In recent weeks a number of protests known collectively as “los indignados” have taken place in central Madrid, with demonstrators objecting to the government’s austerity measures and financial mismanagement. The young Spanish protesters have inspired similar movements in Italy, France, and most recently Greece.
Also in Greece, immigrant criminals have been coping with the current financial crisis by kidnapping illegal immigrants and torturing them until their families pay ransom. Athens police have just arrested fourteen Pakistanis and Afghans who are suspected of being part of the kidnapping ring.
In other news, the maximum possible fine will be levied against the Bulgarian nationalist party Ataka for recent attacks by its members on Muslims praying on the street in front of a mosque in downtown Sofia.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, CSP, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Kitman, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Democracy, Virginity, and the Arab Spring
A couple of months ago Amnesty International reported that female protesters arrested during the demonstrations in Cairo had been subjected to “virginity checks” by the military authorities. Spokesmen for the army denied the allegations at the time, but now a general has admitted — and justified — these tests of female virtue.
According to CNN:
The logic behind the tests is interesting: virginity checks were a necessity, because if the women were not virgins, then any claims that they had been sexually assaulted while in custody could not possibly have any validity.
Of course, if they had been sexually assaulted before the army doctor managed to get their feet into the stirrups, they wouldn’t be virgins anymore, anyway.
That’s some catch, that Catch-22:
According to CNN:
Egyptian General Admits ‘Virginity Checks’ Conducted on Protesters
Cairo (CNN) -- A senior Egyptian general admits that “virginity checks” were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.
The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.
At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or “virginity tests.”
But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.
“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general said. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”
The logic behind the tests is interesting: virginity checks were a necessity, because if the women were not virgins, then any claims that they had been sexually assaulted while in custody could not possibly have any validity.
Of course, if they had been sexually assaulted before the army doctor managed to get their feet into the stirrups, they wouldn’t be virgins anymore, anyway.
That’s some catch, that Catch-22:
Systematically Destroying the Land
Below is the second part of a two-part video about the German journalist Udo Ulfkotte and his new book, No Black, No Red, No Gold (Part 1 is here). Dr. Ulfkotte, like Thilo Sarrazin, has dared to confront the politically correct establishment in Germany and demand an accounting for the monetary cost and cultural damage imposed on his country by the mass importation of millions of inassimilable Muslim immigrants.
Rather than blame the Muslims themselves, he lays the responsibility squarely where it belongs: with political leaders whose cowardice and/or calculation have prevented any honest public discussion of the consequences of Islamization in Germany.
Many thanks to the Counterjihad Collective for the transcription and time-stamping, to JLH for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling. The video is below the jump, followed by a complete transcript:
A Fact-Based Analysis of Islam
For American readers who were away for the Memorial Day weekend and may have missed this video: on May 12, 2011, Bill Warner spoke at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, TN. His speech was part of Geert Wilders’ event, “A Warning to America”, sponsored by the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.
To reserve a copy of a DVD of the entire event, including speeches by Steve Gill, Bill Warner, Sam Solomon, and Geert Wilders, email the Tennessee Freedom Coalition: info@tnfreedomcoalition.org
Previous posts about the Tennessee Freedom Coalition:
To reserve a copy of a DVD of the entire event, including speeches by Steve Gill, Bill Warner, Sam Solomon, and Geert Wilders, email the Tennessee Freedom Coalition: info@tnfreedomcoalition.org
Previous posts about the Tennessee Freedom Coalition:
2011 | May | 14 | A Warning to America: “It’s Islam, Stupid!” | |||
14 | The Tennessean Weighs In | |||||
16 | Tennessee the Model | |||||
17 | Losing Our Community | |||||
18 | Being Effective in Tennessee | |||||
29 | The Facts of Islam |
Perth Says “No Mosque!”
This is a refreshing change of pace, demonstrating that Islamization is not an inevitable, pre-ordained outcome, at least in Australia.
The authorities in Western Australia didn’t address the nature of a mosque, which functions as a beachhead for the Islamic invasion. Every article about a proposed mosque should quote Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
However, the argument that the mosque would “detrimentally affect the existing rural amenity of the locality” is a good strategy. Most mosques in most Western locales could be barred using the same standard. An honest assessment would recognize that the only neighborhoods not “detrimentally affected” by the addition of a mosque would be those that are already thoroughly Islamized.
From New Kerala:
The authorities in Western Australia didn’t address the nature of a mosque, which functions as a beachhead for the Islamic invasion. Every article about a proposed mosque should quote Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
However, the argument that the mosque would “detrimentally affect the existing rural amenity of the locality” is a good strategy. Most mosques in most Western locales could be barred using the same standard. An honest assessment would recognize that the only neighborhoods not “detrimentally affected” by the addition of a mosque would be those that are already thoroughly Islamized.
From New Kerala:
Perth, May 31: Australian State Administrative Tribunal has rejected an appeal to run a mosque on grounds of detrimental effects of noise in southern suburbs of Perth.
Ruling out the proposal for running a mosque, it said a solid boundary wall surrounding a mosque would be needed to mitigate noise impacts. However, such a wall would take away the serenity of the area.
The tribunal said the mosque’s activities would be “unusual”, resulting in an “undesirable impact ... incompatible with retaining the local character and amenity” of the area, The West Australian News reports.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/30/2011
After months of mass protests in their major cities, Syria and Yemen have pushed their crackdowns on demonstrators to a new level. In both countries the army was ordered to quell the protests using all necessary means, including firing into the crowds massing into central urban areas. Yemeni government jets also bombed Al Qaeda strongholds in the coastal city of Zinjibar.
In other news, a 19-year-old beauty contestant in the Crimea was stoned to death by several young Muslim men for violating sharia law with her salacious behavior.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In other news, a 19-year-old beauty contestant in the Crimea was stoned to death by several young Muslim men for violating sharia law with her salacious behavior.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Migration, Invasion, or Settlement?
In recent years, European advocates for mass immigration have taken up the euphemism “migration” to describe the process they champion. The abbreviated version of the word is less freighted with negative connotations, and serves to anesthetize the general public by evoking images of people who move from place to place occasionally — maybe seasonal farm workers or pastoral nomads — but certainly not a massive influx of hostile aliens.
In other words, nothing like the reality of 21st-century Europe.
Frequent arguments may be heard within Counterjihad circles about what term best describes what is going on now in Europe, since “immigration” hardly covers it. Other suggestions include “invasion” and “colonization”, and I would add “settlement” to the list. But none of these quite captures the essence of what is happening.
Invasion implies an armed incursion, and at least a token resistance by the population that is being invaded. None of that is in evidence in Europe — the target population is largely passive, thanks to generous amounts of soma provided by the welfare state, and the invaders have actually been invited in by the political leaders of the invaded countries.
Colonization also implies a coordinated effort by a militarily superior armed power to overcome the target population. Colonizing a foreign country is similar to invading it, except that any resistance offered by the colony is asymmetric and ineffective. Colonists are not invited in and welcomed by the leaders of the colonized country, unless the latter have already lost the battle and are accepting a fait accompli.
Settlement comes slightly closer, because it implies migration to a land that is open for occupation and exploitation. Yet such a land should be sparsely-populated or uninhabited. Iceland was settled. North America was settled. Europe is not being settled; it is being willingly ceded to an alien population.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For a change of pace, we’ll take a breather from the Jihad and look at what’s happening today in the United States.
Islamization is the larger threat in the long term, but the immediate danger here in the U.S.A. is Mexicanization. Last night I happened to stumble across the following map, which I adapted from an article published by the Migration Policy Institute:
As we all know, California and Texas are the most Mexicanized states. But Illinois? What brings all those Mexicans to Chicago…?
The data used for this map and the rest of the article are from 2006. We’ll assume that the number of Mexican-born residents of the United States has only increased in the meantime, even if the current depression has induced some of the illegals to return home. The 2006 figures should suffice for the sake of analysis.
I made the following graphs from the tabular data in the accompanying article. The first is a chart showing the increase since 1960 in foreign-born residents of the U.S.A., Mexican and otherwise. As you can see, the overall increase in immigration is accelerating, and the number of Mexicans is increasing more rapidly than all the other nationalities:
In other words, nothing like the reality of 21st-century Europe.
Frequent arguments may be heard within Counterjihad circles about what term best describes what is going on now in Europe, since “immigration” hardly covers it. Other suggestions include “invasion” and “colonization”, and I would add “settlement” to the list. But none of these quite captures the essence of what is happening.
Invasion implies an armed incursion, and at least a token resistance by the population that is being invaded. None of that is in evidence in Europe — the target population is largely passive, thanks to generous amounts of soma provided by the welfare state, and the invaders have actually been invited in by the political leaders of the invaded countries.
Colonization also implies a coordinated effort by a militarily superior armed power to overcome the target population. Colonizing a foreign country is similar to invading it, except that any resistance offered by the colony is asymmetric and ineffective. Colonists are not invited in and welcomed by the leaders of the colonized country, unless the latter have already lost the battle and are accepting a fait accompli.
