THE WEST: heading for "dogmatic tyranny" and "cultural totalitarianism"; UK debates teaching same-sex marriage in schools.

By Elizabeth Kendal

The West today is hurtling down the road towards repressive authoritarianism. For, as Peter Hitchens observes in his fantastic book, The Rage Against God (Zondervan, 2010), "the new anti-theism [that is taking hold in the West] is emphatically not just an opinion seeking its place in a plural society. It is a dogmatic tyranny in the making." (p 206)  

IMPLEMENTING IDEOLOGY

In September 2003, I wrote a Religious Liberty News & Analysis report for the World Evangelical Alliance on Belarus, entitled "Resuscitating the Soviet Machine".

The first part of the posting was devoted to a 27 March 2003 speech by Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenka, in which he declared: "Ideology for a state is what the immune system is for a living organism. If the immune system grows weaker, any infection, even the slightest one, turns deadly."

Lukashenka maintained that the inculcation of an official state-controlled ideology into the country's citizens was essential in order to protect Belarus from "infection".

To this end, Lukashenka recommended that an "official Belarusian ideology" be taught in schools, universities and workplaces, and promoted through the media and the Orthodox Church. Maintaining that dissidents could not be permitted to hold positions of authority or influence, he advised rectors of both state-run and private universities to get rid of professors and lecturers who oppose government policies or are "wavering" in their opinions regarding the government's course.  "If you do not accept the ideas declared by the government and the president, do not apply to a state university for a job," Lukashenka said explicitly. "Before the end of the year [2003], the state of ideological work in colleges, both state and private, should be changed drastically, or else we are going to lose our youth. I could say the same about vocational schools and general-education schools, especially those in Minsk."

Today when I read reports from the UK (example) and USA (example) of Christian educators, health care professionals, service providers and carers being expelled from their positions and dragged through the courts, I can only think of Lukashenka. For these British and American Christians are not being dismissed, expelled, sued, fined, struck off and closed down because of anything they have done. Rather, it is because of what they could not do: generally they could not affirm that all cultures, beliefs or lifestyle choices are equally good.

No Western state has, as yet, moved Belarusian/Soviet-style to formerly codify to implement an official state ideology. However, it is clear that forces with ideological agendas are comprehensively and aggressively yet subversively leading the West in that direction. Their success can be attributed to skilful organisation and propaganda with savvy use of media; and most critically, their devious hijacking of human rights.

Unless there is an awakening and returning, then the day will surely come when the Western world will follow the Belarusian/Soviet model, where no person may qualify for or gain employment as a teacher, professor, nurse, counsellor, doctor, service provider, administrator, supervisor, carer etc, unless they can affirm the official state ideology.

Individuals unable to do so will be deemed unsuitable for certain roles on the grounds that they do not comply with "minimum standards" (example). Institutions that cannot sign up to the state ideology -- something that will doubtless be determined through a registration process -- will likewise be penalised. At the very least they will lose government funding. At worst, they will be deemed illegal and forced to close or move "underground".

To justify the repression, dissenters will be vilified: made the objects of mockery, slander, vitriol and outright disinformation. This in turn will trigger an escalation in crippling discrimination and increasingly violent persecution. And if protecting the human rights of those vilified as backward, hateful, everythingaphobic dissenters is ever deemed politically unviable, then impunity will become the order of the day.

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UK debates teaching same-sex marriage in schools

E-mails between the Home Office and the Department of Education suggest that teaching materials may have to be rewritten to cover same-sex marriage if the law changes to recognise same-sex marriage.

Anna Davis, Education Correspondent for the London Evening Standard reports:  "In March a Home Office official asked the Department for Education whether schools have a legal responsibility to teach about marriage, and how the introduction of same-sex unions would affect this.

"The DfE responded: 'Under section 403 of the Education Act 1996, the Secretary of State must issue guidance designed to secure that when sex education is given to registered pupils at maintained schools, they learn about the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and the bringing up of children. Depending on the outcome of the consultation, there may be a need for the Sex and Relationships Education  guidance to include some additional material in respect to same-sex marriage.' "

James Chapman, reports for the Daily Mail (UK): "Officials at the Home Office and the Department for Education concede that teachers may be under a legal obligation to inform children about same-sex marriage once it has passed into law.

"Under the Education Act 1996, pupils must learn about the nature of marriage and its importance for family life in sex education classes. . .

