DogfightAtBankstown

it's almost good news

The 'good news' being religious freedom, as in freedom to convert, and apostasize:

PENANG: The Syariah High Court here allowed an application by Muslim convert Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah, 39, to renounce Islam and revert to her original faith.

The decision by Perlis Syariah Court chief judge Othman Ibrahim, who presided over the case when he was based in Penang earlier, makes this the first of its kind in the country where a living Muslim convert is allowed to renounce Islam since the Syariah Court Civil Procedure (State of Penang) Enactment 2004 came into force on Jan 1, 2006.

Almost.

The devil is always in the detail.

buddha's dead sea

The Schøyen Collection, in Oslo, Norway, perhaps the largest private collection of religious manuscripts in the world, is up for sale.  The owner of the collection, Mr. Martin Schøyen, hopes Norway's national government will purchase the collection for the National Library, and wants to donate the proceeds to a humanitarian fund named in his honour.

The collection includes important biblical manuscripts, one of which was recently sold to the Vatican.   But of considerable interest - at least to the press and also in terms of ethics - is a large collection of ancient Buddhist manuscripts smuggled out of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Taliban's rise to power, sometimes dubbed Buddhism's "Dead Sea Scrolls". 

In a statement, the Schøyen Library points out that the Buddhist manuscripts are the only ones that do not come from old collections, “but were acquired to prevent destruction, after requests from Buddhists and scholars.” The statement goes on to address the question of whether these manuscripts should be returned to Afghanistan, “after they have been published, and if peace, order, religious tolerance and safe conditions have been established in that country.” But after analyzing the history of Afghanistan, the Schøyen Library concludes that it is “not the right and safe home for these manuscripts in the future.”

Bendik Rugaas, director of Norway’s National Library, has already welcomed Mr Schøyen’s proposal to sell his entire collection to the State. But even if the money is raised, and the sale goes ahead, this does not resolve the question of what should eventually happen to the Buddhist material. Although Mr Rugaas would be happy for the manuscripts to remain in Oslo, John Herstad, director of the National Archives, is among those who support the return of the manuscripts to Afghanistan when conditions are appropriate.

Yeah, that and the Elgin marbles.

Ain't gonna happen, so why the hand wringing I don't know.  Scholars will have more access to the manuscripts in Oslo, with or without the Taliban.

more on nargis

NYT

As we learn more and more of the impact of Nargis, the scale of the disaster becomes more difficult to fathom: perhaps up to 100,000 dead, millions affected.  And the Burmese junta continues to stand in the way of assistance, particularly from Western governments, but even from the ineffective U.N.

Indeed the U.N. itself has been all but whimpering and complicit in the face of such obstructionism.

Even an aid agency like World Vision, while being allowed access, having been present in Burma (Myanmar) for 30 years, has its hands tied.  Most its local workers are trained in development, not disaster relief; it needs to bring in outside help; it can't distribute the tiny, tiny trickle of aid that has already arrived. 

Burmese officials, ever the petty tyrants, have now resorted to deporting search and rescue teams.

For this reason the U.S.'s threats to drop aid by helicopter is not just welcome, but  should be encouraged.  They should just go ahead and coordinate their efforts with other countries trying to assist - in the manner we saw during the tsunami disaster with India, Japan, the U.S. and Australia taking a lead role in certain disaster areas.   Search, rescue, recovery, aid.  Do whatever it takes.

Burmese air capability is next to nothing.  Burmese military might is piffle. And if any of Burma's "friends" decide to take exception, they do so at the cost of condemnation by their own people for such inhumanity.

And where's Rudd? The "good neighbour"?  What are we doing?  What are we prepared to do?  What's $3 million gonna do?  It's not even going to upset China.

On the theology of disasters: First Things reposts a March 2005 essay by Eastern Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, written soon after the December 2004 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean: 

I do not believe we Christians are obliged — or even allowed — to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. For while Christ takes the suffering of his creatures up into his own, it is not because he or they had need of suffering, but because he would not abandon his creatures to the grave. And while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and that creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity.

As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes — and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Hope, not vain optimism. 

Which is why in the face of suffering, we protest against those who do nothing, who abandon others to the grave.  For to do nothing is inhuman.

nargis

Nothing exposes the brutality and inhumanity of tinpot tyrants like a natural disaster.

As the death toll from Nargis  climbs to over 20,000, with tens of thousands missing and countless more thousands left homeless, Myanmar's junta is still piss-farting around placing all sorts of obstructions to those willing to provide aid - not even allowing foreign helicopters to use their airspace to assess damage, effect rescues, much less distribute aid.

The category 3 tropical storm, hit the southern coast of Myanmar on Saturday, sweeping away entire villages and leaving the region without electricity and running water; a state of emergency has been declared in the cities of Yangon, Irrawaddy, Pegu and in the Karen and Mon states.

