Bartholomew's Notes

News 8 in Austin has picked up on the planned “competing” Fort Hood Memorial Service:

An event organized by the Pennsylvania-based group Forum for Middle East Understanding is set to take place Nov. 21 at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.

Speakers at the event include two former terrorists and the director of “Jihad Watch,” a blog dedicated to educating others about the theology motivating jihadists.

The Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas, or SPJST, has been working with the City of Killeen to build a Living Memorial Garden by the Killeen Civic and Conference Center, the same location as the Forum for Middle East Understanding event.

The connection caused confusion in the community about whether or not the Killeen Chamber of Commerce was supporting the function.

The chamber sent a letter to its members clearly stating the event was not backed by the city of Killeen, Fort Hood or SPJST.

I blogged on the background to this self-proclaimed “competing” event here – the FMEU exists to promote Walid Shoebat, and it’s clear that the planned event is will be politically-charged: Shoebat’s son is billing it with the tag-line “America had enough of diversity, liberalism, appeasement, and silence”.

Shoebat’s handler, Keith Davies (wrongly named “Robert Davies” in the report – perhaps a conflation with Robert Spencer, who will be speaking), has complained bitterly that the Chamber of Commerce is being “politically correct”, although the Chamber’s letter, as reproduced by News 8, seems reasonable enough:

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Following Nadine Dorries’ recent House of Commons adjournment debate on abortion, there has been a certain amount of interest in “Forsaken: Taunton”, a supposedly “neutral” charity which offers post-abortion counselling to women and which was cited Dorries in her speech. Forsaken is less than transparent: its template “About Us” page is mostly marked “TBA”. I did some Googling around yesterday and found a link to a local Charismatic church involved in pro-life activism, but I was also also keen to stress that the people behind it appear to be sensitive and compassionate.

However, questions have also arisen about the group’s status as a charity, as it describes itself on the site and as Dorries introduced it in the House of Commons. In the UK, the word “charity” is suggestive of what Americans call a “501(c)” – an organisation that has to work within certain guidelines and be open to public scrutiny. That popular understanding is not quite correct, apparently; according to the Charity Commission:

???????A small charitable organisation with an income that does not exceed £5000 can enjoy the benefits of charitable status without having to meet the regulatory requirements of registered charities.

The bar was raised from £1000 in 2007, and Forsaken has responded to queries by explaining that this is why it does not appear on the register. So,  a reasonable query, and a reasonable explanation.

Nadine Dorries, however, is currently attempting to dampen down any further interest by playing her ever-favourite “stalker” card, in a remarkable posted headlined “Tim Ireland, You Have Been Warned“:

…The sharks are already circling.

…Already, Forsaken have had the infamous Bloggerheads, Tim Ireland, on the phone this morning. Probing, asking questions about their status, amking the usual inappropriate comments etc. Usual Tim Ireland, agressive ‘I have a right to know all about you’ style.

I am an elected member Tim. You harass me on an almost daily basis, including my staff and my Chairman. I am expected, even though you aren’t one of my constituents, to take it. I am expected to tolerate your inappropriate level of intense attention, as were the MPs you harassed before me.

Members of the public are not.

If you put into place your usual method of operation of continuous telephone calls, blogging, blitz emailing thousands of ranting words etc to people going about their daily business, I am sure the Police may take a strong view.

You have been warned. I will not tolerate anyone else being subjected to your intense, inappropriate, abusive behaviour, simply because they have some, even the most distant, association to me.

However, as Tim explains on his blog today:

I contacted Forsaken (by email only) to make enquiries about their status as a charity, and included a follow up question about how long they’d been operating under the income threshold that stops them from having to register as one. I have now dared to send a third email asking them to confirm that I have not called them, and I will let you know if they get back to me.

As Tim also notes, her complaint that she is “expected to tolerate your inappropriate level of intense attention” reveals a lot about her supposed complaints to the police. It seems likely that some months ago she did ask for some informal and general advice about stalkers, which she then deliberately misrepresented on her “70 per cent fiction” blog and to the press as specific advice given to her about Tim.

