No, I am not 'Charlie'

NOR ARE MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS TO BLAME FOR A HANDFUL OF KILLERS.

NO, I am not 'Charlie'. And if  this nonsense continues much longer I might have to seriously consider changing my first name!

I am NOT 'Charlie'.  And if you want to know why I am not joining those generally good people who have unthinkingly hastened to identify with that awful magazine, here is one reason why:

I learnt a new French word from this cover. Les Allocs, from les allocations familiales, family allowances, and roughly translatable in a current British context as 'Benefits'.  We are used to British media and politicians whipping up hostility against so-called "benefits scroungers" and immigrants, but not to anyone suggesting the papers that target both are somehow left-wing or anti-establishment.

The 'Charlie Hebdo' cover refers to the "sexual slaves of Boko Haram", a subject whose humour is a bit above my intellect, then depicts a crowd of ugly women in Muslim attire, all heavily pregnant,  screaming "Hands off our 'Allocs'(Benefits)".

Tres drole, and very amusing.

Of course, I may not have grasped the hidden subtleties of this cartoon, nor be sufficiently au fait with sophisticated French thought and humour to understand that this was really aimed against racism and misogyny, rather than appealing to both; and to the age old bitterness against the lower orders and lesser breeds living and multiplying - "parish-fed bastards" as was the cry of the Yeomanry at Peterloo.

I don't know whether the liberating aim would have been what the thugs had in mind who attacked a pregnant Muslim woman in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil last Thursday, tearing off her veil and headcovering, and kicking her in the stomach for good measure. The young woman suffered a miscarriage and lost her baby on Monday. I don't know whether she appreciated the irony.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/world/europe/muslim-woman-suffers-miscarriage-after-attack-in-france.html?_r=0

I had been going to add another 'Charlie Hebdo' cover featuring a black-clad bearded Orthodox Jew with an extra-long proboscis talking about the Holocaust , which I had seen posted on the internet, but it appears this was a spoof-cover produced by supporters of the antisemite Dieudonne.  I don't know whether 'CH' itself has done anything as unpleasant, but I note that friends who are normally sensitive to anything resembling antisemitism elsewhere were trying to find excuses for this caricature,  so long  as they thought it was genuine.  Such was the wave of enthusiasm for unrestrained freedom of speech.

I am not "Charlie", and nor am I any kind of apologist for the gunmen. Since they are dead, we don't know for sure what their motives were, or those of whoever sent them.  I don't buy the "lone nutters" theory, for these killers were either well-briefed and efficient, or very lucky, managing to strike at the CH office just when an editorial meeting was taking place. Perhaps if the French security services had been as effective at surveillance of those who'd already come on the radar, and stopping them getting guns, both the 'Charlie Hebdo' attack and the supermarket siege might have been prevented.

Still, I don't want to indulge in armchair detection, still less to be smug about those inferior French cops.  The two worst shooting incidents in Britain, at Hungerford (1987) and Dunblane(1996), were carried out by local characters, both white and neither of them Muslim, obsessed with guns, and with legally held firearms. Since then the law has been changed. But Nigel Farage, who blames events in France on "multiculturalism" , said last year that the restriction on hand guns should be scrapped. Maybe those journos who hang on Farage's every word should remind him and his fellow gobshites that culture and headscarves don't kill, guns do.

As for the disgusting media baron Rupert Murdoch, who wants us to hold all Muslims responsible for the killings in France, I don't recall him as a 'born-again Christian' apologising for the actions of his co-religionist Anders Breivik in Norway, any more than for the Inquisition, the Nazi Holocaust, or the massacres of mainly Muslim people at Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon, and Srebrenica in Bosnia, committed by men proud to wear the cross.  But I do remember that it was one of Murdoch's former minions, ex-Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, who blamed Breivik's victims, comparing the young people at a Norwegian Labour Party summer camp to Hitler Youth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8660986/Norway-shooting-Glenn-Beck-compares-dead-teenagers-to-Hitler-youth.html

The gunmen who attacked 'Charlie Hebdo' were not "representatives of the oppressed", however, and there is no point in misguided leftists appointing themselves defence lawyers, and dragging in everything from bombing of Iraq to joblessness in France to "explain" if not exonerate the gunmen.
As for those who killed customers in a kosher supermarket, their crime did nothing for the Palestinians, but came as music to Mossad ears, boosting Netanyahu's effort to persuade Jews to leave France so he use them to reinforce his armed camp. The real hero of the day, and some would say, true Muslim, was the young shopworker Lassana Bathily, from Mali, who helped people hide and saved their lives.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-shootings-muslim-man-hailed-a-hero-for-hiding-hostages-in-jewish-supermarkets-walkin-refrigerator-9970045.html

Had the CH gunmen, or whoever sent them, really cared about France's Muslims, or been confident of their support, they could have mobilised a popular campaign against the paper's insults, instead of relying on guns. It might even have had longer-lasting results. But that would have involved convincing people, persuading them to act, and that their actions count. Once they are mobilised, they might want to take up other issues, like unemployment or exploitation. And as they gain confidence, and allies, they might be less likely to stay within the bounds of religion or outmoded authority. Who knows where it might end?

There are of course plenty of French Muslims and innigrants who are politically articulate and as capable of organising as anyone else. It is my guess that the last thing whoever planned these gun attacks wants is to encourage mass organisation or participation in politics. That two supposed heroes could find nowhere to hide among an estimated five million Muslims is significant. It also symbolises the kind of isolation their mentors would like to see imposed on the entire Muslim community.

That so many of my friends on the Left are torn between "free speech" fundamentalism and deferential respect for 'Charlie Hebdo''s intellectual pretensions on the one hand, and a
patronising assumption that the gunmen are legitimate expressions of an otherwise cowed,uneducated and inarticulate poor community on the other; with no attempt to look critically at either terror or bourgeois 'freedoms'.  These are two faces of the emptiness that lies today behind so much phrasemongering and "theoretical" erudition.

Ireland's Second Holocaust

"NEXT to British imperialism, the Church has been the biggest enemy of the Irish people," declared a staunch Republican I knew, to the surprise of some naive young sympathisers at a meeting in the North West of England.

That was back in the early 1970s, and not long after Bloody Sunday in Derry, when British paras shot dead 26 people, seven of them teenagers, and five shot in the back.

Although I'd heard a little about the Church's history of opposing the Irish freedom struggle, the labour movement, and even quite modest attempts at social reform, I doubt if even the speaker ever dreamt of the grim meaning that would fill out his words, by revelations in the past week.  

It was reported  that almost 800 babies and children were buried in a mass grave near a home for unmarried mothers run by nuns. Historian Catherine Corless, who made the discovery, says her study of death records for the St Mary's home in Tuam, in County Galway, suggests that a former septic tank near the home was a mass grave.

Seeing headlines about babies buried in a septic tank at once brought to my mind the sensational propaganda sometimes used by anti-abortion campaigners. A bit ironic, that. For these were not aborted foetuses, but live infants, who might have played and run about, and grown into fine adults. It seems what I've often suspected was true, that those institutions and characters who proclaim they are for protection of "the Unborn Child" have not got a very good record of taking care of the poor children with the misfortune to be born.

It was as far back as 1975 that two young boys playing near the home at Tuam broke open a concrete slab, and uncovered the old septic tank filled with hundreds of small skeletons . A priest said prayers at the site and it was resealed. Local people thought the bones must have dated from the Great Famine of the 1840s.

Then hundreds of thousands of Irish people died from starvation, while their landlords continued exporting food. Some people now argue that the suffering and deaths of the Famine, which those who could escaped by emigration, were not just the result of a natural calamity - the failure of the potato crop which provided the peasant's staple diet - but of the ruthlessness of their rulers. That this was Ireland's Holocaust.

If so, has the horror uncovered at Tuam not been a second Holocaust?  

What was revealed this week is that the bodies in the septic tank are not those of 1840s Famine victims, but  of  hundreds of children who died in the care of Bon Secours nuns between 1925 and 1961.  St Mary's was one of several such 'mother and baby' homes to which thousands of unmarried pregnant women -- labelled at the time as 'fallen women' -- were sent to have their babies.

In a society where not only abortion but contraception were illegal, these women were ostracised and often treated worse than criminals, as in the now notorious Magdalen Laundries,in which s many as 30,000 women were incarcerated and used as forced labour . Mothers were often forced to hand over their children for adoption.

Health issues and problems associated with the homes have long been documented. As far back as 1944, a government inspection report of the Tuam home described some of the children as "fragile, pot-bellied and emaciated." Reports also described overcrowding and mental illness among the mothers.



It is alleged that children who could not be sold for adoption were deliberately starved. Disabled children were left in "dying rooms".