Here's the sort of devastation we are talking about:

The image on the left taken in April 15 shows the Irrawaddy river flowing south and splitting into numerous distributaries. Rivers and lakes are sharply defined against a backdrop of vegetation and fallow agricultural land. The image on the right taken on May 5 shows the entire coastal plain is flooded after the area took a direct hit from the cyclone. The city of Yangon (located by the red rectangle) is almost completely surrounded by floods.  Images: NASA

Early reports suggested that the junta failed to give its people warning of the cyclone's approach or make any other preparations, despite knowing the storm was about to hit.  Today, media outlets are carrying reports that Indian meteorologists gave Myanmar warnings about the cyclone's impending landfall some 48 hours beforehand.

Other reports too, that the army was soon out on the streets of Yangon after the winds subsided to clean up: but that was only in the affluent areas of the ruling elite.  In the meantime  most Yangon residents have been without fresh water for three days.  Don't even ask what those in rural areas are sufferring.

Unable to cope with the emergency, the Naypydaw generals quietly asked Thailand for “food, medicine and building materials.”  The first shipment should have arrived yesterday. China sent a similar batch of supplies. The junta has also begrudgingly accepted assistance from international aid agencies, tending to favour the totally ineffective U.N.  And if assessment of needs is one problem, distribution is another problem.   This without the belligerence and obstructionist tactics of the xenophobic regime. 

No use sending cash to them. They are so isolated in the world's community they couldn't spend it, much less know how to spend it for their people's welfare, even if they are more likely to pocket it.

Besides, they do have a referendum to run.

Despicable.

i didn't realise

This was the reason it was called The Daily Terror.

because any stupid thing americans do

The Canadians can do better.

But I've already told you that.

obamanable showman

Rage boy.

There's a photoshop in that.

Next.

the silent scream of the asparagus

I kid you not:

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

No, it's the product of short circuited brains and an impaired morality. 

Put aside your biases against the source and the author of this article, and start praying for your potted plants.  Because the Swiss have indeed gone potty. Due to concern over recent studies suggesting the pain experienced by fish, Swiss anglers are now subjected to a preparatory course on humane fishing.  So why not plants?

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer's herd--the report doesn't say). But then, while walking home, he casually "decapitates" some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can't agree why. The report states, opaquely:

At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.

The matter of sacrificing unborn children to the god of inconvenience and I'm-just-not-ready is bye the bye.  As is killing off the elderly or infirm.  Just don't pick the daisies.

What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.

Meaning theology matters. The god whom you worship matters.

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

The intellectual elites were the first to accept the notion of "species-ism," which condemns as invidious discrimination treating people differently from animals simply because they are human beings. Then ethical criteria were needed for assigning moral worth to individuals, be they human, animal, or now vegetable.

Rising to the task, leading bioethicists argue that for a human, value comes from possessing sufficient cognitive abilities to be deemed a "person." This excludes the unborn, the newborn, and those with significant cognitive impairments, who, personhood theorists believe, do not possess the right to life or bodily integrity. This thinking has led to the advocacy in prestigious medical and bioethical journals of using profoundly brain impaired patients in medical experimentation or as sources of organs.

The animal rights movement grew out of the same poisonous soil. Animal rights ideology holds that moral worth comes with sentience or the ability to suffer. Thus, since both animals and humans feel pain, animal rights advocates believe that what is done to an animal should be judged morally as if it were done to a human being. Some ideologues even compare the Nazi death camps to normal practices of animal husbandry. For example, Charles Patterson wrote in Eternal Treblinka--a book specifically endorsed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals--that "the road to Auschwitz begins at the slaughterhouse."

Eschewing humans as the pinnacle of "creation" (to borrow the term used in the Swiss constitution) has caused environmentalism to mutate from conservationism--a concern to properly steward resources and protect pristine environs and endangered species--into a willingness to thwart human flourishing to "save the planet." Indeed, the most radical "deep ecologists" have grown so virulently misanthropic that Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called humans "the AIDS of the earth," requiring "radical invasive therapy" in order to reduce the population of the earth to under a billion.

 

why

Are we not listening to those who know

ABORIGINAL leaders have called for perpetrators of child sexual abuse in remote indigenous communities to be prosecuted through the criminal justice system, rather than be subject to traditional codes of punishment, while demanding police take action to stamp out the problem.

Leaders from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, in northwest South Australia, have claimed that in the past, police have been "reluctant" to pursue offenders.

Their position is outlined in a submission to the state's Mullighan inquiry into child sexual abuse, whose report on abuse in the APY lands will be tabled in the South Australian parliament this week.

Because we wait for the wheels to turn:

South Australian Police Minister Paul Holloway yesterday said he would not respond to a single submission to the Mullighan inquiry, as it was more important to respond to the inquiry's findings.

A spokesman for Police Commissioner Mal Hyde said police would take the APY submissions seriously.