Settlement comes slightly closer, because it implies migration to a land that is open for occupation and exploitation. Yet such a land should be sparsely-populated or uninhabited. Iceland was settled. North America was settled. Europe is not being settled; it is being willingly ceded to an alien population.
For a change of pace, we’ll take a breather from the Jihad and look at what’s happening today in the United States.
Islamization is the larger threat in the long term, but the immediate danger here in the U.S.A. is Mexicanization. Last night I happened to stumble across the following map, which I adapted from an article published by the Migration Policy Institute:
As we all know, California and Texas are the most Mexicanized states. But Illinois? What brings all those Mexicans to Chicago…?
The data used for this map and the rest of the article are from 2006. We’ll assume that the number of Mexican-born residents of the United States has only increased in the meantime, even if the current depression has induced some of the illegals to return home. The 2006 figures should suffice for the sake of analysis.
I made the following graphs from the tabular data in the accompanying article. The first is a chart showing the increase since 1960 in foreign-born residents of the U.S.A., Mexican and otherwise. As you can see, the overall increase in immigration is accelerating, and the number of Mexicans is increasing more rapidly than all the other nationalities:
The EDL Demonstration in Blackpool
Below are two TV news reports about last Saturday’s English Defence League demonstration in Blackpool:
The TV reporters fail to mention a particularly grisly aspect of the Charlene Downes case: investigators believe that the murderers of the 14-year-old cut up her body and mixed it with kebab meat in a restaurant operated by one of the suspects.
Hat tip: Gaia.
The TV reporters fail to mention a particularly grisly aspect of the Charlene Downes case: investigators believe that the murderers of the 14-year-old cut up her body and mixed it with kebab meat in a restaurant operated by one of the suspects.
Hat tip: Gaia.
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
Part V: A Discredited State
“As the slow motion train crash that is Europe’s experiment with Muslim immigration moves on to its inevitable conclusion, we continue to see a sharp polarization between those Europeans who wish, for whatever reason, to continue the experiment and those who wish to bring it to an end. As each European country collapses into its own Muslim Troubles, there will be no cover, politically speaking, for those politicians and public figures who span us tall tales all along about the wonders of the multi-faith Shangri-las we were building.”
This is the conclusion of a five-part series by El Inglés comparing and contrasting the Troubles in Northern Ireland with the coming Muslim Troubles in Britain. Previously: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.
All five parts are now available as a single document in pdf format (thanks to Vlad).
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
by El Inglés
X. Political Implications
So far we have limited our consideration of matters political to the assumption that the state will vacillate its way into and through at least the initial stages of the conflict. However, there is a little more to say on the subject of the mainstream political response to the conflict we predict and explore in this document.
Western European nations have been implementing for several decades, more or less consistently, policies which have the inevitable consequence of turning once-homogeneous countries into much more heterogeneous ones, racially, religiously, culturally, and linguistically. We have been encouraged to believe that, not only has this been a good thing, it is bigoted and evil not to believe that it has been a good thing. Calamitous change has thus been justified by the gossamer banalities of multiculturalism, whose orthogonal relationship with reality is now dawning on the worried architects of the culturally-enriched states of modern Europe.
As the slow motion train crash that is Europe’s experiment with Muslim immigration moves on to its inevitable conclusion, we continue to see a sharp polarization between those Europeans who wish, for whatever reason, to continue the experiment and those who wish to bring it to an end. As each European country collapses into its own Muslim Troubles, there will be no cover, politically speaking, for those politicians and public figures who span us tall tales all along about the wonders of the multi-faith Shangri-las we were building.
To put it at its bluntest, one cannot present oneself as the person to save one’s country from the horrific tribal violence that it has recently descended into when one has spent the last however-many decades cramming as many people of the hostile, enemy tribe in question into that country and describing all opposition to those efforts as racist, bigoted, or worse. We will examine in a later section the way in which the Troubles only came to an end when key decision-makers in the paramilitary organizations on each side decided that they were prepared to lay down their arms to try and reach a negotiated peace. Here we will simply stress the significance of this point: if paramilitaries continue to fight, no government can force a peace. And it is utterly inconceivable that any British paramilitary organization would cease hostilities in this fashion if it believed that the political figures attempting to mediate that process were implicated in the mass immigration, multiculturalism, and Muslim appeasement that had led to the conflict in the first place. As such, any government or person so implicated will be utterly ineffective as a mediator.
In the Netherlands, there exists a politician, Geert Wilders, and a political party, the Dutch Freedom Party, committed to defending the Dutch people and their country from the disaster it has been plunging toward for the last several decades. Whatever unpleasant things some might believe of Mr. Wilders, few would doubt that he means what he says about defending his country and way of life. We are not interested here in trying to predict what will happen in the Netherlands, but we will suggest that any Dutch paramilitary that may emerge to defend the Dutch people as and when the state fails to do so will presumably consider Wilders to be a man worth doing business with, a man who might be worth listening to if he asks them to lay down their guns and let the state take over in meeting the Muslim threat.
One of the greatest dangers we in Britain face with respect to our forthcoming Muslim Troubles is the possibility that all such potential actors will already have discredited themselves in the eyes of British paramilitaries. This is one of the great evils of our electoral system. If we look at the populist right-wing parties throughout Europe that are espousing nationalism and opposing Islam, Islamization, and Muslim immigration, we observe that they are, overwhelmingly, new parties that have only been able to flourish because the electoral systems of their respective countries are based on proportional representation. To take the most obvious example, Wilders’ Freedom Party has attained the influence it currently enjoys because the re-tribalization of Dutch politics made inevitable by Muslim immigration is shunting large numbers of angry Dutch people (which is to say, Dutch-Dutch people) to his party. Even if everyone else in the country considers him to be Lucifer incarnate, his party can simply content itself with taking its share of the vote and seeing the whole of Dutch politics start to dance to its tune.
None of this can happen in the British system. The Dutch Freedom Party won about 16% of the vote in the 2010 election, which gives it a great deal of power. In contrast, winning 16% of the vote in a UK election renders one irrelevant apart from in those very rare cases where a hung parliament opens up the possibility of a coalition government. In the 2005 general election in the UK, the Liberal Democrats won 18.3% of the vote, which gave them 52 out of 646 seats and rendered them essentially impotent, as it did every party other than Labour, who won a significant majority. In other words, a party can win nearly a fifth of the vote in a general election and still attain neither outright power, nor a place in a governing coalition, nor even the slightest possibility of a place in a governing coalition for the simple reason that no such coalition is required.
This is an electoral system that could have been designed to kill off political innovation and ensure the mainstream parties are almost unassailable in the great big coin-toss that happens once every few years in the UK. UKIP, the closest equivalent to the Dutch Freedom Party in the UK, won 16% of the vote in the European election in 2009. Granted, the European elections are often used to register protest votes, so this result should not be taken as meaning that 16% of the British public considers UKIP its preferred party across the board. Nonetheless, despite their popularity clearly being far greater than their 3% of the vote in the 2010 general election would suggest, they have yet to win a single seat in the House of Commons. As a consequence of this lopsidedness in British elections, debates vis-à-vis Islam and Muslim immigration in mainstream British politics take place entirely within the confines of what the three main parties are comfortable with. No party can storm the pitch from the sidelines, breaking taboos the way Wilders does in the Netherlands, because those who do break taboos, like the BNP, simply do not have to be responded to by anyone with a chance of winning.
Of the three main parties, the only one that could reasonably be expected to start trying to turn the British ship of state around before it crashes onto the shores of our Muslim Troubles is the Conservative Party. Now, as by far the strongest party in a coalition government after thirteen years in the wilderness, it is starting to strut its stuff with respect to the terrible problems we face, and its stuff is not especially reassuring. To be sure, David Cameron has indicated that he will not be prepared to tolerate certain of the things that Labour turned a blind eye to, and the government has already started to make far-reaching changes to the immigration system, the single most crucial area of policy. But there is no public recognition from the Conservatives of the breadth or depth of the problems Islam and Muslims pose us in Britain, and this is what is crucial. Perhaps David Cameron is well aware of what we face, but does not feel he can talk about it. This may seem like a wise course of action to him at present, but can only discredit him and his party later on. One cannot feign ignorance of an iceberg, crash into it, and still insist that one is uniquely qualified to deal with the ensuing catastrophe, because, truth be told, one had seen it all along. This will not convince anyone of one’s qualifications for dealing with the problem, least of all those who have committed murderous acts of violence on behalf of paramilitary organizations.
In short, the Conservatives are in danger, not imminent danger, but danger nonetheless, of discrediting themselves as a party capable of understanding and dealing with the threat we face. We are, of course, obliged to take into account the fact that they are part of a coalition and are therefore somewhat constrained in what they do. Even so, it is far from obvious that they are up to the challenge of charting the dramatic change of course that would be required to put clear blue water between us and the ever-closer hulk of our Muslim Troubles, which lie directly ahead.
