French rabbis of the suburbs confront anti-Semitism

Last year 50 000  Jews left France for better pastures. In Belgium we also find many who preferred to go to Israel and to face the difficulties there between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

When rabbi Prosper Abenaim first arrived at La Courneuve’s Ahavat Chalom synagogue in 1992 there were over 4,000 Jews in the neighbourhood then and at that time it was a struggle to fit them all into the synagogue on Yom Kippur. Today, at this Paris suburb’s only Jewish facility, he serves sweet tea to his synagogue’s most frequent and reliable guests: machine gun-toting troops of the French Legion which entered the seen on January 2016 to defend Jews in this heavily Muslim and crime-stricken municipality bordering the capital. This dwindling community, which has lost thousands of congregants over the past two decades to Israel and safer areas of Paris has now on some mornings, troops outnumbering worshippers.

That wasn’t the case when Abenaim first arrived at La Courneuve’s Ahavat Chalom synagogue in 1992. There were over 4,000 Jews in the neighbourhood then and it was a struggle to fit them all into the synagogue on Yom Kippur.

“The shul overflowed onto the street,”

Abenaim recalled.

Since then, improved economic fortunes and repeated anti-Semitic attacks have driven out all but 100 Jewish families from the neighbourhood, where drug dealers operate openly on streets that residents say police are too afraid to patrol. The remaining Jews are mostly a greying bunch, stuck here for financial reasons.

“We have two big problems, extremism and criminality, and they often mix,”

said Abenaim, who lives in Paris’ affluent and heavily Jewish 17th arrondisement and has encouraged his congregants to leave for Israel.

“I understand why people don’t want to raise children here. I’m here myself only because of my duties. Otherwise, I’d be in Israel.”

Rudy Abecassis, a Marseille-born computer specialist who moved to the Paris region in 2009 to find work, had a good job at a time of rising unemployment. In 2016 his family also left behind their comfortable lives and moved to Israel, joining nearly 8,000 French Jews who Abecassis said

immigrated to Israel in 2015.

“We’re not fleeing,”

He had found a nice life in France and he loved France for it,  leaving it with sorrow. For him it being important

“to live in a Jewish country of our own, where we are not outsiders who need to be tolerated.”

Tolerance is the big word we have to look for these days. When we hear small children saying Jews are dangerous people we can wonder what they hear their Muslim parents telling about Jews.

Most Jews in France are not affiliated with any synagogue, while the majority of those who are belong to Orthodox synagogues. The third major current of Judaism in France is the Conservative or Massorti movement (with a.o. rabbi Haim Fabrizio Ciprian in Marseille). Next to them there are the Liberal and Reform Jews. The “Libérale” in French corresponds to the Reform movement in the UK and the US, though for some Americans its approach might appear to be midway between Reform and Conservative.

‘For French who do not have the American connection, if you’re Jewish, Israel is the easy place to go. Otherwise the other ambitious entrepreneurs of that age who are not Jewish and are not going to think of going to Israel tend to go to London, which is now the seventh largest ‘French’ city.”

says the American Rabbi Tom Cohen from the synagogue Kehilat Gesher in Paris’s 17th arrondissement.

In those suburbs Rabbi Michel Serfaty is not afraid to go to talk to the Muslims and to create events for Muslim kids. He also created a community or “French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association” for which he hopes to recruit several more young people to help with community outreach in the largely Muslim, immigrant communities where most people have never even met a Jewish person.

A poster for the French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association, which works in many poor, immigrant neighborhoods. – Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

 

Even in the so-called freeworld countries racism exist

Source: WisdomToInspire.com

In Europe we may find lots of people who say they are a Christian, but in fact are just name Christians. They often do not know much about Christ and his teachings and often go against his teachings, what is worse.

Victor Uyanwanne, who lives in Lagos, Nigeria with his wife and two kids also knows that

There are people around the world who think that they are Christians simply because of the home or geographical location they were born into. {Being A Cultural Christian Is Not Enough}

Many people may think they are the owners of the place where they live and consider it to be for them alone. Some, like the majority of North Americans, forget that their ancestors took away the country from the original indigenous population.

Truths OfALostKid sees Mexican, black, white, Asian, Indian and wonders

Who are we

Mexican, black, white, asian, Indian.

…

The world says who you are and will not let go of that idea until you show what you are and how you are “different”

If I am of color I am now held to that standard will I be a typical failure or will I be “different” {Lost kid return home writing of 2018/01/23/}

and asks herself and her readers

Why is race important to anything? God made us brother and sisters love one another and do not assume who somebody is just for the flesh God gave them for he has made us all in his image and with the same love. {Lost kid return home writing of 2018/01/23/}

As an American she often wonders

does the racism here play out the same in different parts of the world? What does racism look like other places?

She also often wonders of the races within each country, undergo similar feelings

The world is so big there has to infinite potential of races and mixed races living in different countries. Are they accepted in there own country or are there still barriers and such around? How is the president in other countries ? Are they racist or are they for everyone? Please if you are from a different country explain to me how race all plays out in your country and all the different types of race and mixes there is! {Racism In America V.s The Rest Of The World?}

For her

The value of words and discipline are key! And the realization that this world is at your very finger tips and can be exactly what you’d like it to be. You don’t have to work violently to get results. {Racism In America V.s The Rest Of The World?}

Today many words are spoken by different political groups. also the once from the racist site get stronger and stronger and are not afraid to use any body who can fit in to push their agenda.

Edmark M. Law says

In Hong Kong, we have a diverse number of races here so racism is generally frowned upon. Ironically, the greatest targets for racism here are the ones from Mainland China. If someone say that you look like someone from China, it has several negative connotations, e.g. you’re rude, has a bad sense of fashion, ignorant or something like that.
But I can tell you that the average HK people are too busy to care about racism!

Can it be that perhaps too many Europeans are not busy enough with other things that they may look angry at the immigrants which they consider coming to take away their jobs (which they do not have, because many sit on unemployment benefit)? Also we can see several immigrants taking up jobs no European wants to do. As such they are not really taking away jobs from the local population.

Not only the younger immigrants, who look for a better way of life seem to be a problem today. Older people are looked as if they are standing in the way or not giving youngsters the possibility to work. And the retired people seem to take away money from those who are working. (so it looks like when we would believe the sayings of some agitators.)

A prolific writer of Science Fiction, Rock Music and alternative style semi-autobiographical books and fiction, who has written 49 books, also feels the same as many of the Belgian older generation feels. Like many of us here he saw  the 1960s counter-culture and got to understand our way of choices was not a fashion statement but a way of life.

It looked at the boring establishment, the old-boys network, the stereotypical attire, the joyless lack of creativity, the conventions, religion, politics, blatant selfish greed, exploitation, inherent racism and sexism and looked to create something better. I was part of it. {Who I am}

He writes, but now is confronted with an other reality.

My intellectual faculties are pretty intact though obviously my short-term memory is not quite as sharp as it used to be but I get there. But three times in the last two days I have found myself on my blog being described as an old man as if being 68 has suddenly made me worthless. It is put in such a derogatory way that indicates that the younger people concerned consider my views worthless, that I am suddenly out of touch, that my life experience is irrelevant and my intelligence has diminished. {Is Ageism the new Racism?}

The views of those born in the 1940ies and 1950ies are considered of no value and looked as if those people can not fit in this world or should not belong to it any more. at the moment there is a movement going on of people who only think about themselves and who want everything also for them alone; Others do not seem to fit in the picture.

Now that racism, homophobia and sexism is heavily frowned upon are these people turning their attention to older people? Is ageism the new racism? Do we put aside all need to listen to what older people have to say, to disregard their experience and views, and simply put them down as irrelevant and worthless? {Is Ageism the new Racism?}

Naturally we must be aware that ageism started long ago. also in the 1950ies we could see a lot of advertisements for anti-aging creams. (To be honest we also used and still use such creams.) Though we do know we cant stop getting older and less performant. But that does not mean we should be considered useless.

calensariel remarks

Why, they even called Justin Timberlake old (so I heard) on the Superbowl. He’s 38? Someday the tables are going to tip and folks — especially employers — are going to find out experience is a much more valuable tool that youth!

Today experience doe s not count at all. The employers are throwing the baby away with the bathwater. The do away of so much useful knowledge. They do not allow experience to be the seed of their next employees.

According Heather Patterson we reap what we saw.

The big changes occurred in society following the world wars. Started slowly after WW1, then more so after WW2, then Korea, then Vietnam and so forth. Each one with a host of vociferous objectors, conscious writers tapping into the heart of the pulse, all the 1950’s Beat Poets – you should know them.
All venomous complaints aimed at these decrepit old fucks wanton on sending young men to their deaths in the millions for what? Glory? King? Country?

does she mean we did wrong to protest against the War in Vietnam? Where we to active proclaiming peace and a loving world? where too many artists of our ‘after war’ generation to much involved in youth dreams and flower-power business that some of us got carried away in their dreams of a world which is impossible to get?

