Indigo Jo Blogs

Ministry of Truth » Silver Bling Thing

Until I read the above blog article, I was planning to write an entry about how I supported Lydia Playfoot's campaign to be able to wear a silver ring to school, as part of one of those no-sex-before-marriage campaigns the Evangelical churches are fond of. While I have my reservations about the SRT and about all those campaigns, I don't see why wearing a ring to school should be a reason why a girl should be suspended or expelled - uniform or no. I'm also a long-standing opponent of uniforms themselves, because they are often uncomfortable, they make kids stand out to pupils of other schools, because they are expensive, because the claims made for them (like masking social divisions) don't stand up (as if you can't identify a child's social class by where they live and how they talk), and because they exist solely for historical reasons, and several countries (including Canada and much of Europe) do perfectly well without them.

But it turns out that this isn't a righteous rebellion against the tyranny of school uniforms at all, but what seems to be a publicity stunt. The girl's mother is actually the SRT's UK company secretary, and her father is their Parents' Programme Directory, and both work with SRT UK's managing director, Andy Robinson, who is also handling media enquiries in conjunction with a Bournemouth-based PR company. (Lydia Playfoot lost her case on Monday.)

Posted by Indigo Jo at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Abdal-Hakim Murad - The Churches and the Bosnian war

This is something br. Mas'ud Khan posted to his website a couple of weeks ago, which I only just got round to looking at for the first time in a while. It gives an inside story into the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in inciting the atrocities their side committed against Muslims, the heroism some of their churchmen and theologians attach to known war criminals, and the Church of England's silence on the matter while the massacres were taking place. He also exposes the attitude the Serbian clergy have towards western "pseudo-churches", among whose clergy are people who make "well-meaning visits" during which they "kiss Orthodox cheeks". I found it significant that the webmaster of a prominent Orthodox Christian website in English is a member of this church, despite having a distinctly un-Serbian name (bio here), and has published and linked several articles and extracts from the inveterate anti-Muslim hatemonger, Srdja (or Serge) Trifkovic, on the site.

Meanwhile, UN prosecutors have accused the former interior minister of Macedonia (another predominantly Orthodox country, adjacent to Serbia) of standing by and watching Albanian civilians being murdered during an uprising in 2001.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

The Guardian today has a long article, entitled simply Faith, about religion and the heated debates it has recently provoked in the UK. Discussed are the usual matters of faith schooling, creationism and the anger provoked by the likes of The Satanic Verses and Jerry Springer: the Opera, and whether the fervently anti-religious are just as intolerant as the most extreme of religious people. (See this earlier entry for an example of secularist intolerance.)

Posted by Indigo Jo at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Having seen Channel 4's documentary Undercover Mosque, which was shown earlier this evening (see earlier entry), I am now more reassured regarding the material quoted from the preachers they showed; however, the programme-makers repeatedly interspersed the ugly material emanating from a handful or so preachers from one wing of the Wahhabi sect with material which is more mainstream but is simply distasteful to western ears and images of women wearing niqab. The clear intention was to show that some of these people are two-faced, talking about inclusion and tolerance in public but shouting about dirty kuffar when they do not think non-Muslims are listening. In this much they succeeded. (More: Thabet @ Eteraz, Austrolabe, Kashif, Inayat Bunglawala @ CIF, Yahya Birt.)

Continue reading "Reflections on "Undercover Mosque"" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)

Technorati Tags: alice kneen, richard stone, city circle, islam, liberalism

Last night, as previously mentioned, City Circle held a debate between Alice Kneen of Magdalen College, Cambridge, proposing the motion that Islam was incompatible with liberalism, and Dr Richard Stone of the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, opposing. I got there about 15 minutes late, which was probably more than halfway through Ms Kneen's speech. She was predictably naming all the things about Islam which in her view made Islam incompatible with liberalism (the execution of apostates, etc.). (More: Towards God ...[1], [2].)

Continue reading "City Circle: Islam and liberalism" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (1)

At the time of writing, Comment is Free and all its articles are down.

Sarah Crown on Comment is Free posted yesterday a write-up of a speech at the Hay Festival by Steve Jones, professor of biology at the University College, London, on the subject of "Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right". The Guardian itself reported yesterday that Jones had said he had given up trying to persuade creationists that they were wrong "after repeatedly being misrepresented and, he said, branded a liar". Jones made this broad-brush statement in conclusion to his speech yesterday:

The most important difference between evolutionists and creationists, Prof Jones concluded, is that scientists are always prepared to say, "I don't know".

"If there weren't any unknown parts of evolution, bits we don't understand, it wouldn't be a science," he said, "That's one thing that believers never say, because it's all written down in a big book."

Continue reading "Darwinism at Hay on Wye" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)