Dhimmitude in the Italian Chamber of Deputies: Lepanto painting removed

step by step , The Muslims manage to erase history, to remove all recollection of a particular religion or countries heritage...they do by instilling fear....

...fear and the ever present threat of deadly violence are mainstays of the Islamic religion...

I suggest a different painting:

"THE RAPE OF EUROPA" by Titian.

A little more on Cervantes as a Christian slave, taken in captivity not at Lepanto but in a later encounter, in a paragraph taken from a 2005 posting:

"Another famous Christian slave was Cervantes, who survived the Battle of Lepanto but was later captured, and taken to Algiers where he lived for five years, the slave of Benedikli Hasan Pasha. Although two articles (one by Harvey Cox in the Harvard Divinity Magazine, the second a piece in The New Duranty Times by Edward Rothstein) have recently been devoted to teasing out a nonexistent paean of praise to the supposed Maria-Rosa-Menocal wonders of Islamic Spain that Cervantes supposedly alludes to in Don Quixote, his own remarks about that period of enslavement to a Muslim master in a Muslim state belie that interpretation. And besides, the whole business of the "author" of Don Quixote beginning his tale by claiming to have found a manuscript by an Arab, one Sidi Hamete Benengeli, is made much of by Rothstein, but in fact is nothing more than a literary device -- the Manusript Found in a Bottle, or in a Bookstore, and should not have any greater multicultural significance teased out of it than exists."

An article from June 29, 2005:

Fitzgerald: Celebrating Lepanto, 2021

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald, inspired by this Red-and-Blue politically correct celebration of the Battle of Trafalgar, peers into his crystal ball and sees, a mere 16 years hence, what the celebrations of the Battle of Lepanto will be like in the looming Eurabia:

The year: 2021. The occasion: the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, where the Turkish fleet under Ali, the captain pasha, was defeated by the naval forces of Venice and of Spain (commanded by Don John of Austria, natural brother to the great Philip II, King of Spain). This victory helped repulse the constant efforts by the Muslim Turks to penetrate even further and seize even more Infidel lands in Eastern and Central and Southern Europe.
At the site of the engagement, the ships are all identical. Indeed, they all belong to the Eurabian fleet of a newly-expanded Eurabia, in which Turkey is the most populous member.

Of course, no one in his right mind would have wanted to label the ships with such words as "Turkish" or "European" (much less "Venetian"). "We are all Turks now," joked the French Foreign Minister, Ekmelledin Uzal, to his British counterpart, Manwar al-Oteiba. But of course, it would not do to label the sides "Turkey" and "Turkey."

Cornel West, Jr., son of the celebrated winner of two Nobel Prizes (one in literature and another for peace), was chosen to organize this event that holds so much significance for the world's peoples.

He was a natural choice. For, as president of the Eternal Peace and Dialogue-to-Death Foundation, which boasts 800,000 employees in 65 countries and is funded with the turned-over endowments of several self-extinguishing foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, the Soros Foundation, the Buffett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Olayan, Khashoggi, and Khaddafy Foundations, as well as the assets of three dozen slightly smaller foundations that had similarly disbanded, from all parts of the globe.

It was he, the brilliant son of an even more brilliant father, who finally hit upon the right way to label those ships that were to re-enact the Battle of Lepanto in a spirit not of celebrating a victory (what does "victory" mean, and what is "defeat," when we are all the children of the same god, and all of us indistinguishable one from the other, after all?).

At first, Cornel West, Jr., possibly remembering how the Battle of Trafalgar was re-enacted years ago, when his father was still a hard-working University Professor at Princeton and celebrated winner of the 2005 Lannan Prize for Services to Culture and Humanity, or Humanity and Culture, or something -- thought the two sides might indeed be labeled the "Blue Team" and the "Red Team," as had been done for the Trafalgar anniversary. But then it was pointed out that the painting would be costly, and besides, what with the ozone layer constantly thinning out into nothingness, more and more people seemed to be suffering from daltonism, which meant that millions of spectators watching the re-creation on television would have difficulty distinguishing one team from the other.

