The British Red Cross Wishes You: "Season's Idiocy".

[dales]

The Red Cross bans Christmasby STEVE DOUGHTY, Daily Mail

Christmas has been banned by the Red Cross from its 430 fund-raising shops.

Staff have been ordered to take down decorations and to remove any other signs of the Christian festival because they could offend Moslems.
The charity's politically-correct move triggered an avalanche of criticism and mockery last night - from Christians and Moslems.

Christine Banks, a volunteer at a Red Cross shop in New Romney, Kent, said: 'We put up a nativity scene in the window and were told to take it out. It seems we can't have anything that means Christmas. We're allowed to have some tinsel but that's it.

'When we send cards they have to say season's greetings or best wishes. They must not be linked directly to Christmas.
'When we asked we were told it is because we must not upset Moslems.'

Mrs Banks added: ' We have been instructed that we can't say anything about Christmas and we certainly can't have a Christmas tree.

' I think the policy is offensive to Moslems as well as to us. No reasonable person can object to Christians celebrating Christmas. But we are not supposed to show any sign of Christianity at all.'

Labour peer Lord Ahmed, one of the country's most prominent Moslem politicians, said: 'It is stupid to think Moslems would be offended.

'The Moslem community has been talking to Christians for the past 1,400 years. The teachings from Islam are that you should respect other faiths.'
He added: 'In my business all my staff celebrate Christmas and I celebrate with them. It is absolutely not the case that Christmas could damage the Red Cross reputation for neutrality - I think their people have gone a little bit over the top.'

The furore is a fresh blow to the image of what was once one of Britain's most respected charities.
The British Red Cross lost friends this year over its support for the French illegal immigrant camp at Sangatte and its insistence on concentrating large efforts on helping asylum seekers.

Yesterday officials at the charity's London HQ confirmed that Christmas is barred from the 430 shops which contributed more than £20million to its income last year.

'The Red Cross is a neutral organisation and we don't want to be aligned with any political party or particular philosophy,' a spokesman said.
'We don't want to be seen as a Christian or Islamic or Jewish organisation because that might compromise our ability to work in conflict situations around the world.'

He added: 'In shops people can put up decorations like tinsel or snow which are seasonal. But the guidance is that things representative of Christmas cannot be shown.'

Volunteers, however, said they believed the Christmas ban was a product of political correctness of the kind that led Birmingham's leaders to order their city to celebrate 'Winterval'.

Rod Thomas, a Plymouth vicar and spokesman for the Reform evangelical grouping in the Church of England, said: 'People who hold seriously to their faith are respected by people of other faiths. They should start calling themselves the Red Splodge. All their efforts will only succeed in alienating most people.'

Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, said: 'There is really nothing to hurt the Red Cross in Christmas, is there? Would the Red Crescent stop its staff observing Ramadan?
'In practice, the role of the Red Cross is to run prisoner- of-war programmes and relief efforts for civilians. Those activities require the agreement of both sides in a conflict in the first place. Celebrating Christmas in a shop in England could hardly upset that.'

Major Heyman added: 'Moslems are just as sensible about these things as Christians. The Red Cross is just engaging in a bit of political correctness.'

British Red Cross leaders have, however, not extended the ban to their own profitable products. Items currently on sale include Christmas cards featuring angels and wise men and Advent calendars with nativity scenes.The spokesman said: 'The Red Cross is trying to be inclusive and we recognise there are lots of people who want to buy Christmas cards which they know will benefit us.'

The charity's umbrella body, the Swiss-based International Red Cross, has also had politically-correct doubts about its famous symbol. But efforts to find an alternative were abandoned in the face of protest and ridicule five years ago.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z18Ujk0aRq

[Gob]

UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!!!

A christian charity is so wrapped up in the bullshit PC madness which has infected the UK that it's denying it's own biggest earner?

[Sean]

Cromwell would be proud...

[loCAtek]

It's what? Mid-December, and I still have not once been wished a 'Merry Christmas', 'Happy Holidays', 'Seasons Greetings' or what-have-you. In Cali, decorations are supposed to simulate below freezing temps, with fake snow, penguins and polar bears. Lottsa animated reindeer, not seen one nativity scene on anybody's lawn.

[Lord Jim]

Cromwell would be proud...

Indeed...

Poignant observation.

[Gob]

Storm in a teacup...

Yesterday, we started getting some comments on our Facebook page from people angry with us for ‘banning Christmas’, which we haven’t, and the story now seems to be spreading on some American websites.

