This week is hotting up as Elon Musk chases out Twitter fascists. He also opens up the platform to free discussion and dissent, despite howlings from the Left. However, the other social media giants show no signs of abandoning their fascism. New English Review Press said Sunday that it had pulled a book published in 2017 by Ibn Warraq (Islam in Islamic Terrorism) from Amazon. There was no explanation and there is no appeal.
It’s quite a bizarre move. I am privileged to have known Ibn Warraq for many years and consider him my friend. I have also read The Islam in Islamic Terrorism. His groundbreaking and courageous book Why I Am Not a Muslim, which he wrote in the 1990s, had a profound influence on me. It also helped me to begin writing about Sharia oppression and jihad violence. Ibn Warraq was a kind soul, a thoughtful scholar, a brilliant writer, and an original and profound thinker. Islam in Islamic Terrorism does not contain hateful rhetoric. It is a meticulously documented exploration of the Islam terrorists use to justify violence and recruit peaceful Muslims.
Amazon is however run by Leftists. Any criticism of Islam, even if it suggests that it might be connected to Islamic terrorists, should be dismissed without any further discussion. The notorious far-Left smear machine, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been defamed as “hate group leaders” for years. Amazon has also banned counter-jihad 501c3 charities from its Amazon Smile charity program based on the SPLC’s “hate” listings.
Amazon is also open to banning books that are contrary to the Left’s absurdity. The Leftist behemoth ban Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally, Responding to the Transgender Moment. This was a few years ago. Other books that jihadis or their allies might find offensive have been banned by the Leftist behemoth, including Peter McLoughlin’s Easy Meat: Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal and Mohammed’s Koran by McLoughlin, British activist Tommy Robinson.
As they have always said to critics of social media giants, leftists will claim that Amazon is a private corporation that can do whatever it pleases and that patriots can open their own bookstores if they don’t like it. Do you remember bookstores? There were once many bookstores in every American city. Each one had a different selection depending on the owner’s perspective and interests. They are now almost gone. Amazon is the dominant bookseller, while Barnes & Noble holds the majority of the remainder. If Amazon decides your book is unacceptable, most people interested in books won’t have the chance to view it.
The U.S. government ruled that several monopolies, including Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and AT&T, were not in the public’s interest, making them compulsory to be dismantled. This was earlier, more polarized times. This would be a huge boon to freedom of speech, but Big Tech as it stands now is more likely to punish Musk for protecting freedom of speech on Twitter than the other social media companies for suppressing this freedom. American citizens would also be greatly benefited from the dissolution of Amazon and the restitution of bookstores that represent different points of view with selections that do not only reflect Amazon’s Leftist doctrinaire line but also other points of view.
You can still find Islam in Islamic Terrorism here. It is clear that Amazon wants to stop the debate on a controversial topic. Even if Ibn Warraq’s works are not your favorite (which would be strange, since it would indicate that you don’t like lucid, elegant prose and compelling reasoning), you can’t deny that Amazon will pull any book from its shelves for political reasons. Amazon is the only bookshop that matters. Books that offend Leftist elites may be deep-sixed at their will. This precedent is dangerous for a free society and corrosive. It’s alarming in the extreme, especially in this age of creeping authoritarianism by the Biden regime.