In his first report, made public just over a month ago, Mr Mullighan revealed some of the allegations put to him about abuse of Aboriginal children.

And that is cold comfort for children in APY lands.

Holloway's response is disgraceful.

aussie blokes

Are turning into a bunch of pansies.

not sure

If I should be surprised that demented ideas such as these should emanate from the ACT or that they should be reported in The Age.

ooooooo, heathen alert!

SkepticLawyer and Legal Eagle have a duelling blog.

Lawyers.

national geographic

Can't tell a Bible from a Koran, or Christianity from Islam.

And they've published a book to tell you about it.

as most people know by now

Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby is being credited with helping drive Boris Johnson to victory in the London mayoral elections, despite the Conservative's first five choices having turned down the offer to run against the mad socialist Ken Livingstone.

No, I think it's because Londoners finally woke up.

And because Boris Johnson has more sense. 

And he is funny.

Update: he's a toff, unkempt and known for lying about a sordid affair. The horror.

look, up in the sky

No, it's a flying jelly fish.

(H/T David Thompson)

shorter tanner

I had a bad time at boarding school (but the education was excellent) and I let it turn me into a bitter, vengeful and emotionally stunted young man.

I liked being bitter, vengeful and emotionally stunted so much, that I decided to stay that way until this, my 52nd year, when I can take it all out on you, without batting an eyelid.

Media interpretation: Oh but he's a chocolate-chilli gay-friendly bona-fide messiah.

theophobia

Mustafa Akyol, whose blog The White Path is a good read, writes on theophobia in Turkey:

One of the interesting and tell-tale controversies of the past week was the fuss over the recent remarks of Hakan Şükür, Turkey’s famous football star and a pious Muslim. In an interview with daily Zaman, he warned the supporters of his team ,Galatasaray, and the other big one, Fenerbahçe, about the impending match between the two. In Turkey, football matches, especially such key derbies, often turn into orgies of violence. But that is very much against the morals of Islam, Şükür noted. And, he added, it would be especially bad to swear and attack fellow human beings during the “week of the holy birth,” that of Prophet Muhammad, in which this match will be played. He reportedly said:

“We are in the week of the holy birth, and we should be worthy of it. We should, in fact, raise our youth and children in the spirit of the tolerance of our Prophet… The fans (of Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray) should come to the stadium with not knives but roses.”

Public outcry ensued:

I think this whole episode nicely presents a fundamental problem in Turkey. Quite many people in this country, especially those who consider themselves to be the elite, suffer from a sort of neurosis that can aptly be called thephobia. That term refers to the irrational fear from, and disgust towards, anything that relates to God and religion. It is, as American writer Tony Snow puts it, “the absolute, frenetic, run-away-from-Godzilla panic that afflicts some people when they hear the ‘G’ word.” For them any reference to, or symbol of, religion is simply horrifying.

That is what lies beneath the bizarre notion of secularism that the Turkish Republic and its masters subscribe to. In the free world, secularism is a democratic principle that gives people the right to live according their beliefs or disbeliefs. In Turkey, it is the principle that is used to suppress religion, marginalize believers, and ridicule their practices. That is why Turkey’s self-styled secularism is often at war with democracy, and the Constitutional Court declares that “secularism will not be sacrificed to freedom.”

But why are so many Turks theophobes? Well, that is the way that the “education” system and the official ideology have indoctrinated them for decades. The average “white Turk” – the one who thinks he is Westernized – believes that religion must be forcefully pushed to the corners of society for us to be a “modern” nation. The die-hard Kemalists are, of course, the most devout believers in this dogma, but others, including even some “liberals,” have been influenced by it to a great extent. They can doubt the official ideology in matters relating to matters such as the Kurds question, but they very much they share its theophobia.

Akyol continues later:

Their psychology is driven by theophobia, to be sure, but they also use a seemingly rational argument. “If we allow a bit of religion,” they say, “how can we be sure that it won’t dominate the whole society?”

And highlights that the threat to democracy is not religion or some other idea. It is the lack of pluralism.

This is true.

Akyol points out, that a pious Muslim should not necessarily be equated with an Islamist, that is, one who wants to impose  Islam as a state ideology, or, as one of his colleagues suggested "someone who has a desire to see an increase in the number of observant Muslims"  (which in itself is nothing to be feared, provided one seeks that increase by proposing, not imposing). 

Indeed.

However what I find fascinating about Şükür's comments is that he made his appeal on the assumption that there was no pluralism: in other words on the assumption that football supporters are Muslims and should therefore take their religion seriously.  In other words, Şükür's understanding seems to be that to be Turkish is to be Muslim, ergo he could exhort Turkish football supporters to be Muslims. (And let's just say that tiny religious minorities in Turkey, especially Turkish Orthodox Christians, know that very well.) 