It turns out that these people have stumbled across an article that appeared in the Daily Mail in 2002 and now forms part of the paper’s online archive. Unfortunately, the article isn’t dated on the Mail’s site, which had led some people to believe this was a current news story – although references in it to Sangatte, the Calais refugee camp that closed in 2002, do serve to date it. We denied the gist of the piece strongly at the time.

Christmas is a major UK holiday and time of celebration, which is shared by people of all faiths and those of no faith. Many of our shops and offices are decked out in festive decorations around this time of year – we also sell a range of Christmas cards and gifts in our shops, both high street and online.

It’s true that you won’t find explicitly religious items or displays, relating to any faith, in any of our shops, at Christmas or any other time. But this certainly doesn’t amount to a ban on us celebrating or mentioning Christmas, or any other holiday. And it’s absolutely nothing to do with “offending non-Christians” or to serve any other sort of politically correct agenda.

The point is that the Red Cross is not a political or religious organisation. This neutrality is one of our fundamental principles and governs everything we do in the whole Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. It means that we can reach and help people in need, whoever and wherever they are. Often we provide help in countries that other organisations cannot or will not work in.
We cross front lines in times of war to help conflict victims and visit prisoners of war on both sides. We can only do this life-saving work because we are understood to be a completely neutral, independent organisation. Put simply, our neutrality saves lives.

We can’t let people in need down by compromising our neutrality. That is why we do not align ourselves with any particular political cause or religious creed anywhere in the world. And that’s why we don’t have any items of a religious nature in our shops.

A nativity scene in a shop in Kent might seem like it has nothing to do with our sensitive, precarious work in a war zone in Africa or the Middle East. But in a world where information travels quickly and pervasively – a world where an eight-year-old news story is still raising questions with our supporters – we have to make sure we act consistently across the board with regard to our neutrality.

We wish all our supporters a merry Christmas and a happy new year!



http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/uk/2010/12 ... christmas/

My bad for identifying them as religious, something to do with the "Cross".

[Crackpot]

Why is there a need for the "red crescent" then?

[Scooter]

For reasons which it was not considered necessary to record in the minutes of the October 1863 Conference, the emblem chosen was the red cross on a white ground. Contemporary documents - at least those which are still available - do not shed any light on the reasons for the choice. We are therefore reduced to conjecture. [9 ]

Since the dawn of time, the white flag had been recognized as a sign of the wish to negotiate or of surrender; firing on anyone displaying it in good faith was forbidden. With the addition of a red cross, the flag's message was taken a stage further, demanding respect for the wounded and for everyone coming to their assistance. Furthermore, the resulting sign had the advantage of being easy to make and recognizable at a distance.

There is every reason to believe that the October 1863 Conference did not have the slightest intention of conferring any religious significance whatsoever on the distinctive sign for medical services, and was not in the least conscious that any religious significance could be attached to the emblem, since the very aim of the founders of the Red Cross was to set up an institution which would transcend national and religious frontiers.

However, nineteenth-century Europe saw itself as the centre of the world, and those who devised the emblem no doubt overlooked the fact that it might meet with opposition when the institution extended beyond the bounds of the old continent.

Yet problems were just around the corner.

Right at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war of 1876-1878, the Ottoman Empire, although it had acceded to the Geneva Convention of 22 August 1864 without any reservation, declared that it would henceforth use the red crescent to mark its own ambulances, while respecting the red cross sign protecting enemy ambulances. The Sublime Porte stated that the distinctive sign of the Convention " has so far prevented Turkey from exercising its rights under the Convention, because it gave offence to Muslim soldiers " . [10 ]

There followed a lengthy exchange of correspondence, which we shall not dwell upon here. [11 ] Ultimately, the modification unilaterally decided by the Porte was accepted, but only for the duration of the conflict under way.

The Ottoman Empire nonetheless continued to use the red crescent emblem to indicate its health services, and to request that the red crescent be recognized by the international conferences convened to revise the Geneva Convention, while at the same time Persia called for recognition of the red lion and sun emblem.

link

The evidence suggests that no religious significance was intended by any of the symbols, but that some using one or the other of the symbols may or may not have interpreted some other symbols in that way. Surely, for example, if Persia (now Iran) had seen the symbols of the red cross and red crescent as religious, it would have chosen to adopt the red crescent based on being an overwhelmingly Muslim country, rather than adopting a completely different symbol.

[Gob]

Nothing to do with the "Barmy Army" then?

[Scooter]

No. It was clearly not intended to look like St. George's Cross (esp. given that it originated in Switzerland).

[Gob]

Ermmm... It was a joke Scoot, I didn't really think it had anything to do with the Barmy Army...