Displaying posts published in

August 2017

EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Lesson from Cambridge University: ‘All White People Are Racist’ By Paul Austin Murphy

By on August 2nd, 2017

A black student at Cambridge University has just said that “all white people are racist”. (This was in response to Saturday’s riots in Dalston, east London.) His name is Jason Osamede Okundaye. He’s also the President of the Black and Minority Ethnic society at the University.

Okundaye wrote:

The other fantastically ironic thing is that he also claimed that “middle-class white people” have “colonised” Dalston. In full:

Of course, if white people had claimed that Dalston was formerly colonised by black people, they’d have been classed as racist by anti-racists. Though since blacks can’t be racist (they don’t “have the power”), then this statement can’t be racist either. Nothing a black person says or does can be racist. This is according to the standards of the many and various anti-racist theorists and academics who exist today; some of whom will teach at Okundaye’s Cambridge University.

Predictably, once the news spread outside of the Students’ Union and the University itself, a spokesperson from the University said: “The College is looking into this matter and will respond appropriately.”

However, if blacks can be racist, then what can Cambridge University do about this? Jason Osamede Okundaye has done nothing wrong. That is, according to many theorists and academics at Cambridge University, he’s done nothing wrong. He’s black and therefore he can’t be a racist. He’s only a victim. Not a suspect or even a free agent. He’s a black man. A man infantilised by anti-racist theory and anti-racist activists.

According to Trinity College [Cambridge] Students’ Union website:

“BME, Black and Minority Ethnic, is a term used in the UK to describe people of non-white descent.”

Thus, the Black and Minority Ethnic society seems to think that all people who aren’t white have something in common. That’s from middle-class African blacks (like Jason Osamede Okundaye?) to deprived Indians who’ve been given a scholarship. So this institution is racist for the simple reason that it places an absolute emphasis on race and colour. What better definition of racism can there be? After all, racism can be both positive and negative. Presumably, the BME sees itself as practicing and promoting positive racism; though it won’t use the word “racism” about itself.

For example, at Cambridge University there are academic courses which teach that “all white people are racist”. They won’t, of course, use the same inflammatory “discourse” which Jason Osamede Okundaye uses. Nonetheless, he’s the logical/political conclusion of such theoretical and academic anti-white racism.

There have also been a series of seminars on Critical Race Theory in July this year at Cambridge University. The University also featured “research” under the headline: ‘Racism in the US runs far deeper than Trump’s white supremacist fanbase’. (It was written by Nicholas Guyatt, a Cambridge University lecturer.) More relevantly, the University of Cambridge published a piece which states that it’s wrong to single out or “demonize” the “white working class for racism”; when, as a matter of fact, all white people are racist. (This, I presume, is class prejudice.)

So I wonder if Jason Osamede Okundaye will win one of the “award categories” which Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU) has just announced as part of its “anti-racism campaign.” After all, what better way is there of being anti-racist than being racist against all whites?

Jason Osamede Okundaye is digging his own grave anyway; even if he is a student at Cambridge University. If “all white people are racist”, then that must be some kind of racial fact. A fact about white DNA, perhaps. And if that’s the case, there’s nothing white people can do about it. Therefore, condemning white racism is pointless. It’s racial. It’s genetic. It’s a given. So why the political and moral outrage? Changing white racism would be like changing the colour of one’s skin or how many fingers one has.

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The State Department’s Report on Terrorism Should Be Discredited by A. Z. Mohamed

By on August 2nd, 2017

At the top of the list of supposed “continued drivers of violence” in the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an assertion even more fabricated: “a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood…”

It is not “lack of hope” that drives Palestinian violence. On the contrary, it is precisely the propping up of hope — that intimidation and terrorism work and deliver concessions, such as UNESCO’s fraudulent rulings that try to strip the Jews of their history, or Israel’s recent removal of metal detectors and cameras from the Temple Mount — that keeps the Palestinians on the offensive.

