Guest editorial: Embrace liberty, get rid of the hijab!

Walt likes to make readers aware of important dates and events -- things you should know so that you can make the proper adjustments to your view of the world. In particular, you must think some more about the Religion of Peace (TM) and how our society should embrace it, and all followers of the Prophet Mohammed, including (without limiting the generality of the foregoing) ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Taliban. M-103.

You will hear more about being nice to Muslims on February 1st, which the powers that be (you know who they are) have decreed to be World Hijab Day. Seriously. Not making this up. The good folks at Dr. Rich Swier's blog have submitted an editorial which Walt is pleased to post below.

The mission of World Hijab Day (February 1st) is to allegedly make non-Muslims aware of the societal response to Muslim women who wear a hijab. Perhaps Muslim women feel uncomfortable wearing the hijab in public because they know that millions of Americans see the hijab as exemplifying one of many harsh tenets of Sharia law that oppress women.

The hijab has replaced the pink triangle as the progressive left’s top symbol of diversity. However, tens of millions of Americans including thousands of Muslim women view the hijab as a symbol of Islamist, misogynistic repression. Nearly sixty percent of Muslims in America do not wear the hijab according to Pew Research published by NPR on April 21, 2011.

Some scholars of Islam teach that the Quran does not mandate the hijab. The hijab was invented and mandated by Mussah Sadr, an Iranian mullah, in the 1970s, 1300 years after the Quran was written. Sadr issued a Sharia edict that required women to wear the hijab to allegedly prevent their rape. Women In The World media published an article on September 15, 2015 titled “The day 100,000 Iranian women protested the head scarf.” The article displayed a seldom-seen collection of photographs, shot in Tehran in 1979, of thousands of women who are not wearing hijabs or other oppressive attire prior to Sadr enforcing Iran’s new Islamist hijab law.

British Muslim Qanta Ahmed wrote on March 18, 2017 in The Spectator UK: “As a Muslim, I strongly support the right to ban the veil. At last, the European Court of Justice has made a stand for European values. Rigid interpretations of the veil are a recent invention. They’re derived not from the Quran or early Islamic tradition but from a misogyny which claims a false basis in the divine.”

The same Sharia law that dictates women must wear the hijab also advocates harsh discipline (abuse) of wives, genital mutilation of girls and honor killing of allegedly dishonorable females. Hopefully, Muslim women will embrace the fullness of the liberty that is extended to them by the United States Constitution by doffing the oppressive hijab as most other Muslim women have done in America as well as take a stand against the harsh Sharia tenets that oppress them.

Further reading (and watching): "'Ordinary Muslim' sez banning the burqa makes sense", WWW 18/1/19.

The Prez lied! US occupation of Afghanistan to continue until 2017

The Paranoid States of America has been fighting a "war against terrorism" in Afghanistan -- not to mention Iraq, Syria, etc etc and so forth -- for 14 years. The Afghanistan war is the longest in American history, and, Walt suggests, the second-most futile. (Vietnam would take the dubious honour of being the most futile.)

It will be remembered (or should be) that the Prez promised, when seeking election and re-election, that he would bring US troops home from the sandpit by the end of his term. He lied.

Today POTUS announced plans to keep nearly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan through most of next year. 5500 will remain even after he leaves office in 2017, handing off the conflict to a successor. Wouldn't it be ironic if the third commander-in-chief to oversee this misguided and mishandled war turned out to be Hellery Clinton. It would be interesting to watch the Empress trying to pin the blame not just on the immediate past president, but on the past-past president!

Mr. O called the new plan a "modest but meaningful" extension of the US military mission, which he swears he originally planned to end next year. Why didn't he do it? In the words of W.C. Fields, "Things happened." The Prez acknowledged America's weariness of the lengthy conflict, but said he was "firmly convinced we should make this extra effort."

He may be convinced, but Walt is not. Like Ron Paul, Walt believes the USA has no business intervening in the Muslim civil wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq, Syria, etc etc and so forth) -- never did, never will. American blood is being shed. American treasure is being poured down the desert rathole. And for what? To bring Western civilization and democracy to the benighted Islamists? They don't want it and won't have it! Better to just let ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest duke it out. Will any serious contender for the presidensity have the guts to say that...and mean it?! Let's see....

Footnote: Let's be fair. It really was Dubya, not the Prez, who got America into Afghanistan. But it's not like he won't have a war to call his own and leave to his successor as a parting gift. Earlier this week, POTUS announced that he was sending US troops into Cameroon (central Africa) to help defeat the ISIS affiliate, Boko Haram. Boko Haram (translated as "Western education evil") is just one of the Islamic terrorist groups who benefitted from the US-led intervention in Libya. Thank you Mr. Obama...and Ms. Clinton.

Further reading: "How Can Anyone Still Be An Interventionist?" by Jacob G. Hornberger, on the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity website.

25 worst places to be a Christian

The British newspaper The Guardian has published an overview of the persecution of Christians worldwide, accompanied by a list of the 25 worst places to be a Christian. "Christians are facing growing persecution around the world," they wrote, "fueled mainly by Islamic extremism and repressive governments, leading the Pope to warn of 'a form of genocide' and for campaigners to speak of 'religio-ethnic cleansing,'."

Click here to read The Grauniad's list, with their reasons. Walt's "Reader's Digest version" follows. The list is not in bad-worse-worst order because, well... I don't need to explain, do I?

North Korea - Asia, Communist dictatorship. Believers meet in secret "house churches", risking imprisonment, torture and martyrdom.
Somalia - Horn of Africa, officially Muslim, lawless and chaotic. Christians often executed on the spot.
Iraq - Middle East sandpit, officially Muslim, but which kind of Muslim? Shi'ites and Sunni Muslims are fighting it out in a Muslim civil war, in which the USA and its reluctant allies are meddling for no good reason.
Syria - Like Iraq, only worse.
Afghanistan - Like Syria, only worse.

