<<<< Part 3

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Trying to prove that Islam is compatible with democracy, many Muslims are forced to twist existing Islamic concepts so that they cease to retain their original meaning. What remains can hardly be justified from a straightforward reading of the Koran or the hadith.

Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Ash-Shinqiti, director of the Islamic Center in Texas, states: "Another important value is checks and balances by which powers are distributed and separated in a way that achieves independence of each power and the ability to check and correct each other. In Qur'anic terminology, this is called al-mudafa`ah, which is a very important Islamic concept that protects the society against corruption. Almighty Allah says, 'Had not Allah checked one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief.'" (The Koran, 2:251)."

But this idea of setting one group of people against another bears little relation to the Western concept of formal checks and balances as enshrined in the US Constitution. Protection against "corruption" in this context means excluding non-Islamic influences, not preventing the abuse of power.

Another such concept is shura, usually translated as "consultation," which is found in the Koran 42:38, "...who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation..." and "… consult them in affairs (of moment)...," 3:159. According to Ja`far Sheikh Idris, professor of Islamic studies in Washington, "broadly understood, democracy is almost identical with Shura."

However, shura has never been formalized. The most authoritarian and brutal of rulers, such as Stalin or Mao, probably "consulted" somebody every now and then. Even Genghis Khan "consulted" someone as he massacred half of Asia. Thus, "consultation" by itself is meaningless. As long as there are not formal constraints on the ruler forcing him to take the good of the people into account, and as long as real sanctions are not in place if he fails to do so, "consultation" is empty rhetoric.

Sunni Muslims talk about the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib, all of whom had known Muhammad personally. Their rule ended with the murder of Ali in 661. Then the nominal leadership of Islam was transferred from Medina to the Umayyid dynasty in Damascus. In 750 the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad assumed the Caliphate, where it endured until 1258, when the Mongols sacked Baghdad. The Caliphate as a concept still persisted for centuries, although the Caliphs usually possessed no practical power. Finally, even the concept itself was formally abolished in 1924 by the Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

In an essay in newspaper The Guardian, spokesman Osama Saeed from the Muslim Association of Britain advocated recreating the institution, claiming that a "restored caliphate is entirely compatible" with democratically accountable institutions:

"The vision of any kind of new caliphate, shared by Muslims worldwide, is a distant one. Right now, even talk of bringing down trade barriers and free flow of people across Muslim states seems radical. But it is a vision that is needed, and one that should actually be supported by the US and Britain if they are sincere about the development of the Muslim world. The revival of a strong Muslim civilisation would be for the betterment of the whole world."

Irfan Husain countered Saeed's essay in Pakistani newspaper Dawn. He pointed out some glaring omissions:

"For starters, who would decide on a suitable candidate? What does an Indonesian have in common with a Turk, apart from faith? The truth is that religion is only one aspect of an individual's identity. Other equally important factors include language, ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, and a whole slew of layers that compose identity. To assume that just because somebody is born a Muslim, he will automatically obey a distant figure who calls himself the caliph is to ignore just how tenuous the authority of most of the past caliphs actually was."

The Christian Science Monitor interviewed a group of followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, in Jordan. They say that a single Islamic state from Indonesia to Morocco will bring prosperity and let Muslims conquer the West. "Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate - I would not say terrorize - the enemies of Islam," says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist. "And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam," he says, smiling. "This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light."

One of the speakers, Ashraf Doureihi, at a conference in Sydney, Australia, in January 2007, stressed the importance of establishing an Islamic state: "It is important... [to move] collectively in the Muslim world to demand this change from such influential people in our lands, even if it means spilling onto the streets to create a revolution or staging a military coup," he said. According to Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Wasim Durie, the conference would discuss ways of establishing an Islamic superstate. "As we were here today, what is at stake is not just the destiny of the Muslim world but indeed the whole of mankind," he said. Despite open calls for civil war, the Australian Government refused to ban the group.

It is easy to dismiss these ideas as marginal, but, as Robert Spencer warns, even if there is no chance of establishing a worldwide caliphate, that doesn't mean that these groups aren't dangerous:
"As if the fact that the Soviet Union had no chance of making the world communist means that it wasn't a threat as it attempted to do so. These learned heads seem to have no regard at all for the fact that as Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups try to establish a worldwide caliphate, they are capable of causing immense, catastrophic havoc. The fact that their goals are unattainable doesn't mean they can't do anything at all."