Then West had a brilliant idea. It was, like all brilliant ideas, so obvious -- and yet, no one had thought of it. It would make clear, utterly and transparently clear, what wars and bloodshed were really all about. They were about nothing at all. They had nothing to do with any discrete quarrels, any venomous ideologies, any attempts by one side or another to conquer one side, or another.

No, wars -- Man's Inhumanity to Man -- was all about The Other. Man, especially Western man, European man, or European man's mutated descendants in North America, who were consumed with the need to create, and then to mount a campaign against, The Other. It could be anything. It didn't matter. In the time of Lepanto, it was the terrible Turks, the malignant and the turbaned Turks, the Turks of "Mama li turchi" used to scare little Italian children.

And so it came to pass, that in 2021, in the re-created Battle of Lepanto, where Cervantes lost a hand (and later would lose his freedom to a renegade, a Christian-turned-Muslim slave-master named Venedikili Hasan Pasha, a future Beylerbey of Algiers), each side bore the exact same label -- a label that showed the futility of all warfare, of all distinctions, of all the silliness that Western man, especially, has inflicted on the otherwise naturally peaceful people in this naturally harmonious world (don't you find it getting just a little hot, and stuffy, and harder to breathe, in this wonderful still fossil-fuel-driven world of ours?).

And this is what the great son of the even greater father decided to do:

He labeled the ships of the Venetians, and the other European contributors to the fleet, "The Other." And then he labeled all the ships that represented the naval fleet of the Ottoman Turks with signs that read "The Other."

And that was that. The Battle of Lepanto. "The Other" vs. "The Other." For there is no "Other" now, in 2021. And in truth, there never really was "the Other" -- for "the Other" was simply a construct of the Western world, one which the peaceful non-Westerners made the terrible mistake of borrowing from them.

As Mustafa Schwartz-Weiss Kara-Akyol al-Padovi, the Italian Minister of Culture, noted, "yes, we are all Turks and Muslims now. We are all "The Other" now. Alhamdulillah, we are all friends, there will be no more war. There didn't have to be war in 1571. We could all have saved a lot of time, a lot of pain, if only the Venetians and the Spanish had understood then what everyone in Europe now understands."

Fruit drinks were sold. There was loukoum. There was iced Moroccan mint tea There were hubble-bubble pipes.

A splendid time was had by all."

[Article from June 29, 2005]

Time to replace "the communist Fausto Bertinotti."

The young svelte hotties of Italy like black, tight-fitting clothes for that chic "Urban Look." Pregnancy is just "sooooo disruptive" and very uncool! Cats and dogs are so much easier to care for . Much less bother!

Oh the young Italian women will get their black outfits to wear, but they won't be cool. They will have more a "Eurabian" look than a strictly "urban" look, but small difference.At least everyone will be identical.

Poor Italy, my favorite European country...

Pierre Menard wrote only a small fraction of "Don Quixote" before his untimely death, Robert, afaik.

But seriously, readers, what are you going to do this fall to celebrate Tours, Lepante, and Gates of Vienna? Will you hold a party, or even a
block party? A rally, with educational info booths? Maybe even sell some Charlie Hammer T-shirts?

Wouldn't hurt a bit, I think.

I can't wait until Muslims start taking down paintings that offend Christians in the interests of fostering happy relations. We should all live so long!

The Turks and Muslims just need to give back the land they took since attacking us since 633 AD and remove all persons in our lands to make up for their ethnic and religious cleansing since 622 AD.

Turkey: Christian Armenian Genocide Sources

They could hang the photo of Jill Carroll close to tears while being forced to read the terrorists' statements, which she did not agree with.