Sudan - Northern Africa, officially Muslim, Sharia law. Converting to Christianity punishable by death. Blasphemy gets you the lash.
Iran - Middle East, officially Muslim. Safer for Christians than Iraq or Syria, and that's about all you can say.
Pakistan - Asia, officially Muslim. Christians are second-class citizens. Blasphemy (against the Prophet or the Holy Qu'ran) punishable by death.
Eritrea - Horn of Africa, pseudo-Communist dictatorship, Muslim majority. See North Korea.
Nigeria - Africa, divided between Muslim north and nominally Christian south. Sharia law in the north. Boko Haram abducts girls, kills Christians by the thousands.

Maldives - Never heard of it, right? Beautiful little islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of India. Great tourist destination. Officially Muslim. Converting from Islam means forfeiting Maldivian citizenship, and owning a Bible is punishable by death. Churches are banned; Christian migrants and tourists also have to meet in secret and cannot own Bibles.
Saudi Arabia - Middle East, feudal kingdom. Officially Muslim and we're talking Wahabi, the most extreme branch of Sunni Islam. For their faith, Christians may be arrested, imprisoned, tortured and deported.
Libya - North Africa, officially Muslim. ISIS hotspot, going through a civil war following a pointless Western invasion. The new Somalia.
Yemen - Middle East, feudal, officially Muslim. Christians treated as in Saudi Arabia, and caught in the middle of a civil war, with Saudis intervening on the side of Islamic fundamentalists.
Uzbekistan - Central Asia, pseudo-Communist dictatorship. As in China [How did China get left off this list?! Ed.], all churches must be registered with the state. Converts from Islam face imprisonment, beatings and sometimes banishment.

Vietnam - Asia, Communist dictatorship. Not quite as bad as China, since the Roman Catholic Church still has a large following, the legacy of the colonial days. As in China and Uzbekistan, churches must be officially registered. As in China, many churches have been destroyed, and Christians attacked and imprisoned.
Central African Republic - Africa [Duh! Ed.], chaotic, lawless. The militant group Séléka, (= CAR rebels + Muslims from neighbouring countries), have raped, tortured and killed Christians throughout the country. Unlike in other countries on this fecal roster, defence groups made up of people claiming to be Christians are fighting back. Victims, Christian or Muslim, may be eaten.
Qatar - Middle East, Islamic kingdom. Converts to Christianity face banishment and death. Large population of migrant workers have to keep their faith to themselves.
Kenya - Africa. Like Nigeria but substitute Al Shabaab for Boko Haram. If you're a white, presumably Christian tourist, keep your head down.
Turkmenistan - Central Asia, quasi-dictatorship, officially Muslim. See Uzbekistan.

India - Asia. Officially a secular state but under the ruling BJP effectively "Hindustan". Like Pakistan, only with the persecutors being Hindus. In some states there are anti-conversion laws, and attacks on Christians and church buildings occur frequently. Indian Muslims are recommended to move to Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Ethiopia - Horn of Africa. I don't agree with The Guardian on this one, as the majority of Ethiopians are Coptic Christians. But there are Muslim-dominated areas, where Christians report harassment for their faith. The Grauniad says there were 60 violent incidents reported in 2014.
Egypt - Northern Africa, officially Muslim. There is a large(ish) minority of Coptic Christians who were largely left alone until the US-supported overthrow of the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, which was followed by a sharp increase in anti-Christian violence, with 65 churches, convents, Christian bookshops and schools attacked. There are fears these attacks will increase as radical Islamist groups gain power in the region.
Djibouti - Horn of Africa, officially Muslim. You'll find it on the map next to Eritrea, which it greatly resembles. That's all you need to know.
Burma - Asia, quasi-dictatorship, officially Buddhists. Included in The Guardian's list (I guess) to show that it's not only the Islamists who have it in for Christians. There has been a rise in nationalist religious movements in the past few years, with nearly two dozen Christians killed in clashes with the army in 2014. Buddhist nationalist groups are putting pressure on the government to adopt laws that would make life harder for Christians, such as limiting conversions and restricting interfaith marriages.

So there you have it -- the 25 worst countries in which to be a Christian. OK, 26 if you count China, which you definitely should. And The Guardian says nothing of the persecution of believers in the True Faith by the secular humanists who have triumphed in post-Christian Europe and North America.

Dear Christian readers, please keep in your minds and hearts the words of St. Paul:
2 Timothy 3:12 - And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Romans 8:35/37 - Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or sword? / But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us.

Further reading: "Dying for Christianity: millions at risk amid rise in persecution across the globe" (Companion piece to The Guardian's list)

Jordan's King Abdullah II speaks about the "war within Islam"

Thanks to Agent 6 for sending us the link to a thoughtful speech given to the European Parliament earlier this month by a moderate Muslim -- yes, there is such a thing -- King Abdullah II of Jordan. He talks about the war within Islam, the conflict between Islamic terrorists (ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram) and the rest of the Muslim world, the Palestinian question, and the need for peaceful coexistence with the West.

خطاب جلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني المعظم في البرلمان الأوروبي - آذار

King Abdullah speaks in English. There are Arabic subtitles.

Pope Francis needs to be reminded that Islam is a false religion

More fallout from the Charlie Hebdo atrocity and the reactions of Western politicians, "Christian" religious leaders and the lamestream media. Provoked by "Must free speech include the freedom to offend?", posted here yesterday, seldom-heard-from Agent 12 (welcome back!) sent us a link to "Pope Francis, blasphemy, Charlie Hebdo, and the punch".

The article, from a blog for Dallas-area Catholics -- real Catholics -- argues that there can be no real understanding of the whole controversy until there is an acknowledgement that Islam is a false religion -- one that is to be tolerated, to be sure, but false all the same.

