RUTHFULLY YOURS

However, the media-driven PR campaign backfired as the news of the opening of the Berlin ‘liberal mosque’ reached Muslim communities in Germany and abroad. The liberal utopian dream quickly turned into an Islamist nightmare.

Why do Muslim organizations in Germany fail to mobilize within their communities and denounce Islamist terrorism? Because, if there really is a belief that “international terrorism should not be depicted as a problem belonging to Muslims alone” this view seems to indicate that, in general, Muslims do not see it as their problem.

The newly unveiled ‘liberal mosque’ in Berlin was supposed to showcase a ‘gentler’ Islam. An Islam that could be reformed and modernized while it emerges as the dominant demographic force in Europe. German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle touted the opening of the mosque as a “world event in the heart of Berlin.”

“Everyone is welcome at Berlin’s Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque,” Deutsche Welle wrote, announcing the grand opening last month. “Women and men shall pray together and preach together at the mosque, while the Koran is to be interpreted ‘historically and critically.'”

German reporters and press photographers, eager to give glowing coverage, thronged to witness the mosque’s opening on July 16 and easily outnumbered the handful of Muslim worshipers. Deutsche Welle reported: “fervent enthusiasm in the media and political realm.”

“For me there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and a feminist at the same time,” Seyran Ates, the mosque’s female imam told the German reporters.

“With Islam against Islamism,” wrote Germany’s leading weekly Der Spiegel. “Society in general will lionize [Imam Ates] as the long-awaited voice of Muslims that speaks clearly against Islamist terror,” prophesied another German weekly, Die Zeit.

The Washington Post, not to be outdone by German newspapers, hailed the mosque’s female founder Ates for “staging a feminist revolution of the Muslim faith.”

In what can only be described as one-way multiculturalism, a Protestant church in Berlin’s Moabit district had vacated its prayer hall to make way for this new mosque.

While Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was reviewing troops in a parade celebrating the country’s independence from Spain, pro-government demonstrators invaded the National Assembly and attacked several lawmakers with wooden sticks.

The attack took place in full view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the National Assembly.

Fox News reports:

Pro-government militias wielding wooden sticks and metal bars stormed congress on Wednesday and began attacking opposition lawmakers during a special session coinciding with Venezuela’s independence day.

Four lawmakers were injured. One of them, Americo de Grazia, had to be taken in a stretcher to an ambulance suffering from convulsions, said a fellow congressman.

“This doesn’t hurt as much as watching how every day how we lose a little bit more of our country,” Armando Arias said from inside an ambulance as he was being treated for head wounds that spilled blood across his clothes.

The attack, in plain view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the legislature, comes amid three months of often-violent confrontations between security forces and protesters who accuse the government of trying to establish a dictatorship by jailing foes, pushing aside the opposition-controlled legislature and rewriting the constitution to avoid fair elections.

Tensions were already high after Vice President Tareck El Aissami made an unannounced morning visit to the neoclassical legislature, accompanied by top government and military officials, for an event celebrating independence day.

Standing next to a display case holding Venezuela’s declaration of independence from Spain, he said global powers are once again trying to subjugate Venezuela.

“We still haven’t finished definitively breaking the chains of the empire,” El Aissami said, adding that President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to rewrite the constitution — a move the opposition sees as a power-grab — offers Venezuela the best chance to be truly independent.

After he left, dozens of government supporters set up a picket outside the building, heckling lawmakers with menacing chants and eventually invading the legislature themselves.

These aren’t your average pro-government supporters. They are paid goons, armed by the government. It’s their job to break up opposition protests.

ISIS released a new video on the Fourth of July using child foreign fighters to behead prisoners and threaten the United States, Europe and Russia while recruiting Muslims in these locations to jihad.

The 14-minute video, “They Left Their Beds Empty,” was issued out of ISIS’ Jazirah province, which includes Tal Afar and other areas west of Mosul that are next on the Iraqi army’s liberation list.

An Iraqi commander estimated today that there are just 300 ISIS fighters left holed up in the old city of west Mosul. Iraqi News reported Tuesday that ISIS killed 200 Turkmen, including women and children, in Tal Afar for trying to flee, and murdered the last local leader of the city.

The new video opens with an image of the Paris cityscape with flames video-edited onto a handful of structures including the Eiffel Tower.

In addition to showing a number of stylized battle scenes from ISIS trying to hold on to their caliphate territory, the video includes footage from a number of past ISIS strikes including the December Berlin Christmas market attack, the May Manchester concert attack, and the November 2015 Paris attacks.

