From Downeast, last week. I hadn’t seen any information on this before.
Mike has translated an open letter from Filip Dewinter to his former bank, Fortis. As he says in his title: “IF FILIP DEWINTER DID NOT EXIST, THEY’D HAVE TO INVENT HIM” – but fortunately, he does exist and is willing to take on the Goliaths.
Antwerpen, 21 januari 2008
Open letter
Fortis NV
To the Chairman of the Board of Directors
Sir Maurice Lippens
Koningsstraat 20
1000 Brussels, BelgiumDear Sir Lippens,
From media reports I learned that Fortis, as the first Belgian bank, launches an investment product in compliance with the rules of sharia, the islamic law. More specifically, the “Fortis B Fix 2008 Islamic Index 1”, a bevek [ ] offered in 80 Fortis franchises. The investment fund comprises only sharia-approved shares. Indeed, it is coupled to the so-called ‘Dow Jones Islamic Market Index’ (DJIM) a Dow Jones Index excluding shares from companies whose principal activities are not allowed by sharia.
On the ‘Dow Jones Indices’ site I found which companies are exempt from this index. They are companies active in the fields of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, pork-related products, conventional financial services (banking and insurance), arms/defence and leisure (hotels, casinos, movies, music, …). Compliance with the sharia rules is controlled by the ‘Sharia Supervisory Board’, an advisory board of islamic theologists.
With this letter I wish – also in my capacity as a Fortis client – to protest against the fact that you – presumably out of commercial interests – offer these sharia investment products to your clients. By selling these products, you legitimize the ideology of muslim fundamentalism, the ideology that strives for a society based on sharia law. The teachings of sharia are, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with our western values of democracy and rights and freedom. Sharia stands amongst others for an inhumane judicial system with corporal punishments, prosecution of other religions, female inferiority and a total rejection of whatever kind of distraction. By promoting these sharia investment funds, you simultaneously promote the rise of muslim fundamentalism and you seriously hamper efforts by moderate muslims who are willing to integrate and are themselves no advocates of sharia. Indeed, you foster the notion that one can only be a good muslim when one obeys sharia rules. In the meantime, I took the trouble to check out which islamic theologians have a seat in the ‘Sharia Supervisory Board’ which determines whether a share fulfills the requirements of the ‘Dow Jones Islamic Index’ (and thus also your Fortis-sharia investment fund). They are: Sheikh Nizam Yacubu from Bahrein, Sheikh Mohd Daud Baker from Malaysia, Sheikh Justice Muhammed Taqi Usmani from Pakistan, Sheikh Mohamed A. Elgari from Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah from Syria and Sheikh Yusuf Talal DeLorrenzo from the United States. Apparently you let fatwas from fundamentalists determine which shares you offer, by means of your investment funds, to your clients.
The members of the ‘Sharia Supervisory Board’ are controversial. One of them is Sheikh Justice Muhammed Taqi Usmani, one of the most important islamic theologians and former sharia judge in Pakistan’s Supreme Court. During his tenure he opposed an amendment furthering the protection of women in Pakistan. This amendment aimed for the abolishment of several extremely woman-unfriendly measures which, a.o., obliged rape victims to come up with four male witnesses, lest, in the absence thereof, the woman not be accused of adultery, a crime to be punished by stoning.
Usmani is also a proponent of violent jihad. In an interview with the Times (08/09/2007) he stated last year that ‘muslims have to live in peace in countries such as Great Britain, until they acquire enough power to enter battle’. In his book ‘Islam and modernism’, Usmani pleads for an agressive military jihad as a means to achieve islamic world dominance. The Times writes that his book is a polemic against the islamic modernists who ‘want to transform the whole Koran in a poetic and metaphoric book’. According to Usmani these modernists are ‘bewitched by western culture’.
Another member of the ‘Sharia Supervisory Board’, Abu Ghuddah, is Chairman of the Sharia Board in the Saudi bank ‘Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation’. A group of relatives of more than 1,000 victims of the attacks of 9/11 has filed a lawsuit against this bank because it reportedly is one of the main financiers of these terrorist attacks. Another member of the ‘Sharia Supervisory Board’, DeLorrenzo, is also a member of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), which counts many fundamentalists within its ranks and which was the subject of an investigation regarding the financing of muslim terrorism.
