Islamophobia Manifesto Clearly Lays Out Plot Against Muslims
Sheila Musaji
Posted Jul 29, 2011 •Permalink • Printer-Friendly VersionIslamophobia Manifesto Clearly Lays Out Plot Against Muslims
by Sheila Musaji
Baron Bodissey (pseudonym of Edward May) of the Gates of Vienna wrote Overselling the Meme which appears to be the clearest statement of the actual intent of the dedicated cadre of Islamophobes who are determined to paint all Muslims as “the other”. Bodissey, a virulent Islamophobe is respected only by other Islamophobes. Pamela Geller referred to him as :One of my favorite bloggers and fellow infidel at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance, Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna” He was one of her fellow freedom fighters until they fell out over the EDL.
Here is his practical, step-by-step guide to demonizing an entire religious group (emphasis mine):
My primary job is to be a propagandist: that is, my aim as an activist in the Counterjihad cause is to move the meme. Or, more fully, to move multiple memes.
Only by breaking through the dominant paradigms with subversive memes will we bring down the hegemony of the PC/MC establishment which rules the government, the academy, the media, and the culture at large.
Political correctness currently has an absolute lock on the major media, so propagating memes is extremely difficult. Yes, it helps us to get one of our people on TV as a talking head, but the setup in such situations is almost always rigged to make the interviewee look nutty or dangerous, so the value of such appearances is limited.
For large-scale effectiveness, we must proceed more stealthily, and with more limited goals. Each step is small, and seems inconsequential, but when aggregated our tiny successes have an effect, and will accelerate the change in our direction when things go sideways for the oligarchs.
To do the job, we must insert many, many memelets into common discourse. This must be accomplished at a level well below that of the celebrities and famous pundits, because action on that battlefield invites a massive and well-funded counterattack by CAIR, ISNA, the OIC, etc.
I’ve been paying close attention for the last seven years, and during that time there have been numerous changes in the common discourse at the samizdat level, below what is officially permitted in public discourse. For example, the phrase “Mohammed the pedophile” is now common — almost universal — in popular forums and discussion groups. It even pops up at the higher levels occasionally, and gets people like Susanne Winter and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff charged and tried. This meme was very rare until well after 9-11.
You might say, “But, strictly speaking, it’s not true — Mohammed’s marriage to a child was a commonly accepted practice in his day, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. It was not considered pedophilia back then. Asserting this is an example of the fallacy of ‘presentism’.”
These counterarguments are reasonable, and they may well be true. But they don’t advance the meme.
It’s the same with “Islam is not a religion.” This concept was all but unheard of just six or seven years ago. But now it is common currency.
To push memes like these into mass circulation, they must be oversold. If we spend all our time fine-tuning them, they won’t emerge into popular consciousness. If we include the historical background, the comparative theology, the philosophical references, and all the subtle nuances of the whole truth, the meme will never spread.
As a propagandist, my task is to spread the meme and not to sweat the nuances. Nuances can be argued about and nailed down by scholars in the centuries after Islam — as a culture, a political ideology, and a religion — is totally destroyed. We don’t have the luxury for such finicky scholasticism right now.
If I wanted to be totally accurate, I might say something like this: “Islam contains religious, political, and cultural ideologies that are fused into a unitary system. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, its political elements have never been separated from its theological ones. Those elements are supremacist, totalitarian, and expansionist.”
Now, that’s fairly accurate, and it’s about as short a statement as you can craft and still include the nuances of the situation. But as a meme, it’s a bust. You can squeeze the trigger on that particular rhetorical gun, and the bullet will just roll out of the barrel and plop into the dust at your feet.
Ordinary people understand the essence of what is intended when someone says, “Islam is not a religion.” They know that it means that Islam is not like modern Christianity. They understand that it refers to the fact that Muslim zealots will lie, steal, cheat, rape, torture, murder, and blow up trains and airplanes to attain political ends. That’s not what they consider a religion.
They know all these things already. Despite the intensive indoctrination they’ve been subjected to for forty years, the truth comes through: they see the dismembered bodies and the burning buildings and the disfigured women, and they understand that “Allahu Akhbar” is involved in virtually every single incident.
So the meme works, because it is true at an essential level.
But we have to oversell it to get it out there on everyone’s lips.
Our propaganda is aimed at changing minds at the margin, at affecting the thinking of those whose opinions are not yet fully formed. If we wait until we get every jot and tittle of our message perfect, the scimitar will be at our throats before we change even a single mind.