With the last few popes -- JPII, Benedict XVI and Francis -- visiting and even praying in mosques, and generally pushing the enormous lie that is false ecumenism, we shouldn't expect any such statement from anyone except the remnant of traditional Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants.

The blogger writes: The Church used to know these truths: you cannot blaspheme against the Church and the Lord, because both are true. The second is, error has no rights. Thus, both Charlie Hebdo and the Islamic maniacs who attacked them are both violently wrong and to be repudiated.

I, for one, have been sickened by this outpouring of support for a magazine few had heard of and few cared about. Our modern culture likes to pretend that freedom of speech is a sacred right, but when the knife comes to the throat, vague notions about liberty are not enough to sustain a person in resistance.

Liberals will inevitably fall before religious conviction, and that is why the West is in collapse: the West has rejected the religion that built her. Dark ages seem to loom ahead.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Walt's post "West reacts to Islamist killing of Westerners... ONLY Westerners" seems to have attracted the attention of the CBC's Rex Murphy. [Either that or great minds think alike. Ed.] Like Walt, Mr. Murphy has difficulty understanding why the killing of a dozen cartoonists and four Jews has caused such furious breast-beating and rending of garments, yet the massacre of thousands of Nigerian Muslims by Islamic fanatics has resulted in... crickets... Check out "Why isn't the world rallying against Boko Haram?", as aired on CBC's The National last night.

West reacts to Islamist killing of Westerners... ONLY Westerners

It took the "public" beheading of a couple of Americans and a Brit to get the Excited States of America and its camp followers (hello, Australia, Britain and Canada... and France!) into the latest phase of the Oil Wars. As long as ISIS -- an extremist band of Sunni Muslims -- was beating up Shia Muslims, Kurds, and other denizens of the sandpit, who cared? Nobody! That's who!

Last week, Islamic terrorists -- which is what they were, no matter what the Prez says -- killed, ummm, 17 French people (including 4 Jews), and the world went nuts. As discussed here at length [great length! Ed.], suddenly we we're all Charlie. Some of us even proclaimed "We are all Jews"!

Sure, the killings in France were tragic, outrageous attacks on free speech and Western values, worthy of condemnation and outpourings of grief and determination to resist. But... did anyone notice that in the same week, Boko Haram killes literally 1000s of people -- all African, mostly Muslim -- in Nigeria? "See Meanwhile, in Nigeria, militant Islamists wipe out town of 10,000">

Today comes news that there were three -- count `em, three -- suicide bombings in the same part of Nigeria. 23 people were killed and dozens injured when three female suicide bombers -- one only 10 years old -- blew themselves up [or were blown up by remote control] in crowded markets. 23 dead, added to the 2000 or so killed in Baga. Are people in Paris, Washington, London or Toronto taking to streets with signs reading "We are all African Muslims!" Errr, no.

Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jos, accuses the West of ignoring the atrocities perpetrated by Boko Haram. Speaking on BBC-TV's Newsday, he said the world had to show more determination to halt the militant Islamists' advance in Nigeria. Why, he asked, doesn't the international community show the same spirit and resolve that it did after the attacks in France? Walt will supply the answer. It's because the victims aren't Westerners, so who cares...

Archbishop Kaigama said facing down Boko Haram requires international support and unity of the type that had been shown after last week's militant attacks in France. "We need that spirit to be spread around," he said. "Not just when [an attack] happens in Europe, but when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, in Cameroon. We [must] mobilize our international resources and face or confront the people who bring such sadness to many families."

Good luck with that. And I'm not talking about Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan [real name. Ed.] who is among those who doesn't seem to care. He has yet to comment on this week's violence, and BBC correspondent Will Ross says Nigeria's politicians appear more focused on next month's elections. Not like Western politicians, eh!

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, militant Islamists wipe out town of 10,000

The world... well, the Western world, at least... is getting mightily exercised about the death of a dozen French men and women, executed by two Islamic extremists for "insulting the Prophet". Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, says there is no more time for denial and hypocrisy.

Fingers are being pointed at Islamic fundamentalism, and rightly so, but the problem of coping with millions of outsiders who do not (in spite of what François Hollande and the Pope keep saying) share our core values.

The politically correct message is that not all Muslims are like that. Maybe so. Maybe... maybe... 99% of the followers of the Prophet wouldn't arm themselves with AK-47s and go out hunting infidels. That would leave just 1% -- 50,000 residents of France -- who might threaten the peace of that country. Food for thought...

Meanwhile, the militant Islamists who call themselves Boko Haram -- it means "Western education is forbidden" -- are laying waste to great swathes of northern Nigeria. They control 70% of Borno, the state worst-affected by their insurgency.

Today, a senior government official in the area said that fleeing residents told him that the town of Baga, which had a population of about 10,000, was now "virtually non-existent".

Musa Alhaji Bukar told the BBC's Hausa service, the town had been burnt down. Those who fled reported that they had been unable to bury the dead, and hundreds of corpses littered the town's streets, he said, adding that Boko Haram is now in control of Baga and 16 neighbouring towns after the Nigerian military fled.

The people of northern Nigeria are predominantly Muslim. Most of the 2000 or so people massacred by Boko Haram last year were Muslims -- the peaceful, non-violent kind. The Muslims who have joined the ranks of the Islamic extremists is certainly less than 1%. More food for thought.

Why the Australian terrorist wannabe did it

Following 9/11, Dubya famously [infamously? Ed.] said that the Islamic terrorists hate us for our freedoms. Ascribing that motivation to al-Qaeda was risible at the time, and, as anyone who's been dealt with by TSA and other "protectors of our freedoms" knows, is now ludicrous. America "the land of the free"? HAH!

If not for our long-vanished freedomes, why, then, do the Muslim fanatics -- the Taliban, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram -- really hate us? Why would a scumbag like Man Haron Monis -- the Iranian-born "refugee" shot by police yesterday in Sydney -- take over a dozen hostages in what was ultimately a futile and fatal publicity stunt?