Hanoi Jane Fonda AA gun v. Jill Carroll Captive Photo

Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers. I see this as an encouraging move to bring about much needed peace into this world. If only christian learned how to respect others and refrain from causing corruption through the earth, i promise there would have been PEACE over night in all conflicts.

Cervantes, el manco de Lepanto (the cripple of Lepanto).

"The Other" vs. "The Other." Oh wow. How inept can a person be and still be convinced of his own efficacy of mind? Even a casual glance at Islamic beliefs informs that the whole proposition of Islam rests upon "Us" dominating - by any and all means necessary -"Them". Go ahead and look much closer .. study the totalitarian regime of Islam - the same conclusion will be reached.

"(the Communist) Bertinotti says it is a gesture of peace and dialogue ..." That's not what I would call it. Then again, I'm not one totalitarian trying to "relate" to another totalitarian.

...and the people hated him (muhammad,MHRIHF*)

@abdullah

If only Muhammad learned to respect others, but he didn't. From the Suraat al-rasuul:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sira/03.htm

"Several nobles of the Quraysh (muhammad's own clan), including Utba and Abu Sufyan, went to Abu Talib (muhammad's uncle) and said, 'Your nephew has insulted our gods and condemned our religion. He considers our young men to be fools, and our fathers to have erred. You must either restrain him or allow us free action against him, since your religion is the same as ours, opposed to his.' But the apostle continued to preach the religion of Allah and to seek conversions, and the people hated him."

*may he rot in hell forever.

All cultures have had a concept of "the Other", in varying degrees. The point is not its presence in a culture, but the degree of its presence and exertion.

Islam's particular cultivation of "the Other" symbolism has the following characteristics that distinguish it from that of other cultures:

1. Starker and more intense -- in zeal and supremacism.

2. Undiminished by any process of internal reforms (where most amelioration of the symbolism has come from Western pressure).

The West has, over the past 2 or 3 centuries (and increasing with every generation and decade up to the present), been going through a profess of reform of this symbolism of "the Other". Indeed, the West has gone through so much reform of it, we have in recent history been, with multiculturalism, bending over backwards to accomodate other cultures (while simultaneously cultivating a pathologically excessive "mea culpa" about our own culture) to a degree not only unprecedented among any other civilizations in history, but also to a degree that is irrationally inimical to our own self-preservation. This bending over backwards is currently reaching its absurd apogee in the widespread phenomenon of whitewashing Islam. Meanwhile, Islam shows no sign of reciprocating, but only continues to assert its ancient xenophobia and misoxeny with not a shred of a sense of "mea culpa".

halal sheep

Abdullah,

I guess if your meaning of peace equals constant fighting between muslims after the kufir is gone, then yes, there will be plenty of peace!

When are the muslims going to recriprocate and take out their pictures of us in their text books that depict us in 'not nice' caricatures? Believe me - I won't hold my breath. They would have to change their koran too since it refers to us as pigs and such.

Damn! Two birds with one stone. Getting rid of history and art with one blow.

PC at its worse.

"Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers. I see this as an encouraging move to bring about much needed peace into this world. If only christian learned how to respect others and refrain from causing corruption through the earth, i promise there would have been PEACE over night in all conflicts."

bulla bulla, scumbags like yourself are crowding italy's prisons as well as any other place local prisons.

Why should I seek for peace with criminals like yourself?

Insulting your religion and your open-legs mother is my favourite hobby, but when I see idiots like yourself roaming the streets begging because their 20 point IQ doesn't allow them to do anything better I actually feel pity for you, for a millionth of second. Then I get back on insulting your whorish mother and your pedo-prophet. And guess what, more and more people are doing it more day by day.

Muslims are 1.3 billions? even fleas, ticks and mites are. That doesn't mean they are worthy whatsoever.

… we have in recent history been, with multiculturalism, bending over backwards to accommodate other cultures (while simultaneously cultivating a pathologically excessive "mea culpa" about our own culture) to a degree not only unprecedented among any other civilizations in history…

All of which can be explained by how Judeo-Christianity reacted to the extension of the discrete human consciousness into the realtime mass consciousness recently born atop electronic mass media (Cf. Marshall McLuhan).

