The Return

In the second half of last year, I really started to lag with my post-count, to the point that I almost got down to an average posting rate of one post every two days. So I'm glad to see that this month I'm back up to the kind of level that I was at when I first started Race Relations.

(I checked out some of my old posts the other day, by the way - they're a hoot, aren't they?)

Here's hoping that sort of productivity will continue in February.

Monthly Stats

Race Relations had a total of 75 unique hits this month. That's a new record. Of these, visitors from the States and the UK lead the way, but this month I also had a few hits from Canada, Jamaica, the United Arab Emirates, and others.

The search strings that have led people here have been doubly interesting. As usual, several people have found me by searching for Muhammad's raisin-head quote, which is proving to be extremely popular. I have also, bafflingly, had several hits from people searching for "Moomie Choudhury". I'm certain this will have led them to this post, in which I linked to a Youtube video starring Anjem Choudary. But who the hell is Moomie Choudhury? Interestingly, I also just today had a visitor from Finland who found Race Relations by searching for..."Finland". I dread to think how many pages he must have had to scroll through to get here. Is this site really one of the world's most popular sites with the word "Finland" in it?

Blame Whitey Again

Finland is perhaps even more of a sopping wet multiculturalist paradise than Britain is, and the political correctness that prevails there is further demonstrated by this report which says that "Young immigrants who commit crimes in Finland are often victims of racial discrimination." The report by the National Research Institute of Legal Policy says young people who commit crimes have often experienced verbal abuse, discrimination, and physical violence both on the streets and in schools.

Now, then: I have experienced, many times, verbal abuse, discrimination, and physical abuse. When I was at school, I was bullied regularly. I am a white male. Why did I not join a criminal gang as the result of my ordeal?

Teenagers interviewed for the study said that one reason for committing crimes is the need to fit into a group. They said that giving up a criminal lifestyle is difficult, because it often means forsaking one's friends.

"[T]he need to fit into a group..." But apparently there doesn't seem to be much pressure on these young immigrants to fit into a larger group - that of Finnish society.

Immigration Suicide Round-up

Today a couple of stories caught my eye which demonstrate the multi-cultural suicide Britain has been undertaking under this Labour government.

1. Most organised crime committed in Britain has its origins abroad, one of the country's top law enforcement officers has revealed. Bill Hughes, director-general of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, said gun crime, drugs and people smuggling are heavily linked to overseas gangsters.

South Africa has also been revealed as a gateway for thousands of poor third world workers who seek the joys of welfare Britain. Apparently all South African passport holders can enter Britain without a visa. Last week, it was revealed at least 6,000 illegal immigrants - mostly poor Indian workers - had been smuggled into the UK via South Africa. The villagers, who were charged up to £30,000 a time, were given genuine passports which were obtained fraudulently from corrupt officials.

WANTED: Immigration officials with an interest in controlling Britain's borders. Doesn't matter where you want to work - anywhere in Britain will do. We just need SOMEONE, ANYONE, who can do a half-decent job.

2. The vast increase in the number of births to foreign-born mothers has caused a maternity unit in Ascot to be shut down so that multicult Slough could have additional maternity resources.

While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid-1990s, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000 - a 77% increase which has pushed the overall birth-rate to its highest level for 26 years. In London, our capital city, 60% of all new births are to foreign-born mothers. The impact on the NHS has been startling - with over £200m now being spent on providing this maternity service for foreign mothers.

Labour's attempts to wipe out the indigenous population of Britain continue, and meanwhile our taxes are now being spent on funding the health care of the third world, even as our own system slips further into chaos. Don't you just love tolerant, diverse Britain?

The Peace of Islam

Last week I linked to an article about the brave moderate Muslim reformer Tawfik Hamid, and his attempts to teach against the violence and hatred of the Qur'an. During the article, he makes a number of assertions about certain things that Islam supports (although he rather annoyingly refers to "the Salafist ideology" rather than simply the teachings of the Prophet). I just thought I'd quote those various assertions and provide the evidence from Islamic texts that Hamid is working from, for those who are new to this site and various "Islam 101" articles I wrote last year about Islamic violence, and may not be aware of them.

So here goes (and just a note; I haven't provided a reference for the comment about Jews as apes and pigs, as Hamid already provides this in his article):

Among the more appalling notions it supports are the enslavement and rape of female war prisoners...: "We got female captives in the war booty and we used to do coitus interruptus with them. So we asked Allah's Apostle about it and he said, 'Do you really do that?' repeating the question thrice, 'There is no soul that is destined to exist but will come into existence, till the Day of Resurrection.'” (Bukhari v.7, b.62, no.137)

...and the beating of women to discipline them: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great." (Qur'an 4:34)

It permits polygamy... "Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice." (4:3)"

and pedophilia... "[The Prophet] married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old." (Bukhari v.5, b.58, no. 234, and others).

and exhorts believers to kill [the Jews] before the end of days: "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or tree would say: Muslims, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him." (Muslim, b.41, no.6985)

Homosexuals are to be killed as well: “Kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him” (Muhammad; quoted in Umdat al-Salik, a classic manual of Islamic law).

And all of that is in addition to the various exhortations for believers to fight non-Muslims in Islamic tradition and Islamic law.