We have sportsmen and women who make reference to their faith or display some outward forms of piety (e.g. by making the sign of the cross), but I doubt you would find them appealing to their supporters - even to call for good behaviour - on the assumption that all their supporters, and that of their sporting opponents - share the same faith.

Which means, from this distance, the dynamic seems much more complex.

I'm not sure, for example, that the theophobia of which Akyol speaks is fear of any religion.

And I am not sure, in the case of Turkey, that this is a case of missionary work (OK) vs forced conversions (not OK).

The Turks are already overwhelmingly Muslim (the majority Sunni, with a sizeable number of Alevi or twelver Shi'a, as well as other Muslims groups) even if they are pious to various degrees - from mere "cultural" attachment to the very devout.

It seems to me, rather, that the fear which prompted a reaction to Şükür comments is a fear of something else, which goes back to two of my oft repeated observations:

There is no freedom of religion if there is no freedom to convert and apostasize.

The biggest danger to Muslims is other Muslims.

disenchantment

David Brooks in the New York Times

Over the past 15 months, I’ve been writing pretty regularly about the presidential campaign, which has meant thinking a lot about attack ads, tracking polls and which campaign is renouncing which over-the-line comment from a surrogate that particular day.

But on my desk for much of this period I have kept a short essay, which I stare at longingly from time to time. It’s an essay about how people in the Middle Ages viewed the night sky, and it’s about a mentality so totally removed from the campaign mentality that it’s like a refreshing dip in a cool and cleansing pool.

The essay, which appeared in Books & Culture, is called “C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem,” by Michael Ward, a chaplain at Peterhouse College at Cambridge. It points out that while we moderns see space as a black, cold, mostly empty vastness, with planets and stars propelled by gravitational and other forces, Europeans in the Middle Ages saw a more intimate and magical place. The heavens, to them, were a ceiling of moving spheres, rippling with signs and symbols, and moved by the love of God. The medieval universe, Lewis wrote, “was tingling with anthropomorphic life, dancing, ceremonial, a festival not a machine.”

Lewis tried to recapture that medieval mind-set, Ward writes. He did it not because he wanted to renounce the Copernican revolution and modern science, but because he found something valuable in that different way of seeing our surroundings.

The modern view disenchants the universe, Lewis argued, and tends to make it “all fact and no meaning.”

An antidote to industrialism: a little medieval imagination.

The essay: C.S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem.

sunday stupidity

Catmeat shiek is still around.  Doing a Nancy Pelosi with triple twist.

One wonders why he doesn't use all his apparent learning and influence in his own community to combat this mindset. 

On the other hand, nope, I don't wonder at all.

Update: Tempting.

if the U.S. democrats

Are supposedly trying to reach out to Christians in America, having recognised that they need their votes, then they are doing their darndest to go about it by showing just how stupid they are. 

As if there weren't enough whacky interpretations of the Scripture, sadly sometimes even from ministers,  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi goes further and just makes up quotes from the Bible.

And for what?  All for Gaia of course.

And frankly, you didn't need any bible or theology professor to tell you that.

Update: I keep thinking the Pope-clutching Pelosi, who claims a devout Catholic upbringing, should probably read Ratzinger's In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of Creation and the Fall, except that it might make her choke. Someone send her a copy.  

today

Is Good Friday for Eastern Christian churches. 

Not the day for podsvechniks.  Candlestick holders.

fine fellows

During World War I, 1914-1918, the 'Great War', the most important battleground was the 'Western Front' in France and Belgium.  More than 290,000 Australians served in this theatre of war in the Australian Imperial Force, in battles such as those at Fromelles, the Somme, Bullecourt, Messines, Passcshendaele, Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux.  Of those who served, 46,000 were either killed in action or died of their wounds.   

Today is the 90th anniversary of what came to be known as the ‘other’ Anzac Day, when ANZAC forces surrounded and later recaptured the small northern French village of Villers-Bretonneux from its German occupiers,  in circumstances reminiscent of Gallipoli three years earlier. 

Villers-Bretonneux was vital to the integrity of the whole Allied line.

Diggers on the Western Front. Some quick snippets from around the web:

Ordinary men

Photo: Herbert Fishwick, 1915. SMH.

Who earnt a reputation

Australian Postcard

English officer: "Disgraceful harness... Have you no soap?"
ANZAC: "No"
English officer: "No what?"
ANZAC: "No soap."
Drawing by Dan Lindsay

Nonchalance. Australian Postcard 1917.

We have had to separate the Australians into Convalescent Camps of their own, because they were giving so much trouble when along with our men and put such revolutionary ideas into their heads.

--Commander-in-Chief Field-Marshall Douglas Haig, letter to wife, February 1918

The Colonel decided that he would have a full dress parade of the guard mounting. Well, the Aussies looked over at us amazed. The band was playing, we were all smartened up, spit and polish, on parade, and that happened every morning. We marched up and down, up and down.

