Arthur Van Amerongen is an Arabic-speaking Dutch journalist who spent a year incognito in the Muslim community in Brussels. He will soon publish a book about his experiences called Brussels Eurabia.Most of the Muslims in Brussels are Moroccans, and Mr. Van Amerongen describes the expatriate Moroccans in Belgium as extremely hateful of Belgium and its culture. They live apart, as an entirely separate community, and do not consider themselves Belgians.
Mr. Van Amerongen was interviewed on Belgian television, and the blog Covenant Zone has posted an English translation. Some excerpts are included below.
| Q: | Arthur, you write in your book: “Brussels is a time bomb, there will certainly be an attack.” Isn’t this a little exaggerated? | |
| A: | No, listen, it’s an enumeration; look at what happened in England: doctors orginally from India or Pakistan who commit an attempt… if you look at what has happened in 7 years: the Trabelsi affair, the attack on the Philips building… all foiled by your intelligence services. If we only look at the reports, I am certain that [an attack] will happen. | |
| Q: | For you these are the clues that this will happen? | |
| A: | No, no no. I infiltrated the Muslim community of Molenbeek and Marolles for one year. These folks want nothing to do with Belgium, they hate the Belgians. | |
| Q: | What do you base that on? | |
| A: | I was among them, I speak Arabic. They hate the Belgians, they have nothing to do with Belgians, nothing, nothing. | |
| Q: | But can you… are you talking about the Moroccan community, the entire Brussels Muslim community? | |
| A: | No, the Moroccans with their beards, their half pants and their bare feet in their shoes… no, it is a very dangerous community. It’s a time bomb. |
| […] | ||
| Q: | Yes, but… okay, you say “the Muslim 25%” in Brussels… Are they all dangerous? Come on. | |
| A: | No, but if 1% of them are dangerous, you are up the creek… | |
| […] | ||
| Q: | Yes, but you just said… that the Moroccans that live here in Brussels do not want to have anything do do with Belgium, with Brussels… | |
| A: | No. | |
| Q: | … that they hate us. | |
| A: | They want a Caliphate; quite simply they want a government that directs the Umma from Baghdad to England. It’s what they want. | |
| Q: | These people are therefore free… free to do what they want here? | |
| A: | That, you should report to the police. I mean… Go take a walk through the bookstores at Lemonnier… Look at the hate pouring out of there, against the jews, against the christians, against the shias… It’s there freely for sale, in french and in arabic. Euh, sorry! All this is possible in Belgium… One can also easily purchase arms… | |
| […] | ||
| Q: | …But how did you get the idea to infiltrate, to dive into the Muslim world? | |
| A: | Because Muriel Delgauque, who comes from Charleroi, went and blew herself up… | |
| Q: | In Baghdad… | |
| A: | … in 2004 if I am not mistaken. | |
| Q: | Yes, in Iraq. | |
| A: | She had a Moroccan friend, who came from Molenbeek, and was the first “white” martyr from Belgium. Belgium had the honor of having the first “white” martyr for Al Qaeda. | |
| Q: | You speak of this woman who blew herself up, who committed a suicide-attack in Iraq. This is what triggered in your head, what decided you to want to do something, try to understand? | |
| A: | Yes, I then said to myself: “How is it that a girl from Charleroi had gotten to such a point where she decided to go to Bagdad with her crummy car and blow herself up? It’s absurd. This girl drank, with her friends, she did drugs, she smoked joints… | |
| Q: | Did you find the answer to your question? | |
| A: | No. | |
| […] | ||
| Q: | In an interview you gave with Knack [magazine], you said that you had some disagreeable experiences with some Moroccans… | |
| A: | I was robbed, yes. In a horrifying manner. | |
| Q: | You were the victim of robbery, you and your wife were insulted in the street… Is this all related? | |
| A: | Of course. I walk down Haute street, the “Hoogstraat” as you say. Okay, I’m walking there, with my girl friend, who was dressed in a manner a little sexy — which means, for Moroccans, that she was wearing a t-shirt. And they were saying in arabic: “dirty whore! Dirty whore!” Kahda — a very ugly word. Ok, I go on my way, I turn around and say :”your sister!” Not even “Your mother!”, which would be even more serious. I received a blow to the back, and I got worked over. I went to the police… but bla bla bla. These people, if they want to live within an orthodox system, let them go do it elsewhere, but not in Brussels. | |
| Q: | Last question. You have also said to our colleagues at Knack: “The more I gathered information on this community, the less I began to understand the Moroccans”, to the point where you used the term “helplessness” [note: or maybe “impotence”… not sure from the context]. I ask myself, therefore: if this is your sentiment, despite all your travels — you were a war correspondant — , your studies, this sentiment must be shared by the average Brussels citizen. Does this explain in part why living together is so hard for the two communities, or why they do not recognize each other? | |
| A: | There is no life in common. The Moroccans must adapt or leave. They adapt to our culture, our liberties, and that’s it. If they do not want to adapt, if they want their own… if at Molenbeek they do not want any billboards from H&M with women in bikinis, all they have to do is get the hell out, they have only to leave Brussels and return to Morocco. | |
| Q: | In other words, to wrap up, a multicultural society… | |
| A: | Doesn’t exist. |
Read the rest at Covenant Zone.
