Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Elon Musk and Grimes at the 2018 Met Gala
The
world is stumbling through a global pandemic with nation after nation
watching helplessly as their economies crumble, stock market values
tumble, businesses fail, great corporations are prostrated, and
pharmaceutical companies rush to develop a life-saving vaccine -- and
all the while their health-care systems are overwhelmed with mounting
cases of a coronavirus that has crushed the lives of millions of people.
Yet,
all is not lost. The world's wealthiest billionaires are in fine shape,
according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index which ranks the world's
500 wealthiest people in order of the riches they have amassed. For the
past eight years those rankings have informed a curious world of the
wealth that some individuals have been able to accrue to themselves. And
this year, which has seen nations stumble to their financial knees, the
ultra-wealthy are doing just fine, thanks for asking.
Amazon's
Jeff Bezos is now acknowledged as the wealthiest man in the world. Bill
Gates has been dumped south, from the second richest man on Earth, to
third-place status. And Elon Musk, who in January ranked 35th in wealth
among the 500 billionaires the report names, added $100.3 billion to his
net worth in the year 2020, for a total of $127.9 billion, the year
that spelled disaster to Planet Earth. That princely sum added to his
net worth has brought him to the position of second wealthiest man on
this blue planet.
Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates's net worth of
$127.7 while powerfully rich, has been diminished from the heights it
might have reached had he not donated considerable portions of his vast
wealth to charity, in giving over $27 billion to the Bill Gates
Foundation, since 2006. He appears to have been more than willing to
surrender the top spot in soaring wealth in favour of funding research
in viruses to rescue humanity from dread diseases.
There are
notable differences between Gates and Musk, the former believing in
vaccine research and putting his money where his mouth is, as opposed to
the values of the latter who questions pandemic data, finding comfort
in certain conspiracy theories. And just as urban legend often speaks of
the peculiar social mores and twisted morals of the very rich, there
are examples that reveal the inner value core of such people.
The
COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably made for a poorer world for most of
Earth's inhabitants. Millions have lost employment, millions have become
ill and the lingering effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID
will bedevil some people all their lives, those spared the devastation
of more immediate life-taking complications. Governments have had to
borrow vast sums in funding to financially support their desperate
populations.
Widespread layoffs
disproportionately affecting the working class and the poor, poverty is
increasing exponentially. In marked contrast to the members of the
Bloomberg index having collectively profited by gaining 23 percent (roughly $1.3 trillion-worth)
since the beginning of the year when a mysterious pneumonia-like
illness began to emerge in Wuhan, China and all too soon spread
world-wide to wreak havoc everywhere.
•X, the unknown variable
•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)
•A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent
+
(A=Archangel, my favorite song)
(
metal rat)
The
world's second richest man's partner is a Canadian-born entertainer,
sufficiently successful in her career to have made a name for herself,
and the owner of her own recording company, Crystal Math Music Inc. Her
stage name is Grimes, her true name Claire Elise Boucher, born in
British Columbia and an alumni of McGill University. The staff she
employs at her recording company applied to a granting agency on her
behalf.
This is a woman, while a reportedly gifted
musician and entertainer, lives in California with her love partner,
Elon Musk, and their young son whom they named XAE A-XII. Factor, a
Canadian arts subsidy program partially funded by the Government of
Canada, awarded her a $90,000 grant. She evidently under the eligibility
criteria of the funding body seems fully qualified, irrespective of the
fact that she no longer lives in Canada, though listed as a Quebec
artist.
So a woman with a successful entertaining
career who owns her own recording company appealed to a partially
publicly-funded arts-grant group for a grant acknowledging her
contribution to Canadian entertainment. That she has access to
undreamed-of wealth, living with the world's second-most wealthy man
appears incidental; she has not hesitated to take the grant and he
appears uninvolved with the moral implications.
Among
which is the fact that entertainers of all kinds in the world of art
are struggling to assert their talents in circumstances where public
venues revolving around art and entertainment are now closed off to
them, and while continuing to polish their talents in hopes of better
days to come, seek gainful employment in the ill-paid services
industries in hopes of earning a living to get by current difficulties.
F.Scott Fitzgerald was right when he penned that throw-away line that "the rich are not like you andme".
Revealing Canadian Values in Welcoming Immigrants/Refugees
"Generation after generation [of Canadians complain that newcomers are not integrating into Canadian society]." "I suspect many [of the respondents] don't know newcomers well. Those of us who do know newcomers, know they're constantly exhausting themselves to do all they need to do [to] make a success of their life in Canada." "What are we doing to ensure newcomers are able to fit in?" Janet Dench, executive director, Canadian Council for Refugees
What are we doing? Leaving no assist unturned, from government and private agencies assisting immigrants and refugees to acclimate themselves, learn the language, apply for benefits, use the universal health care system, register for assisted housing, look for employment, school their children and make no demands whatever on the recipients of all this largesse along with general goodwill emanating from the Canadian publicr. The better question is what are the newcomers doing to fit in?
Famously, Canada is a nation built on immigrants who have chosen to arrive at its shores to make a new life for themselves. Originally, those immigrants were supplied by English-speaking Europeans initially, along with immigrants from France. Prospective immigrants from Asia and Africa and those with certain European ethnic backgrounds like Jews were not particularly welcome. Infamously, in the late 19th and early 20th Century Canadian governments put head taxes on Asians to dissuade them from coming to Canada, and during World War II interned Japanese-Canadians, and placed European Jews escaping the Holocaust into camps alongside "enemy aliens".
All of the immigrants that arrived in Canada, those not looked upon favourably, made a concerted effort to find a place for themselves, to meld as best they could, into the prevailing social structure, to familiarize themselves with the language, the culture, the values and the laws. And the succeeding generations had no problems whatever expressing all of that, the language, the culture the values and the laws as being of utmost importance to them, as Canadians. Furthermore, at that time in Canadian history there were no government assists at various levels. "Newcomers" had to struggle on their own.
Now, when immigrants and refugees arrive, it is to a Canada that is open and welcoming to all, a country whose social and welfare support networks are all-encompassing and generous at every level of government. Where earlier, the struggle of new Canadians was to survive and at the same time integrate, currently the level of struggle to survive is hugely reduced, thanks to a generous tax-funded network of assists, and many of those arriving feel no particular urgency to integrate. In fact, second- and third-generation immigrant children becoming fully Canadian is no longer the norm.
And there lies the rub. The mass migration of people from the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia to escape less than prosperous and politically stable environments under Muslim-majority rule, has led to a gradual and none-too-subtle alteration in the social customs, political-religious realities in the countries that have absorbed them. Looking to countries like Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France and Germany as an example, vast no-go ghettos have evolved where resistance to integration is the norm.
That resistance revolves around Islam. Where Muslim populations feel great resentment against the social mores, justice system and culture and heritage of the indigenous populations and where, as in the United Kingdom, mosques ring out with condemnation of the West and the democratic way of life, agitating for the imposition of Shariah law. And wherever large populations of Muslims agglomerate, there arises a number of problems. One of which is the eagerness of Muslims to live on welfare payments in favour of working for a living.