Which is why reformers such as Tawfik Hamid should be encouraged and supported. But, as Hamid says, being a moderate Muslim these days is more likely to get you rejected by your co-religionists than it is to get you praised. Now why is that?

Round-up

1. The head of the Islamic Movement in Israel's Northern Branch, Ra'ad Salah, was charged today in Jerusalem Magistrate's Court with incitement to violence and racism, over a fiery speech he gave a year ago in which he invoked the blood libel. During the speech at the February 16, 2007 protest in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz, Salah accused Jews of using children's blood to bake bread.

Funnily enough, this kind of propaganda was common among Christians in the Middle Ages, who were prone to anti-Semitism, often backed by wild tales such as these.

2. A hilarious article by Sam Means - aka C.H. Dalton, author of A Practical Guide to Racism - on the American Democrat primaries.

A couple of stand-out lines:

"So the presence of a female candidate has, understandably, confused things quite a bit. A slim majority of Americans are women, and an even larger majority of Democrats are, which would suggest that Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in for the nomination. But gender isn't as simple as race -- as I've learned in my extensive field research on the subject, most women hate each other. They see other females as competition for men and shoes, and therefore obstacles to their own fulfillment."

"Luckily, the Republican side offers several attractive options. Except for the Mormon... and the Italian. And the old, immigrant-loving cripple. In any case, I think it's clear that everyone can get behind Ron Paul." (See here for more info on Ron Paul, by the way)

3. Australia: A taxpayer-funded program suggests Barbie may be Italian and asks whether she likes Spider-Man in a bizarre bid to tackle racism in childcare centres.

But the move may have backfired with the radical blueprint telling teachers the Government itself is a racist institution run by white Anglo-Saxon men. The federally funded childcare resource warns early childhood teachers to be wary of "government policy" that expect "all cultures to conform to a white Anglo Australian way of living".

It seems even the recently-elected left-wing government of Australia can't be free of even more left-wing people accusing it of racism, as John Howard's administration often (unfairly) was.

Britain's top black police officer: 'We are struggling to cope with immigrant crime wave'

Britain's highest ranking black policeman has warned the Home Secretary his force is struggling to cope with an immigrant crimewave. Kent chief constable Mike Fuller told Jacqui Smith "migration surges" had contributed to an increase of more than a third in violent crime over five years to 7,800 incidents in 2007.

He says migration accounts for 78 per cent of Kent's population growth and warned of the soaring cost of translation services, up by a third in three years.

It is always sad when it has to be a black man saying something like this in order for anybody to listen. Not that they necessarily will listen, though. The PC elite have a great problem: if Mike Fuller is correct that migration surges have led to increased crime in 2007, then people will have to start committing the cardinal sin and criticising a group of people who aren't necessarily Western or even white. And they find this nigh-on impossible to do, because we all know that if you say bad things about foreigners you're a racist, Daily Mail-reader, etc. And while they continue to chest-thump and assert their moral superiority, people continue to lose their property and maybe even their lives.

It's negligence with good intentions.

Also, do you mean to say that a black man holds the position of chief constable? But I thought Racism was Alive and Well in Britain today!

Is It A Monster?

Here's something interesting I read today. Remember a couple of weeks ago that golf presenter Kelly Tilghman was suspended for "racism" after she used the word "lynch" in the same conversation as mentioning Tiger Woods? Well she's back on air now, and apparently last week Setanta Sports ran their golf programme, and during the opening titles, while showing a montage of clips of of Tiger Woods, they played that song by The Automatic. You know, the one that goes, "What's that coming over the hill?/Is it a monster?"

Is anyone going to complain of racism because they equated Tiger Woods with a monster?

Thought not.

White Men Are Banned

Positive Discrimination Alert: Fire chiefs were accused on Friday of discrimination by trying to ban white men from joining up. They were condemned after barring white males from recruitment sessions in an attempt to boost ethnic minority and women applicants.

My Immortal

I've posted this before, but my music share contribution this week is "My Immortal" by Evanescence. A beautiful song, sung by a beautiful woman.

Racism...But Not Racism

Moroccan organisations in the Netherlands want the Dutch public prosecution department to prosecute Freedom party PVV leader Geert Wilders for discrimination against Muslims, because of a ten-minute film about the Qur'an that Wilders has not even made yet. Wilders plans to make the film to show the world what kinds of unwholesome things are recommended in the book, but these people want him prosecuted before they've even seen it.

This line is quite hilarious:

"Wilders is a racist with regard to Islam. His comments are not aimed at a race, but at a religion and population group."

Here, the man admits that Islam is not a race, but he still calls Wilders a racist. So he's effectively saying that Wilders is a racist without the racism.

Book Pick

This might be a fun book to look out for: "A Practical Guide to Racism" by C.H. Dalton

From the blurb: "A humorous and irreverent evaluation of the world's diverse populations, written by the fictional son of an elitist family, argues in support of supremacist belief systems while diminishing the sufferings of minority groups." Sounds particularly un-PC, doesn't it!

And you can read an extract from the book here, covering the various gypsy scams and cons.

British Airways In Alleged Racism Row

A few Indian passengers on a Chennai-London flight have accused an airline of racial bias as it allegedly provided accommodation only to white-skinned people.

