Muslims attack Christians in BRITAIN

No longer just in the Middle East

The wife of a clergyman beaten up in a faith-hate attack outside his church described the community's shock and distress yesterday after taking the Palm Sunday service on her husband's behalf. Canon Michael Ainsworth is expected to be released from hospital early this week after being attacked 12 days ago in East London. The attack has led to fears of an increasing number of religiously aggravated attacks on Christian clergy and concerns that the problem is overlooked by police and prosecutors.

Speaking after giving the service at St George's-in-the-East Church in Shadwell, the Rev Janina Ainsworth, 57, who is also a priest in the Church of England, said that the couple had taken much strength from the support offered from around the country. "There is a lot of shock and distress around the congregation and the area," she said. "We're so grateful for all the messages of support and love from friends and the wider community. Quite clearly, there are mindless individuals in every community under the influence of drink and drugs who will engage in random acts of violence."

Canon Ainsworth, 57, who was wearing his clerical collar, was punched and kicked by two Asian youths while another shouted religious abuse outside St George's on March 5. He suffered cuts, bruises and two black eyes. He was discharged from St Bartholomew's hospital but later readmitted following complications to an injury.

Canon Ainsworth moved to St George's at the end of last year after his wife was appointed as the first female chief education officer for the Church of England. Mrs Ainsworth said: "Normally community relations here are very good. We have had very strong messages of support from the East London Mosque and Tower Hamlets Mosque, with whom we've got good relations. "Clearly, the Muslim community is very shocked. These individuals were under the influence and this was a random act, but it may well be that some good can come out of it. "Michael is making a good recovery and he should be back home early next week. He doesn't want to castigate the whole community, he feels this is an isolated incident. "We do know that in this area there is no concerted campaign against Christians and Christian buildings."

The church has been targeted in the past, with bricks thrown through the windows of the 18th-century building. On Good Friday last year, worshippers were showered with glass during a service. Allan Ramanoop, an Asian member of the parochial church council, said that parishioners were often too scared to challenge the gangs. "I've been physically threatened and verbally abused on the steps of the church," he said. "On one occasion, youths shouted: `This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here'. "I just walked away from it - you are too frightened to challenge them. We have church windows smashed two to three times a month. The youths are antiChristian. It's terrible what they have done to Canon Ainsworth."

It was feared that the incident might inflame tension in the area, which is in the heart of Tower Hamlets where more than half the residents are from ethnic minority groups. A third are of Bangladeshi origin.

In January one of the Church of England's most senior bishops said that Islamic extemists had created "no-go" areas across Britain where it was too dangerous for nonMuslims to enter. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church's only Asian bishop, said that people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.

Worshippers at St George's suggested that youth thuggery, rather than religious bigotry, may be more to blame. Thomas Beckett, 50, said: "I have heard that this church is an island in the middle of a Muslim community. But you don't expect this sort of attack to happen - you don't expect Muslims to be attacked either."Michael Saward, 75, the former vicar, said: "Nothing like this has happened in this area before, although I have been attacked in the past so I can understand what he's going through. "We have had windows smashed here but we don't know by who."

Nick Tolson, a former police officer who set up the National Churchwatch safety scheme, said that there had been an increase in faith hate attacks on clergy. "The harassment is usually coming from young Asian men - often, but not exclusively, Muslim," he said. "The police and prosecutors will classify an attack on a mosque or Muslim as a hate crime but not if it is a church or a vicar. These aren't targeted attacks, they are spontaneous, but [the victims] are being singled out because of their faith and should be dealt with in the same way as other members of the community."

The Crown Prosecution Service reported last month that cases aggravated by religious factors had fallen by 37.2 per cent, with reports of 27 prosecutions in the past year. In the 23 cases where the religion was known, 17 victims were Muslim, three as Christian, two as Jewish and one as Sikh. Scotland Yard said that allegations of faith hate crimes had fallen by a half between 2005-06 and 2006-07 to 417. [Because people are too scared to report them]

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Royal college warns abortions can lead to mental illness

Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health. This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion.