The recently discovered death records for St Mary's show the 796 children died from malnutrition and infectious diseases, such as measles and TB. These children were denied baptism by the Church, and therefore could not be buried in consecrated lands.

 "There was just one child who was buried in a family plot in the graveyard in Tuam. That's how I am certain there are 796 children in the mass grave," says historian Catherine Corless.

Geoff Knuper, a forensic scientist interviewed on RTE’s "Morning Ireland" program, said that if the remains are exhumed, it may be possible to determine the causes and dates of death. “Obviously it all depends on the state of preservation,” he explained. “After all this time of course, soft tissue will no longer be available but the harder tissue, skeletal structures, should have survived. In addition to providing opportunities for DNA identification, the skeletal structures could show evidence of physical violence, of disease, even malnutrition.”

Bon Secours


The Order of the Bon Secours Nuns, which ran the Tuam home from 1925 – 1961, said that they no longer hold any of the records from the home. In 1961 the Home was closed. All records were returned to the local authority, and would now be within the Health Service Executive, Co Galway,” read a statement issued on Thursday.

The home at Tuam has long been demolished, and local people tend graves in the grounds. But the
Bon Secours sisters, who began providing healthcare in Ireland in the 19th century, ran 10 similar homes across Ireland, and three of these are believed to contain plots with remains of 3,200 babies and infants. Bon Secours is now Ireland's largest private healthcare provider.


Martin Sixmith, the author of 'The Lost Child of Philomena Lee', says the mass grave at Tuam is ""not unique". . His book tells the true story of a woman incarcerated in a home, and forced to give up her three year old son. 

Other homes included Bessborough in Co. Cork, Sean Ross in Tipperary (where Philomena Lee had her son), and Castlepollard in Westmeath – all run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The mortality rates at these homes were far higher than the national average, the Irish Examiner recently reported, ranging from 30% - 50% between 1930 and 1945.

There were Protestant mother and baby homes too, such as the Bethany Home in Dublin, where a similar scandal took place. Between 1922 and 1949, close to 220 children died and were buried in an unmarked grave at Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery. They were memorialized in 2010.
The bodies in the septic tank sensation has encouraged publication of other reports, like this from Claire O'Sullivan:, in the Irish Examiner: 

Women who gave birth at the notorious Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Cork were not allowed pain relief during labour or stitches after birth, and when they developed abscesses from breast-feeding they were denied penicillin.

One nun who ran the labour ward in 1951 also forbid any “moaning or screaming” during childbirth. Girls in poverty, who could not afford to make donations to the Sacred Heart order, had to spend another three years after their babies were born cleaning and working on the lands around the Cork city home to ‘make amends’ for their pregnancy.

Such work often included cutting the home’s “immaculate lawns” on their hands and knees — with a pair of scissors.

Before they left the home, their three-year-olds, with whom they would have established a strong emotional bond, were removed from them and fostered, put up for adoption, or sent to an orphanage — often with only hours’ notice.

These revelations were all made by June Goulding, a midwife who worked at the mother and baby home for a year from 1951, in her book The Light in the Window. “I could not imagine why the babies were not placed in care immediately after the birth to avoid trauma on both sides” Ms Goulding wrote.

In the memoir, published in 1998, she recounts how, at her first Bessborough birth, she asked someone at the hospital what painkillers were used in labour. “Nobody gets any here, nurse, They just have to suffer,” she was told.

Just like in the Magdalene laundries, none of the women were allowed to talk to one another or to nurses at the home. They were also expected to wet-nurse other women’s babies.

When Ms Goulding asked why she could not access needles to stitch women who had been torn during childbirth, she was told she was not allowed to open the cabinet. “I’m afraid, nurse, the key to that cabinet has never been handed over. Girls must suffer their pain and put up with the pain of being torn — she [the nun] says they should atone for their sin.”

Goulding described the home in Blackrock, Cork City, as “a secret penitential jail”. She had grown up less than three miles from the home but had been blithely unaware of how approximate 320 pregnant women and new mothers were treated by the nuns.

Early in her time there she saw a young girl with a suppurating abscess trying to breastfeed a tiny infant. “The fact that she would have needed three hands to successfully complete this task was a minor obstacle compared to the obvious agony on her face....I had never before seen such an abscess that had actually created such an enormous wound." 

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/midwifersquos-memoir-reveals-the-horror-of-bessborough-271158.html

Medical Experiments

The mass graves and reports of malnutrition are not the only reminder of more notorious camps where crimes were committed. The Irish Daily Mail, which broke the Tuam story, has published a report that says old medical records show  2,051 children and babies in Irish care homes were given a one-shot diphtheria vaccine for international drugs giant Burroughs Wellcome between 1930 and 1936.

The report adds that no evidence exists that consent was ever sought. Historian Michael Dwyer who unearthed the documentations says that no records of how many may have died or suffered debilitating side-effects as a result are in existence.

Dwyer, a lecturer at Cork University’s School of History, told the Irish Daily Mail that he found the child vaccination data by trawling through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive files. He said the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for commercial use in the UK.

Homes where children were secretly tested included Bessborough, in Co. Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, both of which are at the centre of the mass baby graves scandal.The paper names other institutions where children may also have been vaccinated including Cork orphanages St Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, run by the Presentation Brothers, and St Finbarr’s Industrial School for Girls, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

Dublin trials may have involved children from St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviours’s Dominican Orphanage.

Dwyer warned: “What I have found is just the tip of a very large and submerged iceberg. The fact that no record of these trials can be found in the files relating to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, the Municipal Health Reports relating to Cork and Dublin, or the Wellcome Archives in London, suggests that vaccine trials would not have been acceptable to government, municipal authorities, or the general public.

“However, the fact that reports of these trials were published in the most prestigious medical journals suggests that this type of human experimentation was largely accepted by medical practitioners and facilitated by authorities in charge of children’s residential

A  spokesman for GSK -formerly Wellcome – told the Irish Daily Mail: “The activities that have been described to us date back over 70 years and, if true, are clearly very distressing.

“We would need further details to investigate what actually took place, but the practices outlined certainly don’t reflect how modern clinical trials are carried out. We conduct our trials to the same high scientific and ethical standards, no matter where in the world they are run.”

Church and State

The mass grave of 796 children at Tuam, is likely not the only one of its kind in Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said. And Children's Minister Charlie Flanagan acknowledged that the government had not been entirely ignorant of the dire conditions at the Tuam home, where children suffered from malnutrition and other serious ailments.

“I understand that this has been known about since 1972 and clearly the Dáil [parliament] records themselves show references to inspections under the system that operated at health level way back in the 1930s – so it is an issue that we need to deal with,” he said.

The exposure of the Church's role in  this mass cruelty is also an exposure of the state, and of those politicians who found it expedient to give the Church such an important place in society. Many Irish people still remember how one man who dared to differ, Dr.Noel Browne, who did much to reduce tubercolosis in Ireland, was denounced as a "communist", and hounded from office in 1951, because he introduced a 'Mother and Child' Act providing for some public healthcare.


Ireland's Declaration of Independence pledged it to "cherish all its children equally".  Leaving that to the Church and accepting a bound on social responsibility did more than any geographical border to make a travesty of the republic.


http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/bodies-of-800-children-longdead-found-in-septic-tank-at-former-irish-home-for-unwed-mothers-20140604-zrwtz.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/mass-grave-galway-tuam-1494001-May2014/

Who is that marching in Brick Lane? It's the Media 's favourite Muslim!

A GROUP claiming to uphold Muslim law announced its attention of marching in Brick Lane this afternoon, against the evils of alcohol. Well, I can understand some residents might be tired of the swell of boozy tourists (and worse) on their street at weekends, and I could manage a curry without the obligatory pint of lager.

They would not be the first place in Britain to declare a dry area, after all some Welsh communities did it long before the arrival of any Muslims. And though you would not think so to look at most of today's Left and labour movement, Temperance and teetotalism have been traditional among some socialists.    

Still, a quieter Brick Lane without a pub might not be so good for the restaurant trade, nor popular with the young men out on the street touting for its customers. And if residents wanted a change or even stricter licensing they are quite capable of raising the issue with their local councillors.

My suspicion that this march might not be quite what it seems was reinforced by reading the report in the East London Advertiser.

It quoted a spokesman for the "Sharia Project" called Abu Rumaysah, 30, who said: “There’s a lot of problems in the area like anti-social behaviour caused by drinking and a lot of the Muslims are involved in selling alcohol in their shops.”

He added: “The one who is not a Muslim is already going to the hell fire. The one who drinks or sells alcohol ... God can forgive if he mends his ways.”

Mr Rumaysah, who lives in Waltham Forest where the group is based, said hate preacher Anjem Choudary is one of its “mentors”.

Well fancy that! And they know all about anti-social behaviour in Waltham Forest, only it's not all fuelled by alcohol. There's more than one kind of booze.

