I am grateful to regular contributor Derius, who yesterday attended the 'One Law for All' anti-Sharia demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
Here is his report on the march, the speakers and the day's other events (with thanks to Aeneas for the pictures and full credit for all the following information to Derius):
One Law for All Anti Sharia Rally
It is a sad day when, in one of the countries where the enlightenment began, and where some of history’s most prominent philosophers were born, it becomes necessary to protest against the introduction of Sharia Law. That, unfortunately, is the position we now find ourselves in.
Due to thirty years of mass immigration policies, combined with a constant desire by our Government to appease the adherents of Political Islam, there is now a very significant movement by groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain to introduce Sharia Law into tribunals in this country. These groups label any attempts to oppose them as “Islamophobic” and “racist”.
These events cannot be allowed to continue. MaryamNamazie, who has quite correctly identified the problem, has set up the One Law for All campaign to stop this worrying development. Her statement is simple and to the point: “This is your chance to voice your opposition to sharia law and all religious-based tribunals in Britain and elsewhere, demand one secular law and full citizenship rights, demand an end to cultural relativism and racism, and defend universal rights.”
The rally began in Trafalgar Square at 3.30pm. The turnout was from 200-300 initially, to listen to a variety of speakers, a number of whom had fled oppressive Islamic regimes and come to live in Britain. They now find themselves up against the same retrograde forces in this country, who appear to be supported by not only the British Government, but by other prominent figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, all under the banner of “celebrating diversity”.
After the speakers had finished, there was a march to Holborn. Observing the reactions of onlookers was positive, as a number waved or shouted approval. A dozen or so people, once seeing the march, also joined in. The atmosphere was relaxed, and trouble free; a stark contrast to some of the incidents at the recent pro Palestinian rallies.
Once we arrived at Conway Hall, a public meeting was held. The speakers included Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy; NaserKhader, founder of Democratic Muslims; Gina Khan of One Law for All; the writer KenanMalik; Maryam herself; FariborzPooya of Iranian Secular Society and chair of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Carla Revere, chair of the Lawyers’ Secular Society.
The legal situation regarding Sharia courts in Britain was discussed in depth. As is usually the case with legal matters, the issue is far from straightforward. However, the general thrust is that under the current legal system, Sharia tribunals are voluntary, and nobody can be legally forced to have arbitration within them. However, once an individual does agree to such arbitration, then it is very difficult for the decision to be subsequently overturned in the courts. This presents two problems. The first is that some people may be forced to agree with the arbitration of such tribunals through community or family pressure. The second is that some people may not be aware that they have the legal right to refuse to go to such tribunals in the first place. Therefore, the solution proposed is that rulings of such Sharia tribunals should never be recognised in the courts, and their decisions are never legally binding. This means that any injustices created by the Sharia tribunals can always be overturned.
The only main disappointment with the meeting was a seeming unwillingness to discuss how Political Islam is actually derived, namely through the texts of the Qur’an, Hadith and Sira. A better understanding of the nature of the threat would be very beneficial in defeating it. Regardless though, this is certainly a worthy cause and should be widely supported.
I estimate the total number of people present at least one of the three events (rally, march and public meeting) was about 500. There were many people who were at the rally but not the public meeting, and vice versa, so only a rough approximation can be given.
It is a bitter disappointment that such a campaign is now needed in 21st Century Britain, caused by what only can be described as criminal negligence by our Government. I wonder whether Harriet Harman would like to have her family affairs arbitrated by a Sharia court. I suspect not, but then hypocrisy is something New Labour seem to excel at these days.
Yesterday a Davis Cup tennis match was played between Israel and Sweden in the Swedish city of Malmö. Leftists and professional Muslim agitators in Sweden had attempted to get the Israeli player and his team banned from the country because of Israel's recent bout of unrestrained self defence.
However, they failed, the match went ahead (spectators were not allowed inside the Baltiska Hallen venue because of tight security), and this is how the hard-core Leftist and Muslim 'youths' reacted - it seems not being able to blackmail a government caused them great offence:
At the end of the second video, you can quite clearly hear sections of the crowd screaming 'Allahuakbar' as a protester gets on the roof of a police van and starts kicking off lights, sirens and other paraphernalia. Three of his friends start tearing off the right wing-mirror as the police sit passively inside, observing.
"On the way to Baltiska Hallen an Arab group started chanting some different slogans or verses in Arabic. One of those are when they sing about Khaybar; i.e. when Muhammed attacked a Jewish village, killed, pillaged and evicted the Jews. They sing about this and how Muhammed's army should return and… well, you get the point."
That immigration policy is really working out well for the Swedes! Not to worry, as long as no demonstrators were inconvenienced by the police and the taxpayer picks up the repair bill for the police vans, I'm sure everything will be fine...
But please, next time someone tells you about the Left fighting for peace and justice for the Palestinians, because that's all those poor oppressed Arabs want, do remember these videos and the above quote.
Last night it was reported that two British soldiers were shot dead and another two seriously injured when a vehicle pulled up outside the barracks of 38 Engineer Regiment in Antrim and sprayed automatic gunfire.
Two civilians were also seriously hurt.
The soldiers are the first to die in Northern Ireland since February 1997.
At this stage the Police Service of Northern Ireland blame dissident Republicans diassatisfied with the peace process.
After getting their murderous terrorist friends out of prison, being granted their concessions on the Royal Ulster Constabulary and keeping large numbers of their weapons, I'm not too sure what they have to be dissatisfied about - but I expect we'll find out soon enough.
Maybe the rounds of referenda stipulated in the Good Friday Agreement which will eventually return Ulster to the control of Dublin (and conveniently never be held again once that end goal is achieved) can't come soon enough?
On Friday it was announced that Sergeant Major Gary O'Donnell would be posthumously awarded a second George Medal for his bravery in Afghanistan.
Sgt Maj O'Donnell, 40, was in the Royal Logistics Corps, and was personally credited with saving dozens of lives among British soldiers and Afghan civilians by defusing more than 50 IEDs and other roadside bombs.
Born in Edinburgh, Sgt Maj O'Donnell was a well liked and respected soldier. His citation for the second medal attributed 'repeated and sustained acts of immense bravery' to him.
He was killed in September 2008 whilst approaching a Taliban booby trap with the intention of defusing it.
He is survived by a widow and four children.
Men like this make me proud to be British. Most people spend their lives running away from danger, but he spent his putting himself in harm's way to protect others.
A couple of stories which hit the headlines this week:
1) US Senator Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy is to get an honorary knighthood from the Queen, it was announced on Wednesday.
Apparently this will be for 'services to US - UK relations' and particularly pertaining to his work in the 'Peace Process' in Northern Ireland (which saw 'tough on terrorism' New Labour, er, surrender to violent terrorists).