It will come to be seen as a historic misfortune that the window of opportunity for dealing with the threat our Muslim population poses us without massive violence happened to coincide with a juncture at which our main centre-right party was busy trying to convince the UK electorate that it was no longer the ‘nasty party.’ However peripheral non-entities such as Baroness Warsi may be to the real power in the Conservative Party, the mere fact that Cameron has felt the need to parachute them into such prominent positions as party chairman shows how hard the Conservatives are trying to be all things to all people. Could we imagine Geert Wilders dragging some token Moroccan into his party to convince people that he was tight with the believers?
Is it a coincidence that the only European country to have seen the rise of a robust, successful, anti-Islamic street movement like the EDL is also the only country to have no mainstream political party that has woken up to the threat of Islam, not Islamism, not radical Islam, not extremist Islam, but Islam itself? We cannot say for sure, but it seems likely that opposition to Islam will emerge by hook or by crook, and that if it does not do so through electoral politics, it will have to do so some other way. Whether it likes it or not, the EDL is already on course to become the UDA of our Muslim Troubles. There are undoubtedly UVFs waiting to emerge as well. Is this what our political masters want?
There are presumably people in the Netherlands who believe that Wilders is a threat to their democracy. But this is a mistake. Wilders is the last hope of their democracy, as a democracy that destroys the possibility of peaceful, political self-correction, will make inevitable violent, apolitical self-correction, and kill democracy itself in the process. Wilders is the last chance the Netherlands will have to avoid blood on the streets. And the window of opportunity is closing even for him.
XI. The Two Insanities
We have already stated our core assumption that the British government will, by and large, be wholly ineffective in the face of the violent conflict that breaks out between British and Muslims and seek merely to contain it. However, there are crucial issues pertaining to the government response that must be considered beyond this assumption. The violent conflict that we predict in this document is not something that can be solved in any obvious sense by any government. But there are still certain potential courses of action that different parts of the apparatus of state can take within the constraints of our earlier assumption that are of relevance here.
Broadly speaking, the long-term objectives of British paramilitaries in the conflict will include at least the following:
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/29/2011
Trouble broke out on the Tunisian side of the border with Libya when protesting refugees from the Choucha camp in Libya crossed over to Tunisia and clashed with the locals there. The army had to be called in to restore order, and several protesters were reported killed. The refugees involved were said to be from several sub-Saharan countries, including Somalia and Eritrea.
In other news, a man in England was forced to pay £100,000 in child support to his ex-wife for two children she gave birth to after their marriage had ended. She conceived both children after their separation, using his frozen sperm, but without his knowledge.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Insubria, JD, Nilk, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In other news, a man in England was forced to pay £100,000 in child support to his ex-wife for two children she gave birth to after their marriage had ended. She conceived both children after their separation, using his frozen sperm, but without his knowledge.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Insubria, JD, Nilk, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Borders, Language and Culture
Our Greek-American correspondent Anestos Canelides returns with an essay on the growing immigration crisis in his ancestral home.
Borders, Language and Culture
by Anestos Canelides
Borders, language and Culture are words that are spoken every day by America’s premier talk show host Michael Savage. They are spoken to remind Americans that our nation is a sovereign nation and that we have the right to protect our borders from an invasion by illegal immigrants. It says that if we do not control this explosion of illegal immigrants across our borders then America, as we know it, could be radically altered as a nation. Even our culture and language could be threatened.
In the fall of 2001 I was in Athens, Greece to study archeology and history. It was an honor to be in the land of my grandparents, on my mother’s side, and to see the splendor of not only ancient Greece but also modern Greece. I stayed in Athens for an entire month and in that period I saw immigrants from all over the world. Most of who were in Greece illegally or as refugees. I saw people from the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Western Asia, and as Far East as the Philippines and China. I will admit that compared to the overall Greek population their numbers seemed small but it brought me back to the mid 1970’s in the San Fernando Valley, of Southern California, were I grew up.
I recall that at first there was a small trickle of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, but in time that trickle turned into a flood. I saw entire communities change from white to Hispanic in a short time, and the crime in the San Fernando Valley skyrocketed. I am not saying that all these immigrants are bad people and, in fact, most of them are hard-working and honest, but the influx brought changes that were not good. And the fact is they were in our country illegally.
America is a big nation, and many whites took to what we call “white flight”, but Greece is a small nation with fewer resources than the United States and Canada. The question I would ask is: “Where are the Native Greeks going to flee to as more and more immigrants, from wherever, pour into this tiny nation?”
I have read numerous web pages by left-wing radical groups who believe the Greeks should give these illegals amnesty over and over again. If every so many years Greece allows these so-called immigrants to stay then they will just keep coming, hoping to get amnesty in a few years’ time. The Greeks have every right to protect their borders, language and culture by deporting anyone that enters their sovereign nation illegally. I believe that anyone that enters a nation in this manner will generally not respect the rule of law in that nation, whether it is the United States or any nation.
I saw what was happening in parts of Southern California, so I moved to the Pacific Northwest, but Greeks do not have that luxury, so I urge them to take a much stronger stand against this illegal invasion before it is too late. In my opinion the native citizens of Greece should do the following:
Borders, Language and Culture
by Anestos Canelides
Borders, language and Culture are words that are spoken every day by America’s premier talk show host Michael Savage. They are spoken to remind Americans that our nation is a sovereign nation and that we have the right to protect our borders from an invasion by illegal immigrants. It says that if we do not control this explosion of illegal immigrants across our borders then America, as we know it, could be radically altered as a nation. Even our culture and language could be threatened.
In the fall of 2001 I was in Athens, Greece to study archeology and history. It was an honor to be in the land of my grandparents, on my mother’s side, and to see the splendor of not only ancient Greece but also modern Greece. I stayed in Athens for an entire month and in that period I saw immigrants from all over the world. Most of who were in Greece illegally or as refugees. I saw people from the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Western Asia, and as Far East as the Philippines and China. I will admit that compared to the overall Greek population their numbers seemed small but it brought me back to the mid 1970’s in the San Fernando Valley, of Southern California, were I grew up.
I recall that at first there was a small trickle of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, but in time that trickle turned into a flood. I saw entire communities change from white to Hispanic in a short time, and the crime in the San Fernando Valley skyrocketed. I am not saying that all these immigrants are bad people and, in fact, most of them are hard-working and honest, but the influx brought changes that were not good. And the fact is they were in our country illegally.
America is a big nation, and many whites took to what we call “white flight”, but Greece is a small nation with fewer resources than the United States and Canada. The question I would ask is: “Where are the Native Greeks going to flee to as more and more immigrants, from wherever, pour into this tiny nation?”
I have read numerous web pages by left-wing radical groups who believe the Greeks should give these illegals amnesty over and over again. If every so many years Greece allows these so-called immigrants to stay then they will just keep coming, hoping to get amnesty in a few years’ time. The Greeks have every right to protect their borders, language and culture by deporting anyone that enters their sovereign nation illegally. I believe that anyone that enters a nation in this manner will generally not respect the rule of law in that nation, whether it is the United States or any nation.
I saw what was happening in parts of Southern California, so I moved to the Pacific Northwest, but Greeks do not have that luxury, so I urge them to take a much stronger stand against this illegal invasion before it is too late. In my opinion the native citizens of Greece should do the following:
Leftists, Muslims, and Canadian Tax Dollars
Below is a SUN TV report from Brian Lilley about the Canadian government’s financial support for the new flotilla that will attempt once again to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and also on the latest outbreak of Muslim-led anti-Semitism in Montreal.
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video:
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video:
The Ravaging of Cyprus
The following book review was originally published at Europe News by Henrik Ræder Clausen.
Book essay: The bloody truth about Cyprus
by Henrik Ræder Clausen
Bloody Truth
Nicosia, March 2009. ISBN 9789963962204
The apparently endless stalemate on Cyprus is getting a thorough treatment in the publication by the organization “Freedom and Justice for Cyprus”. While the documentation of what went down through the 1960’s and 1970’s is shocking and brutal, the real coup of the book is that it goes back to the 1950’s, once and for all settling the question of who originally created the conflict in Cyprus: It wasn’t the ‘Turkish’ Cypriots. Nor was it Turkey. It was, documentably, Great Britain.
The book has a cover as brutal as the title, an image of Cyprus with blood dripping from the north into the southern part. Based on this, one might expect it to contain a vitriolic anti-Turkish diatribe, but this isn’t really the case. In spite of some linguistic excesses, such as the phrase “The Turkish Propaganda Machine”, the book in general sticks to the documentation of events and developments on the ground, and thus becomes a valuable resource for understanding the current stalemate, as well as for assessing the merits of various proposed solutions.
As for who sowed the seeds of the current problems, the book is clear: It was not Turkey, nor Turkish Cypriots, it was Great Britain. Seeking a way to maintain the colonial rule established in 1923, Britain feared a united Cypriot opposition to their rule, and gradually worked to strengthen the Muslim/Turkish identity of the Muslim Cypriots. That included construction of new mosques in villages without any, initiating the use of the term “Turkish Cypriots”, and later requesting Turkey to reclaim rule of the island, an idea initially received with disinterest by the Turkish government.