Last week three young men were jailed for a campaign to impose their version of Sharia Law. The court heard that two Muslim converts, Jordan Horner, 19 and Ricardo McFarlane, 26, roamed the streets in the early hours of the morning and confronted members of the public, berating them for their alleged anti-Islamic behaviour. They threatened to ‘kill non believers’ and ‘shank’ - stab - them and uploaded videos to Youtube criticising non-Muslims for being inappropriately dressed.

Around 4am on January 6 of this year Horner, McFarlane and a group of men in Muslim dress approached a group of five men walking along the street, snatched cans of beer out of their hands before emptying them into the gutter. Horner, who is white and sports a ginger beard,  demanded: 'Why are you poisoning your body? It is against Islam. This is Muslim Patrol. Kill the non-believers.'

Horner, described as close to preacher Anjem Choudary, punched two of the men, but denied hitting a third. He and a 23-year-old also threatened a man and two doctors Claire Coyle and Robert Gray around the Bethnal Green Road and Great Eastern Street areas of east London on December 19 last year and January 13 this year.

At an earlier hearing the prosecutor said:
: 'The victims describe the main aggressor as being ginger with a ginger beard. And one victim said the white ginger male punched him in the jaw. It was a group attack and a religiously aggravated assault.'

The 23-year-old of Finsbury Park, north London, who has convictions for section 4 offences in April of last year, handling stolen goods and dishonesty, was remanded back into custody.


 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2500727/Pair-Islamic-converts-joined-Muslim-patrol-impose-Sharia-Law-London-confiscated-alcohol-threatened-stab-non-believers.html#ixzz2nIa7iD5o

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519519/Muslim-Patrol-jailed-harassing-couple-holding-hands-men-drinking-bid-enforce-Sharia-law-East-London.html#ixzz2n4jS71VM



The Daily Mail had a picture of the not too bright looking nineteen year old slugger standing in a group with "hate preacher" Anjem Choudary, an ex-solicitor whom other Muslims say has few qualifications as preacher. and none whatsoever in Sharia law. But it was not the first time that paper featured Horner, or Choudary, in Waltham Forest. An article published in 2011 claimed Choudary and his chums had support from local Muslims to impose Sharia law in the London borough, and was illustrated with a photograph of "Jamaal Uddin" -alias Jordan Horner -putting up a poster announcing this was now a "Sharia law zone".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020382/You-entering-Sharia-law-Britain-As-Islamic-extremists-declare-Sharia-law-zone-London-suburb-worrying-social-moral-implications.html

This kind of publicity, way out of proportion to Choudary's miniscule following, was presumably what encouraged the English Defence League(EDL) to think it could march into Walthamstow in 2012 and be welcomed by the non-Muslim population grateful to be liberated from alien rule. As we know not all the Metropolitan Police could get them through, though they did get a "warm welcome"!
As for imposing Sharia law, the nearest we got was Jordan Horner, encouraged perhaps by the publicity he'd got in the Mail to believe he was acting for local Muslims.

But of course this wasn't the first time Anjem Choudary's activities and their publicity provided an excuse for the English Defence League. In 2009, after a week campaigning and thousands of leaflets he managed to muster fewer than 20 supporters to stage a protest in Luton against a parade by the Royal Anglian Regiment, returning from Afghanistan.  There are more than 20,000 Muslims in Luton, and whatever their views on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, shared by many non-Muslims, they like their neighbours were probably glad to see the soldiers back. Choudary was banned from a Luton mosque. But of course his protest, which led to scuffles with local people, was extensively covered by the media, from the BBC to the Nazi Stormfront site.  

And sure enough it was in Luton that what became the EDL was formed, supposedly as a response to Choudary's Muslim protest. Even if it did seem to be quick off the mark.

Born in Britain, Choudary went to Southampton University, where is said to have been a bit of a lad for the 'birds' and the booze, and other substances, and liked a game of cards, before he got into religion. He is often described as leading Al Muhajiroun, in succession to Omar Bakri, who was banned from Britain, although Al Muhajiroun is supposed to be banned by law for glorifying "acts of terrorism". Since then he has turned up under various names, such as Islam4UK, usually announcing provocative actions which tend to not happen, or be damp squibs, but always get lots of publicity.



I once chanced on a copy of the paper Al Muhajiroun, many years ago, and was struck by an odd phrase accusing Jews of subverting "natural aristocracy". Somehow the concept of "natural aristocracy" did not sound very Islamic. I discovered this particular phrase came not from the Koran but the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Of course that was a secret police job.

By way of a change, Choudary -and Horner -turned on another target this year, attacking Shia Muslims.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/10617213.Muslim_protestors_accused_of_attacking_rival_sect_bailed/

Sure enough, Anjem Choudary announced his intention of leading today's march, but only gathered a handful of supporters. The local paper had already reported that people were not impressed:

 An East London Mosque official said the rally was a publicity stunt that would “antagonise local people and business owners”.

He said The Shariah Project is “strongly linked” to Anjem Choudary’s group Al-Muhajiroun, members of which were recently sentenced to jail for threatening people drinking alcohol in east London in so-called “Muslim Patrols”.

http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/court-crime/video_fear_allah_hate_preacher_anjem_choudary_tells_shopkeepers_at_anti_alcohol_march_1_3111141

The EDL faced united opposition and failed to get into the London borough of Tower Hamlets in September, when it was promising to free the people from Islamic dominance. It's Luton-based founder Tommy Robinson, alias Stephen Yaxley Lennon, was among those arrested, and since then he has quit, because of "extremists". If the EDL or similar forces were hoping today's fiasco would improve their chances, it looks like they have a long wait coming..

But maybe until someone else comes along the reactionary media will keep on trying to boost Anjem Choudary. It's all part of the game.

And for a States' side view see:
http://www.salon.com/2011/03/02/anjem_choudary_america/

Suffer Little Children...Will Bishop bar the Brownies?!

IT used to be unkindly alleged by some that the Church of England would rather abandon all 39 of its articles than surrender an acre of its property. There were even quite salacious allegations about the nature of the businesses carried on in some properties owned by the Church.

The Church Commissioners did get rid of a lot of west London real estate in the 1950s, some of it taken over by the London County Council for redevelopment and council housing, and some alas falling into the hands of such philanthropic gents as Peter Rachman. The Church and its capital were  thus freed for investment in new developments.


Nowadays the Church Commissioners oversee some £5.2 billion investments including industry and finance as well as £1.71 billion in property. There is also the Church of England Pension Fund. Attempts by the Church's synod or senior churchmen to dissociate from embarrassing business links (Wonga) or divest on ethical grounds (Caterpillar) can run into resistance from the more commercially-minded Commissioners, who number 33 including the Prime Minister and other members of government.

But then there's the more modest property attached to the parish church, the church hall which can be host to all sort of community activities. Only some churchmen are threatening to ban one particular organisation - the Girl Guides!

Before you go wondering in your imagination what sort of dreadful sin the Guides have been committing (shades of St.Trinian's, their patron?) it is their elders who are to blame. They have decided that in Britain in the 21st century the Guides need no longer include God in their oath of allegiance.  The Queen is still there, unfortunately, though Guides can now promise to Do Their Best for the community, rather than country.  The new promise comes into force on September 1.

Except in Harrogate, apparently, where some Guide leaders say they will stick to the godly version. Rev Brian Hunt, minister of the church where Harrogate Guides have met for many years, supports their stance, indicating that the unit could not possibly expect to use the facilities otherwise.

“My church allows the Guides to use my premises for free,” he said. “And we do that because they’ve always tried to look after the whole person – body, mind and soul – and we encourage that. I don’t think, in fairness, that Girl Guides can expect churches to provide premises for free when they don’t believe in God.”

Hundreds of Guide groups around the country have been using church premises free or for a small fee for many years. In return, vicars faced with dwindling congregations have relied on groups like the Guides to take part in church activities and processions.

A Girl Guiding spokeswoman insisted that the decision to change the oath was based on research that found it should “unify all girls of all backgrounds and all circumstances”. he said: “Updating the Promise does not alter our continuing commitment to offer all girls a safe space where they can explore and develop their beliefs".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10262653/Girl-Guides-should-not-be-allowed-to-use-church-premises.html

That space may no longer be found in the church hall.

Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said that he hoped “many others” would follow the stance taken by the women in Harrogate, North Yorks.

Christian Concern, which is concerned about abortions, Islam and gay rights, and defends Christians supposedly prevented from raising their faith at work, goes further, accusing the Guide movement of a “slap in the face” to the churches.“It’s understandable that some church leaders won’t be happy providing premises if the Guides are so insistent on keeping God out of the movement,” a spokesman said.