That reaction has been benign to a fault, a fault up to the point of near civilizational suicide.

In stark contrast, the reaction of Islam to real-time mass consciousness has been malign to a fault, a fault that is nearing the point of civilizational homicide.

The reaction of East Asian cultures to real-time mass consciousness is another matter entirely, but one that is basically ok except for the enormous blind spots that they too take on with their particular daily doses of Fictive Reality.

… we have in recent history been, with multiculturalism, bending over backwards to accommodate other cultures (while simultaneously cultivating a pathologically excessive "mea culpa" about our own culture) to a degree not only unprecedented among any other civilizations in history…

All of which can be explained by how Judeo-Christianity reacted to the extension of the discrete human consciousness into the realtime mass consciousness recently born atop electronic mass media (Cf., Marshall McLuhan).

That reaction has been benign to a fault, a fault up to the point of near civilizational suicide.

In stark contrast, the reaction of Islam to real-time mass consciousness has been malign to a fault, a fault that is nearing the point of civilizational homicide.

The reaction of East Asian cultures to real-time mass consciousness is another matter entirely, but one that is basically ok except for the enormous blind spots that they too take on with their particular daily doses of Fictive Reality.

Abdullah:
Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area.

And who says what an 'insult' is? You do?
Why should we dance to your tune?
As far as I am concerned, Islam has already insulted me. It insulted me the moment it invaded
Italy (666AD), Spain(710AD) & France(722AD).
I would like to piss on Mohammad's grave - is that an insult? I would like to use Quran's for toilet paper - is that an insult?
And I dont care whether you are offended or not -this is the West where freedom of speech is cherished.

If only christian learned how to respect others and refrain from causing corruption through the earth, i promise there would have been PEACE over night in all conflicts.

Ha ha - you mean the same way that Muslims respect others? Do you want to look here, see how corrupt Islamic countries are
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html
Notice that Saudi Arabia (joint 70th) is a long way below USA (joint 20th) and UK (joint 11th)

Your promises are worthless:

Islamic countries are corrupt, more corrupt than Western ones are.
Islamic countries are long way behind technologically and economically behind the West.
Islamic countries have a "cut-down" watered UN Human Rights, called the Cairo Human Rights.

And are you claiming that all the people here are Christians?

Apparently if have missed the point of life, I thought as about learning what your skills are to best express yourself and attain your goals make those around you and yourself into better people and have a relationship with God as you under stand him, All along it was about no offending muslim , Who knew!

I hear Syria is to demolish the statue Saladin in front of the Damascus Citadel as an act of reconciliation.
Maybe that what just a bit of taqqiya drifting on the wind.

Abdullah,

"Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers. I see this as an encouraging move to bring about much needed peace into this world. If only christian learned how to respect others and refrain from causing corruption through the earth, i promise there would have been PEACE over night in all conflicts."

Please, stop playing the game of being a make believe victim. The truth is that the Muslim societies are very corrupt, much worse then in the Jewish/Christian west. I see this action as nothing more then an act of political correctness gone mad. Also in many Muslim societies many things Jewish and Christian are mocked bigtime. Also take into consideration that there are more Christians then Muslims in the world ( 2.5 billion ), plus 15 million Jews, which make both combine much larger then the Muslim population. Real peace will come if your side STOPS imposing itself unto the non-Muslims. Remember TRUE RESPECT has to be EARNED and on top of that it is TWO WAY STREET. Also history cannot be denied. The Battle of Lepanto which took place on October 7, 1571, was a major battle for the life of Western Civilization. Also let us not forget that by the prayers to God in intercession by the mother of Jesus, Mary played a big role in its victory.

So please refraim from insulting non-Muslims which do include me. Thank-you.

Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers.--Abdullard

If every part of history which was found by one group or another to be "offensive" was removed from sight or history books, there would be no history left. I'm sorry your religion is offended by those instances in history where it didn't triumph over the infidels, but that doesn't change the fact that those events actually happened, or mean that we shouldn't remember them. Get over it.

FedUpagain,

Psychotropic medicine can be your friend. Alternatively, you may want to consider exorcism? Geeze man, take a chill pill .. your thoughts are actually reprehensible and vile.

Abdullah,

".. but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers."

Unfortunately, Abdullah, your religion does a superb job .. all in its own .. of insulting your mothers.

Anyway, I offer you the same free advice as I've offered FedUpagain. Take it or leave it - but deal with reality: In a free society, people freely choose to extend or withhold insults. Americans, on the whole, are pretty friendly and polite people .. the fact that this freedom and friendliness threatens your world says much more about you and your fears than about anything else.

Religious tolerance is practiced in the USA, and so, US citizens tend to avoid putting down other's religious practices. I, for only one, was completely prepared to respect the right of Islam to be Islam (even when Islam was shoved down my country's throat on 9/11) but that respect ended the moment I learned what Islam's agenda is: to reign supreme over me and all others it considers 'infidel'. I don't buy into delusions .. particularly those that mean my own demise. That's a real no go zone. Deal with it.

Name one single Islamic region that practices actual tolerance. For goodness sakes, Muslims can't even tolerate themselves. So get real and go out and do something decent to honor your mother today.

Bertinotti is the same vile trash who went to the Republic Day military parade (June 2) and stood in the authorities' stand wearing a visible pacifist badge. But in this case I suspect that what he really wants to forget is not so much that Lepanto was a victory, a victory in a just cause, a victory that saved Italy from possible Turkish attack, and a victory in war, so much as that it was a victory engineered and managed by the Pope, who, in the face of the catastrophe of the loss of Cyprus, managed to make cats and dogs - Venice and Spain - agree, and bring together their overwhelming joint power to crush the Turkish monster. Right now Bertinotti simply does not want to hear about the Pope or his victories: his own coalition is being pummelled black and blue after the umpteenth attempt at bringing in anti-family and anti-life legislation has blown up in their faces. Bertinotti is not, as Italian lefties go, particularly sympathetic to Islam: it is his rival Diliberto, leader of the other Communist party, who has genuinely and shamelessly angled for Islamic Brotherhood votes. On the other hand, if Bertinotti right now could put a rope around Pope Benedict's neck and pull, he would do it. And the last thing he wants to be reminded of is the occasion in which political action by the Pope saved Italy and the western world.

Paolo,

Is this an issue at all in the MSM ?

I propose that on 7 October this year - if Ahmadinejad hasn't started nuclear jihad by then - that jihadwatchers who inhabit schools and universities or belong to drama groups or book clubs might organise public readings of Chesterton's "The Battle of Lepanto", and explain why. Hey: let's observe ALL the anniversaries of the victories against Jihad. (Let's congratulate the Israelis on the re-taking of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem Old City in 1967 - even if they were silly enough to let the Muslims keep their mosques there - big mistake).

Has anyone translated Chesterton's poem into Italian? Into Spanish? Has anyone set it to music? (It would make a great ballad to Spanish guitar). Let's translate it into Arabic!! And Turkish! And Farsi!

We've just had '300'. Film-makers are thinking 'epic'.

Now: is there anyone out there, anyone at all, that could start from Chesterton's poem and make a film with dash and style, about the Battle of Lepanto (or that other victory, when the Knights of Malta withstood the siege in 1565)? Or the other victory, at Vienna in 1683: the charge of Jan Sobieski's hussars (what a terrific climax for a movie)? Or maybe a series of graphic novels/ comics that tell these stories of victory - for children in Europe.