British Airways flight BA36 from Chennai to London was postponed due to a technical snag. And while foreign passengers were reportedly provided hotel accommodation and many routed through other airlines, at least fifteen Indian passengers claim they were left to fend for themselves.

Naturally, BA denies the claim, but here's something to think about, which isn't made clear in the article: Were all these Indians together in one big group, or were they all separate parties who made separate complaints? If it was the former, it makes it much less likely that this was racism by BA, because it is quite likely that in the chaos of postponement and re-organisation, one large group, which happens to consist of Indians, may be overlooked. If there were actually several independent groups of Indians making this complaint, then there can only be two explanations: sheer bad luck/coincidence or racism.

Three Little Pigs "Racist"?

A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency's annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims.

The digital book, re-telling the classic fairy tale, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues".

This story is yet another example of shameful British dhimmitude, but it is not surprising - after all, we have been here before.

Round-up

1. Canada is poised to become the first country to significantly distance itself from a major anti-racism conference the United Nations is planning for next year. Insiders say the government feels the new conference is shaping up to be like the anti-West and anti-Israel free-for-all that critics said the initial gathering quickly turned into. Arab- and Muslim-led verbal attacks on Israel at the 2001 conference were so dominant the United States and Israel walked out in protest. Beyond Israel, some Arab and Muslim countries additionally seek the 2009 agenda to focus on "Islamophobia". While that could mean a legitimate study of discrimination against Muslims, UN skeptics say it is actually code to characterize Western anti-terrorism efforts as a plot to subjugate Islam. The 2001 conference also saw Nigeria and Zimbabwe lead African countries in a demand Western powers apologize for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and pay huge reparations.

2. Authorities in Brazil have opened a probe into suspected racism at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week after reports that non-white models were badly under-represented on the catwalk. The Sao Paulo Fashion Week's organizer, Paulo Borges, had defended the small number of minority models by saying there were fewer non-white models available for the designers.

"We're not convinced," the prosecutor said.

Well, you wouldn't be, would you?

The Wrong Kind of Racism

Racism and attacks against eastern European immigrants are increasing in West Yorkshire. But this story has yet to make the national news press, and the reason for that may be because the perpetrators of this wave of racist crime are "angry Asians".

Perhaps it is too early yet to to decry the lack of coverage in the mainstream media of these actions, but something tells me that the MSM simply won't ever be interested in stories about racism in which the villain is not Evil Old Whitey.

Quote For The Day

"On the same day that The Sun printed a story about Jade Goody with the headline 'Racist Scum', they also printed a story about that Chinese snooker player with the headline 'Pot Noodle'."

~ Ricky Gervais, Fame

The Development of a Jihadist's Mind

This is a fascinating article by Tawfik Hamid an Islamic ex-jihadist, in which he explains the process by which he became one, and how he thinks differently now. It's interesting in many ways, perhaps most notably because it illustrates something that I have said here many times, and which those who set out to discredit me and misrepresent me have always ignored: there is a very clear pattern in the Islamic world that shows that as Muslims become more devout and study Islamic theology and law more and more, they begin to somehow get the idea that Muhammad said they should hate and fight non-Muslims. And yet all the time, people accuse me of stirring up hatred by quoting the Qur'an as a non-Muslim with no Qur'anic studies qualifications, as if I have interpreted these passages myself, when in fact it is incredibly learned scholars in the Islamic world who are coming up with this stuff. There has also been a great outcry among dhimmis I've debated online whenever I suggest that moderate Muslims should be examining and reforming the elements of Islam that lead to jihad violence. But here, we see one moderate Muslim encouraging, and actually doing, exactly that. I have been asked a number of times who I consider to be a genuine moderate Muslim, and who I think we should ally with. Well, Tawfik Hamid is one.

So this is a note to all those apologists: next time you call me a bigot, please also take the time to spew some vitriol at Tawfik Hamid, as well.

Below is an extract from his article, but you should read the whole thing. I've bolded the most important bits.

By immersing myself in Salafi ideology, I was better able to judge the impact of its violent tenets on the minds of its followers. Among the more appalling notions it supports are the enslavement and rape of female war prisoners and the beating of women to discipline them. It permits polygamy and pedophilia. It refers to Jews as "pigs and monkeys" and exhorts believers to kill them before the end of days: Say: "Shall I tell you who, in the sight of God, deserves a yet worse retribution than these? Those [the Jews] whom God has rejected and whom He has condemned, and whom He has turned into monkeys and pigs because they worshiped the powers of evil: these are yet worse in station, and farther astray from the right path [than the mockers]" (Koran 5:60). Homosexuals are to be killed as well; to cite one of many examples, on July 19, 2000, two gay teenagers were hanged in Iran for no other crime than being gay.

These doctrines are not taken out of context, as many apologists for Islamism argue: They are central to the faith and ethics of millions of Muslims, and are currently being taught as part of the standard curriculum in many Islamic educational systems in the Middle East as well in the West.

Moreover, there is no single approved Islamic textbook that contradicts or provides an alternative to the passages I have cited. It has thus become clear to me that Salafi ideology is what is largely responsible for the so-called "clash of civilizations." Consequently, I have chosen to combat Salafism by exposing it and by providing an alternative, peaceful and theologically rigorous interpretation of the Koran.