Heather Patterson finds that

You are upset because a much younger person stole your torch and they said it before you even thought of it. Anybody could see the way you operate a mile away. No credit given with Opher, unless he is always seen in the best light before anybody else.

and looks at Opher’s World saying she thinks that 68 year old writer has

fallen fowl to your inner most fears of being seen as a write off, has been, former self etc. Everything is a threat to your crumbling domain which was really only a house of cards anyway as it was bound to be toppled by the next generation and so forth. What was important to your generation in the 1950’s such as what you liked to read holds not a bit of similar levels of interest today.
That’s just the way it goes.
Isn’t it disappointing to see bitterness creeping in to the winter days of the elderly. {Is Ageism the new Racism?}

Though it is just our generation that wants to tell others how ridiculous worthless war is. It are just we who have seen the tale of world war II and have seen the ‘after wars’, like Vietnam and Balkan war, where the most avoidable atrocities happened and brought human beings to a lower level than animals.

The Baby Boomers are portrayed as having had it easy and perhaps we did. But to call us the cause of what we have now, some saying we reap what we sow, is not correct. We sang about peace and equality, we lived in communes and perhaps we were to easy concerning the matter of ‘love’, but it was always about respectful relationships and with no restriction concerning skin colour or nationality. We strove for equality of classes and taught our kids to be respectful to everybody living on this earth and to act on terms of equal footing. We taught our children not use bad language. We did not like our children to use curse words, not to use to much alcoholic drank, not to smoke or to take drugs (though we had used drugs when we were young). Even when we had certain religious ideas we  learned our children to accept that not all people think nor feel like us, and that they should know about gay and transgender people and should respect their choices as well.

As such all that right-wing and nationalist talk is not something we gave our kids. We agree we went against establishment and perhaps some of those today thought that would mean we always should react against order and state, but that was not what we said or hoped for.

Rebecca E. Blanton writes

The internal racism and bi-phobia and sexism in our communities has to be addressed so that we can stand together and fight to make our country a safe place so that anyone can love who they want without threat of harm. {Love in Times of Great Danger}

We may not keep silent and have certain political parties mislead the people and get them to hate others.

Opher says

racism and patriotism has always been the currency of populist rabble-rousing politicians who want to arouse passions and gain power. It’s a shame people still fall for it.

At Victor’s corner it is also recognised that

More than many people are willing to admit, racism (that “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior”) is still an in issue being grapled with in 21^st Century America! . {Racism in America Vs Tribalism in Nigeria}

He admits

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that it is wrong, neither is everyone actively engaged in fighting against it. {Racism in America Vs Tribalism in Nigeria}.

Victor Uyanwanne

We must be aware that racism does not affect only the black or coloured people and that it is not alone a matter of black or coloured against whites. Victor Uyanwanne writes that what pepole may refer to as racism in America,

takes a different hegemonic form here in Nigeria.

It is called tribalism, which, just like corruption, manifests itself in all aspects of our collective existence. But unlike racism, tribalism has nothing to do with the colour of one’s skin.

So you can imagine how odd it felt to be referred to as “people of colour” when you know that everyone else around you has the same skin colour as you.

…

racial discrimination and prejudices wear attires in Nigeria different from the ones they wear in America.

In the words of Chimamanda Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, “In Nigeria race is not a conscious and present means of self-identification. Ethnicity is. Religion is. But not race.”

This response she gave in a Goodreads interview as far back as 2013 aptly captures the differences between race issues in America when compared with same in Nigeria.

Unlike the experiences often reported amongst blacks in the US, no one in Nigeria is identified or should I say discriminated upon on the basis of the colour of his or her skin.

All of us are black! Instead of race, we talk of our ethic origins, religious affiliations and regional bases.

{Racism in America Vs Tribalism in Nigeria}

We in Europe do face racism on matters of nationality or origin, i.e;. ethnicity, but also on religion and political stance. Perhaps it also has something to do with a form of ‘tribalism’ and not belonging to a certain ‘tribe’ or ‘certain folks’.

racial discrimination and prejudices wear attires in Nigeria different from the ones they wear in America.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, and nonfiction

In the words of Chimamanda Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah,

“In Nigeria race is not a conscious and present means of self-identification. Ethnicity is. Religion is. But not race.”

This response she gave in a Goodreads interview as far back as 2013 aptly captures the differences between race issues in America when compared with same in Nigeria.

Unlike the experiences often reported amongst blacks in the US, no one in Nigeria is identified or should I say discriminated upon on the basis of the colour of his or her skin.

All of us are black! Instead of race, we talk of our ethic origins, religious affiliations and regional bases.

He ends his article with

While racism is the issue in America, tribalism it is in Nigeria. While racism exists as a result of differences in colour of the skin, tribalism hinges on differences in birth-roots. Both are common societal evils that must be dealt a decisive blow in order for us to have a better world.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite – Nelson Mandela.

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Preceding articles

Growing anti-Semitism possible sign of certain times

Quiz questions, views, left- and right-wing anti-Semitism

Mass Media’s Deception Causing Division

It’s Time real lovers of God to Stand and Speak Out!

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Additional reading

1. Martin Luther King’s Dream Today
2. A world with or without religion
3. Anti-Semitism ‘on the rise’ in Europe
4. Stand Up
5. Added commentary to the posting A Progressive Call to Arms
6. Walls,colours, multiculturalism, money to flow, Carson, Trump and consorts
7. Arson attack carried out on Stevenage Central Mosque
8. Back from gone #3 Giving worries to God and believing in His promises
9. Immigration consternation
10. Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed
11. Speciesism and racism
12. Rome mobilisation to say no to fascism and racism
13. Love envieth not
14. The Greatest of These is Love
15. Never too late to start going to the right end
16. Vatican against Opponents of immigration

+++

Further related

1. Institutional Racism
2. the stench of racism
3. Racism In America V.s The Rest Of The World?
4. It’s not always racism
5. This Isn’t About Just Race
6. 32 Quotes That Perfectly Explain Racism (To People Who Don’t “See Color”)
7. Different views and racism at The Standard
8. Earth, Wind, Fire, and Racism
9. Trump and the hidden racism inside us
10. Trump displays his racism to the whole world
11. I am an American!
12. 跟外國人拍拖被歧視的經驗 – Racism in our countries: how it affects interracial couples?
13. Racism, History, and How To Get Away With Murder’s Bold Statement
14. Black History Month. The Harlem Hellfighters and Chicago “Black Devils”: Battling Racism and Germans on the Western Front in 1918
15. An Open Letter to My Black Friends About My Own Racism
16. I’m back. Still black. And think we need to keep talking about racism!
17. Black Folks: Your Reluctance to React to Racism Doesn’t Make You More Sensible Than Thou
18. The dream
19. Treason.
20. White Supremacists Have Control of our Elected Offices, our Militia, Police, Guns, Christian Congregations, and the Media, . . . but we shouldn’t be alarmed.
21. Power of Apologies
22. Love in Times of Great Danger
23. Racism and Transphobia Behind the Pink Pussy Hat Ban
24. Build Community, Not Walls
25. Anti-Semitism lives on 75 years after Germany’s Kristallnacht
26. (William E. Grim) The Return Of Anti-Semitism To Germany: It Never Really Left
27. Tackle embedded racism before it chokes Japan | The Japan Times
28. Opinion – Tackle embedded racism before it chokes Japan | The Japan Times – John Gelmini
29. Anti-Semitism, anti-leftism and anti-Christianity
30. How anti-racism became racist: All lives matter
31. Can we only understand racism in terms of postmodern litcrit academic jargon?
32. How the Migrant Crisis is Tearing Europe Apart
33. What Color Am I? A True Story About Race Identity and Racism.
34. “You Married One Those?” #race #racism #blackhistorymonth
35. Racism and the Economic Hoodwink
36. My first experience with true racism
37. From drugs to racism in six steps
38. “Systemic Racism Kills”
39. travel, racism, and compassion
40. Racism isn’t Patriotism
41. racism in my white working-class roots
42. Trolls: Show me proof of racism so that I can reject it!
43. Racism is fear based
44. How Racism Makes Us Sick?
45. Combating Speciesism in a Time of Racism | Daily News
46. Time Jumps, Sex Talk and Racism // A Taxonomy of Love review
47. Racism and the making of an English traveller
48. The colour of judgement – a poem about racism
49. Rev. Dr. Barber Explains White Evangelicals Southern History Of Racism
50. Ruin Racism
51. Seven Benefits for All in Dismantling Racism

It’s Time real lovers of God to Stand and Speak Out!

On one article we reblogged over here (and as such did not write it ourselves) and in which there were used popular words by youngsters, somebody felt offended. It looks like she could not feel any empathy with the generation we and the author of the original article were talking about and brought herself calling us stupid people, though missing the whole point of that article and the discussion around it.

