Amnesty International slams Australia's Howard for anti-jihad efforts; Howard won't back down

Some people haven't changed their ideas since high school. I have the impression that the people at Amnesty International is like this, as if they say, "We're scrupulously fair to all, whether predators or victims."

On the subject of Amnesty International
Is Sweden is a democracy?
I have read that when Björn Björkkvist said "I don't think I'm alone feeling miserable when I read about how Swedish girls have been raped by immigranthordes", he got two months in jail.

Does anyone have any more information on this case?

Is Amnesty International doing anything about this?

Perhaps people should write to Swedish Members of Parliament.
Addresses obtained from a previous posting.
henrik.von.sydow@riksdagen.se, ingvar.svensson@riksdagen.se, mauricio.rojas@riksdagen.se, veronica.palm@riksdagen.se, kerstin.lundgren@riksdagen.se, pernilla.zethraeus@riksdagen.se, maryam.yazdanfar@riksdagen.se, fredrik.schulte@riksdagen.se, mildred.thulin@riksdagen.se, lena.olsson@riksdagen.se, hillevi.larsson@riksdagen.se, max.andersson@riksdagen.se, inger.davidson@riksdagen.se,

"Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard "thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership".

...sounds like the Amnesty secretary-general Muslim appeaser is a bit angry that a major politician is actually behaving as if he is on to the Muslim world conquest game plan...instead of bowing to Islam and surrendering....

My hat i off to Howard. AI has a record of being a bit soft on Leftists and Muslims, tough on liberal capitalists. They didn't touch China at all until after reforms took off.

Amnesia Intentional in the hands of a Muhammedan agent provocateur:

Irene Khan exposed

http://sheikyermami.com/2007/05/23/amnesia-blasts-us-on-terrorism-war/

"I believe many Australians will be as offended by this report as I am," he said.

Which citezens would that be I wonder. I'm way too pumped this morning. Is it "playing the victim game" on my part if I say "I'm sick and tired of being pushed"? I guess it would be if I did nothing in response but whine and complain.
I don't believe waiting on a problem to fix itself is a good idea.

Polish ruling conservatives had been hammered by AI for not being pro-gay in the recent Amnesty report on human rights in Poland.

Human rights has been flushed in toilet by AI, now they are only intrested in being a good dhimmi and gay activists.

Who's advising her on Australian foreign policy? Is she coming to these moronic conclusions according to her own personal derangements, or is there some disgruntled party political Australian feeding her the lines?

And 'its treatment of female victims of violence'. That's a new one. What the hell is she talking about?

Amnesty international is a total crock, they are so out of date. To me AI and these damn human rights people want locking up, all they care about are the perps.

In a perfect world, people would stop equating dhimmi muslim-lovers with gay activists.

I just sent Prime Minister Howard an e-mail congratulating him for standing up to Amnestery International. I have tried to send AI e-mail using their site but each time it comes back as undeliverable. Perhaps someone here knows the correct e-mail??? I advise others to go to the Australian govt web site and send the PM an e-mail.

Link to the oz website please? or the email address?

'[I]ts treatment of female victims of violence' may be a sickly reference to violence inflicted on indigenous women by indigenous men in remote outback settlements. If so, it's a really rotten ploy to attempt a linkage between that and the Howard government's foreign policy. It also reveals Khan and Amnesty to be unprincipled and utterly vacuous political animals.

Howard, bad dhimmi!!

Is Ms. Khan a muslim?

That should be the first question.

What sect does she belong to should be the second.

Same with Mohammad El Baradei.

Any muslim in control of any organization has to have their motives examined.

Better yet, don't let them be in charge.

Bravo Howard. Now, if only the limp dick governments of Europe and Israel followed his example...

If Amnesty International were truly a human rights organization, they would be viciously attacking Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, Bashir Assad, Hugo Chavez, Hosni Mubarek (on whose watch Egyptian Coptic Christians have been oppressed), Robert Mugabe, Mahmood Ahmedinijad and the leaders of the Taliban, while praising Bush and Howard for fighting against the jihadists who would abolish human rights if they got a chance.