Another is the realization that criminal acts far in excess of their numbers arise out of that community. And finally, that anti-Semitism on a viral, combustible scale rears its ugly head, at the very time that Muslims decry "Islamophobia" that has resulted largely not from the enumerated social problems, but the steady rise of violent Islamism embracing jihad and trolling within the Muslim ghettos for new conscripts into jihad. The violence in the name of Islam and the hostility emanating from Muslim populations against the West and democracy is not spoken of in polite, leftist company.
To do so is to be labelled 'racist' and to invite the condemnatory label of "Islamophobic" against those who dare to offend by side-stepping the prevailing political correctness. If there is any true irony in this situation it is that Muslim refugees have been created on a gigantic scale of upheaval resulting from Muslims slaughtering Muslims through sectarian conflict. And it is not other Muslim countries by and large that absorb the haven-seeking Muslims who flee oppression and danger but Western countries who see it as their humanitarian duty. And whom the haven-seeking later turn against.
A new survey undertaken by the Angus Reid Institute determined that 47 percent of respondents from among 1,508 Canadians questioned in early February believe that Canada is absorbing "about the right number" of refugees, while 51 percent feel the number is "already too high", and eleven percent would prefer to see Canada open its doors to even more refugees. Six in ten Canadians feel the government has "done a good job" in its refugee file.
One quarter of respondents feel, however that Canada should have undertaken a temporary ban on refugees, reflecting the executive order signed by American President Donald Trump briefly halting entry of all refugees into the United States, along with citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. Canadians in British Columbia and the Atlantic Provinces were more favourable in allowing more refugees into Canada. Half of Albertans and 55 percent of those in Saskatchewan feel the numbers are too high.
It is the opinion of 54 percent of respondents of the survey that refugees make an insufficient effort to "fit into mainstream Canadian society". A Pew Research Centre poll established that 90 percent of Canadians feel the capability of speaking English or French, sharing Canadian customs and traditions are of vital importance in reflecting "truly Canadian" values. For them it appeared to be of less importance if immigrants or refugees were born in Canada, or if they were Christian.
How do
supporters of Canada’s major political parties feel about the
requirement to show faces at while taking the citizenship oath?
96 per cent of Conservative supporters
85 per cent of Liberal supporters
83 per cent of NDP supporters
81 per cent of Bloc Quebecois supporters
How do political party supporters feel about allowing Muslim women to wear a niqab or burka while taking the citizenship oath?
78
per cent of Conservative supporters disagree with allowing Muslim women
beign allowed to where a niqab or burka when being sworn in as
Canadians
76 per cent of Bloc Quebecois supporters
66 per cent of NDP supporters
60 per cent of Liberal supporters
Percentage
of political party supporters who feel the burka and niqab are symbols
of oppression rooted in a culture that is anti-women.
"We have a Canadian way of living, the rule of law, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our laws .... My proposal this morning is to preserve our Canadian identity and especially toward those who are building Canada of tomorrow, including new Canadians." "It is critical that we make sure that new Canadians fully endorse the Canadian principles that are the foundation of our society." "[This would of necessity include significant alterations in Canada's] integration model [for improved security and to uphold] fundamental principles." "I believe we are ready in Canada for a robust and mature and serene conversation about our Canadian identity." Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney
Conservative leadership candidate Steven
Blaney speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill Monday October
24, 2016 in Ottawa Adrian Wyld / Canadian Press
The former Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness speaks from a platform of familiarity of what he speaks of, informed by his exposure and experience and unafraid to air once again attitudes and inspirations arising from that experience. As such, he will be the second contender for the Conservative leadership, another former Cabinet member of the government led by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper to express such opinions, held to be electorally toxic by his critics.
Those Canadians who voted to remove the Conservatives from power point to the former government's resistance to the divisive and abusive customs imported into Canada with a significant number of immigrants and refugees from the world of Islam. These have been new Canadians who bring their cultural-religious negatives with them to a host country offering them a new life and new opportunities and freedoms rather than leave them behind in the fractious countries they chose to leave for future opportunities.
When in fact, the Conservative vote in the last election was of a number similar to what they received for their previous majority government. The contending Liberals who won a majority in the 2015 election that removed the Conservatives from government did so by making a multitude of promises they have yet to fulfill, while many of those promises were directly lifted from the New Democrat playbook, causing NDP voters to switch alliances. It was by draining votes from the NDP that the Liberals achieved their majority.
Their share of the popular vote was not substantially greater than that of the Conservatives. And the great self-congratulatory fuss that new Prime Minister Trudeau made over how he advanced the cause of equality in appointing half his Cabinet positions to women represented an absurd claim of Canada emerging into a new 'feminist' era in view of the fact that Cabinet posts in the previous Conservative-led government were a dozen in number from a smaller elected field, representing important posts, as opposed to Trudeau's fifteen.
The Trudeau government's pledge to withdraw Canadian forces from the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State representing the Conservative government's fairly modest deployment of Canadian military in Iraq, turns out to be a move to leave instructors of the Peshmerga militias in force and to deploy greater numbers of Canadian soldiers on the ground while withdrawing the handful of Canadian warplanes from action, moves that constitute a greater danger to Canadian military personnel than that mandated by the Conservatives.
And at home the oath of citizenship must be respected by all candidates for citizenship expressing their preparedness to fully join Canadian society by revealing their faces while taking the oath. Wearing of a niqab or burqa is a belittling and an entitled, caustic rejection of Canadian values. Placing into law the baring of one's face on that and other serious, legal occasions as in giving testimony in court is simply a needed reminder to all of Canada's open-faced social-political mores of a free society.
Chris Young / Canadian Press The Liberals dropped the previous government's Supreme Court Fight over the wearing of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies
That immigrants based on their religious belief and cultural experience feel free to disdain these essentially Canadian values speaks to their lack of commitment to Canada and to gaining citizenship and they should be denied the privilege. Mr. Blaney speaks of increasing funding to Canadian security agencies such as the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as is required in a global atmosphere of assault with impunity by Islamist jihadists.
Not to be alert to the security challenges facing societies that have weighted their populations with Muslim immigrants is to be in the position of Sweden, France, Germany, Austria, Norway and other European countries who must now allow for the diminishing of their heritage, values and culture lest they give offense to the growing, grumbling clout of Muslim groups demanding greater autonomy and respect for Sharia law over the prevailing indigenous laws and customs.
He has stated that it would be his intention should he be elected Conservative leader and contemplate the future of returning to the status of governing party, to strengthen the citizenship test administered to applicants to ensure they are more adequately tested on written and oral skills in the two official languages along with "their understanding and appreciation of Canada's core principles". Long overdue to see that the oath of citizenship test be modified to reflect the intention of immigrants to abide by Canada's principles.