The Evangelical Alliance agreed, suggesting that the decision to remove the reference to God could backfire."Many churches must now be reconsidering whether they want to give their resources, free time and free use of their buildings to an organisation that wants to cleanse itself of God, especially when there is an alternative in the Girls Brigade that is rooted in the Christian faith,"

The Guides' and Brownies' promise to “love my God” is to be replaced with a more individualistic pledge to “be true to myself” and to “develop my beliefs”.

The patriotic pledge to serve "my country" is replaced by one to serve the community.

But in a consultation which attracted almost 44,000 responses Guides made clear that they wanted to retain a public expression of allegiance to the Queen, who is also their patron.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10128251/Guides-drop-God-and-country-but-keep-the-Queen.html

The group’s new chief executive, Julie Bentley, is the former head of The Family Planning Association, and describes the Guides as “the ultimate feminist organisation”.
Gill Slocombe, the Chief Guide, said the changes would make the promise less “confusing” and easier for the organisation’s 550,000 members to take with sincerity.

But while Guide leaders stress the need for sincerity, and some people would remind less tolerant churchmen of the duty of charity, their opponents plainly believe the greatest of their assets is church property.

Reverend Paul Williamson, of St.George's Church in Feltham, Middlesex, says it would be “hypocritical” of the Guides movement to think it could continue as before after abandoning its core beliefs.“If the Guide promise does not mention God, I cannot see why they should be on Church premises.”
.

 Rev Williamson, a former Scout leader, warned that most Guide groups did not have the funds or the ability to run their own buildings and that local schools or councils would charge far more for the hire of their facilities.“It seems to me the Girl Guides are being doctrinaire, feminist and anti-church,” he said. “How can they expect, as a reputable charity organisation, to go on using church premises whilst telling young girls that that cannot promise their duty to God?”

Fortunately for the Church, clerics like Rev.Williamson seem to be less strict about excluding funding for their premises. Here's a local report:

"A HANWORTH church congregation celebrated the completion of a new £250,000 roof on Sunday.
A special service of celebration was held at St George's Church in Elmwood Avenue to mark the end of repair works.

The service was officiated by the right reverend Robert Mercer, and was followed by a champagne reception. The new roof has been funded through grants from a host of organisations, driven by The Hanworth Park Preservation Trust.

The scheme involved the replacement of the roof on the historic building's chapel and chancel, the area which houses the altar and choir stalls. New guttering and rainwater systems were installed, and the chancel walls were re pointed to stop water creeping in. Areas of internal plasterwork damaged by water were also repaired, as well as distinctive and rare marble panels.

Funding was provided by English Heritage, The Garfield West Foundation, The National Churches Trust and The Veolia Enivronmental Trust.

Speaking about the end of the project, church vicar, the Reverend Paul Williamson, said: "It's wonderful to see the church watertight after two decades. When I first arrived over 20 years ago, the floor was dotted with large black buckets. This work returns the church to the community for all to enjoy."

Speaking about the end of the project, church vicar, the Reverend Paul Williamson, said: "It's wonderful to see the church watertight after two decades. When I first arrived over 20 years ago, the floor was dotted with large black buckets. This work returns the church to the community for all to enjoy."

Executive Director of The Veolia Environmental Trust, Margaret Cobbold, said: "It is great to hear that this project is complete and all the hard work that has gone into it is going to be celebrated.
"It was important to the trust that we helped protect and preserve this important building and I hope the repairs mean St George's remains at the heart of Hanworth for years to come."

http://feltham.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/2010/11/250000-works-celebrated-by-han.html

Veolia is the French company that has acquired so much utility and public service provision, despite strong criticism of its involvement  in illegal settlements and discriminatory practices such that some consider it an obstacle to peace in what Church of England vicars often call "The Holy Land".

But I doubt whether it or the other donors were required to promise to "serve God", any more than you or I would be, before being allowed to make a donation to church funds and charities.

Still we must be grateful, I suppose, to the C of E and other religious denominations for letting us make use of their premises, regardless of belief, when thanks to their resources these are often the only places available. 

 Church of England investments:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23467750

The Church Commissioners

Church and Caterpillar
Ethical Investments

Thatcher's Claws (28) coming back via Blair's Academies?

WHEN Baroness Thatcher died earlier this year, Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell reminded people of some of the nastier side of her reign, including the anti-gay law Section 28, so called because it was introduced as a Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, becoming Section 28 when the bill became an Act of parliament, which stated a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Brought in on the back of the AIDS panic and with newspapers like the Daily Mail publishing sensational reports of explicit homosexual material supposedly aimed at small children, the law nevertheless aroused widespread opposition and protests, ranging from conventional mass demonstrations to dramatic actions such as lesbians abseiling into parliament and invading a TV studio.One good effect of the bill was that many "straight" left groups and individuals like myself whose attitude had been at best complacent now felt obliged to join the opposition to this reactionary measure.

There was concern at the homophobia encouraged by presenting gay people as somehow proselytising, by "promoting" their personal lifestyle, and fears that not only would support groups be hit, but education censored. Would teachers be allowed to mention famous writers who had been gay? Would they be afraid to counter bullying, or give counselling to young people worried about their sexuality?  What about pupils with a gay parent or family member?

A National Union of Teachers (NUT) statement remarked that "While Section 28 applies to local authorities and not to schools, many teachers believe, albeit wrongly, that it imposes constraints in respect of the advice and counselling they give to pupils. Professional judgement is therefore influenced by the perceived prospect of prosecution."

The Department for Education and Science issued a statement meant to reassure people that Section 28 "will not prevent the objective discussion of homosexuality in the classroom, nor the counselling of pupils concerned about their sexuality.”
But Tory Education Minister Jill Knight said: “     This has got to be a mistake. The major point of it was to protect children in schools from having homosexuality thrust upon them."

Thatcher had attacked “positive images” of gay people, saying during a speech on Section 28 that she worried: “Children are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

In May 2000 the Christian Institute unsuccessfully took Glasgow city council to court, claiming it was promoting homosexuality by funding an AIDS support charity.  One month later the newly devolved Scottish parliament voted overwhelmingly to get rid of Section 28, despite a campaign to keep it by millionaire transport boss Brian Souter.

Someone else who strongly defended Section 28 at this time was David Cameron. He accused Labour and Prime Minister Tony Blair of being "anti -family" and wanting the "promotion of homosexuality in schools". Cameron continued backing Section 28 when he was elected as an MP in 2003, and tried to amend its repeal, though he failed, and was absent from the vote when it was revealed. Then in June 2009, having become leader of the Tory party, and hoping to be Tory prime minister, Cameron apologised for his party introducing the law, saying it had been a mistake and was offensive to gay people.

So with Section 28 repealed, and the government supporting gay marriage, the issue would seem to be like Margaret Thatcher, thankfully dead and buried. Except it isn't. Kent County Council for one has kept its own version. And an article in Gay Star News reveals that the hated Section 28 has been given a new lease of life in the Sex and Relationships Education policies adopted by several of the schools that have become so-called Academies. The schools’ policy states while ‘objective discussion of homosexuality may take place in the classroom,’ ‘the governing body will not permit the promotion of homosexuality’.


"The schools are Castle View Enterprise Academy in Sunderland, Swindon Academy, Stockport Academy, Radcliffe School in Milton Keynes, Grace Academy in Coventry, William Hulmes Grammar School in Manchester and Bridge Academy in Hackney, London. Colston Girl’s School in Bristol are reviewing their anti-gay policy after complaints..."

Like the Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) in the hospitals, the Academies were a Tory idea adopted and introduced with enthusiasm by New Labour. Tony Blair and his education adviser Lord Adonis started the policy in 2000. For an investment of 10 per cent, up to £2 million, leaving the taxpayer to make up the rest,  rich business people or religious outfits gain control of a school's policies, curriculum, and appointments.

Among the first to get into the game was Sir Peter Vardy, whose wealth came from Reg Vardy PLC, the second-hand car business he inherited from his father. He acquired three academies for £2 million each, while public money made up the rest.  The bills included £14,039 to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for the loan of Sir Peter's brother David, and larger sums to Sir Peter's own company. Render unto Ceasar, as they say. Unlike your ordinary state school the Academies are not under the control of elected local authorities, and nor are they obliged to put work out to tender. The government has been much more generous in funding for these supposedly independent academies than for state schools.

Some academies say they believe in honouring national agreements, but others are not too keen on the teachers' unions.

Sir Peter is a Bible believer, though he denies being a creationist in the sense of thinking God made the universe in six days. His man running the Emmanuel Schools Trust, Mr.Nigel McQuoid, however says schools should teach the creation story as told in Genesis.  