I personally feel this is an abuse of the Honours System - I find Kennedy to be an odious and highly dubious individual, who in a fairer world might be in prison (or at least would have been tried for what happened at Chappaquiddick).
2) Gordon Brown received 19 standing ovations for his address the the US Congress. However, all was not as it seemed - many members of the British press suspected Obama just didn't care.
This was confirmed when an Obama staffer told The Telegraph:
'The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."
To which my response would be: "Naff off you unpleasant, clueless little Leftist b*****d. Either that or let troops from Bolivia, Mauritania and Haiti support you in your foreign adventures, and show us how equal we all are. Here's how a real American see it."
There's nothing special about Obama, but that doesn't stop the world fawning all over him...
Any how, Obama was widely criticised for the 'gift situation'; Mr Brown took him several thoughtful presents, including a pen-holder carved from the timbers of an anti-slaving ship and a 1st edition biography of Winston Chruchill.
Obama got him a set of 25 classic American films on DVD.
The only good thing about this gift is that it inspired this image from the excellent Guido Fawkes (where all credit must go):
Apparently Mrs Obama might be transmitting her coolness to Britain through her husband, Lady MacBeth style; she can't forgive us for the slave trade, you see.
As long as she gets her husband to pass on her distaste to Arab governments and leaders about their role, and the leaders of certain African countries about their on-going trade.
This will be an occasional piece where, based on recent news stories, I allow my readers to decide which Western country is getting the most out of its immigration policies. This time there are 2 nominees; Australia and the United States.
1) Australia
The following (graphic) video shows a young man being subjected to a horrific assault by immigrant youths at a railway station in Sunshine, Melbourne (thanks to Vlad Tepes Blog): You can find out more information about the perpetrators and their attitudes here.
2) United States
Saad Hussein, a refugee from Ethiopia, has been confined to a secure clinic since his arrest last month for sending letters to Barack Obama written in his own HIV-infected blood.
One letter was sent to Obama's office in Springfield, Illinois before his inauguration as president, and another was addressed to his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Hussein's brother (no doubt also living on the generosity of the US taxpayer) insisted that Saad was an admirer of Obama, and just wanted tickets to the inauguration.
I think there's a lesson for us all there on the dangers of over-hyping something, but the question which troubles me most is if this is how this man expresses admiration, how does he act when he dislikes someone?
Saad will be assessed by a psychiatrist to see if he's fit to stand trial, but he's already being treated for mental illness. Sounds like letting him in is another class act by the US immigration authorities...
Further to my recent post, the police in the UK are again shaming themselves.
I know, you'd think they'd have better things to do than utter crass, politically correct statements, but apparently London and the rest of the country are now so safe that actually catching criminals and enforcing the law is simply an archaic alternative.
After all, why risk your life on the streets dealing with miscreants when you can sit in an office drinking tea and worrying about why the 'service' doesn't reflect 'the wider community'.
Several incidents have occurred over the past couple of weeks which are worthy of note, but in many respects it's just Groundhog Day; the same thing in a cycle, spawned from one source which never gets tired, never gets old, never dies.
Racism.
Oh, yes. It's perfect, because you can never quite prove you've done enough to eradicate it.
Since the Macpherson Report of 1999 - in which the Metropolitan Police was declared 'institutionally racist' over its handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence - the onus has been on all police forces to recruit officers from ethnic minorities in order to ensure a given force has the same percentage of minorities as found in the area it serves.
The Mail on Sunday recently announced that this policy - which has seen frequent cases of white men being rejected despite the quality of their applications and even being banned from certain 'recruitment days' - was being brought to an end.
However, just days earlier on the 18th February, it had been announced that there are too few ethnic minority officers in senior roles, and some police forces were considering 'affirmative action' style rules to redress this.
Having seen this, it seems that the concept of race and racism still has a grip on the imagination of the public when it comes to the police - or perhaps it's just the government and senior officers think so.
However, on 24th February a new race row was publicised.
'Apartheid Met Row' screamed the headline in the London Lite.
An Asian PCSO, AsadSaeed, alleges that a culture of segregation had been enforced at Belgravia Police Station by two white officers, using the threat of violence. He claimed that a black PCSO was told 'this is the white van, get in the black one', and on another occasion a white PCSO boasted that all of his family were BNP members, among other incidents.
I suppose the fact that Saeed is claiming discrimination after being sacked in 2007 for beating up a tramp outside McDonald's is completely irrelevant (I may be wrong but I very much doubt a white officer would get away with such behaviour either).
However, I have a clue as to where most current racial problems in the police force originate, and I'd like to expose another form of disgusting apartheid; an organisation in the modern British police that you can only join if your skin is the correct colour.
It's called the Black Police Association (BPA). Its stated interest is to 'improve the working conditions of black and other minority ethnic officers' - but a white police association was deemed racist, as these associations are supposed to protect minority interests within the force.
They are currently fighting an alleged 'Golden Circle' of senior white officers that they say have a 'culture of racism' in terms of promoting black officers.
This is where my problem comes in, I'm afraid.
You see, there should be no 'minority interests' in the police force. There should simply be a willingness to serve, a commitment to duty, and the desire to tackle crime and criminals thus upholding the law.
The Black Police Association has, in the past, tried to suppress certain data about the rate at which young black males commit offences, saying these statistics are 'racist'. They also claim to be overwhelmingly concerned about crime in poor black communities and how the police deal with ethnic minority victims.
Take the recent case in Scotland [hat tip: The Frozen North], where it was revealed that offences against Muslims would be treated as more serious than crimes against white men. Ostensibly this was to stop Muslims feeling 'vulnerable' and becoming 'radicalised', whilst Scottish police will learn about Islamic culture.
But this isn't about crime, it's about an agenda. Because the BPA and its politically correct cohorts in the government don't care about crime - they only care about what they call hate crime.
If the perpetrator is white and the victim is from an ethnic minority, the crime is automatically classed as such. That the reverse can be also true is slowly becoming more widely accepted, but many don't yet acknowledge it as the growing problem it is.
But the fact is, the BPAabandoned thousands of decent, law-abiding black people to crime and victim hood. They did this by insisting that enforcing the law and trying to be proactive about offences which are committed by large numbers of young black males in certain parts of the country is simply racism.
They only care about black victims if the criminal happens to be white. The police will bend over backwards in such a situation to prove they clamp down on hate crime.
In my opinion, the term 'hate crime' is perhaps the most Orwellian and ridiculous ever dreamed up. Are many crimes committed out of love? But then, the BPA and its attitudes are borne of perhaps the most famous 'hate crime' in Britain.
Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager murdered whilst waiting for a bus in 1993. The killers, their alleged motive racism, have never been convicted.
Even today, the facts surrounding the case seem sketchy. What does seem certain, however, is that the police bungled the investigation quite spectacularly.
