Fux Freakout

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Know what I've heard most about the Muslim world? That they have the best hospitality anywhere.

 

 

Wow! You *heard* that? Holy shit - that's impressive 2nd-hand info!

[JayB]

Why is this argument that simply reduces religious violence to what people read in ancient texts so compelling? It's certainly not one that's emphasized by the same folks when discussing the relationship between hyper-violent video games, television and movies, gangsta rap and death metal, etc to gun violence.

 

What exactly is the risk of exploring the complex history and contemporary political landscapes of the mideast to account for the rise of Islamist militancy? Why do the same people who thunderously assert the interconnectedness of global markets and geopolitics just as vehemently argue for a hermetically sealed, "endogenous" growth of political Islam? Who benefits from a narrative that suggests that colonial domination followed by cold war skullduggery and realpolitik, clientelism, unconditional support for a apartheid-state, invasion and occupation, etc. is really just a less important "bum roll of arthe dice"?

 

The answer unfortunately is quite simple: those who have been and continue to be served by the status quo and don't want anything to change. The fact that the cries of "caliphate!", etc. here have only grown more shrill since uprisings adopting the language of secular democracy, jobs, and rights have taken root there suggest that the arguments have nothing whatever to do with "getting to the bottom" of what makes suicide bombers tick and even less about upholding our values.

 

At this point in time, in the context of what's happened in the last month when Muslims are rejecting political oppression and speaking to material issues like jobs, Sam Harris' arguments simply look like outdated apologies more suited to 2002 than now. It's time to re-evaluate our historical role vis a vis the "Muslim world" and try our damnedest not to repeat the same mistakes. Resurrecting a discredited "clash of civiliztions" narrative from the neocon era and condemning all of Islam as a "cult of death" is a guaranteed non-starter with those moderate Muslims and secularists trying to make a break with the past.

 

It's clearly quite possible to look at all of the sociohistorical complexities you cite and conclude that there's a causal link between the rise of Islamism and...Islam.

 

If all we were talking about was what the Marin County Unitarian League's male-quilting collective did after reading ancient religious texts then there'd be little or nothing to worry about. When you change the context to a society in which all of the most fundamental beliefs, norms, customs, laws, etc have been fundamentally shaped by persistent interpretations of those ancient texts, then what's actually in those books matters a great deal more.

 

I personally hope that all of the revolutions in the Middle East succeed, and we're well on our way to a Muslim civilization where criticizing the fundamental aspects of Islam and renouncing your faith via a megaphone in a public is no more likely to entail adverse consequences than a Christian doing so in Copenhagen, but that's a long way off.

 

It's also not at all clear how holding our collective tongues while witnessing every bit of depravity, repression, and barbarism conducted in the name of Islam is going to benefit the moderate Muslims, secularists, etc who are the most likely to suffer directly from them.

 

 

 

 

[archenemy]

I'm guessing he didn't hear it from an Islamic woman who provides hospitality for her husband's buddies. (Of course, she'd be in the room next door and not allowed to "sit at the table" or anything crazy like that.)

 

I'm telling you, a couple of good, public stonings and a government sanctioned gang rape would really go a long way to improve hospitality in the US.

[JayB]

Know what I've heard most about the Muslim world? That they have the best hospitality anywhere.

 

 

Wow! You *heard* that? Holy shit - that's impressive 2nd-hand info!

 

"The Trouble With Islam

 

By TAWFIK HAMID

 

April 3, 2007; Page A15

 

Not many years ago the brilliant Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world’s decline, entitled "What Went Wrong?" Astonishingly, there was, among many Western "progressives," a vocal dislike for the title. It is a false premise, these critics protested. They ignored Mr. Lewis’s implicit statement that things have been, or could be, right.

 

But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world. Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq.

 

Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of

martyrdom. One would expect the orthodox Islamic establishment to evade or dismiss these complaints, but less happily, the non-Muslim priests of enlightenment in the West have come, actively and passively, to the Islamists’ defense.

 

These "progressives" frequently cite the need to examine "root causes." In this they are correct: Terrorism is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes are quite different from what they think. As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, I know firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist.

 

Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it. While there are many ideological "rootlets" of Islamism, the main tap root has a name -- Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of the religion.

 

It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic

teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong.

 

The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah. Unlike Salafism, more liberal branches of Islam, such as Sufism, typically do not provide the essential theological base to nullify the cruel proclamations of their Salafist counterparts. And so, for more than 20 years I have been developing and working to establish a theologically-rigorous Islam that teaches peace.

 

Yet it is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western

intellectuals -- who unceasingly claim to support human rights -- have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah’s inhumanity.

