A Counterjihad Survey From a British University

Gates of Vienna, by Baron Bodissey (Ned May) June 25, 2015:

A few weeks ago a PhD candidate at a British university sent us the following email.

I am a PhD student at [a major British institution of higher learning]. I am researching groups set up to oppose radical Islam in Europe and North America, including anti-Jihad, anti-Sharia and anti-halal organisations.

I would like to interview activists within these organisations, to help me understand how they became involved, what their concerns are about radical Islam, and how they are going about countering them.

I would welcome the opportunity to interview someone from Gates of Vienna as part of my research, given that it is one of the most prominent counter-jihad websites.

Depending on the questions, I’m not averse to answering such surveys, even though I know the all but universal multicultural agenda of the institutions that sponsor them. I wrote him back and told him that if he wanted to use my answers to compile statistical results, that was fine. But if he quoted me, I required that he include the entire questionnaire — all his questions and my answers in full — somewhere in his published material, even if only as an appendix. In the past, various Counterjihad people (including several of my friends) have had the unfortunate experience of being quoted out of context. This method at least makes the entire context available for anyone who is interested. Plus, of course, I am posting it here — I told him that I reserved the right to publish the entire interview myself.

When the questionnaire arrived, it was prefixed with an option to choose between two waivers:

Delete as appropriate: EITHER: I agree that these answers may be attributed to me in published materials; OR: I would prefer to remain anonymous in published materials.

Please note: There is no compulsion to answer any question. If you prefer not to answer a question, just leave the box blank.

I chose the second option, but appended a proviso:

I agree that these answers may be attributed to me in published materials

The questions and my responses are reproduced below in their entirety:

Part A: Personal details

Name: Ned May
Organisation: Gates of Vienna
Position within organisation: Editor
Age: 60+
Gender: M
Ethnicity: Human Race

Part B: Questionnaire

1. When and how was Gates of Vienna set up?

We put up our first post on October 9, 2004. For the first eight and a half years we were hosted for free at blogspot.com, under the aegis of Blogger (i.e. Google). Then, after a series of incidents in which our blog was closed or locked by Blogger, in January 2013 we moved to our own domain gatesofvienna.net hosted by a commercial service.

For the first couple of years most of the blogging was done by my wife Dymphna. After I was laid off in 2006, I started blogging more regularly. As Dymphna’s chronic illness worsened, I took on more tasks, and now perform most of them.

2. What is your role in Gates of Vienna?

I am the principal editor. We have a number of translators and contributors, and it is my job to edit their prose where appropriate, find and prepare images to use as illustrations, and do the general formatting for each post. This is in addition to writing an occasional post myself.

I also maintain the database used to create each day’s news feed, and write the programming code that makes it possible.

3. Were you involved in political activism before Gates of Vienna? If so, please indicate which organisations.

No, I was never politically active. My wife and I made modest campaign contributions to our congressman from time to time, but that was all.

4. How would you describe the purpose or aims of Gates of Vienna?

Our principal aim is to resist the Islamization of Western societies. More specifically, we want to prevent the imposition of Islamic law (sharia), which is encroaching on our legal system piecemeal at an increasing rate, by a process that is commonly known as the “stealth jihad”.

Examples of the new sharia-based rules include the “religiously-aggravated Section 5 public order offences” in the U.K., the “hate crime” prosecutions by the various Human Rights Commissions in Canada, and the prosecutions for the “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” in Austria. Numerous other examples may be found in almost all Western countries.

Sharia-based norms violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the constitutions of the countries in which they are implemented. In that sense they are illegal or extra-legal, and not in conformance with the law of the land.

Islamization is only making headway in the West because the existing cultural matrix has been damaged. For that reason, Gates of Vienna frequently examines other issues that pertain to our ongoing social and political breakdown.