Despite her claim that Tim is under investigation, he has never been contacted by the police, and she has been unable to provide the reference numbers which anyone who makes a formal complaint to the police are given. One excuse she has given – after a lot of pushing – is that the “House of Commons Police” do not give reference numbers, and from a recent Tweet here we can infer that she has tried to get a backdated number from the police in her constituency. I am inclined to think that this attempt failed, and that whoever she spoke to informed her that she is indeed “expected to tolerate” public interest in her public activities.

Given that Tim has – now by her own admission – done nothing that she is not “expected to tolerate”, she has no business continuing to pretend that she regards him as some sort of threat to her person (an unconvincing charade anyway). And attempting to use or manipulate “Forsaken” to continue her smear campaign by proxy is probably something the organisation could have done without.

If anyone is interested in what actual stalking looks like, a comment I received last night from an anonymous coward here may be a good example.

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Christian Concern for Our Nation reports:

On 2 November 2010 an adjournment debate was held in the House of Commons regarding the need for women to be given more information prior to an abortion. The debate was called for by Nadine Dorries MP who highlighted the urgent need for women to be given all of the information they needed prior to a potential abortion, including information related to its risks, and the other options that may be available to pregnant women…

Dorries is particularly close to CCFON; prior to the election, CCFON members registered and created her campaign website. Dorries has spoken on the subject of abortion previously, and is known for promoting the “hand of hope” urban legend. CCFON, meanwhile, has links with the US Alliance Defense Fund and with the anti-gay New Generation churches, and it is not inaccurate to describe it as a Christian Right organisation.

In her Commons speech, Dorries made the claim that women are pushed into abortions by counsellors and providers who wish to make money. Further:

…During the debate Nadine mentioned a book called ‘Forsaken – Women from Taunton Talk About Abortion’. The book is published by the charity Forsaken, and contains harrowing stories of women suffering from post-abortion syndrome. It was written by Angela Coakes and her friends who have been working with women with post-abortion syndrome in Taunton [in southwest England].

Forsaken has a website here; details of those involved are scarce, although alongside Angela Coakes a certain Philip Coakes has responded to queries. “Phil and Angie Coakes” are listed as homegroup leaders at Living Light Christian Church in Taunton, and the church has founded a local pregnancy centre called Alternatives; a link to this centre is given on the Forsaken website. Neither site has any reference to the church, and it takes a purely secular approach to the subject.

An mp3 sermon on the “Alternatives Pregnancy Centre Vision”, given by Elder John Lalgee at Living Light in 2007, can be heard here; he comes across as thoughtful and sensitive, and he specifically warns against hostility towards women who have had abortions. He is also keen that professionals should understand that

we’re not radical lunatics… who are not going to speak sense and wisdom and care objectively to the women.

Living Light Taunton belongs to a wider group of churches in the UK and the USA; according to the website, Lalgee, who is from Blackpool,

…oversees the congregations in Kenosha, Racine and Pleasant Prairie as well as, Living Light Church in Taunton, and Covenant Life Church in Lake City, Michigan. All of this work is carried out as part of One Church Ministries, which John leads.

The church in Taunton is led by Ben Thorne, in whose name the Alternatives website is registered. Although the churches are Charismatic, the style seems far closer to mainstream British evangelicalism than to the US “Christian Right”.

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Jeff Sharlet notes on Facebook:

Some C Street pickups:

Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Sen Dan Coats (R-IN), Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI). Some C St victories: Sen. Coburn (R-OK), Sen. DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Thune (R-SD; unopp), Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), Rep. Mike McIntyre (BD-NC), Rep. Heath Shuler (BD-NC), Rep. Fr…ank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL; unopp); Rep. John Carter (R-TX; unopp).

C St defeats: 0

(Background here)

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“America had enough of diversity, liberalism, appeasement, and silence”

As the anniversary of the Fort Hood massacre approaches, time for some acrimony; Walid Shoebat’s website reports:

Killeen Chamber of Commerce Playing Politics in the memory of Ft Hood dead and wounded

Nov. 21st, ICTOA and a private organization have scheduled a competing memorial service to honor the dead and wounded of Ft Hood, followed by five speakers who will expose what our nation’s leaders are afraid to share with the American people.

The Killeen, TX Chamber of Commerce has issued a letter to its members stating that they are supporting the Nov 5th, and are not supporting Nov 21st event. They have also insinuated that there is a money issue, and that Forum For Middle East Understanding has been “pressuring local businesses” to sponsor the Nov. 21st event. They have also stated to members that our event is being misrepresented as a memorial service.

