Seorang anak mengeluh pada ayahnya tentang hidupnya yang sulit. Ia tidak tahu lagi harus berbuat apa dan ingin menyerah saja. Ia lelah berjuang. Setiap saat satu persoalan terpecahkan, persoalan yang lain muncul. Ayahnya, seorang juru masak, tersenyum dan membawa anak perempuannya ke dapur. Ia lalu mengambil tiga buah panci, mengisinya masing-masing dengan air dan meletakkannya pada kompor yang menyala. Beberapa saat kemudian air dalam panci-panci itu mendidih. Pada panci pertama, ia memasukkan wortel. Lalu, pada panci kedua ia memasukkan telur. Dan, pada panci ketiga ia memasukkan beberapa biji kopi tumbuk.Ia membiarkan masing-masing mendidih.
Selama itu ia terdiam seribu basa. Sang anak menggereget gigi, tak sabar menunggu dan heran dengan apa yang dilakukan oleh ayahnya. Dua puluh menit kemudian, sang ayah mematikan api. Lalu menyiduk wortel dari dalam panci dan meletakkanya pada sebuah piring. Kemudian ia mengambil telur dan meletakkanya pada piring yang sama. Terakhir ia menyaring kopi yang diletakkan pada piring itu juga.
Ia lalu menoleh pada anaknya dan bertanya, "Apa yang kau lihat, nak?" "Wortel, telur, dan kopi, " jawab sang anak. Ia membimbing anaknya mendekat dan memintanya untuk memegang wortel. Anak itu melakukan apa yang diminta dan mengatakan bahwa wortel itu terasa lunak. Kemudian sang ayah meminta anaknya memecah telur. Setelah telur itu dipecah dan dikupas, sang anak mengatakan bahwa telur rebus itu kini terasa keras. Sang anak tersenyum saat mencicipi aroma kopi yang sedap itu. "Apa maksud semua ini, ayah?" tanya sang anak.
Sang ayah menjelaskan bahwa setiap benda tadi telah mengalami hal yang sama, yaitu direbus dalam air mendidih, tetapi selepas perebusan itu mereka berubah menjadi sesuatu yang berbeda-beda. Wortel yang semula kuat dan keras, setelah direbus dalam air mendidih, berubah menjadi lunak dan lemah.
Sedangkan telur, sebaliknya, yang semula mudah pecah, kini setelah direbus menjadi keras dan kokoh. Sedangkan biji kopi tumbuk berubah menjadi sangat unik. Biji kopi, setelah direbus, malah mengubah air yang merebusnya
itu. "Maka, yang manakah dirimu?" tanya sang ayah pada anaknya. "Di saat kesulitan menghadang langkahmu, perubahan apa yang terjadi pada dirimu?
Apakah kau menjadi sebatang wortel, sebutir telur atau biji kopi?"
Sumber: http://forum.orisinil.com/index.php?topic=3946.0 / by AurelSeluler
Friday, June 10, 2011
TOWER HAMLETS PETITION QUEEN FOR “CITY” STATUS
Lutfur Rahman, the mayor accused of having links with an Islamic extremist organisation, has backed a proposal for Tower Hamlets in London to become its own city.
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East London Mosque, which the Telegraphclaims receives regular council funding© Danny Robinson / CC BY-SA 2.0 |
The petition, which has been handed into 10 Downing Street and will be passed on to the Queen, requests “city status” to be granted to the London borough when she celebrates her Diamond Jubilee next year.
Described by one senior Labour official as an Islamic Republic, Tower Hamlets has been at the centre of controversy since Lutfur Rahman was elected as Mayor last year.
Lutfur Rahman was deselected by the Labour party as their mayoral candidate when allegations were made about his links to the Islamist group Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which wants to turn Britain and other European countries into Islamic republics. He won the mayoral election as an independent and now has control over a £1.3 billion budget.
Two weeks after the election, Tower Hamlets Council placed CDs of sermons by an extremist Islamic preacher in its Town Hall. The preacher, Abdur Raheem Green, has stated that “Islam is not compatible with democracy”. The CDs were handed out to council workers and visitors as part of an official council-sanctioned display mounted in the Town Hall reception area.
According to the Daily Telegraph, in just three months between December and February, IFE front bodies, including the East London Mosque and Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques, were given grants totalling at least £149,000 of council money.
Proposals have also been made to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of municipal money on so-called “hijab gates”, a set of Islamic arches that would look like a veil, at either end of Brick Lane, a prominent street in Tower Hamlets.
According to one of its leaflets, the IFE wants to change the "very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed ... from ignorance to Islam".
One resident told the Daily Mail, “You basically have a large umbrella Islamist group that appears to have almost a stranglehold over a major council in the East End of London.”
