Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 11/01/2010 8:39:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Jon Stewart's Rally for Sanity yesterday featured Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens singing "Peace Train". Islam/Stevens previously showed his commitment to peace and sanity by saying that death was the appropriate punishment for Salman Rushdie's "blasphemy".
He has tried to wiggle out of it and issued all kinds of denials.
But here is what he said (SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens%27_comments_about_Salman_Rushdie) to Geoffrey Robertson QC in 1989. (Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wjxwpvqps)
Robertson: You don't think that this man deserves to die?
Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Y. Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act - perhaps, yes.
[Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned] Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?
Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing.
And here is what Rushdie said about him:
"However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme "that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, 'I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing'.'' "
He added that "if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, 'I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is'.''
In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he "stood by his comments".
Let's have no more rubbish about how "green" and innocent this man was.
-- Salman Rushdie, New York
What "Cat" ought to have done was apologise to Rushdie and commit himself to the right to criticise power in whatever form it takes, but he has not and American leftists have yet to learn that they cannot be a little bit liberal. They can't denounce the idiocy of Fox and ignore the idiocies of religion. Maybe they will never learn.
I'm close to giving up.
PS Just had this message from Rushdie: "I've always liked Stewart and Colbert but what on earth was Cat Yusuf Stevens Islam doing on that stage? If he's a "good Muslim" like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar then I'm the Great Pumpkin. Happy Halloween."
PPS: Just had this from my marvellous Observer colleague Andrew Anthony: "He told me in 1997, eight years after saying on TV that Rushdie should be lynched, that he was in favour of stoning women to death for adultery. He also reconfirmed his position on Rushdie. He set up the Islamia school in Brent, which is currently undergoing council-backed expansion. Its mission statement three years ago explicitly stated that its aim was to bring about the submission of the individual, the community and the world at large to Islam. For this aim it now receives state funding. Its an incubator of the most bonkers religious extremism and segregation, and is particularly strong on the public erasure of women. Why do people go to such lengths to ignore these aspects of Yusuf Islam's character and philosophy?
Traitorous insanity strikes again.
message from Rushdie: "I've always liked Stewart and Colbert...There's the problem, right there.
If you like commie stooges, and understand that in today's world commie stooges are also muzzie stooges, then you have to accept their support for fatwa's against your life.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
There was a time when filth like Stevens/Islam would not be allowed to enter this country.
I pray he gets exiled to some Islamic totalitarian state where they will regulate his every breath.
Islam is a brain virus. Very destructive.
The only known cure is Jesus Christ.
When Sal Bass talks, people listen:
********************************
Kramer and Jerry at the health club. They see “Salman Rushdie” talking to Sidra.
JERRY: There’s Sidra.
KRAMER: There’s Salman.
JERRY: Where?
KRAMER: Talkin’ to that woman.
JERRY: Talkin’ to Sidra?
KRAMER: If that’s Sidra, she’s talkin’ to Salman.
JERRY: I don’t think that’s Salman.
KRAMER: Well, I don’t think they’re real.
JERRY: If that’s Rushdie, they’re real.
KRAMER: If they’re real, that’s Rushdie.
There's a class of people who go to such converts and ask them questions as if they are authorities on the religion.
Whether it's fair or not, that's what goes on.
I spent about an hour today reading up on Cat Stevens. The Rushdie thing is not all that meaningful ~ but I'd like to say this about that ~ Islam has established death as the proper penalty for apostasy. If Christians were like Moslems we'd cut Cat Stevens to pieces.
Well, now, he's stuck in that religion so too bad Cat. People will keep suckering that answer out of you forever.
Not to defend Rushdie ~ he thought it quite acceptable to defame Mohammad's wives. They are not known to have ridden about lopping heads themselves, and at least one of them is reputed to have been but a child.
I think we can deal with criticism of Mohammad without trashing innocent women. It's just not Christian to do that, and if Rushdie is going to live among us he should learn to hold to our standards. if we weren't protecting his sorry butt he'd be cut into little pieces as well.
I think we can deal with criticism of Mohammad without trashing innocent women. It's just not Christian to do that, and if Rushdie is going to live among us he should learn to hold to our standards. if we weren't protecting his sorry butt he'd be cut into little pieces as well.
Have you read his work?
Rushdie is cowardly and stupid. He hid behind Margaret Thatcher’s skirts while publicly attacking her policies. Now WE are stuck with this creep as he goes from wife to wife and super model to super model (did you ever see what this guy looks like??) all the while putting down America and supporting the Ground Zero mosque. Christopher Hitchens can have him!
Now that I’ve ranted about him, I am disgusted at Cat Stevens being invited to perform at that concert. I guess Colbert and Stewart are determined to defeat liberal democrats.
Rushdie didn’t get the Fatwah for trashing M’s wives. He got it for revealing the Satanic Verses and exposing Islam for what it is.
Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens is a very disturbed individual from way back.
“Ride on the peace train . . . OR I’LL KILL YOU!”
What a perfect liberal. Hates so completely that he wishes other people will do commit murder
Personally, I think Colbert and Stewart are disappointed that most of the people who showed up were the typical lefty losers. They picture themselves as the voice of the moderate, centrists, and that was certainly not a moderate, centrist crowd out there.
That (to my knowledge) this man Stevens was not charged or even reprimanded, is all about the cowardice in England re Islam. I believe a reprimand would have been in order, not wishing to silence such a man. For if only people there, realise what it is all about, by this awful man's perverted ideas, it is to the good.
Orwell turns in his grave.
I’m not really sure what the point of the Cat Stevens appearance was... was it satire? To prove a point?
Yusuf got cut in the the middle of signing PEACE TRAIN by Colbert who droned on and on about why he’s not riding on that “TRAIN”... then suddenly, Ozzy Osbourne appeared singing someting different...
It was clearly a skit to illustrate something, which Yusuf agreed to participate in, but I don’t know what the point was....
The Return to The Sanatorium Rally.
agreed
“What a perfect liberal. Hates so completely that he wishes other people will do commit murder.”
That is the Post of the Election season.
Poor slob that he is, he started with that “Moon Shadow” and next thing you know he’s worshipping the “moon god”.
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