The same question was asked in Canada back in October, after two "radicalized" Canadian converts to the Religion of Peace [HAH? Ed.] killed two Canadian soldiers in separate incidents outside of Montréal and in the nation's capital.

The Canadian government (Steve Harper, Beloved Leader) was keen to downplay any notion that the killings had anything to do with its decision to join the American coalition attacking ISIS (or "ISIL", as they and Obama persist in calling it, lest we believe it has anything to do with Syria). The Canucks could barely bring themselves to admit that the killers were, by conversion if not birth, Muslims. No, they were just misguided young men with emotional problems. Probably drug addicts too. Drug-addled nutbars, really. That was the PC government spin on the story.

So fast was the story spinning that the Mounties, who had promised to release a video made by the Parliament Hill shooter, reneged on their promise. They are now saying they might release a "transcript" of the video, which will doubtless be sanitized to remove images of the IS flag and the killer's repeated declaration that he acted to protest the Canadian involvement in the anti-IS coalition.

So now in Australia, we are seeing the same spin on what is basically the same story. It's a little more difficult for the Australian government to gloss over the late Mr. Monis's motives, since he had already been convicted of writing threatening letters to the families of Australian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, and -- more important -- had ranted on a widely-circulated video about wanting to make the Aussies pay for joining the US invasion of the Middle East.

The governments of Australia, Canada and (of course) the USA, would like you to forget that, until the Americans started bombing IS, it was confining its barbaric activities to killing fellow Muslim men, women and children, as well as religious and ethnic minorities -- particularly Kurds -- in Syria and Iraq.

It wasn't until after the American "intervention" in August that they started beheading westerners. And only after the September extension of the bombing to include Syria did IS urge its followers to attack Westerners wherever they might be found. That is exactly what the "lone wolves" in Canada and Australia did. And that's why they did it.

Will the governments of Australia and Canada and the Paranoid States of America now rethink they disastrous policy of constant meddling in the Middle East? Walt doubts it. Lifetime pct .977.

Further reading on WWW:
"Some wars would be better forgotten" (11/11/14)
"The war against ISIS explained... again... seriously, this time" (14/11/14)

Two popes talk about peaceful coexistence with Muslims

Only a couple of days before Sandro Magister said in an interview he found the Pope's silence on Islam "a contradiction", the Head of the Church called for more careful instruction for seminarians on dealing with Muslims!

Meeting with African Bishops, Pope Francis said, "I think it is important that the clergy receive a more structured training in the seminary in order to carry out a constructive dialogue with Muslims, a dialogue ever more necessary to live a peaceful coexistence with them."

The Pope noted that Africa presents a special situation for Christians because Islam is "strongly majoritarian" -- whatever that means -- in many places. He added that there are great differences from place to place in the "conditions of reciprocal relations" with Islam. He made no apology for the gross understatement.

Walt wonders what the Pope is smoking. Or does he just make this stuff up as he goes along? He certainly can't have remembered -- if he ever knew them -- the teachings of St. Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas, who said we must combat the heresies of Islam and all other false religions.


A commenter on the Jihad Watch blog writes:
"Does the Pope really think Boko Haram needs a heart-to-heart convo about tolerance? Is he nuts? Attacks, massacres, forced conversions of Christians, forced marriages and sharia: the protocol Boko Haram has been told in ghastly detail by the few fortunate survivors. Jihadists are slaughtering Christian children, kidnapping young girls and selling them in slave markets to Muslims, targeting teachers and doctors, and the Pope thinks it’s a lack of inter-faith dialogue?"

Indeed. But if any proof of the lunacy of the Party Pope's thoughts of coexistence was needed, it was offered within mere days by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared a jihad -- Islamic holy war -- on Rome, America and its "coalition", and all and sundry other infidels.

Calling on his followers to "erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere", the Terrorist-in-Chief added, "The crusaders' missiles will not stop our advance on Rome." That would be the same Rome from which the Church -- in the days when it was Catholic -- launched the Crusades to recover the Holy Land from the Muslim infidels.

One must ask, with Antonio Socci (see reference in the Magister interview) if someone gives voice to such foolish (and anti-Christian) ideas can really be Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis wants to love the radical Islamists to death, while they want to, errr, kill us to death!

Contrast what Pope Francis is saying with the 1928 teaching of Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, in which he ordered us not to sell out to the Muslim infidels, but to bring them to the Catholic Church!

Pius XI ordered the Dedication of the Human Race to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, to be made each year on the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, in these words: "Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God."

But that was before Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born. Perhaps no-one ever told him about it. Or perhaps he forgot.

Dark continent celebrates half-century of corruption and misrule

Africans from Casablanca to Cape Town are looking forward -- or maybe not -- to Sunday, when many of Africa's states will celebrate the 50th anniversary -- more or less -- of the "liberation" of the Dark Continent -- or much of it -- from the white settlers. If this sentence seems a little vague, that's because things in Africa are always vague.

A couple of African writers have noted that in throwing off the shackles of the European colonialists, the Africans (in the lands below the Sahara, at least) seem to have liberated themselves from the bonds of peace, order and good government -- indeed, of civilization itself. Vince Musewe (Zimbabwean) writes that "Africa remains in the economic backwoods and torn apart by civil wars, coups and counter-coups."

In Malawi (formerly known as Nyasaland, and before that British Central Africa) violence erupted during Tuesday's presidential elections. No-one was killed though, so that's considered a peaceful election by African standards.

In northern Africa, Al-Qaeda terrorises the Sahel region and is fomenting jihad against Christians in the Central African Republic and Mali south of the Sahara. That there hasn't (yet) been mass genocide is due mainly to the presence of armed forces from France, which happens to be, errr, the former colonial power.

