Monthly Archives: May 2013

Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/31/2013

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Tonight’s news feed is truncated, due to my being out for a number of hours. Anything that I didn’t get to will be included in the feed tomorrow night.

Check out the story about the deteriorating situation in Egypt. There is so much violence and lawlessness that the U.S. Embassy has warned American tourists that it is unwise to visit the Pyramids.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DS, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, Steen, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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“They are Good at Breeding and Abusing our System”

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As we reported yesterday, the Swedish political party Moderaterna (The Moderates) are cracking down hard on anyone, most recently Olle Engström, who deviates in the slightest from the pro-Multicultural party line.

Moderaterna are considered a “conservative” wavelength within the cramped spectrum of Swedish politics, but from an outsider’s point of view there is little difference between them and the leftists.

Their political hypocrisy was exposed not too long ago when a representatives from Moderaterna was caught saying doubleplus ungood things about immigrants when a hidden camera was running. In the clip below, the person being interviewed is Christer Ewe (Moderaterna), a local politician in Kristianstad. Mr. Ewe died in 2010, but the footage is from 2002. I have no information on whether or not this video ended his career.

Many thanks to The Observer for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

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As American as Apple Pie the Muslim Brotherhood

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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s (or Mursi’s) children were born in the United States, and are therefore American citizens. Now an Egyptian lawyer has filed suit to have their dual citizenship revoked. As he says, “The Muslim Brotherhood is publicly known to be against America, Zionism and Israel. Is it possible for the president’s children to be American citizens? America the main supporter of Zionism!”

Will the kids have to give up their coveted U.S. passports? It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

According to Al Arabiya:

U.S. Citizenship for Mursi’s Children ‘Threatens Security, ‘ Lawyer Says

An Egyptian court Thursday decided to postpone a case seeking to strip President Mohammed Mursi’s son and daughter of their U.S. citizenship.

The lawyer who filed the suit claims their dual nationality “threatens Egypt’s national security.”

As a result, the lawyer, Mohamed Salem, is calling for their U.S. citizenship to be revoked.

He told Al Arabiya that it is “illegal” for Mursi’s children to have a U.S. passport while simultaneously keeping their Egyptian nationality.

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The West Has an Irrevocable Duty to Help the Christians of the World

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Enza Ferreri takes a look at the worldwide issue of the persecution of Christians, which barely merits a whisper in the mainstream media or by Western governments.

The West Has an Irrevocable Duty to Help the Christians of the World

by Enza Ferreri

Raymond Ibrahim’s fundamental new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians Amazon USA), (Amazon UK), has been widely reported, covered and praised and does not require an introduction, but it prompts a reflection.

The problem of discrimination against Christians and their persecution by Muslims is in fact two problems. Like unpunished crimes’ victims who suffer twice, for the crime and for the injustice of the criminal’s going scot-free, while the atrocities committed against Christians are unbearable enough on their own, the total indifference of the rest of the world adds to the pain.

Floods, earthquakes, natural calamities and man-induced ones like the recent collapse of a factory in Bangladesh attract lots of media coverage and offers of foreign aid, but this does not happen with what Raymond Ibrahim has rightly called “arguably the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” and Andrew McCarthy “the great unspoken civil rights issue [and] scandal of our day”.

How much Western governments care about the plight of the Christians living in Muslim-majority countries can be seen by how indifferent they were to the systematic discrimination of which Pakistani Christians, during that country’s 2010 devastating floods, were victims in the distribution of aid — essential to survival — ironically donated by those very same historically Christian Western countries.

The Vatican, to its credit, was one of the few to highlight that injustice. I have never heard of a Western government — or any other government, for that matter — giving aid to Pakistan on that occasion only on condition that a fair and equal distribution was guaranteed.

In Islam “charity” has a different meaning from the Christian one, being a duty extended only to other Muslims. This semantic difference reflects that pseudo-religion’s division of humanity into the Muslim Ummah and the infidels, groups with very unequal status, whereas Christianity proclaims the equality of all human beings:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/30/2013

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A billionaire heiress in Australia has called for poor people to be sterilized. Given their genetic predisposition to a lower IQ, she says the only way to alleviate poverty is to prevent poor people from reproducing.