Because your bank is selling these sharia investment funds [and] because this constitutes a surrender to muslim fundamentalism, I feel compelled to scrap my accounts at your bank.
Yours sincerely,
Filip Dewinter
That is an appalling list of miscreants Fortis has managed to get onto its Board. Mr. Dewinter did his homework.
In the comments, someone explains how the mechanisms of Shari’a finance really work. Great scam – an exhibit of genuine Bedouin thinking scheming:
– – – – – – – – –
Sharia finance is not analogous to Kosher restaurants in that everyone eats & s**ts pretty much the same way.
Sharia finance hides interest in a long term fee structure so that the borrower is tied to the deal despite any change in the general economy. As in, you can not refinance your mortgage so you continue to pay 12% when other borrowers are paying 10% because they refinanced.
The fee structure hides the actual APR. This undoes the legal protection won for consumers when having a standard and common cost of borrowing stated up front was made a mandatory part of credit and loan paperwork.
Sharia banking empowers the wealthy which hold the money and not the people – businessmen and the like – who actually use money to create wealth. The lack of wealth creation is the most evident in Islamic countries as building homes etc, is not seen as a normal part of a consumers life, but rather as a gift of the wealthy to the poor.
Read up on places like UAE and the construction of new homes is not financed by the people who will live in them, but by the ruling family, usually as a way to keep the lid blowing off of social unrest.
Sharia banking is also very closely tied to the bankrupting and the denying of credit to non-Muslims. In Sharia banking, all transactions must be approved by a religious committee, of which only Muslims can sit on. This promotes crony lending and reinforces family/tribal connections between the borrowers and the loaners. Sharia law demands that Muslim interests are served first and so to be compliant a bank must loan to Muslims regardless of ability to repay or to be a good businessman.
Also by sharia law, money must be made available for jihad. So pretty much anyone using Sharia banks is contributing zakat to Al-Queda or Hezbolla or Hamas.
And these are the people who complain about the Jews and money. Talk about projection…
Islamic Finance comes to North America
http://www.terrapinn.com/2008/ifwna/
This deserves exposure and a response.
Here: Sharia Finance Watch!
Oh dear. I wonder how long it will take Chaaahles and his Nazi hunting supah nose to come sniffing in this direction? After all, a vague association with a few basement dwellers against mere hundreds of thousands of Islamofascist constituents? Chaahles know where the real danger lies…
Nice work!
The whole idea of Sharia banking is very new, BTW, like 20th century. Earlier, noone really bothered to make Islam dictate how finances should be run. We’ve had the international banking system for eight centuries now, largely running on unchanged principles.
Sharia banking is another part of the totalitarian system Islam – by its own admission – is.
Sure, Charles might do some jumping over this. Before he does, he really should read up on fascism figure out what it is, and that free market conservatives are tne most anti-fascist people you’ll find anywhere.
Charles could have a lot more fun – and success in the elections – by gunning for Hillary etc. for reimplementing fascist ideas 🙂
Good discussion on Sharia banking going on over at Harry’s Place
I suppose the LGF’ers will wet themselves over this again. You see, LGF’ers, this is why we support Mr. Dewinter. Blog to your heart’s content about how much you love Giuliani, then Mitt Romney, then low-fat ginger snaps.
Meanwhile, this man, with an actual political party, is actually engaged in the fight against the Islamization of his society.
Call us what you will. But in my opinion this man deserves an award on par with the Oriana Fallaci you presumably idolize.
– Sodra
Mr. DeWinter’s letter could have included the following book, “Islam and Mammon”, a brilliant book by Timur Kuran, written when he was (ironically, given heavy Saudi backing for Islamic economics) King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California.
According to Dr. Daniel Pipes:
Kuran finds that Islamic economics does not go back to Muhammad but is an “invented tradition” that emerged in the 1940s in India. The notion of an economics discipline “that is distinctly and self-consciously Islamic is very new.” Even the most learned Muslims a century ago would have been dumbfounded by the “Islamic economics.
[snip]
Kuran dismisses the whole concept of Islamic economics. “[T]here is no distinctly Islamic way to build a ship, or defend a territory, or cure an epidemic, or forecast the weather,” so why money? He concludes that the significance of Islamic economics lies not in the economy but in identity and religion. The scheme “has promoted the spread of antimodern…currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy.”