A bit farther south, civil strife in the diamond-rich Congo (Kinshasa -- not to be confused with Congo Brazzaville) never seems to end. The UN has a token force in the Congo's far east, but local people seem to fear them as much as any of the other gangs of marauders.

In western Africa, Boko Haram continues to wreak havoc in Nigeria. #BringBackOurGirls slacktivism doesn't seem to have had much impact on them. Just yesterday, suicide bombers killed scores of people in marketplaces in two northern towns. The Disunited Nations is threatening to impose sanctions. US assistance in searching for the missing schoolgirls has been delayed by "technical problems".

Want more? In Zimbabwe, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, once touted to by western liberals as a great freedom fighter and another Mandela, clings to power at age 90-odd, crushing opposition and establishing a de facto one-party state, while turning the former Rhodesia into an economic basket case.

Like Zimbabwe, most of the states of central Africa have failed, collapsed or are weak. South Sudan -- the world's newest nation! -- has collapsed into tribal war. Guinea, Niger, Mauritania, and Guinea Bissau are failing as a result of coups and civil uprisings. Walt's agent in Madagascar reports that water and power outages, banditry and looting are daily occurrences.

Corruption is out of control in every African state, with one or two possible exceptions. African society laughs at honest and accountable leaders and cherishes "big men" like Mugabe and South Africa's Zuma.

In Liberia, from whence Ibrahim Al-bakri Nyei writes, about 75 people of Afro-American descent have held power for over 40 years, circulating the leadership amongst them to keep up appearances. The rest of the population still lives in poverty and hopelessness. Corruption is at its peak, casting doubts on the credibility of the regime and eroding public confidence in the state as a whole.

Conclusion: "Uhuru" (freedom/independence) remains an empty event for the majority of Africans. Why so? Could it be that the fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings, does not necessarily make them sensible human beings? This the theme of "Are we beast or man?", by Vince Musewe, an economist and author based in Harare.

Musewe quotes (with sorrow) from a speech made by former South African President P.W. Botha, speech made in that country's Parliament in 1987.

“We are not obliged even the least to prove to anybody and to the blacks that we [whites] are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the blacks 1001 ways. The Republic of South Africa that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking. We have created it at the expense of intelligence, sweat and blood. We do not pretend like other whites that we like blacks.

"The fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings does not necessarily make them sensible human beings. If God had wanted us to be equal to blacks, He would have created all of a uniform colour and intellect. By now every one of us has seen it practically that blacks cannot rule themselves. Give them guns and they will kill each other.

"They are good at nothing else, but making noise, dancing, marrying many wives and indulging in sex. Let us all accept that the black man is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence."

President Botha was a co-winner, with Nelson Mandela, of the Nobel Peace Prize, not because he changed his views on the fitness of blacks to run a modern nation-state, but because he worked with Mandela to ensure that the transition to "majority rule" in 1994 was as smooth and peaceful as possible, in the circumstances. Since then, South Africa has sliding the slippery slope downward, much like Zimbabwe, only not as quickly. It could take another 20 years or so under ANC rule before it hits bottom.

In his article, Musewe asks his fellow Zimbabweans: "What have we to show as a country since our independence in 1980?

"Horrifying corruption and outright theft, a leadership with an inexplicable obsession with luxury cars and sexual encounters, the destruction of prodigious value in all sectors of our economy, the use of arms of war against our Ndebele brothers and sisters, the decimation of agriculture and the dogfight over diamonds, the deliberate extermination of a national indigenous bourgeoisie, the destruction of our environment that is now happening particularly by small-scale tobacco growers and small-scale miners all under the name of indigenisation.

"In addition, just look at the dirt in our cities and townships, the noise that goes on daily, the potholes and sewage all over, the overcrowding and the common face of poverty, hopelessness and serious deterioration of our living standards. Look at our values and morals as a society and what we have become; the greed and selfishness all around us; all this, despite having the highest literacy rate in Africa!"

Can it there be said that Botha was fundamentally wrong or blinded by racism? Corruption, autocratic leadership, mismanagement, incompetence and misrule are the norms in today's Africa. Such is the fruit of the "liberation struggle" of the 60s which will be celebrated on Sunday.

African terrorists kidnapping schoolkids - 1973 version

In "Nigerian schoolgirls: we've seen this movie before -- literally!", I said the saga of the kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls by Boko Haram -- did I mention they're militant Islamists? -- reminded me of an incident depicted in The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Agent 3, who lived in that part of the world for some years, tells me I could have done much better. The plot of the 1980 movie, he says, drew heavily on an actual kidnapping on the night of 5 July 1973. ZANLA terrorists fighting for the "liberation" of Rhodesia abducted 292
people -- almost the same number as were taken in Nigeria -- mainly children, from St. Albert’s Mission near Centenary.

Click here to read the Wikipedia article on the Rhodesian Bush War. Under what the black terrorists called the "white settler regime", Rhodesia was the second-most prosperous country in sub-Saharan Africa, after the Republic of South Africa, which coincidentally was also run by the white minority. Many Rhodesians were concerned that "majority rule" would bring chaos, as resulted when the Belgian Congo was decolonized in 1960.

The Bush War involved counter-insurgency operations by the Rhodesian Security Forces against two rival terrorist gangs, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). In July 1973, ZANLA cadres, trained and supported by the Maoist Frelimo forces in Mozambique, attacked the school at St. Albert's Mission between Centenary and Mount Darwin in July 1973 and abducted 292 pupils and staff, whom they force-marched north into the Zambezi valley towards their base in Mozambique. This true story is almost exactly that told in The Gods Must be Crazy.

The terrorists were intercepted by the Rhodesian Security Forces, albeit without the assistance of the movie's bumbling but brave biologist. All but eight of the children and staff were recovered. Similar abductions were repeated over the following years and the security forces found themselves increasingly unable to prevent them.

