Generally, my movies are educative; they also serve as warning to the entire world. Either I warn the world against God’s anger or impending dangers… One of my expository movies End of the Wicked brought in over 800 people to the church and that made me real happy. This also led to our opening of 11 new branches in Calabar, in order to accommodate these new members.
Pretty clear, then. End of the Wicked is a visual exposition of her theology – which teaches that children can become infected with “witchcraft”, and will be a source of misfortune to others unless someone such as herself steps in with some “deliverance”.
“Do you think Harry Potter is real?” Ms. Ukpabio asked me angrily, in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express where she was staying. “It is only because I am African,” she said, that people who understand that J. K. Rowling writes fiction would take literally Ms. Ukpabio’s filmic depictions of possessed children, gathering by moonlight to devour human flesh.
So, End of the Wicked is just entertainment, and only anti-African prejudice (read: racism) would make anyone think it is supposed to be taken seriously.
I blogged on the New York Times article about Ukpabio a couple of days ago; Nigerian sceptic Leo Igwe (who a few months ago was being sued by Ukpabio) has left his response in a comment.
On Thursday, the Independent‘s “Pandora” diarist observed
Disappointment for those seeking a drop of Nadine Dorries’, um, wisdom yesterday. The Tory MP’s usually entertaining blog was oddly unavailable. Her Twitter account appeared to have vanished, too. She wasn’t so shy the day before, penning both an irate comment piece in the Daily Mail, and a heartfelt email to colleagues, arguing against the Speaker John Bercow’s reinstatement. Why the sudden silence?
Why indeed? Dorries herself has now stepped forward with a supposed answer, in an interview for Bedfordshire on Sunday; take a deep breath and prepare to have your intelligence insulted:
MP Nadine Dorries has taken her blog down and closed her Twitter account claiming she has been advised to do so by the police.
Ms Dorries… says she has been having “problems” with political blogger Tim Ireland.
Ms Dorries said: “Tim Ireland is not a Mid Bedfordshire resident and I am not answerable or accountable to him.
“I have been in consultation regarding his behaviour with the Westminster division of the Metropolitan Police, and the House of Commons police, for more than a year.
“Their advice was to close down my blog and Twitter account and thereby remove the ‘oxygen’ upon which he fed. As an election was imminent, I ignored this advice.
“I have decided that I should pay attention to the police advice and have therefore closed down both Twitter and my blog for the time being.”
This is a shameful spectacle many levels. Dorries has a national media profile. She uses the internet to address a national audience, she appears on TV reality shows, and she just last week she made a futile attempt to bring down the Speaker of the House of Commons. But when criticism comes from outside her constituency, suddenly she’s a local MP for local people only.
But more serious than her claim that she is not accountable to the public at large is the vicious aspersion cast on Tim, which even the newspaper balked at publishing in full. Tim has posted the unexpurgated version, which the paper passed to him for his response:
“Following the Stephen Timms incident last week I have decided that I should pay attention to the police advice…”
As has been widely reported, Timms was hospitalized recently after being stabbed by a mentally-ill woman.
First, this shows a public servant up as a liar. Tim satirises Dorries quite mercilessly, and Dorries has made it clear that she has found some of his jibes to be offensive. But that’s life if you’re a public figure. Dorries knows damn well that she is not under any kind of personal threat from Tim. Why didn’t she give the newspaper an example of one of his threats, if she had anything? And – more to the point – why hasn’t the police had any contact with Tim? An MP claims that she has been forced off-line by threats, yet the police can’t be bothered to have a word with the supposed culprit? And the MP just accepts that without any bitter complaint about the unfairness of it all? Come off it. She’s lying, and shamelessly. Lying to the voters, and – if she’s sincere in her supposed religious faith – before God.
Second, Tim has himself been targeted with actual threats, by a gang of cyberstalkers who have used her complaints against him as a vigilante excuse for their campaign of harassment. Dorries knows this, and so one can only imagine the depths of the calculated and immature spite exposed by the outburst quoted above.
Of course, a number of other people besides the cyberstalkers will be pleased to see Tim attacked by an MP in this way; Tim presses his point quite assertively when he’s calling someone to account, and certain political opponents have decided that the best counter-attack is to sneer that his persistence must be a sign of mental illness and should be disregarded or mocked. If Tim has to spend time rebutting inflammatory allegations or dealing with thugs, then he has less time to investigate other matters. But on the other hand, Dorries’ attack is so excessive that perhaps some of those who might like to jump on the bandwagon might do well to give thought to where it might be heading.
Just a few days ago the Telegraphreported that Tim had salvaged some Tweets by a Conservative MP who no longer wanted his attacks on Nick Clegg remain available, and last year he forced Patrick Mercer MP to disassociate himself from a self-styled “anti-terror” expert who had been been feeding him dubious information.
UPDATE: Chris Paul points out that Dorries announced her intention to deactivate Twitter on 7 May. Timms was stabbed on 14 May.
