Surveillance is sometimes too easy . . .

Fahad Qureshi Speaks . . .
Memri

The Islamists sometimes make surveillance so easy that the NSA is hardly needed! In Memri's Special Dispatch No. 5515 (November 8, 2013), "Norwegian Islamic Leader Fahad Qureshi: All Muslims Believe In The Death Penalty For Homosexuals," the Islamist Qureshi speaks openly of his views:

"Every now and then, every time we have a conference, every time we invite a speaker, [the media] always comes with the same accusations: This speaker supports the death penalty for homosexuals, this speaker supports the death penalty for this crime or that crime, that he is homophobic, that he subjugates women . . . I always try to tell them that it is not that speaker that we are inviting who has these 'extreme radical views' . . . . These are general views that every Muslim actually has. Every Muslim believes in these things. Just because they are not telling you about it . . . doesn't mean that they don't believe in them . . . . How many of you agree that the punishments described in the Koran and the Sunna -- whether . . . death, whether . . . stoning for adultery, whatever [punishments] . . . from Allah and His Messenger . . . [-- are] the best punishment[s] ever possible for humankind, and that is what we should apply in the world[? (Every hand goes up.)] . . . . What are the politicians going to say now? What is the media going to say now? That we are all extremists? That we are all radicals? That we all need to be deported from this country?"

Good questions, Qureshi! What are the answers? Especially the answer to that ultimate question? Qureshi's rhetorical answer? Not quite so easy as the surveillance itself in this case, for most of those raising their hands would be citizens of Norway . . .

Norweans, or Maybe Koregians, Visit Seoul . . .

Norway
Polar Neighbors

Wikipedia

My daughter Sa-Rah was recently selected to act as one of the local guides for a group of Korean kids who are growing up as adoptees in Norway. I asked her to write on the experience, and here's what she left in my email inbox this morning:

Being a Guide for One Day

Sunday, October 30th, 2011, I got to meet eight kids from Norway. They were Korean kids adopted by Norwegian foster parents at a very young age. I was partnered by a girl named Marie, who was thirteen years old, and I had to be her guide around Seoul for the day. I came to having this experience because my mom introduced me to this activity. This activity wasn't just about introducing Korea to foreigners, but was supposed to give Korean teenagers a chance to think about "Coexistence." Relationships between other countries and understanding differences in culture have become very important, so I thought the activity would be good experience for me. That's why I signed up for this activity by sending an application, and got a yes from the Mizy Center. The Mizy Center is a organization that gives teenagers a chance to experience other cultures or help poor countries by hosting many activities.

After getting a yes from the Mizy Center, I also passed the interview and became one of the eight teenage students who were selected. I felt pretty good about becoming one of this program, but at the same time felt a sense of responsibility. I needed to show the Mizy Center that I could do a good job, and so a couple of days before the actual activity, I decided to investigate Seoul on my own. I visited the royal palace, went to a couple of museums, and went to a traditional Korean town. I also didn't forget to go to Insa-dong, which is a shopping and eating area, very famous for its interesting shops and foods. Tourists usually like to buy gifts for their friends at Insa-dong, so I took a walk around. I got used to the area, so that I could guide my partner around well.

Anyway, after all that investigation, I felt ready to be the Norwegian kid's guide. When I first met my partner, Marie, we had some time to get to know each other. I personally hoped for a energetic, talkative partner, but Marie wasn't that type. That didn't mean I didn't like her, but it was harder to get used to each other. I started asking her questions about her favorite subjects at school, and if she knew K-Pop or Girls' Generation. Marie said she likes Norwegian (the language), and wasn't so good at math, even though she actually kind of liked it. I agreed to her on that subject -– you know what I mean. She told me that she doesn't know any K-Pop, but was interested in Justin Bieber. She said she was a Beliber, and liked Justin Bieber's new song "Mistletoe" and one of his older songs, "Never let you go." Because I was a little bit interested in Justin Bieber, too, I could talk to her about how I liked his "Never let you go" Music Video.