However, a committee on the subject was formed in July 1955, and in 1956, professor Nihat Erim was appointed special advisory on the Cyprus issue. In November and December 1956, he released two reports endorsing an active Turkish engagement in Cyprus, aiming first at a division of the island into Greek and Turkish parts (termed “Taksin”), and to work long-term for a full Turkish takeover. This policy was adopted by the Turkish government, and has been followed by various Turkish governments — civilian or military — since then.
The book details chronology of various Greek and Turkish groups formed in the late 1950’s, including EOKA (Greek), VOLCAN (Turkish) and TMT (Turkish). Their chronology is particular important, for it is useful in weeding out honest statements from deceitful ones. This includes Turkish statements about the “Bloodthirsty Makarios”, the work by Rauf Denktash to turn TMT into an underground Turkish organization, the killing of Turkish voices other than those of TMT, and the efforts to make Turkish Cypriots segregate themselves from the Greek Cypriots. The tacit approval of the British in this marks a low point of harmful colonial divide-and-rule strategies.
Descriptions of events after 1962 are somewhat more sketchy. The proposed constitutional changes in 1963 play a central role, and the efforts by the TMT to segregate the Greek and Turkish are recorded in a very varied degree of detail. The Turkish bombardment of Tylleria in August 1964 is mentioned, but the heavy fighting in the preceding months are not. Advance references to the 2004 Annan Plan and similar chronological leaps are annoying, in spite of their relevance. The 1974 invasion is likewise accounted for in an unsystematic way, jumping rapidly from overall descriptions to individual tales of mass rapes and executions by the Turkish soldiers.
The real strength of this book is the wealth of original sources — British, Cypriot, Turkish — drawn in and quoted here. Many common fallacies and outright lies are dismantled, and for this reason it is easy to forgive the somewhat uneven narrative of the book. Harder to forgive is the lack of illustrations. Some maps providing an overview of violent incidents and the 1974 invasion would be welcome, as would some tables with statistics.
This book provides essential background information for the situation in Cyprus. It has its strength in quoting vital original documents in their proper context, showing a clear route from British colonial machinations to direct Turkish involvement, and provides an indispensable understanding of many key events. On the other hand, it is jumpy, both chronologically and emotionally, clearly one-sided, and skips chunks of history needed for a full account of the developments.
Review opinion: 4/6
If you have interest in the Cyprus conflict, adding this book to your collection is recommended, in particular because it provides crucial information regarding the role played by the British.
For those interested, more details out of “Bloody Truth”, and some closing comments:
Book essay: The bloody truth about Cyprus
by Henrik Ræder Clausen
Bloody Truth
Nicosia, March 2009. ISBN 9789963962204
The apparently endless stalemate on Cyprus is getting a thorough treatment in the publication by the organization “Freedom and Justice for Cyprus”. While the documentation of what went down through the 1960’s and 1970’s is shocking and brutal, the real coup of the book is that it goes back to the 1950’s, once and for all settling the question of who originally created the conflict in Cyprus: It wasn’t the ‘Turkish’ Cypriots. Nor was it Turkey. It was, documentably, Great Britain.
The book has a cover as brutal as the title, an image of Cyprus with blood dripping from the north into the southern part. Based on this, one might expect it to contain a vitriolic anti-Turkish diatribe, but this isn’t really the case. In spite of some linguistic excesses, such as the phrase “The Turkish Propaganda Machine”, the book in general sticks to the documentation of events and developments on the ground, and thus becomes a valuable resource for understanding the current stalemate, as well as for assessing the merits of various proposed solutions.
As for who sowed the seeds of the current problems, the book is clear: It was not Turkey, nor Turkish Cypriots, it was Great Britain. Seeking a way to maintain the colonial rule established in 1923, Britain feared a united Cypriot opposition to their rule, and gradually worked to strengthen the Muslim/Turkish identity of the Muslim Cypriots. That included construction of new mosques in villages without any, initiating the use of the term “Turkish Cypriots”, and later requesting Turkey to reclaim rule of the island, an idea initially received with disinterest by the Turkish government.
However, a committee on the subject was formed in July 1955, and in 1956, professor Nihat Erim was appointed special advisory on the Cyprus issue. In November and December 1956, he released two reports endorsing an active Turkish engagement in Cyprus, aiming first at a division of the island into Greek and Turkish parts (termed “Taksin”), and to work long-term for a full Turkish takeover. This policy was adopted by the Turkish government, and has been followed by various Turkish governments — civilian or military — since then.
The book details chronology of various Greek and Turkish groups formed in the late 1950’s, including EOKA (Greek), VOLCAN (Turkish) and TMT (Turkish). Their chronology is particular important, for it is useful in weeding out honest statements from deceitful ones. This includes Turkish statements about the “Bloodthirsty Makarios”, the work by Rauf Denktash to turn TMT into an underground Turkish organization, the killing of Turkish voices other than those of TMT, and the efforts to make Turkish Cypriots segregate themselves from the Greek Cypriots. The tacit approval of the British in this marks a low point of harmful colonial divide-and-rule strategies.
Descriptions of events after 1962 are somewhat more sketchy. The proposed constitutional changes in 1963 play a central role, and the efforts by the TMT to segregate the Greek and Turkish are recorded in a very varied degree of detail. The Turkish bombardment of Tylleria in August 1964 is mentioned, but the heavy fighting in the preceding months are not. Advance references to the 2004 Annan Plan and similar chronological leaps are annoying, in spite of their relevance. The 1974 invasion is likewise accounted for in an unsystematic way, jumping rapidly from overall descriptions to individual tales of mass rapes and executions by the Turkish soldiers.
The real strength of this book is the wealth of original sources — British, Cypriot, Turkish — drawn in and quoted here. Many common fallacies and outright lies are dismantled, and for this reason it is easy to forgive the somewhat uneven narrative of the book. Harder to forgive is the lack of illustrations. Some maps providing an overview of violent incidents and the 1974 invasion would be welcome, as would some tables with statistics.
This book provides essential background information for the situation in Cyprus. It has its strength in quoting vital original documents in their proper context, showing a clear route from British colonial machinations to direct Turkish involvement, and provides an indispensable understanding of many key events. On the other hand, it is jumpy, both chronologically and emotionally, clearly one-sided, and skips chunks of history needed for a full account of the developments.
Review opinion: 4/6
If you have interest in the Cyprus conflict, adding this book to your collection is recommended, in particular because it provides crucial information regarding the role played by the British.
For those interested, more details out of “Bloody Truth”, and some closing comments:
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
Part Four: The Military and the Paramilitaries
“A key difference between the Troubles and our Muslim Troubles is that there will be no hinterlands, no rural areas, in which Muslims can operate with a minimum of attention being paid to them… This will be quite a disadvantage for Muslim paramilitaries, to put it mildly.”
This is the fourth of a five-part series by El Inglés comparing and contrasting the Troubles in Northern Ireland with the coming Muslim Troubles in Britain. Previously: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
The entire series will be made published as a single document in pdf format after the final part is posted at Gates of Vienna.
As I have reminded readers before: El Inglés’ scenarios are descriptive, not normative. This is not advocacy, but an analysis of the likely future for Britain.
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
by El Inglés
VIII. Paramilitaries: Core Objectives
We have considered how the descent into violent conflict is likely to take place, and attained some familiarity with how Irish republicanism terrorism compares with loyalist terrorism on the one hand and Muslim terrorism on the other. Thus prepared, let us consider what we can expect of British and Muslim paramilitaries when our Muslim Troubles begin in earnest.
In the early stages of the conflict, violence is likely to be spontaneous, disorganized, and relatively low in fatalities due to the lack of availability of weapons and the vigorous riot control efforts of the authorities. However, once the Rubicon has been crossed and it has become clear to both sides that any sort of peaceful coexistence is impossible, cooler heads on both sides will start asking themselves what their long-term objectives should be and how they are most likely to be achieved.
We should first dispense with that which is relatively trivial and easy to predict and describe: the likely nature of Muslim violence towards the British. Muslim terrorist violence is so commonplace these days that its basic nature is perfectly clear. It is not complacent to suppose that Muslims will direct a type of violence at the British very similar to that that they already direct at people who provoke their ire. Muslims will be looking mainly to consolidate geographically, establishing zones within which they have control, within which the police cannot operate, and through which people considered to be outsiders cannot pass. They will accomplish this by rioting and attacking the police as and when they try to enter ‘their’ areas. Meanwhile, hard-line Muslims will undoubtedly work to enforce their own versions of sharia law within these enclaves. These efforts will be complemented by a heightened degree of terrorist activity of the type Muslims are already engaged in.