The New York Timescarries an article by Mark Oppenheimer about Apostle Helen Ukpabio, the Nigerian Pentecostal minister at the centre of the child-witchcraft hysteria in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The British Channel 4 documentary Saving Africa’s Witch Children is due to air in the USA on Wednesday (on HBO2) – and as luck would have it, Ukpabio was in Houston last week, leading a “Worship Warfare” event at a Pentecostal church (a “demonstration of the power of GOD to save, Heal and Deliver from all demonic operations”).
Ukpabio appears to have been as blustering as ever, and she tried to make a distinction between her sermons and her witch-themed horror films, such as End of the Wicked:
“Do you think Harry Potter is real?” Ms. Ukpabio asked me angrily, in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express where she was staying. “It is only because I am African,” she said, that people who understand that J. K. Rowling writes fiction would take literally Ms. Ukpabio’s filmic depictions of possessed children, gathering by moonlight to devour human flesh.
Oppenheimer, however, observes that
“Saving Africa’s Witch Children” makes clear that many rural Nigerians do take her film seriously. And in her sermons, Ms. Ukpabio is emphatic that children can be possessed, and that with her God-given “powers of discernment,” she can spot such a child.
He also quotes from her book Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft:
if a child under the age of 2 screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan
Ukpabio also railed against a school which gives shelter to abandoned children stigmatised as witches:
The Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a school for abandoned children run by Sam Itauma and featured in Mr. [Gary] Foxcroft’s documentary, is “a 419 scam,” Ms. Ukpabio said, referring to the section in Nigeria’s criminal code that deals with fraud.
…The school “does not understand demonic possession,” she said. “If they understood, they would take the children to Liberty Gospel.
“We would deliver them!”
ln other words, Western criticism of her is just anti-African prejudice, but African opposition to her preaching can be dismissed in terms of the Nigerian “419” stereotype. I’ve blogged a number of times on the attacks she and her supporters have made against CRARN – see here. Oppenheimer notes that she also uses lawyers against her opponents, and I’ve blogged on how she has fired off lawsuits in all directions.
In Houston, Ukpabio was hosted by Glorious Praise Ministries, which is led by Pastor Jonathan A. David (also known as Jonathan Agba). According to his biography, David was “officially ordained on 7th of April, 2002 by the House of Grace Ministries Incorporated, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, after several years of serving and training under the same ministry”. There are of course innumerable Pentecostal organisations in Nigeria, but this is perhaps the same the Royal House of Grace International Church (also sometimes refered to as “Royal House of Grace Ministries”). The leader of this denomination is David Zilly-Aggrey and, like Ukpabio, he a leading figure in the Pentecostal Association of Nigeria. However, unlike her, he has spoken against an excessive interest in demons and witches.
Oppenheimer adds that
Last August, when she had herself consecrated Christendom’s first “lady apostle,” Nigerian politicians and Nollywood actors attended the ceremony.
I blogged on that event here – she was consecrated by Bishop Nnadi E Moses, who took the opportunity to praise Ukpabio’s distruption of a conference held by the Nigerian humanist and activist Leo Igwe.
As has been widely blogged and reviewed, BBC 3 featured a documentary on the English Defence League on Wednesday evening, entitled Young, British and Angry. The BBC’s reporter, Ben Anderson, attended several EDL protests and spoke with some leading activists – in particular, the Sikh-origin Guramit Singh, and a Luton-based activist named Kevin Carroll.
Singh was challenged about his speech at the protest in Westminster, when he announced to a cheering crowd through a megaphone: “God bless the Muslims – they’ll need it when they’re burning in hell”. Singh explained this had been highly embarrassing slip of the tongue:
A big apology. I messed up big time, I messed up big time…I fucked it up, yeah. Two days before, that speech was published on the internet, on the English Defence League website. It says “God bless everybody, even the militant Muslims – who’ll need it when they’re burning in hell.” Now, I missed out that word like a twat. I apologise so much. I felt so bad, you know, because we’ve got Muslim members, I thought “oh my god, what are they going to think of me?” I felt like the biggest twat, I really did.
As for the cheers that followed his speech, Singh suggested that “half the crowd” hadn’t been able to hear him because of the quality of the megaphone (A picture of the scene can be seen here – and holding the megaphone was none other than the cyber-bully Charlie Flowers, whom I’ve blogged on a number of times). Anderson also mentioned Singh’s abusive writings, although he was not directly asked about those.
Carroll, meanwhile, showed Anderson around Luton. He took the journalist to the spot where Islamist extremists had protested against British soldiers last year, causing outrage and serving as the catalyst for the EDL’s formation. They also visited a couple of children’s playgrounds, one in any area with many Asians, and one in the predominately white estate of Farley Hill; while the former was state-of-the-art, the latter was shabby and with few facilities. Anderson complained that “this is as good as it gets for us”. However, Anderson later spoke with Sian Timoney, a Labour councilor, who took him to a new and more extensive playground on the same estate. She dismissed as “ludicrous” the suggestion that certain ethnic groups receive more funding.