This document explains a great deal about the distorted thinking of this group of extremists. The truth is only an annoyance, if it doesn’t advance the meme. Currently our goal is to influence those who don’t currently hold an opinion. The ultimate goal is the destruction of the religion of Islam.
I would like to ask Baron Bodissey, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, David Yerushalmi, and all of the rest of their Islamophobic network exactly how do they think they will destroy the religion of Islam without destroying Muslims?
The tragic terrorist attack in Norway carried out by an individual who had absorbed these anti-Muslim memes and saw no solution except violence as a solution to what he saw as an imminent danger, is another sad reminder of how vulnerable we all are to attacks by radicalized “true believers” in whatever distorted political or religious ideology they may falsely believe they are promoting through violence and terrorism.
It would seem that the Gates of Vienna is not the only site to have expressed such an ideology in the form of a manifesto. A site called Crombouke blogspot displays a disgustingly hateful image on the page titled “How to destroy Islam - non-violently”. They open with If we don’t destroy Islam as an ideology it will exterminate us culturally and physically, then repeat anti-Muslim propaganda and say “There can be no violent solution” and layout out what their “non-violent” program should be: The only option for defeating Islam is to undermine it in the same way we undermined communism - by a slow process of ideological warfare.
What is their brilliant plan?
The Muslims themselves have shown us their most vulnerable spot, which is the questionable (though unquestioned) character of the ‘Prophet’ himself. We need to satirise and ridicule baby-bonking Mo until the Muslims fly into uncontrollable tantrums, then ridicule them even more for their tantrums, and repeat the process until they froth at the mouth and steam comes out of their ears.
And then Secondly, Muslims should not merely be treated the same as everybody else, but should be made to pay the price of their totally negative antisocial and damaging presence in our countries.
- Muslim immigration must be stopped.
- Islam’s status as a religion should be rescinded.
- Muslims must be regarded as enemy aliens and banned from sensitive occupations where they may be a security risk.
It goes on with all of these ideas at great and disgusting length.
Just in case you are tempted to think, well, these are fringe groups and don’t really represent any “respectable” thought, remember that last year, Justin Elliott published an article Mystery of who funded right-wing “radical Islam” campaign deepens which included internal memos and emails which seemed to suggest that the Clarion Fund (producers of the film Obsession, etc.) were engaged in a well thought out plan to Here is a summary of what was discovered from Alternet ThinkProgress has obtained new documents, left open to the public by the Clarion Fund’s webmaster, that offer an insight into the ideas behind the organization’s websites and films. An e-mail from Clarion Fund communications director Gregory Ross to the webmaster, outlines the campaign to promote Obsession during the 2008 presidential election (view a copy here). Ross explains how he would like to brand Clarion’s anti-Muslim campaign with “something pleasing to the eye, edgy, hip and fun!” To bring Obsession’s anti-Muslim themes into the mainstream, Ross wanted to make a symbol or slogan with wide appeal, like “google, banana republic or even coca-cola”
And, if you read quotes from David Yerushalmi (author of the anti-Sharia bills sweeping the country) and from his organization SANE the language used by Yerushalmi and SANE is more than similar to the language of Bodissey and Crombouke. Our TAM report on Yerushalmi and SANE is here.
UPDATE 10/1/2012
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and their hate groups have held an AFDI/ SIOA/ SIOE/ SION/ EDL/ BF Global Alliance Event in NYC. One interesting development is the addition of these British and European hate groups. What is more interesting is their statement that they are forming an International Activist Leadership Team to be called the SION President’s Council to “function as a mobile, proactive, reactive on-the-ground team developing and executing confidential action plans that strike at the heart of the global anti-freedom agenda.”
All of this means that the Islamophobia Industry is now organized internationally and preparing to increase the level of propaganda. They are now organized to carry out their strategy even more vociferously. Their strategy has already been studied and laid out in The People for the American Way PFAW report The Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism which discusses eight strategies employed by anti-Muslim activists to cast doubt on the validity of Islam as a religion and the integrity of American Muslims in order to justify prejudice and illegal discrimination:
Framing American Muslims as dangerous to America; Twisting statistics and using fake research to “prove” the Muslim threat; Inventing the danger of “creeping Sharia”; Justifying taking away freedoms and liberties from Muslims in order to “defend liberty”; Denying the validity of Islam as a religion; Arguing that Muslims have no First Amendment rights under the Constitution; Linking anti-Muslim prejudice to anti-Obama rhetoric; Slandering progressives and non-Christians as unholy and anti-American.
The Manifesto is being put into action.