“Why is the Chamber of Commerce of Killeen even taking sides one way or the other?” says Keith Davies the executive director of the Forum For Middle East Understanding, who organized the event. “I would not expect the support of the Chamber of Commerce nor would I expect their animosity.”

…We have not been in communication with the Chamber of Commerce and wonder why they have so much animosity to this second event? The answer is most likely the ongoing issue of political correctness, the very reason why the Ft Hood tragedy happened, and the root cause of similar incidents, because of our unwillingness to properly address the issues of terrorism.

…The theme of this memorial event is DIVERSITY STARTS WITH THE TRUTH…

I blogged on Shoebat’s Forum For Middle East Understanding here. Unfortunately, the Killeen Chamber of Commerce letter does not appear to be available on-line, but the idea that they are the ones “playing politics” is laughable considering how the 21 November event is being billed; according to Shoebat’s son Theodore, on a posting to YouTube:

Reclaiming America at Fort Hood. America had enough of diversity, liberalism, appeasement, and silence. Diversity starts with the truth.
The event will take place in November 21st 2010 at Killeen Texas at the Killeen Conference Center.
Speakers will be Walid Shoebat, with decorated war hero General William Boykin, Kamal Saleem, and Robert Spencer.
For tickets got to FFMU.ORG or call at 877-832-7200

Obviously, the event is boilerplate Tea Party: using tragedy to promote fear and hate, and fear and hate to make reason look weak. I blogged on the line-up here; most of the speakers need no introduction. Shoebat is a pseudo-expert on terrorism, Islamic extremism, and Biblical prophecy, and he teaches that Obama is a secret Muslim and that the Bible has prophesised a Muslim anti-Christ. Boykin, like Shoebat, believes that the US is in a spiritual war against Islam with an apocalyptic dimension, and he was recently explaining how health care reform represents a “Marxist insurgency” and a Nazi-like conspiracy to “establish a constabulary force… that can control the population”. Robert Spencer, curiously, has not so far mentioned his participation on his own site; perhaps he’d rather keep his association with Christian fundamentalism low-key, given the Martin Mawyer fiasco. According to the FFMU website, the event will also include Lynn Woolley, a right-wing radio host from Dallas.

The line-up speaks for itself, and I can see why the Killeen Chamber of Commerce, which is supporting the official 5 November memorial, might want to make sure there is no confusion. Davies also tells us that

We are offering Killeen businesses the opportunity to participate as a sponsor, but no one is pressuring anyone as insinuated by the Chamber.

Without fuller information it’s impossible to know for sure what’s happened here.

The ICTOA, which is supporting the FFMU event, is the “International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association”; according to its blurb, it

was founded by members of the New York City Police Department. The ICTOA is comprised of law enforcement personnel, firefighters, military, first responders, private/corporate security, and other related professionals…

It bills itself as offering “Training, Education and Networking”, and it held a conference last month at which Shoebat was a speaker. According to a press release:

Ilana Freedman, one of this country’s pre-eminent private sector intelligence analysts, will join some of our nation’s leading experts at the 8th Annual International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association (ICTOA) Conference. The ICTOA Conference agenda will be packed with other specialists in the counter-terrorism field, including Steve Emerson, Walid Shoebat, Aaron Richman, and Ben Venzke.The prestigious panel of speakers will discuss the threat of terrorism in the United States today.

As Emerson in particular can tell you, the gravy train is quite lucrative.

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Apparently:

Cliff Kincaid at AIM is reporting that Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground terrorist who for years was a fugitive, is recommending that the Jon Stewart–Stephen Colbert events, called “Restore Sanity” and “Keep Fear Alive,” are “worth attending.”

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At FrontPageMag, Robert Spencer comes to the defence of his close associate Pamela Geller, who he asserts has been “demonized” by the media. He was moved to write following set-backs Geller has had on the right, such as Christine O’Donnell recently dropping Geller’s endorsement from her campaign website. Spencer, with thudding inevitablity, sees an malign organising intelligence at work:

…the Leftist media establishment has mounted an all-out assault against her, with hit pieces coming virtually every day, following classic Alinskyite tactics. Her treatment in the media has been a textbook case of how the Left follows Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky’s playbook to destroy its most formidable opponents… “Pick the target,” Alinsky directs, “freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” …First, the hard-Left self-styled media watchdog Media Matters drew up a dossier full of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies about Geller. 