One awkward moment came when Anderson asked Carroll why he had signed nomination papers for a BNP candidate two years ago; he explained that he had been approached on the doorstep by a BNP canvasser and took their word for it that they were non-racist party; only later did he realise his mistake. He also made a quick phone call to his black teenage daughter, who then came on camera (but didn’t speak) as evidence of his non-racism. The BNP link was noted by Three Counties Unityin March:
He is well-known to local anti-fascists and was only dissuaded from standing as a candidate in the 2007 Luton Council elections by a last-minute plea from his partner… He did, however, sign nomination papers along with Stevenson for the BNP candidate for Farley in that election – Robert Sheddock – and in doing so shows his political colours.
Footage from the EDL’s various protests seemed to be even-handed; there were some ugly incidents of racism (including someone making monkey noises at a black counter-protestor), but also efforts to weed out such elements – we even saw a steward being stripped of his position for making a gesture at counter-protestors. EDL leaders stated that “idiots” are always likely to show up, although they were not welcome. At one protest there was a short interview with Abdul, a nominal Muslim who is treated with some affection by other EDL members.
Anderson managed to convey the sense of grievance felt by EDL members, although besides a reference to support for Geert Wilders there was little sense of a coherent ideology behind the movement. However, Anderson was concerned with the EDL on the streets rather than on the internet; consequently there was nothing about links to groups such as “Politically Incorrect“, or the Crusader fetishism often found on EDL-linked YouTube videos and such.
If you are in the UK, the programme can be viewed here for the next week.
Live televised debates in Kavkasia TV’s studio between leaders of hardline Orthodox Christian groups and thier opponents grew into a fistfight outside the Tbilisi-based station’s studio late on Friday [7 May] night.
Young men affiliated with radical group, known as Union of Orthodox Christian Parents, which has became associated with a newly established People’s Orthodox Christian Movement, verbally and physically assaulted some of Kavkasia TV program’s guests and also some members of the station’s staff, witnesses said.
…Malkhaz Gulashvili, who founded People’s Orthodox Christian Movement, in March, 2010, told the movement members at an indoor gathering on May 7, that the movement was launching struggle “to set Georgia free of a dictate by Liberty Institute” – an influential Tbilisi-based think tank with links to the authorities. Gulashvili said Liberty Institute and its affiliates in Ilia State University’s administration were “promoting anti-religious ideology.”
Malkhaz Gulashvili is a powerful media tycoon in the country.
In particular, complaints have been made about a book entitled Saidumlo Siroba, which translates as Holy Crap, but is derived from the words “Saidumlo Seroba”, the Georgian term for the Last Supper. “Siroba” also recalls the word “dick”. The author is a certain Erekle Deisadze, and the book was launched at the university. The Georgian Times helpfully provides an extract of passages the movement finds offensive:
“I have often thought of rubbing out my parents. I sucked the tit which my father probably licked during sexual intercourse… I welcome this kind of stuff, like my sister’s secret masturbations, and I am pissing in my pants when I imagine all that… God is a holy product packaged for marketing. The masses, whose consciousness is full of sediment, are ruled by Him. Today this society saturated with snobbery is a mass ready to fight to the last drop of blood to save this product which they have little idea of. Heresy is the only way to experience a mental erection… Do you remember the star shining in the sky over Bethlehem which signaled the birth of Christ? Similar lights appear over McDonalds.
On May 4 2010 members of same groups publicly assaulted and verbally harassed representative of Public Defender Beka MIndiashvili, Ilia University Professor Simon Janashia, journalist Ninia Kakabadze, activist Paata Sabelashvili and other persons who gathered in front of Ilia University for defending freedom of expression of one of the authors. Mobs of persons loudly sweared, spat and assaulted a small peaceful gathering of activists. Some activists, like Acho Khachidze were chased and assaulted in the street, ambushed and threatened at their homes. Others, like editor of a weekly magazine Liberal Shorena Shevardashvili were verbally harassed and threatened via electronic mail, social networking websites or at their workplaces.
That report describes the Orthodox protestors as “neo-Nazis”; this news report makes the same association:
This was not the first attack on the university by the Union of Orthodox Christian Parents (or Orthodox Parents’ Union); a year ago it claimed that “the Vatican is promoting anti-Orthodox activities at the university”.
The People’s Orthodox Christian Movement appears to have come into existence to capitalise on anti-gay sentiments; Sabelashvili is a gay rights activist, and he has some details:
During the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) the issue of the resolution on “Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity” gave a push to the controversy in Georgia, thus prompting the leaders of several religious communities to condemn PACE’s intention to address the issue of homophobia.
This criticism was immediately accelerated by Christian Democrat’s Movement, a political party represented in the Georgian Parliament. The Party misinterpreted resolution as obligatory instrument for recognizing same sex marriage and parental rights and was able to stir negative PR for the resolution in Georgia.
Several weeks later, new People’s Orthodox Movement was founded by Mr. Malkhaz Gulashvili, a newspaper publisher known for his close ties with the Russian authorities. His Moscow ties have frequently put him in a position when he needed to answer pressing questions about his fidelity to Georgian national interests.
Instead of submitting direct answers, Mr. Gulashvili adopted a strategy to drive away from the discussion by irrelevantly scapegoating lesbians and gays, and calling them perverts and sick. This has enabled him and his supporters redirect any public discussion from his own agenda. Mr. Gulashvili has dangerously partaken in into endless and shameless session of insult and defamation of his LGBT co nationals. He and other members of the movement have been outspoken rather radically, calling on punishing all who are, in his words “against orthodox beliefs and values”.