AI got into a real tizzy trying to go after Pinochet, but hardly ever batted an eyelash at Castro.

Any fear we feel is NOT caused by Bush and Howard reacting to terrorists, but by the terrorists themselves.

Pffft! Another organisation that is rotten to the core, just like the UN. Their sole purpose seems to be to hide and excuse the embarrassing filth and depravity of non-Western countries, by exaggerating and lying about what Western countries do.

Irene Khan was born in Bangladesh. Obviously Bangladesh has become a paragon of human rights and equality in the past few years, unbeknownst to all of us, for someone from there to righteously preach to the rest of us about rights and such. These ridiculous organisations appoint people from backward hovels of vileness as heads of all sorts of preachy organisations. Like the recent UN one with Zimbabwe being appointed some big shot of something or other. Economic development or something equally ludicrous. Can't remember what exactly what it was since the immediate reaction was to roll my eyes and ignore such a predictable farce. They're all a joke. The UN. AI. Nobel Peace Prizes. I almost feel sorry for twits like Irene and ilk, looking at them sitting there with their self-righteous, stern looks wagging their fingers at countries who treat their cats better than her country treats human beings. Surely she must realise how pathetically stupid she looks. Surely.

Oh how far Amnesty International has fallen. There was a time they truly did stand for human rights, probably before I was born. There was a time when they exposed REAL human rights abuses by tyrannical regimes, at least I hope. I used to think highly of AI but this is just f***ing stupid.

File this away for future reference:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3400

The True Genesis of Amnesty International
Claudio Veliz

Re: Odysseus's post above - here is the link for Fjordman's article on the case cited (Jihad and the Collapse of the Swedish Model):

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2065/print

Irene Khan lives in a make believe world in many areas in her comments. She thinks Israel could easily make peace with the Palestinians if they really wanted to, she believes that the walls, and fences that where built to keep Palestinians from attacking Israel only make things more polarized between both societies while never really asking the question; why were the walls built?

Khan believes that leaders like Howard, and President Bush promote fear to solidify their power and she completely dismisses the reality of what promotes that fear in the first place.

Time and time again Khan approaches everything as if the entire world should have a common goal to live in peace and harmony. Of course we all want that in the free world but it is unfortunately a pipe dream.

This comment in Khans report shows how leftwing her attitude is towards President Bush-- Khan:" After the attacks of 11 September 2001, US President George W Bush invoked the fear of terrorism to enhance his executive power, without Congressional oversight or judicial scrutiny". And of course this absolutely false in every area, and yet she blatantly makes the charge without reflecting any evidential oversight of her own on such charges.

Khan had no problem lumping in and comparing President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe all in the same paragraph with PM Howard, and President Bush.

Note how Khan reflects on PM Howard and simply refuses to acknowledge that there could be a substantial threat to Australian security -- Khan: "The Howard government portrayed desperate asylum-seekers in leaky boats as a threat to Australia's national security and raised a false alarm of a refugee invasion. This contributed to its election victory in 2001" Note the leaky boat comment is there to get your sympathy.

Here is Khan commenting on Iranian President Ahmadinejad in her article ---Khan:"The Iranian President called for a debate to promote the denial of the historical fact of the Holocaust". --Yes folks that was it, that is the only comment that Khan made about this man who wants to annihilate Israel and has also threatened America and the other free world countries repeatedly in the same way. This for me says it all when it comes to where Khan is coming from. For me this defeated much of her credibility in her article.

Khan tries to cover the entire world in short comments full of criticism towards countries who are simply trying to protect themselves from invasion of Islamic terrorism which she never really addresses.

Reading Khan you are left with the clear impression that all countries should just drop their collective borders and not deny any immigration of all the poor and down trodden throughout the world as if to say we are of all the same mind. And of course that would be nice but unfortunately that is not the case in the real world. Read it all here: -- http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Freedom-from-fear

"Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan "? Khan this be true? Sounds like a Khan-job to me.

Political correctness is a sterile doctrine that seeks to create equality by holding back the worthy in favor of the disenfranchised.