Extended Coloured family from South Africa showing some spectrum of human skin colouration

In our world we see still too many people who want to differentiate between skin colour and race. They continue to demand that there would be called or named the differences between people who live at the same place, instead of accepting everybody who lives there for what he is and for how he looks like. They insist that people who live already for many generations in a certain country or area would still have a referral to that long ago place of origin as if that place of origin of so many generations ago brought a blemish on that person. It looks like many do want that lots of people keep running around with the stain of their past and long death ancestors.

Today we see again a movement going on to put on all people labels, like Moroco, Turkish,  Arabic, Berber, Afro-American, etc.. Though those people may already live here for the 3rd, 4th or even 5th generation. As we spoke about the trend the Dutch Press requesting not to use the word ‘blank’ (fair) but now to use ‘wit’ (white) opposite ‘zwart’ (black) instead of ‘kleurling (coloured). Whilst certain newspapers still shall continue words as ‘blank’ and ‘kleurling’ (coloured) not looking at the different skin colour as something negative. Clearly the colour of the skin has become again a point of discussion and we are back to the way of return and pre-Martin Luther King-times, or the time of racial segregation with Apartheid.

Iranian-Belgian human rights activist Darya Safai playtoy of the rightwing political parties trying to limit the freedom of expression and freedom of religion

Several politicians are doing their best to come back to such a time and many migrants are helping them without them having a proper knowledge of what is happening. As such we may find the Iranian dentist Darya Safai who is used as a plaything by the Flemish Nationalists and/or right-wing political parties. The Iranian-Belgian human rights activist grew up in the Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution of 1979. We can clearly see how she got traumatised with her experiences in Iran. There she experienced at first hand how it was to live as an oppressed woman in a religious dictatorship. But now she thinks this would also be so in Belgium or the countries around us. She insist that parents would have no say on the religious education they want to give at home and want to prohibit any person in our country to wear religious symbols or to have traditional attire.  She finds the schools must prohibit any religious dress-code. By doing so she wants the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression and the freedom of clothing restricted. By doing so see also endangers our democratic freedom.

After she was temporarily released on bail, she decided to flee Iran together with husband via Turkey to Belgium.  Instead of seeing that we want to be a free country where everybody should be able to live next to each other she now wants to create an other Iran where she shall be on the side of the dictators or decision makers. Though she says she wants to fight against discrimination she tries to bring in discriminating  measures, having children nor their parents the right to choose their own religion and how they want to be religious.

In December 2016, Darya Safai was awarded the title ‘Women Of Peace’ by the Belgian Secretary of State for Equal Opportunities at the Belgian Senate, for her fight for women’s rights, though at that time it was already clear she had a more unpleasant agenda.

Last week when  a state school was ordered to let 11 young girls (age 12) to wear their hijab to school inspite their ban on all religious symbols Safai went into heavy reaction again helping to have a growing stir in the debate

because when a judge rules that specific people can ignore a rule that counts for everyone, it will cause more division.

It is true that now other Muslim, Sikh, Jewish parents can go to court and achieve the same override for their kid. On the other hand by Safai her actions to forbid head-covering we now have Sikh kids in Sint-Truiden (Haspengouw Hesbaye), who cannot go any more to a state- or to a Catholic school because they are not allowed in with their head covering. For them and for those who want to wear a head-covering the only solution is to go to a private school. Safai forgets that this would cost the parents a lot more and that such private schools of a certain religion endangers our society more, because than there is no control by the school directorate and then the way to indoctrination is totally free and would be unnoticed. We also could see what happened already in one of the Antwerp Jewish schools a few weeks ago. We must be very careful with an overprotection and giving the opportunity to have youngsters drifting away.

Safai seems to think the same rules count over here as in her birthplace. She argues that the choice to wear a headscarf is not made by girls themselves. By this she underestimate the strong will of many Belgian girls. She says

“It’s not a free choice, when I see six-year-old girls wearing headscarves, I really wonder how they could decide that for themselves-it’s imposed on you and you live with them.”

For Safai the girls their head-covering is indeed a symbol of oppression.

“Men do not wear headscarves, that’s the best proof,”

Orthodox Christian pilgrim

said Safai, to which Vanhecke replied

“With Jews, only the men wear a yarmulke, and that is not seen as a symbol of oppression,”

Safai also forgets or probably does not know that in West Europe all kids from the 1940ies to 1960ies have had to cover their head as girls and we as boys had to cover (like the girls also) our limbs. No bare arms or are knees where to be seen and women at to sit on the left side of the church.  It is all still clear in our head also, how our parents and when we went swimming in the sea we had to cover most of our body. (Later, as hippies we went against those restrictions and ran even naked in nature.) And now a few years later what had to happen then suddenly should not be allowed any more. She also does it as if the head-covering is only a Muslim matter, forgetting that still today many religious Christian groups prescribe head-covering for their members.

Roman Catholic nuns – Roman Catholic nuns singing in choir. – Smith2006

Throughout the centuries of Church history, women have worn head coverings during the meetings of the church – that is, when “praying or prophesying” take place. In Europe the wearing of fabric head coverings in worship was also universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century and in several Reformed churches, Baptists, Christadelphian, Brethren and various Mennonites it is still the custom for young and old. In the South of Europe we may find lots of nuns of the Roman Catholic churches with a covering of their heads, whilst many women in the South (like Spain and Italy) still often have the head covering by means of a headscarf. In Eastern Orthodox churches, all women still cover their heads. With the old believers this may only be a headscarf, with the other Eastern Orthodox it may also be a veil.

Vanhecke, with good reason, thinks girls are also oppressed if they are not allowed to wear the headscarf.

“A religion obliges the headscarf, a society forbids it, that is the same principle.”

“You interfere in a fundamental right of parents to make choices for their children,”

says Vanhecke.

That what Safai tries to avoid she helps to create. One should avoid that we get such private religious schools as only possibility for religious people to give their kids an education. When we would have such specific Jewish, Hindu and/or Islam schools we make it much easier to have them a specific religious education or indoctrination and creating a generation which would be less adapted in our culture than those who grow up together with all sorts of kids from different nationalities and different religions. Instead of integrating them in a multicultural society Safai shall help to create a divided society with lots of racism.

So needless to say this situation actually causes the very religious division that the ban on head-covering tries to avoid.

Mieke Vanhecke (CD & V), ex-top woman of Catholic education, pleaded in Terzake for the right to wear a headscarf at school. Darya Safai (N-VA) continues to see it as a symbol of oppression. Vanhecke argues that not only Muslims are victims of the headscarf debate.

“A ban on headgear not only affects Muslims,”

says Vanhecke.

“In Sint-Truiden there were never any problems, the Sikh boys came to school with a turban, because of the ban they no longer have access to our school.”

Safia is convinced that children and young women can not make up their own mind what to wear. For her children nor women who wear the hijab impossibly can do that of their own will and impossibly can be happy clothing themself that way. Many like her she see misogyny and are convinced that they must be under dictation of a male dictator or male bully. Often we hear voices like

‘Her husband must have forced her’

‘Poor girl, she may not dress like she wants’

Safia like many right wing people can only think of suppression, seeing men’s orders and their power over women. Others love to shout

‘Unveil yourself’,

‘Hide not yourself”

‘Let us see your beauty’

Why should they have such a need to see the beauty of that woman? Why can they not respect that woman like she wants to dress herself?

Those people thinking women or girls who like to wear a head scarf of hijab are pushed by their family, do forget that there are enough strong women in Belgium who can make up their mind themselves. They do not need their fathers or their male partner to dictate what they should wear but even less should they have others to dictate what they should wear or may not wear. That last bit is what Darya Safai and many Nationalists and Neo-Nazis love to do.

Lots of those who call themselves Christian but oppose the freedom of other lovers of God, do forget that by doing so they go in against the Law of God. Their strong actions against Muslims and Jews also clearly show that they do not bear Jesus his teachings of love in their heart. Lots of them also do not understand that wearing a covering on the head may represent an ordainment from God and a submitting to the Most High. There are enough places in Scriptures which talk about such covering and reasons why and when to do it.

Those who are an atheist or do not believe in the One True God should not try to put their law above the Laws of God nor should they urge all others to live like them and to dress like them.

Many also do forget the use of a head-covering can just mean those women liberated themselves from the world and its attitudes. For many believers in the One True God it can mean just empowerment, liberation and freedom. Too many underestimate the European female and think they would be like the women in the Middle East used as slaves by the male figures around them. But we can see strong women who have made up their own mind and by their own choice and by their own intentions they dare to show their faith to others and are not afraid to be mocked at or to be looked at as of ‘not of this world’. They do not want to be of this world but of the world of God. For them that is more important than being a slave of this world where every body assumes he or she is free when they can have sex with as many as they can or drink as much as they want to do all the funniest things one can think of.