We talked more about each other while designing shoes that would be donated for children in Ethiopia. As I talked to her, I could see that her English wasn't that good, and that we had some problems in communication. Many times, she wouldn't be able to understand what I was saying, so I would have to select easier words for her. Well, she was only thirteen. I could understand that. When we finished our shoe designing, we had lunch with the other teams and a Mizy Center supervisor, and had time to introduce ourselves to others. We had Bulgogi for lunch, which is like a Korean juicy beef barbeque. Marie seemed to be happy with our choice of lunch, because she said she liked Bulgogi the most out of Korean foods.

The lunch time was pretty interesting because I got to talk to other Norwegian kids, too, and we started the tour with other two teams. We all agreed that it may be awkward to walk around Seoul one-to-one for hours. One of the guides was two years older than me, and she was a type of person who liked to lead people. Also, she lived in the area we were going to take a tour, so she could explain the area well for our Norwegian partners. We first went to a police museum, and got to wear police officer clothes. I took some pictures and then we read the history of Korean policemen. It was interesting, because I didn't know much about police history either. We also went to the royal palace and saw some famous Korean actors filming a famous TV series.

After that, the Norwegian kids bought some coffee at Star Bucks, and we walked around the streets of Seoul. There were many make-up shops, and they seemed to be interested in make-up, so we went to many shops. They also bought some make-up stuff that I had no idea about what the heck it was –- I'm not into make-up at all. I don't mean having make-up on is bad. It's just different from what Korean teenagers do. All of a sudden, watching them buy makeup and talking to each other made me feel how different they were from me. They were "Korean," but they were not "Korean" at all. The environment that they grew up in made them so different from us. I imagined what I would look like and be like if I had grown up in a different environment. I would be a totally different person, and would have a totally different personality. That thought made me feel a bit strange.

Anyway, we went to Seijong Museum and went to the Korean traditional town that I investigated before. Marie and I joined three other teams and were guided by a couple of friends that lived in that town. They were friends of one of the Korean teenagers, and they showed us around the town pretty well. The Norwegian kids took many pictures, but were a bit loud. We did ask them to quiet down a little bit, because people actually live in that town, and are bothered everyday by tourists and people that go there, but they didn't seem to see importance in quieting down. I, of course, didn't like that, but tried to understand. I think I should have been more active so they would be quiet. After all the walking, we had dinner at Insa-dong, and the tour was finished.

I felt many things while doing this activity. One thing was that I should have been prepared more. I did prepare where to go and what to do, but I wasn't good at talking to my partner, Marie. I think as time went by, I spoke less and less to her. I tried justify myself by the fact that her English wasn't good enough, and that she wasn't so talkative, but after the whole activity was finished, I felt bad about myself. I should have prepared for situations like that, where people are different from what you imagined them to be, but I didn't. However, it was a very good experience for me, because I could learn from my mistakes and know what to do next time there is an activity like this. I now have more confidence in guiding people, and I understand what's important. Preparation. I believe I have earned a valuable lesson, and hope to do a better job from now on. I thank the Mizy Center for letting me have a good experience like this.

I've not yet talked with my daughter about this essay, so we've not corrected anything, but there aren't many mistakes, and none glaring. I found Sa-Rah's remark that her partner was "only thirteen" amusing since Sa-Rah's merely fourteen. Well, almost fifteen, and two years can make a big difference at that age.

If I had thought more, I would have tried to prepare my daughter better by having her read up on Korean adoptees, most of whom are overseas, and on Norway, for she knows almost nothing about that country.

Maybe we could have located a Norwegian greeting online and practiced it for when she met her partner . . . but I didn't think of that beforehand.

Anders Behring Breivik: Rightwing Christian Terrorist?

Anders Behring Breivik

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Marmot's Hole blog had a discussion going on as to whether or not Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway shooter, was an insane spree killer or a rightwing terrorist. My initial assumption was that he was a crazed killer, but I soon began to re-evaluate that, and noted why in a comment:

He might be insane, but the sole reason that I would have for thinking so would be that he did something most of us would think is crazy.

But so did the Unabomber, the Oklahoma Bomber, and the 9/11 terrorists. They all did things that I would at first judge as crazy. But I don't think any of them were insane.

What currently makes me lean toward judging this recent killer sane is that he spent nearly ten years planning this atrocity and that he has written a manifesto to explain his actions. The ideas come from the right, the violence from the extreme right. I'm pretty sure of this because I've been reading since 9/11 on Islamism, the Left, and the Right in an attempt to get a handle on what's happening and where we're headed, and I recognize many of his expressions.