My favourite lines from 'The Battle of Lepanto': 'Mahound' complains: "But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know/ The voice that shook our palaces four hundred years ago/ It is he that saith not 'Kismet', it is he that knows not Fate/ It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!/ It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth/ Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth'.

It's a great, great poem: "breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds/ thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea [the galley slaves]/ white for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty/ Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria! Don John of Austria has set his people free!".

To any Austrian, Italian or Spaniard reading this - to the Venetians, the Genoese - THANK YOU. My German, English, Scots, Danish and Irish ancestors did not have to face the worst horrors of Islamic invasion, because your ancestors got together and drubbed the Turkish fleet at Lepanto in 1571. DON'T BE ASHAMED YOU WON - PRAISE TO THE HOLY TRINITY!

Clearly a very sensable approach to dealing with 1.3 billion (a 5th of humanity - 22%). Call us whatever you want, but insulting our religion is a no go area. It is worse than insulting our mothers. I see this as an encouraging move to bring about much needed peace into this world. If only christian learned how to respect others and refrain from causing corruption through the earth, i promise there would have been PEACE over night in all conflicts.

Posted by: Abdullah

Dear Abby

I like Foehammer's approach a WHOLE LOT Better. We need to SEPARATE from you hatemongers.

We can decimate your numbers in fairly short order if we get our House in order. The Left is at the peak of its power politically-speaking. They are starting to wane. They are your allies in the West. Without them you and your vile cult are done.

We don't need the followers of a pedophile grifter to foul the air and consume our resources. There is nothing of value for us that you bring to our beautiful societies.

islam = cult of death [pissbuh]

If you have resigned yourselves to insulting Islam, in the name of some silly concept called 'freedom of expression' you have resigned yourselves to not living. How nice of 'freedom of expression' to suit the Jews and Christians....Under this very concept you can't call a jew an ape and a christian a pig.

Is something wrong with your intelligence, bloody fools.

Abdullah, I think what people find remarkable is that Muslims scream "Insult!" over many things. Well, a few things insult us, too, and we'd like Muslims to take note and try not offending us any more about this stuff:

(1) Treating women unequally to men and running about saying that women are "defective" and that men are incapable of controlling themselves sexually ... and positing the solution to that that women spend their entire lives in slavery from cradle to grave.

(2) Cutting off things: arms, hands, legs, sometimes one leg and one arm, noses, ears ... and, oh yes, heads.

(3) Declaring that "insulting Islam" (whatever that is this week) is just cause for flying planeloads of innocent people into skyscrapers in somebody else's country.

(4) Declaring any Muslim with a penchant for violence to be a member of an international muttawiyyah -- religious police force -- which, though unelected by anybody, has the right to punish anybody for anything anytime with complete impunity.

(5) The notion that Muslims can preach to the West about "morality" while they are publishing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claiming in Saudi mosques that it's OK to rape Jewish women, and pronouncing fatawa in Afghanistan that it was OK to rape an Afghan woman while you were in combat mode because it was a gift from Allah.

(6) Declaring everything in the world the possession of Muslims. Ah, if we could only scrub those infidels out of Dar-el-Harb.

(7) Declaring death sentences on people for apostasy and blasphemy every time they criticize you.

(8) Well, it's a tad insulting when the Grand Mufti of Australia calls women who are not at all scantily clad "meat" and says that if they are raped they asked for it. Another version of the assertion that Muslim men cannot control themselves or shouldn't have to.

(9) Forcing Saudi girls into a burning school dormitory in the middle of the night because they fled the flames in their nightdresses. When the muttawiyyah did this, they claimed the girls had sinned by not having on abayas, so they meted out Allah's punishment right away -- death. Death toll: 15. Badly burned: 175.

(10) Meanwhile, Muslims scream about morality and the sanctity of virginity, while they practice "temporary marriage" and abandon the children that result, force sex on wives, and beat them if they don't comply. If you think that indicates "respect" for the "honor" of women, I think you need your head examined.