Mrs. Safai does as if those girls, when they would wear a head dress, never would be able to integrate in our society or would never be able to get work. When they would not get work because they wear a head covering, does that not tell more about the party who does not want to give her work? And does that not show how certain people do not want others to integrate in our community?

By the way, lots of right wing people do as if those Muslim girls who want to cover their head are foreigners, but a lot are girls and ladies who were before ‘white Belgian citizens’ and even belonging to Catholic families.

That many people are so much afraid that there would be so many converts to Mohammedanism tells also a lot about the weakness of most members of that faith. Lots of Roman Catholics and Protestants even not knowing the Name of God and never having read the Bible. If they would be standing strong in the faith we see no reason why they and others should be so afraid. The other way, Christians should come out and proclaim their faith to those who are no Christian. They should show people that Jesus is the way and show that Jesus his teaching is one of love and of comprehension and compassion. But most Belgians, Dutch and French people just show the opposite, showing their hate against immigrants and people who are different than they or who think differently than they.

Lots of people seem to have forgotten how we and our parents had to cover our body a few decades ago. Lots of them also forget that just because their western values don’t fit with a woman covering her hair and beauty, it still could be a personal choice for that person covering herself. Many do forget that their Western values are way out from our Christian Western values and norms.

Today so many oppose people who have an other opinion. We also see the right wing people wanting so much that every body would dance to their will.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

These days we are going backwards because several people want to push their will unto others. They want an exclusive white state for themselves with only believers in that what they believe and in that what they call Christian values, but are not at all Christian values.

In Belgium we can find  more and more Muslim children in community education, especially with regard to other educational networks we may find a larger influx of students from other cultures in general in the state schools. When these children want to show their own faith in the form of clothing, they often do so out of their own convictions, but because these young people are not yet adults, they often take over the prevailing morality of their immediate environment and of society. If we compare this with the Flemish youths of indigenous origin, we notice a big difference, but according to us that is easy to explain. After all, with many Flemish young people there is a great ignorance of the church, while the Muslim children are more often socialized in their ideology.
The total banning of religious signs would thus be a violation of religious freedom. We should resist such a thing.
That a lot of inhabitants of Belgium, Holland and France do not want to stand open for other cultures we should try to avoid in the next generations by introducing the various cultures from the early years in childhood.

Dyab Abou Jahjah in 2008.

The Belgian-Lebanese Arab political activist and writer Dyab Abou Jahjah, claims that

‘hatred in Flanders is mainstream’

and

‘racism determines the agenda’.

When you follow certain reactions and talks it gives the impression not enough people want to react against that dangerous trend.

Christian people should let others know that all people have the same value because we are created by the same One True God. We all are being allowed to live on this globe and are given talents which can be used to help others. All people in a community have to complement each other.
Each person should know that racism devalues people. Non believers should come to see that Christ has broken down racial doors and overcomes divisive thinking by creating for himself a new nation through his death and resurrection. Every Christian should help to build a loving world by showing his love for others, be them of no believe or any other believe than Christianity.
When the politicians are not doing their job properly to build a multicultural peaceful state, the Christians needs to lead the way.
When you are a Christian do not wait until it is too late!

Let your voice be heard and speak up for the weaker ones in our society and for those who humiliated and shut out.

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Preceding articles

What is important?

Enough with the Clothes Shaming of Muslim Women

Anti-Semitic pressure driving Jews out of Europe

The Mountain: Radical Love

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Additional reading

1. Vliegend spaghettimonster en Gelijke behandeling voor elke overtuiging
2. Parenthood made more difficult
3. Uncertainty, shame and no time for vacillation
4. Migrants to the West #2
5. On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
6. Pew Research: How People in Muslim Countries Believe Women Should Dress
7. Allowing dress code according liberty of religion
8. Coverings Worn by Muslim Women
9. The Dress Code for Women in the Quran
10. Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”
11. French showing to the whole world their fear and weakness
12. Christians, secularism, morals and values
13. Trusting present youngsters who are not necessary evil
14. Overprotection and making youngsters drifting away
15. Today’s thought “And he counted it to him for righteousness” (January 12)
16. Listening to the lessons of the Bible and looking for ways to please God

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Related

1. Hijab 1
2. Hijab 2
3. The Meaning of Hijab
4. I Tried Wearing a Hijab (sort of)
5. The hijab of ignorance
6. Cultural Bias
7. An Imagined Offence
8. The Irony of Hijabs!!
9. Transition: My Hijab Story
10. Hijab: Oppression or Freedom?
11. Hijab in Islam and other religions
12. Hijab | Zanzibar, Tanzania
13. Women unite for World Hijab Day, which is Today
14. Happy World Hijab Day 2018!
15. Pearls and swines – loose priorities – the hijab-saga in perspective
16. Hidden Pearl Hijab Review
17. Hijab ‘Attack’ Condemned By Canada’s Prime Minister Was A Hoax
18. My Hijab Story
19. The Secret Hijabi
20. What My Hijab Means To Me
21. Perspective: Hijab is Oppression or Freedom?Newspeak and the politics of fear

Dear Mr. President – A Response to the “Shithole Countries” Comment

From people in a certain position we would expect coming out their mouths some respectful and words of a certain standard. Incredible that we in Europe could hear already so many words and phrases a president unworthy, though coming out of the mouth (and mind) of the one who has to lead one of the most powerful countries in the world.

He dares to give the outside world the impression he is standing for the American upbringing and culture, but luckily there are others who want and dare to counter this ‘bogeyman’ plus trying to educate in the proper way the next generation, so that we still can have hope for the future.

7th Grade Global Studies teacher at Jefferson Junior High School in Naperville, Illinois , Chris Heffernan, National Geographic Education Contributor Worldgeochat gives a very nice welcome reaction on the way of speaking of his schoolkids president. He does find that Donald Trump does not represent them anymore than warlords represent all Sudanese or corrupt politicians represent all Haitians.

This isn’t a Democrat/Republican thing, this is all about human decency.

It’s the 12-13 year olds in his classroom that give him hope for the future, but it are also those who do need the right ‘spiritual’ food to be able to communicate with each other in their upcoming world.

We need to believe that they will do better than the “grown-ups” we have now!

worldgeochat

Dear Mr. President,

I have so many thoughts right now, but I’ll try to keep this simple for you.

My school has students from 38 nations. It is hard enough for them to adjust to life in a new country as an adolescent without someone calling their homeland a “shithole country.” As a geography teacher, I’ve spent the better part of two decades trying to get students to see that ALL countries have problems, and ALL countries have cultures to be proud of. I’ve had hundred of students watch the TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story.” You should consider watching it, it would serve you well.

What 12-13 year olds understand, but you clearly don’t, is that we cannot, and should not judge an entire group of people by the actions of some. You have done this repeatedly with respect to Muslims, Mexicans, and anti-Nazi…

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Fake News Goes Back to the Garden of Eden says Pope Francis I

On this day of “News and communication” we can’t escape to ponder on the last two years where we got bombarded with continuous streams of fake news and attacks on people and organisations.

All people who write on the internet should be aware of their social function and be conscious of their responsibility and impact on others. The last few months social media also showed its bad and dangerous side in being a weapon of opponents and misleader of the people. When you look at the fake news that could be spread  in one week it should really alarm us.

Today the Roman Catholic Church Father Francis I looked at what is going on in this world and said

Made in the image and likeness of our Creator, we are able to express and share all that is true, good, and beautiful. We are able to describe our own experiences and the world around us, and thus to create historical memory and the understanding of events.

He is also aware and tells about what happened very early in the history of man, what too many have forgotten. We should remember that there was the inner thought of the mannin or first woman who doubted the sincerity and honesty of her Creator. Pope Francis has denounced fake news as evil, comparing it to the snake in the Garden of Eden, and urged journalists to make it their mission to search for the truth.

In his annual social communications message, Francis said fake news played on stereotypes and prejudices, and praised efforts to make social media users aware of false reports. Question hereby can bye how we ourselves want to see the world around us and how we want to be honest to others. Lots of our way of reaction against others has to do with our background, attitude of life and our pride.

The pope opened his sermon today with a warning.

But when we yield to our own pride and selfishness, we can also distort the way we use our ability to communicate. This can be seen from the earliest times, in the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 4:4-16; 11:1-9). The capacity to twist the truth is symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities. On the other hand, when we are faithful to God’s plan, communication becomes an effective expression of our responsible search for truth and our pursuit of goodness.

In 1972 Pope Paul VI already for the World Communications Day had its theme: “Social Communications at the Service of Truth”. The present pope want also to contribute to our shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news and to rediscovering the dignity of journalism and the personal responsibility of journalists to communicate the truth. for this pope it is not the first time he has scolded those who spread false news reports. He called it a “very serious sin” that not only hurts those who have been slandered but also hurts journalism itself.

