King Carlos tells Chavez to "shut up"

The creeping authoritarianism of Hugo Chavez's elected socialist dictatorship has been periodically reported on by myself from his insane rant at the UN, to his growing restrictions on free speech. Not PC has also told the ongoing story of Chavez's regime from shortages in supermarkets, how Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhilips have turned their back on investments in Venezuela, seeking to expel foreigners who express criticism of the regime, and government approval needed for baby names. A friend who has relatives there has described how poor service is there, and how there is a distinct lack of work ethic among anyone involved in anything to do with government or any monopolies. Oil money buys complacency.

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Meanwhile the left still looks fondly upon him, after all the ends (socialism) always seems to justify the means (state bullying). What particularly grates is how London Mayor Ken Livingstone has cuddled up to this bully. This is so unspeakably abominable that Livingstone deserves to be booted out on this ground alone.

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Now Chavez has been told off, by no less than the King of Spain, Juan Carlos. Someone who knows something about a transition from dictatorship to freedom. Both were at the "Ibero-American" summit in Santiago, Chile. Chavez called the previous Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Aznar a "fascist". Given Spain's past under Franco, this was a grave insult - particularly given the dramatic change Spain undertook to have its current vibrant, free and open society, with liberal democracy.

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The Spanish Prime Minister (Zapatero, who defeated Aznar at the ballot box) called for more diplomatic words to be used and for respect of other leaders, despite political differences.

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The Sunday Telegraph reports: "Former prime minister Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people," said Mr Zapatero, eliciting applause from the gathered heads of state.

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Indeed, Chavez doesn't understand that liberal democracy actually includes respecting that previous (and future) elected governments have legitimacy, and something called a constitution and rule of law is what true leaders respect. Chavez simply changes these on a whim because he is a power hungry demagogue.

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Chavez apparently kept trying to interrupt until King Juan Carlos could take no more and said "Why don't you shut up?".

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Indeed. Chavez thinks he is the vanguard of a new revolution, when he is a blundering loudmouthed bully, and quite unhinged.

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Meanwhile, yesterday a two mile protest march went through Caracas opposing Chavez's changes to the Constitution to increase his power. He called students protesting "spoilt little brats" and that it is all orchestrated by the USA. Yes - of course it is Hugo. Four students were shot returning to campus after a protest earlier in the week after an armed group stormed the campus.

What Winston should say to North Korea

Winston is visiting North Korea next week, a visit I've already condemned as being unconscionable, as it implies that a state which imprisons children as young as 4 as political prisoners and works entire families in gulags from dusk till midnight 7 days, should be treated as an equal - or even deserves being talked to.

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After all would you treat those who abuse children as a deliberate state policy as equals?

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I'm unsure why he is going, North Korea is a long way off being a valuable trading partner, I can think of many less tinpot places with better human rights records he hasn't visited. I can only put it down to the Labour Party nuclear fetish. North Korea has signed a deal to dismantle its (announced and detected) nuclear facilities - not destroy its current nuclear weapons arsenal - but is to be rewarded for successfully developing and testing a nuclear weapon, but promising to "never ever proliferate and not make any more".

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Coming from a country that insists the Korean War was started by the US, when even the Kremlin revealed some years ago that this is complete fiction. A country that claims the rest of the world starves while it is a workers' paradise - in other words one of the most truth detached countries on earth, is hardly one you can trust to do a deal with.

Anyway, Winston is apparently going to "reinforce with North Korea the importance of fully declaring and dismantling its nuclear programmes and to express New Zealand's strong support for the Six Party Talks process" according to NZ Herald. Well that'll make a difference, Kim Jong Il will be bearing that in mind with his next bottle of cognac - oooh New Zealand agrees with us keeping our nukes and dismantling (hiding) the rest of our programme.

Setting aside this worthless piece of diplomacy, there IS something else Winston said that is more sinister. The Herald also says "New Zealand was ready to help North Korea's economic development once it had abandoned its plans to develop nuclear weapons" (sic).