Now, Doreen Lawrence, Stephen's mother, claims that was due to an ingrained culture of racism. The Macpherson Report, published in 1999, backed her assertions, calling the phenomenon 'institutional racism'. Many quotes and statistics were taken out of context, however.
With all due respect to Mrs Lawrence, I feel she is a grieving mother looking for someone to blame. That's understandable. From the reports, her son sounded like a nice lad, and I'm genuinely sorry about what happened to him.
Here's where Mrs Lawrence, the politically correct lobby and I part company, I'm afraid. Because the attitudes she helped to foster, in my opinion, put back race relations in Britain several decades.
That is because they had the opposite effect to those allegedly intended. Instead of bringing people together, it actually puts forward the idea that some people's lives are more valuable purely on the basis of their colour.
Stephen Lawrence's case has become a cause celebre. He has a memorial plaque in the spot he died, watched over by 24 hour CC:TV coverage, should some evil racist come along and deign to wreck it (which to be fair, has happened). As far as I'm aware, none of London's many other murder victims have any such thing.
The annual memorial service to him would not be missed by any London politician trying to climb the greasy pole.
The worst excess, in my opinion, was abandoning Britain's ancient 'double jeopardy' law in a desperate and hysterical attempt to convict the 5 men arrested for the attack. Oddly, they've still not been convicted.
Are they innocent? I don't know. But I genuinely don't believe that some cases should accept a lesser standard of evidence on the basis of how fashionable they are.
The hysteria surrounding the suspects culminated in the Daily Mail calling them murderers and challenging them to sue in 1997. I find the persecution sickening - if the CPS were so sure, they should have got it right first time. At one point it looked as if the individuals concerned were on trial for their recorded racist attitudes rather than the murder.
My views on this are controversial, perhaps. They shouldn't be. All I'm asking is that all crimes and all people are treated equally. But are they?
Let's look at the case of Kriss Donald(below), a Scottish teenager brutally tortured to death over hours by three Pakistani men. They put the young boy, who'd done absolutely nothing wrong, through severe and unimaginable suffering.
Why? Because he was white. They were upset with a white person who wasn't available to them, so went out looking for another one to kill. They admitted it, it's on record.
Have you ever heard of Kriss Donald? You should have. But, sad to say, his cause is not fashionable enough.
Police incompetence and corruption are wrong, full stop. Murder is wrong, full stop. I don't care what colour the victim or the perpetrator is.
But still, the PC gravy train rolls on. Anyone who criticises it is deemed a racist. I'm sure there might be someone who reads this and dismisses me as such.
I don't care. What I find racist is the idea that a black teenager's life is more valuable than a white teenager's, simply because the press can get more mileage out of it and the government can employ a few thousand more bureaucrats and advisers.
What I find racist is the notion that black people are only capable of obeying the law and respecting the authority of the police as legitimate if enough coppers look like them.
All police officers, rank and file and senior, are paid to enforce the law and protect the innocent. Social engineering is not part of their remit, nor should it be.
The law should be colour blind, and if it's racist to believe that, then we truly live in more perverse times than I suspected.
On this day in 1836, the Texian defenders of the Alamo were overwhelmed by the third wave of Santa Anna's Mexican forces, having defeated the previous two attacks and inflicted heavy casualties.
My paternal Grandfather is a big fan of all things 'western', and I grew up with the story of these free men and their heroic stand to remain so on the land they'd built and cultivated as a symbol of that special magic that makes America.
Is is estimated that during the siege (which began on 23rd February) the Texians, largely volunteers, managed to inflict 400-600 casualties on the Mexican Army. High end estimates state 257 of the 260 men in the Alamo mission were killed.
I see these men as heroes and salute their courage, and I feel their story and the Texas Revolution in general contains many valuable lessons for the modern world.
I suppose time will tell if it is folly to compare the ambitions of these men with the ambitions of those currently colonising the south-western United States and the Western World in general; but you would think with examples like this, we would be able to learn that massive population changes do matter and can have far-reaching consequences.
Still, politics aside, I would like this post to be a tribute to the brave men who died in one of the great battles of later Western Civilisation, and what they achieved - their families becoming free as part of America.
Today, 22 year old Karl Bishop (pictured) was sentenced for the murder of 18 year old Robert Knox, an actor in the upcoming Harry Potter film, and the malicious wounding of four of his friends.
He received 4 consecutive life terms for the killing and 3 of the wounding charges, and a 2 year term for the fourth wounding charge.
How long, then, did the judge order that Bishop would spend in prison before being eligible for release?
20 years.
The details of this case are truly chilling, but not only that - they are a lesson in what happens when the justice system is simply too soft and forgiving.
Described as a young man prone to violent outbursts since childhood, abandoned by his father at an early age, Bishop even managed to get himself expelled from primary school.
He was first arrested for pulling a knife on another boy during an argument at 16. By this time, he was already a heavy cannabis user.
Just 11 months before he stabbed Rob Knox to death, he was released from a 4 year prison term for slashing two men in the face during an argument after serving just 2 years.
That's bad enough in itself, but it gets worse. A mere two months before he killed Knox, Bishop pulled a blade on a young man whilst attempting to rob him.
He was named as the suspect and actually added to a police wanted list - but the detectives assigned to the case never bothered visiting his home or otherwise attempting to track him down. They have since been issued a written warning for neglect of duty.
Bishop was still wanted when an argument outside the Metro bar in Sidcup, Kent turned deadly in late 2007. Bishop accused Knox's group of stealing his phone, which it later emerged had been taken by someone else.
A fight broke out and police intervened. As he walked away, Bishop said: "I'm coming back next week and someone's going to die."
True to his word, he returned the next week with two kitchen knives after being seen off by Knox's friends earlier in the evening. He then embarked on what witnesses described as a 'frenzy', stabbing Knox, who was protecting his 17 year old brother, 5 times. He stabbed another 17 year old in the chest, a third man in the neck causing permanent spinal damage, another in the hand, and a fifth in the face.
As he was led away by police, Bishop was seen smiling and winking at Knox's remaining friends and younger brother; when told in his police interview that Knox had died and he would be charged, his response was:
"Yeah, sweet."
His lack of remorse continued in the dock, where he was seen winking and smiling at friends, and on one occasion shouted:
"Take me to ******* Belmarsh. I'm going down anyway, just take me there now. I don't mind. I get gym every day, meals – just take me there."
As he was sentenced, Bishop stood with his hands in his pockets and smirked at Robert Knox's family.
The judge, Mr Justice Bean, described his lack of regret and remorse as 'truly chilling' and said he was 'a very significant danger to the public'. The judge himself admitted that Bishop didn't necessarily intend to kill Knox, he just didn't care if he did or not.