We have come into a time when it looks like a sport or competition to bring the most deceiving and manipulating messages to the reader. Clearly the spreading of fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests, and is as such used.

The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible. Secondly, this false but believable news is “captious”, inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function. Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage.

In Christendom we can see that lots of people are so caught by the arrangement between the clergy and the Roman emperor Constantine. Their agreement to equal the Roman gods with the Christian figures (or better the other way around) made that the Trinity was born and fostered.

The difficulty of unmasking and eliminating fake news is due also to the fact that many people interact in homogeneous digital environments impervious to differing perspectives and opinions. Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas. The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict. Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred. That is the end result of untruth.

In Facebook Groups lots of people go very hard against people who have an other opinion than they or than mainstream groups. Many want others to believe as them and when they do not do that they come to abuse them and call them names.

It is not an easy task to get people to see what really happened and to get rid of the false information Awful is it when such false news is to blacken people or organisations. Since disinformation is often based on deliberately evasive and subtly misleading rhetoric and at times the use of sophisticated psychological mechanisms, plus when it gets multiplied or shared via social media it starts running its own life and often turns up a few years later when people have forgotten about the matter and do not recollect that it was classified as fake news.

The Pope finds it good that

praiseworthy efforts are being made to create educational programmes aimed at helping people to interpret and assess information provided by the media, and teaching them to take an active part in unmasking falsehoods, rather than unwittingly contributing to the spread of disinformation. Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon, to say nothing of the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.

Yet preventing and identifying the way disinformation works also calls for a profound and careful process of discernment. We need to unmask what could be called the “snake-tactics” used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place. This was the strategy employed by the “crafty serpent” in the Book of Genesis, who, at the dawn of humanity, created the first fake news (cf. Gen 3:1-15), which began the tragic history of human sin, beginning with the first fratricide (cf. Gen 4) and issuing in the countless other evils committed against God, neighbour, society and creation. The strategy of this skilled “Father of Lies” (Jn 8:44) is precisely mimicry, that sly and dangerous form of seduction that worms its way into the heart with false and alluring arguments.

The world is taken by its greed. So many people do want it all for themselves. Politicians do whatever they can to degrade their opponents and to let themselves look the better one.

What is at stake is our greed. Fake news often goes viral, spreading so fast that it is hard to stop, not because of the sense of sharing that inspires the social media, but because it appeals to the insatiable greed so easily aroused in human beings. The economic and manipulative aims that feed disinformation are rooted in a thirst for power, a desire to possess and enjoy, which ultimately makes us victims of something much more tragic: the deceptive power of evil that moves from one lie to another in order to rob us of our interior freedom. That is why education for truth means teaching people how to discern, evaluate and understand our deepest desires and inclinations, lest we lose sight of what is good and yield to every temptation.

At Facebook Groups we often find people, claiming to be Christian, using words unworthy for a lover of God and for a follower of Christ, calling those who are not in line with their thinking all sorts of names. By bringing all sorts of false ‘news’ they also try to bring others in discredit. In many of those groups we can see a constant contamination by deceptive language which can end up darkening our interior life.

Dostoevsky’s observation is illuminating:

“People who lie to themselves and listen to their own lie come to such a pass that they cannot distinguish the truth within them, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others. And having no respect, they cease to love, and in order to occupy and distract themselves without love they give way to passions and to coarse pleasures, and sink to bestiality in their vices, all from continual lying to others and to themselves.” (The Brothers Karamazov, II, 2).

Many people are thrown form one side to the other and become so confused, not able to see what is true , half-true and what is false. Lots of false messages look so engrossing that one can not resit the excitement and love to share it on social media which makes the ball rolling.

So how do we defend ourselves?

The most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is purification by the truth.

In Christianity, truth is not just a conceptual reality that regards how we judge things, defining them as true or false. The truth is not just bringing to light things that are concealed, “revealing reality”, as the ancient Greek term aletheia (from a-lethès, “not hidden”) might lead us to believe. Truth involves our whole life. In the Bible, it carries with it the sense of support, solidity, and trust, as implied by the root ‘aman, the source of our liturgical expression Amen.

Those who call themselves Christian should have the aim in them to purify their body and spirit and to share the love of Christ with others, not wanting to hurt them by false sayings or awful words. they should work on their character, trying to become like Christ. By their daily meditations and reading of the Word of God they should discover and rediscover the truth when they experience it within themselves in the loyalty and trustworthiness of the One who loves them.

every person should know that the truth will set them free (Jn 8:32).

Freedom from falsehood and the search for relationship: these two ingredients cannot be lacking if our words and gestures are to be true, authentic, and trustworthy. To discern the truth, we need to discern everything that encourages communion and promotes goodness from whatever instead tends to isolate, divide, and oppose. Truth, therefore, is not really grasped when it is imposed from without as something impersonal, but only when it flows from free relationships between persons, from listening to one another. Nor can we ever stop seeking the truth, because falsehood can always creep in, even when we state things that are true. An impeccable argument can indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful. We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits: whether they provoke quarrels, foment division, encourage resignation; or, on the other hand, they promote informed and mature reflection leading to constructive dialogue and fruitful results.

When looking at news channels, social media (tweets and Facebook messages) we always should use our common sense and examine the truth as well as the value of the message.

The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language. If responsibility is the answer to the spread of fake news, then a weighty responsibility rests on the shoulders of those whose job is to provide information, namely, journalists, the protectorsof news. In today’s world, theirs is, in every sense, not just a job; it is a mission. Amid feeding frenzies and the mad rush for a scoop, they must remember that the heart of information is not the speed with which it is reported or its audience impact, but persons. Informing others means forming others; it means being in touch with people’s lives. That is why ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.

The pontiff wants to invite everyone to promote a journalism of peace. He said

By that, I do not mean the saccharine kind of journalism that refuses to acknowledge the existence of serious problems or smacks of sentimentalism. On the contrary, I mean a journalism that is truthful and opposed to falsehoods, rhetorical slogans, and sensational headlines. A journalism created by people for people, one that is at the service of all, especially those – and they are the majority in our world – who have no voice. A journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes. A journalism committed to pointing out alternatives to the escalation of shouting matches and verbal violence.

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Preceding articles

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #1 Abrahamic religions

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #2 War on God’s Plan, Name and title

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #3 Cyberwars and prophesy

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Additional reading

1. An openingschapter explaining why things are like they are and why we may have hope for better things
2. The figure of Eve
3. Bereshith 3 Fall of man
4. Messianic prophesies 1 Adversary – Root of the first prophecy
5. Messianic prophesies 2 Adversary – Root of the first prophecy
6. Delph Radio – Spreading God’s Word to All Nations

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Related

1. Opinion Journalism
2. Why Journalism?
3. So What Happened to the Journalism?
4. Journalism: A Slow Death
5. Dumb journalism makes for a dumb nation
6. The problem with modern “journalism” summed up in one story
7. Crossed Lines
8. Sturgeon sets media and Tories straight after latest round of fake news
9. JT Blog: Examiner analysis
10. Content analysis of the Huddersfield Examiner
11. What a ______ time it is to be a journalist
12. Can you trust social media?
13. Fake News and the Good News
14. Politicians Intermix Cyberwar, Information Warfare, And Fake News
15. Pope condemns ‘evil’ of fake news and its use for political gain
16. Pope: ‘Fake news’ is evil, journalists must search for truth
17. Be more responsible journalists, Pope Francis says…
18. Pope Francis weighs in on fake-news – a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes pope decries unthinkable barbaric treatment of Yezidis audience cate
19. Pope Francis Denounces Fake News
20. Pope Warns Against ‘Fake News,’ Likens It To ‘Crafty Serpent’ In Genesis
21. Pope Blames Eve for Listening to “Fake News” Serpent
22. Pope condemns ‘evil’ of fake news and its use for political gain
23. Be more responsible journalists, Pope Francis says…
24. Edelman Trust Barometer 2018 – Redefines Media & Gives Journalism Hope
25. BuzzFeed: This Is Facebook’s News Survey

If you’re going to be a hater, make sure you’ve done your homework.

One great problem by hate against others is the non-knowledge of those others. The not knowing enough of history is the second part which makes that hate crimes and socio-political situations can re-occur.

An attempt at a discrimination graphic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A video published this weekend by a politician from Gent showed clearly how people from different communities took over words they heard adults shouting at each other. As such we do hear young Moroccans (5-10 years old) calling to have all “the Makakken (sobriquet for Moroccans) out”, dark skinned girls shouting to get all niggers or Negroes where they belong, etc.. It is quite confronting to see how those young, so called innocent toddlers and teens, call their own group of people names, not really understanding the content of such calling and the hate they would or could create with it.

The pictures clearly show how an attitude of hate or love is created by the ones responsible for the education (parents, teachers, surrounding society) of the youngsters and the next generation.

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Symbol of anti-zionizm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 16 year old aspiring journalist in what looks like her first posting, can imagine that, for a teacher, a GCSE religious studies lesson on racism may be one of the most challenging classes to teach, especially in a school like hers; overrun with teenage girls desperate to voice their opinions in an attempt to seem more intelligent than their classmates.

She tells about her experience, which could happen in any school, she sitting in class, learning about prejudice, already pissed off having had to discuss why ‘reverse racism’ is simply just ‘racism.’

She looks at the

very link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism which racists everywhere deny they are doing. It is perfectly possible to be against the Israeli government and their brutal domestic policy, and simultaneously not be an anti-Semite.

In which she is totally right. Much too many people consider those who are against what is going on in Israel, to be anti-semitic, but they can be themselves real Jews as well as real lovers of Jews.

One of the great problems of the disturbance in relationships with Jews is that

as soon as you relate the Holocaust to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the way that has been done here, you are both insensitive and ignorant.

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Preceding articles

What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism

The Rise of Anti-Seminism

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Further reading

1. USA Today: Rise in hate crimes spurs launch of database and hotline
2. Daily Prompt: Instinct or Wisdom?
3. Do White Nationalist Think Brown Babies Are Destroying Our Country? Ask Dr. Karen!
4. Prejudice
5. Prejudice and the ink in my skin…
6. I am white, and I refuse to be ashamed of i
7. This Post Is For White People
8. Acting Black…
9. The Irony of Prejudice
10. What I Now Know About My Own Prejudices
11. My Multi-Cultural Childhood Could be the Answer to Racism & Xenophobia
12. Reverse Racism Doesn’t Exist
13. Does reverse racism exist?
14. The Truth About Reverse Racism
15. What is reverse-discrimination?
16. Liberalism has lost all perspective #reverseracism
17. You can be a dickhead no matter your race, religion or sexuality
18. public education, passing, #womensday2017, all for Prompt Night on A Dash of Sunny
19. Complexity
20. Is being racist against racists racism?
21. Students Report Being Triggered by the Word “Trigger”
22. High School Evacuated Due to Presence of “Toxic Masculinity”
23. “Travel is Fatal To Prejudice” – Mark Twain
24. Masters of Misunderstanding
25. I see you
26. Anticipation, Mrs. Beasley and Starlings
27. Frankie’s America: Too strong to be brought down
28. In the News: Hijab, Hijab, Hijab. Why Are We Obsessed With a Head Scarf?
29. Muslims portrayed as “they” in the media
30. Don’t Tokenize Us 
31. “Use my Pronouns or I Won’t Eat,” Says Non-Binary Student
32. Inadequate Evidence: The Major Problem with Microagressions
33. We’re Not Friends
34. The Thankful Foreigner: An Award-Winning Essay from a Millennial
35. Dealing with the Stares: My Muslim Experiance
36. When the PC culture goes too far…
37. You have no Bucket
38. The Illusion of Christianity in America
39. Jewgle racism pt. infinity
40. Reed’s quote of the day from Charles Caleb Colton on Truth
41. Lectionary Sermon for Lent 3 A : 19 March 2017 on John 4:5-42
42. Racial Tension in Trump’s America. What Are You Going To Do About It?
43. Black Activists Reject Trader Joe’s: Might Attract ‘Non-Blacks’ – Minutemen New
44. ‘Gingerism’ – is it a real thing?
45. Flipping the Script: The Tragedy of Mary Rowlandson
46. Comic: Antisocial media
47. Coversations with Becky
48. 10 Of Megyn Kelly’s Most Racist Moments
49. I can’t believe I’m writing this in 2017
50. A response to Racism
51. How Not To Be A Privileged Ass …

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Related articles

• Mark Rutte’s Test
• Quick Takes: We The People
• Anti-Semitic materials found at UIC for the second time this week
• Trump reviles anti-Semitism
• Jackie Walker Claims Jewish Media “Pattern”
• Slime and the Slimers
• Preschool teacher fired after anti-Semitic online rants
• Holocaust Expert Compares ISIS to the Nazis on “60 Minutes”
• Anti-Semitism row at Bristol University as lecturers rally round academic who claimed Jews should stop ‘privileging’ the Holocaust
• Anne Frank Center Slams President Trump’s Anti-Semitism Remarks: ‘Too Little, Too Late’

Battery Thinkers

I can imagine that, for a teacher, a GCSE religious studies lesson on racism may be one of the most challenging classes to teach, especially in a school like mine; overrun with teenage girls desperate to voice their opinions in an attempt to seem more intelligent than their classmates.

The other week, I was sitting in class, learning about prejudice, already pissed off having had to discuss why ‘reverse racism’ is simply just ‘racism.’ Doodling Radiohead lyrics over my folder and pondering why on earth I had chosen to study RS, I couldn’t help but tune into a conversation between two of my classmates. One girl, for the sake of privacy let’s call her Jennifer, was explaining to a friend why Israel obviously belongs to the Arabs, not the Jews. Fair enough, if she has evidence to support this. But what Jennifer said next surely would’ve angered anybody, let alone…

View original post 613 more words

Reflections on Existence and Teaching

Maria Gianna Iannucci at her blog Reflections on Existence as an educator at Mercy High School in Middletown, CT.  has written courses in Astronomy and Cosmology, Neuroscience, and Medical Botany for the High School level, wonders why she came to teach.

Betonwerksteinskulptur “Lehrer-Student” von Reinhard Schmidt in Rostock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of educators do feel they have a calling. You might even call it a drive which brings them to put themselves at the site at the service for others. Many may have different reasons why they choose to become a teacher. But for sure one can not be a good teacher when one does not love the matter or subject one chooses to bring over to others. In a certain way the one who wants to teach properly must be

in love with God’s new creation. {Why I Teach…}

Every year again the teacher gets to see youngsters which have many questions and lots of aspirations, but also many who do not see the reasons of existence any more and do not know where to go to. It is up to the teacher then to show them some light and many reasons to go forward.

With each generation that moves forward on the earth, hope is born.

when one teaches in class or comes to write a blog, sometimes an other way of teaching and preaching,

It takes contemplation, inspiration, creativity, consistency, and commitment…all those things add up to one thing…love. {A Note To All My Followers}

Without commitment and love for the other one can not bring such life in teaching that can inspire others to continue to do further research and to grow in the knowledge of science, arts, and so on. Without the commitment to the good of others, wanting to give oneself to the other  and to give as much usable information as possible. This free giving, with the knowledge that one can not know everything, that each of us is limited, but by sharing information we all can grow.

As teachers we do also have a mission which should make us to do our utmost best to fulfil the mandate given to us. Our direction should inspire those in front of us and should make us to want to go further than our generation.

Sometimes at the expense of your own wishes. I am committed to holding space for peace and real love in a world that often does not understand what that means. Our behest should also be to bring knowledge and peace, living for the moments “when our students wake up and look at us with new eyes”

as the universe expands beyond their capacity to comprehend. {Why I Teach…}

Maria Gianna Iannucci stands with the young at the threshold of possibilities, when they begin to realize their true purpose.

They catch a brief glimpse of a Love so expansive it leaves them breathless and in awe. I teach for the moments when they see in each other a reflection of the cosmos and the Love that animates it. {Why I Teach…}

I teach to awaken those who slumber, to comfort the grieving, to rejoice with those who dance, to bring hope to those who believe they live in a meaningless world. {Why I Teach…}

for many it may seem a meaningless world, and today with not many prospects. But by opening their eyes to the past and showing them it is a continuous act of reflecting back to mankind and to each of us, individually and in group, that we may come to see much more clear and see that there can be a line of continued hope.

A special education teacher assists one of her students. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The female writer might, like I have done throughout the years I was teaching them, trying to show her pupils the beauty of our world, always referring back to the master Hand behind it,

so that they see with clarity, the beauty of the gifts they were given by the Eternal One. {Why I Teach…}

I can only hope students remember something from what their wanted to teach them plus from what he or she wanted to show them how we as human beings had to move on in this world. I sincerely hope that

Maybe my students will remember the unconditional love and respect, the feeling of being safe and cared for, being known and cherished for who they really are …and carry that out into the world. {Why I Teach…}

Whatever our purpose here on earth, we having been placed here, have to be fostered, guided by others, who want to guide us thorough our growing up process. even when many do not want to know that

We are brought into existence together for the purpose of growing into the very Love that created our hearts and the stars {Why I Teach…}

each educator has to show that way, with lots of patience and hope for the future.

Maria Gianna Iannucci one of her aims of her classes is to show young people the value of the plants for food and medicine to help keep these spaces free. When we look how far people have grown away from nature this is essential. We should have more teachers showing kids how man should be united with nature.

It is sad that nature is not appreciated in its own right, that we have to extract something from it.

Educators should continue with their unending efforts of trying to bring the parts of the chain of knowledge to youngsters and showing them the tools to handle everything what comes in front of them.