My reformist approach naturally challenges well-established Salafi tenets, and leads Muslims who follow Salafi Islam to reject me. Why? I have not altered the Koran itself. My system is simply one of inline commentary, in which dangerous passages are flagged and reinterpreted to be nonviolent. I have added these inline interpretations to key Koranic passages and examples of the commentary are freely and easily available.

For over 15 years I have tried to preach my views in mosques in the Middle East, as well as to my local community in the West, but have faced the unwavering hostility of most Salafi Muslims in both regions. Muslims who live in the West - who insist to outsiders that Islam is a "religion of peace" and who enjoy freedom of expression, which they demand from their Western hosts - have threatened me with murder and arson. I have had to choose between accepting violent Salafi views and being rejected by the overwhelming majority of my fellow Muslims.

I have chosen the latter....

Free Speech in Canada

Below, Pat Condell releases another brilliantly stated deconstruction of the closing down of free speech in the West, particularly when it comes to accommodating Muslims, and bowing before their every whim. O Dhimmi Canada.

Islam and Honour Killing

OK, this isn't the start of a new series or anything. But I've published all of the "Islam 101" articles I have written online, and they have been read by people, and I recently had a private request from a reader to write one specifically about honour killing, which I covered briefly in my article "Islam Oppresses Women". I was hesitant at first, but eventually decided to grant the request, and here's the result, relatively brief since it was a "made to order" piece, but just as juicy. Enjoy:

----------------------------------------------------

ISLAM AND HONOUR KILLING

It seems that honour killings are widespread in the Islamic world. But just how widespread are they? How much of a problem is honour killing within Islam? And does it have anything to do with Islam?

The answer to the latter question is slightly more complicated than yes or no. Islamic spokesmen will, of course, state that there is nothing in Islamic teaching which would encourage such a thing. This may be technically correct. But the commonality of honour killing in the Islamic world, coupled with other important evidence, suggests that these murders may be fostered by cultural attitudes of shame and honour, rather than an emphasis on individual responsibility, which have been inculcated by Islamic values.

For example, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down, on Islamic grounds, a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honour killings, claiming that the laws "violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values". In a sad but inevitable consequence of this, a man who in 2007 murdered his sister because he thought she had a lover was given only three months in jail, which was suspended for time served, allowing him to walk free. But even before that, honour killing was hardly treated harshly in Jordan. In 1994, a sixteen year old girl was tied to a chair by her thirty-two year old brother, who then slit her throat and ran out into the street shouting, "I have killed my sister to cleanse my honour!" Her crime was that she had been raped by another brother, a twenty-one year old, and her judge and jury were her own uncles, who decided that she was too much of a disgrace to the family to be allowed to live. In the end, the killer was given a 15-year sentence, which was later reduced to seven.

Another country rife with honour killings is Pakistan. In 2006, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that about a thousand women are killed for honour there every year. In 2001, a Pakistani woman had both her eyes, nose and ears gouged out by her husband, because he wrongly suspected she was having an affair. He was arrested, but male relatives shook his hand and decided that she "must have deserved it".

In Iraq in 2003 a seventeen year old shot his mother and half-brother because he thought they were having an affair, and killed his four year old sister because he thought she was their child. He claimed that he did all this to "cleanse its [his family's] shame". The same year in Baghdad, another woman was killed by a male relative for suspected adultery. The killer cut off her left hand to display as proof to tribal leaders that the deed had been done.

In Egypt in 1997, a man whose daughter had eloped cut off her head and carried it down the street proclaiming, "Now the family has regained its honour." In Iran in 2002, a man beheaded his seven year old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped by her uncle. He said: "The motive behind the killing was to defend my honour, fame and dignity". Some people called for this man's death under Islamic law, but ironically only the father of the victim can demand the death sentence.

Honour killings are also extremely common in Palestine. In Gaza in 2005, five members of Hamas shot a woman to death, brutalised her corpse, and savagely beat members of her family, because they believed that she had been engaging in "immoral behaviour". In 2003, a Palestinian girl became pregnant after her brothers raped her. Her mother demanded that she kill herself, and when the girl refused, the mother killed her by wrapping a plastic bag around her head while she slept. "This is the only way I could protect my family's honour", the mother said.

But no longer is this culture of honour killing confined to the Middle East. This practice has now come to eastern Europe with Muslim immigration. A Turkish woman was killed by her brothers in 2005 for leaving an arranged marriage. One young Muslim in Germany thought she deserved her death, saying, "Well, she lived like a German, didn't she?"

And now, with the murders of Aqsa Parvez and the Said sisters, honour killing has apparently come to the West, too. It may not be widespread at the moment, but it will spread unless something is done about it.

So what CAN be done about it? Muslim leaders will no doubt continue to deny that it has anything to do with Islam, claiming that honour killing is a cultural practice. But it is not as simple as this. In many parts of the Islamic world, religion and culture are fused together; these lands are enmeshed and permeated with their religion, so much so that a dinstinction is not always easy to find. Muslims often tell us that Islam encompasses all areas of life, leaving no aspect untouched, and this is so - Islam's culture of shame and honour has left its mark on the Islamic world. Not only do many Muslims commit honour killings, but they also often imbue it with religious significance, and justify it by invoking Islam, as was the case with the Jordanian Parliament.

