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December 31, 2007
Saudi Arabia: The Vitriolic Imam And Death Threat Phone Messages
A strange story comes from Arab News today. An imam has been jailed for sending death threats to the senior member of the local branch of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Hail, Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hammad received the death threats on his mobile phone after his ministry had fired an imam from his role as a prayer leader. The sacking happened after the Ministry ordered the local imam to desist from making anti-Western political slogans during his sermons. When the imam would not comply with the order and was suspended, he then sent the threats. This led to a court case brought at the Hail religious court.
The imam had argued with the demands to stop condemning the West in his sermons, justifying that it was acceptable in Islam to wish for bad things for Western countries' governments. The imam did not deny sending the death threats, and was jailed for seven months, with an additional 150 lashes. Today, the imam will have his appeal against the sentence heard at the Saudi Cassation Court.
Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hammad said: "If and when an imam is seen to have indulged in any wrongdoing, he is summoned by the ministry. If the mistake is unintentional, he is warned and resumes his job. But if the wrongdoing is intentional, he is punished according to the level of the violation."
Earlier this December Prince Naif (Nayef), the Interior Minister, claimed some Saudi mosques were not abiding by guidelines and were failing to discourage extremism and not preventing jihadists from traveling abroad to become insurgents, particularly amongst young people. In June, Prince Naif had summoned prayer leaders to a meeting to urge them to stop the ideology that brought young people into the fold of Al Qaeda.
It should be mentioned that this Prince Naif is Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, and is not to be confused with Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaalan (also spelled al-Chaalan) who has been accused of using a royal plane to smuggle cocaine into France in 1999.
Naif bin Abdul Aziz, born in 1934, is fifth in the line of accession to the Saudi throne. He has been the Interior Minister since 1975, a position which is one of the most powerful in the kingdom. His claims of being against the ideology that leads to people joining Al Qaeda are somewhat hypocritical.
He is, according to Wikipedia " the Supervisor General of the Saudi Committee for the Al Quds Intifada, which supports and compensates the families of the Palestinean Intifada including those of suicide bombers.... His monetary contributions have been viewed, mostly by non-Muslims, as possible incentives to carry out such bombings. It is believed that Prince Nayef has personally contributed at least $33 million to Intifada families." Prince Naif suggested in November 2002 that 9/11 was the work of Zionists.
On a more positive note, Prince Naif has donated money to UNESCO for the education of Palestinian children.
There are 58,110 mosques in Saudi Arabia, and of these, 11,806 perform Friday prayers.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:50 AM | Comments (1)
December 27, 2007
Pakistan: Bhutto Killed - Are The Islamists Winning?
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
With Benazir Bhutto Killed, What Next For Pakistan?
Shortly after 5 pm local time on December 27, Benazir Bhutto was killed in the city of Rawalpindi, northern Pakistan. She had been attending a rally in a city park for her Pakistan People's Party (PPP). As she was leaving the rally, and was in a car a suicide bomber detonated a device. One eyewitness report claimed that there were three shots before the bomb went off. The gunshots were fired by the suicide bomber. It has since been confirmed that 54-year old Ms Bhutto was shot in the neck before the explosion. Ms Bhutto suffered serious head injuries, which were initially said to be caused by pellets contained within the device. She was rushed to hospital, but was dead upon arrival. At least fifteen other people were killed in the explosion. Many of the injuries (below) were horrific.
Bhutto had her faults - she was accused of corruption during her two terms as prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996. However, her death is seen as a massive blow to the hopes of both the people in Pakistan and also to Pakistan's allies in the West.
The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, had ordered a State of Emergency on Saturday November 3. This emergency was triggered by Islamist attacks in various parts of the country, but for the six weeks that it was in effect, the majority of the thousands of people arrested were journalists, civil rights campaigners and lawyers and NOT the Islamists who had threatened the country's stability. Musharraf had promised that democratic elections would go ahead on January 8, 2008. It is now doubtful if these will go ahead.
The PPP party is in crisis as Benazir Bhutto was the uncontested head of the party, even during her exile. The structure of the PPP means that though there are regional party leaders and during the last parliament there were representatives in the National Assembly, there is no clear successor. The party, founded by her late father, is run more on a system of personality. Recently Benazir Bhutto had revived an earlier party slogan "Food, Clothing and Shelter".
What is surprising is that such an attack could happen in Rawalpindi, which is a "garrison city" with a strong army presence. Rawalpindi is a twenty five minute drive away from Islamabad, the capital. Questions about the strategic motivation and identity of the suicide bomber will be asked for weeks to come. One thing is certain. The event was designed to create instability, and is already succeeding. Already there are reports of rioting in various districts. The army is on red alert, and Islamabad and Rawalpindi are currently subject to curfew orders. Sindh province, where Ms Bhutto had her political base, is expected to see mass protests.
On Christmas Eve, Benazir Bhutto had addressed a rally of 4,000 people in Lodhran, and had vowed to fight the Islamists who have created turmoil within the nation. She blamed Musharraf for the failure to control the Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists who are currently in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), adjoining the border with Afghanistan. These NWFP-based Islamists have been blamed for the many bomb attacks which have recently happened in Pakistan.
On Friday, December 21, a suicide bomber launched an attack upon a mosque in Charsadda district in NWFP, killing 57 people. The mosque was attended by Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, the interior minister in the last government. Friday prayers are regarded as especially important in Islam - what made the attack more shocking was that it happened at a service for Eid al-Adha - the remembrance of Abraham's order to sacrifice Isaac. Sherpao was not injured in last Friday's attack, but it appears that the bomb was aimed at him. Sherpao is a supporter of Musharraf and belongs to his PML-Q party. A newly-formed Islamist coalition called the Tehrik-i-Taliban claimed responsibility for the mosque bomb.
Benazir Bhutto had been in exile from Pakistan for eight years, mainly spending her time in Dubai and to a lesser extent in London. She returned in October this year after Musharraf had offered her immunity from prosecution on corruption charges. On the day she arrived back in Pakistan and was attending a rally in Karachi, Punjab province, on October 18, a suicide bomber attacked her procession. Shots had been fired before that attack, which killed 139 people, but Benazir Bhutto survived unhurt.
Bhutto had been advised to delay her return to Pakistan, as intelligence reports had stated that she was a target. After the October attacks, Bhutto had said: "I know exactly who wants to kill me. They are dignitaries of General Zia's former regime who are behind extremism and fanaticism."
General Zia ul-Haq was the Islamist dictator who had ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1998. This dictator, assisted by Islamists particularly from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, had introduced draconian legislation against blasphemy in 1986 and in 1979 he introduced the infamous Hudood laws, which made adultery a capital offense and removed distinctions between rape and adultery. Zia had hanged Bhutto's father, former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, on April 4, 1979.
Bhutto had hinted that those behind the Karachi attack had been connected to the ISI - the Inter Services Intelligence. This agency was behind the creation of the Taliban, and had also tried to mount an armed Sikh uprising in Punjab state in India. It is blamed for the disappearance of thousands of Pakistani civilians. Many of the leading figures in the ISI have been supporters of terrorism, such as former directors Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, Javed Nasir (who helped found the Taliban), and also Hamid Gul.
Hamid Gul, an admirer of bin Laden and the Taliban who supports Sharia law, has helped the Islamist opposition in Pakistan to mount demonstrations, and has been accused of funding the current Afghan insurgency. In January 2007, a captured Taliban fighter claimed the ISI still funds the Afghan Taliban.
Several ISI figures worshipped at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. This mosque had been frequented by ul-Haq while he was in power, and in January 2007 it began a series of deliberate threats against the stability of the nation - warning of suicide attacks against anyone who interfered with their policies of kidnapping, arson and disruption. Many of the madrassa students at the Lal Masjid came from NWFP. The mosque - whose leaders demanded Pakistan become an Islamist state - was stormed in July. It reopened shortly after, but a suicide attack outside the establishment caused it to be closed again. Khalid Khawaja, formerly a leading figure in the ISI and an admirer of Al Qaeda, was arrested in January this year for inciting members of the mosque.
Asim Bhutto - Benazir's cousin - mentioned on BBC News 24 that before her return to Pakistan she knew that there were elements in the army and the ISI who wanted to kill her. He mentioned that a group calling itself the "Brothers of Punjab" were rumored to have said they would kill her. She had informed Musharraf of this threat, Asim Bhutto said. This group, which I can no information about, is claimed by Ms Bhutto's cousin to have connections with the Pakistan administration.
A few hours after Bhutto was killed, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, the main Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, said in a phone statement: "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen."
It would be unwise at this time to point the finger at specific individuals or groups, but it is of concern that Musharraf used Islamist unrest to declare the State of Emergency but did not target Islamists in the mass arrests which followed. Additionally, he has done nothing to remove the Islamists who still exist in both the army and the ISI.
Benazir Bhutto, for all her faults, was widely seen as a modernizing figure in Pakistan. SInce the 1950s, Islamists and dictators have disrupted the nation's original democratic ideals. When Pakistan was founded in 1947, its leader for its first thirteen months was Mohammed Jinnah. At that time, Pakistan was a secular nation with a constitution similar to that still used in India. Jinnah had argued for Pakistan to be created when Britain's colonial rule came to an end. He wished for Muslims to have a safe haven, and made no attempts to enforceo Islamic law. Shortly after he died, the constitution was changed to state that Pakistan was an Islamic, rather than a secular, nation.
Benazir Bhutto's killing has been condemned by President Bush and other world leaders. The United States had tried to bring Benazir Bhutto into Pakistan's political process as she had popular support and made no bones about her intentions to combat the Islamist extremists. She had said that she would allow the Uniteid States to pursue Afghanistan Taliban from their sanctuaries in NWFP. Initially, it was suggested that a partnership of Musharraf as President and Bhutto as prime minister would have been a "dream ticket", offering Pakistan a chance of stability. When Musharraf imposed the State of Emergency and started to jail political rivals and sacking members of the judiciary, Bhutto became his political enemy.
