Saturday, September 29, 2012

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Greek police send crime victims to neo-Nazi 'protectors'

Far-right Golden Dawn party filling vacuum for those neglected by state after MPs elected to fight 'immigrant scum'

People hold sacks of potatoes during a food distribution organised by Golden Dawn, in Athens.
People hold sacks of potatoes during a food distribution organised by Golden Dawn, in Athens.
Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group, analysts, activists and lawyers say.
In return, a growing number of Greek crime victims have come to see the party, whose symbol bears an uncanny resemblance to the swastika, as a "protector".
One victim of crime, an eloquent US-trained civil servant, told the Guardian of her family's shock at being referred to the party when her mother recently called the police following an incident involving Albanian immigrants in their downtown apartment block.

"They immediately said if it's an issue with immigrants go to Golden Dawn," said the 38-year-old, who fearing for her job and safety, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "We don't condone Golden Dawn but there is an acute social problem that has come with the breakdown of feeling of security among lower and middle class people in the urban centre," she told the Guardian. "If the police and official mechanism can't deliver and there is no recourse to justice, then you have to turn to other maverick solutions."

Other Greeks with similar experiences said the far-rightists, catapulted into parliament on a ticket of tackling "immigrant scum" were simply doing the job of a defunct state that had left a growing number feeling overwhelmed by a "sense of powerlessness". "Nature hates vacuums and Golden Dawn is just filling a vacuum that no other party is addressing," one woman lamented. "It gives 'little people' a sense that they can survive, that they are safe in their own homes."

Far from being tamed, parliamentary legitimacy appears only to have emboldened the extremists. In recent weeks racially-motivated attacks have proliferated. Immigrants have spoken of their fear of roaming the streets at night following a spate of attacks by black-clad men on motorbikes. Street vendors from Africa and Asia have also been targeted.

"For a lot of people in poorer neighbourhoods we are liberators," crowed Yiannis Lagos, one of 18 MPs from the stridently patriot "popular nationalist movement" to enter the 300-seat house in June. "The state does nothing," he told a TV chat show, adding that Golden Dawn was the only party that was helping Greeks, hit by record levels of poverty and unemployment, on the ground. Through an expansive social outreach programme, which also includes providing services to the elderly in crime-ridden areas, the group regularly distributes food and clothes parcels to the needy.
But the hand-outs come at a price: allegiance to Golden Dawn. "A friend who was being seriously harassed by her husband and was referred to the party by the police very soon found herself giving it clothes and food in return," said a Greek teacher, who, citing the worsening environment enveloping the country, again spoke only on condition of anonymity. "She's a liberal and certainly no racist and is disgusted by what she has had to do."

The strategy, however, appears to be paying off. On the back of widespread anger over biting austerity measures that have also hit the poorest hardest, the popularity of the far-rightists has grown dramatically with polls indicating a surge in support for the party.
One survey last week showed a near doubling in the number of people voicing "positive opinions" about Golden Dawn, up from 12% in May to 22%. The popularity of Nikos Michaloliakos, the party's rabble-rousing leader had shot up by 8 points, much more than any other party leader.
Paschos Mandravelis, a prominent political analyst, attributed the rise in part to the symbiotic relationship between the police and Golden Dawn. "Greeks haven't turned extremist overnight. A lot of the party's backing comes from the police, young recruits who are a-political and know nothing about the Nazis or Hitler," he said. "For them, Golden Dawn supporters are their only allies on the frontline when there are clashes between riot police and leftists."

Riding the wave, the party has taken steps to set up branches among diaspora Greek communities abroad, opening an office in New York last week. Others are expected to open in Australia and Canada. Cadres say they are seeing particular momentum in support from women.
With Greeks becoming ever more radicalised, the conservative-led government has also clamped down on illegal immigration, detaining thousands in camps and increasing patrols along the country's land and sea frontier with Turkey.

But in an environment of ever increasing hate speech and mounting tensions, the party's heavy-handedness is also causing divisions. A threat by Golden Dawn to conduct raids against vendors attending an annual fair in the town of Arta this weekend has caused uproar.

"They say they have received complaints about immigrant vendors from shop owners here but that is simply untrue," said socialist mayor Yiannis Papalexis. "Extra police have been sent down from Athens and if they come they will be met by leftists who have said they will beat them up with clubs. I worry for the stability of my country."
Seated in her office beneath the Acropolis, Anna Diamantopoulou, a former EU commissioner, shakes her head in disbelief. Despair, she says, has brought Greece to a dangerous place.
"I never imagined that something like Golden Dawn would happen here, that Greeks could vote for such people," she sighed. "This policy they have of giving food only to the Greeks and blood only to the Greeks. The whole package is terrifying. This is a party based on hate of 'the other'. Now 'the other' is immigrants, but who will 'the other' be tomorrow?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/28/greek-police-victims-neo-nazi


Friday, September 28, 2012



Free Obama phones   - isn't democracy great ?


Stoke-On-Trent: Former BNP councillor - Michael Coleman found guilty of racism charge



.ROCHDALE :  A shocking tale unfolds of the asian paedophiles operating in the UK and the reluctance of the Police to do their jobs

Betrayed by the PC brigade: From the Mail writer who first revealed the scandal of Muslim sex gangs, a damning exposé of how politically correct police and social workers betrayed underage white victims

For 20 years or more, there has been a shameful silence about the sexual exploitation of young girls in this country. Hundreds of children — some of them still at primary school — have been groomed by street gangs and turned into sex slaves.

And it is still going on today.

When I have written about this subject after investigations in towns and cities in the North of England, I have been reviled as a hater of our immigrant communities in abusive emails, letters and phone calls by those who continue to deny such things are going on.

For there is an uncomfortable truth about this abhorrent crime which we must not flinch from: the majority of girls ensnared by the street gangs are white, while most of the perpetrators come from the Pakistani and South Asian communities.
Abusers: The men who took part in a child sex ring which exploited vulnerable teenage girls (Top row left to right) Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row left to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan
Abusers: The men who took part in a child sex ring which exploited vulnerable teenage girls (Top row left to right) Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row left to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan
Of course, the great majority of people from these communities are decent citizens, and people from all races are capable of evil.

But I believe the controversial issue of these street gangs has been swept under the carpet, regarded as a taboo subject by police officers and social workers terrified of being labelled racist in ever more politically correct modern Britain.