Well setting aside the illiterate past tense from NZPA which would please me ("was" not "is"), how will this happen? Are taxpayers going to help this murderous totalitarian nightmare to develop? Would we have supported the economic development of Nazi Germany if it never invaded Poland and promised not to develop MORE nuclear weapons (but keep the ones it has)?

No. New Zealand taxpayers should absolutely revolt at the idea of paying a cent towards these butchers. Winston SHOULD ask North Korea to open up its gulags, which hold around 200,000 prisoners, to the Red Cross (not the North Korean Red Cross which is near useless). Ask them about Camp 22, about imprisoning children as political prisoners, about these cases from the gulags:

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"there were two girls and they were trying to take out a piece of noodle from one polluted water pond where they put the garbage. And one guard kicked the kids into the small pond, and they drowned."

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and

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"And I heard many times that eyeballs were taken out by beating. And I saw that by beating the person, the muscle was damaged and the bone was exposed, outside, and they put salt on the wounded part."

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and

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"The reason why she was forced to go to the prison is her father’s elder brother was purged at the Anbyon, Kanwhan Do province. She went when she was 5 years old. All of the family members were imprisoned. Her mother starved to death, and her brother also starved to death in the prison. I met her at age 26. So it means she was in the prison for 21 years. I think she no longer is in the world"

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So what happened to this woman who was a political prisoner from age 5? Yes 5!! A former gulag guard tells:

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"my supervisor, when he saw the woman, she was beautiful. And he raped her, and he was found by the watchman officer. And he was investigated. My superior, his rank was reduced and the woman was sent to the detention center And then I didn’t see her for one year.
...One day I was going to the place to load the coal, I met her. And I noticed she was exactly that woman, and I asked her, how you could survive. And she told me, that "yes, I survived". But she showed me her body, and it was all burned by fire.
...After six months I met her at the corn storage in Kusan district and found her putting on a used tire on her knees because her legs were cut off. Because of a coal mine wagon ran over her knees. And all she could do now was separate the corn grains from the cob"

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Winston, if you don't raise human rights with North Korea then, in the words of the cliche, you don't deserve to be pissed on if you're on fire. Nobody in North Korea can even utter a word questioning this - you can, you effectively have diplomatic immunity in this case.

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Oh and if you only care about economic development, you might give North Korea the only seriously sound advice it needs ...

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set your people free!

Time to give Harawira a lesson

"I don't understand terrorism as it is understood by those fuelled by the jingoistic, acid-drenched, hate-filled, anti-Islamic, death to anyone from the Middle East, vitriolic, poisonous claptrap that the United States is trying to foist upon the rest of the world" he says according to the Herald.

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He's either an idiot or willfully blind.

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What jingo was involved when four airliners were hijacked on 9/11, what jingo was involved when the London underground and a bus were bombed? Who foisted THAT upon us you leftwing bigot?

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Who said "death to anyone from the Middle East"? You did - idiot!

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Who spreads poisonous claptrap that the world should be a Islamic caliphate which barely tolerates other religions, and calls for death to infidels, and willingly spreads a doctrine of suicide and sacrifice to children, and spreads venom about Jews that is akin to Nazi Germany?

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Or maybe Hone your own "jingoistic, acid-drenched, hate filled" anti-Americanism is the reality? You'd love a world where you and your mates could steal the property of others, lock up those who offend you, where you and your mates could wander on land you think is yours and take it off the registered legal owners, where taxes can be used for you and your mates - and where words like "accountability" are dismissed as "business roundtable speak" (a former Maori MP once said that!). Maybe Hone you like the model of Africa, the continent of rampant corruption, where who you know matters more than what you do.

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It's about time that the electoral system was made colourblind, and a Maori vote counted as much as a non-Maori vote - the Maori seats should go, the Maori Party can then try to convince an electorate or 5% of voters that it is entitled to be in Parliament- like everyone else, but Hone has his own "jingoistic, acid-drenched, hate filled word" for being treated like everyone else - racism.