"We are a gun society and we recognize that, but we should be writing gun laws that make us safer." "Do you want every incident on your street to escalate to acts of gun violence?" Leonard Papania, police chief, Gulfport, Misissippi
"What
is alarming to the police is that they have no power to ascertain the
potential criminal background of an armed individual until a crime is
committed, and by then it is too late." Ladd Everitt, spokesman, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence "Gloom-and-doom
predictions of Wild West scenarios in states with strong gun rights
have proven time and again to be nothing more than scare tactics." Jennifer Baker, spokeswoman, National Rifle Association
"We're
advocating the safety for our police officers, but on the other side,
you have the N.R.A. and other special interest groups that say, 'If
you'll do this, we'll endorse you and make you look good." "We don't have anything to offer them other than good advice." Ken Winter, executive director, Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police
"It
is absolutely ludicrous to me that we require people to go take a test
to get a driver's license, but we are allowing people to carry a deadly
weapon on their person without any procedures regulating it." Michael Sauschuck, police chief, Portland, Maine
Gov. Phil Bryant of
Mississippi signed a law in April allowing people to carry guns inside
places of worship. Law enforcement officials in the state said they had
been mostly unsuccessful in their attempts to negotiate the language in
the legislation.Credit
Clay Chandler/Mississippi's Governor's Office, via Associated Press
Difficult
as it is to imagine, the most powerful nation on Earth which takes
pride in its democratic and moral code, reluctantly taking on its role
as universal sheriff to an unstable world, where its population values a
constitution that enshrines the right to carry firearms, and there are,
correspondingly, more firearms in the country per capita than any other
place on the globe, and where more people are killed by guns, including
children than any other place in the world, is busy freeing up gun
availability.
Every time a mass shooting occurs,
particularly those that victimize children when gunmen enter a school
and imperil the lives of schoolchildren and their teachers, a mass agony
of public outcry calls "enough!", and a brief fling with remorse
stating that gun laws must be tightened has its day. But only a day, it
seems, before the 'sanity' of cultural values returns and all goes back
to normal. Normal in the United States appears to be easy access to
gunpower. And the sanctimonious statement that guns don't kill, people
do.
So guns in some states now appear in bars, in
airports, in day-care centers and sports arenas. Guns are tucked into
handbags and backpacks. And curious children, from two-year-old infants
to ten-year-olds manage to discover where these killing machines are
kept and to play with them. In the process killing themselves or their
siblings, or their adult family members. Exceedingly small coffins at
funerals tend to make people weep. But not work against the freedom to
own guns and exorcise that laissez-faire attitude about them.
Lawmakers
of a conservative bent, reflecting their constituents' wishes busy
themselves by taking legislative steps to ensure that gun regulations
are expanding the freedom for owners to carry their weapons wherever
they go. Unconcealed, and with a brave attitude of entitlement. The
police have always, in this general environment of entitlement, been
fairly complacent. They too, of course, are gun owners, not only on the
job but in their private lives.
Except, suddenly
they're stepping out of line, protesting, expressing unease, and a wish
for greater awareness of the dangers posed in a society for which there
are no safeguards, only the freedom to possess and to display.
Mississippi signed a new law in April to create exceptions to
concealed-carry permit rules. West Virginia and Idaho have approved laws
permitting people to carry concealed handguns without a permit or
firearm training. And oh yes, without background checks.
Texas
residents have been given the right to carry handguns openly. People
with permits may carry concealed firearms onto public college campuses.
In Maine and Texas, police officers have been exposed to people showing
off their weapons near schools and libraries. Their attitudes those of
challenging anyone to question their new rights. Gun rights advocates
and police have traditionally been allies in the national gun debate.
Craig Martin, a police
sergeant in Ann Arbor, Mich., asked to see John McIntosh’s
concealed-pistol license before he entered a school board meeting last
year.Credit
Melanie Maxwell/The Ann Arbor News, via Associated Press Now, however, police departments insist gun owners be
required to receive training. Furthermore, that people with histories of
violence be blocked from owning weapons. "Constitutional carry laws"
eliminate the police role in issuing permits or questioning people who
are armed openly, and this has succeeded in disrupting that traditional
alliance. In Mississippi, law enforcement officials learned of the new
law when it was being passed.
National Rifle
Association members in the state had been sent fliers accusing law
enforcement of siding with billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg, former
mayor of New York, famously one of the country's most voluble advocate
of gun control. Maine enacted a law in 2015 allowing people to carry
concealed weapons without a permit or training. Republican Governor
Nathan Deal of Georgia proved the exception by vetoing a bill passed by
his Republican-controlled Legislature to permit gun owners 21 and older
to carry a concealed handgun on college and university campuses,
permit-free.
"From
the early days of our nation and state, colleges have been treated as
sanctuaries of learning where firearms have not been allowed. To depart
from such time-honoured protections should require overwhelming
justification", he stated. The campus police chiefs of
the University System of Georgia distinguished themselves by supporting
the existing laws, rejecting the proposed bill.
"Since the beginning of last year, I have been treated as public enemy No. 1 when all I try to do is make people laugh, and laugh about death, because death laughs at us all, as Charlie knows now, unfortunately." "Whenever I express myself, some people will not even try to understand me, they will not listen. They try to find some kind of pretext to suppress me. I am looked upon as if I were Amedy Coulibaly, when I am no different from Charlie." French comedian Dieudonne
Quenelle' comedian appeared to express sympathy for Amedy Coulibaly
Tauntingly ingenuous, he prods and he pokes and he unerringly exposes the soft spots in freedom of speech, for it cannot escape anyone's notice that some freedoms are more tolerable than others. This man who despicably winks and nods, knowing that he is communicating unspoken but very well understood pathologies of ethnic and religious hatred feels free to do so because he lives where any and all expressions of thought, however socially deplorable, are meant to be celebrated.
That his expressions, crude slanders and sly digs at the ancient presence within France of French Jews as representative of what he and his champions consider to be fodder for anti-Semitism anywhere Jews live, lead to and support the enthusiasm among violent Islamists and other anti-Semites to commit crimes targeting Jews; the embers that light the fire. The satirical magazine, whose mode of expression was often as crude, targeted anything and anyone the journalists and cartoonists felt obligated to bring scorn upon.
Jews do not rampage, committing atrocities against those who seek to defame them. In sheer numbers and influence, Muslim populations anywhere they exist -- and they exist increasingly, everywhere -- have the upper hand as opposed to the more meagre numbers of Jews however long they have existed in any society. Jewish-inspired attacks against their anti-Semitic tormentors simply do not take place, while Arab-Muslim or simply anti-Semitic-sourced attacks against vulnerable Jews are universal and innumerable.
But the French comedian does present a vexing problem facing French authorities. If all of society can be assured of the right under French social norms, French cultural and legal auspices to enjoy freedom of speech, then too must those who disturbingly assault the morals and well-being of a select group of people. Except that when they do so, they increase exponentially incidents of active anti-Semitic acts of destruction of property, threats against the security of persons, and physical attacks, too often resulting in murder.
Does balance and freedom in ensuring equal rights in such matters trump the dangers inherent in giving voice to the destructive elements within society singling out a religious/ethnic group for episodes of violence justify permitting anyone to say anything at any time, however dangerously provocative? It all depends on whose ox is being gored, does it not? And in this particular instance, the ox being gored has through antiquity to the presence, been so often assaulted and decimated, the wonder is it still lives.
The warning that the bigots and racists come first for the Jews, then turn their malevolence on others who defy their right to degrade the human condition, all too often expresses reality. In this case, the crowds of Muslims who blame Israel for its existence rather than abandoning the land it sits upon to the Palestinians, taking out their rage on French Jews by killing Jewish schoolchildren, by defacing synagogues and by torturing and killing and raping French citizens who happen also to be Jews proved their umbrage against non-believers who dare make light of Islam and Mohammad by exampling Charlie Hebdo.