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RESOURCES FOR DEALING WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA SUMMARY
The Islamophobia Industry exists and is engaged in an anti-Muslim Crusade. They have a manifesto for spreading their propaganda, and which states their goal of “destroying Islam — as a culture, a political ideology, and a religion.” They produce anti-Muslim films. They are forming new organizations and coalitions of organizations at a dizzying speed, not only nationally, but also internationally. They have formed an International Leadership Team “which will function as a mobile, proactive, reactive on-the-ground team developing and executing confidential action plans that strike at the heart of the global anti-freedom agenda.”
Currently, the Islamophobia Industry is engaged in a full-scale, coordinated, demonization campaign against American Muslims and Arabs. In just the past few months we have seen a series of inflammatory provocations: There was the Innocence of Muslims film Titanic, a German satire magazine plans an “Islam” cover article to be published later this month. Charlie Hebdo, a French satire magazine published an issue with inflammatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Newsweek published their ‘Muslim Rage’ cover. Terry Jones held a “trial of Prophet Muhammad”. SION held a “global” gathering in NYC to plan propaganda strategy. A group in Toronto publicized a “walk your dog at the mosque” day. AFDI/SIOA has run a series of anti-Muslim ads on public transportation across the country. AFDI/SIOA are planning to run 8 more anti-Muslim ads. There are three more films on Prophet Muhammad in the works by Ali Sina, Mosab Hassan Yousef and Imran Farasat. They are even bringing their hate messages into public schools.
Daniel Pipes is encouraging publication of “A Muhammad cartoon a day”, and says “So, this is my plea to all Western editors and producers: Display the Muhammad cartoon daily, until the Islamists become accustomed to the fact that we turn sacred cows into hamburger.”. Pipes joins Daniel Greenfield (aka Sultan Knish) who published an appeal on David Horowitz’ Front Page Magazine Is It Time for ‘Make Your Own Mohammed Movie Month’?. And, both are following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Pamela Geller, who promoted just such a plan back in 2010 with her promotion of Draw Muhammad Day, even after the cartoonist who drew the first cartoon and suggested the idea, Molly Norris apologized to Muslims and asked for the day to be called off, and American Muslims had issued a defense of free speech. None of this is surprising as one of the Islamophobes laid out their strategy as “The Muslims themselves have shown us their most vulnerable spot, which is the questionable (though unquestioned) character of the ‘Prophet’ himself. We need to satirise and ridicule baby-bonking Mo until the Muslims fly into uncontrollable tantrums, then ridicule them even more for their tantrums, and repeat the process until they froth at the mouth and steam comes out of their ears.”
The Islamophobia of these folks is very real, it is also strikingly similar to a previous generations’ anti-Semitism, and it has predictable consequences. The reason that this is so obvious to so many is that rational people can tell the difference between legitimate concerns and bigoted stereotypes.
Sadly, the Islamophobic echo chamber has been aided by some in the Jewish and Christian clergy, and even by some of our elected representatives, particularly in the GOP.
The claim that the Islamophobes are “truth-tellers” and “defenders of freedom” who actually “love Muslims” and have never engaged in “broadbrush demonization” or “advocated violence”, or that nothing that they say could have had anything to do with any act of violence, are nonsense. The claim that they are falsely being accused of Islamophobia for no reason other than their legitimate concerns about real issues and that in fact there is not even such a thing as Islamophobia, or their claim that the fact that there are fewer hate crimes against Muslims than against Jews or that some Muslims have fabricated such crimes “proves” that Islamophobia doesn’t exist, or that the term Islamophobia was made up by Muslims in order to stifle their freedom of speech, or that anti-Muslim bigotry is “not Islamophobia but Islamorealism” are all nonsense.
These individuals and organizations consistently promote the false what everyone “knows” lies about Islam and Muslims (including distorting the meaning of Qur’anic verses, and distorting the meaning of Islamic terms such as taqiyya, jihad, sharia, etc.).
The most commonly repeated false claims about Muslims and Islam are that:
Everyone “knows” that most or all terrorists are Muslims, and there are no Christian and no Jewish terrorists (or terrorists of any other religious stripe), and that Muslims are all militant, inherently violent, more likely to engage in violence against civilians, and more likely than other Americans to be radicalized.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims are not interested in dialogue. That Muslims don’t help Christians in need. That Muslims can’t have Christians as friends, and are anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and intolerant of other faiths.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t unequivocally denounce terrorism, that American Muslim leaders have not responded to radicalization in their community, that mosques are the source of radicalization, that 85% of mosques are run by radicals, that Muslims don’t cooperate with law enforcement.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims are not equivalent to real Americans, that they are the enemy within, and a fifth column, that good Muslims can’t be good Americans, that Muslims are not loyal to America, that they are not a part of our American heritage,
Everyone “knows” that Islam itself is the problem and makes Muslims “backward”, that Muslims have made no contribution to the West, that Islam is “of the devil”, a Crescent menace, a “green peril”, that was spread by the sword, an “evil encroaching on the United States”, and not a religion.