In short, Muslims will simply be doing more of what they are doing already, and trying to do it more consistently and with greater and more permanent effect. Far more worthy of detailed analysis is the likely nature of the violence of the British paramilitaries which have not yet emerged and whose activities are therefore, at present, the great unknowns ahead of us. The only obvious precedent we have in this regard is the loyalist terrorism we have already glanced at. During the Troubles, there were two paramilitary ‘teams’: republican paramilitaries (most obviously the PIRA, but also the OIRA, INLA, etc.), whose aims were to bring an end to British rule in NI and bring about a united Ireland of whatever sort, and loyalist paramilitaries (most obviously the UDA and UVF), whose aims were to keep NI in the United Kingdom and maintain Protestant political dominance there.
Core Objectives of British Paramilitaries
We point out here that we are focusing primarily on the early and middle stages of this conflict. The permanent departure of the bulk of the Muslim population of the UK may well be the ultimate strategic objective of many British paramilitaries, but it is not something that they can reasonably work towards in the short or, probably, even the medium term, so we will put it to one side here and ask what plausible short- and medium-term objectives British paramilitaries will likely establish for themselves. The only way to try and do this is to: a) assume that they will adopt sensible objectives, b) assume that we have the insight required to determine what would actually be sensible objectives, and c) to conclude that British paramilitaries will therefore adopt the strategies we consider to be sensible. Of course, this is a great arrogance on our part, but we cannot proceed without it.
What then, would constitute a viable, reasonable set of strategic objectives for a British paramilitary organization or organizations to formulate after a descent into the widespread ethno-sectarian violence we predict here? Most obviously, it would include the following:
The Facts of Islam
On May 12, 2011, Bill Warner spoke at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, TN. His speech was part of Geert Wilders’ event, “A Warning to America”, sponsored by the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.
This is one of the best presentations on Islam I’ve ever seen, especially considering that it was delivered in just under thirteen minutes.
Many thanks to Andy Miller, Lou Ann Zelenik, and the other members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition who made this video possible, and to Vlad Tepes for editing and YouTubing it:
Since we’re in the middle of Memorial Day weekend, I’ll post this video again on Tuesday, to make sure that plenty of people get a chance to watch it.
To reserve a copy of a DVD of the entire event, including speeches by Steve Gill, Bill Warner, Sam Solomon, and Geert Wilders, email the Tennessee Freedom Coalition: info@tnfreedomcoalition.org
Previous posts about the Tennessee Freedom Coalition:
2011 | May | 14 | A Warning to America: “It’s Islam, Stupid!” | |||
14 | The Tennessean Weighs In | |||||
16 | Tennessee the Model | |||||
17 | Losing Our Community | |||||
18 | Being Effective in Tennessee |
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/28/2011
Egypt opened its border crossing at Rafah today, allowing Palestinians to enter Egypt at will after four years of blockade. Residents of Gaza immediately took advantage of the new situation by crossing into Egypt for medical treatment, to do business, or to visit relatives.
In other news, during a Gay Pride parade near the Kremlin in Moscow, religious protesters attacked the marchers. Several people were arrested.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Lexington, Mary Abdelmassih, Nick, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In other news, during a Gay Pride parade near the Kremlin in Moscow, religious protesters attacked the marchers. Several people were arrested.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Lexington, Mary Abdelmassih, Nick, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Camp of the Saints: The Temperature Rises
Since my last “Camp of the Saints” post four or five days ago, more than 1,600 North African refugees have landed in Italy, most of them on the island of Lampedusa. My previous estimate of the total flow since January was 36,000 to 38,000, based on collected data from news stories, with official Italian reports supplying a fair amount of corroboration.
The latest additions would place the new total at 37,600 to 39,600. To make tallying easier, I’ll estimate the current total at 38,000, and use that as my baseline for future revisions. That’s the total represented on the Cultural Enrichment Thermometer in the above graphic, which will be updated periodically as the temperature continues to rise in Southern Europe.
We’ll begin tonight’s report with some of the immigration-related antics of the European Commission. It’s the usual dithering and dancing, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
First, a brief summary from AGI:
European Commission Issues N. Africa Migration Package
(AGI) Brussels — The European Commission has approved a new set of measures addressing migratory flows from North Africa. The package looks to establish greater solidarity and cooperation in respect of Members most affected by migrant inflow.
So the member states of the European Union will cope with the greatest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two by… establishing greater solidarity and cooperation.
Yup, that’ll take care of it, all right. I love these nice, concrete, detailed plans of action.
ANSAmed has more. Notice the breathtaking scope of the EU’s ambitions: it will “prevent emergencies”. They like to think big, don’t they?
Pay close attention to the proposed preventive methods:
EU Launches Proposals to Prevent Emergencies
(ANSAmed) — Brussels, May 25 — The EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, has laid down proposals aimed at “leaving the immigration emergency behind us”, by launching dialogue with North African countries, beginning with Tunisia and Egypt, designed to bring about “tailor made” agreements, facilitating entry into the EU for students, researchers and entrepreneurs. The proposals are geared towards tackling illegal immigration, by channeling migrants into regular flows that might allow Europe to continue supplying itself with the workforce that is fundamental for a continent suffering an inexorable ageing process.
So they’re going to prevent immigration emergencies by “launching dialogue with North African countries”.
You’ll also notice that Ms. Malmström is straightforward about the fact that Europe will urgently need these migrants to take care of aged Europeans, who have neglected to produce enough children to do the job.
Preventive measures will include adjustments to the issuing of visas:
Included in the package is the adoption of a protective clause to reintroduce rapidly the use of visas in Europe “in case of unexpected increases in the influx” of migrants from countries where visas have been liberalised, such as the Western Balkans. Common policy regarding asylum is also up for review.
Brussels believes that the package, which follows an announcement made on May 4, is aimed at "best managing the flow of migrants from the southern shores of the Mediterranean" and "ensuring that the current visa regulations do not allow irregularities". The Commission says that "solidarity among the member states most exposed "to migratory pressure remains "absolutely crucial".
So dialogue, visas, “solidarity”, and “not allowing irregularities” are the chosen instruments of coping with the migration crisis. Furthermore, there will even be “structured cooperation”. Ha! That’ll show those illegals!
“What I am proposing today goes beyond urgency,” Malmstrom said. “Our plan is to develop a more structured cooperation with North African countries. It is in the interests of both the EU and of countries in North Africa to promote mobility and well managed migration”. “Europe will be increasingly dependent on migrant workers. North Africa’s potential should be used to the benefit of both sides,” the Commissioner continued.
There’s even a “protective clause”, though it’s not clear who is being protected from what:
Malmstrom’s package includes the launch of a “protective clause” as part of the current European visa policy. The change will very quickly open to review the list of countries whose citizens need visas to enter the European Union.
And the following paragraph is absolutely incoherent, at least to anyone outside the labyrinthine recesses of the Brussels bureaucracy:
With the process of inclusion and exclusion from the list currently lasting years, the clause aims to cut review times in order to “prevent irregularities” and tackle “all potential negative consequences of the liberalisation of visas”. The hope is that external borders can be rapidly strengthened “in exceptional and well determined cases”, in the light of “unpredictable and unexpected” migratory flows.
While the Nabobs of Neighborliness were nattering in Brussels, the culture-enrichers were arriving on Europe’s southern shores. This group landed at an unusual location, Sardinia:
Ten Immigrants Aboard Fishing Boat Land in South Sardinia
(AGI) Cagliari — Ten immigrants from the Maghreb landed this morning on the south-west coast of Sardinia. They were aboard a 15 meter fishing boat which ran ashore near Cape Teulada. The immigrants, who claim to come from Libya, reached the shore near the mouth of the “Zafferaneddu” and were blocked and detained by the Carabinieri. In the meantime, the Sant’Antioco Port Authority is attempting to recover the fishing boat.
Another anomaly: a small group from Morocco tried to sneak into Spain:
Lean to the Left
Nicolai Sennels offers this brief observation on the culpability of the mass media in the destruction of traditional nations and cultures.
The media’s greatest crime against democracy
by Nicolai Sennels
The media’s greatest crime against democracy and public debate is that over the past forty years — slowly but surely — it has shifted the political scale. What was Left is now Center, and what was Center before has become Right. What was once Right has now turned into the “radical Right”. What was overly egalitarian and in some areas close to Communism is today Left.
Some claim that the media’s shifting of the political scale is a result of Arab oil money invested in our big media companies. Namely, that supporting Western values and national culture is a hindrance for immigration and Islamization. Others claim that the change happened because most journalists are Leftists (in Denmark, nine out of ten students in the journalism schools vote for the Left). A third explanation is that a certain worldview — systems theory — has conquered the universities. Systems theory claims that to a high degree an individual’s actions are determined by outer factors — the system that the individual is an “indivisible part of”. The Rightist view that individuals are responsible for their own success, happiness, and actions, consequently suffers.
Whatever the reason: Moving the political scale has made it easier to convince voters that high taxes, a large and powerful state, multiculture, and extremely powerful and wealthy non-democratic multinational organizations such as EU and UN are good for us.
The media’s greatest crime against democracy
by Nicolai Sennels
The media’s greatest crime against democracy and public debate is that over the past forty years — slowly but surely — it has shifted the political scale. What was Left is now Center, and what was Center before has become Right. What was once Right has now turned into the “radical Right”. What was overly egalitarian and in some areas close to Communism is today Left.