Who and what is next on the agenda is a matter for all of Europe -- which has charitably taken to its bosom hordes of Muslim migrants desperate to escape the oppression and raging violence that their own impose upon them -- to consider, as the growing numbers of Islamists in their welcoming countries now increasingly insist on their new countries reflecting the image and the essence of Islam, blanketing the indigenous culture and its heritage with that of Islam.
The Ak Saray dominates the skyline on the western edge of Ankara
A
controversial new 1,000-room palace built for Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan will cost about £385m ($615m) - nearly twice the previous
estimate, Turkish officials say.
Known as Ak Saray (White Palace), it was built on a forested
hilltop on the edge of the capital Ankara, on more than 150,000 sq m
(1.6m sq ft) of land.
Mr Erdogan opened the palace on 30 August after becoming president.
His AK Party has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade.
President Erdogan is pictured here at the foot of a staircase in the Ak Saray
The palace is bigger than the White House in Washington, the Kremlin in Moscow and even the Palace of Versailles near Paris.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, quoted by Turkey's Hurriyet
newspaper, said most of the 1.37bn Turkish lira ($615m) cost had been
paid, but another $135m had been budgeted for it in 2015.
The palace has sumptuous marble corridors and atriums, as well as high-tech systems to prevent electronic eavesdropping.
State-of-the-art technology was used in the palace project, officials say
Environmentalists accuse Mr Erdogan of spending public money on
lavish construction projects to the detriment of green areas. Activists
defending Istanbul's iconic Gezi Park clashed with police in June 2013.
Hurriyet says the palace project was controversial because
hundreds of trees were cut down to make space for it, in what had been a
forest reserve bequeathed to the nation by modern Turkey's founding
father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The finance minister also said $185m would be spent on a new Airbus A330-200 presidential jet.
The palace is bigger than a host of more famous state buildings, including the Kremlin and Buckingham Palace
A presidential aide, Fahri Kasirga, said other presidential
properties would be renovated next year, notably the Huber Palace in
Istanbul and a guest house in Marmaris, on the Aegean coast.
Mr Erdogan has moved out of the more modest Cankaya Palace in Ankara, which will now be used by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The presidency was once a more ceremonial role than when Mr Erdogan took office
During the past ten years and two days, the ostrich cabinets did nothing. Every warning was ignored. They lied to the people.
Do not prevent jihadists from leaving our country. Let them leave. I
am prepared to go to Schiphol [airport] to wave them goodbye. But let
them never come back.
Madam Speaker, war has been declared against us.
Madam Speaker, actually I was expecting flowers from you. I am
celebrating an anniversary these days. Exactly ten years and two days
ago, I left a party whose name I cannot immediately remember. During
these ten years and two days. I have been much criticized. Most
importantly for always saying the same thing.
My critics are right. Indeed, my message had been the same during all
these years. And today, I will repeat the same message about Islam
again. For the umpteenth time. As I have been doing for ten years and
two days.
I have been vilified for my film Fitna. And not just vilified, but
even prosecuted. Madam Speaker, while not so many years ago, everyone
refused to broadcast my film Fitna, we can today watch Fitna 2, 3, 4 and
5 daily on our television screens. It is not a clash of civilizations
that is going on, but a clash between barbarism and civilization.
The Netherlands has become the victim of Islam because the political
elite looked away. Here, in these room, they are all present, here and
also in the Cabinet, all these people who looked away. Every warning was
ignored.
As a result, also in our country today, Christians are being told:
"We want to murder you all." Jews receive death threats. Swastika flags
at demonstrations, stones go through windows, Molotov cocktails, Hitler
salutes are being made, macabre black ISIS flags wave in the wind, we
hear cries, such as "F-ck the Talmud," on the central square in
Amsterdam.
Indeed, Madam Speaker, this summer, Islam came to us.
In all naivety, Deputy Prime Minister Asscher states that there is an
"urgent demand" from Muslims to "crack down" on this phenomenon. Last
Friday, in its letter to Parliament, the Cabinet wrote that jihadists
are hardly significant. They are called a "sect", and a "small" group.
This is what those who look away wish, these deniers of the painful
truth for ten years and two days, the ostrich brigade Rutte 2.
But the reality is different. According to a study, 73% of all
Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands are of the opinion that those who
go to Syria to fight in the jihad are "heroes." People whom they
admire.
And this is not a new phenomenon. Thirteen years ago, 3,000 people
died in the attacks of 9/11. We remember the images of burning people
jumping from the twin towers. Then, also, three-quarters of the Muslims
in the Netherlands condoned this atrocity. That is not a few Muslims,
but hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Netherlands condoning
terrorism and saying jihadists are heroes. I do not make this up. It has
been investigated. It is a ticking time bomb.
Madam Speaker, is it a coincidence that for centuries Muslims were
involved in all these atrocities?
No, it is not a coincidence. They
simply act according to their ideology. According to Islam, Allah
dictated the truth to Muhammad, "the perfect man." Hence, whoever denies
the Koran, denies Allah. And Allah leaves no ambiguity about what he
wants. Here are a few quotes from the Quran:
Surah 8 verse 60: "Prepare to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah."
Surah 47 verse 4: "Therefore, when ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks". We see it every day in the news.
Another quote from Allah is Surah 4 verse 89: "So take not friends
from the ranks of the unbelievers, seize them and kill them wherever ye
find them."
Madam Speaker, the Koran on the table before you is a handbook for
terrorists. Blood drips from its pages. It calls for perpetual war
against non-believers. That Koran before you is the hunting permit for
millions of Muslims. A license to kill. That book is the Constitution of
the Islamic State. What ISIS does is what Allah commands.
This bloodthirsty ideology was able to nestle in the Netherlands
because our elites looked away. Neighborhoods such as Schilderswijk,
Transvaal, Crooswijk, Slotervaart, Kanaleneiland, Huizen, you name it.
There, the caliphate is under construction; there, the Islamic State is
in preparation.
During the past ten years and two days , the ostrich Cabinets did
nothing. It has nothing to do with Islam, they lied to the people.
Imagine them having to tell the truth.
But the people have noticed. Two thirds of all Dutch say that the
Islamic culture does not belong in the Netherlands. Including the
majority of the electorate of the Labour Party, the majority of the
voters of the VVD, the majority of the voters of the CDA, and all the
voters of the PVV.
The voters demand that, after ten years and two days of slumber,
measures are finally taken. The voters demand that something effective
happen. No semi-soft palliatives. Allow me to make a few suggestions to
the away-with-us mafia. Here are a few things which should happen
starting today:
Recognize that Islam is the problem. Start the de-Islamization of the Netherlands. Less Islam.
Close our borders to immigrants from Islamic countries. Immediate border controls. Stop this "cultural enrichment".
Close every Salafist mosque which receives even a penny from the Gulf
countries. Deprive all jihadists of their passports, even if they only
have a Dutch passport. Let them take an ISIS passport.
Do not prevent jihadists from leaving our country. Let them leave,
with as many friends as possible. If it helps, I am even prepared to go
to Schiphol [airport] to wave them goodbye. But let them never come
back. That is the condition. Good riddance.
And, as far as I am concerned, anyone who expresses support for
terror as a means to overthrow our constitutional democracy has to leave
the country at once. If you are waving an ISIS flag you are waving an
exit ticket. Leave! Get out of our country!
Madam Speaker, war has been declared against us. We have to strike back hard. Away with these people! Enough is enough!