I suppose that he could be a political terrorist and insane, but "evil" [rather than "insane"] might be a better designation.

We'll see for sure as we learn more from his writings.

After posting that comment, I learned a bit more, so I posted another comment:

Time Magazine has a short article on the motives of Anders Behring Breivik. Two terrorism experts are cited concerning Breivik's manifesto: 2083: A European Declaration of Independence.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College calls the manifesto "a complete mirroring of al-Qaeda, a cut-and-paste image of a jihadist manifesto."

Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism expert at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, agrees: "The document mirrors al-Qaeda ideology in a few important ways. The principal aim is to expel Muslims from Europe, just as al-Qaeda wants to expel Westerners from the holy lands."

I've read articles by Ranstorp and Hegghammer, and I've always found them levelheaded on terrorism.

None of this would mean that Breivik suffers no psychological problems. He might indeed have problems, but these wouldn't necessarily preclude his being a terrorist. Mohamed Atta had weird views about sexual purity, but that doesn't exclude him from the ranks of terrorist.

Breivik is quoted elsewhere as saying that killing too many is better than killing too few. He chose his target with the aim of generating as much horror as possible, much as the 9/11 terrorist chose their target and method.

From what I've seen of Breivik's writings by now, I don't see how I can do other than conclude that he draws upon the right, including the extreme right, for his political ideology. But he's wrong to believe that his action will galvanize the right in the way that 9/11 galvanized Islamists.

Most of those on the right whom he cited in his manifesto have expressed revulsion at what he did. He'll find little support for political violence except among the extreme right, i.e., people like him.

I'm still waiting for easy access to Breivik's manifesto. I won't have time to read all 1500 pages, but if I can search for key words, I know what to look for. Breivik has been called a "Christian Fundamentalist." I don't think he's quite that, but the question of his connection to Christianity does arise. Here's a quote, courtesy of Time Magazine, from his interview with himself:

Around 2000, I realized that the democratic struggle against the Islamization of Europe, and European multiculturalism, was lost. It is simply not possible to compete with democratic regimes that import millions of voters. Forty years of dialogue with the cultural Marxists/multiculturalists had ended up as a disaster. It would now only take 50 to 70 years before we, Europeans, were the minority. So I decided to explore alternative forms of opposition. But the biggest problem then was that there were no options for me at all. There was no known armed culturally conservative, or Christian, anti-jihad movement.

Note that Breivik's wording uses "Christian" and "culturally conservative" interchangeably. This doesn't sound like personal Christian piety, but rather an identification with Europe's Christian identity, focused on a time when European Christians were fighting holy wars against Islam, the time of the Crusades. In the Time Magazine article "Killer's Manifesto: The Politics Behind the Norway Slaughter" (July 24, 2011), William Boston tells us more about Breivik's fascination with the Crusades:

The secret society Breivik describes aims to re-create the Knights Templar. Known by their trademark white mantles bearing a red cross, the Knights Templar were skilled fighters during the Crusades who wielded enormous political and economic influence during the Middle Ages. Breivik wrote that there was a secret meeting in London in April 2002 to rebuild the order and that nine people representing eight European countries attended.

Breivik's Christianity looks to be militant and political, not especially pious, but there is this, one of the recent entries in his journal, courtesy of The Telegraph, from the article "Norway shooting: Anders Breivik's diary of terror":

Saturday June 11 I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail.

This isn't the manner in which pious Christians usually pray to God -- pious Christians don't presume to explain things to an omniscient God -- and Breivik admits that he hasn't prayed "in a very long time," but he sounds sincere. Six weeks later, he bombed Norway's Labor Party government in Oslo and shot dozens of the Labor Party's youth on Utøya Island. Some might wonder why Breivik didn't target Muslims if his aim was to expel Islam from Europe. I think that I can answer that question. Many on the right have noted the far Left's alliance of convenience with Islamism, but some have gone further and denounced the entire Left as composed of traitors to European civilization. The step from calling Leftists traitors to the conclusion that they deserve execution is not a very large one since the traditional penalty for treason has been death. I've not seen bloggers themselves calling for death to Leftists (though I don't doubt that such bloggers exist), but I have occasionally encountered comments that come close to demanding such extreme measures.

