Une piece de news incroyable from le Beeb. Name of a name, sacred blue and zut:

Formerly secret documents unearthed from the National Archives have showed Britain and France considered a "union" in the 1950s.

On 10 September 1956 French Prime Minister Guy Mollet arrived in London for talks with his British counterpart, Anthony Eden.

These were troubled times for Mollet's France. Egypt's President Gamel Abdel Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal and, as if that was not enough, he was also busy funding separatists in French Algeria, fuelling a bloody mutiny that was costing the country's colonial masters dear.

Monsieur Mollet was ready to fight back and he was determined to get Britain's help to do it...

Mollet was desperate to hit back at Nasser. He was also an Anglophile who admired Britain both for its help in two world wars and its blossoming welfare state...

When Eden turned down his request for a union between France and Britain the French prime minister came up with another proposal.

This time, while Eden was on a visit to Paris, he requested that France be allowed to join the British Commonwealth:

"The PM told him on the telephone that he thought in the light of his talks with the French:

 

• "That we should give immediate consideration to France joining the Commonwealth

   

• "That Monsieur Mollet had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty

   

• "That the French would welcome a common citizenship arrangement on the Irish basis"

Seeing these words for the first time, Henri Soutou, professor of contemporary history at Paris's Sorbonne University almost fell off his chair.

Stammering repeatedly he said: "Really I am stuttering because this idea is so preposterous. The idea of joining the Commonwealth and accepting the headship of Her Majesty would not have gone down well. If this had been suggested more recently Mollet might have found himself in court."

And you think we want you in the Commonwealth? Vous avez un autre pense venant.

Given the number of our posts citing preposterous (and expensive) university courses and sentimental collectivist university presidents (here and here), one might get the impression that all is lost in academe ("all" being Western civilization).  That is not the case; the success of leftist forces in current culture wars within academia looks less certain.  Two organizations that have led the fight—FIRE and the National Assn. of Scholars—are both sobering in their assessments of the situation and tonic in the vigor with which they attack political correctness and multiculturalism.

NAS, for example, introducing their study of the problem of campus "tensions," don't fall for the common explanation of university faculty and administrators that the causes are intolerance and racism:

The academic community is alarmed by reports of inter-group tension at many colleges, including those long committed to equal opportunity. Unfortunately, educators have failed to reassess some recent policies and practices that, far from promoting tolerance and fairness, are undermining them. Worse yet, many have seized upon incidents of conflict to call for the extension of these policies and practices. They include:

•a willingness to admit students widely disparate in their level of preparation in order to make the campus demographically representative
•preferential hiring for faculty and staff positions determined by race, ethnicity, and gender
•racially or ethnically exclusive financial aid and academic counseling programs, as well as special administrators, ombudsmen, and resource centers assigned to serve as the putative representatives of selected student groups
•punitive codes restricting "insensitive" speech
•mandatory "sensitivity training" for incoming freshmen and sometimes for all students, faculty, and staff
•requirements that students take tendentious courses dealing with groups regarded as victimized
a failure to enforce campus rules when violated by those promoting these policies or other "politically correct" causes

Read the rest here.

FIRE has a number of successes in 2006, "combating repressive policies and practices in academia. FIRE continued to promote free speech in higher education by securing crucial victories, producing vital informational materials, and initiating new programs that lay the groundwork for lasting change on campus."

And, as always, there are the folks at Front Page Mag and elsewhere on the Web who pursue their quarry with the unrelenting energy required to lift the rocks under which hide the nihilists of academe.

Why do I feel neither reassured nor enlightened by the folks quoted here in this NY Sun report?

Moderate Muslims are powerless against the forces of Islamic fundamentalists who propagate anti-Semitism, a cleric of Manhattan's largest mosque said yesterday.

"Extremists have taken initiative and have stepped to the center of the arena," Imam Omar Abu-Namous said. "The Muslim nation is not able to stop them."

The imam and the president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Rabbi Marc Schneier, participated in an interfaith dialogue in honor of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, which will be celebrated today.

During the conversation, held at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York on the Upper East Side, the imam said Islamic fundamentalism is not a religious problem but a political one that emanates from the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict.

His comments came in response to Rabbi Schneier, founder of the Hamptons Synagogue, who asked the imam if he would speak out against Muslims who advocate violence against Jews, and against those who deny the Holocaust. The rabbi in turn volunteered to participate in an international campaign to fight "Islamophobia."

Imam Abu-Namous said Muslim teachings warn against extremism and that acts of fundamentalists do not represent his faith. "We do not believe them when they say they are acting in the name of Islam," he said.

He added, "We are as much victimized as you are."

Sure, just like the "moderate" Muslims were victimized as they entered Constantinople in the train of Sultan Mehmed II, on Tuesday, May 29, 1453.