Mr McQuoid also said: “The Bible says clearly that homosexual activity is against God’s design. I would indicate that to young folk.” As for those who did not agree, he told a local newspaper: “I don’t have to respect everyone’s opinion. I don’t respect the opinion of people who believe it’s fine to live with a partner. Head teachers are responsible to God and the standards of the bible. Nothing in the school should contradict the teachings of the bible.”

“If academies are to succeed,” says his colleague John Burn, “they need to be led and staffed by people who are obedient to God’s truth as revealed in the scriptures.” So, no teachers who do not hold the approved theological opinions. 

Mr Burn is one of the founders of the Newcastle-based Christian Institute, set up in 1991 to promote fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and is an outspoken opponent of the ordination of women. In September 2000, Stephen Layfield, head of science at one of Vardy’s schools, Emmanuel College, Gateshead, delivered a lecture called “The teaching of science – a biblical perspective”. It reads rather like a revivalist sermon and lays down a duty upon teachers to “do all they can to ensure that pupils, parents and fellow colleagues are reminded frequently that all is not what it seems when popular so-called scientific dogma presents itself before them.” When you find mention of evolution in a textbook, “point out the fallibility of the statement.”

- From Francis Beckett’s book, The Great City Academy Fraud, published in 2007 by Continuum.
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/1477/schools-for-scoundrels

Tony Blair said he was not concerned about schools being run by creationists as long as they got good exam results. In fact, despite having more resources, and carrying out selection (and in the Vardy case, more expulsions), Academies have not being do so well academically. But they have kept on spreading, and receiving government encouragement, and funding.

In 2010, Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation announced it was handing over management of its schools, all in the North East, to the United Learning Trust (ULT), based in Oundle, Northamptonshire. ULT was formed in 2002 as a subsidiary of the United Church Schools Trust (UCST) which has been running independent schools in the UK since 1883.

ULT, whose connections include Vodafone UK Foundation, Honda and Barclays, is the sponsor of the Swindon and Stockport Academies and the William Hulme Grammar in Manchester, mentioned in the Gay Star News report. It subscribes to a "Church of England ethos". The Grace Academy in Coventry is run by the Grace Foundation, a registered charity founded by Bob Edmiston, of the evangelical international charity Christian Vision.

In recent years we may have relaxed our vigilance with Section 28 seeming out of the way. Just now there is a storm justifiably growing over similar legislation, as well as brutal homophobe attacks, in Putin's Russia. We might also need to wake up to some quieter reactionary developments in Britain.

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/section-28-returns-uk-schools-ban-promotion-gay-issues170813

   http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publi/3/article_13149.php
 http://www.variant.org.uk/27texts/academies27.html

West's two faces on Bangladesh war criminals

 FOR the right-wing Daily Mail it must have seemed just what the doctor ordered.

'NHS boss faces death penalty over charges of torture and 18 murders in Bangladesh'

One of Britain's most important Muslim leaders – who has a senior role in the NHS – is to be charged with 18 murders by a war crimes tribunal in his native Bangladesh, investigators have told The Mail on Sunday.

Coming amid the growing outcry over Jimmy Saville's visits to hospitals, the Mail story appeared timely, and to hit two targets at once - Muslims and the NHS.

Unlike a lot of the chaff on these topics that appears in the tabloid presss, the story by Abul Taher, published on October 13, was serious and factual, even if the headline's reference to Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin's status as an "NHS boss" might have been a bit misleading.

Mueen-Uddin won't have been in a position to decide anything about your treatment or operation, recruitment and remuneration of staff, or whether your local A&E closes. Not even about hospital car parking. He is described as director of Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS and chairman of the Multi-Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy.

But as the Mail says, he "is accused of abducting, torturing and killing 18 journalists, academics and doctors during the bloody war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971"

If you read on to the end of the story you would find:

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Mr Mueen-Uddin is not employed by either the Department of Health or the NHS.

'He was head of Muslim spiritual care in the NHS, and chair of the Multi-Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy, an independent organisation which provides advice to the Department of Health about multi-faith healthcare chaplaincy on behalf of all Faith Groups.

.Nevertheless, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin's background, the allegations against him, and how far he got in this country, deserve to be examined.  

During the Bangladesh war, forced when the Pakistan rulers refused to accept election results, thousands of people were killed, not only by the Palistan army, but by irregulars sponsored and armed by Islamicist parties opposed to Bangladesh seceding. The biggest of these was Jamaat e-Islami, which has wings in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, and has supported mujaheddin in Kashmir. One of the armed groups supported by its student wing in Bangladesh was the Al Badr brigade. 

Bangladesh's war crimes investigators say that Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, while working as a journalist for a newspaper called the Daily Purbadesh in the capital Dhaka, was also said to be a secret member of  the Al-Badr Brigade, which abducted and killed opponents. Mueen-Uddin fled Bangladesh shortly after independence, going via India, Nepal and then Pakistan, from where he caught a flight to London in the early Seventies.


Sanaul Huq, the Inspector-General of Bangladesh's national police force, who is co-ordinating the ICT investigation, said his investigators believe that Mr Mueen-Uddin killed dozens of people during the independence war, but they can link him only to 18 murders with evidence and eyewitness testimonies.

The ICT said  Mueen-Uddin and his associates allegedly subjected their victims to horrendous torture before killing them and dumping their bodies in sports grounds which earned the nickname 'killing fields'.

Mr Huq told The Mail on Sunday: 'They abducted an eye doctor, and then gouged his eyes out before killing him and dumping his body.'They abducted a cardiologist and cut out his heart before killing him and dumping his body.'They kidnapped a woman journalist, and cut her breasts off before killing her. Her decomposing body was later found with her breasts cut off.

'These victims were chosen because they were leading figures in the independence movement. Mueen-Uddin was a leading figure when it comes to killing activists. This is why we want to try him in court.'As soon as charges are made – which I can guarantee will happen in days – we will request the British Government to hand him back to Bangladesh, and we will ask Interpol for his arrest. We will use all means, diplomatic and legal, to bring him back. If we fail, we will try him in absentia.'

Bangladeshi socialists in London alleged years ago that war criminals fleeing justice in Bangladesh were being admitted to Britain, with the apparent connivanmce of the British authorities, and  finding a niche for themselves in such fields as religious education. The East London Mosque was singled out for mention.Mueeen-Uddin is vice chairman of the East London Mosque and has worked with Dawatul-Islam, an educational and youth organisation seen as pro-Jamaat e-Islam.

Despite its record, Jamaat e-Islami has been able to function as a legal political party in Bangladesh, as well as raising funds in London, It was in government for a time in coalition with the Bangladesh National Party, between 2000-2008. During this time it received praise from the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher, who considered Jamaat-e-Islami as a democratic party and didn’t find any evidence of Jamaat being involved in bombing or connected to bombing.’ -The Bangladesh Observer report (5 August 2006.   This did not prevent Jamat e-Islami leading anti-US protests during the recent row over a "blasphemous" film. 

The return of the Awami League to government in 2008 set in motion the long-delayed invesyigation and pursuit of the war criminals, and yet Jamaat e Islami continues to present itself as the innocent victim of a political witch-hunt, and continues to enjoy sympathetic backing, free or paid for, from some quarters in the West.

In Open Democracy,Gita Sahgal has been looking at the Bangladeshi party's background and its backing. ( Bangladesh: the forgotten template of 20th century war

Gita Sahgal , 10 October 2012).

"A recent article by Elliot Wilson in the Huffington Post asked whether British aid was being used to fund a crackdown on human rights in Bangladesh. The article did not discuss where the £250 million given by the British government is spent or whether that spending is effective. Wilson argues that the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina has undertaken ‘the most sustained assault on freedom of speech in the 41 years since independence’. A major reason for his claim is the arrest of Mir Quasem Ali, whom he describes as a leading member of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami, head of a major charity and a media magnate, arguing that he has been arrested solely for his public criticism of a Tribunal established to try crimes committed during the Bangladesh war of liberation in 1971.

Gita says many Bangladeshis living at home and abroad are concerned about the human rights situation in their country. But althouh human rights advocates and independent observers agree that many of the tribunal processes are flawed, they don't accept that the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) was established solelyfor Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to get rid of her political opposition. 

 Indeed the tribunal has helped raise human rights issues by addressing impunity for mass crimes. And many people see a reckoning with the past as a necessary reassurance over their future.

 
"Human rights concerns in Bangladesh are far wider than the Wilson suggests. For instance, the government has been reluctant to accept new refugees fleeing violence in Burma. Unfortunately for Wilson’s argument that this is the worst attack on freedom of speech in Bangladesh’s history – the opposition is also implicated in targeted attacks on minorities when they came to power in a BNP and Jamaat e Islami coalition.