I will allow that it is sometimes true that an individual or a group is both worthy and disenfranchised. Amnesty International's role has often been exemplary in bringing to the world's attention those who are disenfranchised through imprisonment or other harrassment for their political views and worthy attempts to better the lot of their countrymen. But one must not fall into the trap of drawing the non sequitur that worthiness and disenfrachisement are inextricably linked. To do so is to succumb to mental laziness and spiritual cowardice, to make a Procrustean Bed, unnecessarily disenfranchising the worthy and uncritically attributing worth to the all-too-frequently self-declared "disenfranchised."

Mr. Howard is quite right not to recline on that bed. Amnesty International, on the other hand, made their bed. Perhaps now they should lie down on it themselves.

NGOs have come a long, and very dismal way, since the dreams of Rene Cassin. They are filled as naturally with creatures of a certain worldview and bent as is the BBC World Service, or The Guardian. What is that worldview? That worldview consists of those who wish to criticize, in the main, what they see as the white, Western world, for not properly making their chief concern, and rescuing from their own misrulers often prompted by ideologies (such as Islam) that the members of those NGOs will never recognize as being the source of the misgovernment, the corruption and cruelty and waste that are such noticeable features of so much of what used to be called (thank god the phrase is falling out of fashion) the "Third World."

Nationalism for them is not acceptable if it is an impulse animating the residents of the advanced West. They are not allowed to take a special interest, have a special affection and tenderness for, their own countries, and histories. They are not allowed to worry about cultural continuity, and cultural continuity as being connected, possibly, to other kinds of continuity, including that of ethnic makeup. These are impermissible for that "white, Western world" -- even if perfectly permissible for everyone else (compare, for example, the policies toward immigration and immigrants in Japan, Korea, China, or the same policies toward non-Arabs, directed especially at black Africans, in Egypt, Libya, Chad, and Morocco).

The rest of the world is entitled to preserve itself. We, on the other hand, in North America and Western Europe and the outposts of the former British Empire, such as Australia and New Zealand, are required to give up whatever "local" patriotism, interest and pride in our national histories and cultures, and open ourselves permanently to the world.

Other countries can remain countries.

The United States, Canada, Australia, England, France, Italy, and the other countries of Western Europe, on the other hand, are not allowed to remain countries in that full sense. Their people are not allowed to maintain their own legal and political institutions and social arrangements, or render them less vulnerable to undermining from within by taking control of their own immigration policy. They are not allowed to fully defend themselves, and if they try...well, the NGOs will come down hard.

For those who now staff the NGOs have big plans for the West, big plans for Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and especially for the United States.

Yes, for the United States and other advanced "white, Western" countries (Japan doesn't count, nor South Korea, in this calculation) the futuree is clear.

They are to be transformed. They are to be stripped of that has given them their national identities, treated merely as geogrpahically identifiable places that should be permanently available to all those who wish to come, and those who wish to come will, in the main, be those from comparatively poor and often ill-governed neighbors (in the case of the United States, those neighbors include Mexico, Central America, and some but not all of the countries of South America), or from lands further away where the local despots, or locally-prevailing ideologies, explain the malgovernance -- but those who come from Muslim lands, places that are so unpleasnat and malfunctioning becuase of Islam unfortunately do not see things aright and "flee from Islam," and far from abandoning Islam (refugees from the Nazis or Communists hated Nazism, hated Communism), they bring it with them in their undeclared mental baggage, and unpack it right away.

According to the New Men who have infiltrated and taken over so many of the formerly respectable NGOs, la Lutte Continue, and the hostility they always felt toward their own Western world can now be plausibly, even respectably, channeled into their work at these NGOs, with their highly selective and tendentious indignation.

Their goal for the United States is clear.

The United States is not to remain a country. The United States is, rather, to be transformed, in the determined if unstated view of so many of the ideologues at NGOs, to be turned into, by slow degrees, into one great big...NGO.

We need to create more non-leftist/dhimmi NGOs.

In the U.S. 30 years ago, virtually all activist groups were left-wing organizations. Now, conservative counterparts exist and are growing (although still outnumbered).

Conservative versions of international NGOs will hopefully follow a similar trend, so that these PC elitist groups don't go unopposed.

