from Tales from the Trail:
Romney on his work as a Mormon missionary: “We didn’t convert one person”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday, where co-host Joe Scarborough asked him about his experience as a Mormon missionary in France in the 1960s. "Talk about your rejections as a missionary knocking on door, after door, after door in a hostile environment," Scarborough asked.
Romney recalled five months he spent in one French city, where he said near-constant brush-offs built his resilience:
"We knocked on doors from morning until quite late in the evening," he said. "We didn't convert one person in five months. So, you understand the rejection, you know that's a pretty high level of rejection and you get used to it. You say, 'okay, what do I believe, what's important to me,' and you don't measure yourself and your success by how other people react, but instead by how you're doing and how you feel about the things you care about."
Watch the clip below (Romney speaks about his experience as a missionary starting at the 2:00 mark):
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Losers all around in French Muslim council election
Even the winner risks ending up among the losers in France’s Muslim council election on Sunday as the organisation meant to represent Islam here is torn apart by rivalries, boycotts and bitter attacks. Incumbent Mohammed Moussaoui will be returned as head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), but a boycott by the two rival Muslim federations competing with his Rally of French Muslims (RMF) group makes the victory a hollow one.
The campaign has also fuelled the ethnic tensions crippling French Islam, which is split among factions backed by Algeria, Morocco and Turkey and others who oppose any meddling from the Muslim countries that they or their forefathers left behind.
“This CFCM will start off an empty shell and continue to run on empty,” Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon, told Lyon Capitale magazine after announcing he was boycotting the election. “It risks dying a quiet death.”
The curious voting method used, which allocates electoral college delegates to each federation according to the total floor space of its mosques around the country, was the reason Moussaoui’s rivals gave for the boycott.
“Faith has never been measured by the square metre,” declared Dalil Boubakeur, leader of the Algerian-backed Grand Mosque of Paris (GMP) federation and head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) from its start in 2003 until 2008. The third major federation, the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, urged a delay in the vote until the system could be reformed. But the government insisted it go ahead, so they also pulled out.
The broader reason for the boycott is that French Muslims of Moroccan origin, although fewer than those with an Algerian background, are generally more devout and — with encouragement from Rabat and Moussaoui’s RMF — are building more mosques.
Sleepy French hamlet seen at threat from Apocalypse sects
(Pic de Bugarach, 14 November 2007/Thierry Strub)
The tiny southern French hamlet of Bugarach has drawn scrutiny from a government sect watchdog over droves of visitors who believe it is the only place in the world that will survive a 2012 Apocalypse. A report by the watchdog, Miviludes, published Wednesday said the picturesque village near Carcassonne should be monitored in the run-up to December 21, 2012, when many believe the world will end according to an ancient Mayan prophecy.
Miviludes was set up in 2002 to track the activity of sects, after a law passed the previous year made it an offence to abuse vulnerable people using heavy pressure techniques, meaning sects can be outlawed if there is evidence of fraud or abuse.
Surrounded in legend for centuries, Bugarach and its rocky outcrop, the Pic de Bugarach, have attracted an influx of New Age visitors in recent months, pushing up property prices but also raising the threat of financial scams and psychological manipulation, Miviludes said in its report. “I think we need to be careful. We shouldn’t get paranoid, but when you see what happened at Waco in the United States, we know this kind of thinking can influence vulnerable people,” Miviludes president Georges Fenech told Reuters.
Waco, Texas, made headlines in 1993 when federal agents raided the headquarters of the Branch Davidian movement, led by David Koresh, leading to a 50-day siege. The building was burned down when agents eventually tried to force their way in, leaving some 80 people dead.
Bugarach, with a population of just 200, has long been considered magical, partly due to what locals claim is an “upside-down mountain” where the top layers of rock are older than the lower ones. The Internet is awash with myths about the place — that the mountain is surrounded by a magnetic force, that it is the site of a concealed alien base, or even that it contains an underground access to another world. And now many have seized on it as the ultimate refuge with Doomsday rapidly approaching.
Read the full story by Vicky Buffery here. For the full report in French, click here.
Witch hunt or wise move? Cannes ponders expulsion over Nazi “joke”
Witch hunt or wise decision? That was the question on the lips of movie-goers, critics and executives at the Cannes film festival after the sudden expulsion of Danish director Lars Von Trier. The annual cinema showcase is the world’s biggest and well-known as a haven for provocative voices like Von Trier’s. But organizers clearly decided the 55-year-old director had overstepped the mark when he jokingly told the world press on Wednesday that he was a Nazi who sympathized with Hitler.
And while the festival cracked down on Von Trier within 24 hours, revoking his accreditation, reaction was more divided from the crowd on the famous palm-lined Riviera waterfront. “I’m against the decision. Everyone here is on two hours’ sleep and anyone can say something stupid at a press conference. He apologized and that was enough,” said 20-something filmmaker Christophe Monsourian.