The video also shows a copy of the December Europol report “Changes in Modus Operandi of Islamic State (IS) Revisited.” ISIS highlights the “trends in terrorism” section: “Currently the EU is facing a range of terrorist threats and attacks: from networked groups to lone actors; attacks directed by IS and those inspired by IS; the use of explosives and automatic rifles as well as bladed weapons and vehicles; and carefully prepared attacks alongside those that seem to be carried out spontaneously. EU Member States that participate in the anti-IS coalition are regarded by IS as legitimate targets. France remains high on the target list for IS aggression in the EU, but so too do Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.”

One boy identified by his nom de guerre as a Turk threatens America while loading and firing a rocket. Another young teen identified as a Turkman calls out “hey America” before giving a speech and beheading a kneeling prisoner in front of him. The child walks away from the hill carrying the victim’s head.
(ISIS video)

A younger boy about 10 or 11 years old identified as French kicks a handcuffed prisoner into the dirt along a tree-lined path and tries to pull off the victim’s head when he’s unable to cut all the way through. He, too, eventually walks away with the head.

Another beheader identified as Turkish appears to be about 12 or 13 years old, while the last killer is a Russian boy about the same age who cuts off a man’s head in a building hallway. The ISIS video plays a Russian-language nasheed for the final murder, continuing as the boy walks away holding the severed head under the chin.

At the end, the boys line up with the heads of their victims at their feet, while an adult Turkish ISIS member speaks before shooting a prisoner tied to a tree.
(ISIS video)

The video concludes with a call to jihadists in America, Russia and Europe from ISIS spokesman Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir, suspected to be Texan John Georgelas. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Secular Party is unlikely to be a major player in upcoming elections, representing the monocular obsession of a cranky minority fixated on erasing the influence of religion in public life. Small it may be, but also useful as a reminder of the need to be very careful when making a wish.

Into my hands last week came a press release from the Secular Party of Australia. I hadn’t heard of them before, but that is by the way. The release was prompted by publication of 2016 census data showing a decline in religiosity. Grist for the Secular Party’s mill, indeed it was. For the moment, I want to leave aside the misconceived triumphalism evident in the release. I will come back to it. When I do, the old adage, ‘be careful what you wish for’ underscores my cautionary pointer to the Secular Party.

We are told that the “party intends to build support over the coming years to be ready at the next elections in 2018/19 as a viable alternative to the major parties.” According party president John Perkins, the Secular Party stands for the separation of church from state. He goes on:

Because the Liberal and Labor parties are restricted by their fear of religious voter backlash they are both hamstrung in dealing with straightforward solutions wanted by the majority of ordinary Australians…We can make marriage equality real. We can introduce assisted suicide under conditions which have proved successful in enlightened counties. We can eliminate funding to all religious schools. As champions of human rights, we want women, minorities and the LGBTI community to be free of discrimination and the dictates of archaic superstition.

I am secular. Christ was secular. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I believe in a separation of church from state; that parliament has the sole role in making laws. Yet I doubt I would find a happy home as a conservative Christian in the Secular Party. Clearly, the Party has a progressive social agenda. Its membership, I would guess, is comprised mainly or wholly of atheists, as distinct from secularists. That’s fine, but why not call themselves something like the Socially Progressive Atheist Party? That way no one would be misled.

I looked at four of their policies: on Economics, Immigration, Education, and the Environment. They are a mixture of barely okay to bad. But that is my view. You’d have to read them. I will give you just a flavour.

On economics, they attribute our history of increasing prosperity to the “humanist phenomenon” of technical progress and commercial innovation, which they want to support. That’s fine as far as it goes but they rule out exploitative capitalism, monopoly power or religion as having played any role. In fact, however, economic progress is built on an exploitative pursuit of monopoly profits. Why else would people put their capital at risk?

Moreover, for capitalism to flourish in the first place a supportive culture is required which protects property rights, which rewards merit, which disdains nepotism and cronyism, which engenders trust, and which values individual worth. That is why capitalism flourished in Christian nations and floundered elsewhere.

Culture is almost everything. Humanism? Give me a break. The Party believes that the key to eliminating world poverty is international cooperation and goodwill which would be helped by promoting secular values. Venezuela and Cuba have secular values. The only way bring nations out of poverty is to encourage them to adopt values throughout their societies which, at their core, are Christian values.

It is no surprise that the Party’s agenda more or less mirrors Tim Flannery’s when it comes to the environment. Global warming is recognised as a “dire threat to global civilisation.” So they advocate an international coal export tax and the use of all forms of low-carbon energy. Mind you, they include nuclear to deal themselves partially into the rational world, as against the Greens. How Australia manages to stay competitive in this brave new energy world is not addressed, so far as I can see.