Posted on 08/29/2006 5:40:04 AM PDT by SJackson
Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and his accompanying cameraman Olaf Wiig were released on Sunday, August 27, 2006, following almost two weeks of captivity. While both men appeared to be in good physical health, the prognosis for their psychological state, and future journalistic contributions, is less sanguine. As depicted in this disturbing video, Centanni and Wiig were forced to convert to Islam, and recite an anti-Western diatribe, complemented by treacly Islamic apologetics.
During the brief press conference held almost immediately after their release, both men preferred to focus on the plight of the kind and benevolent denizens of Gaza. Momentarily acknowledging the coercive nature of their “conversion”, Centanni admitted off camera, “We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint”. But he felt compelled to add this bizarre disclaimer, “Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it”, before concluding candidly “…it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on.” Centanni expressed his primary concern to the reporters gathered at the Gaza City Beach Hotel press conference as follows: “I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind-hearted...The world needs to know more about them. Don't be discouraged.” Wiig reiterated these sentiments: “My biggest concern really is that as a result of what happened to us foreign journalists will be discouraged from coming to tell the story and that would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine…You guys need us on the streets, and you need people to be aware of the story.” And Wiig’s wife thanked unnamed “Palestinian women” from Gaza for their “solidarity”.
Within moments of making these effusively conciliatory statements—despite having been held captive and forcibly converted to Islam—the freed kidnapping victims were whisked off to Israel. Notwithstanding their pious ecumenical pronouncements, Centanni and the Wiigs failed to linger and socialize with the “very beautiful and kind hearted” local Muslim residents of Gaza, even those Gazan women who had shown them such “solidarity.”
Forced conversions in Islamic history are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries. Orders for conversion were decreed under all the early Islamic dynasties—Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks. Additional extensive examples of forced conversion were recorded under both Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish rule (the latter until its collapse in the 20th century), the Shi’ite Safavid and Qajar dynasties of Persia/Iran, and during the jihad ravages on the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the early 11th century campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni, and recurring under the Delhi Sultanate, and Moghul dynasty until the collapse of Muslim suzerainty in the 18th century following the British conquest of India.
Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the (dubious) concept of “no compulsion” (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters “confessional”!), has always been meaningless. A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the “Dar al Islam”, where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non-Muslim slaves, including children, were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased. Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists. And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam—continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands.
Given this enduring (and ignoble) historical legacy, it remains to be seen whether contemporary Muslim religious authorities—particularly those within Palestinian society, and affiliated with Hamas or Fatah—will condemn publicly the forced conversions of the kidnapped Fox reporters. Moreover, will they be joined by a chorus of authoritative voices representing the entire Muslim clerical hierarchy—Sunni and Shi’ite alike—from Mecca and Cairo, Qom and Najaf, to the Muslim advocacy groups in the West (such as CAIR in the United States, and the Muslim Council of Britain in England)—unanimous in their condemnation of this hideous practice, and formalized by a fatwa stating as much? Will such Muslim authorities at least recognize the acute predicament of Centanni and Wiig by issuing a fatwa stating that their “conversion”, being under duress, was not bona fide, condemning in advance any Muslim who might now attack these journalists for “apostasy” from Islam?
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What should be gleaned from this harrowing Gazan spectacle of non-Muslim journalists being kidnapped, imprisoned for nearly two weeks, and coerced at gunpoint into converting to Islam, while condemning their own societies? We must avoid indulging fantasies (such as those already expressed by the kidnapped Fox reporters upon their release) triggered by understandable Stockholm Syndrome reactions, or learned, fearful dhimmitude. Unsettling realities of the historical continuum of forced conversion to Islam must be discussed. The living Islamic fanaticism of the past cannot be allowed to poison the present (and future), unchallenged by Muslims themselves.
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"plight of the kind and benevolent denizens of Gaza....
that voted a terrorist group to be their government... how "kind"
Good article, but I don't buy the Stockholm Syndrome part.
Good article. In the 12th century, when a new group of more "orthodox" Muslims invaded Spain and ousted the earlier Muslim conquerors (whom they felt had grown too lax and accomodating of the kaffirs), they gave Spanish Jews and Christians the choice of conversion to Islam or death or exile. By that time, there were relatively few practicing Christians remaining in southern Spain, and many of them managed to flee to the North, although some were killed.
The Jews, as a group, chose exile, first moving to the Christian parts of Spain and then going to North Africa and later to other parts of the Middle East. Almost all the Jews left Muslim Spain; Maimonides was among them, incidentally, and during his stay in Morocco devoted a considerable amount of attention to trying to help Jews there who had been forcibly converted to Islam and therefore were rejected by other Jews. His advice to them, ultimately, was to leave the lands of the Muslims and go some place where they could take up Jewish practice again. (Which of course is the whole point of the State of Israel...)