Worried parents alerting social services and police about gangs have been ignored. NHS health clinics, treating the girls for sexual diseases, injuries and pregnancies, have sounded the alarm. Yet nothing has been done.

Teachers who reported teenage girls with hangovers and bruises taking constant calls on their mobiles from older men during school hours have been met with a wall of silence from officialdom.
Frightening: Dozens of children in Rochdale, pictured, were abused despite the authorities being repeatedly warned about them being at risk
Frightening: Dozens of children in Rochdale, pictured, were abused despite the authorities being repeatedly warned about them being at risk
Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for ethnic harmony, has warned: 'The police are over-cautious because they fear being branded racist'
Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for ethnic harmony, has warned: 'The police are over-cautious because they fear being branded racist'
Shockingly, one middle-class father from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, who told social workers that his 15-year-old daughter had been lured into an underage sex ring based at a local kebab shop, was told by them that the girl was making a ‘lifestyle’ choice to be a prostitute.

The social services refused to help the teenager escape.

Meanwhile, the police told the father there was ‘no prospect’ of convicting the gang members, who drove his daughter to ‘cash-for-sex’ sessions with scores of Muslim men in rented houses or public car parks all over the North of England.
At the time, despite her parents raising the alarm and subsequent DNA swabs from the girl’s underwear directly linking her to one of the gang, the police did not act and the gang’s members remained free and continued to sexually abuse her — and many other girls in Rochdale — for another two years.

As this father told me just the other day: ‘The police were scared stiff of being called racist, so for years they didn’t go after these men. 
Victim: Laura Wilson, 17, from Rotherham had been groomed by a string of British Pakistanis
One of many victims: Laura Wilson, 17, from Rotherham had been groomed by a string of British Pakistanis before she was stabbed and thrown into a canal to die for informing her abusers' families of the sexual relationships in June this year
Killer: Ashtiaq Asghar repeatedly stabbed Laura Wilson (pictured above) and left her to die in a canal, after she told her abusers families of the sexual exploitation
Killer: Ashtiaq Asghar repeatedly stabbed Laura Wilson (pictured above) and left her to die in a canal, after she told her abusers families of the sexual exploitation
‘The social workers were just as bad. They were afraid of saying it is a crime against white girls.’

His is not a lone view. Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for ethnic harmony, has warned: ‘The police are over-cautious because they fear being branded racist. That is wrong. These gangs of men are criminals, and should be treated as criminals whatever their race.’

But I have discovered that it is not only the police and social workers who turn a blind eye. The very agencies set up to help the girls recover from the abuse are equally reluctant to admit there is a strong racial element to these hideous crimes.

One charity, Risky Business, operating in Rotherham, refused to answer any of my questions on the racial make-up of the men in the sex gangs.
South Yorkshire Police headquarters in Sheffield where details of the problem of sexual exploitation are revealed in internal reports prepared by the force
South Yorkshire Police headquarters in Sheffield where details of the problem of sexual exploitation are revealed in internal reports prepared by the force
Abusers: The men who took part in a child sex ring which exploited vulnerable teenage girls (Top row left to right) Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row left to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan
Abusers: The men who took part in a child sex ring which exploited vulnerable teenage girls (Top row left to right) Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row left to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan
Evil: Abdul Qayyum (left), 43, was sentenced to five years for conspiracy. Mohammed Amin (right) 45, was handed five years for conspiracy and sexual assault
At another, the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping, in Leeds, the chief executive told me: ‘This is a crime committed by men. We are trying to work in certain communities to change their attitudes to women. I cannot comment on the race of the criminals involved.’

This week, at last, the full truth began to emerge about the cover-up of crimes Scotland Yard estimates have affected 5,000 British-born children, the majority girls.

At least ten towns and cities on both sides of the Pennines have been particularly plagued by the gangs. Their members get rich because they can reap four times as much money trading young girls for sex as they can trading in drugs.

I have established that in the small city of Blackburn alone, at least 385 girls were groomed by men in a recent two-year period. Sheila Taylor, chairwoman of the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People, has told me that this figure will be similar in any other town of the same size in the North of England or the Midlands.

Ringleader: Shabir Ahmed was convicted of 30 counts of rape following a two week trial at Manchester Crown Court
Ringleader: Shabir Ahmed was convicted of 30 counts of rape following a two week trial at Manchester Crown Court
What is most shocking is the fact that a series of new reports show police and social services have missed hundreds of opportunities to protect the child victims.

Yesterday, an official review of sexual exploitation of girls in Rochdale — ordered after the jailing of nine men aged between 22 and 59 for multiple child sex offences in the town — revealed that 50 children, the vast majority aged ten to 17, were identified [by the authorities] five years ago as having ‘clear links to take-away food businesses and to associated taxi companies’.

The girls, repeatedly raped, were treated by social workers as ‘wilful’ young teenagers ‘engaging in consensual sexual activity’.

‘When complaints reached the police, their investigations were inadequate,’ the review said.

From South Yorkshire, confidential documents told the same sorry story. A police intelligence report compiled in 2010 says thousands of sexual exploitation crimes against young white and mixed race girls have gone on in the county.

‘There is a problem with networks of Muslim offenders both locally and nationally,’ it reported. ‘This is particularly stressed in Sheffield, even more so in Rotherham, where there appears to be a significant problem with Asian males exploiting young white females.’

Yet local police, social workers and councils ignored the growing crisis.

One white girl in Rotherham, who was sexually abused by one such gang, was — incongruously — offered lessons in Urdu and Punjabi by social services to help get her over her ordeal.

According to the documents, 54 girls in Rotherham were sexually exploited by three brothers from a ‘British Pakistani’ family. Eighteen of the girls identified one of the brothers as their ‘boyfriend’, and he had made several of them pregnant.

Three brothers from another ‘British Pakistani’ family and 41 associates were linked to the sexual abuse of another 61 girls in the same area. Denis MacShane, the local Labour MP, says the serial sexual abuse of young girls should be a wake-up call for the police, local authorities and Britain’s Asian community. He is demanding an independent public inquiry, and blames a ‘misplaced racial sensitivity’ for the crisis.