Counterterrorism will need to take such folk more seriously from now on . . .

'Dhimmification' of Europe?

Vebjørn Selbekk

Apologizing to Mohammed Hamdan

(Image from VG Nett)

I've nearly finished reading Bruce Bawer's book, While Europe Slept, and I encourage people to read it. It's not a scholarly text, so you won't find citations to help you track down Bawer's sources, but what he writes accords with what I've read elsewhere.

I'll soon go on to read Claire Berlinski's Menace in Europe, Bruce Thornton's Decline and Fall, and Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe, all three being about the 'challenges' facing Europe in its decline.

But before leaving Bawer entirely (though I'll return to him as I prepare my Yonsei course), I'd like to draw attention to his recent article for City Journal: "An Anatomy of Surrender" (Spring 2008, Volume 18, Number 2). This article recaps many of the points that Bawer makes in While Europe Slept.

In this article, Bawer emphasizes that the Islamists are attempting to force Europeans to accept the strictures of sharia by restricting the right to free speech, an assault that began with the Rushdie Affair:

What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, Khomeini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies' basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies. (Bawer, "An Anatomy of Surrender," paragraph 2)

Bawer relates an example from a more recent crisis in Norway that followed in the wake of the controversy that had resulted from the publication of several Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

With the press, the entertainment industry, and prominent liberal thinkers all refusing to defend basic Western liberties, it's not surprising that our political leaders have been pusillanimous, too. After a tiny Oslo newspaper, Magazinet, reprinted the Danish cartoons in early 2006, jihadists burned Norwegian flags and set fire to Norway's embassy in Syria. Instead of standing up to the vandals, Norwegian leaders turned on Magazinet's editor, Vebjørn Selbekk, partially blaming him for the embassy burning and pressing him to apologize. He finally gave way at a government-sponsored press conference, groveling before an assemblage of imams whose leader publicly forgave him and placed him under his protection. On that terrible day, Selbekk later acknowledged, "Norway went a long way toward allowing freedom of speech to become the Islamists' hostage." As if that capitulation weren't disgrace enough, an official Norwegian delegation then traveled to Qatar and implored Qaradawi -- a defender of suicide bombers and the murder of Jewish children -- to accept Selbekk's apology. "To meet Yusuf al-Qaradawi under the present circumstances," Norwegian-Iraqi writer Walid al-Kubaisi protested, was "tantamount to granting extreme Islamists . . . a right of joint consultation regarding how Norway should be governed." (Bawer, "An Anatomy of Surrender", paragraph 25)

What I find most disturbing about this episode concerning the restriction of Vebjørn Selbekk's free speech is that Mohammed Hamdan, the leader of those 'Danish' imams, "publicly forgave him and placed him under his protection"!

Lest anyone not understand the implications, that sort of 'protection' implies that Selbekk is already a dhimmi and that an Islamist such as Hamdan believes that Islam already rules in Norway.

Such 'protection' is contingent upon the dhimmi's continued good behavior, which entails continually acknowledging the supremacy of Islam.

Korean Anti-Americanism?

Comte de Buffon

What's he doing here?

Anti-American Degeneracy Theorist

(Image from Wikipedia)

Let me copy here for your edification a morality tale that I read yesterday about anti-Americanism on a peninsula at the end of a continent:

In the spring of 2001, through a rather absurd set of circumstances, my understanding of Korean anti-Americanism took at great leap forward.

One day, an editor of the New York Times travel section called me and said she needed something in a hurry. They were doing a feature on "farm stays" -- working farms that accommodate visitors who want a taste of the agricultural life -- and were an article short. Could I find such a place in South Korea and write it up pronto?

It didn't sound like my cup of tea, but I promised I'd look into it. Within an hour, I'd located a farm in Gangwon-do that sounded suitable and booked a room for my partner, his brother, and me.

