Newsletter November 2007 #70

Table of Contents:

Alexander Mackenzie's Bookshelf

Much thanks to two dear friends of the Institute. Solette saw the review of Dick Simpkin's Race to the Swift and amazingly procured a copy for us (when repeated orders from Amazon.com had come to naught). Jeff provided a copy of an ugly and very disturbing novel from the mid-1970s called Camp of the Saints about mass migration from the Developing World into the West; which now seems both prophetic and very hard to find.

A Banned Book and Samizdat Press

In the old Soviet Bloc, various dissidents would evade the official government censors through what became known as the Samizdat Press. Those who had received forbidden literature (usually poetry, essays and novels deemed dangerous by the authorities) would ėself-publishî copies of what they had and clandestinely distribute them. Today, we have scanners and the internet. Given the various lush Saudi funding sources available to shut down and intimidate those who write and speak about the Jihad movement, it seems time for a return to the tradition of Samizdat.

Alms for Jihad by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins has been pulled by its publisher (Cambridge University Press) following the 35th major libel action against writers on the Jihad and Wahhabis in British courts by a Saudi Billionaire. It wasn't that the book was inaccurate, but that the plaintiff had deep enough pockets to seriously threaten the publishers. Anyway, somebody or other managed to secure a copy as the recall order went out and -- now that the publishers have abrogated their sacred duty of releasing this vital study to the public -- has made sure that electronic copies are in circulation... not that we know anything about this, okay?

If we had read the book (and of course, we haven't); we might observe that it seemed to be a superbly researched and very accurate comprehensive study of the web of 'charities' set up by Saudi Wahhabis to support al Qaeda and the Jihad. Of course, we haven't read the book and wouldn't know enough to imagine where it might be found in electronic format. Nosirree, don't know nothin' about it....

If you loved Mein Kampf...

In a corner of one of our bookshelves is a little stack of disturbing tracts; all of which have incited murder in one way or another. Mein Kampf is there. Some of Lenin's slender works are stacked there too; they also inspired mass murder. Mao's Little Red Book is stacked underneath that deeply ugly White Supremacist fantasy The Turner Diaries (also now largely unavailable). Qaddafi's The Green Book is also there; not that he really got a mass movement going, but he gave it a good try.

There's a strong temptation to move the Quran there from its current place beside a pair of Bibles and the literature of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and some other religions. This stack also seemed like a good place to lodge Bruce Lawrence's Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (Verso Press, London, 2005)

Osama's current whereabouts remain a mystery -- though a good bet is that he has been lurking under semi-confinement in Iran since mid-2002. However, he continues to pass messages and essays on a variety of subjects. Osama, like Hitler or Mao, has pretensions to being an intellectual; in his case he sermonizes as if he was a scholarly Islamic cleric. His faith and credo is presumably sincere (like Hitler, but unlike Mao), but he has Stalin's own zeal in recommending woe for those who won't join his crusade. We have long been familiar with the horrors that can be unleashed by a few words. In Osama's case, one could imagine what nightmares might be unleashed by his argument that the Jihad movement is allowed to kill four million Americans, half of them children. This book's placement beside Mein Kampf is well justified.

A Child Soldier's Tale

Drugged-out children, often barely bigger than the weapons they carry, have been a feature of many wars of the 1990s and today -- particularly in Africa. Without the judgement, scruples or distractions that adults have, child-soldiers can be easily turned into murderous thugs; and too many warlords and militia leaders have done just that. Moreover, for a sixteen year old who has known nothing but a narcotic haze and brutal violence for three or four years, can there ever be redemption?

Evidently yes, judging by Ishmael Beah's account of his experiences as a young teenager in Sierra Leone and his recruitments into the ranks of the Revolutionary United Front and what passed for Sierra Leone's army; and then about his rescue and recovery by UNICEF. A Long Way Gone:? Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Douglas&McIntyre, Vancouver, 2007) is a slender book, and understandably short on details about much of what passed for the author's 'military' career between his conscription and rescue; but it is fascinating and moving. Ishmael Beah's dignity and humanity have been recovered, which makes one wonder about all the other human potential squandered by the squabbling war-lords in Africa.

The Life of a Muslim Refusnik

Listening to Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak a couple of years ago, it was easy to be impressed by her courage, iron will, clarity, intellect, and charisma; which made the purchase of her autobiography an automatic reaction to its publication. Hirsi Ali's tale of her life so far in Infidel (Free Press, Toronto, 2007) is a compelling narrative from a first encounter with her Grandmother (a tough-minded rural nomadic Somali) to her departure from the Netherlands to the US.

Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands as a refugee and became an MP and a courageous champion of free speech... she has something to teach all of us. Her insights into an Islamic upbringing are damning -- she lived in four different Muslim societies and is still not reconciled to relatives who might want to kill her for her 'disgrace'; her view of the freedoms and rights we take for granted are exhilarating and a strong affirmation of the worth of our society. It is also striking to see an outside perspective of such small things as buses that stick to schedules, people who don't automatically heave their trash into the street, and bureaucrats who work without having to be bribed.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca