Increased Islamic Influence in European Nations

[jerseydevil]

People amy be interest in this.

France Blocks Hezbollah TV From Airwaves
Monday, December 13, 2004

PARIS — France's highest administrative body on Monday ordered the TV station of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group off French airwaves within 48 hours for broadcasting hateful content in some shows and posing risks to public order.

The decision came after a Nov. 23 Al-Manar program quoted someone described as an expert on Zionist affairs warning of "Zionist attempts" to transmit dangerous diseases like AIDS to Arab countries. Another program the same day glorified attacks against Israel, the administrative body said.

The Council of State ordered Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat (search) to stop broadcasting Al-Manar within two days or pay a fine of $6,600 a day.

The station broadcast some programs that were "openly contrary" to a French law banning incitement to hate, a situation that poses "risks to maintaining public order," the council said in its 11-page ruling.

However, the council left open the possibility that Al-Manar could keep operating if the company that airs the station, the Lebanese Communication Group, shows itself ready to modify its programs to conform with French law.

In Beirut, Al-Manar TV condemned the French ban as "a dangerous precedent" against the Arab media and blamed Israeli pressure for it.

The decision risks a tit-for-tat move against France. Last Friday, Lebanese media officials warned that any decision to suspend or cancel Al-Manar could force Lebanese officials to take action against French stations.

On Thursday, Lebanese Information Minister Elie Ferzli said his country "would not remain silent" if French measures are taken against Al-Manar, which is operated by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

France's High Audiovisual Council, or CSA, has said that Al-Manar violated a Nov. 19 agreement as well as the French law banning media from inciting hatred or violence for reasons of religion or nationality.

Under the agreement, the Lebanese Communication Group committed itself to diffusing programs that reconcile its editorial line with the principles governing French and European law, the Council of State said.

"This commitment was not respected," the council ruled.

The controversy erupted a year ago after an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations complained about the programming. It came to a boil in recent months as more programs deemed offensive were aired.

[inked]

Originally Posted by Sween

Islamic influence is becomming a a problem in England acctually i should re phrase that christanity and Islam comming together is a problem. Or im not even sure it is in fact christanity it is more western culture and the way we have developed. Where we are quite open to womens rights and some things are just not an issue for us.

Originally Posted by Sween

Well that my idea for what would help care to disscuss?

Here's another of those nasty, unreliable TIMES articles about the state of affairs. (IIRC Sun-star's explanation from earlier in the thread ).


Christopher Morgan
The Sunday Times

12/12/2004

THE second most senior churchman in England has declared that Britain can no longer be considered a Christian country.

In an admission that his church no longer reaches large sections of the population, David Hope, the Archbishop of York, said: “I’d be a bit hard pushed to say we were a Christian country.”

The unusually candid remarks were made during a pre-recorded interview for BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost programme to be shown this morning.

Asked by Sir David Frost whether he believed Britain was Christian, he replied: “I think I really want to question that. Large numbers of people describe themselves as believing in God. Large numbers still would say that they are Christian. How they then express that Christianity has changed enormously.”

Hope, who will leave office in February to work as a parish priest in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, blamed “secularist tendencies” for the country’s abandonment of Christianity. “Commitment to the Christian church is less than it was,” he admitted.

Hope said he acknowledged that some Christians find the doctrine of the virgin birth difficult, but argued that belief in the resurrection was essential for faithful followers of the Christian religion.

Hope also waded into the debate over David Blunkett, the home secretary. He said Blunkett’s affair raised serious questions about the public’s trust in politicians and said there was a link between private conduct and public office.

“I don’t think it’s quite so easy to have clear blue water between what you might call the private and the public,” he said, adding: “The one impinges upon the other.” He continued: “Integrity seems to me quite crucial here. One senses people are beginning to feel ‘how can you trust?’, ‘what about integrity?’ I think those are big moral questions for us.”