In other news, the European Commission is hauling Britain before the European Court of Justice because the UK provides inefficient unemployment and welfare benefits for EU immigrants.

Meanwhile, a Saudi writer of self-help books urges men to molest female sales clerks as a means of inducing them to give up working and stay at home.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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What We Do And Why We Do It

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As mentioned here previously, I recently agreed to be interviewed as a part of a British university research project on European populism. After I requested that the researcher define the term “far-right”, he decided to remove it from the question. The removal of the term left no undefined “loaded” words or phrases in the questions, so I began writing my responses.

That was the same day the riots began in Stockholm. A few days later Fusilier Lee Rigby was beheaded on the street in Woolwich. Those two incidents — which obviously bear on the academic research being done into the rise of “Islamophobia” — caused me to postpone further work on the answers until the crisis abated.

I finally finished my replies today, and have sent them off to the researcher. Writing them was a time-consuming task, but an interesting one, given the context: a research project at a major university funded by Multicultural Progressive money and almost certainly intended to arrive at a predetermined Progressive Multicultural conclusion.

There is no way to “win” this encounter with the academic establishment, no matter what I might write. The political-academic game is rigged, and has been for a number of decades. The conclusions in the final report might as well have been written before the questionnaires were sent out. In broad outline, we all know what the report’s authors will say about the dangers of violent “far-right” “xenophobic” “bigoted” “extremists”. We have good reason to expect that this paper will help justify the continuing crackdown on “Islamophobia” and become yet another nail in coffin of our civil liberties.

So why bother answering the questions at all? As I explained in an earlier post, my goal is to force transparency on the process. Policy-makers will eventually see the results of this research, but here at Gates of Vienna they may find a record of how it was done. Here they will see the questions and answers that helped generate the conclusions reached in the research.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

My goals in answering these questions were twofold: (1) to respond clearly and truthfully, and (2) to avoid the traps that had been set for me.

The questions were divided into three sections, and Section B — “Politics, Society and Youth” — was the most interesting, because that was where many of the traps were laid. The most obvious pitfall was the question which had originally included the phrase “far-right”, and concerned our “promoting a counter-jihadist narrative that in turn promotes violence”. It is one of those questions that leave you one down, no matter how you answer it.

Aside from leaving a blank response, what was to be done? Read my answer to see the strategy I took.

Other potential traps included a question about which political groups I “feel most distant from” and which I “feel closest to”. To take that bait without swallowing the hook demands tact and finesse.

The reader is invited to read the rest of the questions and spot some of the other traps. They are all a reminder — as if we needed any — that we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

The entire questionnaire is below, with my answers in full.

Section A — Political and social biography

Q:   How did you come to be involved with the Gates of Vienna (GoV) site?
 
A:   My wife was devastated by the death of her daughter in the spring of 2003. The following year I suggested that we take up blogging together, as a possible way to help her pull out of her depression, despondency, and general angst. She had always had an interest in and talent for writing, and I thought it would be a way for her to utilize her skills while focusing on something new. I knew that engaging her intellect would likely help her emerge from the slough of despond.

We had both followed the political aftermath of 9-11, and had noted the fecklessness that characterized much of the American government’s response. We agreed that if we were to start blogging, the resurgence of Islam would be our topic.

I suggested that she take on the pseudonym Dymphna, who was the patron saint of lunatics. That idea caught her fancy, and sealed the deal. I finally set up the blog in October 2004.

Until I was laid off in 2006, Gates of Vienna was more her operation than mine. However, she has chronic fibromyalgia, and as her condition worsened, I took on more and more of the responsibilities. Eventually it became a full-time occupation.
 
Q:   Have you always been interested in the issues discussed on GoV? Was there any specific event, organisation or meeting that made you want to get involved?
 
A:   I have been interested in the resurgence of Islam since I first read Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul back in 1981. I realized then that a collision between Islam and the West was inevitable, and I estimated that it would become critical in thirty to forty years’ time, resulting in some sort of major conflict.