Several arrests were made following the protest at the TV station, leading to further protests. Gulashvili, meanwhile, has fled to Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, which is currently under Russian control. In an interview with the Georgian Times (which he also owns), he says that:
…I am protecting my son from the dangerous and unruly people, who act on police orders. After I said on Eka Kvesitadze’s programme that single sex marriage is inadmissible I received several threatening telephone calls at home. Later my wife was stopped in the street by a black jeep, whose occupants put the window down and told my wife that if your husband does not stop they will punish her and her family. Soon after this my son had a car accident. He was crossing the road when a jeep smashed into him. At the time we thought this was an accident, but on 9 May my son was taken away in a car by four men.
Gulashvili has also claimed that his son was sexually assaulted. He rejects the neo-Nazi accusation:
Look for yourself at what fascism is and what our programme is and you will not find anything like fascism in our programme. The two-headed eagle is a Byzantine symbol, not a fascist one. Some poor historians who are out to please the Government, like Simon Maskharashvili, say that this symbol belongs to the Russian Empire. I would like to tell him that it is a Georgian symbol, used for this purpose before it became Byzantium’s symbol. It embodies the relationship between the Church and State under a temporal government.
An article by Giorgi Kvelashvili has some background to the situation:
Chaired by Malhaz Gulashvili, a Georgian media tycoon and businessman with close Moscow connections, the organization is associated with the Union of Orthodox Parents, itself in existence for several years. The declared goals of the People’s Orthodox Movement are “to cherish Georgia’s Orthodox Christian legacy” and turn the country into a constitutional monarchy. Gulashvili claims that his organization is “apolitical” and has no special relationship with the Georgian Church and Patriarch Ilia II, but nonetheless emphasizes the importance of developing close ties with Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. Gulashvili is a frequent guest in Moscow and has even presented his book to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during one of his latest visits to Russia.
The major targets of the radical organization’s violent rhetoric and actions are President Saakashvili’s government and all liberal political parties, academic and social institutions that have a pro-Western stance and advocate for Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. High on Gulashvili’s agenda is the Liberty Institute, a leading pro-Western Georgian NGO chaired by Levan Ramishvili, that was one of the driving forces behind the Rose Revolution in November 2003 and whose former members are now top officials in the Saakashvili government….
Gulashvili, who is also the President of the Georgian Times Media Holding and has major connections to Kremlin authorities and their oligarch allies in Moscow and Europe, is also an outspoken critic of Georgia’s current government.
…Even if the allegation about Gulashvili’s son is true – itself questionable given Gulashvili’s frequent use of hyperbole and homophobic comments – his choice of Tskhinvali as refuge highlights just how close he is to the Kremlin and also underscores not merely dissatisfaction with the current government, but also a general antipathy towards a fully independent Georgia. By any reasonable estimation, it is not unfair to conclude that Gelashvili’s motives, even if they were buoyed by some degree of religiosity, were primarily Moscow-driven.
…This suggests that Russia’s policy towards Georgia – emphasizing the use of local proxies to destabilize the country and reverse reforms – is continuing apace and likely to build momentum at least through the summer.
The Georgian Orthodox Catholios has now waded into the dispute over Holy Crap, with a predictable intervention; Civil Georgiahas the details:
Attempts are being made today to redirect all the public attention on the confrontation, which took place in Kavkasia TV, while less is being spoken about the reasons, which triggered this [incident]… Physical confrontation in fact was triggered by moral and psychological violence, expressed through publishing of and direct or indirect support to the book.”
…the Georgian Church will never support violence, no matter from whom it might be coming.
…the Church can not support propaganda of immorality, indecency, licentiousness and satanism. Of course we do respect and share democratic values, but it is also a fact that freedom does not mean to have the right for everything. That is why in almost all the traditional European countries freedom of expression and the right to dignity are equally protected.
…If religious feelings of absolute majority are insulted like this (appealing the court can not compensate degree of moral damage) in the country, which is already in a difficult situation, there is no guarantee that external or internal enemy will not use this situation and through persons like Deisadze will deliberately insult feelings of followers of other religions, which may serve as a reason for civil confrontation, leading to irreparable consequences.
For that reason we appeal the authorities to give a real assessment to what has happened and to promptly adopt a law, which will appropriately defend population from indecency, defend dignity and religious feelings of the society and of a person. By doing that we will protect peace and welfare of citizens of our country.
…On May 9 an archpriest with close links to a radical Orthodox Christian group, which was involved in series of confrontations that took place last week in Tbilisi, not only in Kavkasia TV but also outside the Ilia State University, was awarded by Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, on May 9.
After Sunday sermon in Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta, Ilia II announced that he was awarding archpriest Davit Isakadze with decorated pectoral cross and the right to wear the miter for, as he put it, “his service to welfare of our nation and the Church.”
I blogged on a Georgian priest’s complaints about fundamentalism in the national church here.