"The reconquest of Crimea has caused a clear change of tone in Moscow, with celebration of old-fashioned Russian nationalism coming into fashion. It's clear that Moscow intends to conquer something like half ... of Ukraine, through quasi-covert means if possible, by overt invasion if necessary." John Schindler, historian
"There has probably not been another book published in Russia during the post-communist period which has exerted (such) an influence on Russian military, police, and statist foreign policy elites." John Dunlop, scholar
"Our troops will occupy the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the entire
country, and perhaps even Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, which is
historically part of Russia anyway." Aleksandr Dugin, Moscow State University
Aleksandr Dugin, Founder, Russia's Eurasian Party
In the lead-up to the annexation of Crimea, Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, Russian intellectual, son of a KGB officer, appeared on Russian television programs, in support of and promoting Vladimir Putin's policies as representing "a struggle for reunification of Slavic peoples". Where "the reunion with the Crimea (is) a victory for us", and that a "Russian Spring" revealing Europe and Russia allying would enable them to "break loose of American hegemony."
According to Russian political scientists the 52-year-old Aleksandr Dugin has "become part and parcel of the daily political and intellectual life of contemporary Russia". Mr. Dugin has achieved enough respect in his contention that Russia must bring an end to U.S. world dominance to become championed by people of influence, including the Speaker in the Duma. Head of the sociology of international relations department at Moscow State University, he urges a resurgent Russia.
"The West's hegemonic status, particularly that of the United States, may soon be an historical memory", stated political scientist Alexandros Petersen, claiming that the world is witnessing the throes of the West being eroded, no longer representative of geopolitical order, economic power and military supremacy.
A more assertively confident Russia has emerged throughout the course of Vladimir Putin's three presidential terms. Energy wealth has enabled the country to flaunt its capacity to make both east and western Europe tremble at the dictatorial tantrums of the energy giant. Its humbly meek exterior seen after the collapse of the Soviet empire has been transformed as Russia has slid past its Cold War persona into that of a country which has invested hugely in new arms to bolster its geographic aspirations.
Russia, through Vladimir Putin, dreams of a Eurasian empire. Aleksandr Dugin visualized the concept of Eurasianism that would restore Russia to its former glory as a super power and then propel it into an even larger, more powerful position of strength, influence and power. His work, Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geo-political Future of Russia, published in 1997, has influenced Russia's power elites through the siren song of its urges to conquest.
His position on Eurasianism imagines an axis of power through three Russian-dominated groups; Moscow-Berlin; Moscow-Tokyo; Moscow-Tehran, with the common enemy of all identified as the "Atlantic" West, specifically the United States and Britain. Russia and Germany, according to Dugin, would divide Central and Eastern Europe with the Germans claiming Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia controlling Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the northern Balkans from Serbia to Bulgaria.
The Heartland Theory represents Dugin's adoption of British geostrategist Halford Mackinder's imagined geopolitical strategy in the early 20th century where the argument was made that the world's land mass be divided into three zones; a "world-island", including Europe, Asia and Africa; the "offshore islands" of Britain and Japan, and the "outlying islands" including North and South America, and Australia.
The Heartland, a region stretching from the Volga River to the Yangtze River, running north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the Himalayas, represents the core of the world-island. And whoever controls the Heartland with its immense population base, and natural resources obviously has world domination in hand.
"In Mackinder one can find the clearly formulated and minutely described ideology of accomplished and absolutized 'Atlanticism', whose doctrine stands at the base of Anglo-Saxon geopolitical strategy in the 20th century", wrote Aleksandr Dugin in a 1992 essay. "Mackinder's ideas ... opened the way to the explicit ideological formulation of the opposition to Atlanticism in the pure Euroasian doctrine."
In 2007, Vladimir Putin gave warning to NATO that Russia had no intention of standing by as Western encroachment on regions it considers part of its sphere of influence took place. In 2008, Putin tasked Russian troops to seize two Georgian provinces giving ample warning he would not tolerate the country brought into NATO.
History is now repeating itself in Ukraine. And the dream of Nazi Germany has been transferred to Russian domination of the new world order.
Arabs and Israelis nowadays are
both saying the same thing: "What is the matter with you people? You are
going to walk away and you think your interests are going to be
protected here?"
One of the things that has changed in this administration is that
people who are fighting for democracy in places such as Turkey, Russia
or China do not feel as if they have any moral or political support
coming from Washington in a way that they have over the years.
Is this foreign policy reversible? My answer is yes for a number of reasons.
There was recently a remarkable article in the New York Times, based on an interview with the National Security Adviser, Susan Rice. In it, she described what the Times called the "new, modest U.S. policy in the Middle East." Susan Rice said we have three goals in the Middle East:
Negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program.
Negotiations with Syria over its chemical weapons program and over the war taking place in Syria.
Negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians over Middle East peace.
What is striking is that it really is the foreign policy of Belgium: negotiations, negotiations, negotiations.
The foreign policy of the United States is, apparently, now to be
centered in the United Nations, Brussels and Geneva, where we have talks
about Syria with the Russians and talks about Iran with Iran's
representatives.
What is missing in this formulation? In one word: power.
The president seems to regard power and the use of power pretty much
the way he regards, for example, sexism -- as if this is a problem we
had in the past; in past decades we had to deal with this phenomenon,
but we have overcome it. As if this is the great thing about the United
States: that we have gotten beyond an old‑fashioned concept such as the
use of power.
Once upon a time we would have said that the center of American
policy in the Middle East is actually not Geneva or Brussels or the
United Nations, it is the Fifth Fleet in the Gulf and the Sixth Fleet in
the Mediterranean. Once upon a time, the rules for the Middle East were
actually enforced by the United States.
I find when I talk to Arabs and Israelis nowadays, they are both
saying the same thing: "What is the matter with you people? Don't you
understand we have counted on you since the Second World War; you have
essentially kept the peace here, you have been, as the British would
say, 'the top country' in the Middle East since the Second World War, or
at least since the British withdrew from Aden. You are going to walk
away from that and you think your interests are going to be protected
here?"
Who said that? We can go down a long list of people. Was it the King
of Jordan, was it Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia? Was it Binyamin
Netanyahu? Was it the Emirates, was it the Lebanese Christians, was it
the Moroccans?
The answer is: all of the above because, in private, they are saying
the same thing. This is the only thing President Obama has actually
achieved in the Middle East: He has brought the Israelis and the Gulf
Arabs together.
In the world, and the international political system, we -- and
certainly they in the Middle East -- are faced with the Hobbesian
situation of a "war of all against all" except for one thing -- the
United States. It used to be that the United States was what prevented
that situation from exploding in ways that hurt both all of them and the
West as well.
Saddam Hussein, for example, invaded Kuwait; it was the United States
that said, No, we are not having countries swallowing each other up. So
we reversed that attempt by sending 500,000 troops -- parenthetically a
feat that we could no longer achieve because of the downsizing in the
military -- but we enforced that rule.
When the Iranians started building a nuclear weapons program, it was
the United States that said -- three presidents have said -- "You are
not permitted to do that." There was at least someone saying, "No, this
is not a Hobbesian 'war of all against all': there are certain rules
here that everyone will live by, and we, the United States, will enforce
them."
This started a long time ago -- certainly after World War II, when
the U.S. effected these rules against the Soviet Union. Obviously that
is not the way the current U.S. Administration views the Middle East or
its role there.
