Today is International Women’s Day. It is good to be called to focus on how much remains to be done in achieving equality worldwide on equal pay, equality of opportunity, female education and women’s health issues. The lack of freedom of choice for women in very many societies worldwide remains a major challenge. It is interesting that, despite the lip service paid by the West to the issue, in practice its foreign policy shows that it does not put any genuine weight at all on the issue. The western powers’ closest allies are regimes which are among the worst abusers of women.
On a lighter note, it is also rather charming that International Women’s Day, designed by Communists as a rather heavy handed propaganda vehicle, morphed through the actions and desires of ordinary human beings into a celebration of romance. Throughout the Eastern Bloc, International Women’s Day became indistinguishable from the Western practices of Valentine’s Day, only with the gifts and flowers and dining taken to even higher levels of corniness. Restaurants throughout the UK will be busy today as couples involving at least one partner from our brilliant new large Eastern European population go out to celebrate. Including us.
Valentine’s Day, incidentally, is banned in Uzbekistan by the nutty President Karimov who views it as another example of “Western decadence”. The ban is actually enforced by Uzbekistan’s all pervasive police state. To take people’s mind off it, 14 February has been declared (entirely fictitiously) to be the birthday of the Emperor Babur and a national day of celebration. Only don’t celebrate by buying flowers or taking your partner out to dinner…
Here in Vietnam the florists are doing good business too. There doesn’t seem to be a romantic element though, but we just had Valentine’s day anyway.
Craig, please pass on my wishes for a
To Nadira, and ask her in to pass it on in turn to her friend whose name I’d probably spell wrong but who danced with me at Open Hearth, and all Nadira’s lovely female friends who were at the New Year party, especially Siltana (which I probably can’t can’t spell either).
And thank you Craig for the cheery message.
Clark,
Thanks will do. Glad you are sounding more cheerful!
A bit more about 8 March from the BioDiplomacy Almanac:
8 March is International Women’s Day. The original proposal to establish it was taken at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in 1910. In 1911, it was celebrated for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. In 1913, it was decided to transfer IWD to March 8, and it has been celebrated on that day ever since. The day was only recognised by the United Nations in 1975. Since 1996 there has been a theme each year – the 2016 one is “Pledge for Parity”.
1702 Queen Anne ascended the throne on the death of William III.
1815 Peter Byers, a black in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island was sentenced to death for stealing five pounds (two weeks earlier his brother Sancho had been sentenced to death for stealing a pound of butter and a loaf of bread).
1841 Oliver Wendell Holmes born
1859 Kenneth Grahame born
1862 A sea battle between the USS Monitor and CSS Merrimack took place off Hampton Roads, Virginia, during the American Civil War; the first between ironclad, steam-powered warships, changing the nature of naval combat.
1966 IRA blew up Nelson’s Column in Dublin.
So to sum up, iv been threatened because I try to insist on my own comments being removed from this blog.
WARNING TO ANY POSTERS. This is a right wing blog that will use you and shows NOTHING but contempt for your feelings.
It’s a honey trap, Stay away.
Pinkwashing big oil – guess who.
http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/03/cherie-blair-foundation-exxon-mobil-empower-nigerian-women/
Persdonally I doubt if anyone in an Accra street market has much to learn from Cherie re. business skills –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11688937/Cherie-Blairs-health-business-goes-spectacularly-wrong-as-company-goes-bust.html
(Went down £7M before it folded)
and unpaid ‘mentoring’ seems to be the order of the day…
http://www.myjobmag.com/readjob/22755/jobs/vacancy-at-the-cherie-blair-foundation-for-women#job38341
She’s not getting a bunch of service station carnations from me, anyway.
A large percentage of British Women who are about the same as Craig Murray do not know, and even in the unlikely event that they had read the following – will not understand it..
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310231/spa-timetable.pdf
The situation is that if they reach the age of 60 within the next month they will still get their pension at age 60.
If they are 58 now, they won’t get it till they are 66.
This will be catastrophic for an extremely large number of women…and they still don’t know.
https://www.facebook.com/WASPI-Women-Against-State-Pension-Inequality-Campaign-877054125688402/
The Government has stolen 6 years of Pensions from them. A Private pensions company would not be allowed to do this. Its a complete fraud.
Tony
Er…that’s Women AGAINST State Pension INEQUALITY? … not a typo? I thought the sisters wanted to work the same years….
Though, actually, the age upgrade is a pretty shitty deal all round. This is the clearest route through the labyrinth I can find:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/state-pensions
Ba’al Zevul,
They are Normal Women. Not These Femi-Nazi types who wear a plastic one. They are hardly going to campaign for State Pension Age EQUALITY, to bring Men’s Pension age to be the same as theirs – 60.
That would actually make tremendous economic sense. Most old duffers over the age of 60, are just going through the motions, and actually are doing very little useful work if any (we just tend to get in the way).
Whereas most 20 – 30 year olds – who should be working their guts off doing something useful – are dossing – cos no one will give them a job – cos the old farts won’t retire – and let them have their jobs.
That would actually make tremendous economic sense. Most old duffers over the age of 60, are just going through the motions, and actually are doing very little useful work if any (we just tend to get in the way).
Thanks for that. Glad you said ‘we’. When I cease to be any use, I’ll bugger off, and I couldn’t afford to retire at 65 (which I could have done). Retirement at 60 would have been fine if I’d been in financial services, but it sure isn’t a comfortable prospect for lower earners. With halfway sane economic policies and controls on the spiralling cost of living, maybe.