Author Abid Ullah Jan's book, The End of Democracy, has become highly popular in Islamic circles. Jan quotes an 11th century Iraqi jurist, al-Mawardi — whose works on governance are considered classics in the field — regarding the duties of the Caliph (page 189):

"According to Al-Mawardi, the duties of the Khalifah are, that he should guard the religion of Islam and suppress the growth of heresy; that he should interpret Islamic law as Mujtahid and promulgate it; that he should keep armies on the frontiers in order to defend Islamic territories from aggression by an enemy; that he should champion the cause of Islam either by offering Islam to the non-Muslims of the adjoining countries or by waging war against them until they accept the status of protected people [dhimmis]; that he should execute and preserve justice; that he should implement a sound financial system; that he should appoint only competent ministers, governors, tax-collectors, judges and other State officials and fix their salaries from the State treasury; and lastly, that he should supervise all the departments of the State."

Abid Ullah Jan also quotes the highly influential 20th century theologian Abul A'la Mawdudi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami in today's Pakistan (page 132):

"The 'Islamic State seeks to mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral norms and program of social reform. In such a State no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private.' However, this concept does not make the Islamic State an authoritarian or fascist regime, because 'despite its all-inclusiveness, it [Islamic State] is something vastly and basically different from the modern totalitarian and authoritarian states.' Mawdudi further elaborates: 'Individual liberty is not suppressed under it nor is there any trace of dictatorship in it. It presents the middle course and embodies the best that the human society has ever evolved.'"

According to Jan, "The reason why Muslims are not given a chance to sit peacefully, take time and set an Islamic State is that an Islamic State has the potential to show a real model of a just social order with all the features that the champions of democracy claim but can never present."

One might argue that it also has to do with the fact that one stated objective of this Islamic superstate, as Jan himself points out, is to kill or subdue all non-Muslims around the world.

In addition, Jan says that there has never been a single approved method for appointing such a Caliph, which he interprets as leaving room for elections (page 191):

"Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by not appointing his successor or suggesting any specific mode or laying down any framework for constituting or deposing such a successor, had acted in conformity with the Qur'an which is silent on this issue."

However, it is precisely because Muhammad, despite his many wives, never produced a male heir, never appointed a successor, and failed to provide any mechanism for choosing one, that immediate fissures developed among the early Muslims. Some wanted leadership to follow the bloodline of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima's marriage to Alī bin Abī Tālib, the father of Muhammad's male grandchildren Hassan and Husayn. He later became known as the first Imam of the Shi'a Muslims.

Despite all the nice words of modern apologists, it is difficult to view the Caliphate as anything other than a divinely imposed dictatorship. The principle of separation of powers as described by Montesquieu is totally unknown, indeed would be considered heretical. While there may be some dissent regarding the issue, it has been commonly held by Islamic jurists that as long as the ruler does not reject the basic tenets of Islam, he must be obeyed, since even a tyrannical ruler is better than anarchy. Thus he is supposed to "consult" others in the affairs of the state, but he is also free to ignore their advice. One is struck by the primitive nature of Islamic governance.

There will be debates by future historians about how EU leaders could do something as stupid as the creation of the Eurabian networks. One of the answers will have to be: They did it because they could.

I have heard some Socialists argue that the Communist system of the Soviet Union could have worked if they didn't end up with a leader such as Stalin. This view is fundamentally flawed, for the system itself invited a Stalin, or a Mao; there were no formal restraints on the power of the rulers under Communism. The same principle holds true for the Caliphate. Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The Islamic set-up ensures corruption and the abuse of power.

In 2006, the European Commission (the EU's government) announced that it would send its proposals for EU laws to national parliaments for comment - but it made clear that Brussels would only "take note" of national parliamentarians' wishes. The European Union's concept of "consultation" is thus that the people or their representatives should give their "advice," and then the leaders should be free to ignore this advice. Thus the EU will be able to integrate seamlessly into the Caliphate, given that it already operates under some of the same principles.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) quotes Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, a Jordanian intellectual, in criticizing Yusuf Al-Qaradawi's claim that "democracy is in the essence of Islam."

According to Nabulsi, "He is among those who maintain that the Shura is meant to advise the ruler, but does not obligate him. [Al-Qaradhawi holds that] the ruler must not be deposed even if he sins or oppresses, and that 'the ruler must be obeyed even if he strikes you or expropriates your property.' The Caliphate has remained unchanged from 632 through 2004 – it has kept its primitive, simple tribal form (the elite's allegiance to the sovereigns) – an un-democratic structure, despotic, and bloody except for a brief period of 12 years during the rule of Abu Baker and Omar Bin Al-Khattab [the first and second Caliphs]. (...) Since the time of [the Umayyad Caliph] Mu'awiya Ibn Abi Sufyan through the last Ottoman Sultan, (that is from the year 661 through the year 1924), the Islamic Caliphate was drenched with blood, and ruled by fist and sword – and even today the situation is the same in most of the Arab world."