Well, you know, some of that, you have to admit, might be a tad insultingk, wouldn't you say? So if you find yourself staring at cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb on his head, it might be because the people planting bombs all over the world are quoting the Qur'an chapter and verse while they do, and screaming Allahu Akbar! while they pull the pin out of the grenade -- or while they drive a car full of kids into a market, jump out and save themselves, and then wait for the car to blow up killing 72 people, including incinerating the two decoy kids aged 3 and 4 in the back seat.

And if you want to know what is really insulting to Western sensibility, have a look at the Palestinian authority's new commercial for KIDDY BOMBERS featuring a four year old girl vowing to become a "martyr for Islam" just like mommy. That's the worse child abuse in the history of the world.

Wise up. You have a lot of work and very little time to pull it off. You have to either reform or create a schism in Islam before the really nasty folks pull off a biological, chemical or nuclear attack on a Western country. When that happens, talk is over. And it's not going to be a cartoon you're staring at.

BTW, Abdullah, you insult your mothers every time you interfere with their basic freedoms, rip of their inheritances, and treat them like brood mares, sex objects, and possessions. They do not belong to you. They are not possessions. And their honor, good as it is, does not make up for your dishonorable behavior. It is simply a form of blame and proxy "responsibility" -- which you are not taking for yourselves.

So don't talk to us about insulting your mothers when you treat them like dirt.

Disgusting. The wife's from Nafpachtos so this one's personal. Hopefully the Greeks won't do anything as bad, but their filthy elites are probably as criminal at bottom as the Italian ones (and ours) so I don't have much hope there. Non virtus, non armas, non duces, sed Maria Rosari victores nos fecit.

Abdullah,

"If you have resigned yourselves to insulting Islam, in the name of some silly concept called 'freedom of expression' you have resigned yourselves to not living. How nice of 'freedom of expression' to suit the Jews and Christians....Under this very concept you can't call a jew an ape and a christian a pig.

Is something wrong with your intelligence, bloody fools."

The TRUTH is that as I have posted, RESPECT IS A TWO-WAY STREET. If the Muslim side cannot give it to others, it cannot get it. Simply in other words, before any Muslim complains that "Islam is insulted", please first see if the Muslim side has done things to insult non-Muslims first and formost before condemming non-Muslims for the same wrong things Muslims do. It is called accepting responsibility. It is called cleaning up one's own house before speaking out on how dirty the house of others are. Please consider this as a gentle correcting and advice.

Abdullah:
You do not gain anyone's respect by calling them "you bloody fools" and insulting their belief in freedom of expression...

...you pathetic moron and your ignorant Prophet.

See?

Now do a little thinking. I suggest the text "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

PAS and Dumbledoresarmy: PAS, I am not sure whether it is any great issue - it is certainly less obscene than naming a room of the Parliament building after an anarchist demonstrator killed in self-defence by a policeman - but if the Corriere has published it, it has at least reached the right ears. The Corriere's deputy editor, remember, is none other than Magdi "no.1 enemy of the Brotherhood" Allam.

Dumbledoresarmy: Lepanto was translated into Spanish by some moderately well-known Argentinian bloke. Name of Borges, Jose' Luis. Ever heard of 'im? And what is more, the Borges version is easily available on the Net; just google for it.

Oh, and Dumbledoresarmy - since we seem to be in the same fandom, does it not occur to you that there is some significant resemblance between Voldemort's tactics and the average Islamist's? And between Dolores Jane Umbridge and the average passive-aggressive ministerial Western leftie? Though I am sure I am preaching to the converted here.

Confronted with the matter, Bertinotti says it is a gesture of peace and dialogue, the painting's title being "Naval battle between Christians and barbarians", but an anonymous insider reveals it was done to avoid offending Muslims.

_______________

FORGET HISTORY, Worse yet, DENY HISTORY, and you WILL REPEAT IT!!!!!