I remember Wilson promising that the white heat of technology would enable us to work less for the same rewards: ha bloody ha.
> achieving equality worldwide
http://www.realworlddivorce.com/International
Doubleplusgood equality!
But you are already getting your pension (I presume). If not I’d take it whilst it is still going.
I am obviously well past my sell by date, cos I still didn’t understand the rules, about how the women, including my wife and ex’s, have been totally screwed over / robbed blind by the State.
I think it probably came as a bit of a shock to my Ex, when she turned up at the Post Office asking for her Pension on her 60th Birthday last year – and they told her to bugger off and come back in 2021 (if you are lucky).
Lord Palmerston,
Very interesting. I guess I got lucky. It must be so much simpler if you are gay. No wonder it’s becoming more popular.
I think the secret, even now is to road test them, at least for a year, but to be really serious about it – you need much longer – say 5 years, and see how she reacts when you lose your job, or go off your head, or have a serious accident or become very ill.
If your relationship can survive that, then its probably time to get married, and to stop using contraception and make some babies.
They can be quite fun, even though they cost a fortune.
Alas, IWD has been taken over by the corporate diversity industry and liberal feminists.
We need to return it to its original purpose: promoting communism!
Can’t quite agree with your view of IWD, Craig. I grew up in a communist country where its premise was to honour the contribution of all women to society (instead of reserving the acknowledgement of worthiness for mothers only as the West mostly does). It was an occasion to remember what women had achieved and what work remained to be done, to honour both the men and women who had fought for equal rights and also the women in everyone’s life. So, yes, we did bring flowers and self-made cards etc, but there was nothing romantic about giving your teacher or coach or bus driver an IWD gift.
Of course, you may well be right as to what happened in the last twenty years all over the East in relation to IWD, but before that it had very little to do with romance.
Pakistan’s president Mamnoon Hussein, also advised 160 million Pakistanis that they should avoid celebrating Western pagan cultural events such as Valentine’s Day.
The Valentine’s Day, a day that after dying out a well deserved death in most of Europe – but surviving in the United States, Canada and Britain – has suddenly started invading several part of the Muslim world. As part of their colonial mentality, the so-called “liberal Muslims”, take pride in copying all the bad habits of their former colonial masters.
The Valentine’s Day began as a pagan ritual started by Romans in the 4th century BCE to honor Lupercus, the so-called “god of fertility and flocks”. Its main attraction was a lottery held to distribute young women to young men for ‘entertainment and pleasure’ – until the next year’s lottery.
Among other equally despicable practices associated with this day was the lashing of young women by two young men, clad only in a bit of goatskin and wielding goatskin thongs, who had been smeared with the blood of sacrificial goats and dogs. A lash of the ‘sacred’ thongs by these ‘holy men’ was believed to make the women better able to bear children.
Christianity, as usual, tried to change the evil by adopting it in a different form to attract some pagan sheep. It first replaced the lottery of the names of women with a lottery of names of saints. The idea was that during the following year the young men would emulate the life of the saint whose name they had drawn. The Christianity ended up doing in Rome, and elsewhere, as the Roman pagans did.
The only thing the Vatican was able to gain was in changing the name of Lupercalia to St. Valentine’s Day. It was done in the year 496 by Pope Gelasius, in honor of one Saint Valentine. However, there are as many as 50 different Valentines in Christian legends. The famous one is that this particular St. Valentine was a ‘lover’s saint’ who had himself fallen in love with his jailor’s daughter – may be a trick played by ‘holy man’ to escape jail.
French government banned the Valentine rituals in 1776. It also vanished over the years in Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Earlier, during the 17th century when the puritans were strong it was banned in England, but King Charles II revived it in 19660.
https://rehmat1.com/2016/02/14/oops-pakistans-president-against-valentines-day/
Rehmat
“Among other equally despicable practices associated with this day was the lashing of young women by two young men, clad only in a bit of goatskin and wielding goatskin thongs, who had been smeared with the blood of sacrificial goats and dogs.”
Like a tamer version of the last night of the Tory hatefest/conference then.
Less with the dogs though. More porcine based.
Mix the sub-dom, gender and ages a bit too. Obvs
“It is good to be called to focus on how much remains to be done in achieving equality worldwide on equal pay, equality of opportunity, female education and women’s health issues”
If we are to achieve genuine equality worldwide then there should be an international men’s day as well. And white history month, parades for straight people etc etc. If you find yourself tut tutting this then you are a liberal bigot and dupe and a you need to go on a de programming/de-brainwashing holiday
If we are to achieve genuine equality worldwide then there should be an international men’s day as well. And white history month, parades for straight people etc etc. If you find yourself tut tutting this then you are a liberal bigot and dupe and a you need to go on a de programming/de-brainwashing holiday
Hear, hear. And let’s have a little less privilege for married couples and pushbikers while we’re at it. Grrr.
But you are already getting your pension (I presume). If not I’d take it whilst it is still going.
Sage advice, but deferral makes more sense for now.
While you mentioned Uzbekistan, where majority associate themselves with Muslims who accidentally have very canonised relationship with women via Quran and Hadith, in modern Russia today there are very loud calls (from Russian Orthodox Church) to ban Valentine’s Day calling it pagan, heretic and against the line of the Russian Orthodox population.
I am not supportive of oppressive measure by Karimov and his dogs but celebrating clearly non Muslim and yet non secular holiday in a society where majority call themselves Muslims, it is slightly out of order. Not to mention that the whole point of the holiday itself has been consumerised (if there is such word) by gifts, flowers, restaurants and other businesses.