Great posting by Hugh on the subject of Nationalism from the viewpoint of, well, Guardian-readers and people like that.

On the subject of illegal immigration they usually state “ there is no such thing as an illegal human being.”

Except, of course, when the Israelis build settlements on the West Bank – which must be denounced as “illegal.”

Strange the way they never notice the complete double-standard.

Odyessus, Why can't the Israelis build on the West bank? Why haven't people like you asked why the muslims don't allow people to build in areas that they were not habitating before all this hoopla about the West Bank and Gaza? Why don't you read the history of the area before assuming it is the Israelis that are in the wrong. They have lived in that area WAAAAAY before muslims/islam was around.

the only reason why those Pals are not in israel is because they listened to Saudi Arabia and left Israel before the Arabs decided to attack Israel -then dumped the pals afterwards and didn't do anything for them except to use them as cannon fodder. Of course, they seem to be happy doing that for the Arabs because they get a kid to blow themselves up and the whole family is not only assured of going to heaven, but they get some bucks from the Saudis, and sometimes others, too.

Oops, I think I misunderstood the whole thread until I read it over. Please excuse me - I will not post so quickly next time.

For the first time in my entire life I will say this:

I agree with Bigfoot %100 :)

Well I do!

It is always ironic that these 'Human rights groups' always critisize democracies because of internal accountability. But these same human rights groups are always silent on islamic and communist countries.

"It is always ironic that these 'Human rights groups' always critisize democracies because of internal accountability. But these same human rights groups are always silent on islamic and communist countries.

Posted by: alaskan1000 "

...that is because human rights groups are generally run and financed by dhimmicrats.. and dhimmicrats never met a dictator they did not like...

Amnesty International has done and is doing a lot of good work. But this example with Kahn attacking Howard is an example of how AI sometimes falls down badly on its responsibilities. Until AI becomes more unapologetically partisan on behalf of human rights and stops mindlessly following pseudo "even-handed" refugee policies regardless of who the refugees are and whether or not they believe in Sharia law, it makes no sense to support AI. This is hardly the first time that AI in the name of balance has mindlessly applied a set of policies across the board, without regard for the specific situations and persons involved, to the detriment of the very human rights they claim to want to uphold.

A question...

As muslim immigrants seem to rape indigenous women, wouldn't it be smart to be overly careful about their immigration so that we could avoid violence to women?

If not, isn't the AI report contradictory?

Also, why isn't Saudi Arabia on the list? Could there be a country with less human rights? Also, where is Nigeria on this list? Pakistan? Bangladesh? Kosovo? Any majority Muslim country?

Demvaril: Ever heard of Google?? In any case, here's the site:

http://www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm

This has their mailing address. Click Continue at the bottom to get to the page which has an e-mailing on it. Glad I could be of service! {:>)

Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard "thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership".

Her name is Khan.. nomen est omen..

I believe Somalia to be a major cesspool of Islam....

Amnesty International's secretary-general Irene Khan is a Muslim from Bangladesh. As is typical among Muslims who by some happenstance find their way into public discourse, the slightest breath of criticism of any aspect of Islam causes a short-circuit in the neural synapses. This leads to helpless, uncontrollable demonization of whoever/whatever "offended" or "attacked" Islam. Nothing personal, it's sort of like Pavlov's conditioning: ring the bell and the dogs slaver. In this case: criticize Islam and watch the accusations begin flying.

Amnesty has morphed into a sleight-of-hand tool of the slow, legaloid Jihad.

Instead of worrying about harmless, liberty-loving Australia, it should be on the ground in Muslims-killing-Muslims-and-Infidels Darfur.

Or trying to clean up the sexually-abusing and brain-washing madrassas in Pakistan.

But, no.

Like all of these puny, cowardly, increasingly-irrelevant groups, they yell at those who they know will listen, not at those who really need to hear. And who really need to reform.

Amnesty needs to "prioritize" it outrage.

Aiming at North Korea, first. Or intolerant, misogynistic, and contemptuous-of-all-other-religions Saudi Arabia.

Australia should be about 140th on their complaint list.