In the years that followed, I would occasionally recall Mr. Naipaul’s prescient writings whenever radical Islam popped up in the news, such as the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan by the CIA in the late 1980s, or the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or the Khobar Towers bombing in 1995, or the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. But it was the attacks on September 11th, 2001 that reactivated my intense interest, which eventually turned into the full-time job I have now.
 
Q:   What is your role within the site and with respect to other contributors? Do you actively commission work? Do you edit the work that comes in? Do some contributors have seniority or is it more collaborative?
 
A:   As I mentioned in my answer to the first question, my wife’s condition has forced her to withdraw from many of her former activities on the blog, so that all roles are now pretty much filled by me. I read the email, collate the tips for the news feed, respond to complaints and suggestions, and put up most of the posts.

We have a number of guest essayists whose work is crucial to our blog — Fjordman, Takuan Seiyo, Paul Weston, El Ingles, Seneca III, and a number of others. It’s my job to coordinate with them, edit their work, and publish it on the blog.

On rare occasions I will ask one of these writers to contribute a topical essay on an important issue currently in the news. Mostly, however, I just publish what they choose to send me.

I do commission translations, however. Presenting translated material that is not available elsewhere in English is part of our core mission. To that end I have acquired a list of volunteer translators who are willing to work on relatively short notice. We can generally handle French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Hungarian without much problem. We can also arrange for Russian and a number of the less commonly needed languages, but getting the translation may take more time.

Dymphna still handles much of the correspondence and arranges for some of the guest essays. She also writes occasional posts, concentrating mostly on American topics.

Yes, some contributors have “seniority”, in the sense that their work has appeared on Gates of Vienna over a longer period of time, and is much appreciated by our readers. But material is expedited or postponed depending on its relevance to current issues, or lack thereof, and not based on its author.

And yes, I edit everything that appears at Gates of Vienna unless it is part of a block quote. No one’s prose escapes my gimlet eye. Fortunately, our contributors mostly approve of any changes I make to their texts. We have no serious disagreements.
 
Q:   Have you ever participated in other political organisations such as political parties, movements or protest groups? How do they compare to GoV?
 
A:   No. We’ve been to a couple of Tea Party events, and I’ve attended several ACT! For America conferences, but Dymphna and I are not members of any organization except the Episcopal Church.
 
Q:   Do your friends and family know about your work on GoV? If so how do they feel about it?
 
A:   Yes, my immediate family knows about what I do. Mostly they are indifferent, and the more conservative-leaning among them are supportive.

The same is true for most of my friends. I generally avoid discussing the Counterjihad with my Progressive friends, although some of them are aware of my activities.

Section B — Politics, Society and Youth Continue reading →

Out of Whack

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Moderaterna (The Moderates) represent what passes for “conservative” in Swedish politics, and are the party of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. The party leadership recently came down like a ton of bricks on a party member named Olle Engström, who dared to raise the issue of mass immigration in public using less than glowing terms.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer translated an article published today at Rights.no about the “The Engström Case”:

Out of whack
by Hege Storhaug

Things turned out exactly as expected: The politician Olle Engström, who represents Moderaterna (The Moderates), was removed from all political duties in the party in Borås after he wrote a frank op-ed in the local newspaper about the consequences of immigration to the motherland. There is hardly any country in Europe that is worse off than Sweden. The enormous problems caused by immigration are simply not to be discussed. What exactly do the people think of the “decision” made by the elites?

It took less than 24 hours from the time Olle Engström’s op-ed was published until the local branch of Moderaterna in Borås got together and decided that Engström had to be removed from all official political duties.

I’m not surprised, on the contrary. If he had been allowed to continue, the logical consequence would have been that his thoughts on the “uncontrolled immigration” had to be treated as factual and debated, and that is something that the Swedish political, journalistic and academic elites can’t afford. If they did that all their illusions would be exposed and shattered.