Some claim that the media’s shifting of the political scale is a result of Arab oil money invested in our big media companies. Namely, that supporting Western values and national culture is a hindrance for immigration and Islamization. Others claim that the change happened because most journalists are Leftists (in Denmark, nine out of ten students in the journalism schools vote for the Left). A third explanation is that a certain worldview — systems theory — has conquered the universities. Systems theory claims that to a high degree an individual’s actions are determined by outer factors — the system that the individual is an “indivisible part of”. The Rightist view that individuals are responsible for their own success, happiness, and actions, consequently suffers.
Whatever the reason: Moving the political scale has made it easier to convince voters that high taxes, a large and powerful state, multiculture, and extremely powerful and wealthy non-democratic multinational organizations such as EU and UN are good for us.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/27/2011
The equal opportunity and human rights commissioner in the Australian state of Victoria says that public discussion about the burqa may actually put Muslim women in danger. The constant controversy may make women who choose to wear the burqa reluctant to leave their homes, or subject them to attack when in public.
In other news, Pakistan’s intelligence service has shut down its cooperation with its American counterpart, and the Pakistani government has asked the United States to reduce the number of military personnel stationed in the country.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, Srdja Trifkovic, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In other news, Pakistan’s intelligence service has shut down its cooperation with its American counterpart, and the Pakistani government has asked the United States to reduce the number of military personnel stationed in the country.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, Srdja Trifkovic, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Unrest in Syria: Impressions from Damascus
Since the “Arab Spring” began in Deraa back in March, news coming out of Syria has been scanty. Western journalists have been arrested and expelled, so reports about the situation in Syria has come mainly from NGOs on the scene and individuals, both local and foreign, who manage to send out their accounts.
The following report was sent to us yesterday by an employee of a foreign corporation who lives in Damascus. He included this brief explanation:
As you can probably imagine, I have been following recent events here rather closely, not least because I have my family here with me, and have to admit that I have been astonished by the rather biased and one-sided reporting in the wider media, which in turn prompted me to write my own little report in an effort to set the record straight.
You will see that our correspondent is acting as somewhat of an apologist for the Assad regime. However, he has some good points to make. It’s obvious that there is more to the uprising than meets the eye, and that the Muslim Brotherhood is certain to be involved.
Another good point is that the international media are taking the statements issued by the protesters at face value, painting a picture of the valiant freedom fighters of the Arab Spring, à la Libya and Egypt.
The complete report is below.
Unrest in Syria: Impressions from Damascus
Damascus, 26 May 2011
While the overall picture remains somewhat murky, it would appear that the unrest in Syria unfolded in a number of distinct stages, as follows:
- Initial demonstrations in Deraa in mid-March, when a number of families in the area demanded the release of a group of teenagers, who had reportedly been detained by the local authorities for spraying graffiti, presumably inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings.
- A rather heavy-handed crackdown by the local authorities, which also led to a number of casualties. This was probably at least partly due to the fact that the authorities were genuinely surprised by and thus not accustomed to this kind of public dissent, something that was also alluded to in the president’s two speeches (and more so in the second one), following the uprising.
- Tough talk by the government, nevertheless followed by a partial withdrawal of security forces from the area immediately affected, and hints at possible reforms.
- A series of Friday demonstrations (always following prayers — the only time Syrians could congregate in larger numbers under the then emergency regulations), spreading to neighboring villages, and at times leading to further confrontations with the security forces, including casualties, followed by funeral processions and more demonstrations, interspersed with reform promises from the government, more often than not conveniently announced on a Thursday.
- Despite these promises, culminating in the abrogation of the ‘emergency law’ (a key demand of the initial protests), these ‘concessions’ were summarily dismissed by the ‘opposition’ as merely symbolic, and by end of March the demonstrations started to spread further, first to the coastal areas and specifically Latakia and Banyas, a number of Damascus suburbs, the Kurdish areas, Homs and the border areas to Lebanon. And while the initial call in Deraa was simply for the release of their relatives, for the (related) abrogation of the emergency law, against corruption and for reform in general, this slowly gave way to ‘calls to topple the regime’.
- By mid-April it apparently became clear to the government that whatever they were doing until then was not going to contain the situation, and so the army was called in, first into Deraa (and surrounding areas), followed by Banyas, Homs, and finally again the border areas to Lebanon. There were also similar operations reported in the affected Damascus suburbs. It should however be noted here that the army had already deployed to Deraa and Banyas much earlier, but at that time they were mostly used to cordon off the affected areas (i.e. from the outside), and not to go in ‘in force’.
- The beginning of the army’s crackdown saw a spike in reported casualties, followed by reports of house-to-house searches and mass arrests, and two weeks of relative calm. There were also reports that the army had again withdrawn from some of the areas, or at least partially. The lull was however short-lived and last weekend saw again reports of significant casualties across the country.
While the above sequence of events is probably not in contention, the government’s and the opposition’s narratives for what has been happening on the ground nevertheless differ widely, including the number of casualties caused, who the victims are, and who is doing the shooting, something that is not helped by the fact that independent media are not allowed into the affected areas.
While recognizing that there are legitimate grievances and admitting shortcomings in the security forces’ response, the government now mostly blames the violence on armed gangs and Islamic extremists, who, using the demonstrations as a cover and pretext, are allegedly supported and directed from abroad, essentially spinning it all into one big conspiracy theory with the aim of toppling the regime. The opposition on the other hand blames the government’s heavy-handed crackdown, claiming that the security forces (including informal militias allied with the regime) are routinely firing at unarmed and peaceful protesters, with tanks allegedly even shelling residential areas. There are also reports of soldiers themselves being shot by their superiors for not obeying orders, of mass arrests and collective punishment, all in all invoking images from (and a narrative reminiscent of) recent conflicts across the region.
What an ‘international’ (i.e. US/western-led) and concerted effort at regime change looks like is of course amply demonstrated by the recent war in Iraq; current events in Libya are probably best characterized as a ‘half-hearted’ attempt; frequent inaction in response to similar situations across Africa illustrates the international community’s indifference in such cases; while Bahrain exemplifies the situation where the international community does not want to change a regime.
Syria probably lies somewhere in between half-heartedness and indifference, but while this would not support the government’s notion of a full-blown conspiracy, there nevertheless appears to be ample anecdotal evidence of foreign meddling, including credible reports of weapons seizures at Syria’s borders and related communications equipment being found, implicating certain political quarters in Lebanon that resent Syria’s (past and current) involvement there, the regional Muslim Brotherhood, and high profile exiles, to name just a few, and that amid allegations of private financial backing from Saudi Arabia. The absence of a larger conspiracy does however not mean that other regional and global stakeholders are not seizing the opportunity as well, with the Syrian regime now visibly weakened (and preoccupied), to push their own demands and agendas, no matter how unrelated they may be.
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
Part Three: An Explosive Situation
“One of the most important single things to understand in the context of the brewing conflict between Europeans and Muslims is that Islamic terrorists either do not operate under moral constraints, or operate under constraints so loose that we, from our cultural perspective, can scarcely recognize them as restraints at all. Those Muslims motivated to kill in service of their religion seem to have very little in the way of a reluctance to kill civilians.”
This is the third of a five-part series by El Inglés comparing and contrasting the Troubles in Northern Ireland with the coming Muslim Troubles in Britain. Previously: Part One and Part Two.
The entire series will be made published as a single document in pdf format after the final part is posted at Gates of Vienna.
For those who are new to this series: El Inglés’ analysis is descriptive, not normative. This is not advocacy for what is being described, but rather a hard look at the near future in Britain.
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
by El Inglés
VI. An Introduction to Amateur Bomb-Building
Rioting and mob violence are, as we have already argued, likely to trigger and be prevalent at the outset of the conflict, but will not be especially lethal and will probably subside as the two sides hunker down in their zones of dominance and do their best to keep each other out. It is surely not too bold a prediction to state that any serious, long-term violence directed by either of the two sides at the other will therefore consist substantially of either the use of explosives or the use of firearms. A consideration of the former allows us to make some intriguing predictions with respect to key strategic and tactical aspects of our Muslim Troubles.
That explosives are likely to be used in a violent conflict in the 21st century is too obvious a point to be worthy of further elaboration in its own right. However, given that neither side in the conflict will have much access, if any at all, to regular supplies of military explosives or explosive devices, nearly all use of explosives will feature home-made explosives of some sort. The importance of this point cannot be overstated. In Iraq, for example, the improvised explosive devices used by insurgents seem to be constructed overwhelmingly out of the vast stores of standard munitions that either existed in Iraq at the time of the 2003 invasion or that have been smuggled in since. Artillery shells, tank shells, mortar shells, and anti-tank mines, which is to say, industrially produced explosive devices of great power and reliability, have been crucial to the lethality of the operations undertaken against U.S. and other forces.