And so it becomes increasingly encumbent upon Muslim leaders around the world to work against this culture. It is all very well repeating endlessly that Islam does not justify honour killings, but such denials are not working in any way to prevent people from committing them based on religious principles. What are these same Muslim leaders doing to teach against the attitudes that lead to honour killing? Without them taking action, the problem is unlikely to go away.

Indeed, it's likely to increase.

Progenies of the Great Apocalypse

I've decided to bring back the weekly music sharing after a long absence. For those who are not familiar with this feature, this is where I inflict my esoteric musical tastes on you, and give you tinnitus through the noise.

First up is some insane Satanic orchestral black metal from Norway, with Dimmu Borgir's wonderfully titled "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse".

It's important to note, however, that this kind of music is quite extreme even for me. I love heavy metal, but black metal, growled vocals and all, is something that I only delve into occasionally. I would prefer they actually sang, but I can put up with bestial vocals like this when certain people do it, and in short bursts. And besides, there is a bit of clean singing in it from the band's bassist, and the classical arrangements are fantastic. The song lives up to its name, although since this is the edited version (the full album song is longer), it loses a bit of its impact, particularly around the middle, but it's still a good example of symphonic black metal at its best. That doesn't mean you're going to like it, though, but I do.

Jihad: "Anti-Islamic Activity"

Islamic jihadists will now be referred to officially as engaging in "anti-Islamic activity", says UK Home Secretary Jacqi Smith, since these "extremists" are not acting in accordance with Islam's true teachings, but are acting contrary to them.

That'll show 'em! Now we've changed the terms, just watch the problem evaporate!

*ahem*

Won't this get kind of confusing, since, for example, a protest by a group of people who hate Islam and call for all Muslims to be nuked could also be classed as "anti-Islamic activity"? How do they distinguish between the two?

*ahem*

I would also really LOVE to see what Jacqi Smith actually knows about Islam.

Ron Paul And Racism

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now, but kept forgetting. Then today I saw this article and was reminded.

The gist of it is the controversy surrounding Ron Paul, one of the US Presidential candidates, who it emerged recently had, for many years, had obscenely racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and downright nasty things published in newsletters under his name. Paul claims that he did not write or edit these newsletters, and that those who did were not acting according to any of his own wishes or beliefs. He claims to utterly repudiate all of this. But questions have been raised as to how he could go so long without ever realising what was being published under his name. So it seems that at the very least he has been unbelievably dysfunctional to allow these kinds of things to be published in his name.

What the above article doesn't pick up on, however, is that there is some evidence that Ron Paul DID contribute to the newsletter. For example, the December 1990 newsletter calls Martin Luther King a child molester; in the same issue, we suddenly read this:

Now, Ron Paul's wife is named Carol, and research confirms that in 1990 he did indeed have grandchildren. Other personal details of Ron Paul emerge in other newsletters also. So it appears that Ron Paul contributed to the newsletter, and yet failed to actually read or show concern about the contents of that same newsletter, or express any repudiation of its views at all until he was called out on it recently. Which seems...unlikely.

Could these entries in the newsletter have been forgeries? Perhaps. But if they were, the personal details - at a time when Paul was not very well known and the Internet was a less wonderful thing than it is now - suggest that the writer of the entries had close connections with Ron Paul.

Basically, whatever way you look at this, it works out bad for Ron Paul.

"Very Good"

I have just seen that at the blog search website Blogged, this website has been given an average review rating of 7.9 - "very good". That can't be bad, I suppose! I'd like to thank all who voted for me, my mother, my doctor, my dog, etc.

Racism At The Dog Show

A former BBC presenter has won damages after being wrongly arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred for light-hearted remarks at a country fair.

Robin Page, who hosted TV's One Man And His Dog, fought a five-year campaign to clear his name after being locked up in a cell for his jokey introduction to a pro-hunting speech.

He told a meeting in Framptonupon-Severn, Gloucestershire, in 2002: "If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, onelegged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you."

"I believe I have scored a significant victory over the ludicrous and sinister, politically-correct 'hate crime' culture that is currently doing so much to prevent free speech in this country. It is absolutely outrageous," said Mr. Page.

Indeed.

It is great to see Robin Page refusing to repent to the PC thugs, and not taking the recently fashionable route - a la Gillian Gibbons and PC Rob Murrie - of making groveling, sniveling apologies for any "offense" caused. And it's good to see justice prevailing in the end.

Round-up

1. Blah blah blah - Hillary Clinton supporters are racist; Barack Obama supporters are sexist - blah blah blah. *yawn*

2. Book Finds Missing Link Between Evolution and Racism. Hmmm, now why would the Christian News Wire pick up on a story like this...?

Putting the PC In PC

A Muslim police officer given bacon and wine as a Secret Santa gift decided to treat it as a harmless, if tasteless, joke. But a non-Muslim colleague failed to show the same level of tolerance.

The officer who supplied the gift, 26-year-old PC Rob Murrie, was reported to his superiors for racism. And PC Murrie subsequently came under such pressure that he felt he had no option but to resign from the Bedfordshire force.

Yesterday, the target of the joke, 31-year-old Arshad Mahmood, said he still regarded PC Murrie as "a good officer and a good friend", while Muslim community leaders accused police chiefs of "overreacting" to the incident at Luton police station.