Hope was the only senior cleric in Britain to support the war in Iraq but said that he regretted it now. He also expressed disappointment about the misleading information given to the public before the invasion.

He said he had become disillusioned because of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. He had based his theological justification for the war on the now discredited claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons within 45 minutes.

Frost asked Hope why, if Britain is not a Christian country, is Tony Blair choosing his successor as archbishop. Hope replied that the prime minister’s role was confined to choosing only between two names submitted by the Crown Nominations Commission, in which the church played the leading role.

Meanwhile, a summit of the world’s Anglican bishops in South Africa has become the first big casualty of the church’s schism over homosexuality. The Lambeth Conference — a 10-yearly congress of bishops that has been meeting regularly since the 19th century — was to have been held outside Britain for the first time.

However, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, took the advice of a church steering committee last week and cancelled the Cape Town event. A slimmed-down conference is planned at Canterbury in 2008.

It is understood that there was concern about holding the conference in Africa, where the opposition to the ordination of a gay bishop in America has been the strongest. Altogether 22 churches of the Anglican communion have broken with the American church.

The cost of holding the conference in Cape Town had spiralled to £7m, which has also influenced the decision to switch the venue.

The African churches are unhappy that the meeting would have been forced to rely heavily on financial support from the Americans, who support gay bishops.

It is proposed that costs may be reduced at Canterbury by limiting the event to only diocesan bishops. Senior church figures are still concerned that the conference in Britain may degenerate into a public slanging match if the row over gay bishops is not resolved.

# A nativity scene at the Madame Tussaud’s waxworks in London that features David Beckham and his wife Victoria as Joseph and Mary has been condemned by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, as “disrespectful” and “tasteless”. He said that the display damaged the culture of Britain and that Muslims and Jews would also find it offensive because they knew the importance of religious symbols.

END
=============

Sween, I think you are right to say it is cultural, but I would qualify that to say the secular, antireligious culture myself from observing the EU's actions and the rejoicing of militant anti-religionists on this thread. So culture pervaded by secularism, areligious by inclination is producing these problems more than anything. And there is the danger; Islam is acting more zealously in GB and the EU by sheer numbers, with state support, and missionary efforts (all that unrelated to extremists, about whom can say what?).

[inked]

and this just in:

Re: Die Welt 14. Dec 2004
Schools in Italy give up Mangers with Baby Jesus

Rome. IN Italy a dispute about Christmas Carols and mangers in schools has erupted. In view of the high proportion of Muslims in some schools in Northern Italy, several schools have this year decided not to set up mangers with the Jesus Child. This is to show respect for not-Christian students, is how a Principal in Vicenza justified the decision. At a primary school in Treviso, the Biblical Story will be replaced by the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood according to the Milan newspaper "Corriere della Sera". At a primary school on Lake Como also visited by Muslim children, the students will have with the popular song "Buon Natale in Allegria", (Merry Christmas) with the word "Gesu" (Jesus) replaced by "Virtù" (virtue) according to the Italian newspaper. A politician from the right-wing Allianza Nationale party demanded teachers meanwhile not to steal "the manager from pupils". In contrast the President of a Muslim organization demanded: "State schools must celebrate the festivals of all religions or at all none."

At the same time, a judgment of the Constitutional Court over the legitimacy of the crucifix in classrooms is expected in Rome. In the last year, there was national outrage after a court in Abruzzen banned the display of the Christian Cross in a school. A Muslim father had complained that the sight of the Crucifix was offensive to his son.

In the conflict about Christian Christmas rites and - symbols like the manger or Christmas carols Pope John Paul II has become involved. The manger is an element of our culture". It is a "sign of the belief in God" at the same time without intervening directly in the current dispute in the mainly Catholic Italy. dpa


Articles appeared in Die Welt, 14. December 2004
====================

Jihad may be waged without swords! Secularists set the tone and abdicate so the aggressive culture may replace the infirm! No wonder the extremists like to point to the decadence of Western Civilization! From their perspective, absence of conviction is what tolerance means, and it is an opportunity to exploit. Christians acquiese from fairness and justice or are forced to abdicate by Caesar (who, true to form, will set itself up as the god to be obeyed afore all else).