In the absence of such explosive materials, Iraq insurgents would have been forced to produce home-made explosives to build such devices, which would have drastically reduced their ability to wage their irregular campaign. Those involved in our looming conflict will operate under precisely these sorts of restraints. Though military, industrial, or commercial connections may allow those on the British side to acquire a certain quantity of commercial or military explosives, steady supplies of such material can hardly be relied upon. Accordingly, the amount and type of explosives available to each side will be a function of the following: a) their degree of access to relevant chemical precursors, and b) their technical proficiency in producing the required explosive substances and detonating them. Let us consider each in turn.
Access to Chemical Precursors
Those with a grasp of the underlying chemistry (which we will not be discussing in detail in this document) and the barest familiarity with Google will quickly discover that all sorts of chemical precursors for home-made explosives are available online to whoever wishes to order them, certainly in retail quantities and sometimes in bulk. However, attempts on the part of parties not well-established in the chemical or agricultural industries to order large, or in extreme cases any, quantities of such chemicals will have a high probability of resulting in the suppliers contacting the authorities. This principle can be generally illustrated in the context of ammonium nitrate, which is by far and away the most important chemical substance in this context.
Ammonium nitrate, produced and sold in huge quantities as a general purpose fertilizer, can be converted into an explosive substance if it is mixed with certain other chemical substances.[7] Being available in huge quantities for a legitimate purpose, it has proven to be central to the bombing campaigns of various paramilitary groups, including the PIRA, as well as in one-off attacks such as the Oklahoma City bombing. Such bombings and bombing campaigns would be exceptionally difficult to carry out without it. A large car or truck bomb of the type that the IRA used to devastate parts of London and Manchester in the 1990s requires hundreds of pounds, if not tonnes, of explosive. If many such bombings are to be carried out as part of an ongoing bombing campaign, then clearly huge amounts of the relevant chemical precursors are required. Hence the key role of ammonium nitrate in this regard. There is simply nothing else that can be procured in sufficiently large amounts.
The importance of ammonium nitrate will likely prove a key operational difficulty for Muslims throughout our Muslim Troubles. Though access to it is not restricted per se, it is usually bought in bulk from agricultural suppliers who adhere voluntarily to a code of practice under which they report suspicious purchases or requests to the authorities. This code of practice did not prevent Bodle Brothers, an agricultural supplier in Burgess Hill, selling 600kg of it to an Algerian would-be terrorist in 2003, despite it being vastly too much for the allotment for which he claimed to need it. However, we assume that the powers-that-be have since applied a cattle prod to the nether regions of agricultural suppliers in general, and that said suppliers run a tighter ship now. Either way, a descent into violent conflict will necessarily result in far greater scrutiny of attempts to purchase such chemicals than exists at present, and being a Muslim will be the greatest red flag of all. The five men of Bangladeshi origin arrested taking photographs of Sellafield on the day Osama bin Laden was killed will no doubt attest to the way in which belonging to certain ethnic groups results in you being flagged for special attention fairly promptly. This suspicion will only heighten along with the violence we predict.
British paramilitaries are unlikely to suffer from such difficulties, at least to the same extent, for two reasons. Firstly, John Smith will not attract the same degree of attention as Mohammed bin Qassim when he phones up his local garden centre for a bag of ammonium nitrate. Secondly, British paramilitaries will doubtless already be recruiting farmers into their organizations (for a variety of reasons), and who in government will be able to keep track of the approximately one million tonnes of ammonium nitrate acquired for legitimate agricultural purposes every year? If 100kg of ammonium nitrate is passed from a farmer to a bomb-maker and ends up devastating a Muslim residential area in Birmingham, how will the security forces move to interdict such flows in future? This is, after all, only a tenth of a percent of a percent of a percent of all the ammonium nitrate used annually.
We must conclude that any British paramilitary organization worthy of the name will certainly be able to acquire substantial quantities of ammonium nitrate, through setting up some agricultural operation itself as a front if necessary. It will be completely impossible for even the most careful efforts of the security services to reliably derail attempts by these paramilitaries to obtain ammonium nitrate in significant quantities. Accordingly, as was true of the IRA, there will be no obvious limit to the number or size of the bombs they will be able to build assuming they have the required expertise in certain key regards.
In parallel with this conclusion is another, equally important one: Muslim paramilitaries will not, in any remotely plausible scenario, ever attain the capability to conduct comprehensive bombing campaigns of the sort that the PIRA conducted during the Troubles. Both the maximum size and the number of the explosive devices they will be able to produce will be drastically curtailed relative to those of their enemies, the British paramilitaries fighting them.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/26/2011
A key liberal Jewish donor to Barack Obama and the Democrats says that he will not contribute to the president’s re-election campaign nor help him raise funds. Billionaire Haim Saban says Mr. Obama’s antagonistic policies towards Israel have caused him to withdraw his support.
In other news, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Egypt says that his organization will dominate the next Egyptian government. Meanwhile, the end of the oppressive Mubarak regime has allowed the Egyptian Nazi Party to come out in the open. It vows to play a part in the country’s politics.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, KGS, Nilk, Steen, Swenglish Rantings, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
In other news, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Egypt says that his organization will dominate the next Egyptian government. Meanwhile, the end of the oppressive Mubarak regime has allowed the Egyptian Nazi Party to come out in the open. It vows to play a part in the country’s politics.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, KGS, Nilk, Steen, Swenglish Rantings, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
The Religion of Rape
We reported last year on the fact that culture-enrichers seem to have a monopoly on rape in Oslo. The latest figures have come in, and the situation hasn’t changed — for the past five years, in every single case in which the perpetrator could be identified, the rapist was of non-Western origin.
Let’s be honest: that means they were Muslims. The vast majority of non-Western immigrants in Oslo are Muslim, and I’d bet money that none of those rapists were Hindus, Buddhists, Baal-worshippers, etc. The victim interviewed in the news story below reports that her attacker told her that his religion allowed him to do what he did. Do you think he was a Mormon?
What’s more, virtually all the victims were women and girls “of Norwegian background.”
This trend is not centrally planned, organized, and directed, but it is systematic nonetheless. It is part of the system called “Islam”, and it’s what a Western country can expect when it imports Muslims en masse. The systematic rape of infidel women is part of the process of Islamization.
Many thanks to Kitman for translating, subtitling, and YouTubing this clip. The video and a transcript are below the jump:
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
Part Two: The Chocolate Cake Diet
“Though Muslim population growth in the UK will push us inexorably into violent conflict, our analysis must attempt to move beyond generalities and consider exactly how and when such conflict is most likely to break out. The pressure driving us towards conflict is steady and inexorable, but the escalations of that conflict will be discrete and sudden.”
This is the second of a five-part series by El Inglés comparing and contrasting the Troubles in Northern Ireland with the coming Muslim Troubles in Britain. The first part is available here.
The entire series will be made published as a single document in pdf format after the final part is posted at Gates of Vienna.
Once again, a caveat for readers who are new to El Inglés’ work: this paper is descriptive, not normative. None of us wants to live through what El Inglés is predicting, but we may very well have to.
Our Muslim Troubles: Lessons from Northern Ireland
by El Inglés
IV. The Focus on Terrorism
Before we launch into a discussion of the likely characteristics of our Muslim Troubles, we will take a minor detour to build on the previous chapter by further explaining why, though the likely severity of our Muslim Troubles can legitimately be debated, we consider some sort of violent conflict to be inevitable. Here, we will examine something that highlights just how hopeless the response of our political establishment has been to the problems that Islam and Muslims have created for us in Britain.
One of the most crippling problems to date with the debate on Islam in the UK has been the focus on terrorism. This focus is slowly shifting, but it still lingers, extending a baleful effect over attempts to deal with the real problem, which is the presence in the UK of large and ever-larger numbers of Muslims. Continued Muslim immigration into European countries will lead ineluctably to widespread, violent, tribal conflict that will rip those countries apart, and potentially result in the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people throughout Western Europe. Yet, in the UK, our ability to openly discuss these vital matters has been badly compromised by a stated desire on the part of those in government to prevent terrorism, which desire is itself largely insincere. It is too early to pass judgement on the Conservative-led government in this regard, but preventing terrorism was so far down the list of priorities of the Labour government as to astonish.
This is a strong claim, and one that can only be demonstrated through rigorous argument. Much rubbish is spoken about Muslim terrorism, but we shall cut a swathe through it all here and strip things down to basics. Given that most Muslim terrorism is, or is at least intended to be, suicidal in nature, let us assume that, to a reasonable approximation, all Muslim terrorists or would-be terrorists either commit one successful suicide terrorist attack (e.g. the 7/7 bombers) or attempt to do so and are then caught and incarcerated (e.g. the 21/7 bombers). The number of successful acts of terrorism perpetrated in the UK by Muslims every year therefore equals, by definition, the Muslim population of the UK (M) multiplied by the fraction of this population Approving of terrorism in the UK as a political tool (A), multiplied by the fraction of this population that Tries, with however much or little dedication, to conduct an act of terrorism every year (T), multiplied by the fraction of this population that Succeeds (S). If one wishes to reduce the number of such attacks, one must try and reduce some or all of these values. As we have defined the matter here, there is simply no other way of doing it.
