“Useful Idiots” Convene in Madrid

From the desk of Soeren Kern on Thu, 2008-07-17 13:02

spanish-chronicles-soeren-k.jpg

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, and the Custodian of Postmodern European Secularism, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on July 16 opened the World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid.
 
The aim of the event is to promote dialogue between the world’s main religions, and, as some observers suspect, to establish a one-world religion based on Islam. More than 200 leaders of different religions [pdf], including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Universalism, Marxism and Multiculturalism, are attending the three-day conference. Also attending are leading personalities specialized in dialogue and useful topics such as “life of human societies, international cooperation, human rights, security and peace and living peacefully together.”
 
The conference is being organized by the Muslim World League (also known as the World Islamic League) following an initiative by King Abdullah, whose country is the birthplace of Islam, a religion of peace. The Muslim World League also happens to be the principal agent for the propagation of Wahhabi Islam in Europe. In 1987, it was elected as a “Messenger of World Peace” by the United Nations.
 
Saudi officials said Spain was chosen as the site for the gathering because of its historical symbolism as a place where Muslims and those Jews and Christians who paid the dhimmi tax lived in peace under Islamic rule between the 8th and 13th centuries.
 
The event will take place against a backdrop of tensions between the Islamic world and the West due to the intolerable intolerance of the latter. They range from restrictions on the use of the veil by Muslim women in some European countries to cartoons regarded as blasphemous by Muslims and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 
The conference, which seeks to promote openness, consists of five closed-door round tables. They will be followed by a final communiqué to be issued on July 18.
 
The first session, titled “Dialogue and Its Religious and Civilizational Foundations,” will be chaired by the secretary-general of the Millennium World Peace Summit. The session will touch upon touchy topics such as “Dialogue in Islam” and “Dialogue in Christianity.”
 
The second session is titled “Dialogue and Its Importance in Society.” A president of the World Conference of Religions for Peace will present a paper on “Dialogue and Interaction of Cultures and Civilizations,” while the president of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, will speak on “Dialogue and its Impact on Peaceful Coexistence.” Other lofty topics for discussion include: “Dialogue and Its Impact on International Relations” and “Dialogue in the Face of Calls for the Clash of Civilizations and End of History.”
 
The third session, titled “Common Human Values in Areas of Dialogue,” will be chaired by the secretary-general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. Featured speakers are the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); the secretary-general of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought in Iran; and the rector of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Vatican.
 
The fourth session is titled “Evaluation and Promotion of Dialogue” and will be chaired by the secretary-general of the Jewish Congress in Latin America and the Caribbean. This session will cover topics such as “Muslim-Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Its Future & Horizons” and “Efforts of States and International Organizations in Augmenting Dialogue and Overcoming its Obstacles.”
 
The fifth session is titled “Disseminating of Culture and Co-Existence of Dialoge.” It will focus on topics such as: “Media and its Impact on Disseminating the Culture of Dialogue and Co-Existance.”
 
The final communiqué will be read out by the assistant secretary of the Muslim World League.
 
Saudi Arabia hopes the conference will prove that it is trying to: 1) shed its international image of harboring a xenophobic religious establishment; and 2) moderate clerical conservatism that even objects to women driving cars.
 
According to Reuters, the conference offers Saudi Arabia a chance to declare its “openness and willingness to cooperate with the international community […] It marks a new direction for Saudi Arabia, whose Wahhabi Islam has come in for criticism internationally” after 15 of the 19 Arabs who killed some 3,000 people in the September 11 attacks in the United States were Saudis.
 
Abdullah al-Turki, the head of the Muslim World League and conference organizer, says: “Saudi Arabia, on whose ground the global message of Islam was launched, affirms to the whole world its openness and cooperation with the world community.”
 
And then, just in case there was any doubt, al-Turki adds: “Islam requires Muslims to inform people about Islam as the final divine message that came after the previous prophets.”
 
So why is the hyper-secular and hyper-tolerant Zapatero embracing one of the most theologically intolerant strands of Islam? And why is he turning Spain into a Saudi public relations rehab center? Zapatero (like his Saudi counterparts, but for different reasons) views Judeo-Christianity as public enemy number one because it is the main impediment to the realization of his vision for a socialist multicultural utopia in which everything goes. And he hopes his pact with Islam will accelerate Spanish history.
 
Zapatero and his socialist advisors believe Muslims are the “useful idiots” of the left. And Muslims believe Zapatero and his socialist friends are the “useful idiots” of Islam. Such is the future of Spain.

Elephant hunting ... (2)

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sat, 2008-07-19 22:15.