Educated at Harvard and Oxford Universities and a former president of the Oxford Union, Benazir Bhutto was an intelligent, sophisticated and brave woman. She was the first woman to become head of an Islamic state. Though she has been accused in Pakistan, Britain, Switzerland and elsewhere of corruption, it should be mentioned that her husband Asif Ali Zardari (pictured) has also been accused of corruption, and was accused of ordering a murder in 1998. Though he was acquitted of this charge, Zardari is an individual who has attracted controversy.
The pair married in 1987 but it was not a romantic marriage - it was arranged by Benazir Bhutto's mother. Zardari was accused - but not convicted - of murdering Benazir's brother Murtaza. He was accused of drug running, a case that was never concluded. From November 4, 1996, Zardari spent eight and a half years in jail.
While Musharraf ruled virtually uncontested, another politician and former prime minister had been sent into exile. Nawaz Sharif had been prime minister when Perves Musharraf seized power in December 1999. He was forced to leave the country. Nawaz Sharif heads the Pakistan Muslim League - N faction (PML-N). He had tried to return earlier this year, but was immediately deported, even though Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudary had authorized his return. Eventually Nawaz returned, but was not allowed to stand in the January 8, 2008 elections, because of criminal charges which still remain against him. Nawaz Sharif visited the hospital in Rawalpindi shortly after the bomb attack, and saw the body of Benazir Bhutto. He announced a few hours later that his PML-N party will boycott the elections and will not be fielding any candidates in the upcoming elections. He has called for a general strike today.
Nawaz Sharif and Bhutto were not friends, but the State of Emergency brought them together on some political issues. On Christmas Day, Bhutto phoned Nawaz. She sought Nawaz' assistance to counter possible vote-rigging by Musharraf's PML- Q party in the upcoming elections. Both leaders had warned of street demonstrations should these elections become rigged in Musharraf's favor. Demonstrations are already happening in several Pakistani cities, with four civilians shot dead at the time of writing, and several reports of arson attacks.
With one leading party boycotting the imminent elections and another party without its figurehead, the only party with a large groundswell of support will be that of President Musharraf - the PML-Q party. An election held in these conditions will be neither democratic nor credible. It could also open the doors for Islamist parties to gain more power. In the last National Assembly, the MMA held 65 seats. This group comprises six Islamist parties, the largest of which is the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
The MMA support the Taliban and wishes for Sharia Law to be imposed - which of itself is undemocratic. Sami ul-Haq, who runs one of the MMA component parties, educated the leading members of the Taliban at his Haqqania madrassa in NWFP. His students included Mullah Omar. In March, the MMA introduced a draft Apostasy Law which would see anyone who converted out of Islam subject to the death penalty. Any increase of MMA power in the country would be catastrophic for democracy and human rights.
How the situation will develop over the next few days is not easy to predict. There is widespread anger. Musharraf will be damned by the public if he holds an election on January 8, and he will be damned if he suspends elections. World leaders have condemned the killing of Ms Bhutto. The future of Pakistan's democracy is genuinely under threat as a result of this attack.
The conditions that led to the declaration of a State of Emergency still remain. In Swat, a region of NWFP that was formerly a tourist destination likened to Pakistan's "Switzerland" an uprising continues. Since June of this year at least 300 militants have been killed in this conflict, yet it shows no signs of abating. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have bases in Waziristan and other agencies of NWFP, exploiting the porous mountainous border with Afghanistan. Since March 2006, the "Pakistan Taliban" have been in full control of both North and South Waziristan.
Most analysts have said that the nuclear weaponry that Pakistan possesses is still secure, with the army unlikely to allow such weapons to fall into unauthorized hands. Yet for the War on Terror Bhutto's death is a severe blow. Musharraf has already shown himself to have little regard for the freedom of the people of Pakistan, even though he has nominally supported the War on Terror. For the past five years, 70,000 soldiers have been posted in the troubled regions of NWFP, but these have done little to control the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Either there is a lack of will on the part of Pakistan's army commanders in the region, or they have no ability to control the insurgents. Islamists object to American troops being sent in to these regions, but if the Pakistan military establishment cannot control its own territory, certain questions must be asked. Is Musharraf genuinely committed to defeating Islamism, or is he merely exploiting the situation to gain American funds? Does Musharraf support genuine democracy? The signs so far do not bode well. Over the next few weeks, those questions will be answered.
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:54 PM | Comments (2)
History: Maimonides and the Madman
What did Jewish sage Moses Maimonides called Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the prophet of Islam? The Meshugga--the madman.
Via Jihad Watch, read the story at Andrew G. Bostom's new blog: Maimonides and the "Meshugga" Prophet
December 13th marked the 804th anniversary of the death of Maimonides (d. 1203, in Cairo), renowned Talmudist, philosopher, astronomer, and physician. The biography of this "second Moses," is often cited by those who would extol the purported Muslim ecumenism of the high Middle Ages--particularly in "Andalusia," or Muslim Spain, invariably accompanied by a denunciation of the fanatical intolerance of Christian Western Europe, during the same era.A particularly egregious example of this genre of loaded comparisons was made by Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate economist, in his recent book Identity and Violence. Sen has the temerity to proclaim, "...the Jewish Philosopher Maimonides was forced to emigrate from an intolerant Europe in the twelfth century, he found a tolerant refuge in the Arab world."
Sen's ahistorical drivel aside, Maimonides (b. 1135, in Cordova) was but thirteen years old (in 1148) when Muslim Cordova fell into the hands of the particularly fanatical Berber Muslim Almohads, who invaded the Iberian peninsula from North Africa. Maimonides and all the dhimmi Jews in Cordova were compelled to choose between Islam and exile. Choosing the latter course, Maimonides and his family for twelve years subsequently led a nomadic life, wandering across Spain. By 1160 they crossed the Mediterranean, and settled at Fez, Morocco (also under Almohad control) where, unknown to the authorities, they hoped to pass as Muslims, while living as crypto-Jews. Maimonides' dual life, however, became increasingly dangerous as his reputation was steadily growing, and the authorities began to inquire into the religious disposition of this highly gifted young man. He was even charged by an informer with the crime of having relapsed (apostasized) from Islam, and, but for the intercession of the poet and theologian Abu al-'Arab al Mu'ishah, a Muslim friend, he would have suffered the fate of his colleague Judah ibn Shoshan, who had shortly before been executed on a similar charge. Given these precarious circumstances, Maimonides' family left Fez, embarking in 1165 to Acre, then to Jerusalem, and on to Fostat (Cairo), where they settled, living once again as dhimmis, albeit under more tolerant Fatimid rule.[...]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2007
The Struggle For The Soul Of Christmas
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
As Christmas comes around again, it becomes hard to distinguish the Christian celebration of Christ's birth from more pagan rituals. The actual date of Christ's birth has long been a subject of dispute. Around 525 AD, Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus placed the date of Christ's birth at December 25. He worked on the assumption that the immaculate conception took place on March 25, which was then widely viewed as the date that God created the world. Dionysius assumed that Mary's pregnancy took exactly nine months.
Since 274 AD, following a decree by the Roman Emperor Aurelian, December 25 was also designated as the birth date of the Roman deity Mithras, the "unconquered sun" (Sol invictus). Mithras' cult had been imported from Phrygia in the East and had become popular amongst Roman soldiers. Mithras' religion was secretive, and little is known of its Roman form. A god of light and the sun, the Phrygian deity was tangentially linked to the Zoroastrian deity Mithra and the Hindu deity Mitra.
December 25 also coincided with the end of the pagan Roman festival the Saturnalia, when feasting, drinking and merriment would take place, presents would be given, slaves would be allowed privileges, party hats (the "pileus" or Phrygian cap) would be worn by all, and a "Lord of Misrule" would be elected from households. During the Christian Medieval period, European customs involving the Lord of Misrule continued alongside Christian ceremony.
In Scotland, the Lord of Misrule was called the "Abbot of Unreason." He would preside over anarchic celebrations, until officially banned in 1555. In France, this character was called the "Prince des Sots" (Prince of Fools). Oliver Cromwell, a devout Puritan Christian, took a dim view of the merrymaking associated with Christmas. For him, any joviality or festivity was heretical. Almost as soon as he became de facto dictator of Britain in 1644, he had Christmas banned. In 1647, Easter and Whitsun were also banned.
The banning of Christmas led to conflict with the populace. In London, soldiers were ordered to patrol the streets, and to seize any Christmas dinners being cooked. All stores and workplaces were ordered to stay in business on Christmas Day. Such legislation led to violent confrontations in London, Canterbury and Norwich. Cromwell's ban on Christmas lasted until 1660, two years after he had died. The following year, the flamboyant king Charles II took the throne. He ordered that the corpse of Cromwell (who had ordered the decapitation of Charles 1 in 1649) should be dug up and hanged from a gibbet. Cromwell's head was later cut off.
The Puritans who had emigrated to America were also subjected to official and unofficial bans on the celebration of Christmas. In 1659, Christmas was officially banned in Massachusetts, a prohibition that was not revoked until 1681.
The decorated Christmas tree was introduced to the United States in the early 19th century from Germany, where it had been known as the Christbaum and stemmed from pagan traditions. Shortly after its introduction to America, the Christmas Tree was brought to Britain by German-born Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. In America in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated the custom of lighting the National Christmas Tree.
Though Santa Claus has been identified with St Nicholas, his representation has been tainted with pagan embellishments. Throughout its history, Christmas has been for many a trade-off between the sacred and the profane. Many people complain nowadays about the commercialism of Christmas, but there are other aspects that are threatening to destroy the spiritual nature of Christmas.
