The Bridge of Dreams New Age Shop in Lincoln was gutted by a petrol-bomb on Tuesday 28 January. The arsonists attacked at night; nothing was taken or stolen, the motive was malice. This tragedy is the latest of a rising tide of attacks on New Age organisations and businesses in the U.K. and the second firebombing to occur. Yet the government turn a blind eye to the plight of thevictims of this constant prejudice. The media and politicians of this country have repetitively failed to address the increasing incidences of Christian fanaticism in inverse proportion to their obsession with highlighting Islamic extremism. In the former all Christians are considered beyond reproach, yet in the latter all Moslems are tarred with the terrorist brush. Neither is true yet politicians and the media perpetrate the harmful stereotypes just the same. And when short of a target for their hypocrisy it is a time-tested formula for rabid bigots to turn on religious minorities who cannot defend themselves. The petrol-bombin g of the Lincoln shop was the last piece ofvictimisation in a catalogue of enmity from Lincoln's fundamentalists and evangelicals. Like witnesses at some gang-land killing, the people of Lincoln have stood by and done nothing whilst a clutch of obstreperous religious fanatics mounted campaign after campaign to a level which isastonishing in its vindictiveness. Just as the national newspapers jumped on the bandwagon and gave space to manic lies by religious fanatics who believed in the now defunct Satanic Child Abuse Myth, Lincoln's media rode high with a nonexistent controversy framed for them by local evangelists who decided to rob the owners of Bridge of Dreams of their rights. Not just Lincoln's media, but her Town Council and her politicians have for over a year shrugged their shoulders, resorted to expediency and turned a blind eye , allowing non-representative religiousextremists to manipulate the political system for their own narrow sectarian ends, inciting hatred against the shop own ers and anyone else whom they deemed had challenged the fundamentalists assumed absolute right to dictate how other people should live and what they should believe in. How could they get away with it? Why did not anyone stop them? The full history of the victimisation of the Bridge of Dreams isastounding in the telling. As soon as the shop opened its doors it became the hub of intense hatred from the fundamentalists. They picketed the shop, distributing scare-mongering leaflets which stated that Lincoln's children were somehow at risk. It was all nonsense but the campaign gathered momentum. Some fundamentalists pretended to be customers, surreptitiously inserting evangelicaltracts in books. Disturbing and abusive telephone calls were received from spiteful people calling themselves Christians. The fundamentalists arranged false controversies with the local media who couldn't resist printing every word even though the allegations had no substance. When the owners pleaded with the media not to print the abject lies for fear of the consequences and explained the ongoing fundamentalist countrywide campaign they were ignored. The media went ahead with the usual self-righteous kitsch. Spurred on by the media the fundamentalists obtained stock-lists from the shop and cut and pasted them up into false advertisement leaflets in an attempt to misrepresent Bridge of Dreams as a threat. Only legal action and police involvement stopped this fundamentalist plan from working. Thwarted in their aims these wicked people then sent poisoned pen letters to the media repeating the lies they had themselvesfabricated. The media printed the letters before checking the facts. Later they printed a retraction but the damage had been done, just as the fundamentalists desired it. When proof of foul intent was given, the police discovered thepoisoned pen letter-writers and their link with evangelicalChristianity. But they did not prosecute them. When the shop owners pleaded with local councillors and offici als for help, they were told that there was nothing that could be done.Nothing? Could not their Councilor or MP take up their case?Unfortunately not. Not a word of caution or criticism left anyone's lips. When it comes to spiritual terrorists disguised as do-gooder Christians the courage of local dignitories soon fades. GoodSamaritans it would seem, are in pretty short supply in Lincoln. Realising they had a free hand the vicious evangelicals became more irresponsible by the minute. They claimed that the shop owners had not obtained planning permission and demanded that the Lincoln Planning Department investigate. Like lap-dogs they did so. Much trouble was caused but the shop owners had planning permission. Thwarted in yet another spiteful gambit the rabid fundamentalists sought furtheropportunities to vent their spleen. Intolerance is the name of their game. The religious fanatics whipped up antagonism against the shop with orthodox Lincoln churches and together these 'good Christians' gang ed up against the beleaguered owners and mounted a city-wide petition to try and brow-beat the council into closing the shop. A special meeting of the Town Council was held and, in direct contravention of the rights of the shop proprietors, councillors and local politicians jumped on the bandwagon and made calls for the shop to be closed. The ensuing publicity in the local press further exacerbated the shop-owners position. Had it not been for a reverse campaign to protect their rights by the S.A.F.F. Lincoln