The report’s allegations are perceptibly false. The PA has absolute control over the content of school books, print and broadcast media pieces, and sermons in mosques, all of which are rife with blatant anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism and terrorists. This means that the incitement to spill Jewish blood is approved by the PA leadership, when not directly planted by it.

A newly-released report on terrorism by the US State Department so completely distorts the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority — the areas it refers to as “the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem” — that one can assume the rest of its findings are equally inaccurate.

To set the stage for its unfounded and biased claim that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been engaged in a serious effort to combat terrorism, the report equates “extremist” Palestinians, who “continued to conduct acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” with “[e]xtremist Israelis, including settlers, [who] continued to conduct acts of violence as well as ‘price tag’ attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed anti-settlement) in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

At the top of the list of supposed “continued drivers of violence” in the Palestinian Authority is an assertion even more fabricated:

“a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.”

It is not “lack of hope” that drives Palestinian violence. On the contrary, it is precisely the propping up of hope — that intimidation and terrorism work and deliver concessions, such as UNESCO’s fraudulent rulings that try to strip the Jews of their history, or Israel’s recent removal of metal detectors and cameras from the Temple Mount — that keeps the Palestinians on the offensive.

The metal detectors and cameras had been put there by the Israelis to provide security for the Muslims who worship there, as well as to prevent weapons being brought in with which to attack Jews, or so that the al-Aqsa mosque can be destroyed and the blame then falsely placed on Israel.

To arrive at this conclusion, which essentially holds Israel accountable for Palestinian violence, the report falsely describes Mahmoud Abbas as a leader who has been committed to counter-terrorism efforts and works tirelessly to thwart the “lone-wolf” stabbing attacks that were rampant from the end of 2015 and throughout 2016.

The report states:

“The PA has taken significant steps during President Abbas’ tenure (2005 to date) to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank under its control do not create or disseminate content that incites violence. While some PA leaders have made provocative and inflammatory comments, the PA has made progress in reducing official rhetoric that could be considered incitement to violence. Explicit calls for violence against Israelis, direct exhortations against Jews, and categorical denials by the PA of the possibility of peace with Israel are rare and the leadership does not generally tolerate it.”

This is perceptibly false. The Palestinian Authority has absolute control over the content of school books, print and broadcast media pieces, and sermons in mosques, all of which are rife with blatant anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism and terrorists. This means that the bombardment of incitement to spill Jewish blood is approved by the PA leadership, when not directly planted by it.

The only terrorism that Abbas actively tries to prevent is that committed by members of Hamas against the Fatah faction, which he heads. It is solely this security cooperation with Israel that Abbas seeks, participates in and boasts about before the international community — although he repeatedly threatens to put a stop to it, as he did recently over the placement of metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Erdogan’s New Morality Police by Burak Bekdil

By on August 2nd, 2017

In 2016, the Alperen group threatened violence against an annual gay pride march in Istanbul. In December 2016, a group of Alperen youths celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Turkey by holding a man dressed as Santa Claus at gunpoint.

Eren Keskin, a human rights lawyer and activist, said that none of the Alperen members has been prosecuted for preventing prayers at the synagogue or for acts of violence in front of it.

Muslims may worship at the al-Aqsa mosque, but there should be safety precautions to protect both them and the mosque. It was the Muslims, not the Jews, who were telling Muslims not to enter the Temple Mount.

Their number is just 17,000 in a population of 80 million (0.02%). They are full Turkish citizens. Most come from families living for centuries in what today is modern Turkey. They pay their taxes to the Turkish government. Their sons are conscripts in the Turkish army. Their mother tongue is Turkish. When someone asks them where they are from they say they are Turkish — because they are Turkish. Nevertheless, the Turks think of them as “Israelis” — not because they are not Turkish, but because they are Turkish Jews.