So consider this

If New Zealand white supremacists, who have for years damned Western liberal democratic civilisation as corrupt, attacked capitalism and were warm towards Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain and South Africa's apartheid regime, had weapons training camps in the hills, and had been arrested on firearms charges and possibly terrorism - would the Maori Party, Green Party and all those who have long been warm towards the butchers of Marxism Leninism be sympathetic and weeping tears? Would Archbishop Brown Turei be defending their civil rights?

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Of course not, nor should they - so why are their buddies exempt from the rule of law when they themselves show little respect for it, or secular liberal democracy?

Islam is NOT peace as long as Muslims do not fight Islamists

Today I saw an ad inside the tube that I thought was intriguing, it talked of a young woman police officer here in the UK who is a Muslim, and how she was committed to protecting British citizens and the country. All very well I thought, and the website link from it was this.
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So what is it all about?

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The website says the campaign has 5 goals:

1. Fight Islamophobia wherever it occurs (in other words bigotry against Muslims. Well fine, although if this means supporting campaigns to do violence to anyone critical or laughing at Islam, then count me out. Muslims should be able to live anywhere in peace not harassed because of their religion, but they also must respect the rights of others to free speech regarding their religion);

2. Create dialogue to ensure Muslim concerns are taken into account to ensure concerns about racism and social exclusion are understood and Muslim voices are always in mainstream media (in other words be a voice for Muslims in lobbying government, though I suspect the term "social exclusion" means seeking taxpayers' money);

3. Government to work for long and lasting peace in areas of conflict, helping eliminate injustices that fervent division and nurture violence (in other words, the Palestinian issue);

4. Be creative, so that our community understands the mainstream and what its community wants to hear (? spin doctoring ?);

5. To create friendships and a culture of understanding (fine!).
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It appears to be a British Muslim campaign to spread the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that British Muslims do not want to fight the liberal secular democracy of the UK (which it effectively is) but work within it. Well it appears to, except that there is virtually nothing on the website that gives any support for pluralist Western liberal secular democracy at all.
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The website has a lot of video which gives a positive view of "Muslims in your neighbourhood", and includes a section on Islam. None of that is wrong in itself, and not for a minute would I imply British Muslims are predominantly inclined towards terrorism. It's a reasonably clever site, lots of women and girls as well, no doubt designed to dispel views that Muslims are misogynistic and discriminatory.

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Unfortunately, it fails here. It makes it clear that Islam explicitly discriminates against women as they are required to cover more than men, because, of course, women who don’t cover are inciting rape aren’t they? Of course people should wear whatever they choose, if Muslims choose to cover up that’s their choice.

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There is the section on marriage which is also curious. The website says “It is generally recommended that prospective husband and wife meet prior to marriage; although some couples choose not to, leaving it to the judgement of their families.” Generally recommended! Then we have more sexism with allowing men to have multiple wives but not vice versa. Wonder why? After all if men and women are equal, or are men more equal than women?

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Women of course are seen as being very special "The woman’s priority lies in being a good mother” well that’s clear but to make it clearer “The decision to work is hers if she chooses but she will not be disrespected if she decides to concentrate on her primary role as a mother.” I wonder if the converse is true.

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Don't ask about homosexuals though - they don't exist.

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However this site isn’t about women, where it helps to re-emphasise the underlying sexism of Islam, but about peace. So how IS it on peace?
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Well apparently non-Muslims should never be harmed, but interestingly only in the context of an Islamic state. Yes the “Islam is peace” website seems implicitly to support an Islamic state – you know, the type that means the state is not secular, not blind to religion and does not treat you as an individual with individual rights. The website says so here in the section on "misconceptions" responding to the claim that Islam is intolerant of other religions:
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“One who kills a non-Muslim person (under the guardianship of an Islamic state) will not even smell the fragrance of Paradise."
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So there you go, you’re ok “under the guardianship of an Islamic state”, not the British government. Not intolerant as long as Islam is the basis for all laws and government? I’m less than unimpressed, in fact the whole credibility of this website is severely dented by this and the next statement that "Whoever hurts a non-Muslim person (under the guardianship of an Islamic state), I am his adversary, and I shall be an adversary to him on the Day of Resurrection".