Is this approach more the result of incompetence on the part of the
administration, or ideology? Go back to the president's first important
speech about this: remember he went to Berlin as a candidate in 2008,
and practically every German seems to have gone to applaud that speech.
They may not be so keen on him nowadays, but that is a different
question.
Campaigning
for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama made a major foreign policy
speech in Berlin, in which he stated: "We are all citizens of Berlin".
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Matthias Winkelmann)
The president said in that speech -- he was talking about Iraq -- "We
have seen the consequences of a foreign policy based on a flawed
ideology. This is the conventional thinking that has turned against the
war but not against the habits that got us into the war in the first
place."
It is not enough to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan; you have to break those habits.
What are the habits that have to be broken? This is the man who learned
foreign policy from Rashid Khalidi and William Ayers and Jeremiah
Wright. The habits, as the Administration might see them, are
"militarism," "aggression," "Cold War thinking" and an alleged effort to
dominate the world, "Imperialism" -- or what many others might call
patriotism.
In 2008 the president made one of the most amazing statements that
perhaps any president has ever made: "Tonight I speak to you not as a
candidate for president." This was the 2008 Berlin speech. "But as a
proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world."
Later in the speech he said, "We are all citizens of Berlin."
That is not what President Kennedy said. On June 26, 1963, President
Kennedy said, "Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is,
'Ich bin ein Berliner.'" He did not say, "I am a Berliner." Fast forward
to President Barack Obama: he is saying we are all Berliners.
Matt Continetti, of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote "If we
are all citizens, then the concept of citizenship has no meaning. The
concept of citizenship which implies rootedness, partiality,
particularity has no meaning. If we are citizens of everywhere, we are
also citizens of nowhere."
You hear this from the president over and over again. "Global
citizen;" "new era of engagement." He used that line in about 10
different speeches starting with his first State of the Union "reset."
In the Administration's analysis of the world situation, there seems
to be a great problem that needs to be solved; and the problem is the
United States. It needs to break and overcome these old habits.
Some of
you might think instead that we have a great problem with Islamic
extremism. That is not the president's view. The president made this
really quite remarkable statement in his Cairo speech: "I consider it as
part of my responsibility as president of the United States is to fight
against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
Think about that. It's really quite astonishing. I would say that if a
president made that comment about Judaism or Christianity most of us
would say, "That's really quite bizarre. It is actually not his job."
To pick out and isolate Islam as the one religion, criticisms of
which he has the responsibility to correct, is actually amazing.
You look at the Administration's policy: what is the goal here? What
is he trying to achieve? It is certainly not a human rights policy; he
seems remarkably indifferent to human rights everywhere.
Start with June 2009 in Iran: completely indifferent to the uprising
that could conceivably have overthrown the Ayatollahs. Maybe it could
not, but we shall never know. Or China: Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton's first trip there. When she was asked, "Why don't you say more
about human rights?" she said, "We know what they'll say in response."
So much for human rights in China, for human rights in Russia.
I'll refer back to the Soviets for a second because when George
Shultz was negotiating with the Soviets, he said that in every meeting
he brought up the names of Orlov, Sahkarov, and Sharansky. We saw what
Jackson‑Vanik did. Standing up to tyranny succeeded in enabling people
leave the Soviet Union.
Secretary of State Schultz always used to say that one of the ways to
do it is very simple. When you are meeting with the Soviets, he used to
say, you start the meeting with human rights because if you have a two
hour meeting and time is up and then you say, "Oh, wait a minute. I have
one more thing I need to add" while everybody is walking out the door,
it is obvious to them that that is the lowest priority item to you. So
do not do that.
One of the things that have changed in this administration is that
people who are fighting for democracy in places such as Turkey, Russia
or China, do not feel that they have any moral or political support
coming from Washington, in a way that they have over the years.
They are just not interested. On the humanitarian side, also not
interested. When the president visited Africa, there were a fairly good
number of articles in the newspapers talking about how disappointed
Africans were. After all, they had gotten a lot of attention from
President Bush. Now they had an African American president. Surely the
amount of attention would be doubled, tripled. Instead, of course, it
had largely disappeared.
The key job for humanitarian activities in Africa is the Africa desk
at USAID, the Assistant Administrator for Africa. It has been vacant for
over a year and a half. The president did not even bother to fill the
job.
What is he interested in doing? Military strength? Clearly not.
Go back to the days when the president came to office and said we
were going to create a great economic recovery plan. Remember the term
"shovel ready"? We were looking for shovel ready projects. Actually,
there were lots of shovel ready projects available in the military:
after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was much work to be
done replacing, for example, tanks and half-tracks and artillery that
had been worn out.
But none of the funds available went to that kind of military
project; apparently he did not want to have anything to do with it. In
Libya, the British and the French led. The U.S. was dragged into the
conflict, and after two weeks it walked away. In Mali, the French led.
They went in alone, with the hope that others would follow.
They asked for one thing from the United States: tankers. That was
the item they lacked to be able to refuel jets flying from French bases
in Senegal. The American reaction was to say that we could, but where do
we send the bill. After enough protest, the policy was changed, but it
has been like that, or worse.
Take Syria, where the president sent his Secretary of State out to give what could be called "war speeches."
If you go back and look at those speeches Kerry gave in that week,
they were terrific, heart‑wrenching speeches about the children being
slaughtered in Syria by the use of chemical weapons. Great stuff to get
the American people ready for military action that weekend. Until Friday
came and the president changed his mind.
It is striking, by the way, that while among them, Vice President
Biden, Secretary Hagel, and Secretary Kerry have about 80 years in the
U.S. Senate, when President Obama decided to send the issue of Syria to
the Senate and House for a vote, he did not even consult with any of
those three people, Biden, Hagel, Kerry.
I am not arguing that he should have consulted them because they
would be founts of wisdom, but I did not appoint them. He appointed
Hagel and Kerry. He chose Biden. It is a sign of the immense disrespect
in which he holds all three of them that he makes this decision without
even consulting them -- or actually consulting anyone outside of his own
White House staff.
I have been told that New York's Senator, Chuck Schumer, who is,
after all, the whip, was given about an hour's notice that this would be
announced and it would be on TV -- essentially the same notice that CNN
got.
What is the purpose here? The purpose seems to be to limit American
power. That is why I call it an ideological policy. It is really the
product of the president's view that American power is a danger to the
world and that his job as president is to restrain it, restrict it and
diminish it -- and that then the United States and everybody else in the
world will be significantly better off.
It is a William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi view; you could also call it a
Jimmy Carter view. To be fair to President Jimmy Carter: Carter, first
of all, admitted error after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Remember
that statement he made that he had learned more about the Soviet Union
in the past week then he had all the previous years of his life? He may
not have meant it, but he said it.
To be fair, there was a reversal with respect to American military
power, and in the final year of the Carter administration there began to
be a reinvestment in American military power. Actually, the American
military build‑up did not begin in 1981 with Reagan. It began, in an
admittedly smaller way, in 1980.
The Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon or an Israeli attack on
Iran to prevent the acquisition of a nuclear weapon might be the
equivalent. Certainly if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, it is a very big
deal, and not only for all the obvious reasons about security --
because the president has made about 20 speeches saying, "I will
prevent…." He has not always used passive voice. He has said, "We will, I
will prevent...."
