Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Islam and Entertainment (Video)

“We need more, not less democracy” and “Intelligence services have failed us” by Jacob Appelbaum (Video)

Journalist and researcher for the Tor project, Jacob Appelbaum talks about technology, freedom and resisting surveillance at the World Forum for Democracy.

Read a transcript of the speech here: https://goo.gl/WSE3mK

This video is published as part of an openDemocracy editorial partnership with the World Forum for Democracy.

ISIS defectors reveal the nightmare behind the propaganda

Source: telegraph.co.uk

By: Sarah Sinno

We in the West have been debating, literally for years, the best way to tackle Islamic State (Isil/ISIS). Key to the group’s success, we are repeatedly told, are its sophisticated online and social media recruitment strategies, providing it with a limitless supply of young foreign fighters.

Yet rather than wring our hands at our impotence in tackling Isil, which has relentlessly spread its reach and influence, we should examine a wealth of new information which documents Isil’s frailties. Crucially, this information has been provided by insiders – defectors from Isil ranks who know better than anyone the reality of life under the so-called caliphate. In dozens of interviews, these fighters, who have risked execution by fleeing the Isil-ruled zone they once rushed to join, give the inside account of Isil hypocrisies and failings, and in so doing, identify the best method of attack for Western governments seeking to demolish Isil’s appeal.

So what do these Isil defectors reveal?

1 – If you feel alienated and isolated in the UK, you will feel alienated and isolated in “the caliphate”

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) has just published a report based on interviews with dozens of deserters from Islamic State. In it, many explained that they originally joined Isil because they felt alienated at home. Isil propaganda, with its romantic idea of the Caliphate, appeals to those looking for a sense of belonging. But, crucially, once in territory under Isil control, many foreign fighters felt just as excluded as they had at home. On first arriving in Syria they were welcomed, interviews reveal, but soon thereafter were told by locals: “You are here to sabotage my country, you are coming to force something on us.”

The fact that foreign fighters were portrayed as liberators by their recruiters but received as oppressors by Syrian people themselves was a powerful influence in providing a cognitive opening for their defection. Instead of being the heroes they were aspiring to be, they found themselves forcing a brutal interpretation of Sharia on people who didn’t want it. Ultimately, those interviewed said that lack of integration and alienation were key drivers of their defection as IS “citizens”, just as they had previously been drivers of their radicalization and departure from the West.

As one defector explained: “The Syrian people once welcomed us, now they don’t.”

2 – If you are joining Isil to fight the enemies of Islam and defend oppressed Muslims, bad luck

The Isil narrative, and that of its predecessor al Qaeda, is based on the idea of protecting the Ummah (Muslim world) – saving the oppressed from both evil, external Western “crusaders”, and the equally evil, internal “apostates”. But the reality, defectors reveal, is that Isil willingly murders pretty much anyone who disagrees with it. According to some Isil defectors, they were even told they would get closer to God by killing other Muslims. This emerges in particular in a series of videos from the Sawab Centre, which offer some testimonies of Isil defectors and sheds further light on what has motivated them to leave the group. What comes up time and again is the terrorist group’s killing of other Muslims. The defectors found this abhorrent and contrary to everything they had previously been taught.

One defector, Abdulla Al-Sahli, made clear the ideological inconsistencies in justifying murder with words from the Koran. Referring to his Isil lieutenants, he said: “They come and say, ‘By his blood we want to get closer to God.’”

3 – The “caliphate” is not utopia, but bloody internecine chaos

Many foreign fighters rushed to Syria to be part of a newly-established utopian society that allows them to fulfil their religious duty. But on arrival these defectors concluded that Isil is actually inciting chaos (or fitnah) among Muslims. That Isil disproportionately fights other Sunni Muslim groups rather than Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is a consistent sore spot for these defectors. That fellow Sunni Muslims who get on the wrong side of the caliphate’s religious police are victim to the same barbaric punishments handed out to Westerners, gay people and Yazidis in Isil propaganda is a key motivating factor for defectors for whom the organisation, its leadership and, on occasion, Isil’s cause has become delegitimized.

Mohamed Al-Suleiti was particularly inspired to leave Isil’s death cult due to the realization that “[it’s] a situation where Muslims are combating Muslims.”

