Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Slouching Towards Zurich

Counterjihad Zurich 2010

Tell me again about Europe and her pains,
Who’s tortured by the drought, who by the rains.
Glut me with floods where only the swine can row
Who cuts his throat and let him count his gains.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.


               — William Empson, from “Aubade

This year’s meeting of European Counterjihad activists convened last Saturday morning in a suburb of Zurich. As is my habit, I arrived a couple of days early to allow time to recover from jet lag and see the local sights before beginning work in earnest. On Friday morning, under the expert guidance of a local Swiss participant, I took a tour of Zurich along with several other people who arrived early for the meeting.

The city of Zurich lies in the German-speaking area of Switzerland at the north end of a long lake called Zürichsee, where it is joined by the Limmat River. The site has been settled since approximately 5000 BC, and the present city was founded more than two thousand years ago by the Romans, who named it Turicum.

We walked from the main railway station to the lake, and then up the Limmat to the Grossmünster, the Great Cathedral of Zurich.

Zurich 1

The south tower of the cathedral was open to visitors, and the more adventurous members of our group made the long climb up a spiral staircase to the viewing area at the top, where we were afforded a spectacular view of the city in all directions. This is the skyline to the northwest:

Zurich 2

We spent the rest of the afternoon prowling the narrow streets of the Old Town, stopping occasionally to refresh ourselves with food and adult beverages in the outdoor seating areas of several cafes.

Zurich 3While walking around Zurich and its suburbs, I noticed that cultural enrichment has crept into the districts outside the main tourist zones. The kebab joints and pizza restaurants are often run by Turks, and crowds of men sitting in front of them glared at us as we walked by. Hijabs were in evidence on the street — and, as I reported yesterday, could also be seen on the heads of security personnel at the airport.

By and large, however, Zurich seemed to be only lightly enriched, compared to Vienna or, even worse, London. Unlike Copenhagen — where every pizza joint is owned by Arabs — there are Italian pizza restaurants in the city and its suburbs that are run by actual Italians.

The Swiss are fortunate to have taken action and passed the minaret ban while the country is still in the early stages of Islamization. With the growing influence of the Swiss People’s Party, Switzerland may yet avoid the dire situation that prevails in most other Western European countries.

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On Saturday morning we got down to business. I already knew many of the participants, but our location made it easy for French and German contingents to participate, so I was able to make the acquaintance of a number of people I had previously met only through skype or email.

Delegates to the meeting included:

Austria Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
 
Denmark Hans Erling Jensen
  Kepiblanc
  Rolf Krake
 
France Cyber-Résistant
  Gandalf
  Radu
  sementic 77
 
Germany Conny Meier
  Liz
  nockerl
  Rabea
 
Switzerland Christian
  Kitman
 
UK Gaia
  Aeneas

In addition to the people listed above, there were attendees from Norway and Sweden, and representatives from the SVP, the EDL, and Lega Nord were also present. Belgium and the Netherlands were in the midst of major elections, and unfortunately sent no delegates to the meeting.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is already known to our regular readers, and you may also recall Hans Erling Jensen, the wily Dane who is counter-suing the heirs of Mohammed for insulting infidels. It was a pleasure to finally meet Gandalf of VV&D, as well as a number of other French Counterjihad activists whom I had previously known only by email or skype. Kitman, the video whiz who works regularly with Vlad Tepes, was on hand to talk about media. Two major German-language news sites, Politically Incorrect and Europe News, sent several representatives to weigh in on alternative media.

I’ll be covering the individual sessions in some detail in later posts, but a brief overview is in order. Like the meetings in Vienna and Copenhagen, the sessions were mostly in workshop format, with moderated general discussion in a roundtable format. Emphasis was placed on the fact that in the repression of the current politically correct regime, what we do makes us dissidents. A nascent totalitarianism — in which state control on both sides of the Atlantic is exerted through government social and financial benefits — will gradually force us into a kind of samizdat.

With these repressive conditions in mind, several of the sessions focused on working around the MSM to spread the truth about the dangers of Islamization. For now, until our countries bring to bear the kind of controls on the internet that exist in China, the new media are our best hope. YouTube and other online video services are particularly important in the viral spread of dissident information.