Nabulsi quotes al-Qaradawi as saying: "'There are those who maintain that democracy is the rule of the people, but we want the rule of Allah.' Such ideas] are a call for the Rule of Allah, discussed by Sayyid Qutb in his book 'The Milestones.' [Qutb] borrowed this idea from Pakistani intellectual Abu Al-'Ala Al-Mawdudi, who introduced the theory that authority is Allah's, not the people's, and that the sovereign is none other than Allah's secretary and His representative on earth."

Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with the stated goal of restoring the Caliphate. There are signs that his disciple Yusuf al-Qaradawi, now spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, hasn't given up this goal. In an interview with German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, Qaradawi said: "Islam is a single nation, there is only one Islamic law and we all pray to a single God. Eventually such a nation will also become political reality. But whether that will be a federation of already existing states, a monarchy or an Islamic republic remains to be seen."

In another essay, Al-Qaradawi states that: "Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society. Christianity is devoid of a shari`ah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed."

In contrast, according to The New Testament, the rule is to: "Render unto Caesar things which belong to Caesar, and render unto God things which belong to God" (Matthew 22:21).

But, "as Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (`ibadah) and legislation (Shari`ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari`ah," and "the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari`ah is downright riddah [apostasy]."

The adoption of secular laws and equality for Muslims and non-Muslims amounts to apostasy. Harsh words from a man who has voiced support for the traditional death penalty for apostates.

The Iranian intellectual Amir Taheri has noted, "There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish. It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963."

According to Taheri, one of the key stumbling blocks is equality: "The idea is unacceptable to Islam, for the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer."

"Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty. In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God. But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God. (...) There is consultation in Islam. But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society."

He sums up with the conclusion that "Islam is incompatible with democracy." Yet in another essay, Amir Taheri wants Europeans to revive the Roman Empire:

"North Africa, which has the most beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean, could become a kind of Florida for the old-age pensioners of western and northern Europe. In exchange, millions of young people could move north from the south to provide the labor force needed to keep the modern European economies going. (...) A judicious mix of wealth and technology from the north and manpower from the south could turn the Euro-Mediterranean region into the biggest and most prosperous economy the world has ever seen."

This idea is called "Eurabia" and is already being implemented, as Bat Ye'or can testify. And it wasn't a very good idea. If he is correct that Islam is incompatible with democracy, what impact will it have on democracies if they get flooded with people who have an Islamic mentality? Amir Taheri is often brilliant in his writings about Islam, but in this case his ideas aren't logically consistent.

According to the website Islam Online, "Islam is not a religion in the common, distorted meaning of the word, confining its scope only to the private life of man. By saying that it is a complete way of life, we mean that it caters for all the fields of human existence. In fact, Islam provides guidance for all walks of life — individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international."

A common phrase is that Islam is Din wa Dawlah, religion and State. In 2005, after parliamentary elections, Younus Qanooni, a senior member of the Afghan Northern Alliance which helped the US overthrow the Taliban regime in 2001, stated that the country could never become a secular democracy. "Afghans will never agree on any secular or liberal system. Islam is the modern system and Afghanistan's future is tied with Islam." Yet Western soldiers are supposed to risk their lives, and Western taxpayers pay for, establishing just such a system.

This rather naïve view of democracy is unfortunately the rule rather than the exception. In a memo, the US State Department told its embassy in Cairo to launch a dialogue with religious groups because clashes with them would only incite more attacks against US interests. They also advised Washington to pressure the Egyptian government into allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to play a larger role in Egypt's political landscape. This despite the fact that many of the worst terrorist groups today are offshoots of the MB. Dr. Ahmad Al-Rab'i, former Kuwaiti minister of education, warned that "The founders of the violent groups were raised on the Muslim Brotherhood, and those who worked with Bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida went out under the mantle of the Muslim Brotherhood."

Author Tarek Heggy, too, warns that: "The Brotherhood opposes the notion of a state based on democratic institutions, calling instead for an Islamic government based on the Shura (consultative assembly) system, veneration of the leader and the investiture of a Supreme Guide. In this, they are close to the model established by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran. (…) The Brotherhood calls for a constitutional and legal system based on the principles of Shari'a, including cruel corporal punishments in the penal code (stoning, lashing, cutting off the hands of thieves, etc.)."