If ever.

The more I read about John Howard, the more I'm impressed by the guy. He has resolve and determination and he puts Australia's needs above all political considerations.

Isn't it telling of both the USA and Britain that such a quality leader wouldn't have a chance of being elected to lead our countries because he is short, stout, bald and bespectacled? We've become so obsessed with presentation that we no longer consider substance.

Aussie voters, apparently, look beyond the spin and the glitzy image when weighing up potential leaders, and in this case have been rewarded by getting a top class PM. In Britain, we voted for the "nicest" candidate, and ended up with a cringeing, blathering, mealy-mouthed fool. A lesson for us all.

I don't think asylum-seekers are THE central threat to our national security. In that regard Howard really still has not 'got' it.

Exactly how many of the perpetrators of the most conspicuous terror attacks in the West (9/11, Madrid, London) were people who had arrived as refugee/ asylum seekers/ illegal immigrants? Weren't some in fact 'students' and so on, with papers at least apparently in order? Weren't some of them (Madrid, London) 'home grown', from parents originally admitted as standard-issue migrants? Weren't many of them well-educated and from well-off backgrounds? Remember that emergency room doctor, a Columbia graduate, who was caught offering his services to Al Qaeda.

My impression is that Howard is motivated not so much by a laudable caution about Islam, as by elements of the old Anglo-Australian xenophobia (we had a 'White Australia' policy until the 1960s; in the 1930s Italians and Jews were viewed as some sort of weird alien species). Among the 'illegal immigrants/asylum seekers' that Howard has recently tried to turn back were...a group of Melanesia Papuan CHRISTIAN refugees from the Muslim Malay jihad/ invasion/ occupation in 'Irian Jaya', aka West Papua. A region where priests have been shot and churches burned down - a region on which the Laskar Jihad has set their sights. The indigenous aboriginal inhabitants are black Melanesian, originally animists, now almost all Christians. The Javanese authorities have poured in 'transmigrants' - nearly all Malay Muslim, who are busily ripping off and dispossessing the natives.

The Indonesian government virtually ordered us to hand over this particular group of CHRISTIAN people (including women and children) ASAP to be punished for rebellion [translation: for resisting Muslim rule]. Howard refused (under, I think, strong pressure from Catholics and Anglicans who know all about the jihad in West Papua). But he made it pretty clear that any future groups of Papuan refugees [CHRISTIANS!] attempting to flee to Australia would not be welcome. The unpleasant truth is that for a long time every Australian government, whether Labor [left-ish] or Liberal [right-ish] has slavishly appeased [Muslim] Indonesia. To our everlasting shame we acquiesced for years in their ruthless invasion and abuse of Catholic Christian East Timor; we barely let out a squeak about the gross abuses of human rights during the Laskar Jihad rampages in the Moluccas, nor did we officially offer refuge or help to ANY of the thousands of Indonesian Christians injured or displaced by that jihad; we have been making agreements with Indonesian governments; we have been TRAINING AND EQUIPPING THEIR MILITARY!!!! How do they repay us? The Bali bombing. And by pinching our fish big-time - out of our northern territorial and IN-SHORE waters - (typical Muslim attitude - border raids, stripping resources to weaken the enemy).

I will write to Mr Howard telling him about Muslim theory and practice re. truces and friendship with Infidels and warning him that any agreement with Indonesia - or Malaysia, too - is just so much toilet paper.

I will also tell him that he needs to fine-tune his approach. I do NOT want the white-supremacy racism that Australia practised in the past. I don't want that back. I will tell him that, speaking as a [non-Aboriginal] Australian, I don't fear social pluralism as such - people with other languages, different skin colours, etc, or other religions – just so long as the religion is not Islam. I have a nonreligious Chinese sister-in-law and a Catholic Filipina sister-in-law; a Chinese uncle and Sino-Australian cousins. I know enough about genetics to know, anyway, that humans are one of the most genetically homogenous species on the planet.