"Tory MP David Burrowes questioned whether schools will be able to exercise discretion on the subject. 'The issue of same-sex marriage is not just one about equality, but what happens in our school classrooms as well,' he said. 'Teachers should be able to exercise their consciences according to their own views on marriage, but that could well be constrained by these proposals. As much as I am sceptical about the Government being able to exempt churches from conducting same-sex marriages, I also doubt whether it will be possible to construct exemptions for teachers. They would be open to legal challenges. Is the Government really going to order primary school teachers to go against the views of the churches that run them?'

"Colin Hart, campaign director at the Coalition for Marriage, said: 'Marriage appears more than 3,000 times in law, affecting every aspect of our lives. It is simply impossible to redefine it without many serious unintended consequences, not least forcing schools to teach children about gay marriage, even if this goes against the wishes of the parents, children and teachers.' "

According to a senior lawyer, QC Aidan O'Neill, if the law is extended to include same-sex unions, then schools will be forced to promote same-sex marriage to their pupils, and parents with traditional and religious views who oppose same-sex unions, will be "hard-pressed" to remove their children from the classes.

Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern expressed her fears teachers would lose their jobs if they did not want to promote same-sex unions.

Conservative MP Peter Bone has also previously expressed concern for freedom of belief in schools, commenting that: "It is simply inconceivable in today's world where political correctness runs amok in our institutions, that there would not be profound consequences for those who hold traditional views.

"Parents who object will be treated as bigots and outcasts . . . discriminated against and persecuted because they hold views that have been enshrined in our laws and have been the cornerstone of our society for 2,000 years.

"And what of the teachers who object to teaching about same-sex marriage? Will they face disciplinary action? How will it affect their careers?"

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In a brilliant article entitled, The new intolerance (April 2012) -- an article that serves as a perfect introduction to her book, The World Turned Upside Down (Encounter Books, 2010) -- commentator Melanie Phillip's writes: "Unlike Soviet Communism, the mass movements of today are not so much political as cultural: anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, environmentalism, scientism, egalitarianism, anti-racism, libertinism and multiculturalism. These are all not merely quasi-religious movements — evangelical, dogmatic, fanatical and with enforcement mechanisms ranging from demonisation to expulsion in order to stamp out any heresies. They are also millenarian and even apocalyptic in their visions of the perfect society and what needs to be swept aside in order to attain it.

". . . With both Communism and fascism defeated, however, the West has fallen victim to a third variation on the theme: not religious or political but cultural totalitarianism.  . . . Moral and cultural relativism are the order of the day. Any attempt to prioritise any culture or lifestyle over any other is illegitimate. Subjective individualism is the one revealed truth, the old order of Western civilisation has to be destroyed and any dissent is to be stamped out. "

Phillips wonders "what causes militant atheists to hate religious belief so much".

For an answer, she looks to the slogan that atheists promoted in 2009: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

"I think this fatuous slogan gets to the heart of why people have turned away from biblical religion," says Phillips. It's "not because it is irrational but because it puts constraints on their behaviour." 

Peter Hitchens concludes his book, Rage Against God, along the same lines. "A new and intolerant utopianism seeks to drive the remaining traces of Christianity from the laws and constitutions of Europe and North America. This time, it does so mainly in the cause of personal liberation, born in the 1960s cultural revolution, and now inflamed into special rage by suggestion that the sexual urge should be restrained by moral limits or that it should have any necessary connection with procreation. This utopianism relies for human goodness on doctrines of human rights derived from human desires . . . These must then be policed by an ever more powerful state." (p 213-214)

In his March 2003 speech, Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenka denied that ideology was an invention of the Soviet-era Communist Party. "In Western states, the very system of ideological work is concealed from the general public's eye," he stated. "However, it is as comprehensive and aggressive in Western states as Soviet standards, or even more so."

And he is right!

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To follow these issues visit:

UK:
The Christian Institute
Christian Concern
The Christian Legal Centre

USA:
Alliance Defending Freedom (previously known as Alliance Defence Fund), in particular, watch the ADF video (2:36 mins): "In A World Where Marriage Is Redefined Religious Freedom Does Not Survive." (18 June 2012)

The Syria Crisis: cutting through the propaganda

By Elizabeth Kendal

In addition to this week's Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin on Syria --

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 167 | Wed 11 Jul 2012
SYRIA: Christians' plight lost under mountain of propaganda

-- I am providing a short reading list of recently published, freely-available articles for those who would like some help in cutting through the propaganda.