Aeneas gave a presentation on the English Defence League, which has mounted the most successful grassroots anti-jihad operation yet seen in the West. The EDL utilizes alternative media to get around the wall of negative MSM coverage, and organizes its membership for collective action using a variety communications strategies — online forums, Facebook, email, SMS, etc. The EDL’s methods are so successful that the group can almost instantaneously raise a local gathering of members in response to breaking events. In this they have taken a page from their Muslim adversaries, who are notorious for their generation of flash mobs.

Gandalf of VV&D led a workshop on the Alliance to Stop Sharia. The French constitution is based on laïcité, which is the principle of absolute secularism in government. Under laïcité, Islam cannot be officially attacked, since religion falls outside of governmental purview. However, because sharia is a legal system, it is a valid object of constitutional scrutiny. Moreover, it can be easily shown to violate the French constitution.

The Stop Sharia initiative thus focuses entirely on Sharia, and never mentions Islam. By avoiding religion and focusing on the law, we can see that Sharia demonstrably violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the English Bill of Rights, the American Bill of Rights, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. If we sidestep the question of religion, Islam becomes quite vulnerable to a concerted attack on its illiberal legal tenets — which are an absolute mandate of its scripture.

On Sunday afternoon a member of parliament for the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP, a.k.a. Union Démocratique du Centre or UDC, Unione Democratica di Centro or UDC, and Partida Populara Svizra or PPS) addressed the meeting. He led a discussion about his party’s successful referendum campaign that imposed a ban on the building of new minarets. He urged delegates from other countries to follow the Swiss example and employ direct democracy in their fight against Islamization. The Swiss constitution permits citizens to force a nationwide referendum after obtaining a threshold number of petition signatures, but not all European countries allow such initiatives. Switzerland, however, is not the only country with such a provision, and the EU itself provides for citizens’ referenda.

Other topics covered in the weekend’s sessions included parliamentary legislation, freedom of speech, fundraising, the OSCE, and the growing threat of Turkey.


As is usual in these meetings, some of the most interesting and lively conversations occurred at lunch or in the evening, as delegates shared ideas and compared notes over food and drink. I learned from the French delegation that official French government propaganda is failing massively, that people are not fooled, and that they no longer believe the official lies. There is a sense that the country is nearing the tipping point, and is on the verge of a fundamental shift in public opinion.

The same theme was expressed by delegates from other countries. All across Europe official propaganda is losing its effectiveness, which is why the news media are becoming more blatantly biased. Denunciations of politically incorrect parties and politicians are increasingly shrill, with Geert Wilders and his PVV being referred to as “rats” by German media outlets after the PVV’s recent electoral success. The demonization of the EDL by the BBC and other British media is ratcheting up, but it is no longer working. Even Sweden is experiencing a growing public awareness of the nature of the Islamic problem.

Underlying all of this is the financial crisis, which may be the proximate trigger for the coming changes. This is the unpredictable factor — if the euro and the banking system can hold out for a few years longer, the demographic advantage enjoyed by Islam can only increase, and make the reckoning that much more ugly when it finally arrives.

In any case, events in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Britain show that change is already beginning. Since I first started attending these meetings three years ago, more change has occurred than I would ever have believed possible. Given the current potential for cataclysmic events — an Iranian nuke, for example, or the collapse of a major currency — predicting what will happen in the next five years is all but impossible.

But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply.
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.


Once again, I’d like to thank all the people whose kind donations allowed me to travel to Zurich for this year’s meeting. You all know who you are, and you have earned my deepest gratitude.

Update: A misspelled name in the above text has been corrected.

8 comments:

Jedilson Bonfim said...

That more and more people in Western Europe aren't falling for the usual lies and propaganda peddled by the dhimmi MSM is indeed great news. That doesn't mean that the latter, plus the hordes of pseudo-academics that parrot their lines or give them what to spew, won't try to keep playing that dirty game. A couple of days ago I came across this nice bit of one more such attempt. The funny thing is that it fell flat on its face:

The New York Times brands Dutch political leader Geert Wilders an ‘extremist” and “populist” who causes trouble for “mainstream” politicians with his “unsavoury policies”. It then calls on a Dutch academic to help explain how bad this “outspoken critic of Islam” really is:

Dick Houtman, a professor of political sociology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said that Mr. Wilders had built on Mr. Fortuyn’s legacy, successfully avoiding the overtly racist language of far-right politicians in other countries by highlighting issues like freedom of speech, female equality and gay rights. ”That serves to exclude Muslims from the Dutch political consensus,” he said.