The captured schoolchildren would be marched to ZANLA bases in Mozambique where they would undergo "political 're-education'" and guerrilla training. No mention is made of the girls being forced into marriage with the guerrillas, or worse, but unlike in Nigeria, the ZANLA terrorists were not Islamic fundamentalists.

Further reading: The St. Albert's Mission kidnapping is mentioned along with other incidents which occurred in Rhodesia in the months of July, 1890 through 1978, in the July 2013 edition of Contact! Contact!, a publication of the Rhodesian Services Association Inc. The online newsletter has all kinds of interesting factoids, photos, and Rhodie stuff for sale, so if you (like Agent 3) have some connection with the great country that has now become the far-from-great Zimbabwe, check it out.

Not easy to find closure in current news stories

Walt is having trouble writing trenchant commentary on current events. Making predictions is tougher than it used to be. (Lifetime pct .982.) Why? Because for a prognostication to be declared true...or not...one needs an end to the story, some kind of finality. And in the major stories of this year, we just don't find it.

Ukrainians are shooting each other in the eastern part of the country. Some of the shooters -- and some of the shootees -- may be Russians disguised as Ukrainians. Some of them may be Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Some may be Ukrainians who just wish they were Russians, although Walt can't imagine why. The numbers of dead, which were counted in single digits last month, are now counted in scores. No-one knows what Russia (meaning Putin) intends to do. The intention of the USA and the EU is obviously to do nothing.

The civil war Syria sputters on. Obama drew a red line in the sand years ago, Assaf crossed it, nothing was done, someone may have used chemical weapons but we're not sure who and anyway they're not doing it now, the balance of power seems to have shifted from the Islamic extremists back to the Assaf government, but half the sandpit is still contested, and on it goes.

The Afghanistan war is over. Well...kind of. All the infidel invaders have gone home except the Americans, and they're supposed to leave sometime this year, except that the Americans want to stay but want the Afghans to ask them to stay (to promote security and democracy yada yada) which doesn't look like happening until after another free and fair election (LOL) which just took place but whose result is unknown as yet. Meanwhile the poor people of Afghan are being forced to eat grass, according to the International Crisis Group, which means the West should pour more billions of your money and mine down the rat hole, and on it goes.

The search for MH370 continues, with not one body or piece of debris found and about 3/4 of the Indian ocean floor still to be combed. (No-one is going anywhere near Diego Garcia though.) The Malaysian government has released a report of its enquiry into the plane's disappearance. The paper takes all of five pages to tell us that they haven't a clue -- something they might have admitted in the first week, saving a lot of bad publicity.

The search for the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls continues too. The Nigerian misgovernment says they haven't a clue as to where Boko Haram -- radical Islamic extremists, even though Obama doesn't like to say so -- has hidden the children, although they guess it might be in Nigeria somewhere. The USA may be sending drones to aid in the search, or maybe not, but no American boots will be on the ground, or maybe they will.

Having failed to bring peace to Israel/Palestine, John Kerry went on a tour of African hotspots -- South Sudan (Kerry went to Ethiopia -- close enough), Congo [which one? Ed.] and Angola, but not Nigeria -- yet the situation in Africa does not improve. Nor is the kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls a unique incident. See "Nigeria schoolgirls just part of Africa's cruel history of child soldiers, enslavement". Aren'tcha sick of it? Walt is.

And there's one more piece of "news" -- speculation, actually -- which is freezing the cockles of Walt's heart. The "Lexington" column in week's Economist magazine predicts that Hellery Clinton is almost certain to be the Democratic candidate for the US presidensity. Why? Many democrats, "Lexington" says, have buyer's remorse over the Obama debacle, and reason that it's Mrs Clinton's turn now, before she gets older than Reagan. Besides, who else is there? Joe Biden? John Kerry? Senator Hasbeen? Congressman Nobody?

But it gets worse. The Republican front-runner, according to "Lexington", is none other than Jeb Bush! (Michael Moore will be delighted!) As with the Dems, it's hard to think of any other plausible candidate. So we have 30 months in which to contemplate a presidential election between (a) Bush and (a) Clinton. Please excuse me now; I have to go outside and be sick.

Nigerian schoolgirls: we've seen this movie before -- literally!

Boko Haram, the fanatical Muslim militants who kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls a few days ago, have released a new video showing most of the girls are still alive. According to their captors, the girls are being well looked after and have converted to Islam. And they will be released, the thugs say, in exchange for prisoners being held by the Nigerian government.

Walt wonders why no-one has yet made the connection between the tragicomedy unfolding in Nigeria this month and the 1980 movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, a South African production starring Jamie Uys, the stunning Sandra Prinsloo and the little Bushman, N!xau, who plays the real hero of the story.

Since the IMDb plot summary misses half the story, Walt will explain the rest of it, and how it relates to the kidnappings in Nigeria.

The action takes place in the Kalahari desert, in Botswana, as Xi -- the Bushman played by N!xau -- encounters technology for the first time, in the shape of a Coke bottle thrown out of a passing plane. He takes it back to his people, who start to fight over it, so he decides to walk to the end of the earth to give it back to the gods who sent it.

On his trek, he meets Andrew Steyn (Uys) a shy and bumbling biologist (first seen analyzing elephant shit), who has himself just met and fallen for Kate Thompson (Prinsloo), who has come from the big modern city to the native village to teach school.

Meanwhile, in an unnamed neighbouring country [Agent 3 says it's meant to Angola. Ed.], a fanatical revolutionary has failed to overthrow the black dictator, and is fleeing to Botswana ahead of the dictator's incompetent security forces. In Botswana, the fanatic and his stupid and thuggish followers kidnap Miss Thompson's class of schoolgirls (and schoolboys), whom they force to march into the bush as hostages. Does this not sound familiar? Today, in Nigeria, life is imitating art!