So how are such vile crimes taking place in so-called civilised Britain, and why have such gangs been allowed to flourish so they now believe they can act with impunity?
abusers
abusers
Monsters: Abdul Aziz (left), 41, was given nine years for conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Mohammed Sajid (right), 35, received 12 years tor conspiracy, trafficking, one count of rape and one count of sexual activity with a child
abusers
abusers
Scum: Hamid Safi (left), 22, was given four years for conspiracy and trafficking but not guilty of two counts of rape. Adil Khan (right), 42, was found guilty of conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation
‘They are laughing at the police,’ one youth worker in South Yorkshire told me this week. ‘These men may get called into the police station for a dressing down, but so few are taken to court.

‘They now think they are invincible, and, of course, they’re not frightened of accusing the police of racism themselves if things get tricky for them. Then everything is dropped.’

At the heart of the scandal are uncomfortable cultural issues. Many men of Pakistani heritage believe white girls have low morals compared to Muslim girls.

The same youth worker explained to me: ‘These girls wear what the men call “slags’ clothing” and show too much of their bodies.’

To add to this cultural divide, the men are often in loveless arranged marriages with wives from Pakistan who speak no English. They want to have sex, and a young virgin free of sexual diseases is the perfect victim.

Victim: A vulnerable 13-year-old white girl wrote a letter to herself saying Asian men took her dreams and life away from her (posed by model)
Victim: A vulnerable 13-year-old white girl wrote a letter to herself saying Asian men took her dreams and life away from her (posed by model)
Gang members are often unemployed, so have time to groom girls — luring them into a trap which is nearly always sprung in the same way.

The girl might be out with her friends in the town centre, often on a Saturday afternoon. She is bored, and when a group of smiling men pull up in a flashy car with blaring rap music, she is flattered.

Tanya’s story illustrates their modus operandi. In 2001, Tanya, a 13-year-old, became Britain’s youngest mother after she was coerced into becoming the sex slave of a gang in Yorkshire.

Tanya went to the local secondary school and lived with her single mother in a neat terraced house.

At the shops one day, a group of men came up to her. They took her off in their car and plied her with vodka. They gave her a mobile phone to receive calls from them, and bought her gifts and meals.

After a week or two, they said they wanted to have sex with her in return. Frightened of them, she agreed. She became pregnant, but by then she had slept with so many men from the Pakistani community that she did not know who the father was.

DNA tests by police on five of the most likely candidates did not prove paternity. Two of the gang members who were tested confessed to sleeping with Tanya when she was 12.

Shockingly, they were never charged with any offence for having sex with an under-age child.

The birth was hushed up, and the gang got off scot-free. The local council and social services department then went to the High Court in London and secured an injunction stopping anyone — including Tanya and her family — ever talking about the matter again. They have never done so.

The terrifying question is just how many other girls like Tanya have been let down by a system that does not dare tell the truth?

Lessons need to be learnt. And they need to be learnt with great urgency.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

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South Yorkshire Police deny hiding girls' sex abuse

Denis MacShane  
Denis MacShane said MPs should have been told of the scale of the problem

A police force has denied withholding information about the scale of sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of men in South Yorkshire.
The county's force was responding after The Times said confidential police reports referred to widespread abuse of girls by Asian men.
Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said police kept secret the abuse from politicians.
South Yorkshire Police said the suggestion it was reluctant to tackle child sexual abuse was wrong.
In November 2010, five Rotherham men were jailed for sexual offences against under-age girls.
Labour MP Mr MacShane said on Monday: "The Rotherham police exposed, arrested and broke up an evil gang of internal traffickers who were sent to prison.
"But it is clear that the internal trafficking of barely pubescent girls is much more widespread and I regret that the police did not tell Yorkshire MPs about their inquiries."
The investigation by The Times - with access to confidential documents from the police intelligence bureau, social services and other organisations - alleges widespread abuse.
'Live investigations' The newspaper said a confidential 2010 report by the Police Intelligence Bureau detailed "a significant problem with networks of Asian males exploiting young white females, particularly in Rotherham and Sheffield".
The paper claimed that in another confidential report in 2010 from Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board "there are sensitivities of ethnicity with potential to endanger the harmony of community relationships".
Mr MacShane said the sexual violation and commercial exploitation of young girls by older men was a "growing problem and needs far more public policy attention".
Clockwise from top left: Umar Razaq, Razwan Razaq, Mohsin Khan, Zafran Ramzan and Adil Hussain Five men were jailed in 2010 for sex offences against girls as young as 12 in Rotherham
In a statement, the force said: "South Yorkshire Police is recognised as leading the way on what is now being recognised nationally as a problem and to suggest that the force and its partners are deliberately withholding information on the issue is a gross distortion and unfair on the teams of dedicated specialists working to tackle the problem."
It said the force was "working with local authorities, social services and NHS on several live investigations, two of which are large and likely to lead to more prosecutions; we will act when we have the evidence".
The statement added that The Times was "wrong to suggest a lack of commitment is shown towards the problem as our record shows".
In a statement Rotherham Borough Council said it was "fully committed" to tackling sexual exploitation, "a commitment that led to the conviction of men involved in this despicable crime as well as support for victims and potential victims and the education of hundreds of young people about the dangers of sexual exploitation".
"These are highly-complex cases and situations and some work with individuals did not lead to court cases for a variety of reasons, but those young people have been supported to understand the situation they have found themselves in and assisted by many services".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-19701760

NWN: The Police are liars ! In other places like Rochdale and in Blackpool to name just two recent examples, the Police are absolutely terrified of being labelled racist. And they will lie to confuse why they have been following the policy they have. Far better that ordinary people get raped and murdered than the police be called racist.

They are a disgrace, and we need to find out who has been directing police policy. Or rather why they have been slavishly following marxist politically correct policies. 

MacShane is himself a marxist of the worst kind.

