FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - CALIPH DAVID CAMERON'S WAR ON THE CALIPHATE: REAL OR PHONEY?

------------------------------------------------------------ Rant Number 598 2 September 2014 Caliph versus Caliph Clash of the Caliphs! Caliph Cameron has declared jihad on Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Plus returning jihadis, home Islamists and sundry bad guys (including non-violent ones) – all deadly foes of ‘British values’. There is a problem. Whilst Caliph Abu Bakr’s jihad is a real, fearsome one, Cameron’s is phoney. He only talks. He cannot even take away passports from ISIS-fighting Brits – international law prohibits it. The terror threat is raised to severe, you see more cops strutting around but…so what? As a Chinese proverb puts it: ‘There is much noise on the stairs but no one enters the room.’ Caliph is Khalifa in Arabic. It means a successor or vice-regent. The Qur’an calls Adam, the first man, the Khalifa of God (2:30). Every human being then is a caliph. Quite democratic. However, Khalifa also names the successor of Prophet Muhammad, the head of the Islamic state. There have been simultaneous, rival Caliphs in history, such as at Baghdad, Cordoba and Cairo, all claiming legitimacy. Abu Bakr is lucky – he has no competitors. All he has to do is to win. If he exterminates all his enemies…that’s it. He has done it. Nothing succeeds like success. Caliph Cameron’s task is harder. His liberal-democratic jihad demands upholding ‘British values’. You know what Islamic values are. Five Pillars - Qur’an, Ramadan fast, Mecca pilgrimage, alms-giving and the Shahada, profession of faith. A package that comes with rules galore, like prohibition of booze, lending at interest, enacting penal punishments, inheritance & so on. All crystal clear. British values…what are they? Déjà vu! I recall Caliph Blair having a go after home-grown jihadis struck in London on 7/7, killing 50 people and maiming and wounding more. His speech after the outrage is instructive. It runs basically the same tropes as Cameron’s. ‘Evil ideology…extremism…barbaric ideas…perversion of religious faith…hatred of the West and our way of life…global struggle…’ Phoney Tony even prophetically picked a terrorists’ goal as ‘one caliphate for all Muslim nations’. Laughably, this Kafir Caliph declared he wanted ‘to promote the true face of Islam worldwide’. And he ended with flaccid lyricism: ‘Our diversity (groan…) is our strength.’ And British values? Tony enumerated three: freedom, tolerance and respect for others. Like sliced bread, those are fine but when President Bush (a failed Caliph) termed Americans ‘a freedom-loving people’ Harold Pinter mocked him: ‘I have never heard of a freedom-hating people’! Tolerance and respect are admirable virtues but hardly unique to Britain. Besides, British liberals are intolerant of many things, from fox-hunting to smoking. Had he mentioned ‘queuing’, Blair would have been on solider ground, only…that is another fast-fading British custom. Shame! British disvalues, negative values, also must count. Take abortion. 200.000 each year in UK. Innocent babies slaughtered in the womb with the British state’s consent. Far more than Abu Bakr and his ilk are likely to kill. Beheadings, crucifixions, mass slayings of POWs and rapes of women by the Caliphate fanatics are horrendous, sure, but…they are barbarians, aren’t they? Whilst liberal Britain supposedly is nice, civilised, it values human life dearly - except when it comes to respecting the unborn! The top British disvalue is emptiness. A lack. Indeed, an absence of values. Does Khalifa Cameron ask himself: why have many Brits gone to join the jihad? No ‘they were radicalised’ mantra, please! Those chaps are not vulnerable kids, nor are they just passive recipients, victims of ‘brainwashing’. The home-grown jihadis chose, made decisions, undertook to fight. They perceived the frightful void, the nothingness, the moral vacuum, the spiritual bankruptcy at the heart of modern Britain, so they spat on it all and left. Whenever a Prime Minister invokes putative British values, the priest observes a glaring absence. It is called Christianity. Britain’s ancestral religion. The great, pure, redeeming faith professed by the ancestors of the heedless, hedonistic, fornicating Brits of today. The faith of Jesus Christ, the beautiful Saviour whose name our fatuous, hollow politicos are ashamed to mention. Why is that? It seems perverse. Leaders of Muslim nations wear their faith proudly on their sleeve. Turkey until recently was the only avowedly secular state in the Islamic world. It kept religion out of the public sphere. No more. Ataturk lies stone dead in his brutalist Ankara mausoleum while PM Erdogan proudly asserts himself as a believer and his wife wears the hijab in public. Does Samantha Cameron ever wear a cross, I wonder? And, if she does, does she profess it? Absurdly, Britain has a state religion. Almost a Christian Caliphate. Anglicanism in England and Presbyterianism in Scotland. The monarch is Defender of the Faith. Supreme governor – Khalifa - of the Church of England. 26 Bishops sit by right in the House of Lords. The Coronation Service shines with Christian symbolism. There are parishes, churches up and down the land. For centuries this established religion was alive, for real. It did provide spiritual nourishment, a sense of purpose, mission, faith in the eternal verities, vocations to sacrifice but… today? Nothing. It is a charade, a pretence, a fake, an empty façade hiding ruin, rot and decay. The Church merely underwrites and parrots the tired clichés of secularism. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s most impressive action lately has been to resign from the Traveller’s Club because…it voted against the admission of females! Verily, that useless creep has nailed his true colours to the mast. With all its violence, crimes and brutalities, the ISIS Caliphate has an elan, a vision, a demonic drive. A religion (of sorts), a real faith inspires its young men to fight on. The same faith that drove warriors out of the Arabian desert 1400 years ago and conquer – a faith that is not extinguished yet. And Cameron’s Caliphate? It means nothing. Revd Frank Julian Gelli