Actually, the only place where there has been any movement toward a democratic Islam is in Denmark. Of all the Western nations, Denmark has mounted the strongest popular resistance against Islamization. Syrian-born MP Naser Khader has launched a network called Democratic Muslims. New members are required to sign a declaration that they oppose Sharia laws. "Freedom of speech is the breath of democracy - and if you take that away, then democracy dies," said Khader.

Mr. Khader appears to be sincere about these efforts. So, apparently, are his Muslim opponents, which is why he has received numerous threats against his life. A French documentary used a hidden camera to capture an imam suggesting that Khader could attract suicide bombers if he became minister of integration affairs. The imam in question, Ahmed Akkari, later said he meant the comment as a joke.

The ideas behind the network are positive. They have defined the Ten Commandments of Democracy, among them:

1. We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy.

2. We must all respect that all people have equal rights regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

3. No person must ever incite to hatred, and we must never allow hatred to enter our hearts.

4. No person must ever use or encourage violence – no matter how frustrated or wronged we feel, or how just our cause.

5. We must all show respect for the freedom of expression, also of those with whom we disagree the most.

The problem is, only a small minority of the members Democratic Muslims are actually Muslims. The vast majority are non-Muslim supporters.

In addition, Muslims in Denmark seem far more interested in exploiting the democratic system than in supporting it. According to the Copenhagen Post, Wallait Khan was elected councillor for the Liberal Party in Copenhagen, only to defect to join the Socialist People's Party, which allowed them to establish a left-wing coalition. But Khan had also been on the campaign trail in Pakistan. Khan said six people had been elected in Pakistan despite their Danish residencies. "We Pakistanis in Europe have a competition between ourselves," he said. "We in Denmark compete with Pakistanis living in Norway and England about who holds most mayor posts."

The European Council for Fatwa and Research, whose leader is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, are working on a Muslim Constitution for Europe that will be above national legislation. According to Tina Magaard from the University of Aarhus, behind these ambitions "lies decades of work." Islamic groups have for years aimed at establishing their control of the Muslim immigrant communities, and in some cases have won official recognition from government bodies. According to Magaard, "The Imams and Islamists consider the cooperation with the state institutions a transfer of power. Now it is them who rule."

Even without Islam, a pure democracy with no restraints would not always be a good thing. For example, one could win the support of a majority of the people, largely by promising them access to other people's money. Once in power, one could begin to dissolve whatever restraints exist in order to secure permanent re-election. In February 2007, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was granted the right to rule by presidential decree in his efforts to build a Socialist state, a move critics say propels Venezuela toward dictatorship. National Assembly President Cilia Flores applauded with the words "Fatherland, socialism or death," while hundreds of Chavez supporters outside waved signs reading "Socialism is democracy."

Bruce Bawer, the author of the book While Europe Slept, noted that the title of world's most democratic country was awarded to Sweden in 2006 by The Economist Intelligence Unit. According to Bawer, "For many observers, this is not only wrong — it's staggeringly, outrageously misinformed. Though two-thirds of Swedes question whether Islam is compatible with Western society, this issue is simply not open for public discussion." To quote observer Jonathan Friedman, "no debate about immigration policies is possible" because Sweden's "political class," which controls public debate, simply avoids the topic.

According to Bawer, the city of Stockholm "carried out a survey of ninth-grade boys in the predominantly Muslim suburb of Rinkeby. The survey showed that in the last year, 17% of the boys had forced someone to have sex, 31% had hurt someone so badly that the victim required medical care, and 24% had committed burglary or broken into a car. Sensational statistics — but in all of Sweden, they appear to have been published only in a daily newssheet that is distributed free on the subways. Sweden is the only major Western European country whose legislature contains not a single representative of a party critical of its immigration policies."

Members of the small party, the Sweden Democrats, are critical of the country's extremely open immigration policies. Seldom can they hold meetings without being hassled or physically attacked. This has happened regularly for years with the tacit approval of the Swedish elites. Swedish newspaper Expressen warned against the "low-intensity terrorism" conducted by extreme Leftists and neo-Nazis.

Political scientist Peter Esaiasson has done research into every election movement in Sweden since 1866. According to him, the organized attempts at disrupting meetings during the 2006 elections have no parallels in modern history.

