RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-teachers-fired-and-afraid-as-china-targets-liberal-thinkers-11595175839

Teachers who backed antigovernment protests in the city—by taking to the streets or supporting the demonstrators on social media—are being reprimanded and, in some cases, fired as China’s Communist Party increasingly moves to stamp out dissent.

Many observers say they fear the tradition of liberal education and critical thinking in what has been a major world financial center will be supplanted by Chinese-style pro-government lessons and suppression of political discourse. Pressure has mounted since Beijing imposed a sweeping new national-security law here at the end of June following a year of protests.

The law gives China’s government much greater powers to police the city and punish those accused of subversion and supporting separatism. Police officers have moved swiftly to quash dissent and implement the law.

A powerful new security agency for the city rapidly set up a headquarters, and Beijing installed an official with experience battling protests and media as the law’s chief enforcer. Public libraries have removed books by pro-democracy figures.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/turkish-supreme-court-sultan-mehmet-bought-hagia-robert-spencer/

No one should be concerned about the conversion of Hagia Sophia, the foremost cathedral in the Christian world for nearly a thousand years, into a mosque – at least according to Shahid Qureshi, writing Monday in a Muslim publication known as the London Post. Why not? Because Mehmet the Conqueror, the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople and destroyed the Byzantine Empire on May 29, 1453, bought the place fair and square. So who could object? Once a mosque, always a mosque, and after all, the Christians sold it to him!

Qureshi claims that Mehmet “purchased the property of Hagia Sophia from his personal wealth before converting it into a Masjid (Mosque). The details of the transaction are still stored in the Turkish Museum,” and he even helpfully includes a photo of the bill of sale in his article. “This is the main reason,” Qureshi explains, “why the court ordered Aya Sofya to be re converted into a Masjid.”

Christians, you see, have no right to complain that Hagia Sophia will no longer be a museum, a monument of the human spirit open to all people, but will instead become a house of worship for Muslims only. If the Christians are going to be upset over this, they have only the Christians who sold the cathedral to Mehmet to blame. “The credit,” Qureshi asserts, “really goes to the forward thinking Sultan Mehmet, the conqueror of Constantinople for purchasing the church and then creating a waqf (endowment). Had it not been for his wisdom, Kemal Ataturk’s decision [to convert the mosque into a museum in 1935] would not have been able to be legally overturned.”

The claim that Mehmet bought Hagia Sophia fair and square has been making the rounds this week among Muslims in social media, and has spread so far and wide that I’ve received quite a few emails asking me whether it is true, as apparently both Muslims and non-Muslims are shutting down criticism of the conversion of the building by invoking this supposed real estate deal. But whether or not the sales document that has been circulating and is reproduced in the London Post is authentic, this entire claim is a transparent attempt to whitewash an act of cultural appropriation and annihilation on a massive scale.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/black-lives-matter-scores-ma

Can you spot the difference in the image above?

I suspect you can.

I also suspect you will be able to guess the story behind these two “statues” before I even begin with the detail. But do not despair: this is a story with a sting in its tail. It is a story of a massive own goal by Black Lives Matter.

The fine gentleman on the left is Edward Colston. Born in 1636 to family of shipping merchants, he followed his father into the shipping business and went on to become one of the most celebrated philanthropists of his time, changing the lives of the very poorest in his home city of Bristol and elsewhere. He endowed schools, funded hospitals, gave money for almshouses and paid for churches to be built.

The “lady” on the right is a Black Lives Matter protestor with big hair and a cheap dress. Her name is Jen Reid. When the statue of Colston was defaced and torn down by the Black Lives Matter mob, she climbed atop the empty plinth and made a fist to the sky because she thought she was Beyonce…or something.

Obviously she is now supposed to be some kind of heroine for the movement. I am not sure why — maybe it’s because she says the “f” word a lot? She describes herself as a “Black Lives Matter activist,” which, if Meghan Markle is anything to go by, means she is unemployed and squatting in someone else’s home.

Ms. Reid says she “did it for George Floyd,” which seems to be the stock answer for any kind of violent act by Black Lives Matter, from smashing storefronts to burning flags to looting cheap underwear from Target. I am sure George Floyd is thrilled with these meaningful tributes* (*British sarcasm).

When the Black Lives Matter mob tore down the Edward Colston bronze on Sunday June 7 and rolled it into the river they celebrated their thuggery as if they had really achieved something. They had claimed a scalp (albeit in bronze) of a man who was actively involved in the slave trade and the shipping of human flesh.