At Wednesday’s bizarre press conference, Von Trier, in Cannes to talk about his movie “Melancholia,” launched into a rambling monologue about his Jewish/German heritage before making the remarks that forced his exit. He jokingly said he was a Nazi, sympathized with Hitler “a little bit,” deemed Israel a “pain in the ass” and muttered the phrase “the final solution for journalists.”
Cannes normally thrives on controversy and scandal, as when Von Trier brought his ultra-violent, sexually explicit “Antichrist” to the festival two years ago that prompted jeers at the press screening.
Harun Yahya’s Muslim creationists tour France denouncing Darwin
France’s staunchly secularist educational establishment was shocked four years ago when schools around the country suddenly began receiving free copies of a richly illustrated Muslim creationist book entitled the “Atlas of Creation.” The book by Istanbul preacher and publisher Harun Yahya had come out in Turkey the year earlier. After the French Education Ministry warned teachers not to use it and held a seminar on how to deal with creationist pupils, the issue dropped out of the public discussion. But the Harun Yahya group has been spreading its view in France and is now holding a series of conferences on them. Here is my feature after visiting one of the first meetings in the current series:
AUBERVILLIERS, France (Reuters) – Four years after they first frightened France, Muslim creationists are back touring the country preaching against evolution and claiming the Koran predicted many modern scientific discoveries.
Followers of Harun Yahya, a well-financed Turkish publisher of popular Islamic books, held four conferences at Muslim centers in the Paris area at the weekend with more scheduled in six other cities.
At a Muslim junior high school in this north Paris suburb, about 100 pupils — boys seated on the right, girls on the left — listened as two Turks from Harun Yahya’s headquarters in Istanbul denounced evolution as a theory Muslims should shun.
“We didn’t descend from the apes,” lecturer Ali Sadun told the giggling youngsters. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he said, was “the scientific basis to defend atheism.”
Harun Yahya, one of the most prolific publishers in the Muslim world, gave proudly secularist France a scare in January 2007 by mass-mailing thousands of free copies of his “Atlas of Creation” to schools and libraries across the country.
The Education Ministry quickly ordered headmasters to seize and hide copies of the large format book that, over 768 pages of glossy photographs and easy-to-read text, argues that all living things were created by God exactly as they are formed today.
Freudian take on Vatican life makes Cannes film festival smile
The Vatican got a dose of Freudian analysis at Cannes on Friday with “Habemus Papam,” a gentle Italian comedy about a newly elected pope who gets cold feet when the weight of his responsibility dawns on him. The film by Italian director Nanni Moretti drew laughter and healthy applause from critics on day three of the Cannes film festival, where the official selection of movies has so far leaned in the direction of dark realism and social commentary.
Farcical and humane, Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) casts wide open the door of the notoriously secretive Holy See, as red-robed cardinals converge in a locked chamber to elect a pope under the expectant gaze of millions of Catholics. When the votes are counted and white smoke billows from the Vatican’s dome, the pope-elect played by French actor Michel Piccoli, 85, is led to a balcony to address the faithful — only to freeze up before his momentous task, paralyzed by anxiety.
“The image that struck me the most was that of a newly elected pope a few meters from the (Vatican’s) balcony, unable to advance,” Piccoli told journalists after the screening. “The role reinforced my conviction to dare to talk about one’s anxieties — this pope is an exceptional man.”
Panicked by the break in protocol, Vatican officials take the unorthodox step of bringing in Rome’s top psychiatrist, played by Moretti himself, to explore the pope’s psyche before a room full of cardinals in one of the movie’s funniest scenes.
Vandalism and threats greet “Piss Christ” photograph in France
A controversial photograph of a crucifix submerged in the urine of New York artist Andres Serrano has been vandalized during an exhibit in Avignon and the museum’s employees have received death threats.
“Piss Christ” — a photograph that sparked an uproar when first exhibited in the United States in 1989 — was damaged Sunday “with the help of a hammer and an object like a screwdriver or pickaxe,” said the Collection Lambert, a contemporary art museum in France’s southwestern city known for its theater festival.
Moreover, the three vandals physically threatened three museum guards before fleeing, the museum said in a statement. A second photograph, “The Church,” which depicts the torso of a nun with her hands in her lap, was similarly vandalized. The museum, which shut its doors immediately after the incident, said it would reopen on Tuesday and display the damaged works “so the public can appreciate for themselves the violence of the acts.”
“Several people have called saying, ‘If you open, you’re dead,’” one museum worker told Reuters. “We’re nervous and we have asked for protection from the police.”
On Saturday, the museum was forced to close after a demonstration against the artist’s work drew some 800 protesters . The bishop of Avignon had earlier demanded that the museum remove the controversial photograph.
Most recently, several of Serrano’s works were vandalized in 2007 during an exhibit at a Swedish art gallery. In 1997, an Australian art gallery in Melbourne closed the exhibition after the photograph “Piss Christ” was attacked by a youth wielding a hammer.
What do you think about this? Are there parallels to the issue of blasphemy in Islam? What should civilian authorities do in such cases?