"Fear of their rise to power again has lead religious minorities to campaign hard for Bangladesh to return to its secular founding principles. At meetings in the East London tabernacle and at the House of Commons a number of organisations representing religious minorities such as Ahmadiyyas, and the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, described pogroms against them as soon as the BNP came to power in a previous election. Syed Anas Pasha, representing Bangladeshi journalists, described how journalists reporting on these attacks were themselves attacked.

"For those whose lives are threatened by fundamentalists, 1971 is not simply a bad memory but a current threat; one which has largely disappeared from public memory abroad."

Gita Sahgal says that Bangladesh 1971 is the "forgotten template" for conflicts that define the late 20th century, from former Yugoslavia, through Rwanda during the 1990s, and on a smaller scale in Gujarat, India in 2002. "The Bangladesh story tells us what happens when a military crackdown is supported by militias composed of religious fundamentalists with their own agenda".

The Jamaat e Islami was already known as a violent political party of the far right in Pakistan, bent on attacking minorities and creating an Islamic state. Indeed, their founder Maulana Maududi, who had opposed the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland, is regarded as the first modern theorist of an Islamic state. On March 25th 1971, the Pakistan army launched a huge military crackdown in Dhaka – including an assault on Dhaka University in which many staff and students were rounded up and killed. Hindu halls of residence were particularly targeted.

The most notorious event that al Badr are said to have instigated, is known as the ‘killing of the intellectuals’. In the days before the surrender of the Pakistani army, dozens of professors, journalists, doctors and others were picked up, taken to torture centres, and killed.

 Wilson fails to mention that Mir Quasem Ali is under investigation by the tribunal, not for what he said about it, but for what he is alleged to have done during 1971. According to the Bangladesh press, the charges against the Jamaat leader include that he was the Chittagong unit commander of Al-Badr, described as ‘a vigilante outfit mobilised by Jamaat's erstwhile student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha’, and was third in the outfit's command structure. The investigation relates to atrocities alleged to have been committed by al Badr.

It is not surprising that Wilson, who calls himself an investigative journalist, doesn’t mention any of this. A recent book on 1971 by Sarmila Bose, Dead Reckoning: memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, which has been comprehensively rebutted by Naeem Mohaiemen, manages to claim to interview all sides, to give a balanced account of what happened. As I showed in my analysis of the book, the author failed to interview any members of the Jamaat e Islami, or address allegations of their role in the conflict.  The story has simply vanished from her work.

David Bergman, himself a critic of the Tribunal, has investigated the Jamaat e Islami’s extensive lobbying efforts in the USA, and raised questions about whether the lobbying firm hired by Mir Quasem Ali in New York acted legally under the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938.

This Act requires that any lobbying firm acting on behalf of a foreign political party must register itself with the Department of Justice. The firm in question has signed contracts with Mr Ali (whose contract was terminated) and his brother worth $310,000 to work on exactly the same issues – ‘the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunal and political opposition matters.’ Later they were reported to have dropped the work on opposition matters.

Given the extensive well funded lobbying effort by lawyers and lobbyists hired by the Jamaat e Islami or individuals connected to them, we might ask whether the Huffington Post article is part of this extensive lobbying effort, or driven by a genuine concern for fair trial and free speech. Both human rights and development efforts have been driven forward in Bangladesh by the efforts of  activists committed to secular values and gender equality. Without these efforts, the Awami League would not have made a commitment to hold trials in the first place, nor be able to show such a good record on development".

Much as imperialist Western governments and their media may affect distaste for religious reactionaries such as Jama'at e Islaimi, they also have to consider whether the diversions and divisions they create are not preferable to some of the things that go with commitment to secular values and economy. That's a consideration which applies in both Tower Hamlets and Bangladesh.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217367/NHS-boss-faces-death-penalty-charges-torture-18-murders.html?ito=feeds-newsxml 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/07/bangladesh-war-crimes 

http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/gita-sahgal/bangladesh-forgotten-template-of-20th-century-war-0

Destroying mosques in Africa, murdering bus passengers in Pakistan

ISLAM used to be known among the world's religions for civilisation, tolerance and progress. From Cordoba in the west to Baghdad and further East, the society developed trade routes, irrigation, agriculture, medicine and great architecture. Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars found a place, to study Classical knowledge, and make a bridge between the ancients and modern society.
If some Western leaders and writers today profess ignorance of this debt, in proclaiming their ill-founded assumptions of superiority, that is their contribution to the world's darkness and intellectual poverty.

That said, not only are some Islamic countries today afflicted with oppressive and reactionary tyrranies, but there is a spreading worldwide malignancy in the name of Islam which, far from evoking a past "Golden Age", is inflicting suffering, destruction and barbarism. In 2001 the world could only look on in horror when the Taliban destroyed 6th century statues of Buddha carved into rock at Bamyan, in central Afghanistan.

This kind of vandalism, spectacular as it was, and symbolic of what was being done to people, had echoes of the dynamiting of minarets and bulldozing of Muslim graves by Serb and Croat nationalist forces in Bosnia. To complete your conquest, destroy the people's past, and consciousness of themselves. It is plainly not unique to Islamicist fanatics. Nor is it in the slightest way progressive, or "anti-imperialist". On the contrary, it can arrive riding with the imperialists.

LIBYA -ultra-conservative Islamists used bombs and a bulldozer to level the tomb of a 15th-century Sufi scholar, Abdel Salam al Asmar, in the town of Zlitan, 100 miles east of Tripoli. They also destroyed thousands of historical books when they burned a library in a nearby mosque to the ground. Rather than interfere, security forces assaulted and arrested people who tried to protest destruction of mosques and shrines in other places, though in some local militias stopped these attacks.
On Sunday, the ruling General National Congress summoned Interior Minister Fawzi Abdel Al, Defense Minister Osama Jweili and several other military and intelligence officers for questioning after the Sufi shrines were attacked Friday and Saturday. General National Congress speaker Muhammed Magarief slammed the desecrations as “disgraceful acts.” Magarief went as far as to suggest that there may have been official collusion in the attacks, saying that those responsible “are unfortunately aligned with some in the Supreme Security Committee (SCC) and ex-revolutionaries.” The security committee is responsible for organizing Libya’s armed forces.
read more here:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/08/26/2269908/top-libyan-officials-implicated.html

MALI As many as half a million refugees may have fled the north of the country after Salafi purists destroyed Sufi shrines in the fabled city of Timbuktu and said they would impose strict Sharia law on the people. In three days at the beginning of July, the members of an Al Qaida offshoot called Ansar Dine which had displaced both government forces and Tuareg separatists, destroyed at least eight Timbuktu mausoleums and several tombs, centuries-old shrines reflecting the local Sufi version of Islam in what is known as the "City of 333 Saints". UNESCO which had earlier put Timbuktu on a list of threatened world heritage sites, said "We consider this action to be a crime against history."
Thousands of people have fled either to the south or across the borders into neighbouring Mauretania and Niger. They say the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) have forced women to veil, stopped them trading in the market, and forbidden music and television. Some 90 per cent of Mali's people are Muslims, but they say this intolerant and repressive strain comes from outside and is completely alien to them. They have begun organising to fight back, but say they need weapons, whereas the Ansar Dine, despite their supposed rejection of Western ways, are well-armed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/uk-mali-crisis-timbuktu-idUSLNE86202G20120703

PAKISTAN, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, whose name means "Land of the Pure", was born from partition and bloody conflict, and served as the base for CIA-backed mojahaddin in Afghanistan and later the Taliban. It is suffering the war spilling over, in the shape of US drones which have killed innocent civilians, and in the latest refinement reported, targetted rescue parties.
But not all the violence comes from outside.

In the province of Gilgit-Baltistan, as people prepared to celebrate the festival of Eid al Fitr which ends Ramadan, they found themselves instead with a day of mourning, and of anger, after 25 people were pulled from four buses returning from Rawalpindi, and murdered.

According to an eye witnesses of the horrific incident, on August 16 some buses on way from Rawalpindi to Astore were intercepted at Babusar by about 14 terrorists wearing commando uniforms and carrying walkie-talkies while dozens of their fellow terrorists stood on the nearby hills.
They ordered the passengers to step down and started enquiring about their sect. Those who belonged to Shia sect were taken aside and later shot dead in cold blood.

Four Sunni Muslims were also killed, after they protested and tried to tell the gunmen not to kill innocent Shia Muslims. One Shia man who survived the massacre said he had been saved because Sunni fellow passengers asked to identify Shia refused to help the killers, despite being beaten themselves.
This was the second such incident. In March a Gilgit bound bus was intercepted and 18 Shia passengers were slaughtered by terrorists wearing army uniforms.