The Aussies couldn't get over it, and when we were off duty we naturally used to talk to them, go over and have a smoke with them, or meet them when we were hanging about the road or having a stroll. They kept asking us: 'Do you like this sort of thing? All these parades, do you want to do it?' Of course we said, 'No, of course we don't. We're supposed to be on rest, and all the time we've got goes to posh up and turn out on parade.' So they looked at us a bit strangely and said, 'OK, cobbers, we'll soon alter that for you'.

The Australians didn't approve of it because they never polished or did anything. They had a band, but their brass instruments were all filthy. Still, they knew how to play them. 

The next evening, our Sergeant-Major was taking the parade. Sergeant-Major Rowbotham, a nice man, but a stickler for discipline. He was just getting ready to bawl us all out when the Australians started with their band. They marched up and down the road outside the field, playing any old thing. There was no tune you could recognise, they were just blowing as loud as they could on their instruments. It sounded like a million cat-calls.

And poor old Sergeant Rowbotham, he couldn't make his voice heard. It was an absolute fiasco. They never tried to mount another parade, because they could see the Aussies watching us from across the road, just ready to step in and sabotage the whole thing. So they decided that parades for mounting the guards should be washed out, and after that they just posted the guards in the ordinary way as if we were in the line.

 --Private C. Miles,10th Btn. Royal Fusiliers, recalling Aussies at Strazeele, Belgium

--Slovenly ANZAC troops having a day off from the trenches, Western Front

I do hope that we shall hear no more of the 'indiscipline' of these extraordinary Corps, for I don't believe that for military qualities of every kind their equal exists. Their physique is wonderful and their intelligence of a high order 

-- Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet, after touring the Gallipoli peninsula

Very much and very stupid comment has been made upon the discipline of the Australian soldier. That was because the very conception and purpose of discipline have been misunderstood. It is, after all, only a means to an end, and that end is the power to secure co-ordinated action among a large number of individuals for the achievement of a definite purpose. It does not mean lip service, nor obsequious homage to superiors, nor servile observance of forms and customs, nor a suppression of individuality... the Australian Army is a proof that individualism is the best and not the worst foundation upon which to build up collective discipline.

-- Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash

In Belgium and France

In moving from the Herissart Area to the Tincourt Area our transport traveled two nights, stopping during the day at Bray. Soon after leaving Bray the night of September 22, one of the mules caught his foot in a wire and the pull on the wire set off a mine the Germans had placed under the road. Several of our men (117th) were killed and others wounded. Ten horses of the 117th transport were killed. We are constantly on the lookout for mines and Booby Traps. The Hun is very ingenious and nothing is too devilish for him. This past summer when he withdrew from a certain  place, he left a pond that had all the appearance of having been used as a swimming place, even had a spring board in place. A party of Australians came to the pond and got ready to go in swimming. The first two dove in but did not come up. Their companions went in after them and found they had been spiked. The Germans had placed upright spikes in the bottom of the swimming pool. A party of our men started to bury a German; as they lifted the body an explosion took place and two of our men were killed. They had used the body to make a "booby trap." We do not bury German dead except on the battlefield, and then only after testing them. The German apparently does everything that will make the rest of the world hate him and desire his destruction. 

-- October 1918, Diary of Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt, commanding 105TH Engineers,
A. E. F.

 

Shrapnel bursting amongst reconnoitering planes. Photo: Frank Hurley (nicknamed 'the mad photographer)

Hellfire Corner on the Menin Road, near Ypres. AWM

Infantry marching ahead in a single line to the front. Photo: Frank Hurley

In an elephant iron dugout on Hill 60. Photo: Frank Hurley

Carrying in the wounded during the height of the battle (combined negatives) Photo: Frank Hurley

Hauling up an 18 pounder across captured ground to an advanced position. Photo: Frank Hurley

Surrounded by an invisible enemy.  Photo: Frank Hurley

The Battle of the Menin Road Photo: Frank Hurley

The Shell-Shattered Area of Chateau Wood, Flanders. Photo: Frank Hurley

The dawn of Passchendaele (combined negatives) Photo: Frank Hurley

Reminiscences of home: Australians chaff making in Flanders. Photo: Frank Hurley

General Rosenthal, C. B., D. S. O., of the Australian forces, told at the Overseas Club, London, the exploit of an Australian corporal named Brown, who volunteered to take a certain bit of trench, which was looked upon as very risky business indeed.

He set out with a couple of bombs, and after walking into a cornfield amid terrific machine-gun fire from the enemy, he dropped and everybody thought he was killed. He, however, was seen to rise and go forward, only to fall again. Once more he got up and went on. A Boche accosted him, but he "flattened him out" with a blow under the jaw. Arriving at a dugout he threatened to bomb it, whereupon a Boche officer and thirteen men came out and were solemnly marched back to the Australian lines by the plucky corporal.  The hero of this exploit was recommended for the D. C. M., but received the Victoria Cross.   