Here we can see the folly of PC culture. Here we have a good man in the Muslim employee who does not give a stuff about the joke, and yet the officer who gave him the present was forced to resign.

Don't get me wrong: such a joke is no longer clever or funny, if it ever was to begin with. But it is not "racist" (somehow no one seems able to grasp the fact that Islam isn't a race) and no offense was meant by it; it was just a joke in poor taste. It is the PC nanny state gone mad.

This line also caught my eye:

"I would never have given him the present if I had known the consequences. I suppose it's like giving condoms to a Catholic."

But that DOES happen; I have heard cases of people posting condoms through Catholics' letterboxes. And no charges have ever been pressed against them, and Catholics themselves have never been overly offended or filed police reports. So why are Muslims being consistently given protected status?

I was also disappointed to see that the police officer who played the joke, while acknowledging that this country is too PC, apologises for his joke and bows down in submission to the state, rather than standing up against this tyranny. But at least we have seen a rare case in which a decent Muslim actually took some ribbing on the chin instead of crying, screaming and decapitating at the first opportunity.

Iran: Rapists to Be Thrown From Cliffs

Iran has confirmed that two convicted rapists are to be given a hundred lashes each and then cast off a cliff.

The article tries to soothe our worries by telling us this is an "ancient Islamic punishment" - but no more is it "ancient", it seems.

BBC Makes The News...

Non-story alert: The BBC is more "hideously white" than ever, after it was revealed that the number of black executives has dropped to the lowest in years.

Embarrassing new figures show it has even fewer ethnic minority bosses now than it did four years ago when former director general Greg Dyke used the phrase to describe the corporation.

So what? It is worth noting how the BBC preaches diversity but doesn't seem at first glance particularly diverse itself (although not so often examined is the fact that the BBC has in the past given deep thought to the possibility of Muslim women wearing headscarves while reading the news - and let us not forget that Sri Lankan-born George Alagiah is one of their main anchors), but here's a radical thought: Perhaps more black people and ethnic minorities should apply for jobs at the BBC. I'm sure you'd see a change in these statistics then.

But the BBC, like the good liberals they are, have a plan to clear themselves - positive discrimination: "Now the BBC has controversially said it will "fast-track" young ethnic staff to senior positions, leading to accusations of positive discrimination." Great thinking, there, Auntie!

Lynch Tiger Woods

In the most farcical racial story of the last few months, a TV sports presenter has been suspended for making a "racist" remark live on air about golfer Tiger Woods. Kelly Tilghman was fronting a U.S. TV programme with Britain's Nick Faldo when she suggested rival players should "lynch" the world number one as the only way to beat him.

Now, OBVIOUSLY the presenter was not intentionally trying to summon up images of the Ku Klux Klan when she mentioned lynching. OBVIOUSLY, had the player in question been white she would have made the same comment, and this whole affair would never have made the news. OBVIOUSLY it was just a case of unfortunate wording, and OBVIOUSLY if you actually asked Tiger Woods whether he was offended by this he'd say no. But that means nothing to the PC lunatics, who make a habit of destroying people's careers because of their own hyper-sensitive whims. Just like Don Imus, Kelly Tilghman has been treated appallingly here.

It's also noteworthy that the odious Al Sharpton has gotten involved in the affair, too. "Whether she's a racist is immaterial," Sharpton said. "The channel has to be accountable to the public."

Yes, Al, with you it IS immaterial whether she is actually a racist or not, because your motives for getting involved in this have nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with manipulatory politics and intimidation.

Firestorm in Buffalo

It is a firestorm of controversy in the Buffalo Fire Department. There are claims of racism from 13 Buffalo firefighters, including battalion chief Joe Fahey. "To put it plainly, I was discriminated against because I'm white." said Fahey.

He and the others won a discrimination law suit against the city. They placed high on a state required promotion exam, but all were denied permanent advancement. Fahey, instead, got a provisional or temporary promotion.

Human Resources commissioner Leonard Materese testified in court that the battalion and division chief promotion lists were "killed" or expired because there were not enough African Americans on the lists. His testimony was, "The problem is that if we kept those lists in place and the longer we kept them (the promotion lists) in place, the more white males would be promoted into these positions."

Fahey's attorney says in a weird twist of fate, the new exam that's suppose correct a perceived racial imbalance, actually hurt a minority. An African American firefighter was in line for advancement to captain on the first list, but because it was allowed to expire, he wasn't able to take the city's new exam for the higher rank of battalion chief.

"Ironically what the city did here was prevent an African American from being in a position to take the battalion chief exam."

Racist Tractor Boys

IPSWICH Town Football Club are appealing for witnesses after receiving complaints about racism among a section of the North Stand during their FA Cup tie with Portsmouth.

The club said an investigation had been launched into allegations that a group of teenage boys were involved in racist chanting throughout Saturday's match with Premiership League outfit Portsmouth.

Monkey noises aimed at some of Portsmouth's African contingent, as well as racist remarks shouted at England star Sol Campbell, through both the first and start of the second half, were among those said to have occurred.

