To comment, please open your gmail account, email me at juliedufresne@xtra.co.nz or use Facebook, Messenger or Twitter. Scroll down for other comments.
Just how far can this woman go?
Just as far as New Zealand voters will let her.
Strange to say, it was her own lockdown restrictions - not 'COVID-19 restrictions' as her tame msm persist in calling them - which postponed the event twice, so that she could seize the moment of unveiling a memorial plaque at the mosque just four weeks out from the election. And Imam Gamal Fouda seized the moment too, and Ardern milked it for all it was worth.
"Freedom of speech becomes hate speech," (the Imam) said at the unveiling. "Hate turns into hate crime as we have seen at the 15th of March."
Now, as a Muslim the Imam knows all about free speech and how it should be done away with. Remember the fatwa against The Satanic Verses?
In 2012, leaders of the member states of the world's largest Islamic organization, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, called for a categorical ban in non-Islamic countries on anything that could be deemed denigration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. And an Austrian woman's 2011 conviction for "disparagement of religious precepts" has been upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.
She'd held “seminars” presenting her view - a commonly recognised belief -that Muhammad was indeed a child molester. (Dominant Islamic traditions hold that Muhammad’s third wife, Aisha, was 6 at the time of their marriage and 9 at its consummation. Muhammad was in his early 50s.) For stating that belief, she had to cough up 480 euros or spend 60 days in the slammer.
There's no specific hate speech law in New Zealand.
Not yet, but give this totalitarian government time and opportunity and there will be.
The Human Rights Act covers it, but only on the grounds of colour, race or ethnicity - not religion. Imam Fouda wants to see a new law differentiating between hate speech and free speech.
Labour had promised change this term but failed, but on Thursday renewed its pledge to make it happen.
"We haven't been able to deliver that last term but my intention would be, if we're able to form Government, that we would," Ardern said.
I think the imam meant to say that freedom of speech can become hate speech, and hate can turn into hate crime. As it always has and always will. Horrible as it is, that's human nature. But you can't legislate against feelings. People just have them; it's what they do about their feelings that may require legislation, not the feelings themselves. And as a Muslim who's been in NZ only 16 years, the Imam might not know that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".
I'll say this much for Winston Peters: he's challenging Ardern to produce a law that differentiates between hate speech and free speech. Injustice Minister Andrew Little-by-little has been working on it since March ...
"I'd like to see a new law in New Zealand and I think New Zealand has seen a lot and we went through a lot. The blood of those people shouldn't be forgotten," (the Imam) said.
No, it shouldn't - but banging up Kiwis for speaking freely is not the way to remind us about it.
Labour had promised change this term but failed, but on Thursday renewed its pledge to make it happen. "We haven't been able to deliver that last term but my intention would be, if we're able to form Government, that we would," Ardern said.
"Religion hasn't been included in that, my view is that does need to change.
A clamp down on hate speech definitely wouldn't go ahead under National and ACT. "I believe ultimately in freedom of speech with certain limitations that we've all accepted," said National leader Judith Collins.
"The last thing New Zealand needs is a Government department deciding what you can and can't say," said ACT leader David Seymour.
No, that's the second-to-last thing, Mr Seymour. The last thing NZ needs is a Labour Government. And the very last thing NZ needs is a Labour/Act coalition.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-labour-wouldn-t-stop-with-just-religion-in-hate-speech-crackdown.html
New Conservative leader Leighton Baker warns that the first freedom society loses is its freedom of speech. “The only real definition of hate speech is inciting someone to commit an act of violence, and we have laws to protect against this now.
“We must be able to discuss ideas in a free and democratic society”, Baker said.
https://cathnews.co.nz/2020/09/24/hate-speech/
A previous attack on free speech snuck up on us way back in March - strange to say, coincident with the first lockdowns - when the world’s top technology and internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, all ganged up to prevent 'the spread of misinformation' about COVID-19.
In his August 20 newsletter, The Verge reporter Casey Newton identifies three proposals to combat COVID-19 misinformation from the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).