Churchgoing in Britain has been on the decline for decades, though a 2005 poll found that 67% of Britons still thought of themselves as "Christians" and 75% of respondents wanted Britain to retain its Christian values. The demons of political correctness and multiculturalism have been actively trying to destroy the Christian aspects of Christmas. I recently discussed some of these British attempts to forcibly secularize Christmas on Family Security Matters. For the most part, these attacks are instigated by leftist councils and teaching establishments, laboring under the misplaced notion that all Muslims might be offended by mention of Christ.
There certainly are extremist Muslims of the Salafist, Deobandi and Wahhabi doctrines who do object to Christmas celebrations. Sabeel Ahmed of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has .written that "showing happiness and joy on Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Good Friday is like shaking hands with Satan and telling him to carry on the good work."
Ahmed explains: "Islam came to tear down the pillars of kufr (non-Muslims) and replace them with the pillars of Islam. Armed with facts on Christmas and eloquent words of Islam, the door of Dawah (conversion) to the Christians should be wisely open. When the Christians see us restraining from observing Christmas, they will curiously ask us for the reason. This opportunity should be used by each single Muslim to discuss Islam and invite non-Muslims to Islam."
The website IslamOnline, whose spiritual adviser is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, advises that a Muslim can wish Christians a happy holiday at Christmas, and even send them greetings cards or share a Christmas dinner. However, "you are not allowed to celebrate Christmas with them."
Britain became exposed to Muslim condemnations of Christmas in December 1996. A school in Washwood Heath, Birmingham, was rehearsing its annual carol service. A Muslim teacher, Israr Khan, decided that having Muslim schoolchildren singing Christmas carols was wrong, and harangued the assembled group, saying: "Why are you saying Jesus and Jesus Christ? God is not your God - it is Allah." Several schoolchildren were reduced to tears. When the carol service went ahead, five pupils had been persuaded by Khan not to attend.
One of the Muslim pupils who was then at the school was Rashid Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan last year, suspected of masterminding the August plot to send suicide bombers onto U.S.-bound planes, armed with liquid explosives. Rauf had fled Britain in 2002 after he became the main suspect in the murder of his uncle. He is still wanted on an extradition order connected with this murder. On December 17 this year, Rauf was being transferred from court in the Pakistani capital back to his Rawalpindi jail by a relative. The suspected terrorist was allowed by police to visit a mosque, from where he made his escape.
In 2005, Australia's Forum on Islamic Relations recommended that nationally, the term "Christmas" should be scrapped altogether, as it excluded too many people in multicultural Australia. The group recommended that Australia should follow the example set in Britain by groups such as Birmingham City Council, which has called its Christmas celebrations "Winterval" since 1998.
Though churches in Britain have poor attendance, on the night of Christmas Eve Catholic and Anglican churches across the country traditionally have Midnight Masses, and usually these are well attended. This year, however, this integral part of the Christian celebration of Christmas is threatened by non-Christian celebrations of drunkenness and debauchery.
Every weekend in Britain, most town and city centers are taken over by groups of young people engaging in the new national pastime - "binge drinking". Vomiting, falling over, fighting, committing obscene acts, and generally acting worse than animals are common occurrences. Christmas for these individuals is another excuse to engage in even worse "recreational" behavior than normal. The city of Newcastle has been a center of binge drinking for more than a decade. Police, instead of cracking down on such antisocial activities, have decided that Christmas belongs to the louts, and Christmas Midnight Masses are less important. The Cathedral of St Mary in the city of Newcastle has been forced to hold its Midnight Mass at 8 pm this year.
Police have recommended that Roman Catholic churches in many cities should hold their Midnight Masses early, because of the drunkenness which the police fail to prevent. In some cities, churches will be holding Midnight Masses as early as 6 pm because of possible disruption by drunkards. It is still a crime in Britain to be "drunk and disorderly", but police seem unwilling to enforce the law. As a result, elderly people feel too terrorized to venture out late at night, particularly on Christmas Eve.
In 2006, a British law firm called Peninsula revealed that three out of four British employers had banned conventional Christmas decorations from their premises. The reasoning was that these employers were fearful that they may be sued by employees of other faiths who did not see their own faiths represented in the workplace.
One soccer manager in Britain - Steve Coppell - is so keen for success that he has banned his team from celebrating Christmas in their own way until May 2008. Reading soccer team will be forced to spend this Christmas in a hotel. The coach of the team has said: "We have a no Christmas policy this year. We will have ours in May on a beach dressed as Santa. The players can eat what they like then."
Christmas in America is also under threat, again from the demons of political correctness. Walmart took the bizarre decision to ban the word "Christmas" from its stores. The Catholic League organized a boycott of the chain of stores, leading to the company deciding in the fall of 2006 to employ the term Christmas in its stores both "early and often".
The Catholic League objected to Christmas being targeted while Walmart had promoted the Jewish festival of lights, Hannukah, which falls around Christmas time. While Walmart banned the use of the term Christmas, it promoted the racially biased artificial festival of Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa takes a Ghanaian "first fruits" ceremony and mixes it with East African Swahili terms.
Kwanzaa was founded in 1966 by Ron Everett aka "Maulana Karenga". In 1969 he was expelled from the Black Panthers. Kwanzaa was created as an antidote to the "white" aspects of Christmas. The founder has a colorful history - he is now a Marxist and a professor at California State University at Long Beach. He was jailed in 1971 for the torture of two black women who had been forced to strip naked, somewhat against the notions of "black unity" that Kwanzaa was meant to represent.
In 2001, the Catholic League objected to instructions given out by the principal of the Thomas Jefferson Magnet School of Humanities in Flushing, New York. The principal had told teachers to bring into school items representing Kwanzaa and also the Jewish and Muslim faiths. There had been no mention of Christian items.
This year, Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford issued an edict to its students and staff, apparently on the advisement of the state Attorney General, prohibiting anyone from speaking or writing the word Christmas in any university literature or public area.
In 2002, a teacher of first-grade students at a school in Sacramento, California, was ordered by her principal not to mention the word Christmas in front of children.
Last Christmas, even the image of Santa was deemed too much for one citizen of Warwick in New York State. Annually, the PTA group at Sandfordville Elementary School in Warwick would hold a fund-raising event around Christmas, called "Breakfast With Santa". One disgruntled mother wrote a letter of complaint, claiming that Santa is a representation of Christmas, and therefore is an endorsement of Christianity, contravening "separation of church and state", even though it was not held on a school day. The PTA offered to amend the event. As a result, "Breakfast with Santa" was changed to "Winter Wonderland Breakfast" and in a nod to unrepresented faiths, Santa was joined by the non-demoninational "Frosty the Snowman."
Santa may be associated with the Christian Saint Nicholas, but his descent down a chimney and his clothing of red with white trimmings have also been linked to pagan rites. The shaman of certain Siberian tribes would engage in midwinter festivals when he would enter via the smokehole of the winter yurt (hut) and climb down the wooden post that supported the roof. Once inside, he would distribute the hallucinogenic Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria, which is red and white in Siberia and Europe) to those inside, perform rituals, and again leave via the chimney.
Georg Steller, a visitor to Kamchatka, noted in 1744 that reindeer who in winter would eat the semi-fungal Cladonia lichen to survive, also liked to eat these mushrooms: "When the Koryak encounter an intoxicated reindeer, they tie his legs until the mushroom has lost its strength and effect. Then they kill the reindeer. If they kill the animal while it is drunk or asleep and eat of its flesh, then everybody who has tasted it becomes intoxicated as if he had eaten the actual fly agaric.". It seems Donner, Blitzen, Prancer, Vixen and their friends may have had a bizarre way of helping Santa to fly.
For some people, Christmas is an important event even if they have no religion. This year, a nine-year old Scottish boy found himself excluded from his school's annual Christmas party, because his mother had earlier banned him from attending religious education classes. Douglas Stewart's mother was mortified when he was not allowed to attend the school party, and said: "I've helped out at the Christmas party before and it's got absolutely nothing to do with Jesus. Douglas was heartbroken he couldn't go. It was cruel."
The days of Oliver Cromwell have long passed, but some Christians think Christmas has moved far from its original purpose. In 2001, a Methodist minister from Manchester, northern England, said that the commercialism of Christmas has led to it becoming a time of "madness". As suicides peak at Christmas, and thus the celebrations cause misery for some it should be banned, Reverend Martin Swan argued. He added: "The Father Christmas aspect of Christmas has nothing to do with Christians."
In the United States, Evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong, who died in 2003, argued that Christmas as it is currently celebrated has little to do with the known details of Christ's birth. He has written: "But it is impossible to 'put Christ back in Christmas,' since He was never in Christmas in the first place!" Armstrong's arguments have some weight.
The nativity scene as we know it from Christmas cards, school plays and tableaux was first instituted by Saint Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. St Francis assembled actors, an ox, an ass and a crib. The only mention of the manger was made in the Gospel of Saint Luke, where shepherds "came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger." (Luke 2: 7-16) There are no mentions of animals looking on, though the image is attractive and in keeping with Saint Francis' recorded love of animals.
Saint Francis would be horrified at the variations of the Nativity Scene as practiced in the province of Catalonia in northern Spain. Here there is an additional figure in the portrayal, known as "El Caganer" - whose name in polite English means "the Great Defecator". This figure is a shepherd wearing a red cap, who is situated on the periphery of the Nativity Scene, evacuating his bowels. Apparently the custom of depicting this figure is of ancient origins, and may represent the soil being manured in winter to allow for new growth in spring. Models of the pooping shepherd can be bought in various forms, such as pooping grannies. In Germany, France and the Netherlands, counterparts of El Caganer can be found. In France, these are called "Pere la Colique" or "Father Bowel Trouble".