I did a quick search in the comments section of Engström’s op-ed, and what did I find? The most popular comment is this one:

The official immigration policy has been a complete failure. Our reward for having taken in 100,000s of peoples are arson, car fires, housing shortages and a general erosion of the Swedish welfare system, soon not even worthy of the name. The day that the Swedish people receive an objective picture of the costs involved, and what it has cost us up until now on both a national and local level, then maybe they will start to reconsider.

There will be a shock-like hike in local taxes in the future due to a rapid increase in welfare payouts. A 65-year-old elderly immigrant receives SEK 13,737 net per month without having to pay a dime in taxes, according to official figures. One is left wondering what our Senior Citizen Organizations are doing about it and what they are willing to accept.

One should be grateful towards our Swedish youths who are behaving in a collective manner. They should of course be frustrated in so many different ways. There are no longer any available housing or free driver’s licenses for them etc. It has almost reached a boiling point for many of us taxpayers. HOW IS THIS GOING TO END? ?

There are 445,000 unemployed people in this country, but we still receive approximately 1,000 migrants a week. Yes of course we are going to help war refugees as long as they are in need of our protection. I fail to see how this multicultural equation is going to be solved. Many Swedish youths are in a worse economic situation than the immigrant youths.

The second most popular comment is in the same category:

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Islamic Sex Slavery in the UK

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RT (Russia Today) is an arm of the Russian government, so we must assume that it serves the interests of the Russian state. With that caveat, however, it should be noted that RT produces some of the most interesting and comprehensive news coverage that can be found on the web.

Its news reports are not occluded by the thick blanket of politically correct smog that shrouds virtually every Western media outlet. The following report dares to address the British “grooming and pimping” scandal in terms of religion and — gasp! — race. And, surprisingly enough, a couple of British journalists are willing to discuss the issue in the same terms.

With the possible exception of CBN, you won’t see a report like this in the Western media:

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes.

Police mount operation to protect Anjem Choudary. None for Tommy Robinson

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And Tommy Robinson gets exactly what state protection?

The Sun:

Choudary with killer Michael Adebolajo in 2007

Links … Choudary with killer Michael Adebolajo in 2007

BBC

ExclusiveBy GARY O’SHEA and MIKE SULLIVAN
Published: 8 hrs ago

POLICE yesterday rushed to the home of hate preacher Anjem Choudary — to protect him and his family.

Officers helped them flee their home and go into hiding amid fears they could be attacked by a mob seeking vengeance for the murder of soldier Lee Rigby.

Choudary’s wife and children were driven away under police escort to a secret address, while officers were left to guard the house.

There was no sign of Choudary himself, and a neighbour said he had been seen slipping out early yesterday morning.

cops at Choudary home
Protection … cops at Choudary home yesterday
Click to continue:

Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/29/2013

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The Swedish furniture giant Ikea has caused controversy in Ireland with a new (humorous) commercial that shows homeowners abusing and destroying garden gnomes. The Advertising Standards Authority does not get the joke, and says that the commercial is inappropriate for children, who may be encouraged by it to engage in violence and antisocial behavior.

In other news, a French university has released a report stating that non-Muslim employees are being coerced by their Muslim coworkers into adopting Islamic practices.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to BD, C. Cantoni, DS, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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R.I.P. Jack Vance

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Jack Vance, the creator of the real Baron Bodissey*, has died in California at the age of 96.

There is no greater pleasure than reading than a Jack Vance novel. When my current eye trouble developed several months ago, I put aside all other pleasure reading and concentrated on re-reading all his novels and stories, just in case there would come a time when I could no longer read.

Mr. Vance published his first story in 1945, his last novel in 2008, and his autobiography in 2009, so his professional fiction-writing career spanned sixty-four years. I have been reading his work for about fifty years.

He lived much longer than I expected, but still, I mourn his passing.

