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.
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
- Vliegend spaghettimonster en Gelijke behandeling voor elke overtuiging
- Parenthood made more difficult
- Uncertainty, shame and no time for vacillation
- Migrants to the West #2
- On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
- Pew Research: How People in Muslim Countries Believe Women Should Dress
- Allowing dress code according liberty of religion
- Coverings Worn by Muslim Women
- The Dress Code for Women in the Quran
- Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”
- French showing to the whole world their fear and weakness
- Christians, secularism, morals and values
- Trusting present youngsters who are not necessary evil
- Overprotection and making youngsters drifting away
- Today’s thought “And he counted it to him for righteousness” (January 12)
- Listening to the lessons of the Bible and looking for ways to please God
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Related
- Hijab 1
- Hijab 2
- The Meaning of Hijab
- I Tried Wearing a Hijab (sort of)
- The hijab of ignorance
- Cultural Bias
- An Imagined Offence
- The Irony of Hijabs!!
- Transition: My Hijab Story
- Hijab: Oppression or Freedom?
- Hijab in Islam and other religions
- Hijab | Zanzibar, Tanzania
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- Pearls and swines – loose priorities – the hijab-saga in perspective
- Hidden Pearl Hijab Review
- Hijab ‘Attack’ Condemned By Canada’s Prime Minister Was A Hoax
- My Hijab Story
- The Secret Hijabi
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Anti-Semitic pressure driving Jews out of Europe
It can not go unnoticed, since a decade lots of Jews feel the pressure of the growing anti-Semitism and an aversion against the Divine Creator. Some even feel like it is again as in the 1930ies and the fear is great that Jews could be experiencing the most difficult situation they have encountered since the end of World War II.
Francis Kalifat, Président du Cirf
The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France is fully aware of the bad situation and the 11th president of it looks at the present situation with Argus eyes. For him the Western world may not neglect the reason why we can see such a record emigration by Jews from France.
For him the year that lies before us is one full of challenges.
he says, looking at our society which is suffering and facing a climate of mistrust. Many French people are afraid or angry and democracy is on the back foot. According to an IPSOS survey taken in November last year, 32% of French people think that other political regimes would be equally effective. They long for a world of times gone by, looking for scapegoats and sweeping changes. This want to find a guilty one we can find back at several occasions in the past and today in many countries all over the world where the far right is gaining popularity.
remarked Francis Kalifat, the Crif President at a speech at the annual Crif’s dinner 2017, where he said
Ilan Halimi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Following the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 and the massacre at the Ozar Ha Torah school in Toulouse in 2012, anti-Jewish hatred once again reared its ugly head in France on 9th January 2015 and thus reinforced the feeling of solitude and abandonment that had started to engulf the Jewish community.
Partly because of anti-Semitic violence that included hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents annually in recent years, and dozens of physical assaults, lots of Jewish brethren ans sisters found it wiser to look for other pastures.
We heard already of certain quarters which got French names, because so many French people came to settle over there. According to figures seen by AFP in total, 40,000 French Jews have emigrated between 2006 and the end of 2016.
said Daniel Benhaim, who heads the Israeli-backed group in France, and agreed that insecurity had been a “catalyst” for many Jews who were already thinking of leaving.
The French Jewish community is the biggest in Europe and is thought to number around 500,000 people. In the 1970ies there where also a lot of Jews in Antwerp, but their number has decreased a lot.
The Jewish Museum of Belgium, between the Sablon in central Brussels and Brussels South, pictured in 2009
The Jewish communities form the Benelux and France were shocked in 2006 by the kidnapping and brutal anti-Semitic killing of a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, in the Paris suburbs, which was followed by a shooting in a Jewish school in the southwest city of Toulouse in 2012.
Two years later on 24 May 2014, in Brussels a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, killing four people. Three died at the scene; a fourth was taken to the hospital and died on 6 June. The attack is being investigated as terrorism by Belgian authorities. Several more threats followed on Belgian as well as on French Jewish sites, often coming from people having links with radical Islamists. By those terrorists many youngster felt called to do horrible things, not even afraid to carry loads of bombs from one place to another. Home made bombs but also professional weapons switched hands easily, to bring fear and terror in name of Allah.
Since the attacks of November 2015 the West of the European continent came to realise that it is the whole of our society has come under attack. It is not just any more about Jews, Israel, Christendom, Belgium or France but the citizens their culture, freedom, way of life and world view.
said Francis Kalifat.