The situation seems a close parallel to events in Russia; a January report from the Carnegie Moscow Centre noted that:
Patriarch Kirill, elected to head the Church a year ago, is trying to systematize and modernize the Church’s social activities, Knorre reported. Dissatisfied with the scale of work with youth, Patriarch Kirill is creating a parallel system, maximally independent of the clerical hierarchy, of spiritual instructors for youth, the all-Russian public Orthodox movement, built on the Orthodox wing of the pro-Kremlin political youth movement Nashi.
Meet “Arrylad”… because nothing says “patriotism” like using the St George’s Flag for a tablecloth and plonking a can of cheap lager on it, right?
“Arrylad” is apparently a spokesman for the Welsh and English Defence Leagues. He has an entertaining YouTube channel here – although he may sound like some new comic character created by Ricky Gervais, he is in fact for real. A taster:
UPDATE: Alas, Arrylad has now deleted his channel; apparently he was annoyed thaat “commies had embedded” his messages. However, one message has resurfaced on the Hooligancentral channel, with the name “Arrylad” replaced with “Lee B’stard of the WDL”. In this rousing pep-talk, our man gives the Americans a stern talking-to about the need to “get off their arses”. He also explains that Nostradamus had prophesied that Britain would beat back the “Islamic hordes”.
UPDATE 2: Alas, that video has now gone, too. This one remains, though:
Like everyone else, I’m very pleased to read that the libel case against blogger Dave Osler brought byJohann Kaschke has been thrown out as an abuse of process – but angry that he should have had to have gone through such an ordeal just to defend his right to free speech. Had Osler lost his case, he might well have been bankrupted and he would probably have lost his home – as it was, he’s had years of strain and wasted time, plus a good deal of expense. As his wife writes on her own blog:
This meant that weekends and annual leave were used up, as he was holding down a full time job. This meant that for the last two years we did not have a holiday together as he did not have the time or spare cash. It meant that he could not spend as much time with either me or his children, impacting on them and their mother with whom he shares childcare.
How much easier it would have been to have blinked: to self-censor, scape together £10,000 or so (maybe much more), and allow yourself to be degraded with a gutting public admission to being a liar when you are no such thing. Osler was only able to make a stand at great personal cost, and without eventually getting pro bono support the nightmare would probably still be continuing.
This significant case clarifies the position in respect of bloggers and the online media in relation to the liability they face in respect of old postings still available in their archives…
The Osler case arose out of a blog post written by Ms. Kaschke in which Ms. Kaschke stated that she had been wrongly arrested in Germany in the 1970s. Mr. Osler linked to, and summarised her blog post, which caused Ms. Kaschke to sue him for libel. However, Ms. Kaschke did not issue the claim form until over a year after Mr. Osler’s blog was posted on the web. Mr. Osler applied to the court to strike out the claim on two grounds, namely that the claim was an abuse of process and that there was no evidence of any publication after the expiry of the 1-year limitation period.
In the light of this decision, it is clear that real evidence of publication of such material is required, and that it will not lightly be inferred by the courts.
…Mr. Justice Eady held that there was very little difference between what the claimant had put into the public domain and what Mr. Osler had published on his blog. In the circumstances, damages could only ever be very minor and a trial was simply not worth the time and expense that would be incurred…
The full judgement can be read here. I’m not clear on a few points: I’m glad that there is less liability for old blog posts that have been “archived” – there has always been a worry that someone could keep a libel threat in reserve, to be activated if and when strategically useful (I wrote more on this here). However, Eady’s distinction between the front page of a blog and the archive seems to me unconvincing – old posts are just like any other webpage; they can be accessed directly from Google with the right search terms, and in some cases might be more easily found than a front page. A front page posting may also have link-backs. However, Eady’s judgement covers several bases, so this is not a crucial point in this particular instance. I look forward to reading Jack of Kent’s (Allen Green) analysis at the weekend.
There is hope that Kaschke will now be declared to be a lexatious litigant, and so barred from bringing further actions of this sort – she lives off benefits, and so money is not a problem for her (there is not much hope that Osler will recover his own costs). But is it really quite over? On Kaschke’s own blog, she says that she still has a few weeks to seek permission for an appeal (permission was not granted by Eady), and she’s already made a new libel threat against Jack of Kent. Her case against Alex Hilton and John Gray is also still ongoing.
Kaschke’s blog cannot be quoted directly, as she asserts her right to sue anyone who uses her words in ways she finds objectionable. However, she claims that she is the victim in all this, and that, as a German immigrant, she has suffered racism and sexism. She also believes that it is unfair that Osler managed to get pro bono advice when she did not. She further tells us that she wore a Great Ormond Street Hospital t-shirt to High Court, and she asks for other people to do the same at her next hearing, on 25 May. Make of that what you will, but don’t speculate publicly or you might get sued. I blogged on some of her previous complaints here.
The need for libel reform is urgent. We read about these high-profile cases where an innocent person is put through hell (most recently, the case of Simon Singh); but there are also cases where individuals are forced to settle just to avoid an unacceptable risk – not to mention the many instances of pre-emptive self-censorship we will never know about. Libel reform would also give the process more credibility for those who have a just complaint.