More clarity is needed, like this, from Daniel Johnson:

“We must rid ourselves of any illusion that we can eliminate the contrasts between Islam and the West: the Koran is not about to be interpreted less literally, Muslims are not about to embrace Western ideas of toleration or terrorism, and jihad will remain a fundamental part of the Islamic attitude to the rest of mankind.”

The trial of the six men accused of the attemped suicide bomb attack which failed on 21 July 2004 has started at the Crown Court Woolwich today. This report is mainly from The Times, but with a few comments from The BBC and The Australian. Note that one of the accused, Yassin Omar fled from London to Birmingham on the day, disguised in a burka. When will this accessory to crime be banned?

Opening the case for the Crown, Nigel Sweeney, QC, told the jury that the principal counts allege that the six defendants took part in a conspiracy to murder.

"This case is concerned with an extremist Muslim plot, the ultimate objective of which was to carry out a number of murderous suicide bombings on the public transport system in London," he told the court.  "The day eventually chosen was Thursday July 21 2005, just 14 days after the carnage of July 7."

The six men are all charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

With London still recovering from the July 7 bombings, which killed 52 innocent civilians on three rush hour Underground trains and a bus, a series of security alerts on July 21 once again closed down large sections of the Tube for several hours, as a further alleged bomb plot failed to materialise.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28, from Stoke Newington, North London; Ramzi Mohammed, 25, from North Kensington, West London; Yassin Omar, 26, from New Southgate, North London; Hussain Osman, 28, of no fixed address; Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, of no fixed address; and Adel Yahya, 24, of High Road, Tottenham, North London, deny the charges.

Prosecutor Nigel Sweeney QC said the six - all originally from Africa but living in London - chose a date for their plan "just 14 days after the carnage of July 7". But the court heard how the conspiracy "had been in existence long before the events of July 7" and did not appear to be some "hastily arranged copycat".

The prosecutor told how six bombs were made using a mix of liquid hydrogen peroxide, chapati flour, acetone and acid. Yassin Omar's one-bedroom flat in New Southgate, north London, was a bomb factory, "where the great majority, if not all, of the work required to make those bombs was carried out".

Each bomb was placed in a large plastic container and screws, tacks, washers or nuts, were taped to the outside. . . “The purpose is, of course, to increase fragmentation when the bomb explodes and maximise the possibility of injury, fatal or otherwise, to those in the vicinity," Mr Sweeney told the court. "The failure of those bombs to explode owed nothing to the intention of these defendants, rather it was simply the good fortune of the travelling public that day that they were spared."

Muktar Ibrahim had been trained for jihad in the Sudan in 2003 and had also travelled to Pakistan the following year "to take part in jihad or to train for it".

One of the defendants, Yassin Omar, fled London after the attempted bombings disguised as a woman wearing a burka, the court heard.

I like the way counsel has said right from the start, that these men are Muslims and that this is a Muslim plot.The trial will take days, if not weeks. As and when there is something to report – Mary or I will do so. 

Update.  The Daily Mail has this to say. If true it shows the level of evil we are dealing with here.

Just a reminder to UK readers to watch Channel 4 tonight, 8pm.  Dispatches: Undercover Mosque.

The Radio Times (which doesn’t promote it as “Today’s Choice” but never mind,) describes it as: - An examination of religious intolerance in the UK as an undercover reporter observes the preaching of segregation and extremism in several mosques run by organisations that claim to advocate moderation.

Repeated on Friday (19^th Jan) at 3.30 am. Actually that is really the early hours of Saturday morning, but the Radio Times TV schedule doesn’t run from midnight to midnight like real life.

The trailers are most illuminating, and already the taqiyya merchants are squealing like stuck pigs.

These are my notes taken during the Channel 4 programme Dispatches – Undercover Mosque.

Part I  

An undercover reporter, who wished to remain anonymous has been attending the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and filming what he has seen and heard.

The main English language speaker is a very popular US convert, Abu Assama. He said that Christians and Jews are an enemy to Islam.  They lie as part of their religion. 

The official Green Lane Mosque website was shown. Then we were told about the secret website for regular worshippers where his speeches are available on line.  They are also sold locally on DVD.  Abu Assama shown saying that Muslims should not be satisfied with anything less than a total Islamic state.

 Green Lane mosque is the headquarters of Markali Jamat Ahi-Hadith. They are affiliated to the Muslim Council of Britain and praised by them.

Cut to the grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia beamed live into Green Lane via video link. Questions could be asked through interpreters and fatwas given. DVDs of the questions, answers and fatwas also available.

Several academics, Irfan al Alawi who kept his features hidden, and a ginger headed Englishman whose Islamic name I didn’t catch both said that this Wahabi school of Islam is contrary to “traditional moderate Islam”

The narrator said that many children attend these lectures. By children she meant boys – I did not see a single girl or woman present. A preacher was shown saying that children should be kept away from non muslims. If they will not pray they should be hit. Homosexuals should be thrown from the mountain.