@ kap'

 

Q: Had the Madrid Conference been abandoned, following pressure from the hierarchy of the Spanish Roman Catholic church, would you have criticized that decision, and if so, on what grounds would you have based that criticism?

Elephant hunting, and similar unrelated topics

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sat, 2008-07-19 20:29.

@ kap'

 

"I predict ... Qatar ... may occur ... We'll see".

 

Yep, and as Ivana Trump once said, "Fiction writing is great, you can make up almost anything", and you certainly appear to be experiencing an Ivana moment with that one. In fact, you could probably add that  prediction to this list.

 

http://www.thatsweird.net/facts13.shtml

 

 

" For the rest, I think you have the answers...".

 

 

Yes, I DO, as do most other normal people reading this blog, but the question remains, do YOU?

 

Well, do you? 

@ kap'

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sat, 2008-07-19 15:58.

Why do you wilfully refuse to see the elephant in the room, the burro in the basement, the camel in the Casbah...?

 

Q1: Why Madrid?

 

Q2: Why not Mecca or Medina, Tel Aviv or Haifa?

 

 

"Observers say the conference is being held in Spain in part because it would be politically unpalatable for Abdulla - the titular guardian of Islam's two holiest sites - to allow Jewish and Christian leaders into the kingdom itself...".

 

Q3: Do you agree with that observation?

 

 

Well, kap', come on, show me what ya got. 

 

 

interreligious conferences

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2008-07-19 16:48.

There have been conferences/meetings in several Arabian countries, Jordan, first of line. I predict that in Qatar may occur a follow-up conference: It has an American military base, excellent relations with Syria and Iran, even France (!!); there is an Israeli representation, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas. The Doha-Round, transmitted by BBC, has had interesting debates. We'll see.
For the rest, I think you have the answers for your questions already in mind :)

Madrid declaration

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2008-07-19 12:35.

You may read the Madrid final declaration here:
http://www.world-dialogue.org/english/events/final.htm
or
http://www.saudiembassy.net/2008News/Statements/StateDetail.asp?cIndex=728
or
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021844.php

Further information:
http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=417244&news_type=Political&la...
http://folk.uio.no/leirvik/Chrismusint.html
http://www.interfaithdialoguebasics.be/International%20Interfaith%20Conf...

Thanks for your interest.

They couldn't even agree on a final statement

Submitted by Rob the Ugly American on Sat, 2008-07-19 03:05.

'The conference concluded on a sour note this afternoon as Christian and Jewish participants complained that the organizers, the Muslim World League, had too much control over the conference's closing communiqué...'

The final statement, which was read by an official with the Muslim World League, Abdul Rahman Al-Zaid, rankled several of the conference participants because it differed from an earlier agreed upon draft. Under pressure from a conference participant, William Vendley of Religions for Peace, a second version was subsequently drafted which attributed the communiqué to the "conveners" of the conference and not the participants, as the earlier version had.

One complaint, which two participants voiced on condition of anonymity, is that the communiqué called for the Muslim World League to select some of the delegates for the suggested upon United Nations conference on interfaith dialogue.

The major complaint of many participants was that the document appears to have been revised at some stage without the consent of members of a drafting committee. And the vast majority of participants never had a chance to review any version of the statement before Mr. Al-Zaid of the Muslim World League read it aloud.

"For us as participants from other religions this is not an acceptable procedure for adopting documents," a Russian Orthodox priest participating in the conference, George Ryabykh, said.'

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/saudi-kings-religion-conference-ends-on-sou...

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Fri, 2008-07-18 20:29.

You believe in this kind of deaf/dumb conversations where nobody listens to the others but features his own show fot his own reasons.
This only helps the hotel owners and halal/kosher restaurants.
Zero results for millions of euros as usual.

Think about it...

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Fri, 2008-07-18 17:15.

@ marcfrans

 

why wouldn't the "average rating" be incorrect for a cartoon whose subject matter is 'The LIARS Club? It all makes perfect sense to me. ;-))

Correction?

Submitted by marcfrans on Fri, 2008-07-18 16:37.

@ Atlanticist

 

The cartoon is very funny.  But the "average rating", just below it, should read 4 1/2, not 4 3/5.   Or, are my eyes deceiving me?  

P.S. This is an example of 'Germanic precision', which can co-exist with meaningless kappertian Wortspielerei.

 

re: missing something

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Thu, 2008-07-17 21:38.

@ kap'

 

Marcfrans # 2:

 

 "Mr. Kern points out that the event takes place against a "background of tensions"..."

 

 

Your response # 2:

 

"There were no tensions in Madrid..."

 

 

Marcfrans # 4:

 

"Mr Kern thinks that the Saudi government..."