I always hoped that by personal endurance or forbearance I could bring some sparkle to lighten the brains of those in front of me and to get them too look for new ways of building up their own life and a new future. Sometimes our way of looking at things, or way of speaking, perfidies that we are a teacher.  (Even on holiday so many asked me if I was a teacher.)

“Once a teacher, always a teacher”

is how Steve Schwartzman see and I it.

The blogster ends her article

To teachers past and present who have dedicated their lives to the restoration of earth and the cultivation of the human. Why I Teach…

with a quote from the French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“As soon as humans have woken to explicit consciousness of the evolution that carries them along, and begin as one to fix their eyes on the same thing ahead of them, are they not, by that very fact, beginning to love one another?”

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Additional reading

1. The first question: Why do we live
2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #7 Education
3. Too many pupils for not enough teachers
4. Passion and burn out of a teacher
5. A learning process for each of us
6. For those who make other choices
7. Fools despise wisdom and instruction

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Further reading

1. Live List of Education Books
2. The Simplest Question Needs the Simplest Answer
3. Science: A Great Source of Metaphor…
4. Teaching ruminations
5. What My Student Teacher Taught Me
6. Oh, The Power You Have…And Yet May Not Even Use.
7. Banning teachers from work
8. 5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2017
9. In memoriam George Aditjondro
10. Thoughts About How I’ve Just Finished School Forever
11. Reflects the core values of Career Toppers
12. An Open Letter to My Firsts
13. What Is a Traditional Teacher?
14. Lesson Plan: Teaching Emotions
15. Critiques of Groupwork in ESL Classrooms
16. Native Speaker Privilege and Unprofessionalism within the ESL Industry by Kevin Hodgson 
17. Conversation with my favorite teacher 
18. Worried
19. There is Only One First
20. Elitism is the enemy of merit
21. Shakespeare and High School English Teachers
22. Tempest-uous Spring Planning
23. The Girl on the Piccadilly Line
24. Dear Students
25. A Day of Giving
26. About Me (miss Natalia)
27. About Me (miss Lindsey)
28. Teaching the Pre-Modern Post-Election
29. Organisational Challenges are Usually Technology Related
30. From business administration to midwifery education: Sara’s midwifery journey
31. The little school in Huilongguan
32. Feedback – perfect this and everything else falls into place!
33. grading
34. Internet Roundup: Education Part 7
35. Teacher “number 4”
36. Shock! My blog has been neglected again.
37. Clashes with Colleagues.
38. I have applied for a new job.
39. Let’s Sum Up – My First Term.
40. First Semester Down #madeit
41. Maybe Sunday School Would Be Better If It Were Actually School
42. Grateful the Time is Near
43. I’m sure what you meant to say in that email critiquing my repertoire choices was thank you…
44. New Day, New Start, TEFL wobbles stabilised
45. Why are languages being taught like math?
46. First Semester Review
47. One Year
48. Empathy and Global Awareness
49. Life lessons from the land of cheese and wine!
50. Time to recharge
51. A Tale of Two Educators
52. Teaching Others about Jesus

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Related articles

• Answering Jacobs’ Questions On False Teaching and Teachers
• Education Update with Dr. Duke Pesta, Freedom Project Academy
• We Don’t Just Teach Curriculum
• Please Behave Like a Human Being
• Being Thankful In Everything
• Top 10 Characteristics of a Great Instructor
• Character of the week: Teilhard de Chardin
• ‘A teacher is an actor, writer, doctor, lawyer, politician, painter and director – who wouldn’t want that?’: Teachers around the world share their stories
• The discursive positioning of graduating teachers in accreditation of teacher education programs (2016)
• Happy National Teacher Day! Five Tax Tips to Educate You on Tax Savings

Save

Muslim leaders call for all Islamic teachers to be registered

Singapore Muslim leaders called for a scheme that endorses religious teachers to be made stricter, amid the spread of extremist ideology on the Internet that has led to the radicalisation of some Singaporeans.

threat of terrorism > 2 Singaporeans planned to travel to Syria to fight with terror group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

religious teachers certified => parents will be more confident sending their children to madrasah, or Islamic religious schools

Currently, 80 per cent of asatizah are under ARS = certified 1,700 religious teachers.

Ustaz Ali Mohamed > need to ensure vision of Islam compatible with Singapore as a secular state.

Association of Muslim Professionals chairman Abdul Hamid Abdullah said encouraging all asatizah to be certified will

“clearly signal, not just to the Muslim community, but to the rest of the communities in Singapore, that we are concerned about getting the right, credible people to teach religious teachings”.

2016 Summer holiday

The prep-, elementary- and high schools finished at the end of last month, whilst the Summer-classes and universities had their last days this month. Many institutions, factories and the government started the Summer holiday last week.

The kids can go outdoors and play with the kids form the neighbours or when going to other places get to know other children somewhere else. Parents may be pleased if other children are around or when abroad there is some childcare taking are of their children, presenting animation for all interested.

From Summer Lovin’ In The Sand ⛱

We do hope as many as possible shall be able to enjoy nice weather and find some time to have some lovely picnics or walks at places a little-bit further away of far away. In Belgium and Holland there may be not so much space to spread out, but for sure also there can be found lovely places at the countryside.

Summertime should be the time to relax and to spend more time in the family. It is also a great time to visit friends. When they also have kids it might be a nice occasion for your own children to enjoy their company. Nice or bad weather for many it might also be the time to go to adventure or amusement parks.

But who thinks about this being also a marvellous occasion to take the kids to the museum and to learn more about places of interest?

When the children are at play it might also be a good occasion to take some more time to let the mind wandering and to take up a book to read. (See next article) Also the kids could be stimulated to read something else than study material.

Today several people when they talk about vacation, they only think of travelling abroad. They forget that vacation is just taking time off which also can be done at home or nearby. It does not have to cost much. You can give your children easy things with which they can enjoy themselves. Several villages create ‘play streets’ in Summer so that kids can play undisturbed by cars or any other dangerous traffic. Over there a piece of chalk can do wonders.

Do know that pleasure can be at your own doorstep.
Family vacations spent at home can also be loads of fun and often let the house be seen from an other angel, rediscovering as it where.

In any case, starting your holiday let it be a period of family time, giving you and your kids your quality time to bond, laugh, create family memories.

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Preceding articles

Summer Oh Summer

Summer-Time Senryu

Summermonths and consumerism

Home-stayers and their to do list

Holiday making and dreaming

Library of Love

How the Story Ends

Following article: Holiday time reading time

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Additional reading

1. Holiday tolerance
2. Making time for prayer in Summerholiday
3. Summerholiday season time to read the Bible
4. Psst! Spread The Good Word!

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Related

1. Summer days
2. Summer and vacation 
3. Summertime (and a film)
4. Summertime
5. Summer Love ~
6. Summer is for (my week in pictures)
7. Summer Routines
8. Summer Lovin’ In The Sand ⛱
9. Summer Playlist
10. Summer Daze
11. Weekend Wanderings
12. 10 Nature Activity Toy Suggestions from Toy Infinity
13. Sand Pit Toy Ideas If The Rain Ever Goes Away….
14. The Tarmac and chalk; low cost outside entertainment.
15. Summer Outdoor Games Kids Used to Play – The Game Wiz
16. Malibu Cafe – Los Angeles, CA
17. Wild Wadi Adventure
18. Chad Valley Crazy Golf Set Drives Me Crazy!
19. Kentucky Derby Party
20. Fun ideas for a vacation at home!
21. Finding Joy.
22. Outdoor fun with kids
23. Popular Games & Sports That Originated In Ancient India!
24. Sunday Slideshow: basketball
25. Hidden Creatures
26. Molkky – World Favorite Outdoor Game Now in USA
27. summertime shenanigans
28. Contemplating Plato in the Pool
29. Buckets and spades
30. Calm Down Candle Spell
31. Five Tips for a Happy Neighborhood.
32. Veggie Medley
33. The ‘Mutts’ of Mountain Cuisine
34. Three fox vineyards
35. Speak Truth; Find Reconciliation
36. Weekend Things
37. Bluegrass Festival Arizona 2016
38. The Sultries Come to Cape Cod
39. My Goal Today
40. A new journey begins
41. Summer time sadness
42. Sticky Note to God 07.24.16

Where is the government strategy to prevent violence against women?

Visiting Lecturer in International Politics at City University London, Patrick Pinkerton, records his less systematic thoughts on everyday political, cultural and social life in the hope it’ll be illuminating.

He has thoughts by the the British government currently engaged in a public and media campaign to change the terms of the debate on radicalisation, with David Cameron urging people to be ‘intolerant of intolerance’ and calling on communities to do more to tackle the extreme ideologies that allow violent ones to emerge.