This year, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, Dr Rowan Williams, has echoed some of the same points made by Garner Ted Armstrong. Dr Williams has said that the Magi who are only mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew were of an unknown number, and were certainly not "Three Kings". He mentions that there is no Biblical evidence of animals, and has said that Christ was probably not born in December.
Christmas, though seen as a vital part of Western heritage, has over its history become infused with pagan traditions connected with the midwinter solstice. It has become a major commercial event, with toy stores and bookshops doing the best part of their trade at this time. It has also become a festival of lights in the long dark nights. In America and increasingly so in Britain, it is customary for home owners to decorate their homes with illuminated Christmas scenes. Some of these are so spectacular, they become tourist attractions in their own right.
The few details of Christ's birth that can be gleaned with certainty from the Gospels maintain that the event occurred in Bethlehem, which is now in the Palestinian West Bank. When the Palestinian intifada broke out in September 2000, the consequences for Christian tourism were dire. Bethlehem announced that year that there would be no festivities. As Palestinian Muslims have become more militant, the number of Christians living in the Holy Land has dropped considerably due to physical threats and land theft. Sixty years ago, 20% of the population of the locale were Christian. Now that figure has dropped to 2%.
This year, the number of Christian tourists to Bethlehem has shown a healthy increase, with an estimated 65,000 visitors, four times the number who came in 2005.
Christmas is even celebrated in Jordan, where the majority of the population is Muslim.
The Christian message of Christmas is one of "glad tidings" and "peace and goodwill to all". Whatever your faith may be, and however you may choose to celebrate this Christmas, may you all enjoy peace and goodwill in your lives. And for those who are serving their country overseas, away from your families, may you in particular enjoy a very special and Merry Christmas this year.
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:07 AM | Comments (3)
December 23, 2007
Australia: Muslim Terror Plotter's Appeal Rejected
The man at left is Pakistani-born architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who lived in Punchbowl, Sydney. On June 19, 2006 he was found guilty on three terrorism counts. He was the first person to be convicted under Australia's new terrorism laws, and the first to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack.
He was found guilty of gathering maps of Sydney's power grid, acting in preparation for a terrorist act by gathering information about bomb-makingchemicals and and possessing documents with information about how to manufacture poisons. He had also written a 15-page terror manual in Urdu, which contained instructions for making home-made bombs and poisons. He had DVDs of jihad and terror training, and was convicted of buying two maps of Sydney's electricity grid with the intention of using them to plan terror attacks. Lodhi had planned to commit these attacks in October 2003.
Lodhi had trained with the Pakistan-based terror organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Lashkar-e-Toiba, or LeT) with a French national called Willy Brigitte. This man had been deported from Australia in 2003, on suspicion of belonging to Al Qaeda. French intelligence had been tracking Brigitte since 1999. They contacted Australian authorities on 3 November, 2003, to say that he planned a high-level terror act, and Brigitte, who had entered Australia on a tourist visa in May that year, was deported. Brigitte was given a 9 year jail sentence by a court in Paris on March 15 this year for "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise."
His sentencing was delayed, but in August 2006 he was given a jail term of twenty years, 15 of which must be spent in prison before he becomes eligible for parole.
Now, news from AFP, ABC, the Age, the Australian, News.com.au and Sydney Morning Herald states that 37-year old Lodhi's conviction has been upheld by New South Wales Court of Appeal on Thursday, December 20.
Lodhi's lawyers claimed that the laws against terror had removed judges' powers to control trials and were thus unconstitutional. Chief Justice Jim Spiegelman responded: "Tilting the balance does not impinge upon the integrity of the process by which the judgment is formed. It may affect the outcome of the process, but it does not affect its integrity. Accordingly, the issue is not merely one of punishing an offender for something he may do in the future. It is the recognition that the protection of society requires the offender to be prevented from perpetrating the offences which he was preparing to commit."
Phillip Boulten SC, a lawyer for Lodhi, claimed that in the 2006 trial, his client's links to Willy Brigitte had led to members of the jury finding him guilty by association.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Harris: Reflections on Blowback
The "blowback" argument takes many forms, but in its essence, it seeks to blame the United States for bad things that happen to us. The main weakness of the argument is that it fails to account for the will of other people, and the vagaries of fate and man. But that is a very short, over-poetic summary. Read this whole essay by Lee Harris, it is a thing of beauty: Reflections on 'Blowback'
Some time back Republican candidate for President Ron Paul stirred up considerable debate by arguing that 9/11 was "blowback" for the United States' foreign policy toward the Muslim world over the past half century or so, going back to the CIA engineered coup in 1953 that ousted Iranian leader Mossadegh. The term blowback had earlier been used by Chalmers Johnson as the title of a book whose sub-title made Ron Paul's point even more aggressively: "The Costs and Consequences of American Empire." In both instances, blowback refers to the negative consequences of America's foreign policy that could presumably have been avoided if the United States had pursued a policy that avoided either imperialism (Johnson's term) or interventionism (Ron Paul's.)
The term "blowback" comes from the jargon of espionage: it originally meant the unintended negative consequences of a covert operation. By extension, blowback came to be used to apply to the unintended consequences of American foreign policy, including both covert operations, like the removal of Mossadegh, and quite open operations, such as stationing American troops in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. But the concept of blowback remains morally ambiguous. For example, if a man robs a bank, and, as a result of his robbery, gets thrown in jail, we will say that the negative consequences, i.e., his time in jail, are the robber's just desserts, or, to use the vernacular, we might say that "he had it coming." Many critics of American foreign policy on the left, especially those who talk of American imperialism, belong to the "We had it coming" school in their analysis of 9/11. According to their perspective, imperialism is a self-evident evil, and those who engage in it must expect to suffer some kind of negative moral consequences. The underlying idea here goes back to the Greek historian Herodotus who sees history as a constant overtaking of hubris, or arrogance, by nemesis, or retribution. If Ron Paul meant that 9/11 was morally appropriate retribution for America's foreign policy, then it is little wonder that his statement has received so much verbal blowback.
But, as the Book of Job made clear once and for all, bad things also happen to good people. While Job's comforters kept insisting that Job must have committed some secret transgression in order to explain away his afflictions, the reader of the story has been clearly notified that this interpretation of events is false: Job, as we know, has done nothing wrong. But the same thing can be said of the professor at Virginia Tech who attempted to shield his students from being massacred by a madman with a gun. His heroic action got him shot to death. Was this, too, blowback?[...]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at 6:00 PM | Comments (2)
The Failure Of Western Feminists To Address Islamist Abuse
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Women Harmed By Muslim Men
This year, women have been killed in Basra, Iraq, by fanatical Islamists. Their bodies are subsequently dumped among refuse, with notes saying they were killed for "un-Islamic behavior". Such "behavior" is often the mere fact that these women did not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf. One mother who did not wear a veil was murdered with her children, who were aged 6 to 11 years. Between July and September this year, 42 women have been killed in this manner in Basra.
In Basra, Christian women who wear no head coverings have been warned by Shia militants that if they do not wear the hijab, they will be killed. This month 41-year old Maison Marzouq, a Christian woman, was killed with her 31-year old brother. Their bodies were dumped in a Basra refuse tip. The killings have continued, bringing the number of "un-Islamic" Basran women murdered over the past six months to 48.
In June this year, Hamas took control of Gaza by force. Sheikh Abu Saqer, who runs the Islamist group called Jihadia Salafiya, warned that Christian women living in Gaza should wear the hijab if they wished to live free from attack: "All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public."
In Sudan in 2004, a Christian woman was given a sentence of 40 lashes and a fine, for the "crime" of standing near a garden at night, and not wearing a headscarf. She was beaten by police and denied the right to speak in her defense at her Sharia trial. The sentence of whipping was carried out immediately after her conviction.
The issue of Muslim men forcing women to wear the hijab continues. In September 2007 British dentist Omer Butt - brother of former radical Hassan Butt - faced a tribunal, accused of misconduct. He had told a woman patient that he would only grant her free government-sponsored dental care if she wore a headscarf. If she refused, she would have to seek dental treatment elsewhere. Butt was found guilty but only received an admonishment.
Last week, a 16-year old girl was murdered in Missauga, Toronto. Aqsa Parvez was strangled, and died on Monday, December 10, after a brief struggle for life in hospital. Her father was arrested and on Tuesday, he was charged with her murder. Her 26-year old brother Waqas was charged with obstruction of justice.
Aqsa's school friends claimed that she would leave home dressed in a hijab, but would change into Western clothes before arriving in class. At the time she was killed, she had left home, and had apparently only returned to collect some possessions. Classmate Ebonie Mitchell said: "She just wanted to dress like we do. Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she's all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that." Her family, and her father in particular, had apparently forced her to wear the Muslim headscarf.
Muslim groups, such as CAIR naturally rushed to defend their religion, maintaining that: "Teen rebellion is something that exists in all households in Canada and is not unique to any culture or background." The Islamic Social Services Association said that the death was a case of domestic violence, and was a problem across Canada's society.
Such less-than-honest assessments do not take into consideration the cultural and religious factors behind the case. Not wearing Islamic dress is a motivation for other so-called honor-killings. In Pakistan where Aqsa's family came from, an estimated 1,500 women die as a result of honor-killings every year.
In Britain, numerous honor killings have taken place, particularly amongst Muslim immigrants of Pakistani and Kurdish backgrounds. On November 1, 2006, Pakistani immigrant Mohammed Riaz burned his wife and four daughters (aged 3 to 16) to death because they had become too "Westernized". Before the murders, he had destroyed "Western clothes" belonging to the girls.
It is frequently argued that honor-killings, like female genital mutilation (FGM) have nothing to do with Islam. This does not explain why such abuses of women take place predominantly in Muslim societies. In today's climate of cultural relativism where Westerners do not wish to find fault with abuses of women under Islam, the voices of famous so-called feminists are either quiet, or even refuse to acknowledge that such abuse has anything to do with them.
