, leadership and honor. [The dhimmi] is to invert the longings of his soul, he is to load it down more heavily than it can bear until it is completely submissive. Thereafter nothing will be unbearable for him. He will be indifferent to subjugation or might. Poverty and wealth will be the same to him; praise and insult will be the same; preventing and yielding will be the same; lost and found will be the same. Then, when all things are the same, it [the soul] will be submissive and yield willingly what it should give. [Tafsir ibn ‘Ajibah. Commentary on Q9:29. Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn 'Ajibah]