Here’s an obituary from The Verge:

Prolific science fiction and fantasy author Jack Vance dies at 96

Jack Vance, an award-winning writer of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, died this week at age 96. Hard science fiction magazine Locus reports that Vance died on May 26th in Oakland, California, where he lived for many years. His official fan site has confirmed the news, and fans of his work are invited to post a memorial message online. Vance is the author of dozens of books and many short stories, published under both his own name and multiple pseudonyms over six decades. He’s best known for the Dying Earth series, a four-book cycle set in the far future, and his work has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. In 1997, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America awarded him Grand Master status, and he was inducted into the Fantasy and Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2001.

Generally, Vance kept a low public profile, but in 2009, he published This Is Me, Jack Vance!, an autobiography that also won the Hugo Award for its year. Before establishing himself as a full-time writer in the 1970s, he spent a series of stints as a Merchant Marine, electrician, and gold dredge worker among other occupations. He enjoyed an over 60-year marriage to his wife Norma, who died in 2009; their son, John, became an engineer.

Vance’s prolific writing never elevated him to the level of fame enjoyed by contemporaries like Ray Bradbury or Frank Herbert. But many in the science fiction community considered him a master of his chosen genres, and often criminally underrated. “The engineer in him is always on view,” said author Michael Chabon in a 2009 New York Times retrospective. “They’re always adventure stories, too, but they’re also problem-solving puzzles. He sets up these what-ifs, like a syllogism. He has that logic-love like Poe, the Yankee engineering spirit, married to erudite love of pomp and pageantry. And he has an amazing ear and writes a beautiful sentence.”

A more detailed obit from Locus:

Jack Vance (1916-2013)

SF Grand Master Jack Vance, 96, died May 26, 2013 in Oakland CA. Vance was one of the most influential SF authors of the postwar period, and his visionary imagination and sophisticated, often playful use of language inspired countless SF writers, including Avram Davidson, Harlan Ellison, Matthew Hughes, George R.R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, and Gene Wolfe. His landmark Dying Earth sequence, set in the far future, began with collection The Dying Earth (1950) and continued with novel The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Cugel’s Saga (1983), Rhialto the Marvelous (1984), and several related stories. Vance redefined the nature of planetary romance with his Big Planet (1952), and continued exploring that universe in sequel Showboat World (1975).

John Holbrook Vance was born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco CA. He worked as a bellhop, in a cannery, and on a gold dredge before attending the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied engineering, physics, and journalism, though he never graduated. A lifelong musician and music lover, Vance’s first published works were jazz reviews for The Daily Californian.

Vance worked as an electrician at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leaving the area a month before the December 1941 attack that brought the US into WWII. His poor eyesight made it impossible for him to serve in the military, but he memorized an eye chart and joined the Merchant Marine. He wrote his first published story, “The World-Thinker” (1945), while at sea. Before becoming a full-time writer in the 1970s, he worked as a seaman, surveyor, and carpenter, among other occupations. He married Norma Genevieve Ingold in 1946; she died in 2008. Vance traveled the world extensively, living and writing in Tahiti, South Africa, Italy, and Kashmir, among other locales.

He published short fiction prolifically in the pulps in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, contributing regularly to Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Notable short works include “Telek” (1952), “The Moon Moth” (1961), and Hugo- and Nebula-award winning novella “The Last Castle” (1966).

Most of Vance’s novels take place in series. In addition to the Dying Earth, major works include the Demon Princes sequence, the Planet of Adventure series, the Durdane trilogy, the Alastor Cluster sequence, the Lyonesse fantasy series, the Cadwal Chronicles, and the Ports of Call series. He also published numerous standalone SF/F novels and mysteries. His autobiography, This Is Me, Jack Vance! (2009), won a Hugo for Best Related Book.

Vance won the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 1984; the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1997; and he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2001.

See the July issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

As Dymphna tweeted, “Flags at Schloss Bodissey will be flying at half-staff for a fortnight.”

*   Unspiek Baron Bodissey was not an actual character in Jack Vance’s books, but an imaginary galactic litterateur and savant whose epigrams and socio-political observations were quoted in footnotes, or discussed by characters, in various novels. The Demon Princes series holds perhaps the greatest repository of Bodisseiana, but the Baron reappeared in later works, and made cameo appearances in the last two novels, Ports of Call and Lurulu.
 