General Rosenthal was Commanding Officer of the Fifth Australian Division, which we relieved October 8th. Very genial and pleasant man.

-- November 1918, Diary of Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt

A possibly shell-shocked soldier, with a "thousand yards stare" (picture made in an Australian Advanced Dressing Station near Ypres). Cropped from a photo by Frank Hurley.

Chaplains were nearly all Anglican at first, but later joined by Catholic and Protestant ministers.

Photo: Sergeant Jack Grinton.

'Les kangourous' de Villers-Bretonneux

An Australian field artiller howitzer immediately after firing a salvo at Villers-Bretonneux, 24 April 1918. AWM. 

"Tell us what you want us to do, Sir, but you must let us do it our own way." 

--Australian brigadier-general Thomas William Glasgow

They were magnificent. Nothing seemed to stop them. When our fire was heaviest, they just disappeared in shell holes and came up as soon as it slackened. When we used Verey lights they stood still and were hard to see.  

-- Unnamed German officer, quoted in Neville Browning, Fix Bayonets: The Unit History of the 51st Battalion, Perth, 2000, p.157

It seemed there was nothing to do but go straight forward and die hard

-- Digger at VB

Remembered

Photo: George Lipman, 1963.  SMH.

The British officers at Dover, Calais, and at several other places we have been have talked about being "fed up" on the war and ready for the Americans to take it over. The talk sometimes was extremely depressing and showed up the British officers in a very poor light. The Canadians and Australians that we have met are entirely different as are also the men we have met up here at the front. As a whole the men we have come in close contact with have been fine fellows.

-- June 1918, Diary of Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt, commanding 105TH Engineers, A. E. F.

Credits and Links:

Australian War Memorial

Australians on the Western Front 1914-18

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Sydney Morning Herald

History in a biscuit tin (Daily Telegraph)

Jean-Pierre Thierry (The Age)

The Heritage of the Great War (An unusual Netherlands-based site with an extensive collection of  photos)

AIF Project

Update: additional photo added
 

it takes one...er...

Hillary Clinton.  Shameless.

Hmm, I think I told you that.  Twice.

Next.

houndstooth

The Rather Difficult Font Game.

I couldn't even scrape a pass, but I do know my Baskerville.

(via Simon Jackman)

because he's smarter than you

Also at The Immanent Frame, Charles Taylor, author of the highly praised The Secular Age, posts on the distinction in rational credibility between religious and non-religious discourse, and briefly comments on the roots of the epistemological ground for this distinction:

I would like to add a footnote to Saba Mahmood’s excellent piece “Is Critique Secular?” I think it’s important to explain the power that an affirmative answer to this question carries in our contemporary academy.

What are we to think of the idea, entertained by Rawls for a time, that one can legitimately ask of a religiously and philosophically diverse democracy that everyone deliberate in a language of reason alone, leaving their religious views in the vestibule of the public sphere? The tyrannical nature of this demand was rapidly appreciated by Rawls, to his credit. But we ought to ask why the proposition arose in the first place. Rawls’ point in suggesting this restriction was that everyone should use a language with which they could reasonably expect their fellow citizens to agree. The idea seems to be something like this. Secular reason is a language that everyone speaks, and can argue and be convinced in. Religious languages operate outside of this discourse, by introducing extraneous premises which only believers can accept. So let’s all talk the common language.

What underpins this notion is something like an epistemic distinction. There is secular reason, which everyone can use and reach conclusions by—conclusions that is, with which everyone can agree. Then there are special languages, which introduce extra assumptions, which might even contradict those of ordinary secular reason. These are much more epistemically fragile; in fact you won’t be convinced by them unless you already hold them. So religious reason either comes to the same conclusions as secular reason, but then it is superfluous; or it comes to contrary conclusions, and then it is dangerous and disruptive. This is why it needs to be sidelined.

As for Habermas, he has always marked an epistemic break between secular reason and religious thought, with the advantage on the side of the first. Secular reason suffices to arrive at the normative conclusions we need, such as establishing the legitimacy of the democratic state, and defining our political ethic. Recently, his position on religious discourse has considerably evolved; to the point of recognizing that its “Potential macht die religiöse Rede bei entsprechenden politischen Fragen zu einem ernsthaften Kandidaten für mögliche Wahrheitsgehalte.” But the basic epistemic distinction still holds for him. Thus when it comes to the official language of the state, religious references have to be expunged. “Im Parlament muss beispielsweise die Geschäftsordnung den Presidenten ermächtigen, religiöse Stellungnahmen und Rechtfertigungen aus dem Protokoll zu streichen.”