The Police have known about these crimes for many years, but have been prepared to turn 'a blind eye' and allow criminality to flourish in the interest of 'community relations'.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

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Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Nursing's Bitter Rivalry

In recent years the reputation of Mary Seacole as a pioneering nurse of the Crimean War has been elevated far beyond the bounds of her own ambition. Meanwhile that of Florence Nightingale has taken an undeserved knocking, as Lynn McDonald explains.
Portrait of Mary Seacole wearing medals (never awarded to her) of the British Crimea, the Turkish Medjidie and the Légion d'honneur, 1869Portrait of Mary Seacole wearing medals (never awarded to her) of the British Crimea, the Turkish Medjidie and the Légion d'honneur, 1869Jamaican-born Mary Seacole (1805-81), voted top of the list of the 2004 ‘100 Great Black Britons’ poll, is now slated to replace Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) as the true ‘heroine’ of the Crimean War. She is to be honoured as no less than the ‘Pioneer Nurse’ with a massive statue to be erected at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. This in spite of the strong links between Nightingale and the hospital, her base for over 40 years. It was there she established the first secular school for nurses in 1860 with funds raised in her name for her work in the Crimean War during the conflict of 1854-56. The Nightingale School operated for over a century from the hospital, whose redesign in the 1860s Nightingale also influenced.
At three-metres high, as the Seacole campaign points out, the planned monument designed by Martin Jennings will be visible from the Houses of Parliament across the Thames and taller than the statue of Nightingale at Waterloo Place and that of Edith Cavell in St Martin’s Lane.
Fundraising for the Seacole statue is supported by an audacious campaign, employing the same Seacole myths used to persuade the Guy’s-St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to give over the hospital site. This permission was granted by its board of directors at a closed-door meeting in 2007, with no consultation with experts, the hospital’s governors or staff. The Lambeth Planning Committee, which approved the site at a meeting in April 2012, had no mandate to consider the merits of the statue or its message but only the technicalities of site, about which there was no objection.
The ‘history’ issued by the Guy’s-St Thomas’ NHS Trust in support of its decision brings several, now standard, fictions together. It credits Seacole with providing ordinary soldiers in the Crimean War ‘with accommodation, food and nursing care’ and with winning four medals for her ‘courage and compassion during the war’. It fails to mention any hospital in which Seacole ever nursed, trained or sent nurses, but simply asserts that ‘Britain’s black heroine’ gave her ‘life’s work’ for the ‘early development’ of nursing (Karen Sorenson, ‘Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Update’, July 20th, 2011).
The statue is to show Seacole with medals won for bravery, resolutely walking to the battlefield to treat the wounded, all points that feature in the makeover myth but do not survive a reality check. Seacole won no medals, nor ever claimed to have done so. She evidently wore three or four medals when back in London, including the Légion d’honneur. It was not at the time a crime in the UK to wear military medals other than one’s own – it has been since 1955.
Pictures speak louder than words. Many images of Seacole now depict her as a hospital nurse in a blue-and-white uniform. Black nurses today could well identify with this current portrayal of Seacole – she looks like an early version of a Jamaican NHS nurse. Yet she never wore any hospital uniform, for she never worked in a hospital. In the Crimea she dressed flamboyantly, as befitted the hostess of a restaurant.
White guilt is the likely explanation of this Seacole promotion and British whites have a lot to feel guilty about. Keenness for a heroic black role model is understandable, but why the denigration of another woman? Seacole herself had no grudge against Nightingale.

The vilification of Nightingale

The campaign promoting Seacole over Nightingale builds on 30 years of books, articles and films denigrating the latter. While she always had detractors, the serious assault on Nightingale’s reputation can be dated to 1982, with the publication of the Australian historian F.B. Smith’s Florence Nightingale: Reputation and Power (Croom Helm, 1982). The next major hit came in 1998 with Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel (Constable, 1998) by a retired management consultant Hugh Small, which argues that Nightingale was actually responsible for the high death rates of the Crimean War and had a nervous breakdown as a result when she supposedly recognised this. Neither claim is supported by any serious documentation. Social media goes even further: see Facebook ‘Florence Nightingale was a Murdering Bitch’, later renamed ‘Florence Nightingale: The World’s Worst Nurse’, where she is described as a ‘deluded power hungry bitch’, who ‘looks like an uptight bitch’, so that ‘the day she died’ was ‘the best thing that ever happened to the field of nursing’.
The nursing profession was not responsible for either of the influential anti-Nightingale books, but neither did it defend her against them. It had been ignoring its founder for a long time; we look to the future, not to the past, nursing leaders said. Some jumped onto the bandwagon.
The Nursing Standard, a magazine owned by the Royal College of Nursing, which supports the Seacole statue campaign, has published more than 70 items on Seacole in the last ten years, many containing exaggerated or false claims. To quote just three examples:
‘Against all odds, [Seacole] had an unshakeable belief in the power of nursing to make a difference,’ and ‘changed the face of modern nursing’ (April 21st, 2004); Seacole: the ‘late, great nurse,’ through her ‘amazing acts of bravery and courage,’ was ‘a precursor to modern nursing’, who ‘saw beyond hospital wards and into the environment in which people live, and made links between psychological and physical illnesses’, (May 14th, 2008); Seacole was ‘a great pioneer and made a significant contribution to nursing’ (May 30th, 2012). But it was Nightingale who had faith in the power of nursing and changed the face of modern nursing. The Nursing Standard gives not a single example of a serious contribution to the profession by Seacole, who never claimed to be a nurse.

‘Real angel’ of the Crimea

Bashing white Victorian heroines is fair game these days, it seems, especially those of privileged background and the higher the status the more delightful the fall. The latest example, ‘Bringing Nightingale Down to Size’, by a doctor regurgitating F.B. Smith’s imaginative accusations was published in the British Medical Journal of March 2012.
Florence Nightingale in 1856. Library of CongressFlorence Nightingale in 1856. Library of CongressTwo BBC films Florence Nightingale: Iron Maiden (2001) and Florence Nightingale (2008) have taken the down-with-Nightingale message to wider audiences. ‘Nightingale’s nursing “helped kill soldiers”,’ repeated The Sunday Times in a review of July 8th, 2001, while the 2008 film turned her into ‘The Liability with the Lamp’, (The Sunday Times, June 1st, 2008). Other BBC broadcasts, Mary Seacole: The Real Angel of the Crimea (screened on BBC Knowledge in 2000 and Channel 4 in 2005) and Mary Seacole: a Hidden History (2008) uncritically sanctify Seacole. In the latter Seacole is called the ‘real angel’ of the Crimean War, who ‘saved thousands of lives’.
It is time to look at what these two women actually did and did not do in the Crimean War, against what is claimed for and against them. Since Seacole wrote a remarkable memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, first published in 1857, we can read what she did in her own words (page numbers below are from the 1988 Oxford edition, the same as in the original edition). Nightingale left copious material on the war, including numerous letters pointing out defects and recommending action. We also have the carefully researched analyses done on her return, notably her 853-page Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army (1858) and her ‘Answers to Written Questions’ the same year, which was her evidence to the royal commission appointed to inquire into what went wrong in that war. These are reported extensively in Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, volume 14 in the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale.