He doesn’t think it would be an over exaggeration to suggest that Cameron is placing part of the blame for young people turning to ISIL on the failure of the Muslim community in the UK to challenge extreme narratives, and that he is urging the Muslim community to take more responsibility for this.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with this point, I think you can accept that Cameron is seeking to apportion some blame on those who could have acted differently in order to prevent young Europeans travelling to Syria and Iraq to join the brutal and murderous IS movement.

he writes in his article Cameron’s Blame Game. And continues

Cameron’s platitudes about building a ‘national identity’ that ‘young people in our country feel truly part of’ is not enough. If he is so keen to ensure people take responsibility for their actions then he should take responsibility for his own: for the demands he makes on Muslims to pledge their loyalty to an undefined idea of ‘British values’, that could indeed not be defined in anything but an exclusionary manner; and for the essentialised notions of a ‘Muslim community’ his government propagates, requiring surveillance and securitisation. {Cameron’s Blame Game}

The government may be aware of how disengaged it is from large sections of the British Muslim communities but is it aware how ethics and moral values in a country play a very important role in how people are behaving or going to behave?

We also have to be aware how children can become influenced by others, and most of all by those who may offer security, glorious cause, a new way of life. It is unacceptable that many children face bad situations at home, where 22% had suffered from physical or sexual violence by a partner.

The UK and France reported the 5th highest number of violence against women, with 44%. Violence by an intimate partner being the most common type of abuse.
European civilians should shame themselves having about a third of all women in the EU having experienced either physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, according to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

We also should do something against “fear of stigma” which still prevents many women from reporting sexual violence.

Many countries in the so called civilised world are derailed. In many countries of Western Europe men and women have an abundant life full of libertine sex. In all those countries where there is a certain economical wealth we notice psychological and ethical poverty. Men as well as women do not seem to have ethical values and do not seem to have any proud about the sanctity of their own body. At the same time that so many boast about their free sex life with many we see unacceptable levels of sexual coercion and female genital mutilation (FGM), sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosed and an increase of teenage pregnancy.

Often it looks like we are living in an oversexed world, were there do not seem to exist any borders. Many do find it normal that youngsters and adults share sex videos online at the touch of their cell phones. Many find it normal to see sex between the same sexes and even find it more interesting to see it done by several partners in one go. Though many may find it weird to run naked in the garden or on a beach they do not worry to strip in front of a camera and showing their nakedness on a screen hoping to get themselves a million likes.

When approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year [pdf] we should ask serious questions because that’s roughly 11 adult rapes per hour. (!?!)

Over 1,200 victims of FGM were recorded between January and March this year, and unknown numbers of girls and women remain unprotected. Gang violence and grooming are increasingly recognised and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community remains at risk from stigma and discrimination. Sexual health services identify and support these vulnerable groups every day so the ramifications of reducing access to this support and expertise will be far-reaching and significant. {About the crisis, no not the referendum.. the sexual health crisis!}

We too think like the Guest-author that

Such figures dwarf the violence committed in the name of radicalism, whether inspired by an interpretation of Islam or a far right ideology (both of which are targeted in the Prevent strategy).

It is high time that abuse and exploitation are tackled and that the educational institutions again try to get the youngsters on the moral and ethical path which a civilised country should have.

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Previous articles

How to heal after childhood sexual abuse

About a human being or not and life

Stop Burning Rape Survivors at the Stake

How to heal after childhood sexual abuse

Responsibility for children who were molested by clergy

“Prayer 2” – Child Abuse

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Additional reading

1. Subcutaneous power for humanity 2 1950-2010 Post war generations
2. Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS)
3. African misery and women inequality
4. The dark side of our earthly existence
5. Manifests for believers #1 Sex abuse setting fire to the powder
6. Violence against disabled children
7. Justififiable anger or just anarchism
8. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious

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Related reading

1. Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women (RainLily)
2. About the crisis, no not the referendum.. the sexual health crisis!
3. Remember, prime minister: British Muslims hate Isis too
4. Theresa May issued direct plea to Britons not to destroy their lives and children with Isil
5. Violence against women: One-third of EU women affected – survey
6. Swedish police blame “foreign young men” for spate of sex assaults at music festivals
7. Guinness, alcohol much more of a threat to women.
8. British woman saved from her father’s forced marriage, FGM plans by court order
9. Women in Mexico are being assaulted so police can boost arrest numbers in war on drugs, Amnesty says
10. Women’s rights activists blasted for taking selfie with alleged rape victim
11. What We’re Telling Victims
12. The White House refuses to visit colleges that don’t address sexual assault
13. 6 players from Cuba’s men’s volleyball team in custody over alleged rape
14. Football’s abuse of women is institutional
15. Rolling Stone reporter provides insight into circumstances that resulted in retracted rape story
16. Women who have premarital sex are ‘degenerates’: China textbook
17. Escaped Chibok school girl hasn’t been seen since rescue from Boko Haram in May
18. aces against healthism
19. Only way to celebrate 4th of July.
20. In the beginning…
21. In the beginning, there was me.
22. Why I am starting this blog…
23. The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America
24. Reckoning Up: an institutional economy of sexual harassment and violence
25. Rabbit Hole
26. Judging Laura
27. “Roberts Square”
28. “Instead I Held Her Hand”
29. Y12 Health Day – Part One
30. Y12 Health Day – Part Two
31. Powerful “Dear Brock Turner” photo series shows how women are blamed in rape culture
32. The porn star who accused James Deen of rape is ready to move on in a big way
33. Thandie Newton says director sexually abused her
34. Flight diverted after teenage girl allegedly assaulted by drunk man on plane
35. Who wins
36. Islamic anti-terrorism coalition, a way for Riyadh to “save face”
37. The Legality of Muslim Exclusion
38. On International Women’s Day, Clothes and Being Female
39. The Lights That Failed: Terrorism Double Standards in San Bernardino, Paris…and Baicheng?
40. Is banning Niqab need of the modern western society or is it the dogma of a feudal symbolism which is creating inconvenience to others
41. 16-year-old boy arrested over murder of woman in Burka (Nahid Almanea) and young father (James Attfield) stabbed more than 100 times
42. Rampant Sexism
43. The Rise of Hate Search
44. The first time I submitted to a man (Part 2)
45. Living In The Now
46. Is sex overrated?
47. Salma Hayek says sex isn’t the key to a happy marriage
48. The Truth About Sex In Relationships (Hint: It’s Not As Important As You Think It Is)
49. On pornography
50. complicated
51. Not the one?
52. Gaze
53. Hollywood’s Naked Butts
54. Are We Living In A Sex Crazed World?
55. # 100 The Joy Of Nakedness
56. In Fear and Hatred of Flesh
57. Day 181: Adam and Eve: The Perfect Couple
58. Nakedness and Shame | Victor Tey
59. Naked Before God and the Wonder of it All
60. Naked Before God and Spiritual Discipline
61. Naked Before God: Trials and Tribulations
62. Naked Before God: Praying in Humility
63. A Naked Mind Reminded
64. Sunday Sermon [Gettin’ Naked]
65. John 5:44
66. Can I be vulnerable?
67. Be Vulnerable? What?!
68. Nakedness, Tough Guys and False Expectations
69. Naked Before God in Community: But I’m an Introvert!
70. •Vulnerability & Nakedness•
71. Naked Before God: Husbands and Wives
72. Naked Before God: In Community (2)
73. Cover Your Nakedness!
74. Does the Boris Johnson and Donald Trump mural rely on our distaste of men kissing?
75. Storm Lake man found guilty of forcing wife to end pregnancies
76. Woman says Gresham father molested her 1,000-plus times, delivers chilling statement
77. Syria, child sexual abuse and Ebola highlight UN shortcomings
78. Females in the Texas Juvenile Justice System are often at greater Risk of serving longer Sentences and having a Mental Health need than their Male Counterparts
79. Ghani Promises ‘Serious Measures’ Against Afghan Troops Who Sexually Abuse Children
80. US Must Leverage Aid to Stop Child Sexual Abuse Among Afghan Security Officials
81. Two tumultous years but little real progress for adult victims of child sexual abuse
82. Afghanistan Vows Measures Against Child Sex Abuse
83. International: US military in Afghanistan told troops to ‘ignore child abuse by Afghan soldiers’
84. U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies

Everyday Deconstructions

Last Monday a clause of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (2015) came into effect, placing the Prevent Duty Guidance for seven sectors of the public services on a statutory footing. Local authorities, schools, further education, higher education, the health sector, prisons and probation have joined the police in having a legal duty to safeguard persons from radicalisation, be it through challenging the narratives of radical preachers and political ideologues who argue that violence is acceptable, or through tackling exposure to beheading videos or other violent images online that normalises such barbaric behaviour.

The government hope this legislation will stem the flow of British citizens to Syria, and hlep prevent the kind of home-grown terror attacks witnessed recently in Paris and Copenhagen. At least 700 Britons are thought to have travelled to Syria to join IS in the last few years, but fortunately there has not been a violent incident on…

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