This is one the many reasons why I love Filip Dewinter. He not only speaks out against Islam but actually does something about it, unlike certain American bloggers we know…
Please be advised that you cannot count on broad American support in our fight against Islam, Political C. Muliculturalism etc.
Charles represent the general American social concept which is unanimously accepted by the majority:
1.There is no American national culture to be protected. There is no official national language, for English is not legally declared as such. Unlike in England or France there are no Historical national cultural icons like Shakespeare or Moliere either…There is no national tradition to adhere to, as long the diverse ethnic groups follow the laws and conduct their businesses accordingly they are OK.
Even the subjects of history in schools depend on the ethnic make up of the pupils, in brief, there is nothing “cultural” in America that Islamist can threaten.
2. Skin color is anathema to Americans since unlike in Europe where white skin equals the bearer of 1000 years of history, in the State this is a divisive and sometimes unpleasant issue people try to avoid. Hence Charles resents mentioning white skin in the forum for him white has a different meaning.
To conclude my argument, on the long run American majority will be welcoming toward Islamists provided they refrain from open terrorism.
We Europeans we can loose our identity, but there is no American Cultural identity to be lost.
So don’t count on them.
Bela, GoV’s comments policy, which I respect, prevents me from replying to your post the way it deserves, so I’ll just say for the millionth time, Prophet Charles does not speak for most Americans, actually we do have a culture, many Americans do care about race, even if we are usually too polite to go on about it in front of people we don’t know, and that if some of the more race-realist people on this board are now constrained from replying to a post like yours, you and others should also refrain from making such inflammatory and insulting comments about our country and culture.
Actually, I might just have protected this thread against another Charles-attack. By showing him clearly where he lacks knowledge, where to get it and where to apply it, any linkage from him to us would making look utterly stupid.
Perhaps next time better to wait until he does link…
latte island, it was not my intention to offend anybody for there is no point to do so, I apologize. I wanted to draw attention to the different cultural history, perceptions and mentality of the USA and Europe.
I said, there is no official national language in the US. True or false? I said White skin means 1000 years of history in Europe, but in the US there is association with KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Power etc. because America is not a monolithic white ethnic block like Europe. True or false?
Do you believe that Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as Classic American writer in Chicano circles or in Little Tokyo? “Quoth the raven, Nevermore.” Yet the Mexicans and Japanese regard themselves and rightfully so, Americans.
Can we speak of “melting pot” or pluribus unum when “Diversity classes” are forced upon students at universities? Multiculturalism is in vogue and President G.Bush said, I quote “America is an idea” not an actual place. Who invented the slogan “religion of peace”?
I am sorry if you feel offended but honestly I don’t know what did you find so revolting in my post.
Bela, I believe the offence was felt in the perceived tone rather than the majority of the content. You were very forthright, which is necessary in some situations and perhaps less so in others.
Thanks for the shari’a finance links, everyone…
Bela–
skin color is anathema to Americans
It is?? I have black relatives. They’re not anathema. I live in a black rural area, maybe 90% *not* my lily white hue. All descended from their slave ancestors who worked this land that their descendants now own.So I’m a minority here and it’s not a problem.
This month’s magazine “Virginia”, which I stole from the doctor’s waiting room to finish reading has a fascinating article on Virginia blacks in the 1860’s and the attempts to make a go of Liberia (went well, it seems, until all the American blacks died off or moved but I haven’t finished it yet). Liberia was a failed issue, though. Many slaves were offered a trip back by their owners and preferred to remain chattel in the US.
Race is divisive in this country bec. of the socialist attempts to make it a grievance issue. Without that, the victim mentality would’ve dried up long ago. But it is much more quixotic and personal and complex than Europeans can imagine.
English is not the “official” language (Americans don’t do things that way) but everyone who really wants to succeed in this country has to learn it…at least the American version of it. Want a good job with a future? Speak gramatically correct English…doesn’t matter what your accent is (though there is a dislike in the North of southern speech).
One time, at her request, I taught a young black woman to “talk white.” She was ambitious. In return she tried to help me improve my typing.
Mark Twain is a genuine American writer, one who sold well in England when he was alive, and continues to sell well here.
Ditto for James Baldwin (particularly in Europe), Harriet Beecher Stowe was translated into many languages and had a profound effect on American culture. Henry James was widely read in Europe in his time. And there’s William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the quintessentially American Hemingway.