The members of Alperen Hearths — a bizarre name for a youth group — are also Turkish. They speak the same language as Turkish Jews and they carry the same passport that proudly sports the Crescent and Star. The members of this group, however, think that they are Turks but that Turkish Jews are not.

The Alperen group fuses pan-Turkic racism with Islamism, neo-Ottomanism, anti-Western and anti-Semitic ideas. It promotes an alliance spanning Central Asia to the Middle East based on “common historic [read: Turkish] values”.

In April, the Alperen group announced that it would support highly controversial constitutional amendments granting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan new sweeping powers narrowly accepted, with 51.4% of the national vote, in a referendum. They are, in a way, Erdogan’s willing army of young Ottoman soldiers.

In 2016, the Alperen threatened violence against an annual gay pride march in Istanbul. Alperen’s Istanbul chief, Kursat Mican, said:

“Degenerates will not be allowed to carry out their fantasies on this land…We’re not responsible for what will happen after this point … We do not want people to walk around half-naked with alcohol bottles in their hands in this sacred city watered by the blood of our ancestors.”

The Istanbul governor’s office later banned the march.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe’s Cities Absorb Sharia Law by Giulio Meotti

By on August 2nd, 2017

London Mayor Sadiq Khan banned advertisements that promote “unrealistic expectations of women’s body image and health”. Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as “beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions”. Tagesspiegel’s Harald Martenstein said the policy “could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto”.

The irony is that this wave of morality and “virtue” is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation. It is now a “feminist” talking point to advocate sharia policy.

To paraphrase the American writer Daniel Greenfield, the irony of women celebrating their own suppression is both heartbreaking and stupefying.

Within days after the Islamic State conquered the city of Sirte in Libya two years ago, enormous billboards appeared in the Islamist stronghold warning women they must wear baggy robes that cover their entire bodies, and no perfume. These “sharia stipulations for hijab” included wearing dense material and a robe that does not “resemble the attire of unbelievers”.

Two years later, Europe’s three most important cities — London, Paris and Berlin — are adopting the same sharia trend.

Paris has said au revoir to “sexist” ads on public billboards. The Paris city council announced its ban after the Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the move meant that Paris was “leading the way” in the fight against sexism. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also banned advertisements that promote “unrealistic expectations of women’s body image and health”. Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as “beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions”. Der Tagesspiegel’s Harald Martenstein said the policy “could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto”.

The irony is that this wave of morality and “virtue” is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation.

There is a reason for this grotesque campaign banning these images. These cities host significant Muslim populations; and politicians — the same who frantically are enacting mandatory multiculturalism — want to please “Islam”. It is now a “feminist” talking point to advocate sharia policy, as does Linda Sarsour. The result is that, today, few feminists dare to criticize Islam.

It is happening everywhere. Dutch municipalities are “advising” their employees to not wear mini-skirts. There are women-only hours at Swedish swimming pools. German schools are sending letters to parents asking children to avoid wearing “revealing clothes”.

The first to suggest calling for a ban on posters or advertisements that “reduce women or men to sexual objects” was German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a Social Democrat.

“To demand the veiling of women or taming of men,” said Free Democratic Party leader Christian Lindner, “is something known among radical Islamic religious leaders, but not from the German minister of justice.”

In 1969, Germany was overwhelmed by a debate on introducing into schools the “Sexualkundeatlas”, an “atlas” of sexual science. Now the effort is to desexualize German society. The newspaper Die Welt commented:

“Thanks to Justice Minister Heiko Maas we finally know why on New Year’s Eve, at Cologne Central Station, about a thousand women were victims of sexual violence: because of sexist advertising. Too many eroticized models, too much naked skin on our billboards, too many erotic mouths, too many miniskirts in fashion magazines, too many wiggling rear-ends and chubby breasts in television spots. It is another step in the direction of a ‘submission'”.

Instead of nipples and buttocks, Die Welt concludes, “should we urge the use of burqa or veil, as Mrs. Erdogan does?”

Continue reading →