It. Is. True:
Home Secretary John Reid has been heckled during a speech about targeting potential Muslim extremists. He was interrupted by activist Abu Izzadeen, who said he was “furious” about “state terrorism by British police”. In his speech, Mr Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children and act if they suspected they were being radicalised by extremists. It was his first speech to a Muslim audience since becoming home secretary.
Here’s the thing about the brainwashing of Muslim children thing. Everyoine thinks that the big problem is like the “you should hate non-Muslims because they hate Allah” Hezbollah-TV thing. And sure, having five year old girls say “the Jews are pigs and apes” on international satellite TV is a little disturbing. But let’s not underestimate the obsessive, pathological, deeply, deeply disturbing levels on which brainwashing occurs:
Pinocchio, Tom Sawyer and other characters have been converted to Islam in new versions of 100 classic stories on the Turkish school curriculum. “Give me some bread, for Allah’s sake,” Pinocchio says to Geppetto, his maker, in a book stamped with the crest of the ministry of education. “Thanks be to Allah,” the puppet says later.
In The Three Musketeers, D’Artagnan is told that he cannot visit Aramis. The reason would surprise the author, Alexandre Dumas. An old woman explains: “He is surrounded by men of religion. He converted to Islam after his illness.” Tom Sawyer may always have shirked his homework, but he is more conscientious in learning his Islamic prayers. He is given a “special treat” for learning the Arabic words. Pollyanna, seen by some as the embodiment of Christian forgiveness, says that she believes in the end of the world as predicted in the Koran. Heidi, the Swiss orphan girl in the tale by Johanna Spyri, is told that praying to Allah will help her to relax. Several more books have been altered, including La Fontaine’s fables and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
That’s the stuff that scares us. It’s not the eruptions of ideology as in the streets, and it’s not even the banality of hate on the TV stations. It’s the obsessive fascism that tries to seep into every knock and cranny that hasn’t already been drowned by religion. It’s the attempt to suffocate every single breath with the most clumsy religious dogma – that’s what’s really scary.