A few days later we were there. High on a remote mountainside, it was the opposite of what Americans think of when they hear the word "farm": this was no patchwork of cornfields stretching to the horizon, but a cluster of small weatherbeaten wooden buildings surrounded by rocky scrubby earth, most of it far from horizontal, on which a few dozen goats and chickens grazed. It was, admittedly, picturesque: our room afforded a spectacular view of the valley and of a steep green mountainside down which narrow waterfalls trickled, like tinsel sparkling.

But the experience was ruined by the proprietor's behavior. Much of the point of a "farm stay" is to watch the farmer farm -- and our farmer obviously hated being in our company, and seemed determined to make his own company as unpleasant as possible. The three of us all came to the same conclusion as to why he was treating us this way, but I'll keep our speculations to myself; suffice it to say that I'd never encountered such incivility on the part of an alleged host. We'd planned to stay two nights but left after one.

Had there been time, I would've found another farm to write up; but since the Times needed something right away, I did what I had to. Though honesty required that I mention the host's conduct, this was a travel article and not an exposé, so I tried to be as positive as possible. I sent the piece in, and it appeared a couple of Sundays later. The next day, South Korea's newspaper of record, The Hankyoreh, ran a story summing it up. Now, what I'd written wasn't remotely newsworthy; the only reason the editors of The Hankyoreh thought otherwise was that South Korea had been mentioned in the New York Times. The attention surprised me.

Even more astonishing was what happened next. The owner of the farm, irked that I'd made a point of mentioning his rudeness, got his revenge by telling reporters that I'd demanded McDonald's hamburgers for dinner instead of that most South Korean of delicacies, Hanwoo steak. Though this was a transparent fabrication (his farm was in the boondocks, far from the nearest golden arches), the South Korean press lapped it up. The story received high-profile coverage all over South Korea and dragged on for days. After somebody at The Hankyoreh tracked down an essay I'd published in a Washington, D.C., policy journal, criticizing various elements of South Korea's statist economy and praising the at least somewhat market-friendly Grand National Party, the newspaper ran an article helpfully explaining that I didn't just hate the farm in Gangwon-do; I hated "pretty much everything about South Korea."

Meanwhile our inhospitable host became an instant folk hero. The next weekend, he was accorded a cozy ten-minute segment on MBC's Sunday evening -- the South Korean equivalent of being profiled on 60 Minutes. By the time the story had run its course, our unpleasant weekend trip had been transformed into a morality play about the threat posed by vulgar American urbanites to cherished native traditions. (Though two of our party of three had been South Koreans, we were referred to by more than one journalist as "the Americans.") I was flabbergasted. But my erstwhile host obviously wasn't: he knew his country; he knew its media; and he'd known, accordingly, that all he needed to do to spin events to his advantage was to breathe that talismanic word, McDonald's.

For me, the episode raised a few questions. Why had the South Korean press paid so much attention to a mere travel article? Why had it then been so eager to repeat a cartoonish lie and obsess over it for days? Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one I'd left? Or did they reflect a culture -- or, at least, a media class -- that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions, but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it?

This sort of story will sound depressingly familiar to many expats living here in South Korea.

However, the story isn't about South Korea at all. It's about an experience that Bruce Bawer had in Norway and recounts in pages 96-97 of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Another, shorter version of the story can be found online, in Bawer's article "Hating America," HudsonReview.com, Vol. LX, No. 3: Autumn 2007.

Here's the code for deciphering the story posted above: Korean = European; South Korea = Norway; Gangwon-do = Telemark; The Hankyoreh = Aftenposten; Hanwoo (i.e., Korean beef) = reindeer; South Korean = Norwegian; Grand National Party = Conservative Party; and MBC = NRK.

Many of the American expats that I meet in South Korea have never lived elsewhere abroad. They therefore experience culture shock and anti-Americanism for the first time and conclude that South Korea is uniquely hostile to America, but we see that Bruce Bawer's "morality play" recounts an experience eerily similar to one that an American expat could easily have here in Korea.

Or elsewhere in the world.

In addition to living here in South Korea, I have lived in Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Israel, and -- of course -- the Democratic People's Republic of Berkeley, so I'm quite familar with the anti-Americanism of other lands.

Korean anti-Americanism merely fits into a common, easily recognizable pattern, so I didn't let it rile me much when I first encountered it since I'd already experienced the European (and Berzerkeleyan) variety.