I think it will be easier for Americans to fight off dhimmitude than it will for Europeans. Our p.c. limits are much wider and more resilient. The country is simply to large to be swallowed by one group, even the Mexicans or the Muslims. And we’re freer to object to their incursions and attempt to limit the damage.
American History lessons have been bastardized by the p.c. teachers’ unions, but any parent can (and many do) pass on the essential history lessons of our country, which include the founding documents. Any other country have a Constitution that comes close to ours? Look at that mess the EU had to devise.
We definitely have a culture, but maybe your own has blinded you to others’. Here’s one way to tell when you’ve met an American: whether you find the experience pleasant or not, you know you’ve encountered someone from the US, someone whose feelings and sentiments were formed in America.
Now why is that, Bela, if we have none of these cultural items you’ve named? What is peculiar about an American that allows you to spot one?
Dymphna, I believe what Bela meant is that discussion of skin colour is anathaema to most americans.
I don’t feel comfortable in my skin because it’s possible I did not compose my argument well and now I find myself on a stick to be impaled.
My observations were connected to Charles’ forum where he and everybody else repeated the same mantra, Odin cross, White Nazi, to wit, anything referenced to white skin color constituted a “casus belli”, Fjordman, GoV, got cursed as Fascist outlet. And all their support to fight Islamofascism has been withdrawn.
All I wanted to explain that Americans will not support any European party which puts an emphasis on skin color which is a code word for racial discrimination in the States but not so in Eu. Even “Atlas Shrugged” is condemned for supporting the anti-Jihadists of EU. I lived in New Orleans black neighborhood until Katrina destroyed the city … I maintain that racial questions play significant role in daily life but those issues are not part of my thesis. Remember Imus?
I believe Europeans feel threatened by the Islamic invasion into their society on Cultural ground which comprises common customs, beliefs, way of life, philosophy etc.
The resistance is not about economical matters.
I think that there is no UNIFORM American culture to be protected from Islamist. I never said anything disparagingly about American writers, artist, musicians … quite the opposite I am well versed in the Art and literary world because that is my livelihood. I can quote Poe by heart.
I feel sad if you suspect even a modicum a of negative attitude towards the States.
The initial subject of our discussion is Islam, everything else is mere digression.
To conclude, please tell us then what is the chief objection in America against Islamic presence, influence, provided they don’t blow up anything. And my sincere apologies if my way of thinking deemed too abrasive.
“I don’t feel comfortable in my skin”
?
Interestingly, skin makes little impression on me. Riding in the Brussels subway recently, friend of mine said: “This is how it feels to be a minority.”
I looked around and saw human, human, human, human etc. Sure, some looking darker than myself, but all human. No discomfort.
Then entered a European-looking man in Islamic dress, obviously a convert very fond of his religion! That caused alert, and while I’m quite aware that Muslims in non-plain clothes are not the ones carrying suicide belts, I paid close attention to him until he had parted ways from us.
It’s about religion, and ideology. No more, no less.
Bela, thanks for your gracious if a bit misguided reply. I am not offended at you personally. I just want you to reconsider the multiculti propaganda versus the reality. President Bush doesn’t speak for most Americans any more than does Prophet Charles. They both inhabit an elite transnational fantasy land real Americans don’t like. Also, we are losing our traditional culture because our immigration policy, since 1965, has favored the least assimilable i.e. third world immigrants. So, this is nothing personal against you, I just get annoyed when people who don’t understand the facts on the ground believe the multiculti propaganda that’s rejected by many Americans. Didn’t you notice the recent grass roots uprising against amnesty for illegal aliens? That’s the real America.
Well, it’s official:
King Charles has finally decided to grace us with his coconut-beating sycophants on this thread. And why? Nothing about Dewinter.
LGF: Le Pen Gets a Suspended Sentence
How this has anything to do with Le Pen is beyond me, but apparently in Charles’ unhinged mind it has everything to do with Le Pen. I mean, the two men share a continent, after all.
– Sodra
I noticed that too, Sodra. Also notice that Charles seems to have highlighted that story for one reason only – to bash GoV and Dewinter again.
When more lucid lizards didn’t take the bait and instead remarked on the more important highlight of the story – that of free speech being squelched, even if it is of an odios scum bag, Charles takes notice of this and makes this profoundly dumb remark (#18):
Laws against free speech are bad, we can all agree on that. But Le Pen is no poster boy for free speech; he’s being prosecuted for this stuff because he has a lot of influence.