Where were the voices of Western feminists when several girls and young women died in a fire in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on March 11, 2002? The girls were students, staying in a dormitory when the fire broke out. When they tried to flee the building, those who were not Islamically "covered" were beaten back into the flames by the muttawa or "religious policemen."
Australian-born Germaine Greer was an icon of the feminist movement. Her seminal book "The Female Eunuch" was first published in America in 1970, a radical response to Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique
In 1999, Greer published The Whole Woman. Here, she attempted to compare FGM - which is forced upon young girls who have no rights of refusal - with breast enhancement, which is an adult woman's choice. For Greer, an operation that robs a woman of the right to enjoy sex is justifiable as it is a part of "culture".
In 2004, Greer wrote: "I get a bit worried about certain heavily veiled ladies driving because they have no peripheral vision at all. You can understand why in some countries they are not allowed to drive." In Saudi Arabia where women are banned from driving, they are given no choice about wearing the veil. In the West, only a few women, such as the Floridian former child-batterer Sultaana Freeman demand the right to drive while wearing a face veil (niqab).
Greer has previously suggested that as a protest against the (Afghan) war, women should wear burkas - even though in Afghanistan the burka was forced upon women by men who would use sticks and electrical cable to beat those who did not comply. Most recently, Greer showed her self-centered contempt for the plight of abused Muslim women during a talk in Melbourne this month.
Pamela Bone asked Greer why Western feminists did not speak out against "honor killings". Greer mentioned the subject of Darfur, Sudan, and its rape-victims (thousands of women and young girls have been raped during the conflict). Greer said: "I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?" When Bone responded that the situation for such women in Darfur was worse than in the West, Greer tried to hedge the issue. She said: "Who says it is?"
When Bone said that she had been to Darfur, Greer argued that changing another culture was hard. "We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast." Greer said that she cared, and was wearing a white ribbon to show she cared.
Greer's hollow sympathies are symptomatic of the malaise of Western feminism, whose modern luminaries bask in the limelight of publicity, live lives of middle class privilege yet ignore those who are denied such privileges. A hundred years ago, women in America and Britain had not been granted universal suffrage. The vote for all U.S. women only came in 1920, and it was not until 1928 that British women were allowed equal rights to men at the polling booth. Their struggles had begun decades earlier.
In Britain, suffragettes were imprisoned for their beliefs and their hunger strikes were addressed by force-feeding. On June 4, 1913, one British suffragette martyred herself at the annual Derby races. Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the king's horse, dying days later from a fractured skull (video HERE).
Modern western feminists have been brought up with the luxuries of higher education, something that has been denied to many women in the Muslim world. The Taliban refused to allow women to work, and denied girls the right to schooling. Even now, the Taliban continue to deny education to girls, killing those who do try to teach them. I should here mention one Western feminist who - shortly after the Taliban usurped power on September 27, 1996 - had been an outspoken critic of their oppression of women. Mavis NIcholson Leno - wife of talk show host Jay Leno - is on the board of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and from February 1997 was national chair of the group's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan.
One of the problems associated with the issue of women's rights in women's countries is the notion that headscarves and face-veils have always been intrinsically a part of Islam. Look at the photograph above. It shows girl students in Tehran, Iran, in the 1970s, shortly before the Islamist revolution. These girls would have thought of themselves as modern, but still Muslim. When the revolution came, Ayatollah Khomeini enforced strict dress codes upon women. As well as introducing primitive and barbaric punishments of stoning for adultery, he lowered the age of adulthood of women - at which a girl could be executed for a crime - to nine years old.
Though the age of adulthood for a woman has been subsequently raised, modern day Iran still punishes women for not covering themselves in the headscarf or chador - the Iranian equivalent of the burka. Iranian women are still sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery - often on spurious grounds.
Muslim Feminism
Writing on the recent case of murdered schoolgirl Aqsa Parvez in Canada's National Post Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan argue that there is nothing in the Koran to justify wearing of a hijab. Both writers are members of the Canadian Muslim Congress, and claim that extremists have made the veil issue the "sixth pillar of Islam". They cite one Montreal mosque which had carried a notice on it's website stating: "By removing your hijab, you have destroyed your faith. Islam means submission to Allah in all our actions." In October 2006 the door of Farzana Hassan's home was pelted with eggs. She claimed that her comments about there being no Koranic justification for the hijab had prompted the attack.
The most extreme Islamist known to us is Osama bin Laden. In the photograph above, he is shown second from the right, aged 14. The picture is of the entire bin Laden family, taken by their father in 1971 on a holiday in Falun, Sweden. Though some of Osama's sisters have headscarves, most are unafraid to show their hair to the world.
The veil has been known at least since the time of the Assyrians, whose empire was located near northern Iraq and flourished from 2400 BC to 612 BC. In Assyria, a woman had to wear the veil outside the house, and prostitutes were forbidden to wear it. It has been argued that only as Islam expanded did the veil become incorporated into Muslim codes of dress. Around the 10th century AD, it became part of general Islamic tradition. In the 14th century, Arab traveler Ibn Battuta was shocked to find Turkish women in Anatolia who went about uncovered.
The last Caliphate was that of the Ottomans, and it was officially abolished by the newly-created Turkish government on March 3, 2004. The wife of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, was Latife Hanim Usaklgil (1898 to 1975). She led campaigns for women to throw away the headscarf and to become modern citizens.
After the demise of the Caliphate, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in March, 1928. This group would globally become influential among Islamists, including the ideologues of Al Qaeda, and since the 1980s has been predominantly responsible for the rise of the wearing of the hijab. One woman within the Muslim Brotherhood extolled the notion of feminism within Islam. Zainab al Ghazali was born in 1917. She joined the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1935, but initially refused to join the Brotherhood. She only joined the Brotherhood in 1948, at a time when the group was committing acts of terrorism and sending fighters against Israel. She would be imprisoned by President Nasser in 1965. She was tortured in prison, and was finally released in August 1971.
Ghazali declared that: "Islam has provided everything for both men and women. It gave women everything--freedom, economic rights, political rights, social rights, public and private rights. Islam gave women rights in the family granted by no other society. Women may talk of liberation in Christian society, Jewish society, or pagan society, but in Islamic society it is a grave error to speak of the liberation of women. The Muslim woman must study Islam so she will know that it is Islam that has given her all her rights." Ghazali believed women could enter all areas of commerce and politics. She died in 2005, but despite her efforts Mahdi Akef, the current leader of the Brotherhood, recently stated: "It is the Muslim Brotherhood's opinion that a woman cannot be president [of Egypt]." So much for feminism and women's equality within the Muslim Brotherhood.
There are aspects of Islam that will always be used by extremists to undermine Muslim women's emancipation, such as the Sharia concept that legally, a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man. Muslim "feminists" must fight against such entrenched positions if they really want full equality. There are no Muslim spiritual leaders who are women. Some women may teach, but few are imams.
Amina Wudud broke with traditions and led Islamic prayers in New York on March 18, 2005. The Islamic Friday prayers were held in an Episcopalian church under tight security. Three mosques had refused to let her lead prayers. She attended the first European conference on Islamic Feminism held at Barcelona, Spain, in October 2005. The conference ran smoothly, attended by 300 delegates from the Muslim world.
In Morocco, women are now allowed to act as Islamic "guides", nown as morchidat. Since April 2006 the first batch of these female chaplains graduated. One of these "guides" said: "The imamate in Islam is restricted solely to men who are apt at leading prayers, notably those on Friday. The Morchidat will be in charge of leading religious discussions, give courses in Islam, give moral support to people in difficulty and guide the faithful towards a tolerant Islam."
There are many sincere and intelligent Muslim women who argue that the original Islam of the Koran is a source of women's emancipation, such as Asma Barlas, Mahsa Sherkarloo. In Malaysia, the daughter of a former president has campaigned for women's rights. Marina Mahathir is still a Muslim, but has condemned Islamist legislation in her country.
Also in Malaysia, the women's group Sisters in Islam argues that the Koran should be used for the emancipation of women. In neighboring Indonesia, Lily Zakiyah Munir similarly argues that despite 1,400 years of patriarchal Islamic jurisprudence, Islam as described in the Koran promotes the rights of women. She argues that a genuine form of Sharia law should promote justice for women.
The efforts of these Muslim women who struggle to find a message of equality and liberation in the Koran should be applauded. If there is any hope for a genuine reformation in Islam, it may come from the arguments presented by scholars such as these. However, even these women must concede that Sura 4:34 of the Koran grants a man permission to beat his wife.
The existing schools of Islam are not going to give women equal legal and religious status in a hurry. Ghada Jamshir is a woman living in Bahrain. She is a Muslim, but refuses to let patriarchal clerics silence her criticisms of their methods. When Muslim woman doctor Taslima Nasreen wrote a newspaper article describing how in her native Bangladesh a Muslim cleric had organized the illegal stoning to death of a woman, reactions against her were swift and hostile. A death fatwa was put on her head, and she was forced to flee the country. 14 years later, she is still subject to persecution.
In Germany, Seyran Ates is a 44-year old lawyer who was born in Turkey. She has campaigned for two decades against forced marriages and so-called honor killings amongst Germany's Muslim communities. For her pains, she was once shot at by the enraged husband of a client. In 2005 Ates was named "German Woman of the Year", but in September 2006 she announced that she was to retire. She claimed that the constant death threats against her and her daughter were getting too much to bear. Later, she did gain some support, and returned to work under tighter security.