“Virality circuit breakers” would “detect, label, suspend algorithmic amplification” on posts determined to contain “coronavirus mis/disinformation”; “scan-and-suggest features” would “scan draft posts, detect drafts discussing the coronavirus, and suggest quality information to users or provide them cues” about bad information; and “subject matter context additions” would “embed quality information and relevant fact checks around posts on coronavirus topics.”
Now, who'd trust Facebook and their crony companies to discern just what is 'quality information'? Specially as they cite the widely discredited WHO (World Health Organisation) as 'authoritative'? Who would trust them to limit their electronic eavesdropping to coronavirus data?
The mania for muzzling is spreading from the civic square to the Catholic Church: in the US last week, hundreds of faithful Catholics came together to pray the Rosary on Sunday for Fr. James Altman, who has been censured by his bishop, +William Callahan of La Crosse Wisconsin (a Democrat stronghold) and threatened with canonical penalties for his viral video “You Cannot Be A Faithful Catholic and a Democrat.” Fr. James Altman has become a social media phenomenon and is now a main stream media story. https://www.complicitclergy.com/publication/complicit-clergy/
Fr. Altier had suggested people are being lied to about the pandemic. He referred to the first reading for the Mass on Sept 5, where God appoints the prophet Ezekiel as "the watchman for the house of Israel." Fr Altier explained that, in the spirit of that scripture, he was speaking as "watchman for the people at St. Raphael (his parish)," and in that spirit, he is commanded by God to speak the truth.
The truth Altier felt called to disseminate pertained to the litany of lies that has been spread about the pandemic. "We have been lied to in a big way," he warned. "I want to tell you the truth because that's what God is going to hold me responsible for." https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/another-priest-silenced
Attaboy, Father Altier! He and Fr Altman are men of prophetic strength, sent by God to preach the Faith and persecuted for it because they are hated by the world.
"If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. ... If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (Jn 15:18,19, 20b).
It's not just on the national or international levels that our freedom of speech is threatened.
- In my little Catholic country parish I was first forbidden to distribute Family First information on the referenda in the church foyer ("too political", said the PP)
- I was then forbidden to distribute it on the footpath outside (someone had got 'upset')
- In my annual 'begging letter' to raise funds for a charity all references to the Blessed Virgin Maryhad to be deleted because the Protestant committee objected
- The Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel to which I belong as a fully-professed Lay Carmelite has threatened me, for the second time, with dismissal from the Order unless I delete the adjective 'Carmelite' from the masthead of this blog. They have some grounds for grievance - I hadn't properly read the Statutes which state Carmelites are not permitted to identify themselves publicly with the order.
Because I "do not have the permission from the Provincial Delegate of the Lay Carmelite Council" I cannot publicly write using the Carmelite name or identify myself as a member of the Carmelite Order. "By calling your blog "Carmelite Canto Fermo" the inference (sic) is that your writings have the authority of the Carmelite Order, which your writings do not. They state that my views "are not in communion with Pope Francis and the magisterium".
Surely it's not possible to hold views that are “in communion with Pope Francis and the magisterium”. That seems to me to be an oxymoron. I do not oppose Pope Francis; I oppose his statements and opinions which are not in accord with the magisterium of the Church.
But as apparently my views are causing "great sadness to the wider Carmelite Order and community in the world", and having belated regard to the Statutes I apologise for misappropriating the adjective 'Carmelite' and will delete it from the masthead of this blog for as long as I remain a member of the Order.
These are ominous straws in a stifling wind we New Zealanders ourselves have sown, with our "impiety and idolatry" as the Douay Rheims Bible puts it, in the context of the Israelites in the book of Osee (Hosea), and which with Election 2020 may become the whirlwind we reap.
"There is no standing stalk in it, the bud shall yield no meal; and if it should yield, strangers shall eat it. Israel is swallowed up: now is he become among the nations like an unclean vessel."
(Osee (Hosea) 8: 7,8)
It'd seem leaving the Order might be a good idea.
ReplyDelete