Monday, April 24, 2006

An Interesting Twist in Belgium

 
UPDATE: Here’s new information about the actual identity of the two murderers of Joe Van Holsbeeck. They turn out to be Polish immigrants, not North Africans.

The Brussels Journal reports on the anonymous email it received from someone at the Justice Department:

Haha, there you are with your pants down! First you spend a whole week writing that the murderers are North Africans, and now they turn out to be Polish… Isn’t that the country of the previous Pope, beloved by Belien, an arch-Catholic with his own version of the Sacrifice…

How low can [one sink]…

As the Journal points out, the whole country, including its immigrants and including the police, believed this to be the work of North Africans. Now why would that be? Is there some correlation between the crime rate and that particular group?

Belien points out that The Brussels Journal waited a week before writing about the identity of the murderers. They were drawn into the argument after Belgium’s Catholic cardinal and the government started blaming the victim for his own murder.

Well, Mr. Belien, do the American thing: while you have your pants down, why don’t you just moon the email writer before you get back to work?

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Want to know who called for the silent march in Brussels to commemorate the life of the young man killed by North African immigrants last week?

First, the march itself: Eighty thousand people walked in a silent memorial for 17 year-old victim Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was stabbed repeatedly through the heart at a train station because he refused to give up his MP3 player. Somehow, I think he would have been killed whether or not he surrendered. This is not about possessions, it is about irredeemable hatred.

But here’s the interesting part, and probably the only reason the march could have taken place without the fiercely politically correct establishment coming down on the leaders with heavy fines and penalties for being “racist.” They couldn't do that this time, though, because the organizer of the event was himself a North African:

…the initiative for the march came from Fouad Ahidar, a Moroccan-born Flemish member of the Brussels regional parliament, who said last week that many immigrants are equally worried about violent Moroccan youth gangs.

Ahidar, a father of five, already called for a protest march on 15 April, saying that if the victims had been immigrants and not Belgians, “or even if an immigrant just gets a few kicks from police officers, half of Brussels would be on the streets in solidarity with the victim.” According to the Moroccan-born MP, anti-Belgian racism is rife among Muslim street gangs. “This murder stinks of racism,” he said. “There is a growing group of criminal Moroccan and Turkish youths who go after victims who look like infidels. We have to fight racism in all its varieties, whether by the immigrants or the native community.” What Ahidar says is common knowledge but only he may say so. If a native Belgian makes such comments he or she risks being taken to court for racism by the authorities’ racism watchdog CEOOR, an instrument used by the government parties to silence political opponents.

In response to Ahidar’s appeal many immigrant organisations had called on their members to participate in the protest.

This report, from The Brussels Journal, noted that the BBC initially omitted any mention of the ethnicity of the murderers, a fact which is central to the story. “Central,” that is, unless you’re the BBC. Or NPR. Or The New York Times. News with a filter, from your local brainstem media.

Thanks to places like The Brussels Journal, the filter is off.

8 comments:

buddy larsen said...

I didn't realize the sizew of this thing until just now. Eighty thousand! How can it have been so quiet?

Mad Fiddler said...

The BBC, NYT, et al, subscribe to a different form of math than do the rest of us. Thus, attendance numbers for a "Million Man March" or "Million Mom March Against Guns" which attract only tens of thousands of protestors go un-challenged.

The obvious partisan editorial deliberate distortion of the news is so ingrained that it is seemingly ineradicable.

buddy larsen said...

yes--downplay it for the "greater good". Feh.

Dymphna said...

mad fiddler I think you're right. The brainstem media cannot change; tthey can only wither away -- as in, see the NYT stock lately.

Though I hear there's been a rebellion on the Board of Directors so things *may* change there. We'll have to wait and see.


dan m from your keyboard to God's eyes...but I think you're being optimistic. I think we've got a bunch of appeasers, down to the bone.

X said...

Fouad Ahidar. I wonder if he's a burbar.
The burbars, if anyone is wondering, are the native inhabitants of Morocco who were forcibly converted to islam by arab invaders a long, long time ago, their culture has still survived largely intact despite that. Burbars are different. They don't trust the Moroccan arabs and don't do business with them if at all possible. Conversely burbars also act in a much more trustworthy way and tend to be more honest.

SC&A said...

Finally- a murder attributable to non North Africans.

What a refreshing change.

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

Mmmmm - the two murders turn out to be polish.

Periscope up! Heres a conspiracy theory>>.. The question is now : who spread the "north africans on cctv" canard for a whole week and why? Its not as if polacks and arabs look similar, even on crap cctv images or in a crowed. If it was really police officials, that has the scent of deliberate falsehood, almost like a opportunistic conspiracy to deliberately incite a wave of mistaken ethnic outrage which could be then be turned against those like Paul Belien of Brussels Journal with accusations of inciting racism ....

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

Ah s*** - having looked at Brussel Journal latest http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1020 the murderers were "Polish" gypsies, and therefore not very Polish at all, and who could have very well been mistaken for muslims ... another fine conspiracy theory sunk.

Sorry.