People are threatening violence over a picture… The parallels are pretty clear.
What should the authorities do? Not to state the obvious, but they should uphold the law. Both the artist and the gallery are exercising their rights to free speech, and deserve protection.
If you don’t like Serrano’s works, then exercise your own right to free speech through non-violent protest. The authorities will be there to protect you. Just leave the pickaxe at home
Turkish PM raps France for face veil ban, militants online urge punishment for Paris
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused France of violating the freedom of religion on Wednesday after Paris began enforcing a law barring Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public. He told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that Turkey was the only Muslim country that had copied the French law on secularism, or separating church and state.
“It’s quite ironic to see that secularism is today under debate in Europe and is undermining certain freedoms,” he said. “Today in France, there is no respect for individual religious freedom,” he said. The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe monitors human rights across the continent. Read the full story here.
Meanwhile, the face veil ban has triggered calls on militant online forums for armed retaliation against the country, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring service said on Wednesday. Some contributors to the messages seen on the password-protected, invitation-only militant chatrooms this week called on al Qaeda’s North Africa arm to “deter” France by staging armed attacks, the SITE service said.
The anonymous threats, presented by the sites as comments by individuals, carry none of the weight of published audio or video statements by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda or similar established armed groups seeking to attack Western targets. But Western security officials are concerned that sermons, discussions and videos published on online forums and social networking sites are increasingly used by militants to encourage sympathisers to attempt attacks.
“Sarkozy, leave our sisters alone or we will truly be obligated to act on our words,” wrote one participant with the online identity of “Jabeen of Abdullah Azzam”, writing on the Arabic-language Shumukh al-Islam forum, SITE reported. “Declare a war against crusader France!” wrote “al-katebat al-khdra” (the green battalion) on Shumukh al-Islam. “France with such action brought destruction and woes on itself.”
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France starts ban on full-face veil, factbox on veils in Europe
France’s ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force on Monday, making anyone wearing the Muslim niqab or burqa in public liable to a fine of 150 euros or lessons in French citizenship.
Mainstream Muslim groups, which had a six-month grace period after the law was passed to explain it to their supporters, opted not to protest at its entry into force. “We’ve already had our debate about the law and now our position is clear: we respect French law 100 percent,” said a spokesman for the French Council of the Muslim Faith.
Police said they had detained five people, two men and three women, at the small protest in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. The protestors were held for identity checks because their demonstration had not been authorised, not because they were wearing forbidden clothing, a policeman told Reuters.
“It’s so stupid what they’ve done with this law, because now people will wear the (full-face veil) not out of faith but because they are looking for a confrontation,” said Hager Amer, a 27-year-old Muslim woman.
France’s five-million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe’s largest, but fewer than 2,000 women are believed actually to wear a full face veil. Many still oppose the law, however, on the grounds of the precedent it sets.
Read the full story by Nick Vinocur here. An earlier story can be found here: France’s ban on full face veils goes into force .
I feel better about the French law against appearing veiled in public after learning that it applies also to Christian students: They too cannot wear large or conspicuous emblems in national buildings, which in France includes schools. It would have been better, removing the perception of anti-Muslim bias had this too been extended to persons in other public places.
France fought back more than a century ago against the evil tide of religious superstition which has done so much damage to my own USA. Kudos to her in persevering in this effort.
France’s ban on full face veils goes into force
France’s ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force Monday, exposing anyone who wears the Muslim niqab or burqa in public to fines of 150 euros (£131.90). France’s five-million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe’s largest, but fewer than 2,000 women are believed actually to wear a full face veil. Many Muslim leaders have said they support neither the veil nor the law banning it.
The timing is sensitive after France’s ruling political party, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP, called a debate on the place of Islam in France, a move that some say risked stigmatising a portion of the population.
Police received a guide last week to help implement the ban. It tells them not to remove veils by force. It also notes that the ban does not apply inside private cars but reminds policemen such cases can be dealt with under road safety rules.
A Muslim property dealer, who is urging women to keep wearing the veil if they want to, has urged supporters to meet outside Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris for a silent prayer during the day. He has also pledged to auction off a house near Paris to raise one million euros for a fund to pay the fees for any woman fined for wearing a full face veil in public.
French police arrested 59 people Saturday who turned up for a banned protest over the veil ban, one of them on arrival in France from Britain, according to a police spokesman. Twenty of those arrested had turned up for the prohibited protest at the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris wearing the full veil.
Rachid Nekkaz, the man who called for the Notre Dame prayer, said in a webcast that he was putting a property worth around two million euros up for sale to help fund his campaign. “I am calling on all free women who so wish, to wear the veil in the street and engage in civil disobedience,” he said. Here is his statement in French: (Rachid Nekkaz: “Je paierai les amendes… by oumma)
For more on the ban, see the government’s website “The Republic lives with an open face” (La République se vit à visage découvert) in French. It includes an information pamphlet and a copy of the Marianne poster pictured above that is meant to be printed out and distributed locally.
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