In any case, I think the only good to come out of this is that we are examining these issues now. I have been amazed at how many people feel it's perfectly okay to publicly renounce one's principles. That is, this is something that any of us might do when confronted with the actual situation, but I don't think we should decide in advance, as many are doing, that we will simply give up everything we believe in or stand for. Sadly, I think that the hour of confrontation is coming and we will have to make a decision; it's unfortunate that so many people seem to believe that there's no point in even hoping or trying to remain faithful, and have already decided to renounce everything when the time comes.
Fox in general gets bizarre.
"Iraqi Forces Regain Control of Southern City
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Calm returned to a southern city Tuesday after a deal between Shiite militiamen loyal to a powerful cleric and Iraqi government forces ended a fierce 12-hour street battle that killed 40 people."
a southern city?, a powerful cleric?
What city, what cleric? This is non-news. Where on earth should I get info these days considering I don't want CNN and the like "news" wrapped in propagands.
So have they converted back yet?
Or is that not allowed in Islam?
I mean if they were just saying words and not believing it. The words were probably jibberish to them anyway.
Oh, I expect Amnesty International will soon be asking the UN to declare this a crime against humanity and then the perps will be captured, arrested and tried. Yes??
susie
The reality is his conversion was presented and viewed by MILLIONS of Muslims (along with the rest of us) world-wide. According to Islam, he has now become an “apostate” and the penalty for leaving Islam is death. So from now on, Mr. Centanni will be under the constant threat of death along with his family because there will be hundreds if not thousands of "devout" Muslims who will want to have the "honor" of carrying out the penalty for his defection from "the faith". On top of this, because of his fecklessness his "reporting" will be suspect when it comes to Muslims, the Middle East and anything having to do with the Palestinians or Israel. He will bd constantly thinking: “I don't want to say or do anything that might make the Muslims angry... they might just kill me and my family”. Because of this, you can forget about him being "Fair and Balanced".
What a tragedy, it would be like Edward R. Morrow being captured by the Nazis, putting on their uniform, declaring via radio that he had become a Nazi and pumping out Nazi propaganda for Gobbles that Hitler was right and the Allies were wrong.
The reality is Mr. Centanni has gained nothing of lasting value by "converting" and allowing himself to be used as a propaganda tool..
For those who want to flame me, my answer is this: hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Christians and others throughout history have been faced with the exact same fate and chosen not to bow their knee to save their skin. They were honorable and their enemies gained NOTHING in the way of propaganda value because they stood firm.
I am reminded of the Italian whom the Islamic barbarians had captured and who faced the exact same threats of death. He did not convert, he stood firm and said: "Now you shall see how an Italian dies." Yes he died, as will we all, BUT he died with honor and dignity and the enemy failed; they gained nothing. No video of him shrieking and cowering/begging for his life, no video of him saying "allah is god," "Islam is the way to go"... NOTHING. That can not be said of Mr. Centanni and the photographer.
People, especially those who name the name of Christ, need to keep their priorities straight. Jesus said: "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:24)
The time is rapidly approaching when we will all have to make up our minds about the answer WE will give when WE are faced with this choice and threatened with death, unless WE convert, or WE recant our faith, our values, our nationalism… fill in the blank.
“Land of the free, home of the “BRAVE”
… that is now in question as far as the rest of the world is concerned. All you have to do is line us up against a wall and threaten our lives and the world has seen that Americans will do ANYTHING to save their skins.
Bump for later reading!
Unfortunately many are merely "Christian" because they were raised in a "Christian" society. Unless your faith has become something of value for you personally, it won't be worth dying for.
Actually calling a people who killed your escorts, kidnapped you, and forced your conversion to their religion at gunpoint, "kind," "benevolent," and "sharing" COULD be considered a pretty good piece of ironic humor.
Rush said yesterday that one of the first things they did was to denounce their conversion and claim it invalid (sic). He also said that denouncement now makes them even bigger targets of the radicals.
No one can claim to know what they would do until they are actually in the situation, but I hope I would be given the courage to die first.
I think I would have trouble living otherwise.
Even if they weren't Christians, by accepting Islam and thereby accepting Islamic law (sharia), they would have been denying even their purely secular Western principles. I think this is a bad precedent, because it does, as you say, make it look as if Americans have no principles and all you have to do is threaten us and we shrug and give in.
Any religion that converts people at gunpoint, on penalty of death, then threatens people if they leave the religion with death, is not a religion of God.
Great post and I agree totally. Thanks for putting words to my thoughts.
Islam is a death cult. It should be banned from our shores.
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