Arnoud van Doorn: from anti-Islamic film-maker to hajj pilgrim.   

|dev|null wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 10:38am:


He's stoned.

|dev|null wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 10:38am:


One wonders if he is genuine or just a "mole"?

Brian Ross wrote on Oct 24^th, 2013 at 11:20pm:


I believe him.

If you are suffering from a lack of self-esteem, or loneliness, or a sense of irrelevance, or depression, or low status in society ... etc etc ... and then on a whim you approach the imam at the local mosque to convert to Islam, you soon find yourself surrounded by dozens ~ scores ~ in the local community who make you feel very important, and welcomed, and supported.

That's pretty heady stuff for those who have 'lost their way', and have felt irrelevant and isolated from society.   

The warmth from the Muslim community is very genuine too. I had quite a few Muslim friends gently prompting me to convert ~ but never pushy. When you're taken into the bosom of the Muslim community they make you feel like a million dollars.

I was The One That Got Away ~  ~ but they were always polite and genuinely warm-hearted and friendly.

|dev|null wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 10:02am:


On that community. There's a difference.

It was from that community that our Maximum Security prisons are now playing host to 23 of them who conspired, and planned, and gathered the material for blowing my niece to ribbons if she had happened to be on the wrong street, or the wrong train carriage, or the wrong building, or the wrong plane or bus.

I owe individual Muslims my friendship and good wishes ... but most definitely not to the 'Muslim community' amongst whose ranks there lurks people of the utmost evil and destructive intent. 

True Colours wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 11:27am:

Are you happy that Saddam isn't in power anymore?

Lord Herbert wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 10:54am:



How does one separate the individual from the collective?  The individuals whom you hold such warm affection for are equal members as those whom you hold contempt for.  They all are members of the same community.  However you seem to be holding the community responsible for the acts of the individuals that you hold in contempt.  Such contradictions Sensei.   

|dev|null wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 2:33pm:


No contradiction at all, Grasshopper.

Some of my best friends fought on the side of Hitler and the axis powers, but I certainly don't approve of most of the Nazi manifesto.

There were those who wore the uniform while being de facto apostates of Hitler's ravings ~ and marched with the True Believers so as not to end up in Auschwitz .... just as there are de facto apostate secularists in the Muslim community who are otherwise careful to utter the same cant and mantras as the Fundamentalists so as to avoid stigma, ostracism, and victimisation from within their community.

At one time I had a Chinese female boss who the other Chinese quietly told me had been a leader in the Cultural Revolution which murdered God Knows how many 10's of 1000's of 'intellectuals' throughout China.

She came to Australia and reinvented herself. She and I got along very well together. One of the other Chinese women there had been a professional ballerina in northern China.

They had no ambitions for setting up their own insular nation-within-a-nation here in Australia as the Muslims do. No Korans, burqas, hijabs, halal, and all the rest of the separatist crap.

No fatwa death contracts, no mosque-building, no riots in the city demanding 'beheadings', no murderous terrorists languishing in our maximum security prisons, no 'Cronulla Riots' involving Chinese youths intimidating Australian girls at the beach, etc etc.