That turns out to be nonsense. It has a huge impact on the United
States and I think Americans hate Iran. When you have these polls
saying, "What countries do you like best? What countries do you hate?"
Iran is always way up there. People remember.
We see nothing like that with this president, who does not appear to
believe he has made any errors because, from his point of view, he has
not, if the purpose is to diminish American power in the world and the
temptation to use that power. From that point of view, the president is
experiencing great success.
Is this foreign policy reversible? My answer is yes for a number of reasons.
One of them is, because we do have friends and allies around the
world who are anxious to join us; perhaps it will take a few years
before they are able to help restore America to a greater influence.
Every country in the periphery of China including the Communist
countries, Vietnam, Laos, wants to join in that effort. Every country in
the Middle East except, of course, Syria and Iran, wants to join in
that effort.
I think that in world politics, as on Wall Street, there is such a
thing as discounting. That is, people think about the future, and what
they think will happen in the future begins to affect their conduct
right away. The example is the move President Ronald Reagan made in
foreign policy that most affected America's enemies and allies early in
his term -- and let the Russians know as well as our friends, "Whoa,
this will be different."
That act was firing the air traffic controllers. That was the moment
when I think for many Americans but also for many people around the
world people it was clear "He means what he says. He said he would do
something here that everybody said he could not do, and he did it."
That act came early. It had no real world effect on foreign affairs.
It was purely domestic, but it had an impact. If we had a new president
who, right from the start, made it clear that the current days were over
you, would not need to have five wars to prove to people the days were
over.
People would begin to adjust to the return of the United States to a position in which U.S. foreign policy was
distinguishable from that of Belgium. Choosing Belgium may be a bit
unfair to the Belgians. Occasionally there will be a Belgian in the
audience that will come up and say, "Why are you picking on us?"
But there is more to be said about Syria. There is a lot more to be
said about the administration's policy with respect to Israel and the
Palestinians and those negotiations. To him Israel seems to be a
problem. It is not viewed as a great ally, a great asset, and a military
asset. It is just a problem -- perhaps an example of the victory of
ideology over what you see with your own eyes.
At the moment, Israel's relations with the Arabs are as good as they
have ever been. The relations with the Egyptian army are terrific.
Relations with the Moroccans are terrific. Relations with the Gulf Sunni
Arabs are better than ever because they have a common enemy, Iran.
The notion that Israel is, in fact, a problem, is probably less true
than it has ever been. The importance of Israel, for example, just to
take one example, as a bulwark protecting the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan, which is important for their security, but also for our position
in the Middle East, seems unappreciated. Israel's potential role with
respect to Iran is viewed as a danger, rather than as a potential asset.
At the White House the U.S. Administration still says "All options are on the table, and don't underestimate the president."
The only thing I can reply is, "I travel in the Middle East a fair
amount, and talk to Arabs as well as Israelis. I think it's fair to say
that from Morocco to Iran, there is not one single person who believes
that." I don't think he has any real allies abroad. If you asked that
question a year ago the White House used to say, "Erdogan." They don't
say, "Erdogan" any more.
There are so many intractable problems and no intimation that Hamas
is prepared to move on any of those. What do Kerry and his friends
really see that gives them any optimism in this area? I think the only
variable in his view is "me". "I'm John Kerry. I can do this," which is
ludicrous.
And there is a lot more to be said about Iran. What is clear is that
they are revving up. They are moving from the first generation to second
generation centrifuges, which are much more efficient and productive.
They are moving more materiel underground. They are attempting the
plutonium route as well as the uranium route. And presumably they are
working on a warhead. Of course, they can have a bomb without making the
announcement and they can make the announcement without having a bomb.
Reagan came on the scene and with peace through strength -- three
words, clarified and explained to Americans what American foreign policy
stands for.
Elliott Abrams is American diplomat, lawyer and political scientist, who has served in several presidential administrations.
"[Beaten] by this savage world, that doesn't give work, doesn't help, doesn't care if there are children in the world who are dying of hunger..." "[Christians, forego] vanity, arrogance and pride(because it is bad for us. It is the cancer of society and the enemy of Christ..." "Today is a day of tears. Such things go against the spirit of the world." Pope Francis
Pope Francis prays at the tomb of St Francis as part of his pastoral
visit in Assisi on October 4, 2013. Pope Francis visits Assisi for the
first time today to honour the saint whose name he adopted for a papacy
aimed at promoting peace and helping the poor, the Vatican said. The
pope will attend the feast of St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) on that
day, praying at the tomb of a saint who is widely loved in Italy. AFP
PHOTO POOL / CROCCHIONI (Photo credit should read
CROCCHIONI/AFP/Getty
| Getty
This is precisely why this world of ours has been termed a vale of tears. The hundreds of desperate people anxious to migrate to a better place on Earth where their lives would be spared, their children's lives would hold promise, they might live in peace and security and see a better day dawn for themselves, and instead their cold, lifeless bodies are being dredged up from the ocean that claimed them when their boat burned and sank as they sought liberty and security.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio who would become the modest Pope Francis was a humble man of kindly disposition before being elevated to the Papacy and is no different now than he was then. His vows of chastity, poverty, godliness he urges in part upon others; to think of those who have little and to share the goods of the Earth with them. He is a pastoral socialist; as God himself has no need in nature to perpetuate himself or to acquire goods and wealth, nor then has he.
Self-abnegation is his forte, and he urges that his fellow faithful of the Cross within the Holy See do as he does, and therein lies the message of Christ, for this man. He is stricken with the tragedy of the shipwreck of migrants off the island of Lampedusa, declaring a day of national mourning within the Roman Catholic Church.
ASSISI, ITALY - OCTOBER 03: A Franciscan friar walks barefoot along the
road between the towns of Assisi and Santa Maria Degli Angeli prior to
Pope Francis' visit on October 3, 2013 in Italy. The residents of Assisi
have been busy all week preparing for the arrival of Pope Francis, the
first Bishop of Rome to take the name of Assisi's most famous son. Pope
Francis is due to venerate the tomb of San Francesco of Assisi at the
crypt of the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis to
And following in the tradition of the saint whose name he has taken for his own, his pilgrimage to Assisi was that of a supplicant, prostrating himself before the memory of one whom he emulates, thinking of himself no superior to a mendicant, begging to be able to fashion the world around him as did St.Francis who recognized his own humanity in the animals that surrounded him as a manifestation of the oneness of life, they no less worthy of recognition than any human.
Pope Francis caresses a person during his visit at the Serafico
Insitiute for disabled children, in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013.
Pope Francis made a pilgrimage Friday to the hillside town of Assisi
and the tomb of his namesake, St. Francis, the 13th-century friar who
renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty
and minister to the most destitute. St. Francis was famously told by God
to "repair my house." (AP Photo/Gian Matteo Crocchioni, Pool)
At the Serafico Institute, a local charitable institution treating seriously disabled children, Pope Francis lingered, and there he personally greeted each of the children gathered in the institutes's chapel. Kissing some of the over one hundred children, leaning close to hear a whispered greeting, and making the sign of the cross to bless the foreheads of those incapable of speech themselves.
He suffered himself to come unto the children.