Seacole’s Crimean War

In her memoir Seacole traces her interest in war to her Scottish soldier father, which gave her sympathy with the ‘pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war’ (p.1). She next admitted to a longing to ‘witness’ war, especially since regiments she knew in Jamaica were leaving for the ‘scene of action’ (p.73). When the war actually began in late September 1854 Seacole was in London to look after her gold-mining stocks (p.74). Newspaper advertisements invited applications for nursing posts, but Seacole never applied. Instead, after Nightingale and her 38 nurses had left, she set out to join a later contingent of nurses, one Nightingale knew nothing about. Seacole made the rounds of offices, beginning with that of the junior war minister, Sidney Herbert, but he neither interviewed nor hired nurses and declined to see her. She did not get an interview anywhere else she tried, but whether or not for reasons of race is not clear. She was old for hospital nursing, nearing 50, and had had no hospital experience, despite the frequent claim that she ran the nursing at an army hospital in Jamaica – not a claim she ever made herself.
Seacole then decided to go on her own. She would set up the ‘British Hotel’, which she advertised as a ‘mess table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers’ (p.81). She had used the name earlier at an establishment in Panama, but neither it nor the Crimean establishment took overnight guests – both were restaurants with stores. The Crimean venue also had a ‘canteen for the soldiery’ (p.114), no further details given. Seacole had a business partner in her Crimean enterprise, Thomas Day, a relative of her late husband.
In May 1857 Punch mocked Seacole's worthiness for a fund in her name. 'Our Own Vivandière' shows her, misleadingly, with a wounded soldier in hospital.In May 1857 Punch mocked Seacole's worthiness for a fund in her name. 'Our Own Vivandière' shows her, misleadingly, with a wounded soldier in hospital.Seacole devotes chapters of her memoir to the British Hotel in the Crimea, to its high-ranking visitors, including a French prince, a duke and a viscount and the meals she served them. She also recounted the challenges of obtaining supplies, unreliable employees, rats and thieves. Clearly the British Hotel was her major occupation, but she also did voluntary work, such as taking tea and lemonade to soldiers waiting on the wharf for transport to the general hospitals in Turkey.
Officers could get a meal at Seacole’s, or send a servant to pick one up for them. Among the available items were tins of salmon, lobsters, oysters, game, wild fowl, vegetables, eggs, sardines, curry powder, coffee, currant jelly and non-food items such as saddles and boots:
I often used to roast a score or so of fowls daily, besides boiling hams and tongues. Either these or a slice from a joint of beef or mutton you would be pretty sure of finding at your service in the larder of the British Hotel. (p.138).
After the war was effectively over, but before the peace treaty was signed, she catered for excursions, cricket matches, picnics, theatricals, dinner parties and races, providing soup and fish, turkeys, saddle of mutton, fowls, ham, tongue, curry, pastry of many sorts, custards, jelly, blancmange and olives. For Christmas there were plum puddings (recipe provided) and mince pies. In hot weather she provided sangria, claret and cider cups. On the last excursion described in her memoir she brought a hamper of ‘a cold duck and other meats, a tart’ (p.190).
Seacole described ‘the officers, full of fun and high spirits,’ crowding into her kitchen and carrying off ‘the tarts hot from the oven, while the good-for-nothing black cooks ... would stand by and laugh with all their teeth’ (p.141). Her customers were officers and others of that class and the food and drink provided far beyond the means of ordinary soldiers. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in this, but there is in the claim that her mission was to save the lives of ordinary soldiers, which was in fact Nightingale’s mission.
One children’s book gives such fake details as that Seacole ran a hospital alongside the shop and restaurant, where she ‘nursed the soldiers from 5am until midday’ and then to go onto the battlefield (Emma Lynch, The Life of Mary Seacole, Heinemann, 2006). Another has her taking teams of nurses onto the battlefield with her, after she had been rejected from nursing ‘because of her race’ (Kay Barnham, Florence Nightingale: The Lady of the Lamp, White-Thomson 2002).
In fact Seacole was present at only three battles, the Redan assaults on June 18th and September 8th, 1855 and Tchernaya on August 16th. The three major battles took place in the autumn of 1854, before she left London: the Alma on September 20th,, Balaclava on October 25th and Inkermann on November 5th 1854. Even those battles were only a day long; the ones Seacole viewed were over in hours. Prior to Redan she had got a brief glimpse of action when, on horseback, she accompanied Omar Pasha and some Turks to a Russian outpost. She gave no further details as to what happened in the battle, but judged the experience ‘pleasant enough’ and even the source of ‘strange excitement’ (p.147).
Visitors and officers’ wives watched the (failed) assault on the Redan from nearby Cathcart’s Hill. Seacole described getting wind of the first assault the day before and preparing for it before daybreak: ‘We were all busily occupied in cutting bread and cheese and sandwiches, packing up fowls, tongues and ham, wine and spirits.’ These were loaded on two mules, ‘in charge of my steadiest lad’. She herself led the way on horseback, with a bag of lint, bandages, needles, thread and medicines. The British soon retreated, so that freed-up officers became customers for her refreshments. She then made her way to the temporary hospital (set up by the army), where she assisted with the wounded waiting for admission. There, her memoir states, she bound up wounds and gave cooling drinks. The mules and the steady lad, meanwhile, had moved off. After she found them and whipped the negligent boy she saw some more wounded, ‘with whom I left refreshments’ (p.158).
All this shows Seacole to have been spunky, generous and worthy of praise. But it does not demonstrate that she worked as a nurse or that her actions saved thousands of lives. Neither does it confirm her acceptance as a professional colleague by doctors, as some have claimed. Her earlier ‘tea and lemonade’ gifts, she herself noted, were ‘all the doctors would allow me to give to the wounded’ (p.101).
In the Crimea, Seacole ran a business, as she had throughout her life. Like her Jamaican mother, she owned and operated a boarding house in Kingston, mainly for army and navy officers and their wives. Neither ran an invalid hospital nor nursing station, as is often stated. After she married Edwin Horatio Seacole in 1836 the two ran a store together. On an earlier visit to Britain she had earned her living by selling Jamaican preserves and pickles (p.3); while travelling in the Bahamas she acquired shells and shell work to sell back in Jamaica (p.5).