The Number of Muslim terrorist attacks (N) taking place in a given year must then be:
N = M x A x T x S
So, in 2005, our equation would have looked something like this:
N = 2,400,000 x 0.1 x 0.01 x 0.00167 = 4
These four people were, of course, the 7/7 bombers responsible for the 2005 bus and Tube bombings in London.
Let us consider the four parameters in slightly more detail. A and T are in essence, psychological parameters that pertain to the way Muslims interpret the demands of their religion and events in the world around them. Virtually by definition, they are the hardest of the four to measure, to understand, or to adjust. Countless reams of excruciating guff have been written on the subjects of winning hearts and minds, of empowering the moderates to take on the extremists, of midwifing the Islamic Reformation, and of winning the debate between secularism and fundamentalism. However, despite the great cogitation that its creators presumably indulged in, Prevent, the flagship counter-radicalisation programme of the Labour government, has now been kicked to the kerb, derided by all and sundry as useless at best and counterproductive at worst. This is a crucial point: any attempt to mould people psychologically can have results quite the opposite of those intended, as the underlying psychological substrate of the human mind is simply not amenable to being manipulated in this matter. No even remotely rigorous or reliable method exists for altering the parameters A or T, and attempts to do so are the purest voodoo.
A Rosetta Stone for Ann Barnhardt, Part 8
The latest installment of the Rosetta Stone for Ann Barnhardt are finally here. These versions took a while because Cyrillic encoding always presents special problems for Vlad the Subtitler.
Below are Russian-subtitled versions of Ms. Barnhardt burning the Koran (the originals, with a transcript, are posted here). To keep from triggering the Blogger Bug, I’ve put the videos after the jump, followed by the complete Russian transcripts.
Our languages to date:
(* = assigned but not yet received; † = received but not yet posted)
Many thanks to Watcher for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Below are Russian-subtitled versions of Ms. Barnhardt burning the Koran (the originals, with a transcript, are posted here). To keep from triggering the Blogger Bug, I’ve put the videos after the jump, followed by the complete Russian transcripts.
Our languages to date:
Albanian | German | Portuguese |
Danish * | Greek * | Russian |
Dutch † | Hebrew | Spanish |
Finnish * | Italian * | Swedish * |
French | Polish * |
(* = assigned but not yet received; † = received but not yet posted)
Many thanks to Watcher for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Pat Condell on Israel, Jew-Hatred, and Islam
Are Libyan Rebels Targeting Blacks?
There was a news report yesterday that the Libyan rebels had attacked and defeated a group of Sudanese mercenaries loyal to Col. Qaddafi in a battle near the border of Sudan.
According to the following article, incidents such as that one may be part of a general campaign by the rebels to drive black Africans out of Libya. If this story turns out to be true, you can bet that it will never see the light of day in the mainstream media, devoted as they are to the “Arab Spring” and the freedom fighters of Libya:
According to the following article, incidents such as that one may be part of a general campaign by the rebels to drive black Africans out of Libya. If this story turns out to be true, you can bet that it will never see the light of day in the mainstream media, devoted as they are to the “Arab Spring” and the freedom fighters of Libya:
Libya: Habeshia: Ethnic Cleansing Risk for Black Libyans
(ANSAmed) — Rome, May 25 — Black Libyans risk an ethnic cleansing action in Libya because of the determination against them by Libyans of Arab origin that sympathise with the rebels, who attack them as though they were Gaddafi’s mercenaries. Such is the warning raised by don Mussie Zerai, an Eritrean priest who in Rome presides the Habeshia cooperation and development agency and who reported the “massacre of 800 Africans in Misrata alone”.
He pointed out that the massacre was directly reported to him by African refugees who landed in Italy. It is allegedly documented in a number of videos of the Habeshia agency website that depict “cruel episodes and fury on lifeless bodies”, which are “manifestation of deep held hate”. In Libya there are two ethnic groups not of Arab origin, said don Zerai, and the risk that they may become the victims of ethnic cleansing during the bloody clashes between Gaddafi’s supporters and the rebels is very high. The clergyman claimed that there is still indifference despite the previous warning.
Prosecutor: Geert Wilders Did Not Incite Hatred
As in the previous trial of Geert Wilders last year, the state prosecution office (Openbaar Ministerie, or OM) finds itself reluctant to recommend convicting the defendant on charges that obviously have no basis in law or justice. The prosecutors were compelled by the Amsterdam court to retry Mr. Wilders, but as of today they have decided he should be found not guilty of two of the charges against him — “incitement to hatred” and “insulting a group”.
No prosecutorial opinion on the remaining charge — “incitement to discrimination” — has been issued yet.
If I understand the Dutch justice system correctly, such statements by the prosecution do not bind the panel of judges in the case, who may ignore OM’s opinion and find the defendant guilty or not guilty as they see fit.
According to Dutch News:
Find Wilders Not Guilty of Inciting Hatred, Says Prosecution
The public prosecution department on Wednesday called for PVV leader Gert Wilders to be found not guilty of inciting hatred, as it tied up its case against the MP.
Prosecutors say Wilders’ remarks are critical of Islam which is not the same as inciting hatred against muslims themselves.
Earlier in the day the prosecutors said Wilders’ should be found not guilty of insulting a group because he has not stated any conclusions about muslims. Instead he has merely criticised their religion, the prosecutors said.
Reluctance
Keeping Those Uppity Women Down
Back at the beginning of the “Arab Spring”, when thousands of protesters filled Tahrir Square in Cairo, enthusiastic newspaper and TV reporters celebrated the power of “social media” to mobilize ordinary Egyptian citizens. Facebook, Twitter, and texting were the forces that would bring down the tyrant and usher in democracy, not just in Egypt but across the entire Arab world.
It’s important to remember, however, that social media, like any other extensions of human communication, are neutral tools. Anything that can arouse and motivate thousands or millions of people can be propagated more efficiently using Facebook and Twitter. Anti-fascists, Green activists, Nazis, Al Qaeda — any group can leverage the power of electronic media to be more effective.
The latest activists to harness the power of the new media are the misogynists of Saudi Arabia, who are mobilizing on Facebook to suppress the growing popular campaign mounted by Saudi women who demand the right to drive:
It’s important to remember, however, that social media, like any other extensions of human communication, are neutral tools. Anything that can arouse and motivate thousands or millions of people can be propagated more efficiently using Facebook and Twitter. Anti-fascists, Green activists, Nazis, Al Qaeda — any group can leverage the power of electronic media to be more effective.
The latest activists to harness the power of the new media are the misogynists of Saudi Arabia, who are mobilizing on Facebook to suppress the growing popular campaign mounted by Saudi women who demand the right to drive:
Saudi Arabia: Facebook Campaign, Let’s Beat Up Female Drivers
(ANSAmed) — Rome, May 25 — Thousands of Saudi men are “gearing up” to go to “beat up” all the women who will dare to breach the driving ban scheduled for June 17, when thousands, according to the intentions posted on social networks, will challenge the law to claim the right to move by car without a driver. The “Iqal campaign”, named after the rope Saudi men use to hold their headgear, is travelling on Facebook and has already achieved thousands of supporters.
The website of Algerian daily El Watan reported that some of the supporters are proposing the idea of gifting entire cases of “iqal” to the young to place them along the roads of Riyadh and other cities in the Kingdom to “beat up” the impertinent females caught driving. But many have already made preparations: shops have been taken by assault, according to some web surfers who report that iqal prices have risen since the start of the campaign.
The initiative is gaining broad resonance in the Saudi press, which generally speaking supports women and their desire to drive. Al Watan reported that on Okaz writer Abdo Khal deplores the enforceable ban on female drivers and said that he is not aware, as regards the campaign by “thugs”, whether it is better to “laugh or cry”, while on al-Watan an editorialist, Ahmed Sayed Atif, suggested pursuing female drivers “without a driving license”.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/25/2011
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi revealed that Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s son was not really killed by a NATO attack on the Gheddafi family compound. He says that intelligence information indicates that Khadafi fils was not even in Libya at the time of the attack, and that the Colonel’s grandchildren were also unharmed.
Meanwhile, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, while on a visit to Australia, compared Australia’s policy towards asylum-seekers with the former apartheid regime in South Africa. In unrelated news, a masseur in Melbourne (Mohammed Coefficient: 100%) has been convicted of raping one of his female clients during a massage session. There’s no word on whether the victim may have been a racist or an Islamophobe.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, KGS, Kitman, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Meanwhile, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, while on a visit to Australia, compared Australia’s policy towards asylum-seekers with the former apartheid regime in South Africa. In unrelated news, a masseur in Melbourne (Mohammed Coefficient: 100%) has been convicted of raping one of his female clients during a massage session. There’s no word on whether the victim may have been a racist or an Islamophobe.
To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.
Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, KGS, Kitman, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
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