Thanks for that, your honour. He'll still be back on the streets at 42. Just what do you have to do for a life sentence to actually mean just that?
This sentence does not send out the right message, in my opinion. There is currently much hand-wringing over knife crime, but the truth is there are thousands of Karl Bishops out there, people who aren't scared of the consequences - because there aren't any.
After a revelation that America's usage of soft toilet paper might be worse for the environment than their love for 'SUVs' and other petrol-guzzling vehicles, plus a revelation that if everyone on earth used as much toilet paper as the US and UK there would be no trees left on earth, Wolmar has the solution.
We should, er, clamp down on the usage of toilet paper.
How?
Well, by following the example of the Indians and installing toilets which come with special spray attachments.
The good news is this is slightly more palatable than their previous example of using a jug and their left hands.
The bad news is it's pure idiocy of the first order, and the kind of double standard you get used to seeing in environmentalist types.
Firstly, many other environmentalists are always harping on about conserving water. Just a few years ago, then Mayor of London 'Red' Ken Livingstone urged Londoners not to flush after urinating in order to help conserve water.
Also, how much power would be used when the models of toilet used inevitably progress to the kind seen in Japan and elsewhere?
Different settings, warm water, seat warmers, etc etc etc.
Generating power is probably more 'harmful' to the environment than using toilet paper. Yet Wolmer seems to have totally overlooked this aspect - who wants to wash themselves with freezing cold water?
Wolmer suggests this could be overcome with technology, as with the '10 second hand-driers' found in most public toilets. Problem? Well, I for one have to use them at least 3 times to get my hands properly dry - and not being properly dry after using the toilet can lead to problems and embarrassment.
I recognise that there's no point wasting natural resources, and perhaps certain people and certain countries could be slightly more careful.
But why is it that all proposals to conserve this or save that have to be so hypocritical and self-defeating?
A JCB ploughed into a police car in Jerusalem today, at about 13:30 Israeli time, apparently whilst attempting to ram a bus. The driver picked the police car up, attemtped to crush it, then dragged it along for several yards.
A taxi driver and patrolling police officers shot the terrorist driving the vehicle dead.
The two officers in the car were lightly hurt in the attack. One was treated at the scene and the other required hospital treatment.
Hamas praised the attacker soon after the events took place.
I read many strange things about Britain every single day, but this one stood out.
After a psychologist did some research, the governor at HMP Hull, a Victorian-built prison, spent £1,800 on 5 tropical fish tanks to 'help inmates relax'.
HM Prison Service are facing officer strikes over pay disputes, and many officers argue staffing levels in some prisons are at dangerously low levels.
Couple this with the fact there aren't enough prison places, and Justice Minister Jack Straw recently pleaded with Magistrates to avoid passing custodial sentences unless it was absolutely vital (in his world that presumably would only apply to some sort of double murder).
Psychologists defended the cost, saying that the 'improved ambiance' would 'calm stressed inmates and therefore improve life for staff''.
Yes, it's all about the ambiance, a word I often associate mistakenly with hotels rather than prisons. What next? A star ranking system? Officers moonlighting as waiters?
Maybe if the inmates had just kept fish as children, they'd have been less stressed and wouldn't have turned to crime in the first place.
Apparently the vile terrorist and murderer Samir Kuntar enjoyed nuptials yesterday with his young fiancee - the daughter of a prominent Lebanese family. Don't they look happy?
Kuntar of course was released from an Israeli prison in 2008 as part of an 'Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap' which saw Israel release five convicted militants and receive two coffins in return.
He had served nearly 30 years in prison for his role in the Nahariya attack in 1979, widely considered one of the most despicable acts of Palestinian Liberation Front terrorism by Israel and the rest of the civilised world.
Not only did Kuntar shoot dead a policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, he smashed the head of 4 year old Einat Haran open and shot her father Danny before he was captured. The young girl's 2 year old sister Yael was accidentally suffocated to death by her own mother as they hid from Kuntar and his squad.
His new wife must be really proud - although he is the holder of Syria's highest honour, granted after his release - which tells us something, does it not?
I sincerely hope Mossad send him a nice big wedding gift. The sooner, the better.
As I write this, Geert Wilders has just enjoyed a tour of the United States, a country which deigned to allow him access, and considers itself enough of a mature democracy that his views can be aired publicly, indeed on national television.
Whilst there he gave several high profile speeches and appeared on the major news networks for interviews (a compilation of which can be found here).
I intended to write about this sooner, but events overtook me a little. So, here I plan a brief contrast with how Wilders was covered in the UK media when he was banned on 12th February 2009, plus a rebuttal of some of the more outrageous lies about him.
You might be surprised (although, if you're a regular, more likely not); the contrast really is quite glaring. Because in Britain, not even those who claim to always stand up for tolerance, freedom and respect wanted to know.
The Left were wary of him; but the Right, even more so.
Melanie Phillips wrote a fairly balanced account of the ban in the Mail, which you can read here. She was one of the few mainstream commentators who seemed to actually realise just what this was - appeasement, capitulation to Islamic terror and the threat of violence.
The Mail on Sunday editorial on the issue took a slightly different line, however. Whilst in broad agreement with Phillips that banning Wilders was a wrong and hypocritical move, the tone left us in no doubt as to how the Mail's owners/editors perceive Wilders:
"The Mail holds no brief for Geert Wilders, the Dutch right-winger whose rabid views on the Koran are, understandably, deeply insulting to Muslims...
...Wilders may be a revolting extremist, with a taste for hysterical propaganda and pornographic cartoons...
...including terrorists far more dangerous than this Dutch weirdo."
This language truly shocked me. Firstly, the Mail is dismissed by pretty much everyone who considers themselves Left-wing or a liberal in Britain as a rabidly Right-wing joke. Personally, I find them no more hysterical then the rest of the mainstream media.
That aside - 'Dutch weirdo'? Would they get away with referring to an 'Arab weirdo' or a 'Pakistani weirdo'?
They most certainly would not (ask Robert Kilroy-Silk, sacked simply for pointing out some home truths about the more unpleasant aspects of Arab society in the Express in 2003). Yet they seem to believe that this biased, hate-filled bile is absolutely fine. Why not just present the facts and leave people to make up their own minds?
The double standards are clear to see - it's noted that Mr Wilders' views might offend Muslims; fair enough. But surely then it's possible that Wilders holds the views he does because the opinions of some Muslims offend him?
Why is one more valid than the other?
Stephen Glover, another Mail journalist described Mr Wilders' views as 'noxious', as well as claiming that moderate Muslims could defeat his arguments if given the chance.
I will come back to these points a little later.
The actual purpose of this post is to address three articles written in the Guardian newspaper, one the day before Wilders was deported, and two the day after. The former is by Robert Fox; the latter two are by Liberal Democrat MP & Home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne and Lord Nazir Ahmed, respectively.