might have indeed ordered an unconstitutional and illegal action to close the Bridge of Dreams which would have ended up at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Exhausted in the face of this hysterical and unreasonable CivicTerrorism the owners, being more responsible than those who attacked them, saw that the only way to avoid further harassment was tocompromise and move to a less prominent site in Lincoln in the hope that the fundamentalists would leave them alone. The move took some weeks to organise. Immediately they closed their doors the fundamentalists contacted the media and crowed that they had succeeded in closing the shop down. The local newspaper came calling. Realising that if they told the truth the shop-owners would suffer further victimisation they lied and informed the reporter that they were moving to Hull. Within a day the fundamentalists had caused front page headlines in the Hull Daily Mail, parading the usualridiculous, unfounded allegations. Local fundamentalist agitators who had networked with their Lincoln counterparts even conned the Bishop of Hull into getting in on the act and criticising the imaginary shop. Britain; Land of the Brave and the Free?In order to continue to support themselves and their family the owners of the Bridge of Dreams took a temporary stall in a nearby market. Within days they were located by the fundamentalists and subjected to protest demonstrations, threats and intimidation at their stall. The main protagonist was a fanatical fundamentali st Christian group which gave out leaflets in the marketplace which inferred that the shop-owners were involved in Satanic Child Abuse, a most despicable slur without any foundation whatsoever. This, like many such fundamentalist groups, is a registered religious charity with our society bestows with special tax advantages. It is already under investigated by the Charity Commission for lying to the Commissioners about its activities. The evangelicals demanded that the market operators close down the stall. Please note that the demand was not to remove offending items from the stall (for their were none) but to close the entire stall down. The market owners met with the proprietors of Bridge of Dreams and the fundamentalists. The man and wife team who run Bridge ofDreams are responsible and law abiding people and they sell entirely safe and legal goods. They have every right to co-exist and continue in business both morally and legally under the terms of EECcompetitive trading rules. Unbelievably Th e Market Operators were the only authorities to have actually bothered to talk directly with the shop owners and far from finding them 'agents of the evil' they saw that they were good, kind people. Accordingly they rejected thecomplaint by the evangelicals and allowed the owners to continuetrading. Thwarted in their intolerance the fundamentalists then made up atotally untrue story about a child who was supposed to have purchased a 'devil doll' from the stall. The extent of the warped nature of these peoples' minds and their willingness to misrepresent the truth can be seen from the fact that the 'devil doll' turned out to be a set of minute hand-made Guatemalan Worry Dolls. The same ones that the United Nations sell and feature in their ethnic goods mail order catalogue to raise money for Third World Relief projects. Yet on the basis of this lie a local MP jumped on the bandwagon to condemn the stall in the press. The fundamentalists milked this controversy well, starting a petition with which the y assailed customers in the marketplace. In the face of growing antagonism, in order not to jeopardise the safety of others in the marketplace, the shop-owners decided to call it a day, leave the market and rush through the refurbishment of their new premises in Lincoln. The nasty fundamentalist trouble-makers then celebrated having succeeded in putting them out of business for a 'second' time. The new Bridge of Dreams shop is tucked away down an arcade situated in a secondary location. Yet within days of its openingfundamentalists had located the shop and , unbelievably, began their terror-tactics again, using the local newspapers as their 'Witches Hammer' and repeating outrageous and untrue allegations. Typically the Lincoln media, inconsiderate to the consequences, gave these pernicious people front page headlines yet again. Concomitantly a spate of 'anonymous complaints' brought a long queue of localauthority officers to the shop. Complaints of Noise, fire-risks, public health and so on ; all designed, so the shop owners maintain, as a form of terrorism by fundamentalists who immorally work the system to suit themselves. The new Bridge of Dreams shop was open for just a few weeks before it was finally petrol-bombed. The perpetrators have yet to be found but there is no doubt in the minds of the shop-owners and many thousands of people in the New Age movement that here is yet another example of the inevitable violence which people of alternative beliefs have to suffer if they refuse to capitulate to the Cultural Supremacists of Christian fanaticism. For the past four years the S.A.F.F. has been warning the media and the government of this country about the growing political influence and hidden social agenda of the fundamentalist lobby, but nobody has bothered to take our views seriously or come and look at our evidence. The biggest mistake our so-called leaders have made is tounderestimate the impact of fundamentalism nationally and to consider all fundamentalists to be hairbrained. This is not the first time politicians have made such a mistake. Many of you may remember that during the Sixties, the British Press applied a similarly shortsighted approach by publishing lampooning articles which ridiculed the newly reformed I.R.A. They showed pictures of I.R.A. 