Added to this censorship on a national level, important decisions are made by unelected EU bureaucrats. If democracy is supposed to mean that citizens vote to decide their future, then Sweden is not a democracy; it is a multicultural dictatorship. One can vote for a variety of parties, but all of them support the same multiculturalism and mass immigration. Ordinary Swedes have little influence over their own future, and freedom of speech is non-existent. But the country still has the formal aspects of democracy: regular multiparty elections take place. This should remind us once again that elections do not automatically lead to a free society.

Famed historian Bernard Lewis, who reputedly had an important influence on the American policy to bring "democracy" to Iraq, in 2007 told The Jerusalem Post that Islam could soon be the dominant force in Europe. He ironically warned that this Islamization could be assisted by "immigration and democracy."

In Vienna, Austria in December 2006, Santa Claus was removed from kindergartens. Municipal officials insisted that the sight of a strange bearded figure at the door would evoke fear in kids, but many observers accused them of kowtowing to a growing Muslim population.

The Battle of Vienna in 1683, where the Ottoman Turks were beaten by a force led by King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, was the last time Muslims managed to threaten the West in traditional warfare. They gradually fell further and further behind due to their technological ineptness, which again is caused by their hostility towards freethinking as the basis of science. This suppression of curiosity is their Achilles' heel. Perhaps they have finally found ours. This time they are already inside Vienna.

In the end, Muslims have been more successful at peacefully infiltrating the democratic West than they ever were in challenging the pre-democratic West in open warfare.

Ibn Warraq warns that the Islamists view our open society as a means for infiltrating Western societies. He fears that we risk ending up with an Islamization of democracy instead of a democratization of Islam.

Walid al-Kubaisi, a Norwegian of Iraqi origins and a critic of sharia supporters, believes Yusuf al-Qaradawi is more dangerous than terrorist leader Osama bin Laden:

"In Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood discovered a unique opportunity: Democracy. The democratic system leaves room for freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and finances religious communities and religious organizations. This has been utilized by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate the Muslim communities, recruit members and build the Islamist networks that have become so visible lately." Whereas bin Laden uses bombs, al-Qaradawi exploits democracy as a Trojan horse. The Brotherhood gets their activities financed from Germany, England etc. They gain recognition and infiltrate the democratic system.

Patrick Poole describes the discussion of a document entitled "The Project", which so far has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. It was only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, that information regarding The Project was finally been made public. It was found in a raid of a villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001.

Included in the documents seized was a fourteen-page plan dated December 1, 1982, outlined a twelve-point strategy for a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the "cultural invasion" of the West. Among the strategies recommended were the following:

* involving ideologically committed Muslims throughout institutions on all levels in the West;

* including government, NGOs, private organizations;

* utilizing existing Western institutions until they can be put into service of Islam; and

* instituting alliances with Western "progressive" organizations that share similar goals.

Sylvain Besson and Scott Burgess provide extensive comparisons between Qaradawi's publication, Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase from 1990, and The Project. They note striking similarities between the two documents.

Meanwhile, Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been hailed as a "moderate" by people such as London's mayor Ken Livingstone, who welcomed him to a conference in Britain. This despite the fact that Qaradawi has supported suicide bombers, brags about how Islam will conquer Europe and was the most important figure in whipping up hatred during the Danish Cartoon Jihad in 2006. The current official leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Mahdi Akef, has declared that he has "complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America."

According to Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, the Brotherhood and its offspring organizations employ the Flexibility strategy:

"This strategy calls for a minority group of Muslims to use all 'legal' means to infiltrate majority-dominated, non-Muslim secular and religious institutions, starting with its universities. As a result, 'Islamized' Muslim and non-Muslim university graduates enter the nation's workforce, including its government and civil service sectors, where they are poised to subvert law enforcement agencies, intelligence communities, military branches, foreign services, and financial institutions."

Lorenzo Vidino writes about The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe: "Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations." According to Vidino, "The ultimate irony is that Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna dreamed of spreading Islamism throughout Egypt and the Muslim world. He would have never dreamed that his vision might also become a reality in Europe."

Douglas Farah has noted the largely successful efforts by Islamic groups in the West to buy large amounts of real estate. "We do not have a plan. They do. History shows that those that plan, anticipate and have a coherent strategy usually win. We are not winning."
 

>>>> To Continue in Part 4

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Fjordman is based in Norway. He contributes in Brussels Journal, Gates of Vienna and Faith Freedom International amongst other Websites. His personal blog (currently inactive): www.fjordman.blogspot.com