5. What are the main challenges or obstacles you face in achieving these aims?

(a)		Lack of funding. Everything must by financed by small individual donations from readers.
(b)		The unwillingness of the legacy media to cover these issues in depth and without bias. Counterjihad people are routinely characterized as “racists” and “far-right”, while at the same time the issues we raise are virtually never examined on their merits.
(c)		The toxic smog of political correctness that shrouds all public discourse and prevents an honest discussion of Islam as a totalitarian political ideology, and not just as a religion.

6. What is Gates of Vienna’s relationship to the wider counterjihad movement?

As envisioned by the original participants in the 910 Group (later CVF and then ICLA), we function as a “network of networks”. That is, we help expedite contact and communication between and among individuals and groups that share the same broad Counterjihad goals.

When I say “we”, I mean the very loosely associated groups under the ICLA umbrella. Gates of Vienna serves as a clearinghouse and bulletin board for those groups and their leaders.

7. What is your assessment of the counterjihad at this point in time?

The Counterjihad is fairly fragmented and often at odds with itself. Cooperation across a broad spectrum of groups is relatively rare. Like the rest of the culture, the members of the loose constellation of groups and people who oppose Islamization are afraid of being called “racists”. That fear causes people to shy away each other if there is even a faint perception of “racism” on one side or another. For this reason broad, sustained coordination among groups is very difficult to achieve.

However, due to the rise of the Islamic State and the increasing incidence of atrocities committed by jihad groups, more and more people are becoming aware of the nature of the crisis that faces us. As a result, I can see our work becoming less difficult in the not-so-distant future — we will not be required to overcome as much initial resistance as has been true in the past.

“Racism” will eventually seem less important, given the immediacy of violent jihad and the illiberal cultural regimen imposed in areas that have accepted sharia rules.

8. If the counterjihad were to be successful, how would the world be different in twenty years’ time?

Your question doesn’t make any sense, because the Counterjihad can’t possibly achieve success within twenty years, or even forty. This is the “Long War”. I expect it to last at least two more generations. I will be long dead before there is any final resolution, so I’m reluctant to predict the shape of things to come.

Let’s just say that I expect that we will experience an undetermined number of grim and bloody decades before this is over.

9. If someone wanted to learn more about the issues discussed on Gates of Vienna, where would you direct them? For example, are there particular books, websites, or other resources that you would recommend?

As a starter, I recommend the book Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul. After that, anything written by Robert Spencer in his books, or at JihadWatch.org, would help the reader become fully informed. To stay abreast of the violence and brutality of Islamic terrorists worldwide, people should read TheReligionOfPeace.com every day.

For comprehensive, in-depth analysis of sharia law and jihad, the book
Catastrophic Failure by Maj. Stephen Coughlin is highly recommended.

10. Are there any issues not covered in your previous responses that you think should also be considered as part of this research?

I would like to emphasize the importance of studying Islamic law. Until non-Muslims in the West grasp the essentials of sharia, they will remain confused and perplexed by current events involving Islam.

Sharia is based directly on core Islamic scriptures — the Koran, the hadith, and the sunna — and has not changed in any meaningful way in more than a thousand years. When one has acquired a basic understanding of how it all works, such disparate phenomena as Boko Haram, the Islamic State, Louis Farrakhan, the Taliban, Hamas, and Anjem Choudary begin to make sense. The interconnectedness of events concerning Islam — whether “moderate” or “radical” — will start to become clear.

After reading some of the books and websites mentioned earlier, interested citizens should acquire a copy of ’Umdat al-salik wa ’uddat al-nasik, or The reliance of the traveller and tools of the worshipper. It is commonly referred to as Reliance of the Traveller when cited in English.

English-speakers should read the Revised Edition (published 1991, revised 1994), “The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ‘Umdat al-Salik by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 769/1368) in Arabic with Facing English Text, Commentary, and Appendices”, edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. The publisher is listed as amana publications in Beltsville, Maryland.

This is an authoritative source on Sunni Islamic law, because it is certified as such by Al-Azhar University in Cairo. There is no higher authority on Sunni Islamic doctrine than Al-Azhar; it is the closest equivalent to the Vatican that can be found in Islam.