[inked]

Just for Britain!

Re: The Daily Telegraph, London 14. Dec 2004 - Dar-al-Harb
We need protection from the pedlars of religious hatred
By Iqbal Sacranie
(Filed: 14/12/2004)

In his column last Saturday, Charles Moore began with an almost unbelievably provocative question. "Was the prophet Mohammed a paedophile?" he asked.

The charge of paedophilia refers to Mohammed's marriage with Aisha. Yet a paedophile is one who is primarily aroused by children. For most of his married life, the Prophet (peace be upon him) had one wife, who was a widow with children of her own. After her death, he married others, most of whom were former widows themselves. Why would the Prophet have waited three years after his betrothal to Aisha – his only virgin bride – if not because he was waiting for her to attain puberty?

So the charge of paedophilia is nonsense; and, to be fair, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph acknowledged as much in his next paragraph. "People are perfectly entitled - rude and mistaken though they may be - to say that Mohammed was a paedophile," he wrote. Even so, the conjunction of the Prophet's name and this particular crime will have shocked Muslim readers.

As it happens, poetry in the Muslim world - and, in particular, that of the Urdu poet Allama Iqbal – abounds in complaints and reproaches made to God Almighty. Few poets, however, would dare to cast aspersions upon the name and memory of the blessed Prophet Mohammed. Witness the Persian couplet: Ba khuda deewana basho, Ba Muhammad hoshyar (Take liberty with God if you wish, but be careful with Mohammed).

European writers, though, have a history of taking liberties with the Prophet. As Minou Reeves, a former Iranian diplomat, observes in her book Mohammed in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making: "Over the course of no fewer than 13 centuries, a stubbornly biased and consistently negative outlook had persisted, permeating deep levels of European consciousness. In the works of an overwhelming majority of European writers, Mohammed was portrayed as a man of deep moral faults. Churchmen, historians, orientalists, biographers, philosophers, dramatists, poets and politicians alike had sought to attribute to Islam, and especially to Mohammed, fanatical and disreputable, even demonic characteristics."

It is no easy task to convey to a secular audience the immense love and esteem in which Muslims hold the Prophet. To us, he was the restorer of the worship of the One True God; teacher of an elegant and pristine monotheism; the friend of the orphans and the poor; a wise statesman, brave warrior, loving father, considerate husband; he was also the final of God's Prophets sent to mankind to remind us of the awesome Day of Judgment, when all will be called to account for the deeds we have committed during our lifetimes.

Anyway, back to Mr Moore. We seem to be revisiting the arguments that came to the fore during the Satanic Verses affair. Is freedom of expression without bounds? Muslims are not alone in saying "No" and calling for safeguards against vilification of dearly cherished beliefs. Earlier this year, the BBC accepted complaints from Catholics and withdrew its cartoon series Popetown. Why does society not show the same courtesy and sensitivity towards Muslims?

As you may have gathered, Mr Moore disapproves of the Government's proposal to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, seeing it as an "attempt to advance the legal privilege that Muslims claim for Islam". Quite what "privilege" Islam currently enjoys in Britain over and above other faiths, he does not say.

Yet the proposed legislation does not create a new offence as such. Such an offence already exists in relation to the Jewish and Sikh communities, by dint of their being regarded as mono-ethnic communities. It also exists in relation to all faith and belief communities in Northern Ireland. The Home Office proposal simply extends the current provisions to all faith communities in mainland Britain. If the present provisions in relation to Jews, Sikhs and Northern Ireland raise no concerns - and there is no real campaign to remove these provisions - why should they raise concerns if extended to other religions in Britain?

So, the incitement to religious hatred proposal is not a matter of advancing privileges for British Muslims. It's about establishing equality under the law.

