Well, I'm sure about 99.9% of readers of this blog have never heard about this individual who is the Human Rights Coordinator of something called "Muslims for Progressive Values." This group is basically a rehash of the Progressive Muslim Union North America - minus Tarek Fatah - who was giving the proggies a bad enough publicity that they had to dump him (or, maybe Fatah dumped them... or each other).
Here are the names of the executive board of this proggie organization - I'll say one thing for 'em they're good in coming up with self-appointed titles for themselves.
Pamela Taylor (Chair, former PMU co-chair, and chair),
Kareem Elbayar (Vice Chair),
Zuriani "Ani" Zonneveld (President, former PMU executive director), Noreen Dabbish (Secretary),
Vanessa Karam (Interfaith Coordinator),
Raquel Evita Saraswati (Human Rights Coordinator),
and Sabahat Ashraf (New Media Coordinator, former PMU techie or something).
So, now lets take a look at Raquel ---- well, turns out that she is an Irshad Manjist... remember how initially the proggies tried to distance themselves from Manji? Omid Safi, the then chair of PMU, even claimed that she was not a proggie.
Well, this group is not carrying on that charade anymore --- Raquel is Vice-President of Manji's pro-zionist, "Muslim Refuseniks"/"Project Ijtihad." And her website links directly to Manji's website (warning: the front page has a soft-porn photograph of Raquel).
There's more - but I think readers get the idea 'bout what this new (old) proggie group is all about, and what kind of "human rights" they gonna be promoting (google her name if you really wanna know more).
8 comments:
Who cares? How do Raquel's actions affect you personally?
And by the way, showing your back or shoulder isn't soft core pornography. Soft core pornography is a picture or movie of a sex act that doesn't show certain body parts.
Maybe you should be worried about how people blowing up buses or buildings in the name of Allah portray your religion rather than how the acts of an American woman portray it.
Or is it better to kill indiscriminately in the name of God than be a liberal?
I'm not a Muslim hater, Iraq war supporter, or FOX news network watcher. Nor am I a regular follower or Project Ijtihad, though I agree with their cause. (BTW, how does being friendly to Israel or Jews equate to being Zionist? I'm legitimately curious.)
I simply feel that if you are going to devote an entire website to trashing the extremists on one side (by which I mean the so-called 'proggies'), you should consider that it makes you come across like you forgive the other side of extreme Islam, the people out there getting the most news coverage through acts of violence in the name of God.
Sorry if the last message made me come across as a troll. I'm just hoping that moderate Muslims will start to stand up for themselves, pull focus away form the violence, and show the world that Islam is a beautiful, decent religion.
Nit-picking over the liberals, in my opinion, is a waste of time. There are more important issues.
try raquel seidel, or rachel even. she's tried her hand at being a devout latina catholic, a braids wearing hip hop dancer, a wanna-be indian, and now this?
Irshad is a class one hypocrite, no question please! Want to know how she raised to fame from being a lesbian, here is how:
"Someone has pointed out that a picture of Manji on Gaza showed her enjoying the beach, but the picture was cropped to hide the barbed wire that kept Palestinians away. She also tells in her book about when she visited the Dome of the Rock and how offensive it was that she was forced to answer questions and jump through various hoops to demonstrate that she was indeed a Muslim. What others who were there tell is that the reason the staff at the Mosque was so skeptical was that she had been escorted all around East Jerusalem by a guard of Israeli soldiers in uniform. Muslims don't normally rate such an entourage. This is typical of her dishonesty in service to Zionism, as her unending self-reference -- to the exclusion of serious progressive Muslim efforts -- is typical of her egomaniacal dishonesty on other issues.
As I understand she started out as a presenter on a GLBT TV show in Canada, polished her media presentation image in that forum, and found that as a Pakistani-Muslim-Lesbian TV personality she was able to present herself as a celebrity spokesmodel for Queer Muslims. Then she connected with the Asper family, who own a chain of Canadian newspapers, and are notorious in their neo-con, Zionist leanings to the point that they censor any criticism of Israel in any of their papers. Manji got their generous support and became an outspoken defender of Israel. Whether that is sincere on her part or calculated opportunism I cannot say, but her lies, half-truths, and omissions suggest that she is either unrelentingly narcissistic or profoundly dishonest, or -- most likely -- both."
Irshad claims she is the sensational 'reformist' muslim. And she often appear on Fox, CNN to deiliver her powerful message in spirit of 'ijtehad'. She often dash other muslims; she is the only lioness' voice (?) to support Rushdie. But, Irshad never speaks for injustice in Palestine or Iraq. Never heard one single word voiced from Irshad to support agony and injustice of her own people!
The rise of Irshad is nothing but a blessings from our neo-con friends. Its the same British raj style to create a divide among muslims to create panacia and delusion.
How can Irshad reform Islam unless she come out of her closet of sin?
Irshad is nothing but a Munafiq, hypocrite at its best!
Raquel is a daddy's money lesbian with an inflated sense of self-importance.
Please do more research on her. It seems very likely that she isn't at all who she says she is. Notice how she didn't want to talk about her origins (parents) in that interview she did with Glenn Beck. And it's clear that she is lying when she says she prays 5 times a day or more.
Also, there is a photo of her practically saluting the Israeli flag on her "wife's" site. Very interesting.
Raquel (Rachel) Evita (Elizabeth) Saraswati (Seidel) was born on Dec 14, 1983 and raised in Windham NY. Many of her school friends are very saddened and troubled to discover her reincarnation as someone other than a caucasian, all american, christian kid like the rest of middle america. What went wrong?
While I support moderate, progressive Muslims and want them to stand up against the extremists, I'm not sure about Manji. I don't get how she can support the Iraq war and criticize Muslims for waging stupid wars. As for Israel, while I think Israel > PA and Arab countries, I don't think it's perfect. Manji should both criticize and praise it (when each is due) so some Muslims would at least think about not hating it and not claiming how she's a Zionist spy as they always do.
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