A doctress

In the Crimea, as in the Caribbean, she pursued her vocation as a ‘doctress’, or traditional Creole herbalist, alongside her business. She charged for her remedies, but gave them free to those unable to pay. In Panama, where she lived for over two years, she first helped her brother run his hotel, then opened her own shop. She faced a cholera epidemic in a small outpost where there was no doctor. She claimed some cures for her treatments, but also ‘lamentable blunders’ and admitted that she shuddered when she thought of some of those cures she had tried for cholera (p.31). She describes adding ‘sugar of lead,’ the toxic lead acetate, to a cholera remedy to make it work, a point that is not mentioned by her present-day supporters. In fact we know nothing of the precise ingredients of her cures, for she left no details. Claims such as those made in the film, Mary Seacole: A Hidden History, that Seacole functioned not only as a nurse, but as a ‘very good doctor’ and a ‘very intelligent pharmacist far in advance of British medicine’ are sheer speculation.
In the Crimean War Seacole’s ‘patients’ were all walk-ins. The army sent its most serious cases to the general hospitals, mostly under Nightingale, the less serious to regimental hospitals. Men with lesser ailments such as headaches and stomach complaints took themselves to the British Hotel. Seacole describes leaving her food preparations in the kitchen to serve ‘patients’ in the store (p.125). Unlike any hospital, the British Hotel closed nightly at 8pm and all day on Sunday (p.145).
Seacole’s business did well for a year but went bankrupt when a peace treaty was signed on March 30th, 1856 and the British Army began to depart. Seacole had laid in expensive provisions which could be sold for only a fraction of their outlay. She described taking a hammer to cases of red wine, rather than let them be taken by the Russians (p.196). After the war friends raised funds to enable her to start another business and she briefly opened a store in Aldershot. However it, too, failed. Later a trust fund was raised for her so that she could live at ease – she returned to Jamaica, before finally settling in England in 1865. Consistent with her census entry shortly before her death, showing that she lived on independent means, her will shows her to have died prosperous.
The Seacole campaign has not only changed her occupation, but her race. She was three-quarters white and proud of her ‘Scotch blood’ (p.1). She had nothing good to say about her African/Creole heritage, but made a point of distancing herself from the ‘lazy Creole’ image (p.2). Seacole refers to ‘Blacks’, ‘negroes’ and ‘niggers’, throughout her memoir, but she never uses any such word for herself. She employed a black maid and the above-mentioned ‘good for nothing black cooks’. In her own words: ‘I am only a little brown – a few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all admire so much.’ (p.4)
Seacole supporters have Nightingale living a life of safety at her hospital in Turkey, far from the battlefield. True, she and her nurses were 300 miles away, across the Bosphorus from Istanbul (then Constantinople), at the hospitals to which the British Army sent them. But these were dangerous places and many doctors and nurses died of disease. Nightingale herself nearly succumbed to ‘Crimean fever’, probably brucellosis, a disease not identified until the 1880s.
Her barrack hospital at Scutari was then the largest in the world, but it was never intended to be a hospital and lacked such basic necessities as running water, functioning toilets, laundry and operating theatres. Its sewers and drains were grossly defective, faults reported by doctors months before Nightingale arrived. But renovations were not started until March 1855, with the arrival of a sanitary commission headed by Dr John Sutherland (1808-91) with Robert Rawlinson (1810-98), a leading civil engineer and water expert, and James Newlands (1813-71), the pioneering borough engineer of Liverpool, who supervised the clean up. Both Sutherland and Rawlinson subsequently became Nightingale’s close collaborators.
Nightingale’s hospital had a high death rate, but so did all the army general hospitals. Contrary to statements by Hugh Small, who did not use the full mortality statistics available in Avenging Angel, the highest death rate was at Kulali and reported as such by Dr Sutherland – a hospital not under Nightingale’s supervision but nursed by the Irish Sisters of Mercy. They, no more than Nightingale, should be held responsible for its death rates, for they, too, were working where they were sent and should hardly be blamed for the state of the sewers and drains. Nearly half the deaths from disease in those hospitals were due to bowel diseases.
Frequently unrecognised is the dirty work Nightingale took on as a result of those defective sanitary arrangements. Her own report notes the flowing faeces on the floor and the pertinent fact that the men generally had no shoes or slippers. Tubs were provided in the wards for those who could not walk to the toilet areas. Nightingale herself organised the orderlies in the morning to remove the excreta. But this ‘underside of history’ is simply ignored in both the book and film coverage of the war.
Nightingale’s work during the war included hands-on nursing, the management of nursing at several hospitals and writing to remonstrate with officials back in England on the desperate conditions. She set up new systems, established laundries and kitchens, reducing cross-infection and improving nutrition. She did much to make the life of the ordinary soldier better, including establishing coffee and reading rooms for those convalescing after treatment. She also wrote to families informing them of the deaths of loved ones. She did not save thousands of lives during the war but her research and recommendations after it saved many more. The honour of actually reducing death rates at the war hospitals must go primarily to the sanitary commission and also to the supply commission, headed by Sir John McNeill, another Nightingale ally, which made the crucial improvements in nutrition, clothing and shelter.