 

 

Your response # 4:

 

"I rather do not comment mr kern".

 

 

Missing something? You tell me.

What do we want instead?

Submitted by KO on Fri, 2008-07-18 00:27.

We want to be represented by political and religious leaders who are not eager to sell out the historic peoples of the West to an oppressive bureaucratic world government in which Moslems are allowed to occupy and transform Western nations. We don't really want international institutions at all, just effective diplomacy and trade between self-governing sovereign peoples.

Zapa-the-tero strikes again

Submitted by marcfrans on Thu, 2008-07-17 17:26.

1)  We should all be grateful to Mr Kern for informing us, in appropriate sarcastic style, of this umpteenth hot-air conference.  Al Gore should be worried about the ecological footprint of this kind of useless event, but of course he won't be, being a Zapaterian himself.  As common men with common sense know: 'Actions speak louder than words'.  Which means that such hot-air conferences are a waste-of-money and of time.  Their 'added value' is negative, since they only foster a thickening of the existing smokescreen.

2) Mr Kern points out that the event takes place against a "background of tensions" (listing three in particular), including "the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian Conflict".  However, it would be more accurate to decribe this last "tension" as an Israeli-Arab conflict, or even as an Israeli-Muslim conflict.  The 'palestinians' are just pawns in that conflict.  The core issue at stake is not a "palestinian state" (which has never existed), but the existence or presence of a sovereign nonislamic country in the midst of the Muslim world.

3) Mr Kern reports that one of the topics of the second session of the conference deals with "Dialogue in the Face of Calls for the Clash of Civilisations and End of history".

  Two points about that:

-- Obviously, sensible people do not "call" for such a "clash", but they certainly should be able to observe the reality or existence of such a clash virtually wherever 'islam' touches other civilisations.  The only observable authoritative "calls" for such a "clash" are coming from parts of the Muslim world. In the rest of the world, people can only observe the reality of it, but they do not "call" for it.

-- When Francis Fukuyama introduced the expression "The End of History", he meant that Western liberal democracy had 'proven' itself to be the the world's 'best' political system, and therefore he expected the whole world to be moving in that direction eventually.  Of course, this was a very naive and contra-historical viewpoint (which Fukujama will concede today) and the future will almost certainly prove how wrong he was on that.  But, it is very doubtful that the conference organisers are using the term in its 'original' meaning.  It is all part of the thickening smokescreen!

4) Mr Kern thinks that the Saudi government wants to prove that it does not harbor a xenophobic religious establishment and that it wants to moderate clerical conservatism.  If they wanted to do that, they could do so easily by taking actions at home, like for instance respecting freedom of religion for all in S.A.  Of course, producing hot-air in Madrid can do no such thing. 

5) Finally, there is little doubt that Muslim leaders see Zapatero and his socialist friends as "useful idiots" for Islam (just like many of Zapatero's socialist predecessors in the west were seen as "useful idiots" by Stalin).  But, I doubt very much that Zapatero and his ilk "believe (that) Muslims are useful idiots of the left".   No, actual useful idiots (like Zapatero) are usually incapable of seeing others as useful idiots.  That is the only serious mistake in Mr kern's excellent article. 

missing something

Submitted by kappert on Thu, 2008-07-17 20:45.

1)You're disappointing in your denial of use of this dialogue-conference. What do you want instead?
2)There were no tensions in Madrid, and it is a joy to see a priest, a rabbi, an iman, and a monk sitting and chatting at one table.
3) just for the record: Samuel Huntington's theory of a “clash of civilizations” is unsuited to the present situation and serves only to justify prejudices. Moreover, it was the Iranian President Khatami, who, in the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1998, was responsible for putting the “dialog of the civilizations” – in direct antithesis to the “clash of the civilizations” – on the UN agenda.
4) I rather do not comment mr.Kern.
5)Zapatero said some welcome words and had no further role.

conference on dialogue

Submitted by kappert on Thu, 2008-07-17 14:12.

It happened much more than Søren likes to admit. Nearly 300 delegates (100 from the UK and USA) had vivid dialogues in a peaceful ambiente. Of course, calls for good coexistence dominated the speeches, whether from bankers, politicians, priests or social workers. Only to name a few, Arthur Schneier (New York) held a powerful speech, Shri Ram Pal Singh Gautam (India) convinced on the necessity of tolerance, Mohammad Ali Al-Taskhiri (Iran) stressed that politics and human desires are often in conflict, Pier Luigi Celata (Italy) expressed his happiness that this (follow-up) conference took place. Other promotors of the dialogue, Federico Mayor and Jorge Sampaio, promised a fruitful continuation. But that's too much for Søren Kern.