The current loophole in our legislation has resulted in far Right groups such as the BNP modifying their racist rhetoric of yesteryear - no doubt out of fear of prosecution - into a more explicitly and aggressively anti-Muslim invective, this time without fear of breaking the law.

Stirring up hatred against people simply because of their religious beliefs or lack of them ought to be regarded as a social evil. The BNP's ongoing Islamophobia can and has led to criminal acts, abuse, discrimination, fear and disorder. At the moment, there are laws against those who are stirred into committing these offences, but not against those that do the stirring. In opposing the incitement to religious hatred provision, Charles Moore, Rowan Atkinson and the National Secular Society are unwittingly strengthening the hand of those, such as the BNP, who peddle religious hatred.

Quite a few red herrings have been floated this past week about free speech and the dangers of censorship. To be sure, proscribing legitimate free speech is not in the interest of any religion. The death of discussion, debate and robust criticism about a religion is the surest way of routing that religion itself. However, we can make a critical distinction between the substance and form of free speech. The law need not infringe on the substance but can assist to moderate the form, so that all people in this country, whatever their religion, may live in dignity, free from hatred and hostility.

As Martin Luther King observed: "The law might not change the hearts, but it can restrain the heartless." Modern Britain, like the rest of Europe, is now home to millions of Muslims. Some may have sought political refuge in our more democratic societies, some migrating for economic reasons.

Whatever their motives, they are now a part of the social fabric that constitutes these societies. Muslims in Britain do not seek to create an enclave or a parallel culture. They want to be respected as British. That is what they are. And the government that sees and treats them as such, by criminalising offences directed specifically at them, is a government that understands its obligations.

# Iqbal Sacranie is secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain

+++++++++++

YOU all old enough to remember Salmon Rushdie and the notorious book that got him labelled for death and forced him into hiding for years?

[sun-star]

Originally Posted by inked's third article

Earlier this year, the BBC accepted complaints from Catholics and withdrew its cartoon series Popetown. Why does society not show the same courtesy and sensitivity towards Muslims?

Oh, I find this so annoying. That one withdrawal of a programme is the only thing the BBC or any mainstream media outlet has done, within my memory, to avoid upsetting Christians. It doesn't prove we get any special protection. Christians receive no 'courtesy and sensitivity' from 'society' at large - witness that bloody Madame Tussaud's thing On this one, all religious groups are in the same boat:

Originally Posted by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor

Muslims and Jews would also find it offensive because they knew the importance of religious symbols.

[inked]

sun-star,It is my observation that special delight is taken in the EU to offending Christians in obseiance to a militant secularism. My expectation is that all religious groups should be so treated given the militant secularism on the rise in Europe. Why should non-Christians be given special laxity in this regard? If Christians can take it, so should they!

I think we agree on this, don't we?

[Draken]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

The decision risks a tit-for-tat move against France. Last Friday, Lebanese media officials warned that any decision to suspend or cancel Al-Manar could force Lebanese officials to take action against French stations.

Damn, and I was hoping to catch Manon des Sources dubbed into Arabic too.

[inked]

Does this mean that we won't have to watch more beheadings broadcast as "news"?

[sun-star]

Originally Posted by inked

sun-star,It is my observation that special delight is taken in the EU to offending Christians in obseiance to a militant secularism. My expectation is that all religious groups should be so treated given the militant secularism on the rise in Europe. Why should non-Christians be given special laxity in this regard? If Christians can take it, so should they!

I think we agree on this, don't we?

Pretty much. I'd prefer it if everyone could be treated with at least some respect and consideration, but since that seems to be impossible I'll go along with your suggestion.

[Draken]

Originally Posted by inked

It is no easy task to convey to a secular audience the immense love and esteem in which Muslims hold the Prophet.

Indeed. One wishes he would take the hint and stop trying. We ain't interested.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Draken

Indeed. One wishes he would take the hint and stop trying. We ain't interested.