Are these guys listening to themselves? If “highlighting issues like freedom of speech, female equality and gay rights” does indeed “exclude Muslims from the Dutch political consensus”, then who is the real problem here? Which side of the debate does indeed have “unsavoury policies”?

Zenster said...

The Swiss constitution permits citizens to force a nationwide referendum after obtaining a threshold number of petition signatures, but not all European countries allow such initiatives. Switzerland, however, is not the only country with such a provision, and the EU itself provides for citizens’ referenda.

For all of the potential political pitfalls that may come with it, America is in desperate need of a national referendum process. Given enough signatures on a sufficient number of petitions from a specific quorum of states, the public must be able to submit laws for consideration and passage by the American electorate.

First and foremost among those laws:

FEDERAL TERM LIMITS
America must eject it current horde of career politicians. They are, quite literally, killing us. In their endless pursuit of re-election, they have lost all sight of what is meant by "public service".

After that:

ENHANCE AND ENFORCE EXISTING IMMIGRATION LAWS
Halt the influx of Third World illiterates and Muslim infiltrators into America. Make political asylum exceptionally difficult to obtain and family reunifications a rarity.

REFORM SOCIAL SECURITY
Eliminate the current special retirement plan enjoyed by federal politicians and require all of them to retire on regular Social Security.

ESTABLISH ENGLISH AS THE SOLE NATIONAL LANGUAGE
No more driver's license tests in seven different languages. ESL classes must be paid for by attendees. An inability to speak English or illiteracy should bar candidacy for any immigration. No Ebonics, no Spanglish, just plain English.

ELIMINATE ALL LOBBYISTS
Special interests and their campaign contributions have so subverted our political system as to render it incapable of serving the American people.

MANDATE FEDERALLY FUNDED POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
No private or corporate contributions allowed. We the taxpayers pay for federal campaigns and place strict limits upon who gets what money and how much.

REWRITE THE TAX CODE
Be it a flat tax or whatever works best but get this pile of loophole-riddled crap fixed.

MAKE POLITICAL CORRUPTION A FELONY
Hard time without early release and total loss of pension for all malfeasance of office. Period.

FORCE ALL BUT THE VERY HIGHEST OFFICIALS TO FLY ON CIVILIAN CARRIERS
No private jets, no personal planes, no corporate loaners, no military flights. Fly with the rest of us schlubs and take the same risks you force us to endure. Go ahead, fly first class, bump us from here to Sunday but share the uncertainty that your worthless air travel security measures confer upon the rest of us.

That’s good for starters.

Get the national referendum amendment passed by forcing all candidates for office to sign a binding legal contract that they will propose and support this issue at all times while holding office. Make it a prerequisite for any politician who wants to have even a glimmer of hope of being elected. Period.

costin said...

Baron, "Since I first started attending these meetings three years ago, more change has occurred than I would ever have believed possible. "

It would be very interesting to tell us a little more. How did you think 3 years ago things would look like now, and why do they look much worse than you expected/?

Baron Bodissey said...

costin --

Three years ago I was just getting started in this transatlantic gig, so it may be that things haven’t changed all that much, really, but rather the amount of data available to me has changed.

It’s hard to tell, because I’ve had to absorb so much new information about Europe since then. All the political parties, the politicians, the legal structure in different countries, the opinions in the media -- enormous quantities of material to absorb.

In 2007 it seemed that only the Danes were truly alert to the necessity for pushback against Islam. No other country seemed to come close to Denmark.

However, there have been major encouraging developments in the meantime. I’ll just list a few off the top of my head:

1. Geert Wilders and the PVV.Geert Wilders’ name was in the news back then, but the PVV was not the potent political force that it is today. After the recent election which catapulted it into a strong third place, the PVV can wield real, effective power against the further Islamization of the Netherlands. This is the most important political development in the West since 9/11.