…The general haste to advance the false claim that Geller believed Malcolm X to be Obama’s father, and the utter indifference to her explanation to the contrary, recalled another Alinsky rule: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.” Hit pieces in The Guardian, Salon, The Atlantic, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere among the Leftist mainstream media tried their best to portray Geller as ridiculous, even affecting a faux puritanical streak (“she filmed a video blog wearing a bikini!”) to try to make the characterization stick.

… if conservatives are not going to defend their own, and stick up for their own, then Alinskyites will pick us off one by one, and never themselves be exposed.

Why do people make fun of Geller? Simple: it’s a Left-wing conspiracy, as can be proven by reference to a particular text which reveals a both hidden overarching strategy and the “true” motive of any critics. It’s doubtful that Spencer really believes any of this, but as a rabble-rouser he’s hardly pitching himself at thoughtful readers.

Geller has long lamented the “Malcolm X” fiasco, which appeared in material on her site written by someone else but only partially endorsed by her. Charles Johnson notes:

Here’s the post at her hate site: HOW COULD STANLEY ANN DUNHAM HAVE DELIVERED BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JR. IN AUGUST OF 1961 IN HONOLULU, WHEN OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RECORDS SHOW HER 2680 MILES AWAY IN SEATTLE ATTENDING CLASSES THAT SAME MONTH? – Atlas Shrugs.

As you might be able to tell from the all-caps title, it’s a rambling, deranged Birther conspiracy theory, it’s thoroughly nuts, and it’s very long. Geller marked it up with bold, red, and different sized text, and included dozens of pictures. The page is about 3.5 megabytes in size. It’s huge. It took quite a bit of work to post.

But even if you take Geller’s laughable excuse at face value and forget about the claim that Barack Obama is Malcolm X’s love child, the rest of this “anonymous author’s” psychotic rant is every bit as bad. What part of this ugly mess is supposed to be a “spectacular job?”

Another point addressed by Spencer is Geller’s smear of Elena Kagan as a neo-Nazi; he quotes Geller’s own explanation:

Here is credentialed journalism: they say without explanation that I “posted doctored pictures of Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court justice, in a Nazi helmet.” They don’t bother to mention that the Kagan photoshop came after it was revealed that Kagan had cited in her thesis a German Marxist who became a Nazi when Hitler took power.

I wrote a blog entry on this here – Geller’s attack was crude and presposterous piece of abuse which suggested that because Kagan had quoted a sociologist who had later become a Nazi, she must herself be a Nazi. It showed up Geller for what she is: a vulgar smear merchant whose ultimate target is not so much Islamic extremism but the very idea of rational discussion. Geller and Spencer are demagogues using fear to advance both themselves and a particularly unpleasant agenda. You don’t need to go hunting for some “textbook” which would “expose” their strategy: what they are up to is all too blatantly obvious.

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“You have to have two witnesses… to come up to him and say, ‘do you realise that you’re a fag?'”

Earlier this week I blogged on Sunday’s English Defence League rally outside the Israeli Embassy in London, where California’s “Surfing Rabbi” (and Tea Party activist) Nachum Shifren railed against Islam and expressed his satisfaction that “Arabs and Muslims” were killing each other “like the dogs they are”. Given the presence of LGBT rainbow flags and posters decrying Islamic homophobia, I also noted Shifren’s views on the subject of homosexuality; he has written that it should remain a private matter, and he has attacked “Gay radicals” who want a “quasi Gay/Lesbian hegemony, where a huge ‘bookburning,’ reminiscent of the Nazis, will purge any remnants of the ‘Christian, White, mainstream America'”.