4 – Think the caliphate will be all sex and heroic fighting? Think again

What shines through the interviews with defectors is the gulf between the propagandised fantasy of life under the caliphate and the harsh reality. Isil propaganda conveys the idea that it is both the saviour of all Muslims and can govern a well-functioning caliphate. By giving the impression of a prosperous lifestyle, through images of people celebrating during festivities, children playing, or city renovations, Isil masks the harsh reality of those living under its tyranny. Through the testimonies of these defectors, we now have confirmation of the corruption and the brutality, and also of the dysfunctionality and the boredom that many recruits face.

Ultimately, as Mefrih Al-Khathami said, many defectors like him “had reached a stage where I did not know what I had come to do in Syria”. Isil propaganda may have been a pull to get him to join the group in the first place, but once he was a member that propaganda was exposed as lies.

Conclusion

So how can we use this information to defeat Isil. Certainly it can be hugely powerful, and has obvious value for the intelligence and security services. For the individuals concerned, defection should lead to further disengagement and, eventually, deradicalisation. More importantly, however, their stories can give hope to others looking to leave; personal testimonies can act as counter-narratives and carry equal and opposite weight to the propaganda that is targeting those vulnerable to radicalisation. Quilliam’s report “In and Out of Extremism”, for example, reflects how Maajid Nawaz’s and Dr Usama Hasan’s personal deradicalisation journeys have helped extremists reconsider their commitment to radical groups and further the deradicalisation process for many others.

Counter-narratives come in all shapes and sizes, and are valuable whether political, theological, or emotional. But nothing is more compelling than the personal account of a defector. As the West weighs up its strategy to take on Isil in the long term, it is clear that shattering the Isil myth through the eyewitness accounts of defectors must play a key role.

Sex Industry & Violence Against Women:Who is really Abused Hookers or Hijabis? (Video)

WARNING NSFW! GRAPHIC CONTENT!

THIS VIDEO POST IS PROTECTED UNDER FAIR USE LAWS:

EDUCATION USE ONLY!

In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test

Preferably sisters only.This video is not for mama’s boys or those who desire to retain rose colored glasses.This video is dealing with real issues and how Muslims should address them.

Malcom X in 23 Quotes

Source: ciibroadcasting.com

February 21 2015 marked 50 years since the assassination of outspoken African-American Muslim stalwart Malik al Shabazz. Malcolm X, as he was also known, was gunned down at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in 1965 while preparing to give a speech.

As an NPR blog notes, Al Shabazz can be considered as one of the great public speakers of all-time.

And while Malcolm X may have had a natural leaning toward dramatic interpretation, for him public speaking was a learned skill. At the age of 21, he was a middle school dropout and prison inmate who, “didn’t know a verb from a house.” Three months shy of his 40th birthday, he was an international media presence, a voracious reader, tough debater and a leading proponent of black nationalism.”

Below we reproduce some of al Shabazz’s iconic words, many of which may still ring a poignant bell today.

Hatred and Violence only destroys the Hater

By: Abdullah Hakim Quick

The vicious hatred of the right wing “American Sniper” movie, the German (Neo-Nazi) Anti-Islam movement, the confused but still hateful Charlie Hebdo cartoons, the Fox News lies and distortions of Islam and Muslims cannot put out the light of Islam or stop the advancement of Muslims. The Mongols of Genghis Khan brutally slaughtered millions of Muslims in the12th and 13th centuries but we still dominate their culture.
Look at the Manjali Mosque in Atyrau province, West Kazakhstan. Quiet but powerful beauty; Mathematics and high art that compliment the heavens.
That connection with Almighty Allah can never be broken (Insha Allah)!!!

Non-Muslim speaking about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (Video)

By: Chris Thompson

Investigation: Twitter and Facebook ‘allowing Islamophobia’

By: Oliver Wright

Source: independent.co.uk

Twitter and Facebook are refusing to take down hundreds of inflammatory Islamophobic postings from across their sites despite being alerted to the content by anti-racism groups, an investigation by The Independent has established.

The number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, has increased significantly in recent months in the aftermath of the Rotherham sex-abuse scandal and the murder of British hostages held by Isis.

The most extreme call for the execution of British Muslims – but in most cases those behind the abuse have not had their accounts suspended or the posts removed.

“Slap her!”: children’s reactions (Video)

 What happens when you put a boy in front of a girl and ask him to slap her? Here is how children react to the subject of violence against women.