 

They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western "progressives" pave the way for Islamist barbarity?

 

Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of

terror.

 

Politicians and scholars in the West have taken up the chant that

Islamic extremism is caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. This analysis cannot convince any rational person that the Islamist murder of over 150,000 innocent people in Algeria -- which happened in the last few decades -- or their slaying of hundreds of Buddhists in Thailand, or the brutal violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq could have anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.

 

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to

self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans

demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them. Similarly, after the Madrid train bombings, millions of Spanish citizens demonstrated against their separatist organization, ETA. But once the demonstrators realized that Muslims were behind the terror attacks they suspended the demonstrations. This example sent a message to radical Islamists to continue their violent methods.

 

Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine’s formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession.

 

Worst of all, perhaps, is the anti-Americanism among many Westerners.It is a resentment so strong, so deep-seated, so rooted in personal identity, that it has led many, consciously or unconsciously, to morally support America’s enemies.

 

Progressives need to realize that radical Islam is based on an

antiliberal system. They need to awaken to the inhumane policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism spells the death of liberal values. And they must not take for granted the respect for human rights and dignity that we experience inAmerica, and indeed, the West, today.

 

Well-meaning interfaith dialogues with Muslims have largely been

fruitless. Participants must demand -- but so far haven’t -- that

Muslim organizations and scholars specifically and unambiguously

denounce violent Salafi components in their mosques and in the media.Muslims who do not vocally oppose brutal Shariah decrees should not beconsidered "moderates."

 

All of this makes the efforts of Muslim reformers more difficult. When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, it actually endangers the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of suppressing their voices.

 

Tolerance does not mean toleration of atrocities under the umbrella of relativism. It is time for all of us in the free world to face the reality of Salafi Islam or the reality of radical Islam will continue to face us."

 

*"Dr. Tawfik Hamid, is an Islamic thinker and reformer, and one time Islamic extremist from Egypt. He was a member of a terrorist Islamic organization JI with Dr. Ayman Al-Zawaherri who became later on the second in command of Al-Qaeda. Some twenty-five years ago, he recognized the threat of Radical Islam and the need for a reformation based upon modern peaceful interpretations of classical Islamic core texts."

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I'm guessing he didn't hear it from an Islamic woman who provides hospitality for her husband's buddies. (Of course, she'd be in the room next door and not allowed to "sit at the table" or anything crazy like that.)

 

I'm telling you, a couple of good, public stonings and a government sanctioned gang rape would really go a long way to improve hospitality in the US.

 

We're "just as bad" in the US. No, we're worse.

 

Good to have you back for a while at least Archie!

[JayB]

I'm guessing he didn't hear it from an Islamic woman who provides hospitality for her husband's buddies. (Of course, she'd be in the room next door and not allowed to "sit at the table" or anything crazy like that.)

 

I'm telling you, a couple of good, public stonings and a government sanctioned gang rape would really go a long way to improve hospitality in the US.

 

Ten to one says that says that you are about to have someone demand to know exactly what it is that *you* know about being a woman....

 

 

[archenemy]

We are bad -- exactly for the reasons laid out in the article Jay posted.

 

As far as I am concerned, "Islamophobia" describes the fear that the world feels toward this group of believers. The fear is justified. They use violence in the extreme against unsuspecting, everyday, non-combat people. They scare the shit out of people. Hell, they even scared South Park -- and that is pretty bad.

 

The PC crap has to stop. When I took Arabic, I couldn't believe how they were chosing to teach us the language. Every video we watched talked about how great the religion was, why it was a good thing to wear a veil, how lovely it is to share your "hostpitality", and on and on.

 

We studied the Koran. And guess what -- it's violent. Yes, yes, yes, so is the Bible. Difference is, Christianity reformed. It ain't perfect, but its adherents don't run around blowing themselves up in subways. And if a Christian disagrees with a teaching from the Bible, they can just go to another church. Or start their own and get a tax break. Disagree with a teaching of Islam? No tax break.

 

And enough with the "moderates" of the religion. Where are their voices? Why don't we hear about them fighting to stop the fundamentalist? They are scared too, even though they do share the basic belief that violence against non-believers (as well as believers who don't toe the line) is acceptable.

 

Until that religion reforms (just like the Jewish and Christian religions reformed) it is a threat. It threatens us directly. And we should protect ourselves by any means necessary.

 

There, I said it.

[prole]

Apparently your buddy is far more concerned about the "sociohistorical complexities" and material roots of radicalism than you are...