Following the rally, the EDL headed towards Hyde Park and Speakers’ Corner; here, Shifren got into a conversation with a Muslim, who asked him about punishments for apostasy and homosexuality in the Torah. After some bluster and yelling, Shifren explains how his  approach differs from Islam (H/T to Exploring Life, The Universe and Everything for the video):

You have to have two witnesses, 13 years or older that believe in the Torah, to come up to him and say, “do you realise that you’re a fag?”… And the guy says “yes, yes”… then you bring him to the court in Jerusalem. Problem is, that Jerusalem was destroyed, there is no law court, so therefore all the laws you’re stating cannot be adjudicated. It’s a moot issue.

…What do you say about the very law that says kill the homosexuals?… Do you think God was right in giving this command?

…Whatever it says in the Torah is straight from God’s will.

So, God was right to command to kill the homosexuals?

That’s right.

At this point, Shifren’s EDL handlers become agitated about the need for the Rabbi to be somewhere else.

It’s not clear with which strand of Jewish fundamentalism Shifren identifies – he may think that nothing can be done to restore the law court until God intervenes to do so, or he may take the view that humans should work actively to create the kind of society he outlines above.

Shifren, incidentally, has the strong political endorsement of Pamela Geller… whose tendency to overlook the anti-gay views of her allies has caused her some trouble previously.

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Not completely unexpectedly, Nadine Dorries MP has published a new blog entry continuing her smear campaign against the blogger Tim Ireland, and trying to justify misleading information on her blog. Their dispute had been discussed on the Sky News blog on Monday. Dorries complains:

I have reported Tim Ireland to the House of Commons police on three occasions and the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police explored the option of triggering section 5 of the Public Disorder Act. The House of Commons Police informed me that Mr Ireland had actually rang their office demanding to know if he had been reported. He had and they were seeking advice from the Met harassment unit.

…The Sky Boulton blog was outrageous and distressing. John Craig, their political reporter felt there was nothing wrong in legitimising a man I and other MPs have felt the need to report to the Police.

Curiously, however, the police haven’t even had so much as an informal word with Tim about any of this, and Dorries refuses to provide dates or reference numbers. One is put in mind of Hotspur’s assessment of Owen Glendower’s boasts about calling up spirits: “Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come?” We know that the police sometimes ignore legitimate complaints, but surely a complaint of harassment from a Member of Parliament would have been taken seriously, and if there had been a case to answer Tim would have been called to account? The details are also vague and inaccurate, as legal blogger Gaijin-San notes: there is no “Public Disorder Act”, and the provisions of similarly-named real Acts she may have had in mind are inadequate.

But what of these “other MPs” who supposedly reported Tim? We know from other statements which she has made that she is referring to Patrick Mercer MP and to Anne Milton MP. The latter is Tim’s constituency MP, and Tim got into a dispute with her over the alleged actions of a couple of her activists. No complaint was made to the police about Tim.

However, I’m more interested in Patrick Mercer MP, who has a nice sideline in providing scary quotes about terrorist threats to tabloid newspapers: these often crumble under closer scrutiny, such as his claim that the Taliban are using HIV-bombs. Some material was previously passed to Mercer from Glen Jenvey, who was discovered by Tim in early 2009 to have concocted evidence of a terrorist conspiracy by leaving bogus messages on a Muslim discussion forum; it seems that Jenvey’s aim had been to make provocative postings in order to draw out extremists, but that when this proved insufficient he used his own postings as evidence. Mercer, amid some embarrassment, eventually distanced himself from Jenvey.

However, Jenvey and Mercer both had another associate, named Dominic Wightman (also known as “Dominic Whiteman”). Wightman was another self-styled “terror tracker”, monitoring Islamic extremism on-line as director of the “VIGIL Network”. In 2006, Mercer introduced Wightman to officers at New Scotland Yard, posing with him for a photo-op outside the building, and he probably facilitated Wightman’s appearance on Newsnight around the same time.

Alas, though, the association proved to be another embarrassment for Mercer: some months later, Wightman was sued by a former employee at VIGIL over lack of payment and he became a bankrupt (he also had other business debts). It also eventually transpired that Wightman was dishonest: he concocted a pseudonymous document attacking Tim and including private information about him, which he then drew to our attention. He claimed that it had been written by a university lecturer working with Jenvey; police, however, traced it back to Wightman. The university lecturer concerned had initially supported VIGIL, but had come to have serious concerns about Wightman; Wightman’s purpose, which was at first successful but ultimately a failure, was to manipulate Tim and me into attacking him. I wrote about all this here.