Everyone “knows” that this is a Christian nation, which the Muslims are trying to take over, starting with getting an Eid stamp which is the first step towards shariah law which is a threat to America, and a threat to our judicial system, by purposefully having more children than others to increase their numbers, and they will be the majority in this country in 20 years. Muslims are a threat to America
Everyone “knows” that Muslims have no respect for the Constitution, they don’t obey the laws of the United States, that they are opposed to freedom of speech, don’t allow and freedom of religion.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims are given a pass by the elite media. It’s “us versus them”.
Everyone “knows” that the Muslims’ goal is world domination under a Caliphate, and the proposed Cordoba House in NYC is a demonstration of supremacism and triumphalism, and that Muslims planned to open it on the anniversary of 9/11.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t speak out against extremism or terrorism, and even those Muslims who do speak up or seem moderate are simply lying or practicing taqiyyah.
Everyone “knows” that the Qur’an is uniquely violent, that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t include God’s love, and does not include the concept of a Golden Rule, that Allah is a moon god.
Everyone “knows” that Islam is a monolith and all Muslims are the same, like the “Borg”. This means that every act committed by an individual who is a Muslim is directly attributable to Islam, and never because the individual is crazy, criminal, or perverted.
Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t have a sense of humor
Everyone “knows” that Muslims are like the Fascists and Nazis and that in fact they supported those movements.The problem is that what “everyone knows” is wrong. These self-righteous and incorrect statements are usually followed by a demand that the Muslim community do something about whatever is the false flag of the day or face the inevitable consequences.
Islamophobes falsely claim to see “JIHAD” PLOTS everywhere, particularly where they don’t exist. They, like Muslim extremists, don’t understand the true meaning of the term jihad. The Islamophobes have uncovered countless examples of “shocking”, non-existent Muslim jihad plots.
Islamophobes generalize specific incidents to reflect on all Muslims or all of Islam. Islamophobes consistently push demonstrably false memes such as: - we are in danger from creeping Sharia, - the Muslim population is increasing at an alarming rate, - 80% of American Mosques are radicalized, - There have been 270 million victims of “jihad” - There have been 17,000+ “Islamic terrorist” attacks since 9/11 - Muslims in government are accused of being Muslim Brotherhood plants, stealth jihadists, and creeping Sharia proponents and should be MARGINALIZED or excluded. Muslim and Arab organizations and individuals are connected to the infamous Muslim Brotherhood document or the unindicted co-conspirator label, or accused of not condemning Hamas, telling American Muslims not to talk to the FBI, of being “Jew haters”, etc.
When Islamophobes are caught in the act of making up or distorting claims they engage in devious methods to attempt to conceal the evidence.
When Islamophobes are caught in the act of making up or distorting claims they engage in devious methods to attempt to conceal the evidence.
There is a reason that many, even outside of the Muslim community see such demonization of Muslims as Islamophobic. There is a reason that the ADL has stated that Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America, Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), David Yerushalmi’s Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) are “groups that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”. There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that these individuals are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle. There is a reason that these individuals and organizations are featured prominently in: — the Center for American Progress reports “Fear Inc.” on the Islamophobia network in America and Understanding Sharia Law: Conservatives skewed interpretation needs debunking. — the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism. — the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack: The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State. — the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security. — The ACLU report Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical “Sharia Threat” to Our Judicial System — in The American Muslim TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry. There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature. There is a reason that these individuals and organizations are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred.
See Resources for dealing with Islamophobes for many more reasons that these people cannot be trusted.
Sheila Musaji is the founding editor of The American Muslim (TAM), published since 1989. Sheila received the Council on American-Islamic Relations 2007 Islamic Community Service Award for Journalism, and the Loonwatch Anti-Loons of 2011: Profiles in Courage Award for her work in fighting Islamophobia. Sheila was selected for inclusion in the 2012 edition of The Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims published since 2009 by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan. Biography You can follow her on twitter @sheilamusaji ( https://twitter.com/SheilaMusaji )
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