Who is doing that? (Couldn't find any obvious reference in a recent post... )

[Draken]

Well, Iqbal Sacranie, in this case.

[Nurvingiel]

Oh thanks Draken.

[inked]

of interest to those in GB, perhaps:

Polly Toynbee (Liberal in US sense) writes in Guardian:

Presumably to test the proposed law to destruction, Charles Moore last week wrote a deliberately provocative article opening with the words: "Was the prophet Mohammed a paedophile?" (He married a nine-year-old.) He says the new bill might prevent some raising this question, "rude and mistaken" though it might be. It had, of course, exactly the desired effect. The bill's Muslim supporters plunged straight into his crude elephant trap.

The Muslim Association of Britain called for Moore's sacking and said the paper should have known better in the light of the Salman Rushdie affair - distinctly threatening. The Islamic Human Rights Commission called for a boycott of the Telegraph - a more reasonable riposte. Iqbal Sacranie of the mainstream Muslim Council of Britain said that linking the Prophet's name with this crime "will have shocked Muslim readers" who are "calling for safeguards against vilification of dearly cherished beliefs". And there it is. He expects the new law to protect "cherished beliefs", while David Blunkett in the Commons assured his critics it would do no such thing. Dead prophets and holy books would be as open to criticism and ridicule as ever. The law will protect the believers, not their beliefs.

That difference appears to escape most Muslims. Ministers keep reassuring critics that "only four or five people a year" are likely to be prosecuted in rare cases. If so, then the Muslims who lobbied hard for this law are destined for deep disappointment - and much anger.

A similar law in Australia ended up driving the courts to despair as mad evangelical Christians and extreme Muslims sued and counter-sued, endlessly reporting one another's hate-speech. The director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Amir Butler, had supported a religious hatred law until, he told the Melbourne Age: "At every Islamic lecture I have attended since litigation began there have been small groups of evangelical Christians with notepads and pens jotting down any comment that might later be used as evidence in future cases."

This will be a bad law, inflaming, not calming, religious passions. Prosecutors will not have to prove a breach of the peace occurred, nor that one was likely, nor even that one was intended. The law does not define what religion is: it never has, leaving the wretched charity commission to decide that, for instance, Odin worship is religion and tree-hugging paganism is not. The Bible and Qur'an are full of incitement to hatred of other faiths. I have experienced how any criticism attracts an outraged charge of "Islamophobia" as a synonym for racism - which it is not. Now the Pope is demanding that the UN general council next week include Christianophobia in its monitoring. No more Posh and Becks as the holy couple in Madame Tussauds, then. Already self-censorship on religion is rife.

The bill's promoters claim racists incite hatred by using "Muslim" as a proxy for race. Sikhs and Jews are protected as racial groups, but Muslims may be any colour or race. However, existing laws already protect against incitement to violence. Timely proof came yesterday when Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, was arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred, after his anti-Muslim tirades were captured on secret BBC cameras: the courts are able to prosecute already.


Telegraph 15.12.04

The film, Secret Agent, which was broadcast in July, showed Mr Griffin addressing a crowd in Keighley, Yorkshire, in which he railed against the Koran and Islam.

"This wicked, vicious faith has expanded through a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago until it is now sweeping country after country," he said.

"[If you get a copy of the Koran] you will find verse after verse after verse which says that you can take any woman you want as long as they are not Muslim women; any woman that your right arm can own - that is the sword arm, the fighting arm, the arm you hit a white lad with a baseball bat. Any woman they can take by force or by guile is theirs.".

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by inked

"[If you get a copy of the Koran] you will find verse after verse after verse which says that you can take any woman you want as long as they are not Muslim women; any woman that your right arm can own - that is the sword arm, the fighting arm, the arm you hit a white lad with a baseball bat. Any woman they can take by force or by guile is theirs.".