Well, you can read Nazir Ahmed's article here. I don't have too much to say on the matter; clearly, he just tries to defend his own appalling hypocrisy and double standards, mixed in with outright lies - Wilders takes the verses of the Koran out of context, Wilders wants the Koran banned (himself taking that remark out of context), etc etc etc. His worst lie is that BNP members and the Muslims who interpret the Koran as Fitna does might have rallied behind Wilders; the man lives as a prisoner because of the constant threat to his life from the latter.
Yet as we know, 'Lord' Ahmed gives no quarter to the truth or reality.
If you'd like to write to Ahmed regarding the Koran or any other matters raised in his article, you can reach him at:
Nazir Ahmed c/o Her Majesty's Prison Doncaster DN5 8UX
Seriously. He has a boring few weeks stretching before him - he might answer.
One point of interest is the comments. It is quite clear that even the average Guardian reader sees Ahmed for the shameless charlatan he is. Many seem to actively despise Geert Wilders (a word that is used with alarming frequency) and his views - but most still feel he should have been allowed in.
I find Chris Huhne's article slightly more worrying, if only because he is a democratically elected MP who supposedly stands for the party of civil liberties. He's also a bit of a Euro-federalist, so in his dream world there would obviously be no banning Wilders... You'd think.
But you'd be wrong.
Huhne, who defended the right of Holocaust-denier Gerald Toben to enter Britain, feels Fitna (which he's at least watched) 'crosses the line' and puts 'Britain's ethnic minorities at genuine risk'.
I find this an astounding view. To compare Wilders to a Holocaust-denier is not only a disgusting insult, but a low, dirty trick. There is absolutely no comparison between the two positions, yet a huge number of the comments tries to pretend there is.
This is a fallacy; anti-semites hate Jews, and generally speaking they don't care about their beliefs or religious observances; they care about their genes.
Wilders has made it clear time and time again that he hates no one; he simply challenges the idea that Islam as a belief system is compatible with Western society and values without some radical reforms.
Fitna is a warning; but the point is, it only shows real events, real Muslims speaking, and real passages from the Koran upon which said events are based. Huhne, however, calls the film 'a 16 minute incitement to violence'; he then cites John Stuart Mill in order to back up his assertions that Wilders banning is justified as his visit would cause more harm than good.
Please read the Frozen Northman's letter to Huhne; he studied Mill and refutes the points carefully, better than I could with my sketchy knowledge of the man.
Anyway, we leave one set of outrageous lies for another; meet Robert Fox.
Now, Fox is quite a disingenuous character, and his tactics are slightly different. He attacks the actual technical quality of Fitna, as if that in itself is a reason not to bother with it.
The Guardian tried something similar during the Danish cartoons controversy. They pretended that like all good lefties they loved free speech and would defend it to the hilt.
Did they back up their Danish colleagues and allow their readers to actually make up their own minds by publishing the cartoons?
Of course not. But that wasn't because they were afraid, or they secretly disagreed with the message - lord, no. You see, it was simply because the cartoons weren't very good. Plus a little bit insensitive and crass.
After all, Muslims are forbidden to reproduce Mohammed's image, and we should respect that. It's not too much to ask to keep your head attached to your neck, is it?
But that's the point - Wilders is not trying to violently silence anyone. He has not threatened anyone, and no one lives in fear of their life because of him.
Fox's piece is frankly surreal. It's a constant barrage of snide remarks and asides, but the most interesting one is that Wilders is a populist (a Guardianism for a Right-winger who's winning votes, because as we know democracy is only valid when the right answers are received) who released Fitna to court controversy and was disappointed when there was none.
Now, let's be honest here. Wilders has certainly got some front - I suppose he has to. But he's a lawyer who speaks English - he could just be a quiet, well-to-do citizen of the US or Australia now, like tens of thousands of other middle class Dutch who have fled Holland.
Instead, he's a prisoner in his own life. He has 24 hour police protection, as I assume his family does. His life constantly hangs on the reactions of someone else. He hasn't slept in his own house for 4 years, and some nights even has to sleep in a prison cell because it's the only place considered safe for him. To add insult to injury, he's now facing prosecution.
Why? Er, because he made a film and some statements daring to suggest that some Muslims use Islam as the basis for violent thuggery and heinous crimes. Look at the Theo van Gogh case - the threat is certainly real. Is that not controversy enough, Mr Fox?
But then, Fox will never get it; he will always despise anyone who wants Holland to be Holland and England to be England on principle.
What disappoints me more is the way the Right here have made their knees dusty crawling to the liberal elites when they had the chance to change the tune and back Wilders; but instead it was 'Wilders is a bad man and if we say so our colleagues might consider us slightly less bad for our ability to think and reason'.
Maybe, but they still hate you and they would still destroy you in a second - look at how John McCain spent his entire political career crawling to such people, and how he ended up when the time came.
Wilders is a right-thinking classical Dutch liberal with some very sensible ideas. Frankly, he's also deeply courageous, an Europe needs a lot more men like him - and fast.
I must urge anyone who has read this to head over to the Fox article and read the comments; it's Planet Guardian over there most of the time, but not on this occasion.
The vanguard are there; the moderator 'HeyHabib', die-hard leftists like 'FukImperialism'; they duly spend their time calling anyone who doesn't toe the line a bigot and turning any arguments against Islam they can't refute back on Christianity.
But the vast majority are ordinary, fed up people - there are even a couple of Muslims sick of the likes of Ahmed speaking for them, and making sensible and valid points.
To finish off, I just had to demonstrate how tolerant the left are; please enjoy this comment left on Melanie Phillips' article:
"No surprise that the most racist nation on earth The Netherlands could produce such a monster in the shape of Mr Wilders, lest we forget the Dutch were the original propagators of Slavery and the inventors and exporters of Apartheid, their cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam are ridden with Ghetto's from marginalized ethnic groups.
The only satisfying thought to come from this is that in 70 years rising sea levels caused by global warming will have swamped The Netherlands, then the dutch can all immigrate to Austria to join their fellow Fascist sympathizers."
Mark Sampson, London UK, 11/2/2009
Good God. Is it me, or does Mr Sampson sound like the monster? Someone should tell him that collective guilt is racist and then send him on a diversity course - quick, by the sounds of it.
I leave you with the best source of what Mr Wilders truly believes; here he is on the BBC's Hardtalk in August 2008. It's 25 minutes out of your life, and well worth it, if you can get over the presenter.
My favourite (and the most bizarre) quote is taken from near the end; the presenter, Stephen Sackur is talking about major Dutch cities becoming majority non-white. Wilders replies with something about how they'll be ruled by Islam - to which Sackur replies, 'you could have said non-white, but you chose to say Islamic - admit it, you're a racist, aren't you?'