I'm completely disgusted at this. If was a very wealthy person I'd buy the painting and post it in a very public place to remind every Italian of the past. Christians in the past centuries cared about their culture, their civilization, and were DEFENDING their own land during that battle.

It saddens me that this happened, but it doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't bode well for the future at all.

Taking down that painting is bad, very bad. It was truly a Holy battle in defense of Christianity.

Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, the holy pontiff, St. Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. We know today that the victory was decisive, prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe, and evidenced the Hand of God working through Our Lady. At the hour of victory, St. Pope Pius V, who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican, is said to have gotten up from a meeting, went over to a window, and exclaimed with supernatural radiance: "The Christian fleet is victorious!" and shed tears of thanksgiving to God.

At Lepanto, the Victory over the Moslems was won by the faithful praying the Rosary. Even though they had superior numbers, the Turks really were overmatched. Blessed Padre Pio, the Spiritual Father of the Blue Army, said: "The Rosary is the weapon," and how right he was!

OUR LADY AND ISLAM: HEAVEN’S PEACE PLAN
http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/olislam.htm

Why don't they just kick out the Vatican and the Pope and give it to Muslims as I think they would enjoy living under Islamic law because that is exactly what they would do with History and creativity. Man this is getting so Anti-Christ like people are being Satanised like some hypnotic force, this is now a time of a merging great delusion opon mankind.

Caro paolo - thanks for the information about the Spanish translation of Chesterton's poem - grazie mille! (I learned Italian and have read most of the Commedia in Italian. My best friend who is godmother/ madrina to my eldest daughter, is Italo-Australian born to Friulano immigrant parents, ancestral village Gorizia; she speaks basic Italian, Friulano and English. You should HEAR her opinions on Islam - fire and brimstone! For her birthday I mean to buy her Oriana Fallaci's two books in the original Italian!).

Si: I chose my nom de plume because what we are doing here reminds me of the activities of Harry and his friends in their secret 'defence against the dark arts' sessions - after Umbridge has forbidden them to actually practise self-defence in class. The analogy between Voldemort & death-eaters : Islam and Umbridge : wilfully (treacherously?) blind PC establishment is so obvious that I am looking forward with great interest to the upcoming film version of "Order of the Phoenix". (The trailer looks VERY interesting - the 'terror attack' parallels seem to be getting picked up on by the film-makers - I hope they've milked it for all they're worth!).

Re the painting - does anyone have links for online digital representations of any of the Great Victories Against Jihad? We need a virtual gallery!

Abdullah, you say, "If you have resigned yourselves to insulting Islam, in the name of some silly concept called 'freedom of expression' you have resigned yourselves to not living. How nice of 'freedom of expression' to suit the Jews and Christians....Under this very concept you can't call a jew an ape and a christian a pig.

Is something wrong with your intelligence, bloody fools."

You are confused about some major issues, Abdullah.
First: Freedom of expression is not at all silly. Give it some
t-h-o-u-g-h-t. Would you, in your country of origin, be able to express any of your ideas as safely as you do on this site? No. You would not. This is important: in a free society you are allowed to think and then say what you think.

Second: Not only do Muslims call Jews apes and Christians pigs (and do so routinely here, there and everywhere) .. but in a free society, you are allowed to do so .. and this part is Very Important .. and NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO HARM YOU FOR BEING IGNORANT.

Now that ought to be one really un-silly and reassuring concept for you, Abdullah. No harm shall be inflicted upon ignoramuses simply for being ignorant. Sleep well.

Abdullah, an amendment, if I may to "This is important: in a free society you are allowed to think and then say what you think."

In a free society, of course, you are also allowed to say what you think without even thinking :) ..

For an especially fine example of this phenomena, may I suggest Rosie O'Donnell & Friends on a TV show called "The View" ? Rosie O'Donnell offers ample evidence in support of my second point by the very fact that she's alive and apparently, albeit within a narrow meaning of the term, well.