I will tell him it's not about how people get here, nor how well they can or cannot speak English when they arrive and how much they speak afterward. Vietnamese Buddhist - or Catholic! - asylum-seekers, 'boat-people' fleeing Vietamese Communism...have not hatched any terror plots. I don't fear ink-black Dinka-speaking Sudanese Anglican refugees from jihad. Jewish shoah survivors have been fantastic citizens (y'know, in the 1930s a ferociously xenophobic Australia VIRTUALLY CLOSED ITS DOORS to Jewish refugees trying to flee from Hitler – shame on us!). I might add that I think that a monoglot obsessively Anglo society where almost NO-ONE learns to speak anything but English, is DEAD BORING and dangerously intellectually limited - and that I believe Anglo Australia's singleminded drive to destroy the indigenous Australian languages has been absolutely tragic. Aside to jihadwatchers: If I hadn't learnt French I'd never have read Ellul's brilliant book on Israel – since no-one's bothered to translate it into English.

I will tell my Prime Minister that the sole 'red flag', for me, is Islam - because of its teachings, and its ugly history. Because no matter HOW the Muslim gets here, no matter whether they’re ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, or where they come from, or what language they speak or colour they are, even if they are rich and have a PhD, they could be, or become, a jihadist.

All we need to do is limit MUSLIM immigration of whatever kind. NON-Muslim immigration basically doesn't bother me. The last thing I want to see is Howard straining out the gnat (the poor non-English-speaking Melanesian or African or Asian Christian asylum-seeker/ refugee fleeing jihad) while swallowing the camel (the rich, well-educated Anglo-Pakistani legal migrant, with a couple of degrees from Cambridge or Harvard…and with jihad murder and revolution lurking in his heart, who will smilingly and flawlessly answer every question in the Citizenship Test – kitman, kitman, taqiyya, taqiyya).

Hey, Dumble
I agree with most of what you said but have to point out one thing. Nobody is asked to stop speaking their native tongue when they arrive here in Australia. They are simply reqired to speak English as well. How can we be a community when we can't communicate?

dumbledoresarmy

Very good post!

We are going to have to keep JWH in power. heaven help us all if the lefties/unions get in.

The speak-English thing is complex, because there are two kinds of non-English languages in Australia - the Aboriginal languages, and the non-English immigrant languages, e.g. Italian and Arabic.

I support good ESL for speakers of both - but I also support provision of competent interpreters. And I want to see traffic going both ways: I would like to see official (regional) recognition of Aboriginal languages, to help them survive and thrive, and I would like to see more Anglo-Australians learning non-English languages, whether Aboriginal or from overseas.

Not so long ago, non-English immigrants WERE expected - nay, well-nigh required - to stop speaking their native tongues. Meanwhile, most Anglo Australians only spoke English and never even tried to learn another language.

At the same time, native Australians were actively (even, at times, violently) discouraged from speaking their 'inferior', 'primitive' and 'evil' languages. They were supposed to forget their mother tongues and 'assimilate' totally to the invading culture and language. (In the UK English authorities conducted similar campaigns against speakers of Welsh, or of Scots and Irish Gaelic).

The 'how can we be a community if we can't communicate?' argument is a bit disingenuous in a 'community' where monoglot English speakers seem determined to stay that way. In fact, anywhere where a dominant group just won't meet others half-way.

I speak some Italian. Therefore, in the church I attend, I am the only person who can communicate with a dear little old Italian lady who regularly attends mass. I don't curse her for not learning English; I'm delighted to have someone to talk Italian with, and I'm glad to be of use to her.

Do you now see why one of the reasons I dislike Islam is its exaltation of Arabic as the 'holy' and supposedly 'untranslatable' language, its devaluing of non-Arabic languages and pre-islamic cultures within the Empire of Islam? I see in Islam a very extreme and destructive form of a common human pattern - the desire to annihilate difference, driven by the underlying philosophical conviction that peace must be equated with homogeneity, simple abstract unity, Unison rather than Counterpoint.

dumbledoresarmy

Your argument regarding minority languages is unquestionably morally correct but I'm afraid it is also politically correct and very much a product of the 1960s.