Heat of the Moment

A man stormed into a takeaway to protest to the staff about how his daughter had allegedly been treated, and in his bout of anger allegedly made a racially charged remark, the nature of which is not clear. And apparently, he is now in court for "racially-aggravated disorderly behaviour".

Stories like this always make me wonder why the prosecutors have nothing better to do.

Islam 101

The fourth and final part of my second Islam 101 series deals with democracy and Islam, and whether the two can ever go hand-in-hand. Thanks for taking the time to read these (if you have) and I'll be back with a new series in a couple of months.

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ISLAM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Bible, Matthew 22:21)

One doesn't have to look too hard to notice that most Islamic countries are not that democratic, and that the more hardline the ruling Islamic regime is, the less democratic their governing system. But is this a product of Islam itself, or merely incidental?

The truth is that sharia law, implemented in full, is about as far from democratic as you can get. It is an authoritarian, theocratic system with Allah alone at its head, and there is little room for freedom or the democratic process.

Islamic law is based on the Qur'an and Sunna (hadith traditions, etc) and these are fixed and unchangeable. The world is to be run according to Allah's law, never under the laws of man, who is not infallible like Allah. According to the 20^th century Muslim Brotherhood scholar Sayyid Qutb, “It is Allah and not man who rules. Allah is the source of all authority, including legitimate political authority. Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value. Therefore, Allah's law, not man's, should govern the society.” Islamic law provides a complete system for living one's life, directing the faithful in all areas of everyday existence, even down to which hand to hold one's penis in while urinating. The political and the religious are inseparably interwoven in Islam.

All of which means that Islam is much more than just a religion: it is in fact a political ideology, also – one which assumes that it must rule over all others. More evidence for this comes from the Muslim calendar. Westerners familiar with the way the Roman calendar begins at Jesus' birth may be forgiven for thinking that the first year of the Muslim calendar would have some religious significance. Was it the year Muhammad was born? The year he died? The year he became a Prophet? In actual fact, it is none of these. The first year of the Islamic calendar marks the Hijra – Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD. This event marks the moment that Muhammad became a political and military leader, and Islam became a state. This is a clear indication of Islam's political nature, and it has only been demonstrated further in the centuries following the Hijra.

The notion of a separation between church and state has always been heretical in Islam. While the West has developed a system whereby religious and secular authorities act mostly independent of each other, Islam's political nature has always inhibited this. The distinction between the religious and the political has been made, in a rudimentary form, in Christian teaching, but was never transferred to Islam.

Indeed, some Muslim scholars have been highly critical of the Western democratic system and its Judeo-Christian roots, critiquing them as inferior to the Islamic model. Sayyid Qutb wrote that Christianity “is an individualist, isolationist, negative faith. It has no power to make life grow under its influence in any permanent or positive way.” By contrast, “Islam is a perfectly practicable social system in itself...It offers to mankind a perfectly comprehensive theory of the universe, life and mankind.”

Qutb is not alone in this belief. The influential Pakistani scholar Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi declared that “the purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and programme.” The charter of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that seeks to destroy Israel, affirms the idea that Islam and secularism are incompatible: “Secular thought is diametrically opposed to religious thought...For the Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion, and anyone who neglects his religion is bound to lose.”

Western colonialism in the last couple of centuries has led to the amalgamation of Muslim and Western modes of society in the Middle East, such that many modern Muslim countries have now partially imbibed Western democratic values (which is a major reason why most Islamic countries do not embrace full Islamic law at its most extreme today). And yet some Muslims still do not accept these values – not even the concept of human rights.

In 1970, the Iranian Sufi leader Sheik Sultanhussein Tabandeh wrote A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In it, he argues that if a Muslim is killed, capital punishment must be enacted, but if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim the punishment should only be a fine, “[s]ince Islam regards Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction”. Indeed, by and large, the Islamic world has never embraced the idea of human rights and the dignity and equality of rights of Muslims and non-Muslims, formulating its own human rights documents based on Islamic principles, which specifically reject the idea of religious freedom. For instance, the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam states that “Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari'ah.”

“According to the norms of Islamic Shari'ah”? Given that we have already seen that sharia commands the death penalty for leaving Islam, among other things, this guarantees that in fact no one has the right to advocate or propagate anything at all, unless it coincides with sharia.

And this is one of the main reasons why Islam is incompatible with democracy: because it rejects the idea that everyone is created equal, Islamic law denies equality of rights to religious minorities. And this influence has bled through into Islamic countries that are supposedly moderate and democratic. There is not a single Muslim country in the world today where non-Muslims enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims. In every Islamic country, Jews, Christians, and people of other religions face institutionalised discrimination which is either tolerated or actively encouraged by the leadership.

The following are some representative examples of the discrimination against religious minorities in Muslim countries:

• EGYPT: In 2003, 22 Christians – many of whom were Muslim apostates – were arrested and tortured. The same year, the Brethren Church of Assiout was demolished so that the Christians could build a new one, but before they could begin, their building license was inexplicably revoked – bringing to mind the dhimmi prohibition against building new churches or repairing old ones.

• PAKISTAN: Blasphemy is still heavily clamped down on in the “moderate” Pakistan. In late 2003, Anwar Masih, a Christian, was arrested for blasphemy, provoking local residents to pelt his house with stones. The police did nothing about the attacks on his home. The following month a Christian church was attacked and ransacked by a Muslim mob, but the police refused to file any report and the doctors at the local hospital ignored the injured Christians at the direction of an influential Muslim cleric. The following year, another Christian charged with blasphemy, Samuel Masih, was beaten to death with a hammer by a Muslim policeman as he lay in hospital suffering from tuberculosis.