Some now may have come to think it is more a battle against Islam. they should know fighting against Islam is as wrong as fighting against Judaism or Christianity. the world has to see it are just a few extremists who make life difficult for a whole group of people. Because the Brussels attacks of March 22, 2016 and later the Marseille and Nice attacks the governments focused Islamic terrorists and people where more afraid of such further terrorist acts. This made that 2016 saw a net drop in anti-Semitic acts and threats: a 58% reduction compared with 2015, though anti-Islamic acts also dropped by the same amount.
Kalifat warned that nevertheless, anti-Semitism remains at a historic high. Jewish people, who represent under 1% of the population, remained a focal point of over 30% of all reported racist acts committed in France throughout 2016, being subject to 335 anti-Semitic acts and threats.
Probably less Jews where victims of harassment because the Jewish quarters had everywhere soldiers patrolling. The increased police patrols also made lost of place less vulnerable, which can also be seen in the lesser amount of robberies.
Leaders of French Jewry may have expressed both relief over the defeat of the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections and concern over her receiving more than a third of the vote, they may not forget that those 11 million voters for the extreme right party can perhaps be only part of the many right wingers who would love all Jews and Muslims out of their ‘Catholic’ country.
Joel Mergui, the president of the Consistoire, was very fast to react on Sunday evening in a statement by his group, which is responsible for providing religious services to Jews to say he was happy with the result of Emmanuel Macron being elected president,
Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, who is employed by the Consistoire, also spoke of his satisfaction from the vote. But in his statement, Korsia also referenced concerns over the support shown to Le Pen and those who would like to ban wearing Jewish and Muslim religious symbols in public, ritual slaughter and the provision of pork-free meals in school cafeterias, like they also have done in Belgium.
The ban for the religious symbols in the Belgian state schools is idiotic, because state-schools should just show they are free of any religious bias and that they are open to all sorts of religion. That ban is already some years in use by several Belgian schools and recently some complaints where made that elderly homes and prisons still provided pork-free meals. at first there was only a ban on ritual slaughter in private homes by ordinary citizens, but from 2017 onward there shall be a total ban of ritual slaughter in Belgium, which shall make it very difficult for religious Jews, Muslims and certain Christians to have kosher or halal meat from the own country. As long as importation would not be a problem, work of it can made that way, but it will also undermine the countries own economy.
Kalifat, who has lobbied intensively in favour of Macron in recent days, wrote optimistically on Twitter that everything starts now.
And that is what we can hope for … that a new start is made to bring non-Jews to come to understand why certain regulations are so important for the Jewish community, who want to put God’s mitzvot above the laws of man.
Also it is getting time that non-Jews come to see that there is a difference between secular (or apikorsim) – political Jews and religious Jews, who want to live according to the Law of God.
We only can hope that the new French president shall make work to bring Europeans of all sorts of religions together to live in peace and that he with the European Unions also shall try to get both parties Israel to come to negotiate directly in order to reach a point where they can live side by side in peace and security. All parties involved should recognise that as well as for Jews, Christians and Muslims, all having their faith build on the same root, our patriarch Abraham, that for all of them Jerusalem is a holy place. Real lovers of God, be them Jews, Christians or Muslims do know that Jerusalem in the end shall become the capital of the world. Therefore the lovers of God should also stimulate their politicians to get the political groups around the table to find a good solution for reconciliation and lasting peace.
I would love to see that all shall be able to come to believe that big picture Mr Kalifar wished to reiterate
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Preceding
Kindertransport
Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter
Seeds from the world creating division and separation from God
What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism
The Rise of Anti-Seminism
If you’re going to be a hater, make sure you’ve done your homework.
Dr. Miller looking at Jews in France
Bringers of agony, Trained in Belgium and Syria
Bruxelles Ma Belle
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Other articles of interest
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Filed under Crimes & Atrocities, History, Political affairs, Religious affairs, World affairs
Tagged as 2006, 2012, 2015, 2016, Aliyah (act of moving to Israel), Anti-Semitic comments, Anti-Semitism, Antwerp, Apikorsim (secular Jews), Benelux, Brussels, Brussels attacks, Christianity, Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Crif), Daniel Benhaim, Emigration, European anti-Semitism, France, France’s Jews, Francis Kalifat, French citizens, French Islamists, French people, Haim Korsia, Islam, Islamic terrorists, Islamist totalitarianism, Israel, Jewish community, Jews, Joel Mergui, Judaism, Marseille, Nice, Non-Jews, Ozar Ha Torah school (Toulouse), Political Jews, Racism, Racist acts, Racists, Scapegoats, Secular Jews, Terrorism, Terrorist acts, Toulouse, United Nations (UN), West Europe