Posted on 03/25/2006 2:18:03 PM PST by Fair Go
British Prime Minister Tony Blair belled the cat with his clear statement on the war on terror: "This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation."
He continued: "It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on one hand, and pessimism and fear on the other."
Mr Blair, in Australia this week for the Commonwealth Games, will also address a joint sitting of Parliament during which he is expected to underline the importance of a broad global alliance to achieve common goals.
Australians should be very proud of the role their nation has played as a member of that alliance.
There is a fifth column of largely left-wing academics and media figures, which continues to argue that the UN should be solely responsible for protecting the persecuted.
But, as all the evidence abundantly shows, millions of people have been killed from Rwanda to Kosovo while enjoying the UN's protection, and hundreds of thousands more continue to be killed in places such as Darfur right now, because the UN has its hands tied by Middle East and African nations who have no intention of acting in a civilised manner.
Unfortunately, many Western nations, in their desire to play along with the warped notion that civilised nations must dance to the tune scored by the UN's unbalanced committees, have played a politically correct game, and kowtowed to the discriminatory, medieval demands of incipient Islamist terrorists in their midst.
Denmark was forced to grovel to Muslims globally after the Islamic world was whipped into a frenzy over some fairly banal cartoons months after they had been published, both in Copenhagen and Cairo, without incident!
The appeasers have also recognised a perceived right of Muslims to force their religious difference upon the cultures of non-Muslim nations from the UK to Australia, under the guise of multiculturalism.
In one such case two years ago, a British appellate court found that Denbigh High School in Luton, Bedfordshire, erred in sending schoolgirl Shabina Begum home when she turned up dressed in head-to-toe Islamic jiljab dress, though the school's official uniform had been agreed in concert with the local Islamic community.
Last week, a panel of five Law Lords overturned that decision, finding that the school's uniform policy, which she violated, had gone to "immense pains" to be "inclusive, unthreatening and uncompetitive" and that the school enjoyed a period of "harmony and success" to which the policy had contributed.
Ironically, Tony Blair's wife, Cherie Booth, QC, who has made a fortune out of taking such cases, defended Shabina under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. It should be noted that Shabina also enjoyed the support of the Islamist extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, of which her brother was a member.
The case had echoes in NSW last year, when Sydney schoolgirl Yasamin Alttahir, who had been wearing an ankle-length mantoo to Auburn Girls High School for two years, sent the NSW education department into a spin.
Mantoos aren't required religious dress but are worn as a matter of cultural choice. They signify, as Yasamin said, modesty. Does that mean others who choose not to wear them are immodest?
Such distinctions are done away with when regular school uniforms are worn, but the NSW Government, unlike the French Government, which outlawed the wearing of all religious symbols in schools two years ago, pandered to the medieval and rejected the modern.
The French found that cross-wearing Christians and Star of David-wearing Jews did not pose problems, but Muslim girls making political statements through their dress clearly did, and they acted, possibly too late, to protect their national culture from immigrant demands.
Similarly the Dutch Immigration Minister, Rita Verdonk, has signalled that legal immigrants who've lived and worked legally in the Netherlands for many years may have to take Dutch lessons and sit an exam on the workings of their adopted country – as is now required of newcomers.
When the West stands up for its set of values, it is labelled intolerant, but when Muslims riot, as they did over the Danish cartoons, the West is expected to apologise for its insensitivity.
Nor is the Australian Government immune to the tendency to pander to claims for special treatment from the Muslim community, as a new federally funded guide for media covering Islam demonstrates.
Such sensitivity is admirable but wholly in keeping with Western values as opposed to the concept of Sharia law, currently being invoked by Afghan officials who have condemned the unfortunate Abdul Rahman to death for converting to Christianity.
Even though the Taliban, beloved of such Australians as David Hicks and Jihad Jack Thomas, have been defeated, Rahman may be killed for rejecting Islam. Is this a religious or a cultural problem?
The Koran would indicate it is religious. Australian Muslims should indicate their acceptance of our Western culture by protesting this gross inhumanity.
If anything, the fact that Rahman's life hangs in the balance must prove to the most ardent anti-Americans, Howard-haters and fifth- column appeasers, that absolutely no doubt can exist about which side civilisation sits in this war.
Unfortunately, amongst them are those that would give all power to the UN.
But, as all the evidence abundantly shows, millions of people have been killed from Rwanda to Kosovo while enjoying the UN's protection, and hundreds of thousands more continue to be killed in places such as Darfur right now, because the UN has its hands tied by Middle East and African nations who have no intention of acting in a civilised manner.
In a nutshell...
And the barbarians intent on reinstalling the Caliphate, it would seem,must be beat back into the sand every few hundred years. Unfortunately, this round has fallen to our generation. We hesitate at our peril.
May Rahman's life break Islam. God gives us the Saints we need, not the ones we expect.
Thanks. These 3 paragraphs sum up our war for survival.
"There is a fifth column of largely left-wing academics and media figures, which continues to argue that the UN should be solely responsible for protecting the persecuted."
"But, as all the evidence abundantly shows, millions of people have been killed from Rwanda to Kosovo while enjoying the UN's protection, and hundreds of thousands more continue to be killed in places such as Darfur right now, because the UN has its hands tied by Middle East and African nations who have no intention of acting in a civilised manner."
"Unfortunately, many Western nations, in their desire to play along with the warped notion that civilised nations must dance to the tune scored by the UN's unbalanced committees, have played a politically correct game, and kowtowed to the discriminatory, medieval demands of incipient Islamist terrorists in their midst."
Let's hope that all of us keep focused on this.
Are you trying to tell us that this explains why Muslims have killed little Christian girls in Indonesia, why young and illiterate Muslims are recruited as suicide bombers etc?
"While in general I agree with what Blair said, has anyone here considered that maybe the reason Muslims are angry at us is that our government is on the leash of the pro-Israel lobby and large oil corporations?
Maybe that's part of the problem. What do you think?"
Considering that France and Norway are about as friendly to the Arab states in the West as possible, and note the frequent anti-French and Norway marches, riots, and terrorist actions by Muslims over the past few years, I think I have already found a counterexample to your assertion.
I find it hard to believe that anyone falls for that balderdash 'muslims are angry over Israel'.
Muslims are angry over anything and everything. If you appease them on one thing, they simply move on to the next.
There are plenty of sites pointing out the fallacy of muslim claims to the palestine area (a) mostly arab immigrants who came for jobs, not native to area for one.
Secondly, why be blind to the fact that these fundamentalists state over and over they will not tolerate a Jewish state period. There is NO APPEASING or dealing with this mentality. A lot is typical muslim covetousness. (after all, mohammed was covetous and deified covetousness which is not surprising since Islam is 7th century arabian tribalism deified)
I note you post the idea in the term of a question. I don't know if you have completely made up your mind on this matter. thereligionofpeace.com
prophetofdoom.net (very detailed quotes from the koran and the hadith, muslims don't tell you about the hadiths, now do they? more typical deception..)
Go ahead and call me intolerant. I couldn't care less. I will be intolerant to their faces.
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