 

How the US can help the Egyptian people

By TAWFIK HAMID

01/02/2011

When the chaos leaves the front pages, the next chapter will be anger born of hunger. The US can foresee this and act quickly to provide the needed foodstuffs.

 

Egypt has been always considered the heart of the Arab and Muslim world. Currently the country is in a crisis that threatens to create a vacuum of power, and which may allow Islamic radicals to gain a stronger foothold. Egypt will very soon find itself with food shortages as a result of the ongoing chaos.

 

This will only aggravate the current situation, making it even more uncontrollable.

 

The US has been trying for years to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The attempts included President Barack Obama addressing the Muslim world after his election in 2009, the use of US media channels such as Al-Hura Radio and Hi magazine, political statements supporting the building of the Ground Zero mosque and the wearing of the Islamic hijab by Muslim women.

 

None of these measures were effective in ending the negative image of the US.

 

On the contrary, after a long period of US hatred during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s time, the US won the hearts and minds of the Muslim world during Anwar Sadat’s presidency by using simple yet effective tactics. One of these was helping to solve the shortage of certain food items during the late 1970s. At that time, Egyptians used to stand in very long queues for hours to get one or two chickens for their families. The relations between US and Egypt improved dramatically as the US was seen providing the people with frozen chickens packaged in the colors of the American flag.

 

This aid successfully contributed to the creation of a very positive image of the US in the minds of many Egyptians, as their brains linked it to an act of kindness. In memory studies, such links are created via a mental process called the spreading activation model. It was a gift given simply because there was a need, and it was received as an act of friendship.

 

What the US needs to do in the current crisis is to repeat the same mechanism by sending food packages wrapped in the American flag to the Egyptians. When the chaos and fighting leave the front pages, the next chapter will be anger born of hunger. The US can foresee this and act quickly to provide the needed foodstuffs. If this is done during the current crisis, the US can forestall the next food shortage and food riots, be seen as a good friend who cares for Egyptians despite the riots, and significantly improve its image in many other parts of the Muslim world.

 

EGYPTIANS TYPICALLY get their monthly salaries at the end of the month (many may not be able to this month due to the chaotic situation), and many people barely survive on a daily income. Any disruption of normal business adds to the difficulty. This makes an American gift of ready-to-eatmeals during this disaster an invaluable tool to win the hearts and minds of many people.

 

Timing is crucial, as Egyptians might be fighting for food just a few days from now. The signs are already here. This precious and needed American aid can also impede the attempts of Islamists, who may otherwise exploit the food shortage for their benefit. A late reaction or no reaction will be perceived by many Muslims as evidence that the US does not care enough and lets people down in crucial times of need. The benefit to be gained by doing the right thing, not for political gain but simply because America sees the need of the Egyptian people, will create the same positive image that prevailed during the Sadat years.

 

This is a unique opportunity for the US to raise its stock among Muslim nations by doing what it has always done – coming to the aid of those in need. Saving the people of Egypt from deprivation will do more to restore civility between Islam and America than all the political showmanship offered so far.

 

 

 

[prole]

In One Slice of Egypt, Daily Woes Top Religion

NYT 2/15/11

 

CAIRO — A generation ago, Ahmed Mitwalli’s parents were Islamists in this neighborhood along the Nile once nicknamed the Islamic Republic of Imbaba. But their son is not, and his convictions, echoed in the caldron of frustrations of one of the world’s most crowded quarters, suggest why the Muslim Brotherhood is not driving Egypt’s nascent revolution.

 

“Bread, social justice and freedom,” the 21-year-old college graduate said. “What’s religious about that?”

 

Egypt’s revolution is far from decided, and the Muslim Brotherhood remains the most popular and best-organized opposition forces in the country, poised to play a crucial role in the transition and its aftermath. But in a neighborhood once ceded to militant Islamists, who declared their own state within a state in the early 1990s, sentiments here are most remarkable for how little religion inflects them. Be it complaints about a police force that long resembled an army of occupation, smoldering class resentment or even youthful demands for frivolity, a growing consciousness has taken hold in a sign of what awaits the rest of the Arab world after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall on Friday.

 

Three times more crowded than Manhattan, Imbaba offers a window on the shift away from religious fervor. A fiery preacher, derided as a drummer-turned-cleric, imposed his rule on Imbaba’s streets for years until the government drove him and his followers out after a long siege in 1992. With American largess, the government tried to wrangle a city still not recognized on its maps back on the grid. By the accounts of residents, it failed, eventually withdrawing from a sea of resentment that neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor anyone else has managed to channel.