Now, replace Le Pen with Mark Steyn. See where I’m going?
Does CJ think before he posts? Good lord – yes, let’s justify it on the grounds that someone has a lot of influence!
Moron.
Angle,
Near the end of the thread we get this gem:
“I do not agree that Holocaust denial deserves legal protection. Holocaust denial is a form of intentional incitement of hatred against an identifiable group – the victims of the Nazis. Freedom of speech is extremely important but is not unlimited. If a person publishes statements which have been repeatedly demonstrated to be lies, which the person knows to be false, and which are published with the intention of harming the victims, then IMO that crosses the line.”
While other posters later point out they are of the opposite position, it’s dumbfounding just how deeply this entitlement mentality has taken hold, even amongst people we would have considered allies until very recently.
Yes, the Holocaust was horrible. But it wasn’t the only genocidal act of the 20th century. Throughout history there have been massacres of just about every racial, ethnic, or national group on the planet. Does everyone deserve this protection against question? What about Israel and the Palestinians. Since Palestinians are claiming genocide, should questioning it be illegal?
I am of the opinion that “truth,” as understood today, should always be questioned. If you didn’t question “established truth” then you would have no scientific advancement, period. And we would still believe the Sun revolved around the Earth, instead of vice versa.
Having said that, I hold openly adamant Holocaust minimizers in the same esteem I hold 9/11 Troofers. Question away, crazy people!! If you find proof to your assertions, then and only then will you be vindicated.
– Sodra
Yup, I saw that one too, Sodra. Well said. And since I brought up Steyn, he most eloquently argues against what that person wrote in this post:
[…]But a good indication of societal decadence is when it prefers to obsess over fictional offences rather than real ones… If Adolf Hitler were to return from wherever he is right now, what would he be most steamed about? That in some countries there are laws banning Nazi symbols and making Holocaust denial a crime? No, that wouldn’t bother him: that would testify to the force and endurance of his ideas – that 60 years on they’re still so potent the state has to suppress them.
What would bug him the most is that on Broadway and in the West End Mel Brooks is peddling Nazi shtick in The Producers and audiences are howling with laughter…
Scorn and derision, like sunlight, are the best disinfectants to people like Le Pen or Irving. Charles and that commenter would rather their speech rights were squelched. Ugly stuff. The more digs he takes at Gov, the more we see his true colors.
Oh, and as an aside, I wonder how Charles feels about Pam Geller introducing Steyn at CPAC… surely Steyn is aware of Pam’s association with those nasty white supremacists!
Heh.
What was Fjordman’s diagnosis of Chazzer’s malaise?
Oh, right: obsession. You’d be amazed at the psychiatric literature out there on that particular psychopathology. Obsessives *suffer*….
I would’ve put up the post about Le Pen’s remark (it was a good one and I wanted to link to Transatlantic Conservative anyway). However, I realized that eventually some droid would spot it. Then I remembered:
I quit caring what they think or say or do in that swamp, unless one would define an occasional unplesant frisson as “caring.”
And I knew he’d hate the Dewinter post, too, but that’s how it goes. Chacun à son goût, eh?
Just wait till they sees the next thing I’ll do, and the one after that, and the following one, too…
I have a whole closetful — it’s not hard to have a collection of suspicious material when you’re dealing with paranoics because they have so so many things they hate or are afraid of.
So don’t worry, guys, this just keeps our (self-appointed) enemies closer.
Think of all that disapprobation as the compliment it is. The attention will wane eventually, and things will go on.
They always do…
But a good indication of societal decadence is when it prefers to obsess over fictional offences rather than real ones.
Like EU being obsessed with ‘extremism’?
Charles, BTW, is really stretching it trying to smear us with Le Pen. That must be guilt-by-association-by-association-by-association, with each link being ridiculously frail.
Some posters at LGF are taking Charles to task with his style:
The kind of duplicity that is being shown here, cannot be supported by me. You should rather dump the idea that you support free speech, and say you support speech of guys you like, and disapprove of speech of your opponents and enemies. That would be a little closer to the truth.
Charles, who *still* didn’t take the basic effort to figure out what Facism is about, reacts:
That’s enough. You can take your idiotic accusations of duplicity and post them elsewhere, along with your support of fascists and your whinging.
And predictable purges the dissenter:
I’m granting your wish to have your account canceled.