2. The emergence of the English Defence League.Three years ago Britain seemed more hopelessly mired in political correctness and dhimmitude than any other Western nation, and the British public was supine in the face of the officially-sanctioned genocide being waged against them. Even a year and a half ago, there was no sign of a popular pushback. Now the EDL is a formidable political force, and its organization is totally at the grassroots level. It’s a staggering development.

3. Sverigedemokraterna.Three years ago the Sweden Democrats were completely marginal in Swedish politics, and were seen as Nazis by the establishment. That last part is still true, but the average Swedish voter seems to have seen through the media lies, because SD is almost certain to pass the 4% threshold and enter parliament in September. This, like the emergence of the EDL, is an amazing breakthrough in a country that seemed utterly lost to dhimmitude.

4. The Lega Nord.The strength of the Northern League in Italy continues to grow, and Berlusconi’s ruling coalition is considerably more dependent on the Lega than it was three years ago.

5. The SVP.The Swiss People’s Party has moved from a barely noticeable fringe group to one of the largest parties in Switzerland, and the minaret ban is just the most visible evidence that Swiss public opinion has bypassed the MSM to learn about what the SVP really stands for.

[to be continued]

Baron Bodissey said...

[continued]

6. Pro-Köln.Germany has the hardest job of all when it comes to resisting Islam, because whenever someone tries to take action, the media all over the world shriek about “the danger of a Nazi revival” or something similar. Yet, despite all this, a true Counterjihad movement has formed at the grassroots level in Cologne and North Rhine-Westphalia.

7. Fremskrittspartiet.The anti-immigration Progress Party in Norway has emerged as a real player and gained considerable public support. In the most recent elections, the decline of the traditional right and the strength of the communists prevented Fremskrittspartiet from gaining decisive influence, but it will definitely be a player in the future.

8. Perussuomalaiset.The growth of the True Finns continues, despite official and unofficial repression. The trial of Jussi Halla-aho has brought home to many Finns the totalitarian nature of the Multicultural establishment, which seems to want Finland to become just like Sweden, the Netherlands, and Britain.

9. The emergence of a popular French resistance. France is still lagging behind the Netherlands, but a real resistance has emerged in the last two years. The Front National is no longer the only right-wing game in town: the Bloc Identitaire has been formed to assert a traditional French identity and resist Islamization.

10. The burqa bans.The various burqa bans -- France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark come to mind -- were inconceivable three years ago. Under the universal Multicultural regime, politicians dared not touch the issue, but the political winds have shifted in the meantime.

Those are just the first ten encouraging signs that I could think of. I’m sure that more can be added.

SWAT said...

Hi Baron... Yeah,I agree with you,there is quite a big change that is currently happening in Europe right now,anti-islam/far right parties are on the rise in most EU countries,and Europeans are already waking up...

Yup and there are a few extra points that I would like to add to the 10 other points you provided for Costin above me ^


1) In the mock elections conducted in the Netherlands from May to June in Secondary schools,the VVD which has a strong stance on immigration,came in 2nd,with 28 seats. The PVV,came in at FIRST...with 30 seats. A few more years down the road,with these students being eligible to vote for elections,I cannot imagine how far the PVV and VVD may soar further...


2) David Cameron,the new British PM has already pledged that he will put a limit on the immigration numbers from OUTSIDE the EU.

I am pretty sure this is will be the start of the 'end'
of the Muslim dream of taking over the EU...

Storm said...

The Netherlands seemed to be one of the EU countries in the worst shape a year or so ago. Maybe only Sweden and the UK gave them any competition for the worst place.

I felt a bit shocked with all the good news about PVV doing so well in Netherlands lately. I have to start feeling better about their chances to defend themselves now and I wasn't used to that idea at all in the past.

Now EDL is doing well also. Good for them.

Still If I hear anything about Sweden truly waking up I'll have to look out my window for flying pigs lol.

Unknown said...

I'm Spanish. Spain expelled the muslims in X. XVII. Now, Spain hasta a lot of muslim inmigration. But Spain is sleeping. Spain needs help form North Europe to wake up. The reconquest of Europe should also be developed in Spain.