 

“The last thing youth are thinking about is religion,” said Mr. Mitwalli, who hides his cigarettes from a family where all the women wear the most conservative veil. “It’s the last thing that comes up. They need money, they need to get married, a car, and they don’t have anything to do with anything else. They’ll elect whoever can deliver that.”

 

Though parts of Imbaba are upscale, much of it feels like the countryside washing across the pretenses of a city, unfinished red-brick buildings overlooking markets disgorged in the streets. Three-wheel buggies known as tuk-tuks, blaring the latest pop song of Amr Diab, an ageless Egyptian pop star, navigate a mélange of overflowing trash bins, mannequins in the median and racks of clothes in the street.

 

Mr. Mubarak’s government long stigmatized neighborhoods like Imbaba as a netherworld of crime and danger. There is that, though its people extol their own sense of community, where streets band together at the slightest provocation. When the uprising devastated the economy, vendors brought down prices to help people cope. And in almost every conversation, residents, especially the young, frame their plight as us against them.

 

“There was no dialogue,” said Walid Sabr, a 29-year-old who works at a shoe store. “There was force and there was bullying. Dialogue with that? It’s impossible.”

 

Samih Ahmed, a vendor down the street, added, “This isn’t the Jan. 25th revolution,” calling the uprising by its most popular name. “This is a revolution of dignity.”

 

Everyone in the neighborhood had a story about officials — a $2 bribe to enter a hospital to see a relative, a $20 fine imposed for stealing electricity, a $10 payoff to a municipal official to get an identity card. Mr. Sabr talked about getting arrested for trying to report a traffic accident. Ibrahim Mohamed complained that he had been thrown in jail after the police planted hashish on him. Umayma Mohamed, a 23-year-old woman carrying her 3-month-old baby, begged for help in getting her brother released after a fight.

 

“You raise your voice,” Mohamed Ali said, “and they answer by beating you.”

 

Egypt is deeply devout, and imposing labels often does more to confuse than illuminate. Amal Salih, who joined the protests against her parents’ wishes, dons an orange scarf over her head but calls herself secular. “Egypt is religious, regrettably,” she said. Mr. Mitwalli wears a beard but calls himself liberal, “within the confines of religion.” A driver, Osama Ramadan, despises the Muslim Brotherhood but has jury-rigged his car to blare a prayer when he turns on the ignition.

 

Defining sentiments is no more precise. Youths defiant in their praise of Mr. Mubarak only last week joined the celebrations on Friday, some bringing flags and fireworks to Tahrir Square. Residents say some of the most ardent Islamists here had the best connections with the police, who sought to cultivate them as informants. But in streets suffused with trash, occasionally drawing flocks of sheep, a common refrain is that political Islam, as practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood, does not offer the kind of solutions that may decide an election.

 

“We don’t need prayers, sheiks and beards,” said Mr. Mohammed, standing with the angry crowd on a street filled with trash. “We’ve had enough of the clerics.”

 

The Islamic Group, known in Arabic as Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, waged an intermittent insurgency against the government in the 1990s, and Mr. Mitwalli’s uncle was one of its leaders. He was jailed for 13 years. A man known as Sheik Gaber belonged to the same group, and he and his followers imposed their notion of order here, drawing thousands to sermons where they occasionally — and triumphantly — broadcast a tape of President Anwar el-Sadat’s assassination in 1981. They arbitrated disputes and provided for the poor, while sauntering through the slum to drive away prostitutes and drug dealers, to impose the veil, to burn shops that rented Western videos, and to force Christians to pay a religious tax.

 

An embarrassed government eventually sent in 12,000 soldiers and armored cars in a crackdown that began a six-week occupation. With the help of American aid, it flooded the neighborhood with investment for a time, paving roads and bringing sewerage, telephones and electricity. Just last year, the governor of Giza, which oversees Imbaba’s side of the Nile, pledged it would soon look like one of Cairo’s wealthier neighborhoods.

 

It does not. In fact, Imbaba feels overwhelmed, as the rich flee to suburbs with names like Dreamland, Beverly Hills and the European Countryside, and a new government faces its predecessor’s failure to provide housing for a population where nearly 7 in 10 are under the age of 34, numbers that mirror much of the Arab world.

 

“The youth today think this way: let me live my life today, and I don’t care if you kill me tomorrow,” said Mohammed Fathi, a 23-year-old friend of Mr. Sabr’s at the shoe store. “Next year isn’t important. All I’m thinking about is getting by today.”