MPs will shortly vote on a proposal to reduce the upper time limit for abortions "for social reasons" from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, a move not backed by the government. A Sunday Times poll today shows 59% of women would support such a reduction, with only 28% backing the status quo. Taken together, just under half (48%) of men and women want a reduction to 20 weeks, while 35% want to retain 24 weeks. Some MPs also want women to have a "cooling off" period in which they would be made aware of the possible consequences of the abortion, including the impact on their mental health, before they could go ahead.

More than 90% of the 200,000 terminations in Britain every year are believed to be carried out because doctors believe that continuing with the pregnancy would cause greater mental strain.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends updating abortion information leaflets to include details of the risks of depression. "Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information," it says. Several studies, including research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2006, concluded that abortion in young women might be associated with risks of mental health problems.

The controversy intensified earlier this year when an inquest in Cornwall heard that a talented artist hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins. Emma Beck, 30, left a note saying: "Living is hell for me. I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does."

The college's revised stance was welcomed by Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP campaigning for a statutory cooling-off period: "For doctors to process a woman's request for an abortion without providing the support, information and help women need at this time of crisis I regard almost as a form of abuse," she said.

Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, will this week appeal to MPs to ignore attempts to reduce the time limit on abortion when new laws on fertility treatment and embryo research come before parliament.

Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: "How can a doctor now justify an abortion [on mental health grounds] if psychiatrists are questioning whether there is any clear evidence that continuing with the pregnancy leads to mental health problems."

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Bleeding heart white liberal racists

This article, by a black writer, was written 10 years ago. It should be recycled often. I assume that the reference to George Bush is to George Bush senior

I will never forget the first time I felt comfortable with my decision to become a Republican. It was just before the 1990 Texas elections. My wife and I were leaving an Austin fund-raising "wake" for Clayton Williams, the Republican nominee for governor of Texas. "Claytie" was a bright businessman with big ears, a wide smile, a quick wit, tremendous wealth ... and not a lick of political sense at all. Claytie started his campaign with a sizable lead over Ann Richards, a former school teacher who represented the left wing of the Texas Democrat Party. By that sad night, his mouth had clearly opened once too many. Somehow, Claytie had managed to spend $8 million of his own dollars to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

As my wife and I walked past camera crews waiting for candidate Williams, a young white couple shouted "what are you minorities doing supporting a Republican? What have these people done for your people?" The arrogance of these white, liberal racists stunned my wife and me. I quickly responded that "I am not a minority. I am an American and I can support whomever I want. You know, I left the Democrat Party because of racists like you who can only see a black face and not an American citizen."

The male said: "You are not an American, you are a minority." I got right up into his face and said, "I am not a minority. That is a word that white liberals created that I reject." He yelled back, "Oh yes you are a minority, there are more of us than there are of you." I told him that "you are so wrong. There is only one of me and only one of you. Anyway, there are many more people of color in this world than whites. I am an American and you can't define me."

At that point, I was ready to send him straight to hell, but my wife grabbed my arm and pulled me away. As we walked away, white Republicans who had witnessed this "discussion" looked back at the camera crew in shock. For the first time, they saw the power and fury of white liberal racism. For the first time, they saw how white liberals try to act like plantation owners. For the first time, they saw why most Americans of color cannot stand bleeding heart white liberals.

Before that confrontation, I had been struggling with the tension between my conservative beliefs and my feeling that Republicanism equaled southern racism. That encounter in 1990 erased any doubt I had about the wisdom of my conversion. From then on, I was committed to the destruction of bleeding heart liberalism, wherever its slimy head appeared.

When I started my career as a legal services attorney in 1972, I thought that liberals really cared about the poor, the oppressed and people of color. Twenty-six years later, I have learned that while some have good intentions, many liberals are closet racists. They claim to be "sensitive, progressive and concerned," while in reality far too many of them truly do not believe that blacks or Latinos are as smart as they are. In fact, their liberal orthodoxy cannot exist in a world where blacks and Latinos no longer "need" their help.