The theory is fine, society should accommodate all languages but the great unifying medium of the United States was that they required everyone to speak English. I heard that in California there are now 30 languages catered for on ballot papers. The Irish government has spent a fortune pretending that Gaelic (called Irish in Ireland) is the first language of Ireland and at one time fluency in Irish was an absolute requirement for a government job. All government documents were in Irish and English and the fact that only five per cent of the population spoke Irish was a detail that they chose to ignore.

In Britain the BBC no less, highlighted the enormous costs of providing interpreters for an ever-increasing range of languages. Even Polish immigrants who were getting free treatment for smoking were entitled to and getting, interpreters. Asian children born in England arrive at school at the age of five and not only do they not speak English they have never heard it spoken. I have been in many Asian homes and in all except one the television was tuned to Asian satellite stations. One Asian woman interviewed regretted the fact that she could not speak English as it had denied her an education. Should she have been offered an education in Urdu? India has hundreds of languages but Urdu is generally accepted as a common tongue. I have met Asian people who have lived in England for 30 years and not only do they not speak English they do not speak Urdu. Are we to cater for their language and culture also?

The absurdity of the British attitude is that they spend a fortune translating government publicity material into dozens of languages but it is a complete waste of time because most of the immigrants from the third-world are illiterate! I have been present at council planning meeting about how to encourage our Asian citizens to apply for more grants (handouts). The indigenous English speakers discussed at length a poster and leaflet campaign and the chief Asian liaison officer kept saying over and over again with increasing desperation, “But it's a waste of time nearly all of them are illiterate!” No one wanted to listen.

Even European languages, which serve peoples with common standards, have an enormous scope for errors in translation. You'll be aware of the story of the Tower of Babel when God decided to sow confusion among men by decreeing they should all speak separate languages? The writers of the Bible knew what they were talking about.

No I'm afraid your attitude is rather the old-fashioned one. If English speakers refuse to learn another language, they are insular and arrogant. But if someone comes to an English-speaking country and does not speak the language they are “enriching our culture”.

TeachESL et al, I sent an email to the amnesty site.

http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/engindex

Just a one-liner:
Re the 2007 report: What disgrace.

I'm old enough to remember Amnesty International when it was actually a worthwhile organisation.

In fact it was at the forefront of getting political prisoners freed by using publicity against the offending country. And in 9 cases out of 10 that they worked on, the offending country was a Communist one - that is, it reflected reality pretty well. No political bias.

That's what got the Communists' attention, and they slowly infiltrated the organistion in order to de-fang it. That is how it has been for a few decades now. A Communist front, and now a Communist-Muslim front.

To Fred -

To clarify matters, I really think we ought to decouple the argument about whether Muslims should be let in - or not - to any country (be it Australia or Japan!), from the debate about which and how many language/s are or should be spoken and/or officially recognised in any country.

Islam, judging from its texts and its history, is and always has been a clear and present danger to all its neighbours. Let's try to concentrate our minds on that.

That said, I do wish to make a couple of final points on the (totally separate) language debate: I did not mean that if, say, a non-English-speaker comes to Australia they should NOT learn English. I just also said I thought it was a good idea for English speakers to have a second language, too. Up till recently, it WAS considered normal for educated English people to also speak, say, Latin, or Greek, or French, or Italian (see Jane Austen's novels for examples of this view). Imagine if Robert Spencer had never learnt Arabic? (I understand that he knows the language?). On the social level: even if the person you are speaking with knows your language well, there is often a distinct shift in the relationship, a greater intimacy, if YOU practise reciprocity by switching to THEIR language for part of the conversation.

My basic view on relations between ethno-linguistic groups within a country (e.g. Welsh and English, Aboriginal Australian and non-Aboriginal Australian) is that the Golden Rule should apply [to both sides..]. Do to others as you would they should do unto you. Since an Aboriginal person in Central Australia has to learn English, why should not some of the English-speakers in the same region make a reciprocal effort to learn Arrernte? Of course, this may involve effort - moral and intellectual. So what? Since when was obeying the Golden Rule supposed to be easy and cheap? Sadly, the story of the Welsh Not, or of the deliberate and often ruthless suppression of Australian indigenous languages, is an unedifying tale of people doing to others what they would have hated if done to themselves.