Pope Francis blesses a child during his visit at the Serafico Insitiute
for disabled children, in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. Pope
Francis made a pilgrimage Friday to the hillside town of Assisi and the
tomb of his namesake, St. Francis, the 13th-century friar who renounced a
wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and minister
to the most destitute. St. Francis was famously told by God to "repair
my house." (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool)
In the chamber where St.Francis is said to have made his declaration when he dedicated his life to living as he imagined Christ would have himself lived and might have wanted him to do so as well, Pope Francis spoke to a gathering of the poor, people who were, he observed, challenged "by this savage world, that doesn't give work, doesn't help, doesn't care if there are children in the world who are dying of hunger."
A child photographs Pope Francis during his meeting with poor people in
the Archbishop residence in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. The
Pope delivered his speech in the "Stanza della Spoliazione" the famous
room where St. Francis stripped off his rich clothes and gave them back
to his father and from then on lived a life of poverty dedicated to
Christ. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, pool)
Word of mouth leading to the eventual inscribing of such events for posterity aided St. Francis in attaining his stature as a giant of humanity and ombudsman for the poor and the downtrodden, a messenger with the voice of God speaking in modest syllables and parables of the living truth. His yearning successor has at his disposal an estimated one thousand journalists accredited for this visit, from around the Globe.
His word is their news scoop for the day.
ITALY-POPE-VISIT-ASSISI
Pope
Francis (2ndL) arrives in the St Francis Basilica as part of his
pastoral visit at Assisi on October 4, 2013. Pope Francis visits Assisi
for the first time today to honour the saint whose name he adopted for a
papacy aimed at promoting peace and helping the poor, the Vatican said.
The pope will attend the feast of St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) on
that day, praying at the tomb of a saint who is widely loved in Italy.
AFP PHOTO POOL / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)
"We're increasingly denying ourselves a place at the table. "We
walk out of meetings because North Korea is in the chair. The reason
you go to these meetings is so that you can engage all 193 (UN member
states). You don't pick your friends and your enemies. They're all
there. You go, you play the game ... if you're not at the table, you
don't have a voice." Carolyn McAskie, senior fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
Just
as well she's only an academic, a critic of the Government of Canada.
She concerns herself with the administrative minutiae of United Nations
issues, she is not elected to lead Canada in its affairs with the
outside world. Among the Canadian electorate there are many who have
become less than entranced with the performance of the United Nations,
led by the nose by influential blocs of countries whose mission is to
prolong their own agendas, not support universal rights.
She
does have ample support in her contention of UN involvement where
Canada should abase its own values and positions in the face of being
seen to "go along to get along". Not only among other academics who feel
their opinion is one of value in urging the government of Prime
Minister Stephen Harper to heed their urgings, but the official
opposition as well. Both the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party
of Canada state their unhappiness at Canada's lack of UN 'involvement'.
So,
yes, when North Korea chairs meetings of the United Nations, Canada's
official representative at the United Nations sees no merit in
remaining, for his presence is an indication that Canada recognizes the
right of the repressively dangerous-to-the-world regime to hold its
standards up for recognition by the rest of the world. It is not, as Ms.
McAskie characterizes it, a moment to recognize "friend" or "enemy",
but a rejection of the psychically skewed mal-performance of the United
Nations.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is telling the United Nations
General Assembly not to be taken in by any Iranian charm offensives.
(CP) | CP
The object of her criticism was in reference
to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's 2011 decision for Canada's UN
delegates to vacate themselves from being presence during an odious
charade when the role of chair of a UN disarmament conference became
that of the dynastic cult of North Korea. One of the two countries of
the world that the United Nations has tried repeatedly to lead away from
nuclear proliferation, ending in dismal failure of defiance by North
Korea.
North Korea's entitlement to ownership of
nuclear weapons and the ongoing development of intercontinental
ballistic missiles increasingly more powerful enabling it to choose
between sending a nuclear-tipped missile to Saturn, or toward the
western coastline of North America somehow seems to grate against the
sensibilities of Canadians. And nor is it the sole country whose
presence on an important peace-keeping committee is recognized as a vile
betrayal of the values held by the West.
Here is the
Islamic Republic of Iran which just yesterday as head of the largest
bloc within the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, was elected by
UN member-states to serve as the rapporteur of the UN First Committee
on Disarmament and International Security. Iran, whose bellicose threats
against another UN member of its intention to destroy it and remove it
from the map of the Middle East, whose nose-thumbing at the IAEA over
its nuclear program still entitles it to mock peace and international
security on the international scene.
These assaults
upon the sane sensibilities of reasonable governments whose focus is
authentically upon avoiding war, and upon sensibly doing their utmost toward taming the nuclear ambitions of rogue
totalitarian governments does not generate trust in the United Nations
or its various committees. The sham of remaining in place while
murderous tyrants lecture UN member-states who know how to spell and
practise human rights is simply a demeaning spectacle that Canada wants
no part of.
At the General Assembly of the United
Nations to which the Canadian government's critics insist it to be in
Canada's best interests to attend, and to have Prime Minister Stephen
Harper respectfully address the motley collection of the world's most
notorious mass murderers, rapists, oppressors and war criminals
represents in itself a crime against humanity. That a liberal,
democratic nation lends itself gamely to the ongoing farce of the United
Nations is anathema to the principled mind.
There is
nothing isolationist or grandstanding about Canada's position with
respect to the United Nations. Canada does have a high-ranking elected
official who will address the General Assembly in lieu of the Prime
Minister who attends to more important issues. And Foreign Minister John
Baird does not engage, when addressing the United Nations, in the usual
foppish flattery, but instead insists the world body has an obligation
to address itself to the true issues requiring solution.
The
Millennium Development Goals for maternal health and infant mortality,
as an example, which Canada led through the 2010 G8 Summit "Muskoka
Initiative". Mr. Baird spoke to excoriate the lack of attention of the
world delegates to the travesty unravelling in Syria, adding massively
to the number of the world's threatened refugees. He spoke of the need
to stop the sexual abuse of children by the 'cultural-religious'
practise of promoting 'child marriage'.
Canada's
position is principled and clear when it addresses topics that should be
of primary concern to all present within the UN. But the world body
just happens now not to reflect the purpose for which it was
established. It has become ferociously dysfunctional, fastidiously
sanctimonious. Within that culture and that environment there is no need
for Canada to submit itself and its citizens to giving homage where
none is due.
Should we become masochists among the
repulsive sadists who abound within its chambers? Our "disengagement"
criticized by many does not extend to Canada's withholding of its fees
to ensure that the institution remain operational. In the now-faint hope
that the United Nations in time may manage to rescue itself from its
moribund lack of real purpose, Canada pays its $100-million annual dues
diligently, and another $216-million for the costs of UN "peacekeeping"
missions.
The Muskoka Initiative has seen Canada
contributing almost $3-billion and another $300-million in support of
the UN's costs relating to its catastrophic failures in persuading
Syria's death-delivering tyrant to cease his bloody onslaught against
his civilian population. Canadians pay $5.5-billion yearly to the UN's
World Food Program, the UN High Commission on Refugees and other needed
services to keep civilization from utter collapse.
This
is a country dedicated to providing aid and assistance to further the
international public weal. It does not exist within the United Nations
to help polish the credentials of failed states which threaten world
peace and the existence of neighbours toward whom malign intentions are
harboured. Canada maintains its dignity precisely through its setting
aside the mantra of : "You go, you play the game".
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