The power of the wealthy, of those with special informal access to lawyers, of those with nothing to lose because they have no assets, and of cranks to cause this sort of misery must be curbed.
(Hat tip: Harry’s Place. And apologies to Dave Osler for mis-spelling him as “Dave Ostler” in older posts, I have now fixed this.)
Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty University’s Baptist Theological Seminary, continues to come under scrutiny over discrepancies in his biography, and his claim to have converted from extremist Islam (see my blog entry here). A few days ago, the university issued a statement:
Following inquiries from several members of the mainstream media, Liberty decided to initiate its own investigation. “Liberty does not initiate personnel evaluations based upon accusations from Internet blogs,” Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. said. “However, In light of the fact that several newspapers have raised questions, we felt it necessary to initiate a formal inquiry.”
By “accusations from Internet blogs”, Falwell means serious evidence and links provided by various people – some of whom are well-known Christian speakers and writers themselves – which cast serious doubt on Caner’s alleged past. The fact he would try to spin the story in this way does not bode well.
However, one defender has apparently stepped forward – a statement has been posted on-line at this Southern Baptist blog, attributed to Jamal Jivanjee, another ex-Muslim Christian:
My name is Jamal Jivanjee, and I was born and raised in the greater Columbus Ohio area. My mother is an American & my father was born and raised in East Africa and is of Asian Indian decent. My father was a devout Muslim and we attended functions at the same mosque/ masjid that Ergun, Emir, & his family attended on east Broad street in Columbus, Ohio. Ergun & Emir’s father, Mr. Acar Caner, was a very prominent leader within the Islamic community that we associated with and was very involved with this mosque. As a result, I remember as a young child going to their home with my family to have dinner with their family. Mr. Acar Caner was also the acting landlord of the apartment community where my family and I lived for a number of years…
Curiously, the owner of the blog does not explain why the statement has been passed to him, and there is no reference to it on Jivanee’s “Illuminate” ministry website.
While Southern Baptist bloggers are hailing this as an exoneration of Caner, not everyone is convinced – a Reformed blogger named Francis Turretin writes:
It would be interesting to know what approximate year Mr. Jivanjee remembers visiting the Acar house. From what I could find on the Internet, Mr. Jivanjee is about 35 years old, meaning he was born about 1975. As such, in November of 1982 (the date Caner indicates as his conversion), Mr. Jivanjee would have been about 7 years old.
…Notice that Mr. Jivanjee doesn’t say he or his family regularly attended or worshiped at the Broad St. Islamic Foundation, but just that they “attended functions” there… Notice as well that Mr. Jivanjee does not claim to have personally known Ergun and Emir, but just to have dined once with Mr. Acar Caner and “his family” (which may well have referred to Mr. Caner’s second wife and daughters).
Some of Dr. Caner’s fans seem to think that Mr. Jivanjee’s comments above prove that Dr. Caner was not just from a Muslim family but a devout Muslim, and that this evidence exonerates Dr. Caner from all the accusations of dishonesty that have been swirling around him. The problems are (1) that’s not what Mr. Jivanjee says and (2) it doesn’t appear that Mr. Jivanjee, being only about 7 years old and in a different branch of Islam at the time Dr. Caner apparently converted, would have been in a position to know whether Dr. Caner was a devout Muslim.
Jivanjee was in the news last summer, as part of the Rifqa Bary saga. He was her pastor in Ohio, and claims that supernatural power manifests through her:
Each time we met with her, I left a changed person. This young girl not only lived out the kingdom of God in word, but in deed! The Lord has used her to physically and spiritually heal people, and bring people into a relationship with God everywhere she has went. She has done this in places like high school, summer jobs, and more recently…jail cells. I do not say these things to brag about her, but to brag about the reality and power of Jesus in her!
Caner also contributed to the Bary story, with a bit of commentary about Sri Lanka in September:
Liberty Theological Seminary president Dr. Ergun Caner told Christians attending the Values Voter Summit in Washington Saturday that if Bary is returned to her parents and they move back to Sri Lanka, she will be killed because “Sri Lanka puts my people to death.”
This is revealing. When someone comes to prominence as an authority based on their supposed private histories, if they are genuine they will keep to what they know about. By contrast, chancers tend eventually to over-reach themselves by pronouncing on subjects about which they have no expertise at all – I saw this in relation to Walid Shoebat here. Sri Lanka does not put Christian ex-Muslims to death – insofar as there is religious discrimation, the country favours Buddhists. There’s no real risk of an honour killing there, either.
Rachel Tabachnick has an article on ZEEK about Jewish support for the Christian Right on the issue of Islam:
In “Leftist Anti-Semitism” [Phyllis] Chesler decries the European doctrines of multicultural tolerance and adds, “a similarly dangerous, multi-cultural tolerance also exists in America. So far, however, it has won support mainly among our intellectual elite and our liberal and progressive media.” The article was billed as a symposium sponsored by FrontPage, an extremist, rightwing online magazine founded by David Horowitz who is also founder of the “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”. The event has now been held at over 100 campuses around the nation and featured speakers such as former Senator Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Michael Medved, Daniel Pipes and Dennis Prager.