Seyran Ates sums up the problems created by well-meaning "liberals" who hide behind cultural relativism when gross abuses of Muslim women take place. She has said: "I want to know, and many thousands of Muslim girls and women have a right to know, why understanding and infinite tolerance is practised with particular cultural traditions that are clearly oppressive of women. Human rights are universal and unconditional. And that goes most certainly for religious objectives. It is only girls and women who are forced to wear head-scarves. And it's also a majority of girls and women who are affected by forced marriage." If only Western-born feminists could be so forthright.
The Failures of Western Feminism
Britain's first mainstream "feminist" magazine was called Spare Rib, founded in 1971. Some of its articles became mere rants against men, who were dubbed "phallocrats". Such vitriol was not dissimilar to that promoted by American Valerie Solanas, author of the Scum Manifesto, where Scum stood for the "Society of Cutting Up Men".
The term "feminist" is now viewed by 75% of working American women as an insult. The fault for this lies not in the drive for full economic, legislative, and social equality of women, but in the arrogant and vainglorious personalities of many of feminism's leading icons. There have always been great and remarkable women who stood up for their rights as human beings in patriarchal environments, from Lysistrata and Sappho to Boudicca, Hildegard of Bingen, Elizabeth Fry, Mary Woollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth and Eleanor Roosevelt, but these women never saw themselves as "feminists".
Gloria Steinem said in December 2005 of Hugh Hefner: "He's such a jerk. He's so pathetic. ... Now's he's going around with four young women in their 20s instead of just one. It's sort of Moslem, actually." Her comments raised the temperature of CAIR, but did little to enhance the situation of Muslim women trapped in patriarchal societies. I can find little else by Steinem that actually criticizes Islamism, a real enemy of women.
Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon are known for their stance against pornography, but this crusade apparently masks a deeper grudge against sensuality in general. Gloria Steinem, who joined the pair in their legal attempts to gain damages against the makers of the notorious porn movie "Deep Throat", has claimed that Dworkin is among the elite few who have helped the human race to evolve.
Dworkin, who died on April 9, 2005, had been sexually abused as a child, had engaged in prostitution and was a battered wife. Dworkin has stated: "Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice," and "Men are distinguished from women by their commitment to do violence rather than to be victimized by it."
MacKinnon is a sharp lawyer from a comfortable Minnesota background. She now lectures in law at the University of Michigan. An important and commendable point in her career came in 1993, when she employed a little-known U.S. law, the Alien Tort Statute to seek redress for Muslim and Croatian women who had been raped by Serbs in Bosnia. This allows for jurisdiction to be maintained in the U.S. court for crimes committed abroad, but only if the defendant is personally handed the charges on U.S. soil. The target of the suit was Radovan Karadzic, who supervised campaigns of rape during the Bosnian war. When he appeared in New York in March 1993, he was served with a law suit. Karadzic has been named in other indictments, including one for the Srebrenica genocide of 8,000 Muslim males, but since 1995 his whereabouts are unknown.
MacKinnon's failings, in my view, stem not from commission but from omission. To wish to see a mass murderer and supervisor of rapes charged is commendable. I wonder what deeper motives prevent MacKinnon, who has loudly attacked pornography, from employing the Alien Tort Statute against visiting Islamists and religious officials who have committed atrocities against women in their own countries. In my research for this article, I have found no condemnation from MacKinnon or Dworkin against Islamist abuses of women in Muslim societies. I hope I am wrong, and wish that either individual has used her influence to voice disapproval.
There are certainly no shortages of horrific acts to condemn. On March 24, 2006 a 16-year old girl who had been raped in northern Bangladesh by two men was sentenced to 57 lashes. Her two rapists were given the same punishment by two clerics from a local madrassa. The rapists had fled after being given 27 lashes, but the girl received 51 lashes before she passed out.
From February 10, 1979 to November 17, 2006, Pakistan had legislation called the Hudood Ordinances. This had been introduced by Islamists during the rule of dictator Zia ul-Haq. Any woman who complained that she had been raped was obliged to provide four witnesses to the act. Failure to do so meant she would be charged with adultery, for which the maximum sentence was the death penalty and lashes. Though no woman was executed under the Hudood Laws, thousands of women were detained in prisons across Pakistan for contravening these laws.
In November 2006, a Saudi court sentenced a victim of gang rape to 90 lashes. The woman had been raped by five men but was given a severe punishment because, before the attack, she had been alone in a car with a man who was not a relative by blood or marriage. This is the Islamic crime of "khalwat'. The woman's lawyer appealed, but last month a court in Qatif increased her sentence to 200 lashes, accompanied by six months' imprisonment.
This barbaric judgment has been condemned by the U.S. State Department, and 35 German lawyers also wrote to condemn the action. To her credit, Hillary Clinton described the ruling as an "outrage". Barack Obama and other Democrat nominees followed suit, with Obama saying the decision was "beyond unjust". One thing surprised me. When CNN reported on the Saudi ruling on its website, many of the comments (since removed) by American women maintained that it was no-one's business but the Saudis.
If an injustice is committed, a moral person has a duty to condemn it - be it forcible abortions in China, rapes in Darfur or state-sponsored oppression carried out in Saudi Arabia. Wearing white ribbons is not enough, despite Germaine Greer's protestations. It should be noted that according to Salman Rushdie, Greer refused to sign a petition condemning the 1989 fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini which was in effect a death sentence against the author. Greer's form of feminism is the antithesis of that promoted by MacKinnon or the late Dworkin - in 1969 Greer co-founded Suck, Europe's "first sex newspaper", and had no qualms about opening her legs for the camera.
The amoral individuals who complain that Saudi punishments have nothing to do with them should think each time they fill their cars with gasoline about how they financially support such injustice. Some Western feminists have been well aware of the dangers of Islamism, both to women in Muslim countries and to the West at large. Camille Paglia is one such woman. Oriana Fallaci was an Italian journalist who had no problems confronting Islamism. Her forceful rhetoric extended to condemning Muslims for "breeding like rats", comments which have undermined her reputation. When she died on September 15, 2006 aged 77, she was facing defamation charges for passages she had written against Islam.
Naomi Wolf is another famous feminist. She has condemned Islamist terrorism, but seems more concerned to promote her theories that America is becoming a fascist state than to champion the causes of women stuck in patriarchal Islamist societies. When the "celebrities" of feminism could use their fame to ignite discussions of such issues in a complacent media ridden with torpor and lassitude, but fail to do so, the true failings of Western feminism become self-evident.
In Britain, the feminist movement is now a sick joke. With an estimated 109 cases of honor killings committed on their own doorstep, and at least 250 young British Muslim girls annually sent off to be forced into arranged marriages against their wills, there are plenty of local causes to champion. Instead of decrying these abuses, British feminists have bought into the myth that women in veils and headscarfs who submit themselves to arranged marriages are actually "liberated".
Such nonsense has been promoted by the ludicrous figure of Yvonne Ridley. A former Sunday school teacher, "feminist" and journalist for the Sundayy Express newspaper, Ridley went to Afghanistan in late September 2001. She had entered the country in secret, and was wearing a burka. She was arrested by the Taliban, who thought she was a spy. She was imprisoned for 10 days, and was freed on the condition that she read the Koran and study Islam. She became a convert in 2004.
Upon her release by the Taliban, Ridley began to make bizarre claims that MI6 (Britain's offshore intelligence agency) and the CIA had wanted her to be killed while in prison. She wrote of this in her book "In the Hands of the Taliban", and claimed that the hotel in Pakistan where she went after her release had been searched. In London, the locks on her Soho apartment had, she asserted, been tampered with.
Shortly after her contract with the Sunday Express expired in February 2003, Ridley became employed by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera media group. She was fired on November 12, 2003. No reason was given at the time, but the station later claimed that her "overly-vocal and argumentative style" had led to her sacking.
In 2004, she said of the Koran: "I was absolutely blown away by what I was reading - not one dot or squiggle had been changed in 1,400 years. I have joined what I consider to be the biggest and best family in the world. When we stick together we are absolutely invincible."
Her initial support after conversion came in a phone call from the notorious Abu Hamza al-Masri hook-handed preacher of Finsbury Park mosque. She said: "I explained I hadn't yet taken my final vows and he said, 'Don't be pressured or pushed, the whole community is there for you if you need any help, just call one of the sisters. I thought, I can't believe it, this is the fire and brimstone cleric from Finsbury Park mosque and he is quite sweet really. I was just about to hang up when he said, 'But there is just one thing I want you to remember. Tomorrow, if you have an accident and die, you will go straight to hellfire'."
Hamza was jailed on February 7, 2006 for inciting murder and racial hatred. Ridley became a member of the Stop the War coalition, a grouping of leftists and Islamists. In 2005, she stood as a prospective parliamentary candidate for George Galloway's RESPECT party in Leicester. Though Muslim leaders from around the world supported her, with one claiming her win "would be an honor for Islam," she failed to be elected.
After the 7/7 bombings killed 52 innocent people in London, Ridley appeared on the BBC wearing a black robe, headscarf and face-veil, claiming that Islam was a religion of peace, even though the four bombers were perhaps better versed in Islamic Hadiths than herself. She claims the hijab and niqab are liberating, and that wearing such items means a woman is "judged on your character and intelligence". She said: "How liberating is it to be judged for your mind and not the size of your bust or length of your legs." I may be a Philistine, but I treat a woman who dresses like a tent as a woman dressed like a tent. As such a costume is a political statement of "separateness" from Western values, I do not want to know any more about her.
Ridley worked on the Islam Channel, a cable TV show, but her show was suspended earlier this year. In June 2006 Ridley urged Muslims living in London not to cooperate with the police. In January 2007, she had few good words to say about her fellow political Muslims, writing on her website: "I feel very low at the moment ... in total despair at the appeasing stance being adopted by some of our self-important Muslim leaders. Instead of standing up to the Establishment they are scuttling around like Uriah Heep characters without dignity or self respect."