Wing Commander Bob Foster, of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, has slammed the British National Party for using images of the RAF taking on the Luftwaffe in their new European Parliament election campaign.
Wing Commander Foster, 88, said:
"This really is quite disgusting. We risked our lives fighting Nazism and these people are using us. It's not the sort of Britain we went to fight for."
Mr Foster, I have the utmost respect for you, more than I could ever adequately put into words. But in all seriousness, is the country we currently live in the Britain you fought for? Honestly?
Incidentally, where were you when mass immigration began to get out of hand? When Britain joined the EEC and it became the EU? When the government and all the major parties began to work against Britain rather than for her?
I take it Mr Foster does have an opinion on fascistic measures like ID cards, 40 day detention, DNA databases - and the press simply won't quote him.
But in all seriousness, is the BNP putting a picture of a Spitfire on a leaflet the most pressing political issue of the day?
I'm not a supporter myself, but really. The party currently in power are the most dangerous, Mr Foster - they've squandered your country and the ideals you fought for and are using you as a mouthpiece.
The increasingly eerie Harriet 'Harperson' Harman, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Orwellian law enthusiast, has turned her attentions to Sir Fred Goodwin.
Goodwin is the man who was in charge of Royal Bank of Scotland, which was recently bailed out by the taxpayer after posting record losses of £24 billion.
The argument stems from the fact that Goodwin has a pension of more than £650,000 a year.
Harman, Brown and several other key government figures object to the notion of other people being paid to fail, as they claim Britain's unwritten Constitution reserves such a role just for them.
OK, not quite - but in effect they might as well say that.
Here's Harman herself on the situation:
"His contract might be enforceable in a court of law, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion - and that's where the government steps in."
Excuse me? Since when has this government cared anything about public opinion? On this new found basis, will it be restricting immigration, scrapping the ID card scheme, building more prisons, restoring the death penalty for murder, holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?
Harriet has the answer, if you know where to look. She goes on:
"Sir Fred should not count on being £650,000 a year better off... The Prime Minister has said it is unacceptable and therefore it will not be accepted."
Right. So now it's the Prime Minister's decision - make your mind up, Harriet.
I'm going to sleep a lot easier tonight knowing that the government feels it can retrospectively create a law to persecute one individual who is only receiving what was stipulated in his employment contract.
I'd feel slightly better if they weren't doing it entirely to take the heat off themselves - Brown is as responsible for the crisis as the 'Greedy Bankers'; he knew that the boom wasn't forever and what goes up must come down, but he was spending money and giving away assets like it was going out of fashion.
He, er, also signed off Sir Fred's pension deal, back in October.
What next? A special show trial for Sir Fred? I for one would be much more interested in an apology from the government and Brown calling a General Election.
The British Government was yesterday displaying yet more of its brazen double standards. I hope that you're suitably shocked.
According to James Lyons of the Daily Mirror, if ID cards are forced through against the will of the public and Her Majesty's Opposition (and for once I'm not using that title ironically), the Government will levy a £1,000 fine if they are lost and this fact is not reported within a month.
A replacement will cost an extra £30, which is estimated to earn the Government £33 million in replacement fees (estimates based on the number of passports and driving licences lost each year). These very same calculations predict that over 1 million cards could be lost or stolen each year.
Interesting. But Mr Lyons also reveals that Whitehall staff lose, on average, 23 security passes and official accreditation per day. The Ministry of Defence alone lost 11,245 last year - but oddly, they're not fined - the documents are simply replaced at the expense of taxpayers.
I find this incredible; if someone issues you a security pass which allows you to work in the heart of government, should you not be expected to be quite careful with it?
If you can't even manage to hang on to your own security pass, are you fit to do your job?
Yes, everyone makes mistakes - but 23 separate incidents on the average day?
I feel this fact alone explains an awful lot about the state of our country and our government.
Registry on a central ID card database will be compulsory for all passport applicants from 2012, as will having your finger prints taken like a common criminal, as well as potentially an interview. However at this point you will not have to be issued with or carry the card.
They will only become compulsory for all over-16s if Labour win the next election (and I wish them good luck with that, naturally) and manage to get the legislation past MPs.
Foreign nationals living here already have them (as seen in the sample pictured above, being launched by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith).
I'm against the idea for several reasons; I see them as a sneaky way to introduce an internal EU passport (most other European countries already have them in some form, natch).
The immigration system has been too shambolic for decades for the scheme to have any chance of aiding border controls or national security.
It just seems a way for the government to increase its power and its army of bureaucrats whilst being seen to do something about immigration and the threat of terrorism - and being seen to do things whilst not actually doing them at all is what New Labour likes best.
This is perhaps a tiny bit childish, but I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the above photo over at Obama's Gaffes.
It seems that despite being a modern day Messiah, there's no shortage of things this chap fails to remember; how many states are in the Union, how many years a President serves in a term, how tall he is, what happened to the last army to try a 'surge' in Afghanistan...
I saw this report over at Atlas Shrugs, and it made me think of something that happened quite recently.
A friend and I were having a debate after the Geert Wilders deportation fiasco about what freedom of speech actually means in practice and whether there should be limits.
He is quite liberal in his political outlook, but we agreed that freedom of speech meant pretty much the right to offend people, the right to challenge their ideas.
I mean, after all, don't most sensible people enjoy having their worldview challenged, in an informed and civilised manner? How else do you grow intellectually, or discover any little flaws in your logic and reasoning?
I don't really mind being 'offended', as long as I have the same right to offend others; what annoys me more than almost anything else is double standards.
Please watch this video; in it you will see a group of Muslims marching in east London on Saturday, 28th February 2009.
A few things are remarkable; firstly, these people are shouting many slogans that are clearly treasonous, calling for the British state to be undermined, secession, the application of Sharia law.
Secondly, they seem to absolutely despise Britain and the British people and culture.
Thirdly, a recent decision meant that some St. George's Day parades were cancelled and will not be held, for fear of 'incitement' and racist incidents.
But what I find most remarkable of all is the fact that I had to turn to an American blog to find out any information about this.
Please note that link; here's a quote, pertaining to the organisation of the march:
"Is it for brothers and sisters? Yes. Please note however, that strict segregation will be enforced, with sisters at the back of the procession and brothers at the front."
Sensible. We wouldn't want any policemen trying to run away tripping over a sister's burqa up there at the front. He might be sued by her legal aid Human Rights lawyer.
If the people marching and shouting these slogans were white Christians, I think most people would find it quite amusing. 'They're cranks', they'd say.
But it isn't amusing in the slightest. We know just what these zealots are capable of, and what their ideological ilk and offshoots are upto around the world; attacking and undermining the infidel, at home or abroad.