In this single-minded zealotry, the struggle against Islam appears to be seen as a zero sum game – whatever is bad for Muslims, must be good for Jews. But what is the cost of this attack on multiculturalism? Is it possible that some Jewish leaders are hacking away at the very same foundations which have provided a peaceful existence for Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere over the last several decades? Is attacking multiculturalism really beneficial to Jews?
…Chesler has become an unlikely star in some sectors of the Religious Right world, most recently for her interviews and commentaryconcerning Rifqa Bary, the 17-year old girl who ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio after converting to Christianity.
Rachel goes on to use various players in the Bary case as a lens through which to explore the Christian Right. She concludes:
Perhaps the ramifications of promoting the Religious Right and its Christian nationalism as a deterrent to the “new anti-Semitism” is shortsighted.
However, an angry response from Chesler has been appended by ZEEK‘s editors:
…Rachel Tabachnick is saying that young, politically progressive Jews should stay away from cases where potential honor killings are alleged or involved because those who support such cases are right-wing Christian zealots. Neat trick. This certainly scapegoats right-wing Christian zealots for the considerable crimes of Islamic/Islamist gender and religious apartheid, including honor killings.
Why would ZEEK want to publish such a view and at such length? Why would ZEEK wish to demonize me, not only for my stated views, but to find me guilty by association with other demonized thinkers?
For the record: I have had absolutely nothing to do with the activism around the Rifqa Bary case and do not know and have had no contact with the various people whom the article names…
This reply is also reposted at Pyjamas Media, along with an introduction in which she writes that
I purposely stayed far away from Bary’s supporters—not because they were Christians or conservatives but on the off chance that my academic studies about honorkillingsmight become part of the legal record in this case.
Chesler’s public involvement with the Bary case occured last summer. As she boasted on her own site:
Yesterday afternoon, my living room was filled with lights, cameras, and two very friendly ABC crew men. We were taping an interview for Good Morning America which appeared today and which is preserved at theirwebsite. We talked about honor killings and the plight of Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager from Ohio who converted to Christianity and who ran away from home because she knows her father will kill her.
…Weeping, the very frightened teenager from Sri Lanka knows that most western journalists (and the police who turned her over to the state and forced her into a public trial), do not believe this can be true. How quickly they forget Salman Rushdie’s plight.
…Rifqa may be “forced” to return to Islam. Her family may place her under house arrest, and bring in the mullahs to reason with or to brainwash her; her mother may beg her to relent so that the family may remain together as before. If all else fails, Rifqa may be sent back to Sri Lanka either to be killed or to be confined to a lunatic asylum. She may be killed here. What absolutely cannot happen is for her religious Muslim family to remain close to her as she follows another religious path very publicly.
…Of course, these are Rifqa’s allegations, and what the truth is in this case remains to be explored.
And, by the way: the weeping and terrified Rifqa has possibly been coached for the interview, she is slightly “hysterical,” she seems somewhat auto-hypnotized. And yet, she also makes perfect sense. She is quite in touch with reality.
Those caveats are tokenistic; her piece is entitled “Honor Killing Averted”. I wrote a number of posts myself on the topic; of course, we don’t know what kind of man Bary’s father is, but her account was problematic and certainly did not “make perfect sense” . In particular, Bary stated that her father wanted to kill her because it would bring him “great honour” in the eyes of Allah. In other words, she appears to understand honour killings as some kind of human sacrifice – where did she get that idea from? Chesler also repeats Bary’s claim that a lunatic asylum awaits in Sri Lanka, although there is no evidence for this: although Muslim family law has some authority over the Muslim minority, Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country (not Muslim), and women have civil rights. There was reason for caution, but Chesler was happy to jump on an increasingly hysterical bandwagon.
Meanwhile, former Washington Times assistant editor Robert Stacy McCain sees a conspiracy:
Which brings us to the important question, “Who is Rachel Tabachnick?” She is a prodigious contributor to the Web site Talk2Action.org, whose raison d’être is to “expose” the Religious Right. TalkToAction was founded in February 2006 by Bruce Wilson and Frederick Clarkson.
…Beyond what she says about herself at Talk2Action, however, it is nearly impossible to learn anything else about Mrs. Tabachnick… We do not know, for example, how Talk2Action is funded, or how it was that Mrs. Tabachnick “began collaborating with Bruce Wilson.”
Bruce, it should be recalled, in 2008 sought out a number of taped sermons by Pastor John Hagee; what he discovered led to John McCain repudiating Hagee’s presidential endorsement. The other McCain continues:
…The goal of Talk2Action is to defeat Republicans by discrediting conservative Christians, portraying them as dangerous, intolerant kooks.
Chesler’s column about Rifka Bary, and her general work in discussing the oppression of women in Islamic societies (Chesler was once married to a Muslim and lived in Afghanistan), were rather disruptive of the “American Taliban” message that Wilson and Mrs. Tabachnick have been relentlessly promoting.
This is why Chesler was attacked in the pages of the Forward.