The Babel story recounts how God saw a big centralising human imperial project - and shattered it. The writers of the story very clearly view that shattering as a Good Thing. Empires always try to enthrone one language/ ethnos over all others, in the name of Unity (Arabic, Latin, Greek, English, Spanish, Mandarin); modern nation states tend to do the same (French vs. Breton, Turkey vs. Kurdish, China vs. Tibetan. The Biblical idea of 'unity' is entirely different. It's Pentecost tomorrow. Read Acts 2. It's commonly seen as the reversal of Babel. But: the universal declaration of 'the wondrous works of God' is not done in just one language (whether a miraculous meta-language, or a general declaration in the Latin, the Greek or the Hebrew which most members of that crowd would have had as their 2nd, 3rd or 4th languages). It happens simultaneously in multiple mother-tongues and their dialects. Whatever 'being one' means, in Christian thinking, it is clearly NOT about melting into some sort of pure, simple, monolithic, homogeneous mass. No Caliphates for us, no Ummah. I'm not talking PC here. I'm talking traditional Christian theology, ultimately, and following out its implications.

If European Christians had followed your line of reasoning as expressed above, re. translations, viz. expense, inaccuracy, superfluity, illiteracy, divisiveness, the Bible in Europe would never have been translated out of Latin. That's right. No Wycliffe. No Tyndale. No King James Version. No Luther Bible.

PS My great-great-grandfather in the direct paternal line came from Ireland. My maiden name is Irish. Please do not sneer at what the Irish have tried to do to maintain and preserve Irish as a living language - that only 5 % of people speak Irish today, is at least partly due to certain deliberate policies and actions of the English during their 300-year rule in Ireland. The little I have been able to learn of Irish convinces me that it is well worth saving. It's their business, not yours. Good luck to them!

One last point about 'diversity' and pluralism, as regards Islam vs 'the West'.

For discussion of Islam's annihilation of cultural and linguistic diversity versus Christianity's fostering/ preserving of same as manifested particularly through Bible translation into indigenous languages...see Lamin Sanneh, "Translating the Message" . He has written other interesting books whose titles for the moment I do not have time to check.

Lamin Sanneh is a West African who converted from Islam to Christianity and now teaches theology in a US university. He takes in general a positive view of Western colonial efforts, at least as regards the Christian component of same.

He makes the interesting theological point that Islam regards its sacred text as essentially and finally untranslateable (the Koran MUST ideally be recited in Arabic, the language of the original 'revelation'), which means that the non-Arabic languages are seen as 'impure', inferior. He notes that on the other hand the New Testament is from the very beginning a 'translated' revelation (since the words of Jesus were given in Aramaic but were written down in koine Greek). So translation is inherent in the Christian project.

dumbledoresarmy

Actually I have a great deal of sympathy with what you say about engaging with people who speak a different language. I accept that more English speakers should be multilingulal but there comes a point when you have call halt on logistical grounds alone. British multi-culturalists are ecstatic about the fact that 300 languages are now spoken in London schools. This has happened in 20 years, how on earth do you engage with all those and they with each other?

I bow to your knowledge of the Old Testament but Babel remains a term for incoherence and confusion.

I found your comments about Ireland, the Irish and the Irish language quite amusing. This is because not only am I Irish but my cousin is a well-known Irish scholar and writer. Without wishing to be sarcastic I can add your knowledge of Irish by telling you,

1. Irish is a political tool in the Government's unending efforts to make us as different as possible from England. It’s intention IS to divide people.
2. We were compelled to learn some Irish at school and thoroughly detested it. We asked why we could not learn a useful language like French, as the thought that we needed to speak Irish to be Irish was absurd and insulting.
3. The Irish language as taught now is not classical Gaelic but a modernised version that is easier for English speakers to learn.

As to the classical literature of ancient Ireland most scholars privately agree with the opinion expressed by Sir John Maffey 90 years ago i.e. “The only works in ancient Irish literature worth studying are either blasphemous or obscene”.

If they had only told us about the latter when we were at school we might have studied Irish with more enthusiasm!