Making a difference

The sheer scale of the death rates of the Crimean War seems to have escaped the notice of many commentators: 22.7 per cent of the troops sent by the British Army died, 30.7 per cent of the French army. Firm data is lacking for the Russians (and the Turks) but the figure is probably higher. By comparison, the death rate in the US army during the Vietnam War was 2.3 per cent.
The French were the instigators of the Crimean War, sent more troops and were better prepared than the British. Their death rates were lower in the first year. But the British government learned from the commissions it sent out and made enormous changes. British death rates fell dramatically, from 23 per cent in the first winter to 2.5 per cent in the second – no greater than deaths among soldiers in peacetime barracks in London, as Nightingale proudly showed in a chart. In contrast, the French (lower) 11 per cent death rate in the first winter, rose to 20 per cent in the second winter. Since the French were late in publishing their statistics, neither Nightingale nor the royal commission could use them for comparison. However French doctors themselves credited the British reforms for their superior performance. Once they were properly cleansed and functioning Nightingale was proud of the Crimean hospitals. In her own charts she separated the two periods, before and after the sanitary and supply commissions, to emphasise the crucial role they played in reducing mortality.
Her analysis of what went wrong was widely accepted and led to major changes to health care in the British Army. The ‘Nightingale Fund’ raised in her honour for that work paid for the training school at St Thomas’, which led to raising nursing to the level of a profession throughout much of the world. Her experience of the war, and her reputation and research as a result of it, grounded all the social and public health work she did for the rest of her life. Her vision for health reform included bold statements, such as the belief that the poor should receive as good quality hospital care as private patients and warnings as to the dangers of hospital acquired infections. Nightingale, in short, is no mere historical figure. Her lamp should not be retired but shone brightly onto the hospital and health care problems of today.
Lynn McDonald is Emerita Professor of Sociology at the University of Guelph, Canada and author of The Early Origins of the Social Sciences (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 1993)

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The Secret People

    SMILE at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.
    For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
    There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
    There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
    There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
    There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
    You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
    Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet. 
     
     
     
    The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.
    We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.
    The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;
    There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.
    And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,
    And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.
    They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind.
    Till there was not bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.
    The inns of God where no main paid, that were the wall of the weak,
    The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak. 
     
     
    And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King:
    He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
    The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits,
    And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots,
    We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
    And some were pure and some were vile, but none took heed of us.
    We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
    And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale. 
     
     
     
    A war that we understood not came over the world and woke
    Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke.
    They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign:
    And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and never scorned us again.
    Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then;
    Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that were were men.
    In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albeura plains,
    We did and died like lions, to keep ouselves in chains.
    We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not
    The strange face of the Frenchman who know for what they fought,
    And the man who seemed to be more than man we strained against and broke;
    And we broke our own right with him. And still we never spoke.
     
     
    Our patch of glory ended; we never heard guns again.
    But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain.
    He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew,
    He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo.
    Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house,
    Come back in shining shapes at last to spil his last carouse:
    We only know the last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea,
    And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we. 
     
     
    They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
    Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
    They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
    They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
    And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
    Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs. 
     
     
    We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
    Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
    It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
    Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst.
    It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
    God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
    But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
    Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
    G. K. Chesterton

Friday, September 14, 2012

Cairo, Islamabad or Delhi ?   No, this is London right now !

Muslims protest outside US Embassy this afternoon Friday 14th.September and burn US flag.

Story developing......................

More here;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203381/Hate-preacher-Anjem-Choudary-leads-U-S-flag-burning-protest-outside-London-embassy-turmoil-Islam-film-hits-UK.html

Monday, September 10, 2012

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Exclusive - U.S. groups helped fund Dutch anti-Islam politician Wilders





(Reuters) - Anti-Islam groups in America have provided financial support to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner who is seeking re-election to the Dutch parliament this week.
While this is not illegal in the Netherlands, it sheds light on the international connections of Wilders, whose Freedom Party is the least transparent Dutch parliamentary group and a rallying point for Europe's far right.
Wilders' party is self-funded, unlike other Dutch parties that are subsidised by the government. It does not, therefore, have to meet the same disclosure requirements.

Groups in America seeking to counter Islamic influence in the West say they funded police protection and paid legal costs for Wilders whose party is polling in fourth place before the Sept 12 election.
Wilders' ideas - calling for a total halt to non-Western immigration and bans on Muslim headscarves and the construction of mosques - have struck a chord in mainstream politics beyond the Netherlands. France banned clothing that covers the face in April 2011 and Belgium followed suit in July of the same year. Switzerland barred the construction of new minarets following a referendum in 2009.
The Middle East Forum, a pro-Israeli think tank based in Philadelphia, funded Wilders' legal defence in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of inciting racial hatred, its director Daniel Pipes said. The Middle East Forum has a stated goal, according to its website, of protecting the "freedom of public speech of anti-Islamist authors, promoting American interests in the Middle East and protecting the constitutional order from Middle Eastern threats". It sent money directly to Wilders' lawyer via its Legal Project, Pipes said.