We have solved that mystery, Scooby-Doo, and it’s time for the Mystery Machine to roll on, leaving others to pursue the nagging question: Who’s paying the bills at Talk2Action.org?
McCain pads out his article with a few personal details about Rachel’s husband, even though this has nothing to do with anything, and there’s the revelation that she and her husband donated to the Obama campaign. It’s a bizarre attack: Tabachnick doesn’t claim personal authority or to have inside information – readers can follow the links she provides and decide for themselves whether she has fairly characterised the Christian Right figures she discusses. Her personal background and unsurprising progressive political views are not of wider interest.
But what about TTA‘s funding? I also write the occasional piece for the website – has Bruce been keeping back brown envelopes stashed full of Soros dollars that I’m owed? Alas no, as Bruce explains here:
Let me clear up the mystery, as to Robert Stacy McCain’s breathless question, “Who’s paying the bills at Talk2Action.org?”
The answer is rather dull, really. I’ve paid the bills for most of the web site’s existence. The hosting fee is about $26 a month, and Talk2action contributors aren’t paid for their contributions.
Robert Stacy McCain and I have had a bit of back and forth at The American Spectator. In the exchange, he accuses me of unfairly saddling John McCain with John Hagee. I respond. And, R.S. McCain suggests that my highlighting of Lou Engle is unfair because he’s a very obscure evangelist. I respond. Your readers can find the exchange in the comment section here:
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/11/from-dailykos-to-the-forward-a
Best,
Bruce Wilson
Chesler shares McCain’s view that noting the excesses of the Christian Right actually means that one supports extremist Islam (I’ve been accused of the same thing):
Perhaps that is the point: To rile your audience up against right wing Christians so they will forget all about Islamist hatred of infidels, opposing Islamic sects, women, and the general practices of Islamic gender and religious apartheid.Perhaps that is the point: To rile your audience up against right wing Christians so they will forget all about Islamist hatred of infidels, opposing Islamic sects, women, and the general practices of Islamic gender and religious apartheid.
My view – if anyone’s interested – is that some people are complacent about Islamic extremism. Legitimate concerns might be dismissed as racism, and some on the “anti-imperialist” left even go so far as to support Islamist groups, either for reasons of political expediency or because “solidarity” has become an unreflecting dogma (not something of which I approve either way). But as with the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s, we know that other kinds of extremists and opportunists will seek to use the situation for their own purposes. It makes sense to keep a critical attitude.
Chesler’s poor judgement was in evidence in 2008, when she wrote in support of the British anti-Muslim activist Paul Ray (“Lionheart”). However, she did change her mind once the easy-to-find evidence of his pro-BNP views was brought to her attention. I see that her post on the subject has since been deleted.
is the largest education association in the state of Alabama. The AEA is an advocate organization that leads the movement for excellence in education and is the voice of education professionals in Alabama. Our mission is to promote educational excellence.
…AEA is an affiliate of the 3.2 million member, National Education Association (NEA)– the nation’s largest professional employee organization. The NEA is committed to advancing the cause of public education and believes every child deserves a quality education.
The AEA is also apparently indirectly funding an attack on a gubernatorial candidate on the grounds that he believes in teaching the theory of evolution and is not a Biblical literalist. Here’s the ad:
The state’s powerful teachers union has given $500,000 to political action committees that contributed to an effort to attack Republican gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne.
…True Republican PAC, according to a review of campaign finance documents filed with the Alabama secretary of state’s office, has received most of its funding from PACs heavily funded by the Alabama Education Association.
While the money funneled to the True Republican PAC was obscured by a series of PAC-to-PAC transfers, now that it is out in the open, [AEA Executive Secretary Paul] Hubbert had no hesitation in talking about it.
He said AEA worked with a Marengo County Republican, Andy Renner, to set up the PAC…
But this isn’t just a tale of Republican fundamentalism; Hubbert is co-chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party, while the AEA’s assistant secretary is chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference. Hubbert and Renner
…worked with Denver-based Media Strategies and Research on the Byrne ads. Media Strategies commonly works for Democratic candidates and for the National Education Association.
The “LiberalBradleyByrne” website goes into further detail about Byrne and religion :
It is hard to know where Bradley Byrne stands when it comes to his belief about the Bible. As noted in the Book of James, chapter 3, verse 11: “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?”
In the Mobile Press-Register on November 16, 2009, Bradley Byrne stated that “there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not.” (1)
…Some insight is offered from when he served on the State Board of Education. Back then Mr. Byrne stated that “evolution is clearly the dominant theory that best explains the origin of life on earth.” That doesn’t sound like someone who believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible.
…when Mr. Byrne served in the state senate, he voted against the establishment of “Christian Heritage Week,” a program designed to spend 30 minutes per day for one week studying the influence of Christianity in American history. Mr. Byrne said it would be too difficult to schedule. (4)
Mr. Byrne has stated these positions in the public on the record. In the weeks ahead as we get closer and closer to the election, watch politician Bradley Byrne deny what he has already publicly stated.”Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15
UPDATE: Byrne has issued a statement insisting that the advert is a lie:
As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.
That’s from his official campaign website – i.e. not an Onion spoof.