Hat tip: François
5 comments:
Van Amerongen is a Dutch journalist who built a small career on his politically rather correct reportings about muslim-communities in the Netherlands. He was rewarded for a docu about a young Moroccan rapper seeking his 'roots' in M. He expected the docu would contravene all stereotypes about young Moroccan muslims but instead, as the project went along, it got from worse to nightmarish. Stereotypes were confirmed and became truïsms, obviously not what Van Amerongen had set out to do.
Then, he got mugged and beaten up in Brussels and that was what caused him to leave his PC-multiculti creed. So, sadly but true this personal experience made him change perspective. This is exactly what the PC-interviewer is getting at by constantly reminding Van Amerongen of the fact that his judgement is biased by his personal experiences. This rhetorical ploy was also used against Hirsi Ali (ad wominems). Van Amerongen is wise not to deny this exp. its crucial role, on the contrary: for him it contributes to his participant observation research, i.e. his street-credibility.
I think his upcoming book BXL Eurabia should be read alongside a genuine undercoverstory by Hind Fraihi, 'Undercover in Little Morocco'. She is a young Flemish journalist who spent two months researching undercover among radical Muslims in Brussels. I reckon for her it was much more easy to 'blend in' in a city were already 57% of the newborn babies are muslim (2004).
The foundation of multi-culturalism is that all cultures are of equal value. More fundamentally, they assert that Western Culture is in no way superior to any Third World culture. No member of any Third World culture should have to change his behavior in any way in order to "fit in" to Western Society -- it is Western Society which must be changed to accommodate other cultures
That interview resonates with me, he has hit the nail on the head I studied for my animation diploma in Belgium and I came in contact with Moroccans. Very nice people as individuals but as soon as there come a few together then they tend to form an isolated group. The same is happening at my son's school. Then Moroccan values rule. Then it is knives and drugs. The Belgiums are great people, friendly open and they brew great beer. When I was doing my course we had a Moroccan in the class. When we went down to the canteen for a beer during the breaks he wouldn't sit with us but went and sat with the other Moroccans. They mixed because they had too not because they wanted too. They feel themselves superior, when you have had the Imman telling you for I don't know how many years that you are superior because your religion is superior, its in the book, what do you expect other than that they look down on the infidel as an inferior. The other point that is missed is that they have been taught that everything is in the koran that is worth knowing. What happens is that if they do badly at school they shrug it off saying to themselves that it doesn't matter anyway, the koran is more important. This idea that they are superior to the Infidel and there inability to compete leads to a sense of frustration. They can't understand why they are not given the job as boss and have to go and work on the shop floor. There is no humility with them so there can be no self reflection. The only thing that they can then do is make excuses, with the excuses comes all those loverly conspiracy theories, you know the sort of thing Arafat was poisoned by the Jews. The fact that he died of aids because he was a dirty little sodomist could not enter there heads. They are where they are because of the way they are. They hate because they cannot compete and don't want to compete and it will continue to to a point where they think that they are capable of of taking what they think is there right by force. The time bomb is ticking
So it is indeed true:
"A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged".
Literally, in this case.
All I can say about the interviewer in "Baaaaa!" I dislike the term "Sheeple", but in this case it well & truely fits.
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