Years ago whilst reviewing some submissions - I came upon this drawing. It showed a Crusader on his great steed. He has run through a peasant Arab with his hugh lance and pinned the dead man to the ground. The Arab lay their in a pool of blood. His family gathered around and wailing as the Crusader gloated over his kill. The "gallant" Crusader is saying (in the caption): "We have come in the name of God to Christianise you."

I can picture a stealth bomber over Iraqi villages. We have a frontal view of the pilot. He has all the armour to protect him. We see the devastation and plumes of smoke from his bombing run in the background. The caption: "We've come, like good Christians, to democratisise you." I think the Coalition of the Killing needs to be added to the list as they are certainly morally equivalent to 9-11 terrorists, Christian Crusaders and all the other lunatics that are coerce people into darkness.

It is always the little people who pay the price of the big people's love of warfare. I guess that is why the big people and their dupes think war, which is terror with more continuity, is a valid form of dispute resolution.

I think our world rulers need to be sat down in a secular school room and showed how to behave in an appropriate manner. They would be regarded as troubled kids -they would be the school-yard bullies with a serious character disorder. They would be the high-school thugs. These thugs are not resilient people. They rely on violence and its power for validation. Among others, some aspects of a well-developed child are respect for the autonomy of themselves and others, healthy communication patterns and a connectness to others. These basic characteristics are not aspects that rulers have displayed in their relations with other nations and their own people. (The Little People)

I took your advice, tennyson's_one_far-off_divine_event, and read the recommended article in “Christianity Today” by the ‘well researched writer’, Thomas F, Madden). He describes some of the ‘mishaps, blunders, and crimes’ of the Crusaders. For example:
‘During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find…In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews' money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem.’

Madden attempts to soften the brutality with three arguments:
(a) The violence was not so brutal as in modern wars – I would have thought butchery and death had a certain finality whether done by sword or missile.
(b) The Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks – Yes, but the condemnation was often ineffectual because the Church sent out mixed messages. Madden himself gives examples of Church-inspired carnage against both Jews and Muslims.
(c) The killing of Jews by Crusaders, however regrettable, was not the real purpose of the Crusades. ‘In a modern war’, he says, ‘we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage."
Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.’

This last defence - by analogy - is patently fallacious and morally unacceptable. I think Madden is no help to Donnelly's attempt to deny the similarities between atrocities committed by Crusaders and modern terrorists.

Mr. Donnelly does his bit by bringing to public notice matters educational we may not be aware of.

Do we just agree or disagree, or do we do our bit?

“School textbooks such as the Jacaranda's SOSE Alive 2 and Humanities Alive 2 offer further evidence of the way Australia's mainstream cultural and religious beliefs and institutions are belittled.”

If these books are regarded as unsuitable for schools, what are the parents doing about it?

“Students are also asked: "Those who destroyed the World Trade Centre are regarded as terrorists. Might it be fair to say that the Crusaders who attacked the Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem were also terrorists?"

Straight question. Straight answer. No! (if that’s what you believe). Kids should be able to ask interested parents.
“In addition to the selective nature of the outrage against the Danish cartoons and the fact Islam cannot be lampooned while Christianity is fair game is the irony that the very values most often stated in defence of accepting diversity and difference arise from the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Islam can, and is, lampooned. Anyone in Australia, including Muslims, has the right to lampoon their own religion and/or someone else’s religion. It is not for schools to decide children’s beliefs. It’s up to the parents.

“As such, there can be no place for moral or cultural relativism. Tolerance and respect for others, the rule of law, separation of powers and popular sovereignty are all essential aspects of Western civilisation and have strong links with the Christian faith.”

Cultural relativism is totally unnatural, undesirable and impossible. All cultures and beliefs are not equal, and we damn well know it and feel it. To think that one’s beliefs are superior to another’s is perfectly natural, or we would all be the same boring buggers that the PC police want us to be. It needn’t start a war or a punchup. We can agree to disagree; but if we do have to fight, fight we should. Parents, again.

People like Mr. Donnelly describe the problem. It’s time for parents to sit up and take notice.

Leigh, Donelly doesn't "descibe the problem", he manufactures one.

Correction: Thought I'd catch you here. tennyson's_one_far-off_divine_event: and Philo: Jesus was so into political correctness. He also didn't explain why his Dad didn't write about dinosaurs in His story.

And another thing the way you Judeo-Christians treat the Palestinians suggests that you have read the Bible to suit your own hatreds. Hitler murdered six million Jews and still you have gathered not a jolt of empathy for others. Most religious folk who have experienced such pain would seek solace in the lesson learned which is that we must all be as politically correct as possible because Hitler's disregard for political correctness gradually escalated to genocide.

To just foul mouth every one under the guise of not wanting to be silenced by political correctness is not something Jesus would be a part of. It has nothing to do with love, the ultimate form of political correctness, which according to the Bible is not rude, not self-seeking and keeps no record of wrongs. Isn't Christian love supposed be patient, kind, does not envy, not boastful, not proud, delights in truth rather than evil, protects, trusts, hopes and preserves? Corin. 13

You can tell the truth for truth sake and that is the only example that Jesus gave of political correctness that involves having a go at another. Most of the people who go on about their right to be politically correct display all the negatives that Christians supposedly must NOT do.

Indeed, often their political incorrectness betrays the truth of the matter and unfairly portrays the peoples or people that they attack.

This attack on the Education mob is misleading and is just clearly a biased opinion. So don't start boasting about how Holier you are than people who think schools should remain secular. Your posts suggests that you are just another using the Bible to further your own OPINION .
Philo I argued for secular which means no religious dogma including atheism or religious moralising. Read my posts before commenting.(Trains

No one though has raised the spectre of the next inevitable chapter in the cartoon saga.

Our future textbooks of modern history, if they're of a reputable standard, will need to reproduce the drawings to be considered authoritative.

It won’t be necessary to print 12 but it'll be necessary to print some, or explain why multiculturalism (or whatever the trigger for censorship is) teaches us to exclude salient, objective evidence when it’s available.

It will just be screamingly dishonest for any authoritative study to omit cartoons for history students to consult freely, and no doubt with a keen spirit of inquiry.

However, if texts become merely the abridged, Readers Digest version of what happened, eg describing the effect (the outrage) and not the cause (the cartoons), than we'll let our next generations down by abandoning the high value placed on the notion of the accurate ‘public record’.

Self-censorship or “history with holes” was once true of Australian history. We’re writing history more accurately nowadays so lets make sure we record other events comprehensively too. We’re also not that squeamish about history – it is often painful but we prefer the frank facts of the matter so we can face up to what happened head on, understand it and move on. If we hide cartoons from history they will come back and bite us.

There was a time when prominent exponents of Islam offered more options to followers than paranoia and a one book library. Yet that racist hypocrite Osama bin Ladin and his hideous ilk seem better known by certain muslims these days than the extraordinary intellectuals of their recent and not so recent past such as Ibn Khaldun, Syed Ahmad Khan and (in terms of our once great East-West history of intellectual inquiry) Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

And to add insult to injury, Australians today are supposed to take seriously the sensitivity of those muslims who turn their back on their own complex intellectual legacy of astounding scientists and radical thinkers in order to pick up a rock for a miserable modern jihad.