At the launch of Tower Hamlets’ application to become a city last week, Mayor Rahman said:
Tower Hamlets has come of age. Our petition is a reflection of the diverse area that we want to showcase to the world, putting the borough at a level with the City of London and the City of Westminster.
British baroness sponsoring bill to limit Sharia: "Many women say: 'We came to this country to escape these practices only to find the situation is worse here.'"
More on this story. "Bill limiting sharia law is motivated by 'concern for Muslim women'," from the Guardian, June 8:
Islamic courts would be forced to acknowledge the primacy of English law under a bill being introduced in the House of Lords.
The horror!
The bill, proposed by Lady Cox and backed by women's rights groups and the National Secular Society, was drawn up because of "deep concerns" that Muslim women are suffering discrimination within closed sharia law councils.
The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill will introduce an offence carrying a five-year jail sentence for anyone falsely claiming or implying that sharia courts or councils have legal jurisdiction over family or criminal law. The bill, which will apply to all arbitration tribunals if passed, aims to tackle discrimination, which its supporters say is inherent in the courts, by banning the sharia practice of giving woman's testimony only half the weight of men's.
Cox said: "Equality under the law is a core value of British justice. My bill seeks to preserve that standard"
In a similar way to Jewish Beth Din courts, sharia tribunals can make verdicts in cases involving financial and property issues which, under the 1996 Arbitration Act, are enforceable by county courts or the high court.
They do not have a supremacist agenda, however, or designs on replacing the larger governing system through incremental expansion. Sharia courts, on the other hand, got a foot in the door, and are already trying to force a broader role for themselves:
The tribunals should only be deciding civil disputes but two years ago the think-tank Civitas claimed sharia courts, some 85 of which operate in Birmingham, London, Bradford and Manchester, had crossed the proper limits of their jurisdiction and were regularly giving illegal advice on marriage and divorce.
Intolerable:
Cox said they are increasingly ruling on family and criminal cases, including child custody and domestic violence. Jurisdiction "creep" had caused considerable suffering among women compelled to return to abusive husbands, or to give up children and property.
Diana Nammi, of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, said: "Women and children are very vulnerable members of the community and under sharia law they become invisible. Women and children are the most vulnerable in minority communities where religion tradition and culture has become the identity taking precedence over the human rights and women's rights that are protected under civil, UK law."
The bill requires public bodies to inform women they have fewer legal rights if their marriage is unrecognised in English law. Cox said she had found "considerable evidence" of women, some of whom are brought to Britain speaking little English and kept ignorant of their legal rights, suffering domestic violence or unequal access to divorce, due to discriminatory decisions made. "We cannot continue to condone this situation. Many women say: 'We came to this country to escape these practices only to find the situation is worse here.' "
Claims of "voluntary" participation or even preference by Muslim women must also be taken with a grain of salt given how tightly many are controlled by their families.
Cox said she would be asking the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who caused a row last year when he said a recognised role for sharia law seemed unavoidable, to back her bill. She said: "By appearing to condone this inherent discrimination system which is causing real suffering to women, he has failed to recognise that suffering. He is appearing to forward the acceptability and validity of Sharia law in this country."...
Muslims Use British Money to Fight French Burqa Ban...
A FRENCH Muslim couple sparked fury yesterday by using a free legal service paid for by British taxpayers to challenge their country’s controversial burkha ban.
The unnamed husband and wife claim they were forced to move to Britain from France by the new law which prevents women wearing the veil in public.
They want £10,000 damages because the “unnecessary, disproportionate and unlawful” ban breaches their right to free movement across the European Union.
Now based in the West Midlands, they are trying to overturn the law at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The couple are represented by lawyers from Britain’s Immigration Advisory Service which gets an annual £15million in taxpayers’ cash.
Robina Shah, a Birmingham-based solicitor, has instructed top immigration and public law barrister Ramby de Mello to fight their landmark case.
But last night, Ukip MEP Gerard Batten blamed the costly “mess” on European laws designed to over-ride domestic law.
“It’s a nonsense. It should be up to the French to sort out whether they want to ban the burkha in their country or not, and someone should challenge it from within.
“About 10 per cent of the population of France are Muslim. Why don’t they club together and pay for someone to challenge it.”
According to Ms Shah the couple have two daughters and want to remain anonymous in case they suffer “hostility”.
Documents lodged in Strasbourg say they “wish to reside and work in France” because they have family there.
They say that the husband, the main applicant, “expects and instructs” his wife to wear the burkha but risks prosecution if he crosses the Channel.
He does not force his wife to wear the niqab but “expects her to do so in public, in keeping with his religious and cultural expectation and his authority as her husband”.
Their legal papers say she “respects and follows” her husband’s instructions “out of her own free will” and wants to cover up “in keeping with her faith”.