Strong people of color threaten bleeding heart white liberals. This tension has existed since the days of the abolition movement. In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass had to fight his white "brothers" so that he, an ex-slave, could speak out against slavery at abolition meetings. The history of white liberalism is a history of their refusal to respect Americans of color who defied white liberal orthodoxy. We saw it most recently when white feminists refused to acknowledge the significant contributions of black women in the fight for suffrage.

One of the most egregious examples of white, liberal racism occurred in Texas in 1996. White liberals who controlled the Democrat Party of Texas did everything they could to deny Victor Morales sufficient funds to wage an effective campaign against Republican Sen. Phil Gramm.

Many Democrats told me that the leaders of the Democrat Party of Texas decided that they would rather concede a Senate seat to the GOP than to help a Hispanic become the most powerful Democrat in Texas. The reason was simple. In many counties in South Texas where 80-95 percent of the residents are Latinos, white Democrats control the political machinery. The fear was that if Victor Morales won or at least ran a strong race, he would empower Latinos all over South Texas to throw off the yoke of their white liberal Democrat plantation owners. That simply wouldn't do.

Bleeding heart white liberals give lip service to the ideal of intellectual equality. When you scratch them, you find insecure people who need to "know" that blacks and Latinos cannot compete with them on an equal footing. It is not surprising, therefore, that bleeding heart liberals are the loudest supporters of "separate but lower" affirmative action admission standards. They like race-based affirmative action programs because they reinforce their belief that whites are the master race.

Bleeding heart white liberals argue that we must integrate schools so that their children will have access to a "diverse" classroom. What do they mean by this word "diversity?" Do they mean that they want their little children to know what it means to compete with and lose to brighter black and Latino children? Does it mean that they want their children to learn that most people of color are conservative or moderate?

No, for most bleeding heart white liberals, "diversity" means that they want to bus black and Latino children across town like zoo animals so their children can get a head start on "relating" to their future employees. It is not surprising, therefore, that black and Latino parents are at the forefront of efforts to end busing and expand school vouchers. They know that white liberals don't care about the education of their children.

Americans of color are still amazed at Bill and Hillary Clinton's refusal to fight for Lani Guinier, a "close friend" and former Yale Law School classmate. Bill planned to nominate Lani as his assistant attorney general for Civil Rights. However, when conservatives labeled Lani the "quota queen," Bill refused to send forward her nomination. He claimed that he had not realized how "radical" Lani's positions were.

I have known Lani Guinier for decades. She is a thoughtful, decent, brilliant woman. While I do not agree with all of her positions, Lani deserved the right to defend her beliefs before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bill Clinton claimed that he hadn't read Lani's writings and didn't know what Lani thought. That was an outright lie.

Bill, Hillary, Lani and I were all classmates at Yale. Bill and Hillary stayed in touch with Lani after graduation and even attended Lani's wedding. When it was time for Clinton to stand firm with his "colored" friend, however, he left her hanging in the wind.

To this day, black Democrats ask me how Clinton could fight for a crook like Webster Hubble and not stand by Lani Guinier. To this day, black Democrats ask me how Bill Clinton could abandon a black woman who was his friend when George Bush stood tall for Clarence Thomas, a man Bush didn't even know. To this day, black Democrats ask me why Bill Clinton has only white males in his inner circle when George Bush had black men in charge of the military and White House relations with Congress.

I tell them that Clinton's betrayal of Lani Guinier is further evidence that bleeding heart white liberals do not respect people of color. I tell them that bleeding heart white liberals are parasites whose economic survival demands the continuation of oppression, racism and poverty. I tell them that they will never be free until they reject the oppressive yoke of bleeding heart white liberal racists. Unless, of course, they like what they see in Appalachia.

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ARAB IDEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE SYNDROME: A CRIPPLING PLAGUE

By Barry Rubin

One of the things least understood by people in the West is the framework-or should I say straitjacket?-of the dominant ideology in the Arabic-speaking world in shaping thought, speech, and political alternatives. This shows up in the smallest of exchanges. But atoms, too, are very tiny yet make up all the wide variety of things in the world.