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You see this justifies bombings in London or New York or Spain or Bali. Peace???

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There is a small section responding to misconceptions about Muslim Fundamentalism. This exists of course, it is the basis for the Iranian constitution and government, the Taliban, Hamas, Hizbollah, Al Qaeda etc. It exists and it is evil. You might have thought that this website would condemn Muslims who use Islam to justify political violence or the imposition of Islamic laws on non-Muslims. No.

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In fact the site's credibility was further eroded. Instead of accepting that some Muslims, including the Taliban, the Iranian government and Hamas apply literal radical interpretations of Islam that incite violence and waging holy war and terrorism, and condemning this AS IT SHOULD HAVE! ... it says “Unfortunately, due to a twisted mixture of biased reporting in the media and the actions of some misguided Muslims, the word "Islam" has become almost synonymous with "terrorism".

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Hold on, the biased reporting? You can't mean the BBC which never uses the word "terrorist". However, is there denial that almost sole terrorist threat in the Western world today comes from Islamists?

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“Some misguided Muslims”? Some in New York, London, Glasgow, Madrid, Bali, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, India? Is there denial that most terrorism in the world in the past few years has been carried out by Islamists? Is the use of quotation marks around “terrorism” implying that it is something else? What is "misguided" if it isn't a weasel word for evil?

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It goes on “However, when one analyses the situation, the question that should come to mind is: Do the teachings of Islam encourage terrorism? The answer: Certainly not! Islam totally forbids the terrorist acts that are carried out by some misguided people. Islam encourages peace, mercy and forgiveness. Killing innocent people totally contradicts the teachings of Islam.”

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To which I say “Stop telling me this! I'm not the problem, the problem is in people who hold YOUR religion and preach YOUR religion. Tell the Muslims who DO carry out terrorist acts, who DO aid and abet them, who DO cheer when they happen, who FUND it. Reject them, report them, fight them if you can - if you want to have respect of being a British Muslim. Otherwise you are part of the problem.

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And that’s the rub. You can tell non-Muslim Britons as much as you like about how you are good citizens and the like. You can try to sell how good your religion is, fine, there is free speech.

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BUT. If you want people to believe YOU believe in peace then maybe you need to do something more than tell those who fear Islamist terrorism. You need to fight those who are Islamist terrorists, you need to turn on them and their supporters, and their funders. It means opposing the murderous Iranian regime, which executes teenagers for having consensual sex, or punishes girls for claiming they have been raped. It means opposing the Taliban, which banned music, education for girls and was one of the most brutally repressive regimes on earth, and which providing shelter and succour for Osama Bin Laden. It means turning on those who hold your religion and use it against us all.

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Peace is not defined as being Islam, and Islam clearly is not peace for a sizeable number of Muslims. However, the majority of British Muslims are undoubtedly hard working peaceful residents who get on with their lives with little bother to others. If the point of the website is to point that out, then I think it goes without saying to most non-Muslim people here.

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Howevr, if Muslims in Britain want to really know what is wanted, it is a clear categorical rejection of any interest in seeking an Islamic state in Britain, and a rejection of terrorism, including admitting it IS an Islamic problem. It means turning on those within Islam in Britain who threaten violence against this country, and NOT wanting to overthrow the secular liberal democratic state.

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Quite simply if you want to live in Britain, then accept that it is a secular Western liberal democracy where individual rights are, by and large, protected. If you don't like that, then leave, and if you want to conspire to fight against it, or protect those who conspire to wage war against it - then you're no longer welcome, you're a criminal.

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Sadly this website not only doesn't do that, but appears to be in denial that there even is a problem called "Islamic Fundamentalism". I'm sure Muslims in Britain can do better than that.