"How does it all turn out?", I hear you ask. Well... Steyn and Mpudi (the coloured comic relief sidekick) and Xi cross paths, quite by accident, with Sam Boga and the kidnapped kids. They overpower the kidnappers using stupefying medicine -- Steyn is a biologist, remember -- and free the kids (and the lovely Miss Thompson), just as the Botswana police, led by a handsome white safari-leader, arrive to mop up. No-one is hurt and everyone is happy, including Xi, who eventually reaches the end of the earth and throws the Coke bottle over the edge.

Why has no-one drawn the parallel with this month's events in Nigeria? Could it be because The Gods Must Be Crazy was roundly denounced, from the day of its release, as being not just politically incorrect but frankly racist. The thuggish revolutionaries are black, cruel and incompetent -- just like Boko Haram. The Bushmen (so called in the movie although "San" or "Sho" are the PC terms) are shown as primitive and childlike -- which they were until very recently. The whities are portrayed as the only ones smart and brave enough to sort the problem out peacefully.

In short... whites civilized, blacks uncivilized. Well... sorry, my PC friends, but that's how Africa was at the time. Has it changed appreciably? Errr, no.

The Gods Must Be Crazy is very funny -- even if you're non-white -- well, and worth seeing. However, as sequels usually do, The Gods Must Be Crazy II sucks.

Further reading on WWW: "The kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls and the Mirror Image Fallacy" and "'Slacktivism' -- idle, impotent and irrelevant"

"Slacktivism" -- idle, impotent and irrelevant

Malala's doing it. Hellery Clinton's doing it. Michelle Obama's doing it.

Everybody's doing it. Except Walt. [And Ed. Ed.]

What's "it"? Why tweeting #BringBackOurGirls of course! The reference is to the dastardly kidnapping of close to 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram.

These guys are Islamic extremists by the way. Walt points that out because the PC media, politicians and pundits seem incapable of saying the words "Islamists" or "Muslims" in referring to these terrorists. Even the CBC's Rex Murphy -- usually a straight shooter -- got through his 5-minute piece on The National on Thursday without once alluding to the religion which Boko Haram claim inspires them.

But I digress. Most of the girls are still "missing", with the Nigerian authorities professing to have no idea where to look for them. Nigeria's head nagger, Goodluck Jonathan, has appeared on TV begging for technology, weapons and, errr, money to help his army rescue the girls. He said nothing about returning the weapons, jeeps or whatever once the girls are found.

Meanwhile, all right-thinking people agree that, yes, Boko Haram are a bad lot, and shouldn't sell the girls into slavery, prostitution and/or marriage. Hence the hashtag. It has become fashionable, in the last couple of days, to scrawl the hashtag on a piece of cardboard, take a picture of yourself holding it, and post it in the social media, which Walt thinks ought to be called the "anti-social media".

Twittering, tweeting, retweeting... whatever you call taking the "action" just described is, you see, Doing Something. Posting a picture of yourself displaying #BringBackOurGirls shows support for them, you see. One cam imagine them seeing all the tweets on their iPhones, somewhere in the middle of the African bush, and being encouraged.

And who knows? Maybe the thugs who call themselves Boko Haram will see that 1000s of people have the courage to put these pictures online, and be motivated by compassion or fear to do what the hashtag commands. But Walt doubts it. For one thing, these Muslim terrorists -- don't forget it! -- don't look very literate. If they can read Hausa, which is written in Arabic script. Seeing signs in English -- the language of "boko" (= "book", = western/Christian education and culture) probably provokes them to fits of anger and/or laughter.

Tweeting #BringBackOurGirls or anything other expression of your "thoughts" on this or any other subject is a weak and futile gesture. It's like adding a few flowers -- possibly accompanied by a teddy bear -- to one of those "memorials" that spring up at the site of an accident or a crime.

You may think you're Doing Something when you tweet or twitter or throw more garbage on the heap, but really you're guilty of "slacktivism" -- making a small, meaningless gesture to show that you "care" and ease your guilty conscience. Why you or Michelle Obama should feel guilty about something which you had nothing to do with, and which has nothing to do with you, is another matter. But if you really want to help, find a better way.

"Like what?", I hear you ask. That's a toughie, but perhaps a donation to an organization like Amnesty International, or a reputable NGO working to educate girls in the third world, would do some good. Meanwhile, please spare us the vapid and ultimately useless tweets.

Further reading on WWW: "The kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls and the Mirror Image Fallacy"

The kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls and the Mirror Image Fallacy

BREAKING NEWS: "8 more Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by suspected Boko Haram gunmen"

In case you've been on another planet, the last three weeks have seen a horror story emerge from Africa -- where else -- that has provoked more than the usual amount of international interest and indignation. Some 230 girls in their mid-teens were kidnapped from their school in the state of Borno, in northern Nigeria. This happened on April 14th and none of the girls has been seen since.

Reports last week said that some of the girls were taken across borders into Cameroon and Chad. Others are said to have been forced to "marry" their abductors, who paid a nominal bride price of $12. Paying a bride price is still customary in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, although the girl's worth is nowadays calculated in cash rather than cattle.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said everything was being done to find the girls. Walt wishes him good luck [Geddit? Ed.] and will help by explaining who took the girls and why. Here's a CNN video that makes things pretty clear. [No. Clear, but not pretty. Ed.]



CNN and the rest of the lamestream media make it clear enough that the schoolgirls were taken by Boko Haram. The CNN reporter describes them as "jihadists". What that means -- and what the politically correct western media almost never spell out -- is that Boko Haram are Islamic extremists. Fanatically militant Muslims!

Walt has written about Boko Haram before. See "Nigerian archbishop says Boko Haram fanaticism increasing" and "Islamic extremists don't discriminate; they kill anyone and everyone".

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden", has attacked schools, churches, bus stations, anything and everything, all over the predominantly Muslim northern part of Nigeria. In a video circulating on the Net today, one of their leaders, Abubakar Shekau, said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married. "God instructed me to sell them," he said. "They are his properties and I will carry out his instructions!"