'troops' undergoing secret training with broomsticks instead of guns and passed the whole thing off as a seven day wonder. Fundamentalist 'generals' are certainly not peripheral crackpots. They know exactly where they are going and how to get there. They number amongst the most well-informed and influential in the land and many are esconsed within National Institutions, well-placed to advise and direct the future course of Britain. Such people will rarely be found in market-places handing out leaflets, they leave that kind of thing to the people whom their doctrines incite. Discard your intellectual smuggery and face the facts! Anyone who is capable of manipulating the entire British population into ahysterical panic ove r Satanic Abuse whilst commandeering virtually ever local and national police force in the process can hardly be described as incapable when that is precisely what they set out to do in the first place! Add to this the manipulation of central/local governnment, thejudiciary and hundreds of MPs into squandering millions of pounds of taxpayers money on financing a wild goose chase, ( from which many of their own charitable organisations benefit in the way of projectgrants), and you begin to wonder whether it is the fundamentalists who are loony, or people like yourself who refuse to see what they are doing and let them get away with it.For years the S.A.F.F. has been warning that these people knowingly hi-jack the high moral ground and prey on National and racialxenophobias. But their power play is global in context. They may act as though British but they are not first and foremost British; They may act as though moral; but morality is not their major goal. They may act as though they have the best interests of our Nation at heart; but in reality they seek to manipulate the folds of democracy in order to reinstate a GLOBAL THEOCRACY based on strict biblical writ in which our nation will be just an ancilliary part. Which is more despicable, the wolves disguised as Christians; or the sheep who allow them to achieve their ends by doing nothing to help innocent people like the owners of the Bridge of Dreams?Continuous examples of extensive prejudice, discrimination andvictimisation reach our offices daily. The terrible and unnecessary tragedy experienced by the owners of Bridge of Dreams is just one part of a continuous breach of human rights which the British authorities are turning a blind eye to. Spiritually minded, honest and wellmeaning people are suffering repetitive bouts of institutionalised prejudice, arson, vandalism, wrongful incarceration, break-up of loving families and terrible victimisations. Such conflicts would be condemned out of hand if they were based on race or sexual discrimin ation. Our politicians pompously condemn such victimisation when it occurs in other countries, yet even the most radical parliamentarians and liberal minded politicians make excuses when it happens on their own doorstep. Instead of pursuing the perpetrators of real and terrible crimesagainst innocent New Age people we have Scotland Yard's 'pythonesque' Satan Squad which spends all its time attempting to discover whether Satanic Abuse Exists! Our politicians keep quiet about these things because they are given to short-term solutions and cannot see the long-term dangers ofattempting to brush such injustice under the carpet. There is a tacit understanding that it really does not matter in the long-run and that some of those awful Pagan people perhaps might actually deserve all they get. Our politicians do not understand that there is an insidious wave of intolerance coming towards us which if not checked, will destroy co-existence between competing facets of our society at ALL levels and including ALL minor ity groupings. A State within a State is forming right now. The Absolutists owe allegiance to Divine authority before Nation or Democracy. They attempt control without accountability. They can be seen but they will not stand up and be counted. One only has to look at the effect of fundamentalism in the Middle East and meditate upon the conflict between the Koran and the Bible to discover the real reason for the Gulf War. One only has to ponder on the demise of the Russian nuclear threat and the inevitability of the 'Islamic Bomb' to see the shift of the world power structure into an arena where values will be based on Holy Writ and where political compromise takes second place. One only has to compare the recent route to power of fundamentalism in Algeria with the rise of White Supremacist Neo-Fascists in France and Germany to see the same appeal to mindless xenophobia which self-seeks the destruction of everyone else. How many more innocent people will have to suffer before people listen and act upon this i nformation? Solutions which when their needbecomes obvious, will be well past their sell-by date. If the problem is not addressed by choice, the crisis will have to be tackled later. The politicians dare not involve themselves. That means individuals have to get the debate going and become aware and informed. TheS.A.F.F. can provide extensive background information and documentary evidence about the situation entirely free of charge.