The Ulema of Gilgit, Baltistan and from all schools of thought condemned the incident and termed it a heinous crime and declared that terrorists are not Muslim, rather they are anti Muslim and anti-Islam.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-127320-Babusar-killings-Sunnis-refused-to-identify-Shias-in-front-of-terrorists

Although persecution of minorities is quite common in Pakistan, these organised killings, which have been claimed by a Taliban organisation, stand out, and may have a more than religious significance. Historically linked to Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit was separated from it by the British, who saw the region as strategically important because it borders on China and Afghanistan, and might stand in the path of any Russian advance. They stationed a mercenary force there under British command.

With partition in 1947 the Indian government intended to return Gilgit to Kashmir, but while most of Kashmir has been taken over by India, Gilgit Baltistan is closer to the Pakistan-occupied Azad (supposedly "free") Kashmir. As Shi'ites the people in Gilgit fear that transfer from Pakistan to Azad Kashmir would be stepping from the frying pan into the fire of Sunni domination.

Pakistani human rights groups accuse the country's security agencies of backing Sunni militants and failing to protect the minority groups of the country. "The killings are doubtless the work of those who want to destroy Pakistan, but a failure to nab and punish the killers is also contributing to the same end ... the Taliban (are) nobody's friends and those who created this monster have taken Pakistan down the road to annihilation," said Pakistan's non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a statement, directly holding the Taliban and state agencies responsible for the massacre.

The Taliban, whose militant Wahabbi brand of Islam hailed like much of their material backing, from Saudi Arabia, may wage war on the Gilgit Shi'ites not just from sectarian motoves but to strengthen their power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, what used to be North West Frontier
province. Likewise the armed groups which Pakistan military intelligence has supported in Kashmir, turning what should be an independence strugle into a sectarian jihad, may resent having an autonomous mainly-Shi'ite region in their rear.

Some Pakisatanis see a wider conflict in the background. "It is somehow linked to the 'war on terror' and US policies in the region, especially its policy towards Iran," Sartaj Khan, an editor in Karachi, told DW. "I think the US and Pakistani agencies, with the backing of Saudi Arabia, are arming militant Sunni groups to suppress the Shias in the region to kill any possible support for Iran."

Khan added that the Pakistani agencies had given a "free hand" to militant organizations like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni organization believed to be responsible for various attacks on Pakistani Shias in the past, to operate in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Karachi-based Shia activist Syed Ali Mujtaba Zaidi also blamed US policies in the region for the instability in Pakistan's northern areas and the conflict between the Shias and Sunnis. "The US intends to demoralize us, make us feel hopeless and helpless, so that it can continue to play its politics in the region. Its main motive is to counter China and Iran." Zaidi told DW, adding that he believed extremists Sunni groups like the Taliban were working for the US' interests in the region.

Hameed Satti, a development consultant in Islamabad, said Pakistanis had a habit of blaming foreign countries for their problems, and that it was not surprising for him that the massacre of the Shias, which he believed was a result of state policies, was blamed on the US.


http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16188813,00.html


To someone waiting to see if they might be pointed out, to be dragged off a bus, and killed, it must seem like a discussion on who is to blame, the master or his dangerous dog - even if the latter is out of control and has persuaded himself that he is killing for God.

Another bloody Page in US history

WHAT kind of society is the United States of America? What kind of culture? Merely calling it capitalism, or describing it as Western, would tell us very little. As for being Christian, perhaps a majority of Americans are. Certainly the various denominations, and all kind of gospel preachers, do a roaring trade.

But more than a century after the OK Corral, modern America, or sections of it, not just hoodlums but supposedly respectable middle class citizens, are still a gun totin' society. It seems to be the minorities who are expected to "turn the other cheek".

Last night hundreds of people, decent folk of all religions and none, gathered for a candlelit vigil in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to pay respects to six members of the Sikh community, shot dead in their temple by white supremacist Wade Michael Page.

Some felt guilty that they had not known anything about the Sikhs in their town.

"We didn't know about them," said Loren Bauer, a retired machinist. "We see them but we don't pay much attention. A lot of them drive cabs and have gas stations and convenience stores. The only thing I ever heard about them was that a lot of people thought they were Muslims after 9/11."

Teri Pelzek, too, had barely heard of Sikhs. "I knew nothing about them at all. I don't think a lot of people did. When we don't know about somebody's religion we assume the worst," she said

Police and others remarked on the Sikh's willingness to show forgiveness to their assailant. Page was shot dead (or shot himself, according to some reports)after also shooting a police officer,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/08/sikh-forgiveness-oak-creek-vigil

Americans' ignorance of other people and religions has been blamed for attacks on Sikhs, who with their turbans have been mistaken for Muslims by those with only a hazy idea of eastern religions. The implication of some comments would suggest that killing Muslims is OK. A more pertinent suspicion might be that the killers go looking for handy targets, and are not fussy whom they hit. Shocking as the temple shooting was, it was not entirely new, as Sonny Hundal has poited out:

On 15 September 2001, 52-year-old Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas-station owner in Arizona, was shot five times by Frank Roque. While Sodhi died instantly, Roque went on to shoot at other ethnic minorities before going to a local bar and boasting: "They're investigating the murder of a turban-head down the street."

Yesterday, a gunman opened fire on a Sikh congregation in Wisconsin, killing six people in what is now being treated as an act of "domestic terrorism". Some witnesses say the shooter had a tattoo marking the September 11 attacks, though this is not confirmed by the authorities.

While the "war on terror" that followed September 2001 badly affected Muslim families in the west, it is sadly less well-known that Sikhs have also faced significant harassment as a consequence. The Sikh Coalition of Washington said yesterday that Sikhs in the US have faced more than 700 such incidents since 9/11; authorities still do not officially collect data on religious hate crimes against them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/06/wisconsin-temple-shooting-sikh-scapegoats?INTCMP=SRCH

Not all shootings have any rationale. It would have been hard to predict that a man would enter a cinema complex in Aurora, Colorado, and start shooting at random, killing a dozen people inlcuding a six year old child, and wounding 59 more. Nevertheless, it seems remarkable not only that the man could buy the hardware and ammunition he did (thanks to freedoms protected by the National Rifle Association) but that nobody thought to ask him what he had in m mind. As the police chief told the press:

The suspect had legally purchased four weapons in the last 60 days from gun shops, including an assault rifle, a shotgun and two Glock handguns, Oates said. Holmes had also purchased more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition -- 3,000 for the assault rifle, 3,000 for the two handguns and 300 rounds for the shotgun.

“All weapons he possessed, he possessed legally. All clips he possessed, he possessed legally. All ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally,” Oates said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-colorado-shooting-20120720,0,5725827.story

Such shootings are not confined to the United States. Here in Britain, notwithstanding gun control laws, we've had Hungerford and Dunblane. Norway has the crazed Nazi mass murderer Breivik. The Wisconsin temple shootings particularly bring to mind the action of Baruch Goldstein, who as a doctor was presumably familiar with the Hippocratic Oath to save lives, but as a religious Zionist felt it right to enter the mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron with an automatic weapon, and murder 29 Muslim worshippers, wounding over 120 more. But Goldstein too was an American, born in Brooklyn, and joined Meir Kahane's Jewish Defence League, before he emigrated to Palestine, and joined Kahane's fascist offshoot, the Kach party.

It may not always be possible to point to an ideological motivation for these murders. I have friends who died of cancer without ever having smoked a cigarette. But enough evidence has been found of a link between smoking and cancer for tobacco advertsing to be restricted, fag packets to carry a government health warning, and pubs to ban smoking. Somehow whenever a right-wing bomber or killer is identified he is always an "ex-member" of racist and fascist organisations, rather as a lung cancer victim may have given up smoking.

Wane Michael Page was known as a white supremacist, and associated with far right parties and the Nazi rock scene. He seemed unable to hold a job. Neighbours found him a little "creepy" . None of this seems to have interfered with his acquiring firearms. But then he had an interesting background.

"Page's stepmother, Laura Page, said it wasn't always that way. She described him as a "normal little boy" and struggled to explain how he came to be a mass murderer with a Facebook picture of him in front of a Nazi swastika.

Laura Page said that joining the military had appeared to be good for her stepson because it "gave him focus".

"Now I greatly question that direction. I don't know if the military was good for him. I don't know. I wish I had some answers. And we're not going to have answers because he's dead," she said.

Some reports have described Page as a "failed" soldier, but he did well enough after joining in 1992 to be assigned to a psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Green Berets' birthplace. The psy ops unit is regarded by the Army as exclusive.

But at the time Fort Bragg was also a recruiting centre for white hate groups including the National Alliance, once regarded as one of the most effective such groups and also among the most extreme because it openly glorified Adolf Hitler. The Military Law Review at the time reported that National Alliance flags were openly hung in barracks and, out of uniform, soldiers sported neo-Nazi symbols and played records about killing blacks and Jews.