Ridley has also called Israel "a vile little state," and has said that any Zionists in the Respect party would be "hunted down".
Ridley, a former Western "feminist" is the public voice of British Islamic feminism - even though her views are attention-seeking, contradictory and inflammatory, a far cry from those of authentic Muslim women who go unnoticed. When the Stop the War coalition had one rally in 2005 one of the leftist organizers urged the non-Muslim women to cover their heads to "show respect" to the Muslim women attending.
In Britain, and in an increasing number in North America, there are Muslim women who live in fear of their families. A friend of mine, who is now an apostate from Islam, was once thrown out of a moving car by her husband for not wearing her "hijab". She still fears her own family's reprisals. I have personally known Muslim women who live in dread of their families, because they have had relationships with Hindus or Sikhs. Even though some women proudly proclaim themselves as feminists, where are the feminist voices to stand up for the rights of these women who live in fear?
With feminists like this, who needs enemies?
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
UPDATE: Today, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has officially pardoned the Shia woman who was due to be sentenced to 200 lashes for "khalwat" - proof, if any should be needed, of why feminists must be prepared to use their fame to highlight such cases in the media. Without media pressure, there would have been no political pressure on the Saudis to change the outcome. This case was resolved without the help of feminists but through decent people who knew that injustice should be exposed.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:41 AM | Comments (3)
December 14, 2007
Europe: European Reform Treaty Signed
Yesterday, Gordon Brown signed the European Reform Treaty at Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon. The leaders of the 26 other EU nations had signed three hours earlier and David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, signed the document in Brown's absence.
The British government says on one of its websites that "The UK won't lose control of its borders." This is a lie. Over the weekend, last minute negotiations over the clauses in the 700-page document have meant that failed asylum seekers will now have the right to apply to Strasbourg to appeal the decisions made in individual nations, thus allowing them more time to reside in Europe.
Only Ireland will have a right for a referendum. Though most of the Treaty is in essence a European "constitution", and in 2005 Labour was elected on a manifesto promise of holding a referendum on any European constitution, Brown refuses to countenance such a move.
Between January and March, over 20 days the UK parliament will discuss the Treaty, and in late March MPs are expected to give their final votes on ratification. The final deadline for all EU member nations to submit ratification is December 31, 2008, and on January 1, 2009 this treaty, called by then the Lisbon Treaty, will come into effect. The treaty officially aims to streamline the running of Europe and make communications more efficient between the 27 member states. It also suggests a President of the EU should hold office for two and a half years. There are some suggestions that Tony Blair may be the first president under the eventually-ratified terms of the treaty.
Comments at the Telegraph are hostile, and there are expected to be problems for Brown when parliament returns. Already some Labour MPs are against the treaty.
A pro-treaty account (pdf document) can be found here. There is still some confusion as to what the 700 document actually contains, and Brown has claimed he has gained some opt-out clauses which he calls "red lines". How effective these will be at maintaining British sovereignty is questionable and only in a court of law will the answers be made available. By which time, the treaty will already be in effect.
Only with a referendum will the entire nation of Britain be able to make a decision. In Ireland, 60% of voters do not know what the treaty entails, and thus a referendum will provide them with that information. SHould they vote "no", the treaty will not be implemented.
This morning I gave a radio interview with Mark Carbonaro of KION-AM in Monterrey, California on the subject of this Treaty, its ramifications for Gordon Brown and how the US should be wary of similar measures implemented by the North American Union. That radio interview (20 minutes long) can be heard HERE
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:05 PM | Comments (2)
December 12, 2007
UK: Islam, National Identity and Multiculturalism
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Britain's Lessons In Cultural Suicide
Lesson 1: Don't Fly The Flag
Imagine, if you will, that you had served your country in the U.S. military for 22 years, and viewed yourself as a patriot. To this end, you have tattooed on your arm a small image of the Stars and Stripes and the words "U.S. Army'. When preparing to retire from the army, you then decide to join the police. How would you feel if you found yourself turned down for the job, because you are told your tattoo of the national flag could be seen as "racist"?
Fortunately for Americans, such a scenario could never happen in the near future. Yet for British soldier Sgt. Ivan Ivanovic, his patriotic tattoo prevented him from joining a police force in the north of England. Because Ivanovic has a two-inch Union Jack flag tattooed on his arm with the words "British Army", he was not even considered for employment by Cumbria Constabulary. He said: "I can't see why anyone would think that the flag of the country might be seen as racist."
Sergeant Ivanovic had served Queen and Country in the first Gulf War, in Kosovo and in Iraq, yet the national symbol of the country he served was deemed "racist". Ivanovic should not have been surprised. Since May 1997, Britain's Labour government has been undermining almost every aspect of British heritage in a misguided drive to foist its leftist policies of "multiculturalism" onto an unwilling public.
When in 2002 Derek Stone stood as the Conservative candidate for mayoral elections in the London borough of Lewisham, his posters bore a Union Jack. For this act, he was condemned by his opponents as "racist".
A precursor of the Union Jack first appeared on April 12, 1606, when James I (formerly James VI of Scotland) was king. This flag incorporated the Saltire or cross of St Andrew (Scotland's patron saint) and the cross of Saint George, patron saint of England. The modern design of the Union Jack - which also includes the cross of Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, was drawn up in 1801 by the College of Arms, to celebrate the "Act of Union" officially unifying Scotland and England.
Wales has its own language (my Welsh father did not learn English till he was seven) yet was not regarded as a separate country when the first Union flag was created. Wales had been incorporated into the union by two acts passed in 1536 and 1542, and was not included in the design of the Union Jack.
How did a flag which symbolically represents "unification" become associated with racism? A report on racial and inter-religious disturbances in Britain, which took place in northern England in 2001, stated: "The Union Jack, the flag that 'represents' Britain is seen as a racist flag the symbol of colonialism and the BNP... Ordinary people can no longer display the flag without being labelled right wing racists."
It is true that in the 1970s the far-right (and racist) group called the National Front adopted the Union Jack as its political logotype. The British National Party (BNP) also briefly adopted the flag. The Union Jack has been a symbol of national identity for 200 years - and continues to be a visible sign of Britishness, despite the attempts by extreme nationalists to hijack it.
In 2003, one British supporter of multiculturalism tried to reintroduce a revamped version of the Union flag where black lines were added to the design, to represent the non-white citizens of Britain. This individual, Nigel Turner, said: "If I flew the union jack from a flagpole in my garden, many people would see it as a racist statement." The issue of Britain's flag being viewed as racist seems to be a notion beloved by multiculturalists and leftists.
In the 1990s, I designed publicity for an art exhibition in the London Borough of Hackney. The work was by young black artists. One item was a massive screen print of the Union Jack in red ink. It was comprised entirely of the names of black people who had contributed to British culture, from Olaudah Equiano and Mary Seacole to contemporary athletes, broadcasters, writers and actors. My layout, intended to be placed on Hackney council's magazine, featured this artwork sized down to only an inch and a half wide. When the magazine was published, there was a hole in the design. I rang the council, and was told the Union flag image had been removed, as it was seen as "racist".
The report on the northern England riots of 2001, where Muslims and white British fought running battles in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley observed that: "as others have noted in relation to the 1998 (soccer) World Cup the St George's flag was felt to represent a multi-ethnic Britain, whereas the Union Jack is associated with colonialism and white racism. The obvious irony of course is the St George's flag's older historical symbolism of the crusades, of an earlier conflict between Christian Europe and Islam. Yet British Muslims readily took it up as a symbol of a component of their identity, as a symbol of their belonging within and support for England."
The St George's flag, national flag of England since the 13th century, has not escaped controversy. For many people living in England, irrespective of race, it is seen as a national flag when England competes in a sporting contest. In June 2006 a senior officer in North Wales Police warned during the soccer World Cup that flags of St George would lead to racism and violence. He felt that Welsh citizens would be offended if they saw the St George's flag displayed on vehicles.
In Hounslow, west London, the local council had previously displayed the Palestinian flag on its civic center, but decided in February 2005 to refuse to allow the flag of St George, as it was deemed "socially divisive". A motion to hoist this flag on St George's Day (April 23) was almost unanimously defeated by council members.
When in 2006 Jackie Meldrum, Labour-supporting deputy council leader of Lambeth Council in south London, commented that the St George's flag was a symbol of "multiculturalism", she received racist hate mail. One letter read: "Cllr Meldrum you are an anti-white, racist shit. I hope every member of your family dies as slowly as Britain has been dying from your poisonous anti-white propaganda and I know millions of others would agree. Long live Britain!"
Though Lambeth Council's Labour spokespeople believe the St George's flag is a sign of multi-ethnic values, the Liberal Democrat borough council of Pendle, Lancashire, believes that the same flag is "racist". Matthew Carter works as a refuse collector for the council, and as he has dreadlocks, he uses a bandana to tie back his hair when he works. Mr Carter, who is black and comes from Barbados, had been using a St George flag for this purpose. In June this year, Mr Carter was banned from wearing the St George flag. He said: "I received a verbal warning. They told me the St George's Cross was not allowed to be seen on any clothing we wear because it could be considered offensive and racist."
Anne Owers is Britain's Chief Inspector of Prisons. In 2005 she wrote in a report that officers in Wakefield jail in Yorkshire had been seen wearing St George tie-pins. These items were in support of a cancer charity. Owers claimed that such symbols should not be worn, as they could be "misinterpreted" as a racist symbol.
For some fanatical Muslims, the sight of a St George's cross is a sign of the Crusades. During the 2006 World Cup, a chain of pubs banned any displays of the flag, following threats by extremists linked to the outlawed group Al-Muhajiroun. Cable company NTL and the Drivers and Vehicles Licensing Agency also banned the flag.