Tommy Robinson on BBC Three Counties Radio

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EDL leader Tommy Robinson was interviewed today by what can hardly be can be considered a friendly organization, and handled himself commendably. He overcame the interviewer’s attempt to force the conversation into the preferred, predictable politically correct “narrative”, and was able to make his points before a radio audience that rarely hears such facts and opinions:

Hat tip: Steen.

Sharia Comes to Canberra

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Woroni, a student newspaper at Australian National University in Canberra, was compelled to yank a cartoon satirizing Islam from its latest edition. The paper had presented a series of cartoons mocking various religions, but only the one poking fun at the Religion of Peace had to be censored.

The logic for singling out the Islamotoon deserves special scrutiny. But first, let’s have a look at the monstrous, racist, deeply offensive cartoon that caused all the brouhaha. It was removed from the paper and taken down from the web, but as usual, someone managed to take a photo of the image in the print edition and distribute it as samizdat around the Internet:

As near as I can determine, this is the text in the picture:

Women are required to:

  • Before the law, equal the testimony of one man.
  • Before the Lord, perform one man’s religious duties and obligations.
  • While menstruating, be present in a place of business or worship. [x 0]
  • Run the affairs of one household. [x ∞]
  • Satisfy the prophet Muhhammed’s [sic] conjugal requirements.
  • Satisfy a man’s rape fantasies in Paradise.

[Footnote] * The Prophet’s third wife Aisha was 9 when the marriage was consummated (a 53 year old man f***ed a 9 year old girl).

The following clip shows a news report on the incident from Australian TV:

Below are excerpts from the ABC story on the Woroni’s Islamotoon:

Australian National University vice-chancellor Ian Young says a cartoon published in a student newspaper satirising Islam overstepped the mark.

The student newspaper Woroni originally published the cartoon as part of its ‘Advice from Religion’ infographic.

It was part of a series previously featuring Mormonism, Catholicism, Scientology, and Judaism.

The university has forced the editors to retract the piece online and issue a formal apology.

Professor Young says he acted after the university received formal complaints from international students.

“They felt it was both offensive and discriminatory,” he said.

“That was the view of the university as well. We felt that it actually breached the rules of the university in terms of student conduct and indeed we believed it breached the rules of at least the Australian Press Council principles to which Woroni abides.”

Professor Young says he was also concerned the satire could have provoked a violent response.

“There have been a number of cases internationally of satirical cartoons about the Koran which can have some very unfortunate side effects,” he said.

Editors from the Woroni say they feel the university had ulterior motives for banning the cartoon.

Editor Gus McCubbing says the cartoon was part of a series poking fun at different religions.

“We’ve been called homophobic, we’ve been called sexist, chauvinist,” he said.

“I guess every edition given we’re a student publication we choose a line between satire and bad taste.

“The problem I had here was never before had the Chancelry taken such an active role in disciplining us and saying what we can and can’t publish.”

In an article on the Woroni website, the editors stress the cartoon was intended to be satirical and raise concerns about how the incident will impact on freedom of speech

Professor Young says he is not concerned by the comments, and denies the censorship is an attack on freedom of speech.

He says the paper has published satirical pieces on other major religions without censure.

But he says those pieces did not attract formal complaints.

“They published a cartoon which was part of a satirical set of cartoons about religion but this one we felt overstepped the mark,” he said. [emphasis added]

So the logic seems to be this: if a cartoon attracts a formal complaint, it will be censored. Since only Muslims file formal complaints when they are offended on behalf of their prophet, only cartoons that satirize Islam will be censored.

The coup de grâce was administered by an organization ostensibly charged with guarding the civil liberties of all Australians:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/28/2013

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Help for Heroes, the British veterans’ aid charity with which the late Lee Rigby was associated, says that it will no longer accept any donations from the English Defence League. From now on all new donations will be vetted, and any coming from EDL members will be returned.

In other news, an Italian engineer hanged himself, leaving behind a wife and a five-year-old daughter. In a suicide note he asked former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to look after his family.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Nick, Steen, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Continue reading →