A Jihadist, Anti-Western Agenda is Being Forced on Syria
By Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs.
Analysis, April 2012 (via oilprice.com)
Quotes: "The international community has been blindly following a jihadist-driven agenda for Syria; a solution the majority of Syrians reject, but which Turkey and Qatar have been driving. It begs the question: why are analysts in Washington — or Paris or London — not digging more deeply into what is really happening, given that the solution they have endorsed is so profoundly anti-Western?"

". . . the West, led by the US, Turkey, and Qatar, is striving to repeat in Syria the legacy of the interventions in Bosnia and Libya, irrespective of the realities on the ground or the desires of the local population. To justify such an intervention, the US leads a media campaign to portray the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as westernized and democratic when Arab governments and the Arab media know that this is simply untrue.

"The Syrian National Council has always been a front of the more militant- jihadist wing of the Muslim Brothers [MB: the Ikhwan]."

"At the core is the confrontation between resurgent Sunni Arab Islam-ism and the region’s aspirant non-Arab Islamist hegemonic powers: Mahdivist Iran and neo-Ottoman Turkey."

"The Fertile Crescent of Minorities — from east to west counter-clockwise: Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds, ‘Alawites, Druze, Maronites, Jews and Circassians — serves as the buffer, preventing a cataclysmic eruption."

"Only a viable Fertile Crescent of Minorities — of which the ‘Alawites and Druze of Syria are presently the most beleaguered elements — can thus prevent the simmering Arab Middle East from conjoining with the Islamist ascent of Turkey and Iran and jointly creating an explosive critical mass. . . . The marginalization and destruction of the Syrian section of the Fertile Crescent of Minorities, even if in the name of democracy, not only would not elevate the Sunni majority but would cause cataclysmic upheaval throughout the greater Middle East."

Influx of foreign fighters add to Syria's carnage
By Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 17 June 2012
Quote: "Another fatwa, by a fellow Sunni cleric, Adnan Arour, was even more direct, threatening not only Syria's Alawite rulers, but Christians and other minorities who side with them. 'We will chop you up and feed you to the dogs,' Arour said."
(If the link takes you to a subscription page - trying cutting the pasting the title into a google search -- that usually seem to get around it)  Alternatively - here is film footage.

Duplicity drives West's Syria policy
By Bob Rigg, Asia Times Online, 4 July 2012
Quotes: "The West falsely claims that its interest in Syria is purely humanitarian, while it is covertly pouring political and logistical fuel onto the flames of civil war in Syria, escalating the conflict and ensuring ever greater losses of human life."

". . . when the West speaks of human rights, this may well be a front for self-interested geopolitical power plays."

Regime change in Syria: A true story  
By Francois-Alexandre Roy, Asia Times Online, 6 July 2012
This article covers subheadings:
* US and al-Qaeda: same goal this time around
* Turkey's game
* Western media (which includes a reference to the Houla massacre false flag operation).
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Houla massacre

For more on the Houla massacre, now exposed as a false flag operation wherein Free Syrian Army forces disguised as pro-Assad 'thugs' massacred unsympathetic mostly non-Sunni families and blamed the regime, see:

Reconsidering The Houla Massacre – OpEd
By: Paul Woodward
Euraisia Review, 11 June 2012

The UN and the Houla Massacre: The Information Battlefield
By Ronda Hauben, 18 June 2012.

THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
Detailed Investigation by Marat Musin
Global Research, 1 June 2012
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Halting Syrian chaos 
By Robert D Kaplan and Kamran Bokhari
STRATFOR via Asia Times Online, 7 july2012
Quotes: "But [Assad's] removal might well hasten the slide into chaos within Syria and in adjacent Lebanon, rather than slow it.

"Assad's departure could even ignite a disintegration of the Syrian power structure into various gangs and militias."

"One can also argue that from a human-rights perspective, chaos can be worse than authoritarianism."

Kaplan and Bokhari recommend that the US hand "Iran (and maybe Russia) a total strategic defeat in Syria" on the grounds that "fighting a proxy war with Iran and Russia there is less desirable for the United States than reaching out to them."

There will be hell to pay for NATO's Holy War
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online, 10 July 2012
Quote: "In the event of a post-Assad Syria dominated by hardcore Sunnis infiltrated by Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadists, guaranteed blowback will leave Afghanistan after the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad looking like a ride on Disneyland Hong Kong."