• KUWAIT: Hussein Qambar Ali was convicted of apostasy after he converted to Christianity, even though the Kuwaiti constitution guarantees absolute freedom of religion. At his trial, a prosecutor said: “With grief I have to say that our criminal law does not include a penalty for apostasy. The fact is that the legislature, in our humble opinion, cannot enforce a penalty for apostasy any more or less than what our Allah and his messenger have decreed. The ones who will make the decision about his apostasy are: our Book, the Sunna, the agreement of the prophets and their legislation given by Allah.”

• INDONESIA: When three Muslims beheaded three Christian girls in 2005, they received sentences of up to 20 years in prison. But the following year three Christians were executed for allegedly inciting violence against Muslims during riots, even though it was never definitively proven that they had done any such thing; and even though the violence was not one-sided, no Muslims were prosecuted. Also, Muslims have burned down well over a thousand churches since the 1960s and virtually none of the perpetrators have ever been punished.

• MALAYSIA: In recent years, several large Hindu temples have been classified as “illegal structures” without explanation and demolished. In early 2007 the government ordered that a civil rights group dedicated to religious freedom be disbanded. Also, the Islamic Religious Department seized the fifteen-month old child of a woman who had converted to Hinduism, and the woman herself was made to attend a “rehabilitation centre”. In 2005, Bibles in the Malaysian language were banned.

• TURKEY: Often hailed as a moderate, secular state, Turkey has nevertheless seen a great challenge to its status from hardline Muslims who want to bring back Islamic law. But even so, it already discriminates against Christians. To this day it still refuses to give legal status to the Catholic Church. Also, while Turkey does not enforce the death penalty for apostasy, two Islamic converts to Christianity were put on trial for “insulting Turkishness” in 2006. Also, several Protestant churches have been stoned and firebombed with no interference by the police.

Islamic countries may be democratic in terms of voting and elections, but in terms of equality of rights for people of all faiths and freedom of conscience, they are anything but democratic.

The fact is that Islam is the only religion in the world which comes with a built-in series of legal directives which it seeks to impose on the land. The religion is the law, and vice versa. This is the system the jihadists are fighting to implement here in the West, in the Middle East, and all around the globe. It is totalitarian, barbaric, and totally in opposition to Western notions of freedom and human rights.

Does this mean that no government can ever be simultaneously Islamic and democratic? Not necessarily, but the creation of an Islamic state that also grants full equality of rights to all can only be achieved if prominent Muslims reject the discrimination enshrined in the sharia and embrace the values of freedom we so cherish, as imperfect as they may be. But so far, they have not done this in any significant numbers, and so the discrimination and inequality goes on.

Disgrace

"If the Enemy in the War on Terror (WOT) states that he fights jihad in furtherance of Islamic causes that include the imposition of Shari’a law and the re-establishment of the Caliphate; and Islamic law on jihad exists and is available in English; then Professionals with WOT responsibilities have an affirmative, personal, professional duty to know the enemy; that includes ALL the knowable facts associated with the law of jihad."

Who said that?

It was Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon's expert on Islamic law and radicalism - who has just been fired for being too un-PC...and correct. The sacking came after complaints from pro-Muslim officials who had long wanted his head.

This is an absolute disgrace. Here we have a man with invaluable knowledge regarding our enemy in this war, and he is being dismissed because he is treading too close to the line of political incorrectness. Such actions demonstrate how suicidally clueless Western leaders are when it comes to the nature of jihad and our enemy.

This week, with this act of intellectual cowardice, the West lost a little bit of its already-crumbly defensive bastion.

Also...Happy Birthday RR!

Race Relations is one year old today! How time flies when you're having fun!

I'm baaaaaack!

OK, first of all, I want to apologise for my poor post count in the month of December. I had tons going on, more so than at any time in the rest of the year, it seems, and didn't have much time to post. Hopefully, January will be a return to a bit more regularity.

In the news today, a new report says that staff training at immigration detention centres must be improved, recording a catalogue of "racist" behaviour in the system.

I think it's clear that there is some legitimacy to this. But one only has to look at the examples of "racism" given to see that there is little concrete evidence of racism there. There are references there to the immigration officials treating their "detainees" like animals or generally being rude or disrespectful to them. But this does not necessarily mean racism. Most of the insults directed could have been directed at any group of people in the same circumstances. We know that prison officials taunt the inmates, and "Animals, lock-up time" is a phrase that has no doubt been used in prisons, too. There is too much haste among people to cry "Racism" whenever the victim is black or foreign, even if no mention of race is ever made by the perpetrator.

The only one in there that is of any concern is the claim that one of the officers at the centre said "black bastards" - and I do not even have full confidence that this allegation is even true. But even if it is, it brings up another point I have made here many times: that while calling someone a "black bastard" is inexcusable, it is no different to calling someone a "fat bastard" or a "ginger bastard" or a "bald bastard", or anything else. If we are going to so ardently investigate cases of one of these insults, let us investigate them all.