Anders Breivik - Genius Knight Templar.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

By Ali Khan Mahmudabad, The Milli Gazette

Published Online: Aug 02, 2011

Edward Bernays could not have scripted the immediate aftermath of the Oslo bomb blasts with more precision. A nephew of the famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, Bernays is often referred to as the ‘father of public relations.’ Influenced by his uncle’s theories as well as the work of Gustave LeBon and Wilfred Trotter, Bernay was an advocate of social manipulation by appealing to the unconscious. He believed in the mass promulgation of information in order to intelligently affect public opinion and therefore control it. Over the last few decades, the threat of ‘Islamic’ terrorism has been made into an ever-looming specter so that the knee-jerk reaction after a bombing or any violent attack is an assumption that it was conducted by ‘violent Islamist jihadis.’ This is precisely what happened after the Oslo blasts and the youth camp killings.

The Norwegian press began the frenzy by suggesting that a group founded by an Iraqi Kurdish cleric, Mullah Krekar, called the Ansar ul-Islam was behind the attack and newspapers all over the world used their ‘experts’ to try and analyse who the perpetrators could be. The Guardian, in an article covering the blast on Friday the 22nd, inserted a paragraph towards the end of the article, mentioning the arrest of 3 Muslims from Iraq, Uzbekistan and China who were charged with trying to make peroxide bombs. At the end of the article the reporter wrote that Norway’s security would have to become stricter because it was a Swedish Muslim, Taimur Abdul Wahab who bombed Stockholm.

The Independent dispatched its “religious affairs correspondent” who promptly wrote an article entitled ‘Analysis: Jihadist Networks have long singled out Norway.’ The whole article explored why radical Islamists might be drawn to attacking Northern European countries and having written two thirds of the piece the reporter, as a caveat or an ‘escape clause’, wrote ‘if jihadis did carry out today’s attacks they have passed a new milestone.’ The article then ended with a terrorism expert pontificating that ‘no one should be surprised if this bombing turns out to be a jihadist attack.’ The New York Times wrote that a group called the Ansar al-Jihad al-Aalami might be responsible for the attack and then revised its position to cite official sources that doubted the existence of such a group.

The few examples I have given above are from Western newspapers that are generally perceived to be ‘liberal’ in their reporting and analysis. As it turned out the killer was a strapping Norwegian man with a shock of blonde hair who wanted to carry out his duty as a Commander of the Knights Templar and was adamant on promoting a crusade against Muslims and Islam. Today, Anders Behring Breivik is being labeled a “lone madman” but this analysis is too facile and too easy to be allowed to take root. Implicit in claiming that he is insane is an argument for continuing to focus on the Muslim world as the root of terrorist activity. The 1500 page document that Breivik has left behind, in which he demonstrates his ideological commitment and shows how connected he was to similar right-wing organisations across Europe, could easily have been written by an al-Qaeda propagandist but whereas the latter is seen as a rational and calculating enemy, Breivik and his ilk are dismissed without any thought. This in essence demonstrates the power of what Edward Bernays advocated.

In recent years Europe has seen the reemergence of ultra-nationalist right-wing parties that share a common hatred of immigration and particularly Muslim migration to Europe amongst other things. A few weeks ago the English Defense League (EDL), which basically has a one point anti-Muslim agenda, held a rally in Cambridge against the construction of a new mosque. This platform drew much admiration from Breivik who also praised groups such as ‘Stop the Islamification of Europe.’ The EDL identified Norway as a potential ‘Islamohell’ because of the ruling Labour Party’s perceived support of pro-Palestinian and pro-Islamic issues. Following the bombings, The Wall Street Journal blamed the Labour Party for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and for demanding that Israel end the Gaza Seige and followed the ‘herd’ in blaming the attacks on Islamist militants. The article would have pleased Breivik who saw the Labour Party as ‘traitors.’

Today, a number of European countries have to deal with the increasingly vocal, and often increasingly violent, presence of nationalist right-wing parties. While it has become fashionable to see a jihadi lurking behind every corner and the term ‘Islamofascism’ is analysed every day in many newspapers, it is important for Europe to take cognizance of the threat that ‘traditional’ fascism poses in their societies. The increasing political popularity of Jean-Marie LePen in France, Jorge Haider in Austria and others in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and other countries have proved this trend. David Cameron also illustrated this tendency in a speech earlier this year where is talked about ‘the failure of multiculturalism’ and the need to “acknowledge that this threat [terrorism] comes overwhelmingly from young men who follow a completely perverse and warped interpretation of Islam...” Angela Merkel, in a speech to a Christian Democrat Party conclave said that care must be taken to ensure that mosque cupolas are not demonstratively higher than church towers.