The other reason the lamestream media are downplaying the Islamic extremist angle is that these fanatics happen to be, errr, African -- as black as the ace of spades. So when attention is called to their race and their religion, it agitates the liberal one-worlders who believe that we are really all the same inside. To do so offends their naive notions about the Brotherhood of Man [and Woman? Ed.]

To aver that people are people, undifferentiated by race, religion, language and culture, is absurd. It is the Mirror Image Fallacy, writ large. The mirror image fallacy is the wrongly assumed belief that others share our thoughts, responses, and perspectives. That is just not so. The Islamic fundamentalists are nothing like us.

So when America and Britain offer to "help", to "facilitate" or "mediate" or somehow make a connection between Boko Haram and civilized people, they are committing what Charles Krauthammer called a "plural solipsism". In "The Mirror-Image Fallacy", penned for Time way back in 1983, Mr. Krauthammer concluded "To gloss over contradictory interests, incompatible ideologies and opposing cultures as sources of conflict is more than anti-political. It is dangerous."

Further reading: "The Mirror-Image Fallacy" is included in Charles Krauthammer's new book, Things That Matter (Crown Forum 2013),a collection of 88 of his columns spanning three decades. You'll find a review and some excerpts in "The Insights of Charles Krauthammer", by Lauri B. Regan on The American Thinker website.

Nigerian archbishop says Boko Haram fanaticism increasing

Walt is still checking stories on the persecution and killing of Christians. Last Sunday we told you how the Muslim extremists who call themselves Boko Haram had massacred 44 students at a college in northeastern Nigeria. Today, the Vatican news agency FIDES has a comment from Most Rev. Ignatius Kagama, the Archbishop of Jos and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

Abp. Kagama averred that Boko Haram is becoming more fanatical. "In the beginning the aim of Boko Haram was to attack Christians in order to destabilize the community," said the prelate. "But now the ferocity of the members of this movement has no limits to the point of slaughtering even those who should be their fellow Muslims."

"Boko Haram has made further progress in the sophistication and ferocity of their attacks," he added, "but it is now made up of fanatics who have lost their original goal."

Walt isn't so sure about that last part, about "losing sight of their original goal". Is there goal not to exterminate all the infidels in Nigeria, and rid the country of every trace of Western culture and influence? Seems to me they're right on track.

I saw the behatted Nigerian president shaking hands with the Prez himself on TV just a couple of nights ago. I didn't hear O'bama say anything about sending US forces to deal with Boko Haram. So the slaughter of Christians looks likely to continue. Any Muslims killed in the crossfire will be just collateral damage.

Islamic extremists don't discriminate; they kill anyone and everyone

Walt has given up keeping score -- too many games in progress -- but notes two more massacres in Africa and Asia, and that's just within the last 24 hours.

As if the body counters in Pakistan weren't busy enough with last weekend's bombing outside an Anglican church (not forgetting this week's earthquake) they now have to hustle back to Peshawar, where twin blasts killed 33 people and wounded 70 today.

Although no-one has claimed responsibility for today's bombings, the style of the massacre -- suicide bombs exploded near a mosque and a crowded market -- is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the Taliban. In case no-one noticed, Reuters tells us "Islamist violence has been on the rise in Pakistan in recent months, undermining Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's efforts to tame the insurgency by launching peace talks with the Taliban."

Reuters also quotes "one woman in a long headscarf" ["niqab" surely. Ed.] as wailing "Who is burning Peshawar, who is burning Peshawar?" Answers on the back of a postage stamp to Mr. Nawaz Sharif, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in the most dangerous country in Africa [By whose account? Ed.] Islamist gunmen have attacked the Yobe State College of Agriculture in northeastern Nigeria, killing 44 students, or maybe it was 50. Casualty figures vary, but a local politician told the BBC that two vanloads of bodies had been taken to a hospital in the state capital.

The students were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory. Yobe state and most of northern Nigeria is under a state of emergency because of an insurgency by the Boko Haram group of Islamic fundamentalists.

They are fighting (so they say) to overthrow Nigeria's government and create an Islamic state. To this end, they've been attacking schools which teach "unIslamic things", regardless of whether the students are Muslims or "infidels". This, they say, will somehow weaken the Great Satan -- the USA -- and thus... well, as with most of what happens in Africa, the point is unclear.

Walt notes, however, that the majority of victims of today's mass killings were (probably) Muslims. Which proves that the Islamic fundamentalists are not anti-Christian, as many say. Well, not just anti-Christian. Seems as if they're against anyone and everyone who isn't Islamic enough.

"Islamicism" on the march in Nigeria

My earlier post contained a reference to Muslim extremism -- or "Islamicism" as Canadian Prime Minister Harper now calls it -- in Nigeria. Ed. tells me I should have given an example, so here's one.

You've heard of al-Qaeda and Hizbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, right? Add to your list of Muslim fundamentalist, Quran-inspired terrorist groups "Boko Haram". Boko Haram means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria. A terrorist group proudly bearing this moniker claims responsibility for a rash of killings in Nigeria, targeting security officers, local leaders and clerics.

They claimed responsibility for a bomb that tore through the United Nations’ Abuja headquarters on Aug. 26, killing 23 people and wounding 81. It also has claimed responsibility for a bombing at the nation’s police headquarters that killed two people in June. And in the latest espisode of "holy war", 18 people were killed and 10 wounded in central Nigeria on Sunday night.
What's it all about? Boko Haram's stated aim is to implement a strict version of Sharia law in Nigeria. In that, they are united in spirit and in goals with those who wish to import Sharia (at least for Muslims) into the legal systems if the USA, Britain and Canada. Perhaps this is what Canadian Prime Minister Harper means when he speaks of "Islamicism" being the greatest threat to his country.