When she wears the niqab, “she feels at inner peace with herself and her surroundings and is cocooned from the outer world”. At such times she can “concentrate on her innermost thoughts” and “manifest her religious and personal beliefs in public places”.
Ms Shah added: “The case clearly is of importance to my clients. As a result of the ban they have had to leave their country of nationality, as the ban restricts their freedom of choice, and that of their daughters.”
The Immigration Advisory Service bills itself as the UK’s “largest charity providing representation and advice in immigration and asylum law”.
Its lawyers mainly represents asylum seekers and other migrants who cannot afford to hire solicitors privately.
It receives approximately £15million – a hefty chunk of its funding – in taxpayers’ cash, through the Legal Services Commission which hands out legal aid.
But a Legal Services spokesman said that even if taxpayer-funded IAS lawyers were representing the couple, that service would not be paid for by legal aid.
He added that they only gave legal aid to cases involving British law and concerned with immigration.
Nobody from the IAS was available for comment.
HALF THE STORY, ALL THE TIME.
Anyone catch this interview on the BBC this morning? It concerns the government plan to tackle Islamic extremism and in brings the BBC Former security minister Baroness Neville-Jones and Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum and an adviser to the previous Labour government. Azad plays the role of outraged moderate Muslim except that is not quite the entire picture.
Mayor Boris Johnson has given at least £30,000 of taxpayers' money to an organisation co-controlled by an Islamist "extremist", the Standard can reveal. Azad Ali praises a spiritual leader of al Qaeda on his blog, denies the Mumbai attacks were "terrorism" and quotes, apparently approvingly, a statement advocating the killing of British troops in Iraq. He also criticises those Muslims who "tell people that Islam is a religion of peace". He describes non-Muslims as "sinners" and says Muslims should "hate [non-Muslims'] disbelieving actions".
Is it possible that the BBC is actually promoting the views of an Islamic extremist whilst pretending to have a reasoned debate? Surely not?
Saturday, June 4, 2011
U.K. to release scores of "high risk extremists"
Up to 70 convicted terrorists due to be released this year will not be properly monitored, a probation chief warned yesterday.
The "high risk" extremists, some of them bomb makers, could be walking the streets after being freed on licence.
But Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said cuts to services meant adequate checks could not be kept on them.
He added: "They have to be supervised by us and the police at a fairly intensive level.
"My fear is as cuts go deeper we're going to be unable to give them the close attention that we have hitherto. These men require maximum supervision and we're not going to be able to do it."
Among those set for release are Saajit Badat, jailed for 13 years in 2005 for plotting with shoe bomber Richard Reid. Also due to walk free is Moinul Abedin, jailed for 20 years in 2002 for making bomb detonators.
MPs said Government plans to water down control orders that allow dangerous individuals to be put under virtual house arrest will make the problem even worse.
Labour home affairs spokesman Gerry Sutcliffe said: "I think there is a danger that the security services are going to be overstretched.
"I would urge ministers to keep control orders in place until there is a better alternative."
Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: "The system needs a radical overhaul to protect the public."
Lid Blown Off £80,000 Muslim Benefit Fraud – Literally
A gas explosion which blew the roof off a house inadvertently exposed a scam by a Nigerian couple who fraudulently claimed £80,000 in benefits and funnelled the money back home to set up a string of businesses.
Cab driver Nura Kamara, 34, and care worker Hadiza Mohammed, 31, had their cover quite literally blown when they applied for temporary accommodation following the blast in September last year.
Cab driver Nura Kamara, 34, and care worker Hadiza Mohammed, 31, had their cover quite literally blown when they applied for temporary accommodation following the blast in September last year.
The explosion, started by another tenant who lived in the converted three-storey Victorian property in South Norwood, London, left five families homeless after the flats were declared unsafe.
Kamara and Mohammed approached Croydon Council’s homeless unit to arrange temporary accommodation but were caught out when checks showed that housing and council tax benefit was being paid to a couple at their address but with different names.
Home Office records showed Kamara had married a Frenchwoman in 2003. Pictures of their wedding were found on a roll of film – which also contained pictures of him and Mohammed enjoying a day out at Chessington World Of Adventures.
It is thought likely that Kamara married the Frenchwoman – who made a fleeting visit to the UK for the wedding – because he wrongly believed that marriage to an EU national entitled him to remain in the UK.
Kamara was jailed for three years and Mohammed was sentenced to 18 months at Croydon Crown Court after both pleaded guilty to a number of offences on the day of the trial, including seeking leave to remain in the UK by deceptive means, and obtaining property by deception. They both face deportation.
Councillor Dudley Mead, Croydon Council’s cabinet member for finance and resources, said: ‘This was a complex and difficult case that demonstrates the great pressures councils are under to stop people stealing money that is meant to pay for people who really need the help that state benefits can give.
‘But it also shows that where necessary Croydon Council will always take the strongest possible action against benefit cheats.’
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