"White supremacists have a natural attraction to the army," the Military Law Review said. "They often see themselves as warriors, superbly fit and well-trained in survivalist techniques and weapons and poised for the ultimate conflict with various races."

When I first met Page he was new to Southern California but he'd been around the white supremacist movement for a while. In Southern California he was spending time with a lot of different groups and was very involved in the white power music scene playing guitar in bands and trying to help promote shows. He had contacts with the National Alliance, Hammerskin Nation, different Klan groups, Volksfront and various other groups active in the white supremacist movement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/07/wade-michael-page-wisconsin-shooting

Not only were Page and his politics known, they were studied. Brian Levin, J.D. of the University of California, has interviewed Criminology professor Pete Simi, whose study focused on the Nazi hate bands in southern California. Dr. Simi recently co-authored (with Robert Futrell, University of Nevada, Las Vegas) the book American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate. His research on extremist movements has been funded by the National Institute of Justice,

Here are some extracts from that interview:

When did you first meet Wade Page and what was he generally like at that time?

I met Page in 2001 while I was conducting fieldwork studying white supremacist groups in Southern California. Page had recently moved to Orange County, California and was living with another research subject I already knew. Wade was immediately friendly and didn't seem to have any problems with me hanging around doing research. He actually seemed to enjoy talking about his beliefs and at times I think he hoped to convert me. There were times when he was a little quiet and awkward but other times he seemed to loosen up and would joke around a lot. He definitely had a drinking problem and would pass out regularly. His heavy drinking made it hard for him to get to work.

Who was Page affiliated with and what types of activities was he involved in?

When I first met Page he was new to Southern California but he'd been around the white supremacist movement for a while. In Southern California he was spending time with a lot of different groups and was very involved in the white power music scene playing guitar in bands and trying to help promote shows. He had contacts with the National Alliance, Hammerskin Nation, different Klan groups, Volksfront and various other groups active in the white supremacist movement.

How long did you know Page and when was the last time he contacted you?

Approximately two years between 2001 through 2003. My last contact with him was a phone conversation in 2003 while he was still in Southern California and while I was still in graduate school in Las Vegas.

What is Hate Rock?

Hate rock spans several different types of music but is connected by an underlying commitment to white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideology. The bands and shows can be found across the globe but are most prominent in Europe and the United States.

What are the most important aspects of hate music?

Hate music is important for a number of reasons. The music is used to recruit new members and generate revenue for organizations. Most importantly the music brings like-minded individuals together in terms of smaller music shows at bars and larger music festivals held on private property. The music helps members feel like they are part of something bigger and there are others out there who feel the same way they do.

What were some of his favorite websites or social networks?

He talked about Radio White, a local Orange County, California white power radio website, and even helped host some of the shows. He also talked about Resistance Records and Panzerfaust Records websites, and the National Alliance website. I also remember Stormfront coming up but I don't recall if he talked much about posting on the site. During that time I knew him he would spend time on the Internet but wasn't on there all the time like some people involved in these groups.

How would you categorize Page?

I would say he was an independent neo-Nazi skinhead who saw his musical involvement as his main form of activism.

How did Page speak about Muslims, Sikhs, other groups and 9/11?

I distinctly remember an email exchange with him shortly after 9/11 and he was very angry about Muslims and said something to the effect of America needing to go over to the Middle East and bomb 'em all. Aside from that, most of his rhetoric was not specifically targeted toward Muslims or Sikhs. Most of his rhetoric was directed more generically about "nonwhites" or more specifically about Blacks and Jewish people. Of course he didn't use these terms but instead referred to "ZOG" (Zionist Occupational Government) or "niggers" etc.

What was your response when you found out that Page was a subject of your research and an acquaintance?

When I saw his photo on the Southern Poverty Law Center website Monday afternoon I literally felt sick. It actually took me a couple minutes to actually be able to say, "That's Wade, I knew him."

How did Page get involved in the world of hate?

He explained to me that growing up in the Denver area he was aware of skinheads including white power folks after he got involved in the local punk rock scene in the late 1980s. But he said that his real interest started during his time in the military. He once told me, "If you don't go into the military as a racist, you definitely leave as one." He also talked about meeting neo-Nazis in the military and being exposed to neo-Nazi literature while in the military. Once he left the military he went to a music show where he met members of the band Youngland and shortly after that he drove his motorcycle across country relocating to Southern California with not much more than the clothes on his back.

He was stationed at Fort Bragg where the National Alliance actively recruited and where neo-Nazi soldiers were convicted of murdering a Black couple just off base. What did he think of those killings?

We talked about the murders once and James Burmeister and he certainly didn't condemn the violence. He didn't come out and say, "yeah that's what needs to happen" but he didn't seem bothered at all by it either. Like a lot of the violence that comes from the movement there's this attitude of you gotta do these things to survive. It's a twisted way of turning unprovoked violence into self-defense.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-levin-jd/exclusive-interview-with_b_1751181.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=3136701,b=facebook

Shi'ites massacred in Pakistan

THOUSANDS in front of Pakistan parliament condemned government's failure to protect people. (Pamir Times)

WHAT appears to have been a major sectarian massacre in Pakistan-controlled territory seems to have escaped the attention of Western media, or perhaps the Pakistani authorities succeeded in keeping reporters away. But as efforts are made to rescue soldiers trapped by an avalanche in Kashmir, there are reports suggesting the same number of people may have been killed by an organised mob not that far away.

This is from an opposition blog which says it wants to build "a progressive, inclusive and democratic Pakistan":

"On 3 April-2012, at least 100 Shia Muslims were killed and over 250 abducted in Chilas area of Gilgit-Baltistan when a mob of 2000 Deobandi-Jihadi militants of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaast) stopped several buses on the Karakoram Highway near Chilas, pulled out the passengers, checked their identity documents and physical marks (Shia men usually have self flagellation marks on their back due to Muharram mourning rituals), segregated Shia Muslims killing at least 100 of them and abducting another 250".

The bloggers quote an eyewitness Ali Reza who spoke to Islam Times a

“There were dozens of buses in the convoy which was protected by police. However, I could sense right from the beginning that something was going to happen. Our convoy was delayed on the way for several hours in different spots. At Buner Farm in district Diamer, thousands of people stopped the buses near the police station. Dozens of people were on motorbikes and they all had weapons. Then suddenly thousands of stones were hurled at the buses. Women and children started screaming. They dragged the men out, checked their ID cards and shot them dead on the spot. Then the slogans of 'Shias are infidel' was raised in the air. When I got out, I grabbed a 4 year old child of another women and pretended to travelling without an ID card. They checked my back and found no marks of flagellation (a Shia mark). They let me go with the woman and her child. I saw a woman grabbing on to the hand of another male, who was shot in front of her. Many men were killed in front of us by stone pelting. Then a passenger from Skardo was dragged out. Tens of men attacked him with baton, stones and knives. He was screaming and calling Imam Hussain when one person raised a large stone of twenty five pounds and dropped on his face. I saw several dead bodies were dragged and thrown in the river Indus.

The terrorists were entering the police station and coming out with weapons. There was one person who was putting up a fight with empty hands. The terrorists dragged him towards the river and then I do not know what happened to him. Thousands of people were shouting, “Shias are non Muslims” thus legitimising butchering of innocent men and youth. Later we were taken to a house in Thalichi. There, the women informed that three men jumped in the river to save their lives. One was running towards the river when he was shot at from behind. At least 50 people lost lives as per my observation but the media is trying to hide the truth.”

(Source)

http://criticalppp.com/archives/75609

Another source accuses the Pakistan authorities and military of being complicit in the attack.
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/Government_involved_in_Chilas_Shiamasssacre_Pakistan_sheds_more_blood,201239966.aspx

The mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region, formerly known as Northern Areas, is sandwiched between Kashmir, China and Pakistan's North West Frontier province, and was part of Kashmir till taken by Pakistan forces in 1947-8. Not wishing to be part of Pakistani-run Azad Kashmir for fear of Sunni domination, the largely Shi'ite population have not seen their region fully integrated into Pakistan as a province either, though it is in an important strategic and trade route position. Recently the Pakistan government was promising big investment and development.

Following the bus massacre the Pakistani authorities reportedly enforced curfews in the region and attempted to quell demonstrations, at the same time keeping foreign journalists away and instructing Pakistani news media to only refer to "sectarian clashes" rather than reporting a massacre. But as news spread, thousands turned out for the funeral of victims, and as well as the demonstrations in Gilgit-Baltistan there was one in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

http://pamirtimes.net/2012/04/06/thousands-protest-across-baltistan-as-two-victims-of-chilas-massacre-are-laid-to-rest/

http://pamirtimes.net/2012/04/07/islamabad-thousand-protest-in-front-of-parliament-house-against-chilas-massacre/