Represented by Dutch criminal lawyer Bram Moscowitz, Wilders successfully defended himself against the charges, which were brought by prosecutors in Amsterdam on behalf of groups representing minorities from Turkey, Morocco and other countries with Muslim populations. The case heard in October 2010 was filed in response to Wilders' comments in the Dutch media about Muslims and his film "Fitna", which interlays images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Koran and prompted protests by Muslims in Islamic countries worldwide. The court found he had stayed within the limits of free speech.
Pipes declined to say how much his group paid for Wilders' defence.
Moscowitz declined to discuss payments for Wilder's defence citing client confidentiality.
Wilders said in an emailed statement that his legal expenses were paid for with the help of voluntary donations from defenders of freedom of speech. "I do not answer questions of who they are and what they have paid. This could jeopardize their safety," Wilders said.
VISITS TO THE UNITED STATES
Wilders, 49, became a member of Dutch parliament in 2006, campaigning against Islam, which he calls a threat to Dutch culture and Western values. He called Islam a violent political ideology and vowed never to enter a mosque, "not in 100,000 years". His' party gained 24 seats in the 150-seat lower house in June 2010.
He has been under 24-hour security for eight years after receiving death threats from radical Muslim groups in the Netherlands and abroad. Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik cited anti-Islamic comments by Wilders in an online manifesto that sought to justify his crimes. Wilders has denounced Breivik and his actions.
David Horowitz, who runs a network of Los Angeles-based conservative groups and a website called FrontPage magazine, said he paid Wilders fees for making two speeches, security costs during student protests and overnight accommodation for his Dutch bodyguards during a 2009 U.S. trip.
Horowitz said he paid Wilders for one speech in Los Angeles and one at Temple University in Philadelphia. He declined to specify the amounts, but said that Wilders had received "a good fee." When Wilders' Philadelphia appearance sparked student protests, Horowitz said, he paid a special security fee of about $1,500 to the Philadelphia police department. Horowitz said he also paid for overnight accommodation for four or five Dutch government bodyguards accompanying Wilders on the trip.
Wilders said in response: "I am frequently asked to speak abroad. Whenever possible I accept these invitations. I never ask for a fee. However, sometimes the travel and accommodation expenses are paid. My personal security is always paid for by the Dutch government."
Pipes and Horowitz denied funding Wilders' political activities in Holland. Both run non-profit, tax exempt research and policy organizations which, under U.S. tax laws, are forbidden from giving direct financial backing to any political candidate or party. U.S. law does allow such groups to support policy debates financially.
During Wilders' visit to Los Angeles, where Horowitz runs an organization called the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Horowitz said he organised an event at which Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed were auctioned. He said he did not remember how much money this event raised or what happened to the proceeds.
Horowitz agreed with the Dutchman's repeated, public comparison of the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Comparing the two works was a "fair analogy," Horowitz said. He said Wilders was "fighting the good fight."
Horowitz said U.S. backers helped Wilders raise money to pay legal fees to fight a ban from visiting Britain in 2009, where he planned to screen Fitna. The British government said at the time: "The Government opposes extremism in all its forms. The decision to refuse Wilders admission was taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence."
Wilders won an appeal in the British courts in October 2009 when the ban was overturned.
Wilders has other supporters in the United States, such as Pamela Geller, who runs Stop Islamization of America and has backed Wilders in public statements. Geller remains a supporter. She says she does not provide Wilders with financial assistance.
Wilders has not revealed how his political activities are paid for. Freedom Party officials have said he has no personal funds and almost entirely relies on foreign donations. Like other Dutch political parties, members of parliament for the Freedom Party have been allocated 165,000 euros ($211,200) per year for expenses. Former Freedom Party officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the money, nearly 4 million euros per year, went to the party and has not been accounted for.
Wilders said in his emailed response that former Freedom Party officials making such allegations were bitter and spiteful. "These people have other motives than telling the truth," he said.
"Our party has a sixty euro annual budget. The rumours about millions of euros in sponsoring are complete nonsense. A Freedom Party-related foundation receives donations from Dutch or foreign sources, but these are modest amounts of money and certainly never millions," it continued.
The Dutch government turned down requests for additional information about Freedom Party finances. "I do not possess relevant information or documents" about the Freedom party finances or campaign contributions because the party does not receive subsidies, Dutch Minister for Internal Affairs Liesbeth Spies said in a written response.
NWN: And those funding these anti-muslim groups would be ?  A quick check of their names on Google tells us they are invariably another minority group. Surprise surprise !!!

Thursday, September 06, 2012

.NF Deputy Chairman Kevin Bryan threatens violence at John Tyndall memorial meeting


A disgraceful threat posted by the National Fronts Deputy Chairman Kevin Bryan has been posted on the disgusting VNN forum. Kevin Bryan uses the name sunwheel88 on that forum.

To threaten, or incite violence, at a meeting to remember the late great John Tyndall is obscene and despicable.

Bryan should be expelled from the National Front for this post and trying to damage the John Tyndall memorial meeting which is due to be held in early October.

 http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=145555&page=2


Old 11 Hours Ago   #33
Junior Member

Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 152
Default

I hear there are several nationalists going along to have a quiet word with Pete Barker at the meeting.
This is Petes annual contribution to the cause of saving our nation, a far from dynamic speech about his failings in nationalism.
I would think there are several on here who would like to say hello, hey FYC!

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

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World's richest woman calls for Australian workers to be paid $2 a day to compete with companies hiring cheap African staff

  • Mining boss Gina Rinehart says Australian labour is becoming too costly
  • Comments received criticism by PM Julia Gillard who insists cheap labour is 'not the Australian way'

The richest woman in the world warned her fellow countrymen they are becoming too expensive to employ.
Mining tycoon Gina Rinehart said it is becoming too costly for multinational companies who could hire workers for two dollars a day in Africa.
The 58-year-old said in a video address yesterday that businesses are forced to look to other nations as the price for Australian labour is too high, something which was immediately criticised by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Speaking from the hart: Gina Rinehart served up some harsh critique of the Australian government in her ten-minute long video address to the Sydney Mining Club
Speaking from the hart: Gina Rinehart served up some harsh critique of the Australian government in her ten-minute long video address to the Sydney Mining Club
In her ten-minute long video for the Sydney Mining Club, Gina Rinehart said Australia must become more competitive.
Ms Rinehart, head of resources giant Hancock Prospecting, blamed the government's mining and carbon taxes, red tape and high wages for the economy's 'sluggish' performance.
 
‘The evidence is unarguable, Australia is indeed becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business,’ she said.
‘Furthermore, Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future.’

Too expensive: Ms Rinehart said she was concerned about Australian jobs when African workers were available at a much cheaper cost
Too expensive: Ms Rinehart said she was concerned about Australian jobs when African workers were available at a much cheaper cost
Richest in the world: Gina pictured in 1982 with her father Lang Hancock whose empire she inherited, making her the richest woman in the world
Richest in the world: Gina pictured in 1982 with her father Lang Hancock whose empire she inherited, making her the richest woman in the world
Gina Rinehart is not averse to controversial statements. As recently as last week, she hit the headlines when she told Australians to ‘spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working’.
Retort: Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard hit back at Ms Rinehart's comments
Retort: Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard hit back at Ms Rinehart's comments
Her comments on Wednesday drew immediate criticism from Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
‘It's not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day.
‘We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions.’
Ms Rinehart also attacked the Australian government, accusing them of not being competitive enough on the international markets, and added: ‘If we competed at the Olympic Games as sluggishly as we compete economically there would be an outcry.’
Her outburst came a day after iron ore giant Fortescue announced it would defer planned developments.
Last month BHP Billiton shelved its multi-billion dollar expansion of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.
Australian mining projects have faced headwinds from depressed conditions in Europe and the United States, softening growth in China and increased competition from other producers as well as falling commodity prices.
The price of iron ore, a crucial ingredient in steelmaking, has fallen dramatically in the past two months as the Chinese economy slows, while the price of coal, another major Australian export, has also dropped sharply.
Prime Minister Gillard insisted that Australia would continue to be competitive in mining.
'We're going to compete on our great mineral deposits, our application of technology and high skills to the task. We mine differently than in other countries,' she said.