In June this year, Islamists connected with Al-Muhajiroun burned handmade St George's flags at Regents Park Mosque. They were protesting at the knighthood that was given to author Salman Rushdie. Other protesters carried placards stating "God Curse the Queen."
Lesson 2: Divided We Fall
With Britain's populace uncertain whether its national flags represent unity and inclusiveness or division and racism, the Labour government has nonetheless widened the fault lines dividing Britain. The most obvious sign of this came in the form of setting up parliaments for Scotland and Wales, while allowing English citizens no such regional body.
When the Labour government came to power in May 1997, it had promised devolution for Scotland and Wales in the form of creating regional parliaments. For Scottish citizens, a referendum was held on September 11, 1997. This gave approval for the formation of a Scottish Parliament, a measure which became enshrined in the Scotland Act of November 19, 1998. This Act allowed for the parliament to have 129 elected members.
Welsh opinion was evenly divided over having a separate parliament. A referendum held in September 1997 found 50.3% in favor, and 49.7% against. The Government of Wales Act of 1988 ruled that a National Assembly for Wales (NAW) should be created, with 60 elected members. The NAW has less powers than the Scottish parliament.
The Scottish parliament began operations in May 13, 1999 in a temporary location in Edinburgh, while construction began on a purpose-built edifice at Holyrood. In October 2004 the new Scottish parliament building finally opened. This had taken five years to complete, at a cost of $900 million - ten times the original estimate. Scotland has introduced laws that require the state to fund the care of the elderly. In the rest of Britain, the elderly must first spend all their assets above $41,000 before they receive free nursing care. The Scottish elderly care scheme is now in chaos.
Though designed to give people greater say over local issues, devolution has not reversed the decline of national feelings of pride. The Union - once the bedrock of British identity which allowed people from any part of Britain to feel some sense of collective belonging - has lost support in England, Scotland and Wales. People in all regions feel less proud to be British than they did in the 1980s.
Gordon Brown had been the Chancellor since Labour came to power in 1997 and cannot evade responsibility for the damage that Labour has done to Britain's national identity. Shortly after he assumed power in June of this year, Brown ordered that all public buildings in Britain should hoist the Union flag for 365 days a year. In Scotland, whose parliament is governed by the Scottish National Party, the Scottish culture minister affirmed in July that the St Andrew's flag, or Saltire, will have precedence over the the Union flag.
Under Labour, more and more power has also been devolved to Europe. With increased treaties and directives agreed by an ever-expanding European Union, Britain's citizens have lost many of their traditional rights. In 2003, shopkeepers were banned from displaying measures of produce in pounds and ounces, and were obliged by law to display only metric measures.
In 1998, Labour introduced a Human Rights Act, which made all of Britain's laws subservient to the European Convention of Human Rights, originally written up in 1950. Russia also signed this convention, but has never allowed the convention to interfere with human rights violations. Britain's 1998 law has prevented the deportation of terrorists and those already convicted in their home countries from being deported. On May 1, 2006, a European Union law, the 2004 Free Movement Directive, came into force. This ruling similarly prevents deportation of foreign-born criminals.
Labour's biggest blow to cultural cohesion has been to allow uncontrolled immigration. Since Labour came to power in 1997, 1.7 million new jobs were created. According to a recent report, 81% of those new jobs went to foreign-born workers.
Since 2001 Labour has stuck to a mantra that immigration is good for the economy, based on one report made at that time. Last month, a new report cast doubt on the accuracy of that statement. At the end of September 2007, Britain's left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published the findings of an economic profile on British immigrants. The report maintained that overall, immigration was good for the economy. However, it also found that among immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Somalia, more of these people were unemployed than in work.
The IPPR report notes that Polish immigrants were well-represented in the workforce. However, the amount of legal immigrants from Eastern Europe over the past three years has escalated dramatically, arriving at twenty times the annual rate that was expected by government. Since 2004, there have been 700,000 Eastern European immigrants. This massive influx has led to housing and public services becoming severely stretched. Other EU countries imposed strict limitations on the numbers of migrants from Eastern Europe. Britain was the only EU country which did not impose limits.
A government report from July this year on Eastern European migration was not intended to be published publicly. It was leaked, and revealed that the government was alarmed at the sale of migration, and the strain it was placing on services and social cohesion. The report's author, Joan Ryan of the Home Office, also noted that Britain's policy of not paying such migrants welfare benefits if unemployed could be illegal under European Union law.
In July and again in September of this year, prime minister Gordon Brown pledged to create "British jobs" for "British workers". In October, a parliamentary study claimed that Brown's pledge to create jobs for British citizens could be illegal under European Union law as it discriminated against migrant workers from the EU. Under the EU treaties approved by Labour, these migrants who come predominantly from Eastern Europe must "enjoy equal treatment".
Many migrants bring their children, and as a result, it was revealed in September last year that one in eight schoolchildren speak English as a second language. Few schools can compare with the Isambard Brunel School in Portsmouth on Britain's south coast. Here, teachers struggle to educate pupils who come "from 41 countries who, between them, speak 58 different languages, but often little or no English."
Any American politician who wishes to destroy his or her nation's identity is unlikely to copy most of Labour's policies, primarily because the United States does not belong to a disparate coalition of 26 nations such as the European Union. The egalitarian/communistic nature of the EU allows each of its member states to have a say in policy. Its two latest arrivals are Bulgaria and Romania, both economic basket cases struggling to implement real democracy. Turkey is attempting to join as it lurches further towards Islamofascism.
However, the United States has exercised scant control over its southern border, and consequently has a burgeoning population of illegal migrants. In Britain, the government estimates that there are 570,000 illegal immigrants in the country, though the true figure is more likely at least 800,000.
In Britain, there have been rallies by leftists and bleeding-heart liberals to give amnesty and eventual citizenship to Britain's illegal immigrants. In 2006, the leftist think-tank IPPR recommended an amnesty for illegal migrants.
Such amnesties have already been allowed in Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus, all EU member states. Currently, the Liberal Democrat party, which has little chance of winning an election, supports an amnesty.
Last year, George W Bush was criticized for supporting a virtual amnesty plan for illegal migrants. One American politician who supports the granting of citizenshhip to illegal immigrants is Hillary Clinton. With her plans to introduce a health system not unlike Britain's cash-devouring National Health Service, Hillary is almost a token European.
Lesson 3: Trash Your Traditions
America is protected by a written constitution. Britain has no such document, though the latest European Union Treaty which Gordon Brown has thitherto supported is regarded as a "European constitution". With no written constitution, it was easy for Tony Blair to remove some of the hereditary peers who sat in Parliament's Upper House, replacing them with individuals of his own choosing.
The only fixed constitutional item in Britain is the figurehead of the monarch. Currently, Queen Elizabeth II has fulfilled her "constitutional" role admirably since 1953, attending official and ceremonial functions without showing political favor. The British monarch is also the head of the Anglican church, carrying the title "Defender of the Faith". Her successor as monarch and "Defender of the Faith" will be Prince Charles, who famously imagined himself as a tampon belonging to his then-floozy, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Despite his marital infidelity and bizarre ruminations, Charles declared in 1994 that he wanted to abandon the title of "Defender of the Faith". This epithet has been held by every British monarch since Henry VIII in 1521. Prince Charles wanted to replace it with the title "Defender of Faiths", to make Muslims and other non-Anglicans feel "included". He has since claimed that he wishes to be called "Defender of Faith". Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, contends that the title of "Defender of the Faith" is not negotiable, nor is it subject to Charles' personal whims.
Two months after 9/11, Charles condemned what he perceived as anti-Muslim attitudes in America. He claimed: "I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational." At the time, Charles was accompanied by Iqbal Sacranie, who notoriously said after Salman Rushdie's death-fatwa that "death is, perhaps, too good for him." Sacranie has also called Osama bin Laden an "Islamic scholar".
Charles may wish for more understanding between faiths, but he has patronized some insidious organizations, such as the Saudi-funded King Fahd Academy in west London. This institution uses Saudi textbooks which call Christians "swine" and Jews "apes and pigs". Interfaith understanding is not assisted by pandering to religious bigotry. In March 2006, he attended Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Saudi Arabia, where he delivered a speech praising Islam. The same university has educated Salafists who preach hate, including Abdullah el-Faisal. Faisal served time in a British jail after calling for the murder of Jews and Hindus.
Since the 1980s, Britain's Labour-controlled local councils have promoted policies of multiculturalism. So-called "representatives" of minority ethnic groups were given cash hand-outs to set up their own groups, with little critical analysis of these groups' roles. In the mid-1990s, Muslims who had previously been fellow-travelers on the racial rights bandwagon began to demand that their religion be granted "special status".
In universities, Muslim extremists from Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun campaigned to win the "hearts and minds" of students. Often, these groups used violence to force Muslim women students to wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf. In 1995, members of Hizb ut-Tahrir killed an African student at an east London college. At that time, no action was taken against the group as a whole and its then-leader, Omar Bakri Mohammed, continued to preach hate and intolerance.
When Labour came to power in 1997, policies which had thrived in so-called "looney left" councils became embedded in the government's ethos. Instead of governing the economy and enforcing existing laws, Labour set out to engage in changing society artificially by social engineering. In this climate, local councils grew bolder in their efforts to be politically correct. In 1998, Birmingham City Council decided that the term "Christmas" was potentially offensive to non-Christians. As a result, it renamed its celebrations and seasonal illuminations "Winterval".
In 2001, Luton Council decided to call its seasonal celebrations "Luminos", which bizarrely featured fictional apprentice wizard Harry Potter. In 2005, Lambeth Council expunged the word "Christmas" from all literature describing its Christmas illuminations. Instead, the terms "winter lights" and "celebrity lights" were employed.
Such skewed thinking has infected schools. Last Christmas, the head teacher of Walter Street Primary School in Brierfield, Lancashire decided