I always took the "any woman your right arm can own" as meaning, "any woman your right arm can support. Any woman you can provide for and look after, rather then any woman you can capture . I'd like to see the passages he's referring to when he says those things.

[jerseydevil]

I'm glad you accept the fact that I am tolerant. Sorry - but this thread is about the Isamic influence in EUROPEAN NATIONS - and frankly - I don't consider Europe to be very tolerant. America never gave the world a Hitler, Mousilini or Stalin. Also - under all the lessons of WWII - Europe is still rife with ethnic problems. In France almost every other week there is some cemetary being descecrated - most often a Jewish one. Europe has long been able to think of itself as being tolerant - because it didn't have the immigration that America had. Now that for the past two decades of immigration in Europe - they are finding out what it truly means to accept other cultures. We don't only celebrate "American" holidays here - we celebrate holidays brought over by the millions of immigrants also - the most recent to be celebrated widely by Americans is Cinco de Mayo. 28 MILLION Americans are immigrants to this country. That's more than 50% of the population of France, that's almost 10 times the population of Ireland and one and a half times the population of Australia. I think we do pretty damn well for accepting so many people into our country.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Down below you say you would change muslim attitudes toward stoning and so forth. YOu obviously don't care to understand the "why" in those regards? So I guess you pick and choose then based on how strongly you feel about things. As for all of Germany being evil - of course not - but you have to admit - former friends turned each other in. There isn't much of a difference in the blind hatred and group think the Germans had - as to what is going on in the Middle East today. Do you deny that in Muslim schools that they teach hatred and death to the Jews and infidels?

i do care to understand the "why"... much of the rise of nazism in germany was due to the extreme economic punishment put upon germany post-ww1... desperate people go for desperate measures... when your children are dying it isn't quite as hard as it use to be to kill another human being to keep them alive... or to be convinced that certain actions may keep them alive

some muslims do teach hatred... the question is "why"... might it be in part that the very autocratic rulers they despise were put in place by the west post-ww2 and are still supported economically to this very day?

Well their society finds it acceptable. So I guess we have it - you think that our way is better than there way - because you want to "change them" and "teach them". What happens if they don't want to?

no one responds well to forced change... i.e. war... it tends to make matters worse... a much better method is change by example... show a better way (which costs money) and people will follow... in the end, humans are humans, and they would much rather survive than die for ideals... the problem is most see their ideals as their only road to survival

[inked]

Posted by dvirtue on 2004/12/21 5:41:00 (518 reads)
We are committing cultural suicide

Anthony Browne
TIMES ONLINE

LONDON (12/21/2004)--Christianity is being insidiously erased from the map. It’s time we fought back

COMPARE AND contrast 1:
(a) Sikhs storm a theatre in Britain showing a play depicting rape inside a Sikh temple;

(b) The Red Cross bans Nativity scenes in its shops;

Compare and contrast 2:

(a) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Saudi Arabia;
(b) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Britain’s Jobcentres.

The extremes that other religions go to preserve their cultural heritage is only matched in Christianity by its extreme death-wish.

Christmas has always stirred passion, attracting opponents and supporters. But until recently banning it has been so culturally offensive that fictional Christophobes entered the English language for their infamy. Ebenezer Scrooge declared “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly in his heart”. Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas declared that the Grinch’s motivation was “that his heart was two sizes too small”.

But real-life Scrooges and Grinches have banned Christmas before, not because their hearts were too small, but because their bigotry was too great. And now it is happening again.

In 1647 Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas: no parties, no fun, no days off work. Cromwell’s Puritanism was offended by bacchanalian revelry, led by the Lord of Misrule. Each year, town criers went through the land ordering that “Christmas and all other superstitious festivals” should not be celebrated.

The English were outraged. Secret festivities were held, pro-Christmas riots broke out and dozens of Christmas martyrs were jailed. A pamphlet called An Hue and Cry after Christmas was published, demanding that: “Any man or woman, that can give any knowledge, or tell any tidings of an old, old, very old grey bearded gentleman, called Christmas . . . let him bring him back again into England.”

