Most welcome anti-dhimmitude from Nick Cohen in The Observer (thanks to Olivia):
The United Nations held 'World Press Freedom Day 2006' earlier this month. I don't know why. Maybe the UN realised that so many of its member states stifled press and other freedoms they needed encouragement to do better. If so, the day was a wretched failure.It began promisingly. At a meeting in Westminster, Roger Koeppel, editor-in-chief of the centre-right German paper Die Welt, gave a classic defence of freedom of expression. He had done what no British editor dared do and printed the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. He received the customary death threats, but didn't regret it, because 'it is essential to protect freedom of expression because of all the pain we have invested to keep our liberal, secular society'.
Dr Maleeha Lodhi, the Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain, opposed him. She denounced 'the tendency in the West to say, "We insult our own, so we can insult yours, too." Well, no. We do have a problem with that and we demand respect'. Her 'demand' for censorship was a faithful reflection of her masters' policy. The Pakistani military dictatorship not only has blasphemy laws, but also forces journalists to resign, arrests them and holds them in solitary confinement. The monitoring agency Freedom House succinctly describes the Pakistani media as 'not free', and they aren't.
So, on the one hand, we had an editor from a liberal democracy saying: 'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it' and, on the other, the servant of a military junta that says: 'We may disagree with what you say and if we do, we will send you to prison.' What division could be more natural?
Yet once you got closer, the contrast between liberal democracy and military dictatorship was nowhere near as stark. As Dr Lhodi made her argument that respect could be 'demanded' rather than earned, she cited with approval articles by Simon Jenkins, a columnist for the liberal-conservative Sunday Times and liberal-left Guardian.
If she had researched further, she would have found support from Europeans with far more power. Next week, the Council of Europe is holding hearings on whether freedom of expression should include the right to offend religions. It is already clear that the tide is with the supporters of suppression.
Meanwhile, Franco Frattini, the EU's Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, has already banned the use of the phrase 'Islamic terrorism' to describe Islamic terrorism. 'You cannot use the term "Islamic terrorism",' he insisted. 'People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion.'
I was brought up as a democratic socialist and abhorred the crimes committed in the name of the left. But I would always agree that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were inspired by a version of socialism, just as the most liberal American Christian would accept that fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics are inspired by a version of Christianity.
This, of course, is just absurdity. No Christian sect endorses such actions, no warrant for them can be found in the New Testament, and there is no sizable Christian movement advocating such actions. That's three stark contrasts with Islamic jihad, which is endorsed by all the mainstream sects of Islam, finds abundant justification in the Qur'an, and is being pressed forward by movements all around the world.
Yet the EU wishes to deny that political Islam inspires terrorists to blow up everything from mosques in Baghdad to tube trains in London, even when Islamist terrorists say explicitly that it does. You should always pay your enemies the compliment of taking them seriously. The EU can't understand what its enemies are saying, because it won't call them by their right name.
Absolutely. Read it all.
The Observer, like its sister paper, The Guardian is home to demented loons and dhimmwits. Nick Cohen is an honourable exception. Perhaps, being Jewish (though not practising), he understands what Islam would mean for his people. But he talks a great deal of sense about Islam and other topics.
Interested,
I don't read the Observer regularly, but I'd understood that its views were somewhat at odds with those of the Grauniad in at least some respects. Am I mistaken there?
No, you're right. The Observer is not quite as demented and loony as The Guardian.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
I bet you anything that Franco Frattini is on the take, just like Coffi Annan & his clan.
Somewhere, some time ago a large sum of money went into a Swiss bank account and Franco works for Arabia ever since.
There many more despicables like him, like a former Italian Ambassador to SA who came back a 'revert', and I wouldn't put it past Jackass 'Chamberlain' Straw either, who believes that "keeping Turkey out of the EU would be too terrible to contemplate..."
Follow the money. All these creeps are for sale. Even Bush (& his clan) made their money with the Arabs, (which is clearly the reason that SA is our "staunch ally") and that perfidious Shredder, that German -ex-chancellor, sucker & friend of Fidel Castro, who now works for Russian masters, (who probably had him on the payroll all along,)
These are difficult times. Things may have to become much worse before they get better....
If you look at the reader comments at the bottom of Nick Cohen's piece you will see some of the typical sneers from those who disagree with the author and agree with the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Franco Frattini.
The argument for using the term Islamic Terrorism is roundly accepted by those who contribute to JW/DW and unfettered by political correctness or allegiances but it is clear that there are a great number of people who don’t. They will not listen to any arguments, however cogent, which challenge and disprove their own lazy, pompous and know-all lefty leanings. They fall back insisting it is all the fault of the West and we deserve it. They are also swift to pull out the Islamophobe and or Racist cards as well.
What these smug fools don’t understand is that the poor other race and religion “victims” they patronise and feel such affinity with, even though in reality they may express know little about them, will just as soon cut their throats as yours or mine.
These pathetic appeasers are as much an enemy to the freedoms they so easily take for granted as the Jihadist’s who ridicule their idiocy. They behave like lambs going to slaughter.
The State run CBC up here in Canada has censored its news items by avoiding using Muslim-Terrorists ,Islamic terrorist,terrorists,and any combo that may appear to perceive Muslims to the violence and suicide bombings by self-professed Muslims.
But the irony in this was when it backfired against Muslims, just after the London transit slaughter by Muslims we had Islamic Org.'s create that Mock-denouncing of terrorism in the name of Islam.
The CBC policy wouldn't allow for reporting the full context of the Imams condemnation of terrorism against innocent civilians, so the message got lost when the CBC article only declared that a meeting of Islamic clerics agreed to denounce violence and attacks on civilians.
Ohhhhhhh....it was sooooo sweet to see how censorship by Muslims imposed on the media ended up deny them to use Terrorism or Terrorists in their message that tried to portray Islam as a faith of Peace.
Next we get the Quran out of Public schools as part of being fair as the Muslim demand from others.
NO ISLAM - KNOW PEACE
The great thing about being able to share this website is that it is truly international, at least as international as English speakers can be. Austraila, the US, Great Britian or UK, Canada, New Zealand did I leave anybody out? WE ALL HAVE THE SAME CONCERNS. Anyway, I'm Pelayo from Secureundisclosedlocationburg, Commonwealth of Anonymous in the southern US.
Hiding from the truth never saved anyone from it.
By the same logic, the EU's attempts at hiding from Islamic terrorism won't save any Europeans from it either (not even by hiding the decidedly unpleasant term behind a bunch of euphemisms).
Western Europe, are YOU listening?????????