Progress Party leader Carl I. Hagen in Norway launched an attack on Islam Tuesday. Thanks to Bjørn Stærk you can read the speech here and in English here.
The content [of the Koran and the Bible] is different in many ways. We Christians are deeply concerned with children. Jesus said, 'let the small children come to me.' I can't imagine that Muhammed could have said the same thing. [laughter] If he had, it would have been 'Let the small children come to me, so I can exploit them in my struggle to Islamify the world.'Because that is what is happening. Children are being actively used.
This is a annual thing. When summer hits and news are slow, Carl I. Hagen comes with a statement that are at least close to racist. Bjørn Stærk makes some good points on this:
I'm bothered by the religious chauvinism here, (which oddly none of the media have picked up on). Norway is no longer, as Hagen says, founded in Christian values. It is founded in Western values, and it is Western values we must ask that immigrants accept. Although "Christian" in the sense Hagen uses it here is probably interchangable with "Western", it is an unnecessary provocation to force that term onto Norwegian Muslims.
But then he makes points that I find totally wrong:
But apart from that, Hagen's worst fault is an occasional lack of clarity, and I agree almost entirely with what he says about Israel. This is not hate speech, it's not something out of the 30's, (except for Churchill, perhaps?), and his criticism of Islamism is fair and necessary, (as long as we don't carelessly extend that criticism to Islam in general.) This is a valuable contribution to the Israel and Islam debates. Too bad noone will get to read more than the two or three media approved "controversial" quotes.
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