Interestingly, the user who hosts this video is called 'SoldierForIslam', and in the description he spends a few lines ranting about returning the Caliphate to its former glory. Presumably an extended version of it, because I don't recall east London being part of the original.
Anyway, he has made a favourite of a video by 'Nahda'. This purports to be a Muslim-Australian youth organisation.
Chip, chip, chip, and that's another little piece of our sovereignty and resolve gone. Because this is suddenly everywhere. Many Britons are running away to Australia from this nonsense.
In any case, I take it these are the people that Jacqui Smith had in mind when she banned Geert Wilders?
I would imagine so. Personally I would not see this march banned; I would have had every cameraman from every news channel in the land there, beaming it into living rooms across the Western world.
It would have been better for us if these people had never darkened our shores; but they have, and now it's high time we tried to understand them and their aims.
For how else will we resist?
But then, maybe I'm too optimistic. If 9/11 and 7/7 didn't awaken the majority, then maybe it really is just too late.
One thing's for sure; these people mean business, and they're not exactly shy about saying as much. If they were in any way 'far-right', a ripple of fear would run around Europe.
We're looking for our enemy in the wrong diection, I'm afraid. But that's OK; at least when he comes to slit our throats, we won't have to see his face.
Last week it was reported that another 4 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan. This takes the British death toll to 149 since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001, and it seems to be rising remarkably quickly. The US have suffered 660 fatalities to date, a drop in the ocean compared to Iraq, but with the coming surge this toll can only rise.
Timely, then is the new book by severely injured Household Cavalryman Martyn Compton (pictured above, with wife Michelle), 'Home From War'.
This is the extraordinary account of how Martyn was caught up in a Taliban ambush in 2006, his recovery, and battling for 2 years to regain his health to the point where he could marry his beloved fiancee Michelle.
Here's his own account of the attack, taken from the Mail's serialisation:
"The Taliban fighter peered over the wall. I recognised the unmistakable warhead of his rocket-propelled grenade. He was close and I was going nowhere. Stuck inside the ruined hulk of my wagon, I was a sitting duck.
Fire and smoke were pouring everywhere - the machine-gun turret had dropped into the tank. The roof was gone. The back door was gone. The floor was gone. And my crew was gone. All I could do was hope for the best. I'd survived the initial attack after we'd driven into this seemingly deserted village, so maybe my luck was in.
The Taliban tilted his head, aimed his launcher right at me and fired.The grenade hurtled towards me, trailing a plume of smoke. It shot past my shoulder and hit the Spartan's engine. The engine exploded. The fireball swallowed me."
Martyn suffered 75% burns in the second attack, and his road to recovery is charted in detail in the book. However, he made remarkable progress, and married Michelle in July 2008 amidst the pomp and ceremony of his regiment, the Blues and Royals of the Household Cavalry.
My favourite passage concerns his stag night:
"What a night. I didn't buy a beer all night. The club was packed and people kept coming up to me and asking if I'd like a beer. And I kept saying I would.
I think it was down to the T-shirt that my mates had made especially for the occasion. On the front was a picture of me and Michelle and the words: 'Blown Up, Set Alight And Shot By The Taliban', while on the back it read 'I Survived Death To Walk My Fiancee Michelle Down The Aisle'. It was a brilliant night."
What a man. He seems the epitome of the heroic serviceman; he never complains, never curses his luck, just gets on with whatever life throws at him as best he can. This book will be well worth a read for anyone interested in the human aspect of military service, as well as how resilient the human spirit can be.
Martyn Compton is a true hero, and I hope he has many years of happiness ahead of him with his wife - I think he's earned them.
I don't want to keep on too much about the Geert Wilders situation, but I would urge you to remember that he still faces prosecution in the Netherlands. You can sign the petition against this move here or, if you are able, donate to his fighting fund here.
Now, I decided to save updates from his time in the United States for a combined post, and I shall duly give you an overview of his interviews and speeches there in a moment; however, first I have some very good news to report (courtesy of Jihad Watch).
It seems that Mr Wilder's party, Partij voor de Vrijheid, is currently polling as the most popular in the Netherlands.
"According to Dutch opinion polls, if parliamentary elections were held today the Freedom Party (PVV) of populist leader Geert Wilders would become the largest party. The PVV has 27 seats in the polls, while the Christian Democrats - the largest party in the governing coalition - has 26.
He has been rising in the polls since the Amsterdam appeals court decided to try Wilders for anti-Muslim comments six weeks ago. He was also in the news because Great Britain denied him entry."
Alternatively if you speak Dutch, you can go here for information:
Right, as a bit of a contrast to the behaviour of the government here in the UK, Wilders was allowed into the US without problems.
As well as appearing on several popular chat shows, he took part in a Q & A session at New York's Four Seasons Hotel, plus finally a series of speeches and a presentation of Fitna in a room of the US Senate.
Here is Wilders on Fox's 'The O'Reilly Factor' (23/02/09):
and the same day on the Glenn Beck programme, also on Fox:
He is given more time to speak here, and it's a good interview.
Here is his appearance on CNN (26/2/09):
Perhaps unsurpirsingly, he was given quite a hard time on CNN. The host really loved that Old Testament analogy - shame it doesn't wash at all really.
This is the speech Wilders gave at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York on Monday 23rd February 2009. It's really very good.
Taken from The Frozen North, here is Mr Wilders' inspiring speech at a Boston synagogue on Wednesday 25th February 2009.
Taken from Jihad Watch, here is the speech Mr Wilders gave to the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on Friday 27th February 2009.
He then met law makers at Capitol Hill, courtesy of Republican Senator Jon Kyl.
Next stop - Geert Wilders for Dutch Prime Minister!
A selection of telling headlines from the UK this week.
1)Nazir Ahmed, the controversial Muslim Labour peer, was jailed for just 12 weeks for the death of Slovakian Martyn Gombar in a car crash. Despite only being ordered to serve half the given sentence, his lawyer Steve Smith still thinks it's too much.
Says Mr Smith:
"Lord Ahmed is clearly no danger to the public and in these circumstances the prison authorities can consider early release, if he serves a minimum of 18 days....They know he will not try to escape. His life and career have been wrecked for the sake of 18 days in prison. It's pathetic."
Not a danger to the public! You do have to commend him for trying. I would personally say he's the most dangerous man in the House of Lords, and I think what I wrote here on Wednesday bears that out.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr Gombar's widow has a slightly different perspective.
She says:
"I would not be happy with a decision to release Lord Ahmed on a tag. It is one rule for Lords and another for everyone else."
Sadly, I think she'll find that pretty much everyone would have been treated as leniently under the circumstances. I must say my own faith in the justice system (particularly when it comes to individuals like Ahmed) is so low that the only part of this that truly surprises me is that Ahmed is in prison as I write.