 

In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and grim stretches of urban Iraq, populist clerics often manage to channel youthful anger. But the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps most distinguished for representing the demands of an aspiring middle class; it counts some of Cairo’s wealthiest among its ranks. No one in Imbaba mentioned a religious figure as an inspiration. Asked about their choice for a new president, many shrugged or offered up Amr Moussa, the aging departing secretary general of the Arab League.

 

The biggest draw here seemed to be one of Imbaba’s favorite sons, the Little Arab, a pop singer who runs a cafe on Luxor Street decorated with his own pictures.

 

“I don’t want to be pinned down by any political tendency,” Ms. Salih said.

 

It remains an oddity of the long struggle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood that both an aging opposition and a corrupt state spoke the same language of moral conservatism. It has left Egypt more ostensibly religious over the years. Measured by sentiments here, it may have also provoked a backlash among youth recoiling at the prospect of yet more rules promised by an even more stringent application of Islamic law.

 

“In my view?” asked Osama Hassan, a high school student who joined the protests in their climactic days. “We need more freedom not less. The whole system has to change.”

[Hugh Conway]

I'm guessing he didn't hear it from an Islamic woman who provides hospitality for her husband's buddies. (Of course, she'd be in the room next door and not allowed to "sit at the table" or anything crazy like that.)

 

I'm telling you, a couple of good, public stonings and a government sanctioned gang rape would really go a long way to improve hospitality in the US.

 

Ten to one says that says that you are about to have someone demand to know exactly what it is that *you* know about being a woman....

 

 

Nah, the easy fruit is why you idiots think the muslim world is homogenous. It's not. Or why the gang raping stoning Hindus get a pass. Is it because you don't know what "eve teasing" is?

 

 

Muslim hospitality is quite good. Even when the men cook.

[archenemy]

We are not talking about every individual in the Muslim world; we have to speak in generalities.

And as long as the violent, repressive, intolerant minority continues to create fear and death throughout the world, folks are going to associate Muslims and Islam with that. They are the ones we are concerned about. I am not the elected spokesperson for most Americans, but I'll venture a guess that most don't give a shit what you believe as long as you aren't fucking over other people by blowing them up and stoning them to death.

[archenemy]

Oh, and I am not sure who you are referring to when talking about giving violent Hindus a pass. I think most people who live under our justice system are shocked and horrified when they hear about this type of brutality.

[Hugh Conway]

We are not talking about every individual in the Muslim world; we have to speak in generalities.

 

You're speaking in cliches and pablum with a view narrowly centered on the Middle East - a minority of the Muslim population in the world.

[archenemy]

I'm giving my opinion. Dismissing it as cliche says something more about you than it does about my opinion.

 

I respect that you are open-minded and kind hearted when evaluating your own opinion of the Muslim world. And I fully admit that I am, indeed, fearful of the ideals that seem to dominate the Muslim world. But I stand behind what I say nonetheless.

[Hugh Conway]

Which offers women better social standing and potential for advancement - Muslim Kazakhstan or Catholic Italy? Which has had more terror attacks on it's soil?

[archenemy]

Am I supposed to know these numbers off the top of my head?

 

At least a woman can leave Italy if she wants. Unescorted by a male relative.

[archenemy]

And if I had to chose between living in Italy and living in Kazakhstan, I'd be taking Italian classes right now.

[rob]

[prole]

[Hugh Conway]

At least a woman can leave Italy if she wants. Unescorted by a male relative.

 

so you don't know fuck all about Kazakhstan? It's ok, women are less likely to be sexually harassed there than Italy, have better job prospects, and can travel without a male relative!

 

Nice mountains too

[Hugh Conway]

Now back to glittering generalities.

 

Brunettes are sluts.

Redheads are pyscho

Blackheads die themselves blonde

blondes are dumb

[KaskadskyjKozak]

We are not talking about every individual in the Muslim world; we have to speak in generalities.

 

You're speaking in cliches and pablum with a view narrowly centered on the Middle East - a minority of the Muslim population in the world.

 

Muslims in subsaharan Africa and Indonesia engage in similarly brutal and intolerant practices. Your point?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Berlusconi is a Ronnie James Dio fan?

[Hugh Conway]

We are not talking about every individual in the Muslim world; we have to speak in generalities.

 

You're speaking in cliches and pablum with a view narrowly centered on the Middle East - a minority of the Muslim population in the world.

 

Muslims in subsaharan Africa and Indonesia engage in similarly brutal and intolerant practices. Your point?

 

Indonesia? IME Indonesian muslims are more tolerant than the Hindus and Animists.

[Hugh Conway]

 

Berlusconi is a Ronnie James Dio fan?

 

No, that's what happens when you give the shocker to a preteen.