VIDEO

Vatican's Fides News Agency - U.S. Backed Syrian Rebels Killing Christians.
 14 June 2012 (YouTube 3:49mins)

'Attack on Iran after Syria falls major goal of the West'
 8 July 2012 (YouTube 5:18mins)

For further background - see this blog, label: Syria

MALI: Islamists destroy heritage and take human shields

By Elizabeth Kendal

The cultural heritage of Timbuktu -- destroyed

Having seized control of northern Mali, al Qaeda-linked jihadists are now destroying the cultural heritage of Timbuktu.

Reached by telephone in an undisclosed location in northern Mali, Ansar Dine spokesman Oumar Ould Hamaha told Associated Press: "The only tribunal we recognize is the divine court of Shariah. The destruction is a divine order. It's our Prophet who said that each time that someone builds something on top of a grave, it needs to be pulled back to the ground. We need to do this so that future generations don't get confused, and start venerating the saints as if they are God."

See: Islamistscontinue destroying Timbuktu heritage
By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press 2 July 2012

According to Reuters: "The UNESCO ambassadors meeting in St. Petersburg on Tuesday joined Malian Culture Minister Toure in appealing to global governments and organisations and 'all people of goodwill' to act to prevent the prevent the destruction of the Timbuktu monuments by 'vandals'. 'We consider this action to be a crime against history,' the appeal said.

"Experts are comparing the Timbuktu tomb destructions to similar attacks against Sufi shrines by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year. The attacks also recall al Qaeda attacks on Shi'ite shrines in Iraq in the past decade and the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan."

See: Timbuktu tomb destroyers pulverise Islam's history
By Pascal Fletcher , Tue Jul 3, 2012

No-one should be surprised, for as history demonstrates, cultural destruction such as this is to be expected when Islamist take power. [see footnote]

The citizens of Gao -- taken hostage

According to Mossa Ag Attaher, a Paris-based spokesman for the Tuareg-nationalist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its offshoot, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), "have mined the area surrounding Gao. Many people are trying to escape, to take the bus to go to Bamako, but the Islamists are stopping them."

The MNLA spokesman told AFP that Gao residents "are facing a serious humanitarian crisis. After the criminal destruction of the shrines of Muslim saints, (the Islamists) are now using the population as hostages, as a human shield to protect itself from an MNLA counter-attack."

A west African source also confirmed to AFP that landmines had been planted around Gao "to prevent a possible attack by troops" from the west African regional bloc ECOWAS.

See: Al-Qaeda has mined access to key Mali town:Tuareg rebels
Monday, 02 July 2012
Also: Islamists smash Timbuktu relics
AEST Tue Jul 3 2012

" 'The population in Gao has been taken hostage,' Bernard Valero, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, said separately. 'Within the context of war and a food crisis, mines appear to have been laid around the city to prevent people from leaving. This in our eyes is an act of terrorism. ' "

See: Islamists mine Gao
3 July 2012, By John Irish and Tiemoko Diallo

Footnote:

For more on this subject of Islam's destruction of its own history,
see: Islam vs. History
by Daniel Pipes
July 2, 2012

On Islam destroying Christian history:

Surely one the most horrendous "crimes against history" committed in recent decades is the desecration and destruction of well over 100 churches, monasteries and religious sites across Serbia's Kosovo province between 1999-2003.

What makes this "crime against history" so particularly egregious is that, unlike the crimes against history committed in North Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, the crimes against history committed in Kosovo were not committed by militant African, Middle Eastern and "Afghan" Salafi jihadi purists exploiting a security vacuum, but by "white" Albanian Muslims and US-allied KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) personnel under the watchful eye of US-NATO KFOR "protection" forces.

For 60 pages of documentary evidence see: Kosovo Crucified.
This report lists 107 desecrated and destroyed sites; identifies which NATO force was responsible for protecting that site; details the degree of destruction; and provides foundation dates.
For example:
(2) The Church of the Mother of God near Suva Reka;
KFOR zone of responsibility: German;
church razed (terrain cleared, all traces of existence removed);
church founded in 1315.

Around 35 churches and monasteries were subsequently desecrated and destroyed when some 50,000 Albanian Muslims went on an anti-Serb and anti-Christian racial-religious pogrom across Kosovo over 17-19 March 2004.

Quite a few of the properties destroyed dated back to the mid 14th century and contained some of the most exquisite iconography known, but now lost, to the world.