First Piglet, Now Saint George

English Flag courtesy of http://www.freefoto.com/browse.jsp?id=11-08-0

While we are engaged in the (somewhat humourous) defence of Piglet and his friends we note a flanking attack on Western civilization by English Muslims. You see, we may jest but they are deadly earnest. From World Daily News: (Hat tip to Kathy Shaidle at Relapsed Catholic).

TESTING THE FAITH

English flag offensive to Muslims? Officials worry prisoners might associate red cross with Crusades Posted: October 5, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Prison officials in Britain are concerned that tie pins worn by officers featuring the St. George's Cross - the symbol on England's flag - could offend Muslims who might associate it with the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. In a report on "race" in a jail in the northern English city of Wakefield, Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said the banner of St. George, the red cross of a martyr on a white background, could be "misconstrued," CNN reported.

English soldiers adopted the symbol during the military expeditions by European powers to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims. It later became the national flag of England. Owers' report said her staff was concerned to see a number of prison officers wearing the pin.

"While we were told that these had been bought in support of a cancer charity there was clear scope for misinterpretation, and Prison Service Orders made clear that unauthorized badges and pins should not be worn," she said, according to CNN.

The red cross is an insensitive reminder of the Crusades, said Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding. Doyle thinks England needs to find a new flag and patron saint "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with."

"A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," he told CNN. "They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam. But as Robert Spencer shows in his book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) , the aggression was not unprovoked.

In obedience to core teachings of the Islamic faith, Muslims armies overran the predominantly Christian Middle East, then drove deep into Europe long before any Crusade was even contemplated. Doyle insisted, however, that "Muslim or Arab prisoners could take umbrage if staff wore a red cross badge."

"It's also got associations with the far-right," he said. "Prison officers should be seen to be neutral."

Prison officers should be seen to be neutral? Prisoners could take umbrage!! Not being allowed to wear one's national symbol because a criminal finds it offensive because of what happened, or did not happen, a thousand years ago? This is not tolerance. It is dhimmitude, (abject submission of non-Muslims to Islam) pure and simple.

Let me propose a scenario.

Let us suppose that a Christian citizen in a Western country objects to the display of the Islamic crescent, on the grounds that it is an offensive reminder of the brutal campaigns waged by Islam over 300 years, as they conquered the Christian Middle East and attempted to conquer European Christian civilization. Such a person can muster objections to the public display of the Islamic crescent that are equally, if not more, valid to those posed by Muslims in their objection to the English flag today.

Do you believe it reasonable that a Christian should voice such objections and expect public officials to act on them by removing of all articles/displays indicating Islamic belief?

If not, why not?

Think of the sheer arrogance involved in the comment by Chris Doyle who. "thinks England needs to find a new flag and patron saint 'not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with.' " How about George Galloway MP holding a white flag of surrender?

"There is a religious war when two worlds meet; that is, when two visions of the world meet; or in more modern language when two moral atmospheres meet. What is the one man's breath is the other man's poison; and it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the sun.

(G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man, 1925)

Maybe it's time to slay some more dragons. Onward Saint George!