Further, women are deficient to men. Even if she has a PhD she is deficient, hormones make her deficient. She must be covered, hijab must be enforced. By the age of 10 she must wear hijab.  If she does not wear hijab, hit her.

Further Mohammed married a pre-pubescent girl so it is permissible. A Muslim should have no issues about an older man with a young girl despite it being frowned upon in British society. It is not abuse, it is marriage. It is what Mohammed did.

Shots of the first Muslim life Peer Lord Ahmed. He praised the green Lance Mosque calling it his “favourite spiritual place. The most amazing place.” He and the Iman of what was described as “a prominent east London Mosque” (I would hazard a guess that this is the East London Mosque in Whitechapel) are to meet, or have recently met, with the Lord Chancellor to discuss their hopes re the introduction of Islamic divorce law.

Part II

How this doctrine is being spread across the country.  A course to be given by clerics from the University of Medina was cancelled at short notice. However devout worshippers at Green Lane are being given scholarships to attend Saudi Universities.  Medina graduates are lecturing up and down the UK.  Local children sell their books and DVDs in the Mosque car park.

“We want to have children and offer them as soldiers of jihad” “The pinnacle of Islam – is jihad” and his voice wobbled with near lust as he said the word jihad.

Cut to an interview with a Saudi lecturer Mai Yamani, the only woman featured. She said that the Saudis sent money for everything. She described it as “A wave of teaching hitting the shores of the West”

Local bookshops have gone out of business because they have been undercut with subsidised Saudi literature.

Cut to the “most famous mosque in Europe” the Central London Mosque, also known as the Regent’s Park Mosque. £2million towards building costs sent from Saudi Arabia and home to Dar el Salam publishing. The Mosque hosts regular interfaith events yet in the Dar el Salam bookshop the reporter found DVDs containing lectures and sermons saying such things as “We do not need to debate with Jews and Christians about the filth they believe” and “AIDs is a western plot, spread by their missionaries in the vaccines for polio and TB”

The management of Dar el Salam said that they carry a wide range of material and do not necessarily agree with every single word.  However there is no control over (I didn’t catch the exact capacity of this officer and his predecessors) as he is a Saudi diplomat.

A statement was then read from the Saudi Government, against a background of the Saudi flag (shahada and sword) to the effect that Islam is a tolerant religion of peace.

Haras Rafiq, described as a “moderate Muslim” spoke on the rise of wahabism.

Part III

Filming undercover at a Mosque in Derby connected to Green Lane Mosque.

A speaker who was full of praise for the religious police of Saudi Arabia. He thought it wonderful that police could punish people who did not pray. Under such a regime every woman would be covered, he said. If she was not she would be collected by the police. Muslims must gain in strength and then take over.

The programme turned to the UK Islamic Mission an organisation praised by Tony Blair for their multifaith and multicultural work. They went to Sparkbrook Islamic centre where multifaith events are held regularly. The suggestion was made that a group of non Muslims should be invited to visit and attempts made to convert them. Every Friday night a regular prayer is “help us fight the Kaffaar” The reporter went to the dawah centre (for outreach) and asked what was available. He was told that they were affiliated to Jamat Islamia and share ideology with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. They are funded from Saudi Arabia and a list of donors is read out during Friday prayers.

The deputy headmaster of an Islamic school was filmed giving a lecture. According to him Muslims shouldn’t want freedom, or democracy. Democracy is Kaffaarocracy. The school say that he is no longer the deputy headmaster.

Another lecture. No Muslim should join the police force. No Muslim should join the army. Mention was made of a Muslim soldier in the British Army who had been killed in Afghanistan. One newspaper called him a “Hero of Islam” The true hero of Islam is the one who cut off his head.

For once the usual Channel 4 house style of repeating what has gone before after every commercial break did not irritate me. Because what these men (and they were all men, not a woman in sight at any of these lectures) were saying had to be repeated in case people didn’t believe their ears first time.

I only have two immediate criticisms. First that the sentiments expressed were attributed to the Saudi Wahabi School which was presented as something separate to “traditional tolerant Islam” Although the extent to which those views are prevalent, and the lies the public is being told were realistically presented, albeit without use of the term taqiyya.  Second that some of the things said by the imams and teachers sounded to me like direct quotes from the Koran, but were not attributed to the Koran with chapter and verse references. That may have interrupted the flow too much and distracted anybody new to the subject.

I took these notes longhand as I watched. I may well not have got the names spelled correctly.  Hopefully this will be available on line, either on the Channel 4 website, or via You Tube. If anybody hears of it on the internet please e-mail this site.

If you missed it try and record it for late Friday night.