I think that these positions of Rawls and Habermas show that they have not yet understood the normative basis for the contemporary secular state. I believe that they are on to something, in that there are zones of a secular state in which the language used has to be neutral. But these do not include citizen deliberation, as Rawls at first thought, or even deliberation in the legislature, as Habermas seems to think from the above quote. This zone can be described as the official language of the state: the language in which legislation, administrative decrees and court judgments must be couched. It is self-evident that a law before Parliament couldn’t contain a justifying clause of the type: “Whereas the Bible tells us that p.” And the same goes mutatis mutandis for the justification of a judicial decision in the court’s verdict. But this has nothing to do with the specific nature of religious language. It would be equally improper to have a legislative clause: “Whereas Marx has shown that religion is the opium of the people,” or “Whereas Kant has shown that the only thing good without qualification is a good will.” The grounds for both these kinds of exclusions is the neutrality of the state.

The state can be neither Christian nor Muslim nor Jewish; but by the same token it should also be neither Marxist, not Kantian, not Utilitarian. Of course, the democratic state will end up voting laws which (in the best case) reflect the actual convictions of its citizens, which will be either Christian, or Muslim, etc, through the whole gamut of views held in a modern society. But the decisions can’t be framed in a way which gives special recognition to one of these views. This is not easy to do; the lines are hard to draw; and they must always be drawn anew. But such is the nature of the enterprise which is the modern secular state. And what better alternative is there for diverse democracies?

Now the notion that state neutrality is basically a response to diversity has trouble making headway among “secular” people in the West, who remain oddly fixated on religion, as something strange and perhaps even threatening. This stance is fed by all the conflicts of liberal states with religion, past and present, but also by a specifically epistemic distinction: religiously informed thought is somehow less rational than purely “secular” reasoning. The attitude has a political ground (religion as threat), but also an epistemological one (religion as a faulty mode of reason).

*the post title is not aimed at Taylor himself, but my own tongue-in-cheek jab at those who promulgate a populist version of the rational credibility distinction.

islam and the secular state

Robert Hefner at the Immanent Frame posts a review of Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im’s Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a.   An-Na`im is "one of our era’s most articulate exponents of the Islamic grounds for constitutionalism and human rights."

Two things distinguish this new work from An-Na`im’s early writings. The first is his explicit endorsement of a secular state as the best form of government for Muslims and for the flourishing of Islam. In Toward an Islamic Reformation, An-Na`im had dedicated his energies to addressing believers’ understandings of Islam and Shari`a, and had less to say about the appropriate form of the state. As he put it, he hoped “to reconcile Muslim commitment to Islamic law with the achievement of the benefits of secularism within a religious framework.” In this new book, he sets his sights squarely on providing Islamic rationales for secular government.

The second quality that distinguishes this book from his earlier scholarship is its systematic effort to ground arguments in support of freedom, constitutionalism, and secularity on two bodies of research: historical studies of the development of Muslim politics and Shari`a from the early Islamic period to the rise of the Ottoman Empire; and case studies of Shari`a politics in modern India, Turkey, and Indonesia. An-Na`im plumbs the depths of these empirical materials to provide corroborating evidence in support of his larger argument.

The argument has three pillars: first, and contrary to the claims of some Western scholars and Islamist intellectuals like Hassan al-Turabi, religious and state institutions in Muslim societies have been effectively separated since the death of the Prophet Muhammad; second, modern Islamists’ demands for the establishment of an Islamic state based on a fusion of religion and state reflect, not enduring Islamic precedents, but a “postcolonial discourse that relies on European notions of the state and positive law”; and, third, Muslims can best realize Shari`a ideals in a secular state neutral on matters of religion but otherwise responsive to citizen values, as long as these are expressed through a “civic reason” accessible to all citizens.

In short, An-Na`im’s book presents an “Islamic argument for a secular state,” premised on constitutional governance and universal human rights. The appeal to civic reason has parallels with the recent statements by Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas on religion and the public sphere. However, An-Na`im’s commitment to secular government is distinctive in that the appeal is oriented toward not only concepts of popular welfare, but “the survival and development of Islam itself.”

On this latter point, An-Na`im’s approach bears a striking resemblance to that of two other modern Muslim pluralists, the late Nurcholish Madjid of Indonesia and Abdulkarim Soroush of Iran. Like both of these authors, An-Na`im argues that the most compelling grounds for a separation of religion and state have to do with, not liberalism, but efforts to safeguard Islam from abuse at the hands of the powerful. Also like these authors, An-Na`im’s secularism is of a sort that, while mandating a formal separation of religious and state institutions, allows and even requires religious actors and values to play a role in legislation, subject to the restriction that the values are recast in a non-sectarian form. Indeed, An-Na`im argues, secularism—”defined to mean only the separation of religion and state”—makes such “minimal moral claims” that it is “incapable of meeting the collective requirements of public policy.” The weakness is especially serious with regard to vexing moral issues like abortion and capital punishment. Inasmuch as this is so, the secular state must allow citizens of religious conviction to publicly express their views and influence legislation, with the proviso that that such legislation must be cast in terms “acceptable and convincing to the generality of citizens regardless of their religious or other beliefs.” The balance struck here between formal separation and allowing for the public role of religion “is difficult to establish and maintain, but there is no alternative to striving to achieve it.”