Call it AIDS (Arab Ideological Doctrine Syndrome), a disease that doesn't just threaten the Middle East, it's been a plague since the 1950s with few signs of a let-up. Here's a little example that illustrates the big picture. On February 25, Lebanese cabinet minister Marwan Hamada gave an interview to Press TV.[1] It is a commonplace for supporters of Lebanon's government to be accused of being Western agents, an implication often repeated in the Western media referring to it as "pro-U.S."

Claiming this about anyone who doesn't want to go to war with America or Israel, or opposes radical forces, or who doesn't want a radical Arab nationalist or Islamist state is a common weapon used to weaken non-extremist forces. While in the West, the label "moderate" is a compliment (the "moderate" Palestinian Authority; "moderate" states); in the Arab world it is an insult, an imputation of treason.

Angered at being accused of being a Western spy (a claim often made by Hizballah toward its opponents), Hamada replied that if anyone was a spy it was Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah who is "a spy for Iran. I am not a spy for anybody." The interviewer responded sarcastically and Hamada continued: "I defend my country. I defend my independence, I defend my democracy, I defend my integrity, and I will not accept anybody impeding on it--even if he believes he's a saint."

What Hamada is saying is that he is a Lebanese patriot. And he does what a patriot does: fights so that Lebanon is independent of Iranian-Syrian control; so that Hizballah does not impose an Islamist state on Lebanon; so that Lebanon's interests don't suffer by being dragged into an unnecessary, damaging, unwinnable war with Israel.

Anywhere else in the world this would be a winning argument. A man who strives for his country's interests is a patriot; one who, like Nasrallah, is in fact funded by one state seeking to take over his country (Iran) and who champions the interests of a country which did run and looted his country for decades (Syria) is a hero. Nasrallah, after all, is the official representative in Lebanon of Iran's supreme guide; Hamada represents a coalition of Lebanon's majority, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Druze. When tens of thousands of Lebanese demonstrated in favor of Syria's withdrawing its army from Lebanon, Nasrallah led a large demonstration demanding that Syria's soldiers stay in the country.

But this is not how the system works in the Middle East as a whole. Thus, to act as a Lebanese patriot is perceived as being a traitor, to Arabism, Islam, and ultimately to Lebanon itself. Like any Iraqi who rejoices in Saddam Hussein's downfall or any Palestinian really ready to make permanent peace in order to get a state, in the kingdom of the ideologically blinded, the one-eyed man is king. It is the upside-down world of the poet John Milton's Satan who said, "Evil be my good."

Thus, in Hamada's case, the interviewer retorted (or should I say "snorted"): "A spy for Iran does not offer his son to sacrifice and spill his blood on the soil of Lebanon, for the sake of Lebanon. If he was a spy for Iran, he wouldn't go and fight the Israelis since 1982."

Well, wait a minute. Nasrallah has fought since 1982 to take over Lebanon. And even if he fought Israel, that is completely in line with Iran's policies and interests. The interviewer, and most Arab intellectuals, journalists, and the other people who have a public voice, however, don't buy that argument. To fight Israel is to be a saint, to show true love for one's country, to be above criticism. You can lose the war (like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser), wreck your own country (like Iraq's Saddam Hussein), be a dictator (like Syria's Hafiz and Bashar al-Asad), lead your people into catastrophe (like Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat), and be extraordinarily corrupt (like.everybody) but it doesn't matter as long as you fight Israel and the West.

Hamada and others are trying to overcome that knee-jerk reaction. It is an uphill struggle. Hamade concludes: "Who has given [Nasrallah]--except what he supposes is God--this authority to engage Lebanon alone in this battle.? I accuse him of sacrificing his son." And, in order to play the game, Hamada has to give his own call to fight Israel, but just not from Lebanese soil: "Why doesn't he go and fight from the.real occupied Arab territories.Palestine and the Golan Heights?"

Of course, Hamada is right. But that doesn't mean he can win the argument. If the central issue is pride, not material benefit, and if battling the West and Israel are the prime directives, whether this policy leads to defeat, bankruptcy, tyranny, and general disaster is irrelevant. And despite the existence of courageous dissenters from this doctrine, it still rules the Arab world, something every Arab but few in the West understands. This is why peace, moderation, and pragmatism still cannot win there.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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