Of course this does not mean that the threat from certain Muslim groups has diminished but it is high time that Europe begins to put its own house in order before preaching to others. To dismiss Breivik as an anomalous ‘evil madman’- in the words of the Russian spokesperson- whose actions are not symptomatic of a wider malaise is tantamount to ignoring a clear warning of what is to come. Incidentally, Breivik expressed admiration for Putin’s style of leadership and also praised a number of other conservative leaders from around the world. Notably the press is still refusing to call Breivik a terrorist, a term apparently patented for Muslims, and descriptions are limited to attacker, assailant and vigilante.  The resurgence of a rabid nationalist right wing in so many countries should be the real cause for consternation: after all it was the European right that perpetrated some of the most horrific crimes of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The author, a research scholar at Cambridge University, may be contacted at bilehra14[@]gmail.com

See also: Colbert Report: Norwegian Muslish Gunman's Islam-Esque Atrocity

 

'Alaykum Salam.

The Eco-Mosque Is Here.

An artist's impression of the proposed mosque in Norderstedt, Germany, with wind turbines in the minarets. Image: Selcuk Unyilmaz.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

News that a small Muslim community in Norderstedt, Germany, has pioneered renewable energy sources by placing a wind turbine within the minaret of their mosque comes as a welcome surprise to most. Yet for some commentators the minaret continues to symbolise the march of an intolerant Islam intent on proselytising liberal Europe, a view made clear in 2009 when a Swiss referendum banned the construction of any new minarets.

To those versed in the proclivities of Islamic art and architecture, however, the mosque and its minaret have always stood as positive examples of syncretism.
In the seventh century, during the earliest stages of Islam, Muslims conducted their prayers in simple courtyard-like structures (or simply open spaces), which had partially covered areas to protect worshippers from the fierce Arabian sun. As Islam spread out of the deserts of Arabia and into the cityscapes of Damascus and Cairo, the rapidly expanding Muslim population required houses of worship that continued to meet their social and spiritual requirements. There are very few doctrinal guidelines as to what specifically constitutes a mosque (the only essential requirement being direction towards Mecca) and so Muslims either legally appropriated and modified existing structures or created completely new buildings.
The mosques that followed are magnificent and innovative examples of architecture that are paradoxically original through the way they borrowed from other cultures.
Take the eighth-century Great Mosque of Damascus: with its central nave, corner towers and sumptuous golden mosaics one could be excused for mistaking it for a late-antiquity church. On closer inspection, however, one notices the complete absence of figurative imagery in the building's mosaics that are so ubiquitous in Byzantine architecture. Here, the figures have been replaced by fantastic foliate arabesque and detailed depictions of classical architecture to align with the Islamic sanction against figural imagery in the mosque.
One can also hear the melodious call to prayer from one of the mosque's minarets. The Great Mosque of Damascus was formerly a church purchased from the Christians and transformed into a mosque; the minarets themselves were previously Christian corner towers. Prior to Damascus, the Muslim call to prayer was conducted from the tallest part of the urban landscape (eg on top of a house or mosque wall). When the Muslims came to Damascus, naturally the call to prayer was performed from the top of the church tower and thus, the architectural feature that is the minaret came to be.
Damascus is of course not the only example of cultural borrowing. One can witness the same phenomena in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which has its own take on the pre-Islamic centralised shrine architecture of the Levant (eg the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre).
Perhaps the most obvious example of adaptive architecture is in Istanbul, Turkey, where the old and the new have sat opposite each other for almost 500 years: on one side is the magnificent sixth-century basilica Hagia Sofia, and on the other is the early 17th-century Blue Mosque, a monument that bears startling resemblance to its Byzantine predecessor yet remains unequivocally unique in appearance.
Traditional Muslim societies therefore had no qualms about absorbing and learning from the cultures that they encountered and adjusting them within the philosophical framework of Islam: Islamic architecture is, and always has been, a medium for syncretism rather than proselytisation.
Fast-forward almost 1,400 years to the eco-friendly minaret in Germany. In Europe minarets no longer serve the practical function of calling people to prayer that they once did in the eighth century and instead remain as symbols or bastions of a traditional aesthetic.
What better way to return to the ingenuity of the Islamic architectural tradition than to transform the minaret once again into a highly productive and practical architectural feature which still retains its aesthetic and symbolic responsibilities.
Such resourcefulness is the perfect riposte to critics who accuse Muslim communities of self-marginalisation as well as social and religious "backwardness". Especially in Europe, where the apparent failings of "multiculturalism" seem to be the issue of contention, it is highly refreshing to see Muslim communities so emphatically adjusting their sails and letting the turbulent winds carry them to the shores of reinvention.
By Bilal Badat for the Guardian, UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/24/eco-mosque-wind-turbine
Wa'laykum Salam.