Manifesto against Islam - once more, with feeling!
Fellow-blogger Creeper and I disagree in many ways. However I think one of his comments is worthy of posting here and now:
"Proper credit should go to the following:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, of Somalian origin, is a member of the Dutch parliament, member of the liberal party VVD. Writer of the film 'Submission' which caused the assassination of Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist in november 2004, she lives under police protection.
Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer of Iranian origin, exiled in France, is a novelist and an essayist. She's the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste, la prison politique en Iran" (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et brouillard" (2005).
Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review which defends liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l'épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.
Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosopher, born in Algeria, engaged against all the 20th century "isms (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L'Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself.
Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor of Iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on Islam and Islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Globalization and Civilizations.
Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society's Secularist of the Year award.
Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called "Destroy Taslima" and to be persecuted as « apostate.
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany's Author of the Year Award, the European Union's Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.
Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the Danish citizens targeted by Islamists).
Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq, author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.
Antoine Sfeir :
Born in Lebanon, Christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed French nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l'Orient and has published several reference books on Islamism such as Les réseaux d'Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).
... and of course to the Jyllands-Posten newspaper for being the first newspaper to publish the manifesto."
Well, said, Creeper. Very well said!