Concluding Unscientific Postscript On Sinead O’Connor

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Sinead O’Connor, as she has informed the whole world, has apologised for her rant last year in which she said she “never wants to spend time with white people again.”

Many will remember the statement the egomaniacal and semi-demented singer tweeted to the world, a few weeks after she – once Sinead and subsequently Shuhada — announced that she had become a Muslim: “What I’m about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting.”

The singer now says that she was ‘angry and unwell’ when she made the ‘racist’ remark last October.” (It was actually in early November.)

If Sinead O’Connor told everyone in October 2018 how calm and content she felt, ever since she had accepted Islam, or realized that a she had been a Muslim all along, why was it that she was “angry and unwell” just a few weeks later when, in November, she made the remark she now calls “racist” about white people? In her confusion, she conflated “non-Muslims” with “white people,” for she wrote “I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called).”

Was she “angry and unwell” despite, or could it have been because of Islam? She could have read in the Qur’an that non-Muslims (or “white people,” as she called them) are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6). She could have read the verses about not taking Christians or Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other” (5:51). She could have read many verses commanding Muslims to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of” non-Muslims, which might well have caused Sinead O’Connor, who had renamed herself as Shuhada Davitt, to regard those objects of so much inculcated Qur’anic hate as “disgusting.”

What should have been her views of Jews, after all, if she formed her opinion based on the Qur’an, where she might have learned about Islamic antisemitism, which as Robert Spencer has written is rooted in Qur’an 5:82, which says Jews are the worst enemies of Muslims; in 2:65, 5:59-60, and 7:166, which has Allah transforming disobedient Jews into apes and pigs; in 9:30, which says Jews are accursed; and many other passages. Spencer has usefully collected them here: “The Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the wellbeing of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); as fabricating things and falsely ascribing them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); claiming that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); loving to listen to lies (5:41); disobeying Allah and never observing his commands (5:13); disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more.”

While Christians do not suffer denunciations of the same virulence or frequency in the Qur’an as do Jews, they are regarded, with Jews, as “the most vile of created beings.” They are to be fought, just like Jews, as Qur’an 9:29 commands: “Fight against Unbelievers [Christians and Jews] until they pay the tribute readily [the Jizyah], being brought low.” Quran 9:30 calls for their destruction, just like that for the Jews: “And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!” Surely these are the passages where Shuhada Davitt got the idea that non-Muslims – her “white people” – are “disgusting,” and caused her to exclaim that “I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called.)”

Almost a full year has passed since she made her declaration. And she has apparently discovered – it must have surprised her — that many of those “white people” took umbrage at being described as “disgusting”; on social media she has been raked over the coals. Now that she is about to return to the stage – after being away for five years — for performances in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Wexford, and has even hinted at a new album, she needed to mend fences. No doubt her friends, or even a possible agent, suggested it would be a good idea to apologize for her “I never wanna spend time with white people again” remark and mend fences. So she came up with this on September 8: “As regards to remarks I made while angry and unwell, about white people… they were not true at the time and they are not true now. I was triggered as a result of islamophobia dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one of many crazy tweets lord knows…” Excuses, excuses: “I [was] angry and unwell.” And “I was triggered as a result of islamophobia dumped on me.” What is she talking about? What “islamophobia” was “dumped” on her? She still can’t come clean, can’t declare that there are no legitimate excuses for her idiotic and intolerable remarks.

Box-office considerations, not real chagrin or genuine sorrow, are behind this only apparent change of mind.

“Speaking about finding the religion, O’Connor told The Late Late Show‘s host: ”I read chapter two of the Qu’ran and I realised I’m home, and that I’ve been a Muslim all my life. There’s a way of thinking.

You can be a Muslim without actually being a Muslim as it’s a headset. A Muslim is someone who believes nothing should be worshipped except God.”

If she read Sura 2, Al-Buqarah (“The Heifer”) then she must have read 2:191-2:193:

2:190. And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors.

2:191. And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing. And fight not with them at Al-Masjid-al-Haram, unless they fight you there. But if they attack you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

2:192. But if they cease, then Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

2:193. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah and worship is for Allah. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)

Those verses in Sura Two are unambiguous commands to Muslims to fight and to kill the Unbelievers. Yet it was this very Sura, so very unpleasant toward Unbelievers, that Sinead/Shuhada found so attractive, and that was enough for her to feel she had come home: “I read chapter two of the Qu’ran and I realised I’m home, and that I’ve been a Muslim all my life.”

Has she read more of the Qur’an beyond “chapter two,” or was that enough to convince her of the sheer rightness of Islam, and that she has “been a Muslim all her life”?

Someone whose entire adult life has been a sad succession of crazy episodes, failed suicide attempts, drugs, attention-getting bizarreries, has for nearly a year proudly proclaimed that she has at long last found peace as a Muslim, and that “I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting.”

I think we should oblige her. Let’s start by none of us white people buying her records, or her videos, and let’s make sure not to attend her concerts in Cork, Galway, Dublin, and Wexford.

I don’t wanna spend time with Shuhada Davitt again (if that’s what she’s now called). Not for any moment, for any reason. She is disgusting. Perhaps you will agree.

First published in Jihad Watch

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