In the past century, the godless Communists banned Christmas. In Cuba, Fidel Castro allowed people to take Christmas Day off work only after an intervention by the Pope.

Now the Christophobes are on the rampage again. The heirs of the Puritans and Communists have declared war on Christmas. But this time it is by stealth and guilt-tripping. The first step is to eviscerate the festival of any meaning by taking the Christ out of Christmas. Even as a lifelong atheist who finds all God stuff embarrassing, I appreciate Christmas’s religious message. But you are as likely to find a reference to Christ in civic Christmas decorations as you are to find a sixpence in a Christmas pudding. Almost no companies and few individuals send cards with any religious message. For the third consecutive year Christmas postage stamps will be Christless. A quarter of schools will not have Nativity plays, and almost as many have banned carols.

Once Christmas has been supplanted by a spiritually vacuous post-Christian orgy of consumption, the next phase of the war is to ban it altogether. Simply turn it, as Birmingham famously did, into a generic “Winterval” to make it equally meaningless to everyone. Tony Blair’s Christmas cards have no reference to, well, Christmas. The Eden Centre in Cornwall has banned Christmas, replacing it with “a time of gifts”.

The war on Christmas is being waged across Christendom. In Italy, a school replaced the Nativity play with Little Red Riding Hood, while another replaced the word “Jesus” in carols with “virtue”. The Mayor of Sydney caused outrage by reducing the city’s Christmas decorations to a single secular illuminated tree with the sign “Season’s greetings”. The US now has a national “holiday tree” and schools take “ winter holidays”. Christianity has gone back to its origins, and become the world’s most widely persecuted religion, finally prompting the Vatican to hit back with a campaign against “Christianophobia”.

So who are the modern-day Scrooges, Grinches, Cromwells and Castros, and what motivates them? In most cases, the Chistophobes use the excuse of multiculturalism, insisting that celebrating Christmas is offensive to non-Christian minorities, often citing Muslims. But the truth is that it is done in the name of Muslims, rather than at the request of Muslims, who accept the existence of Christ. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists don’t mind Christmas celebrations any more than Christians object to Diwali, Eid or Chanukkah. As Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said: “It’s not offensive to minority communities to celebrate the festival of Christmas.”

No, the real Christophobes are the self-loathing, guilt-ridden politically-correct liberal elite, driven by anti-Christian bigotry and a ruthless determination to destroy their own heritage and replace it with “the other”. It is the American Civil Liberties Union that is threatening lawsuits against any schools that allow the singing of carols and the BBC’s editorial policy bans criticism of the Koran, but not the Bible.

In reality, the Christophobes are acting against the interests of ethnic minorities. By stripping Britain of its culture and traditions, they are causing a dangerous rising tide of anger. It prevents social cohesion and integration — who could want to integrate into a culture that is committing suicide?

So do your bit for community relations. Don’t let Scrooge and the Grinch win. Like the English under Cromwell, protest if you spot any Christophobes waging war on Christmas, sing a Christmas carol, and wish your neighbours “Merry Christmas!”

END

[The Gaffer]

It's not the lack of nativity plays at Christmas that's undermining Christianity in the UK, it's the fact that hardly anyone goes to church.

The fact is that, behaviourally, the UK is a largely secular culture.

Personally, I think the Church itself should shoulder much of the blame, as it's failed to make itself relevant to people.

But a far greater threat to our cultural cohesion is the fact that no-one talks to their neighbours any more.

[inked]

Gaff,

Ever had the pleasure of reading Dorothy L. Sayers' CREED OR CHAOS ? She noted this observation circa WWII. I think you would be highly entertained by her acute observations and biting commentary on the Church's failures to reach the public with substantive material. If you have had the pleasure, kindly let me know your opinions! If not, by all means search her out, read, and then give me your thoughts!