Although given the skeletons rattling in Ahmed's cupboard, I'm sure one could be forgiven for thinking it's one rule for Lord Ahmed, and another for everyone else.
After all, we wouldn't want to inflame the passions of Britain's most sensitive minority community - they might storm HMPDoncaster and carry him off astride their shoulders, like some sort of symbolic modern version of the Bastille.
Tell me - does Jacqui Smith actually live on the same planet I do? She is the Home Secretary, so she must surely have some idea of British law, and the precedents her immigration judges have previously set?
Four men, three Algerians and a Jordanian, are facing deportation, considered a threat to national security. One of the Algerians, codenamed 'Z', entered Britain in 1992 on a tourist visa, but overstayed.
In 1997, he was arrested in possession of chemicals, radios, rockets, night-vision goggles and bomb-making literature.
What was his next step?
He claimed political asylum, after admitting leading a London branch of the GIA. You see, had he been deported, those dastardly Algerians might not have treated him very well.
But none of this is the issue, according to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission; the issue is, where possible, they like to let people they're probably going to kick out of the country out on bail.
That way, not only can they not sue the Home Office or the UK Border Agency, but most of them simply abscond, saving us the deportation and detention costs. It sort of naturally streamlines the system.
In this case, the government believes the men are so dangerous that there is a risk to the public if they abscond rather than waiting for the outcome of their appeals.
Mr Justice Mitting said the government had failed to prove the men were at risk of disappearing, which, if nothing else provides some light comic relief.
Miss Smith said:
"My top priority is to protect the public. There is a risk that these individuals will abscond if they are not detained."
The problem is, protecting the public begins at the border. Miss Smith and countless numbers of her predecessors had absolutely no idea how many people were wandering into the UK, who they were or what their intentions were. Nor did they much seem to care, spending far more time pontificating about the rights of such people and the inevitability of their arrival, as well as smearing anyone who objected as racist.
As thee sow, so shall thee reap.
3) It emerged this week that Tony Virasami, who killed an ME sufferer his girlfriend wrongly accused of queue-jumping in a supermarket with one blow, was already wearing an electronic tag after being released early from prison.
Had Virasami (pictured above), a heroin addict with a record for violence, been inside serving the sentence handed down, the innocent man in question would still be alive.
I do wish that those who feel criminals deserve compassion would have some thought for prison's primary function, which is to protect the public from dangerous individuals.
Apparently Kevin Tripp, the victim, was standing near a man who had cut in front of Virasami's girlfriend. She then fetched Virasami, pointed at the perpetrator, but he thought she was pointing at Tripp.
The CCTV image above clearly shows the moment Virasami struck.
As Tripp lay dying on the floor after striking his head, it was pointed out to Miss Richardson, Virasami's girlfriend, that she'd identified the wrong man.
Her reply was:
"Yes, let's find the right one."
So a pair of drug addicts, convicted criminals both, have such fragile egos that an innocent man is dead, a young girl left fatherless.
4) A Birmingham-born Muslim, Mohammed Ali, has had his pro-Palestine graffiti mural scrubbed out by police, who feared the house it was painted on might be petrol-bombed (presumably by one of the marauding gangs of Jews who absolutely hate anyone else's right to free speech. Never let it be said that anyone in the UK is out of touch with reality).
Ali said his murals are designed to create unity between communities, and he was deeply troubled that they could be interpreted as divisive or offensive.
But then he would be, wouldn't he? The murals aren't offensive because they express a point of view with which local Muslims are sympathetic; to prove this point, Tariq Khan, a Lib Dem councillor, and Khalid Mahmood MP, Muslims both, duly started screaming about censorship, because the mural reflects the 'feelings of young people about injustices in Gaza'.
I never heard them comment on the GeertWilders ban, or any other act of censorship undertaken to appease Muslims, however.
Ruth Jacobs, spokeswoman for the Israel Information Centre in Birmingham, said:
"I would not complain about these images because they are part of the right of free speech in this country."
Perhaps when the average Muslim feels the same, we will have genuine 'community harmony'. I will not hold my breath, however. I don't think you need much imagination to picture the type of reactions had a mural been painted from the Israeli perspective.
5) An episode of the iconic British soap opera 'Eastenders' was broadcast this week which contained only black characters.
There was a mixed reaction, with some saying it's simply for the sake of political correctness,others saying it's just not relevant, and professional race-baiters like the Guardian's Hannah Pool who took more of a 'what took them so long?' line.
I watched the episode, which focused largely on attitudes to black people in Britain and how they've changed, using the Notting Hill race riots of 1958 as a sort of prism.
I must say I largely agree with Tory MP David Davis, who said:
"It did not give a balanced view of race issues. There’s a danger here of winding up non-black people."
Firstly, a lot of the characters spoke of things like 'my history, as a black person'.
As far as I'm concerned that's not a problem; as long as it works both ways, and white Britons are allowed to be proud of their history, too. But let's be honest, that's not generally how it works at all.
The other problem I have is that generally I think mass immigration from the Third World was a huge mistake, and is an ongoing one. That doesn't mean I hate black people, or indeed hate anyone; it simply means I recognise that importing huge numbers of unassimilable immigrants from alien cultures simply does not work, and largely never has done.
However, I recognise that the black people at Notting Hill in 1958 had a right to defend their own from what they saw as unprovoked violence from the 'Teddy Boys'. I do not condone violence.
But I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a black intellectual or white BBC luvvie who thought that ordinary Britons had the right to defend their country and communities from what many saw as an invasion; they were not asked about it and were largely against it.
Controversial? Yes, but in my opinion that was a glaring double standard; just the sort of thing the BBC does best.
A student of history and politics, teacher, sometimes writer, English patriot and unashamedly 'Eurocentric'.
A fan of truth, of our ancient liberties, of Western Civilisation - determined to defend them all in any way, at any cost.
I am working to overcome the double standards which now rule much of our life and conspire to silence us completely on certain issues.
A Dutch Perspective on the Meaning of the Westminster Quarters
During WWII and the occupation by the Nazis of the Netherlands, it was under occupation rule forbidden to listen to the BBC. (The fine was the death penalty). Still some people listened to the BBC.
Every BBC broadcast was introduced by the chimes of Big Ben. My grandparents lived under this awful Nazi occupation and listened to the BBC in the cellar. In those dark days the chimes of your Big Ben were their only promise and hope for democracy and freedom to this country of mine.
Happy birthday Big Ben. 150 years old. I dont know what your magic is. The promising sound of freedom and democracy, the amazing chimes of liberty?
But as an old tower you are still a gorgeous stone bloke with a beautiful voice.
“How dreadful are the curses which Islam lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.
Far from being moribund, Islam is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -the science against which it had vainly struggled -the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
— Sir Winston Churchill, The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Churchill on Us
"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."
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