Naturally, the easiest thing for Mercer to do was to shrug this all off by accusing Tim of being an “electronic stalker”; there is specific reason to think that he has discussed Tim with Dorries. Mercer likes to throw the “stalker” label around: he recently used it to discredit a subordinate administrator at the House of Commons with whom he had had an affair (although he did confirm that the affair had taken place). But did Mercer make a complaint about Tim to the police, as Dorries strongly infers? Again, if so, Tim has heard nothing about it.

Tim deals with Dorries’ accusations here. It needs to be stressed that her poisonous lies have already borne fruit, as they have been used by a third party to harass Tim for real: this person is a cyberthug named Charlie Flowers, who, like many other bullies, justifies his viciousness by pretending to be a vigilante. Last year Flowers, along with his “Cheerleader” accomplices and a man named Matthew Edwards, published Tim’s home address on-line and sent threats of violence; Flowers has cited Dorries as the reason for his actions, and his associates have alluded to  Dorries to incite others to join his campaign, on the grounds that Tim “stalks women”. Flowers claims to have been in contact with Dorries, although Dorries so far has not responded to queries on the subject.

Flowers knows that Dorries’ story is untrue; he is another former associate of Wightman and Jenvey, and like Jenvey he has himself been involved with attempting to manipulate Muslim websites by posting provocative messages (in one case, outing Jenvey as gay after Jenvey converted to Islam). Flowers and his associates were also involved with hounding the university lecturer. However, the Dorries cover story allows him to slander Tim further and to obscure the truth; Flowers is keen to obfuscate, as he has recently been attempting to insinuate himself into various activist groups.

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Writing at OneNewsNow, David Aikman discusses discontent in China:

When Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, the response of the Chinese government was predictable… Liu, at the time of the Nobel announcement, was already serving an 11-year jail sentence slapped on him by the Chinese government for his temerity in authoring a brilliant human rights document, “Charter 08,” which called for a dazzling array of political and social reforms for China, including public control of the military, the separation of powers, freedom of religion, and an end to censorship.

…Boston-based human-rights activist Chai Ling, who founded All Girls Allowed in the U.S. to combat China’s brutal compulsory abortion policy, first met Liu Xiaobo as a student leader in the Democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989.  She believes strongly that China must have a spiritual transformation of its society before any major political reforms can be effective as part of a total package of reforms.  This conforms with a quotation attributed to Liu Xiaobo, who is not even known to be a Christian.  “Without God,” Liu is claimed to have said, “China has no hope.”

Aikman is the author of Jesus in Beijing, a journalistic guide to Christianity in the country which contains a lot of useful data, but which is marred by a simplistic triumphalism.

The quote which he attributes to Liu, that “Without God, China has no hope”, is also a simplification: it’s not sourced to anywhere, although I suspect that it has been derived from his essay “Does Chinese Culture Have a Future?” There, Liu writes that:

My tragedy may be likened to that of Lu Xun’s in that we have no transcendent values. Ours is the tragedy of having no God… Having no God to save him, Lu Xun could only degenerate.

However, Liu is not here calling for China to embrace theism. If Aikman had wanted to give his readers the full story, he would have probably bemused and disturbed them by referencing Liu’s debt to Nietzsche and existentialism; the tragedy is not that we’re ignoring the reality of God, but rather that we find ourselves in a world without God. According to an assessment by Woei Lien Chong, in China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Master Narratives and Post-Mao Counternarratives (pp. 248-249):

Liu Xiaobo is convinced that embracing absolutist master narratives is always a form of escapism from the meaningless of existence, and trhat it is a fatal mistake because the meaninglessness of life has to be valiantly endured and not concealed behind reassuring myths… Liu Xiaobo continues the hyperindividualistic, aestheticizing current associated with the name of Nietzsche.

Aikman’s gloss, by contrast, misleadingly makes Liu sound like one of the “cultural Christians” such as Liu Xiaofeng.

Liu has also described the internet as “God’s present to the Chinese people”; however, that’s clearly just a figure of speech rather than a theology.

It’s also worth noting the irony of the Christian Right OneNewsNow carrying praise for Charter 08: the document includes a specific call for “a separation of religion and state”.

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