An-Na`im observes that one of the greatest threats to Islamic piety and observance today comes, not from outside the Muslim community, but from Muslims who would abolish the separation of religion and state in the name of an ostensibly Islamic government. He argues that all such étatizing projects are not only politically dangerous but religiously mistaken. Their religious error lies in their failure to recognize that the Qur’an places ultimate responsibility for observance of God’s commands, not on the state, but on individuals and the community of believers. “Shari`a principles by their nature and function defy any possibility of enforcement by the state.” By surrendering responsibility for the Shari`a to state authorities, proponents of the Islamic state create a “totalitarian” entity that is “incoherent and unworkable,” and thus doomed to foster hypocrisy, corruption, and cynicism among believers.

An-Na`im's argument, it seems, is not without its weaknesses but it is one he carries with conviction.  It is informed not just by a lifetime of scholarship, but aslo by a deep personal piety, a liberal modernist view of Islam and a committment to human rights.

After all, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im watched his own country Sudan, fall to a  totalitarian Islamic fundamentalist regime by military coup in 1989.   

He knows the biggest danger to Muslims is other Muslims.

italian politics 101

Just switched the tube on to see George Negus trying to fathom why Berlusconi was re-lected given the rest of Europe - in his view - is moving to the centre-left .

Look.  The Italians, like some of their Mediterranean neighbours, change governments like they change shirts.   And as George noted, Italians lead the way: 61 parliaments since WWII. 

But there's method in the madness and it's not hard to fathom.  As an British expat in Sicily noted on the day after:

...Even I have to hand it to Berlusconi, for his come-back ability, sheer nerve and showmanship [though his running mates in the Northern League are another matter] . Italians are incredibly pragmatic, you see, and when times are hard, they will vote for whoever they think will get them back to work, clear the streets of Naples of rubbish and generally make them look like a world player again. [Sometimes I think this often chaotic nation just craves order.] And if this new government doesn't work, so what? - We just chuck it out, sooner rather than later!

It may all seem very strange from outside the country, but I can understand exactly why Italians have voted as they have [though I am not condoning their decision]. The rest of the world may laugh at Italy all it likes, reader: the country still eats arguably better than any other, its design and workmanship still inspire admiration everywhere and young people do not feel that the be all and end all of life is to get as far away as possible from their families. So surely we have to concede that the Italians are doing quite a lot of things right?

bishop takes castle

Francesco Lugo has been elected as Paraguay's new president, effectively ending the 61 year reign of world's longest ruling party, 35 of which were under the dicatatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. 

Many news items name Lugo as a former Catholic bishop.  This is where it gets tricky.  Lugo did indeed set aside his cassock and step down as bishop of San Pedro, one of Paraguay's poorest dioceses, to run for political office.  He attempted to renounce his orders as well, however this was not accepted by the Vatican, as priestly orders are for life.   

Catholic canon law also forbids a priest or bishop from participating in political parties or labour unions, and while Rome urged Lugo to consider his behaviour, he has simply apologized for the hurt he cause by disobeying canon law.

Paraguay's constitution bars religious leaders from running for president, and members of the ruling Colorado Party once threatened to challenge Lugo's candidacy on the grounds that he was still a priest.

The Vatican responded to the initial crisis by suspending him from his duties “a divinis”, meaning that he could no longer say Mass or carry out other priestly functions such as administering the sacraments. This was enough to enable him to stand in the Presidential elections. 

The Catholic church, the press tells us, enjoys a high level of trust in a country known for its corruption and nepotism.  (Which makes me think how you can get such a situation in an "overwhelmingly Catholic country").  His candidacy, nevertheless divided Catholics in Paraguay, although Lugo is especially popular with the poor, who overwhelmingly supported his entry into politics and heavily backed him in the elections.  Bishop Adalberto Martinez, the present bishop of San Pedro and secretary-general of the bishops’ conference, said Paraguay’s bishops  still consider Lugo a friend after collaborating with him for 12 years.

Lugo victory now presents the Vatican with a dilemma over whether to “reduce him to lay status”. 

I think that means the Pope gets to decide whether he will be defrocked.

Lugo is scheduled to take office on August 15.

internationalist

For the parochial: "spork" is American for "splayd" and Canadian for "spam":

And "spam" is English for Australian homosexualist rants on your blog.

Hybrid. Alternative. Junk.

spork on the right

I can't mention one of the crazy-haired finest from America's theologically loony left, without tracking down the latest on Benny Hinn, one of the finest crazy-haired from America's theologically loony right.  Alas, I only came up with more Obama bitterness:

Mr. Obama showed that his true color is yellow, as this glimpse into the Mr. Obama's world has shown him to be the Benny Hinn of politics - all style, no substance.

Or is that Blair's Law.