Driving Out the Swedes

Our Swedish correspondent CB has translated an article about an elderly Swedish woman who was recently set upon and beaten by young cultural enrichers. This story highlights a recent trend: “persons of Swedish background” fleeing their homes to escape violence perpetrated by immigrants.

If honesty were possible when discussing such topics, we would refer to this process as “ethnic cleansing”.

If the same actions were carried out in Bosnia by, say, Serbs against Muslims, they would be labeled “genocide”, and the full weight of the UN would be applied against them.

But this is the EU, and these young thugs are part of the glorious multiculture which all must learn to celebrate.

CB had this to say in his cover note:

This is an article from Gefle Dagblad, a newspaper in the Swedish town Gävle, which is situated some seventy kilometres north of Uppsala. Some articles report that the area has a bad reputation, and that people want to leave, but not all of them can afford to. I’ve also read that a lot of people are fed up with the housing agency, Gavlegårdarna. On the one hand, they have a responsibility for how they take care of their area. With bad management, people stop caring for their neighborhood, and unsavory people turn up, too. But this isn’t the first time we have read about immigrants beating up old native people in Sweden and other European countries.

Here we have a senior citizen who was part of building Sweden into a wealthy country, so wealthy that we have taken in a lot of foreigners. Some for good reasons, and others without any good reasons at all. And some of these people now reward senior citizens be beating them up. How noble!

I notice that Gefle Dagblad cut the comments tonight, since they thought they had become to harsh and in some instances racist in tone. I just eyeballed them, very fast, and some went over the line, but many were just plain furious about this happening to an old lady for no apparent reason. It seems that many comments on articles in different newspapers are becoming angrier and more polarized, compared with just a year ago. And more and more often the debates turn plain ugly and nasty.

Here’s the translation from Gefle Dagblad. Follow the link to the original article to see photos showing some of the injuries sustained by Birgitta:

Birgitta was brutally beaten up

She felt at home in Andersberg — but not anymore

Birgitta sits at the kitchen table and looks outside at the children playing. Her arms are covered with bruises and her nose and lip are injured. Last Tuesday she was brutally beaten up outside her home in Andersberg.

“Where shall I go?” she asks .

She does not dare to stay on in Andersberg, even though she has installed an alarm.

No respect was shown to Birgitta for being a woman and a senior citizen. On the contrary, she was brutally assaulted and called a whore. Birgitta’s arms and legs have large black and blue bruises after the assault.

The blood flowed, though Birgitta’s nose bone was not broken after the blow to her face. But as the physical wounds heal, the psychological wounds are worse.

A neighbor has been supporting Birgitta. Both relate stories about stairs being peed in, trash strewn around, and broken storage doors. They are in an agreement that Andersberg has bit by bit deteriorated.

Birgitta actually has another name. She does not want to show her face in a photo or have her name in the paper.

“Then they might kill me,” she says and shrinks back into herself a little.

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Birgitta has lived at different addresses close to Andersberg’s center for nearly fifteen years. The apartment she now lives in is in the red houses. She has lived there for three years.

“The first years were good.”

She has never felt afraid before, even though she thinks that the area has gradually deteriorated.

“I called the management the other night, when the elevator was totally peed in. The manager asked if she should believe that.”

Her neighbor sits at the kitchen table with her. He relates that he had called in about feces on the stairs.

“They asked if it was human or dog feces!”

Birgitta says that someone often pees under the stairs, and there are often broken doors in the basement storage area, with mattresses piled outside the front door, piles of clothes, garbage bags, loose dogs on the stairs, commotion in the meeting room at certain times, and children kicking footballs at the windows.

“Gavlegårdarna doesn’t take it seriously.”

Birgitta contacted GD at the beginning of the week to talk about it all, but then something much more serious happened.

“I haven’t eaten or slept since Tuesday. I’ve received sedatives, but have never cried as much in my whole life and never puttered around this much,” she says before she wandered out into the hallway without remembering what she went to do.

She’s still a little confused and shocked but can relate her story about Tuesday evening clearly and precisely.

“I used to be a merry person, but now have become ten years older,” she sighs.

This past Tuesday Birgitta was invited for wine and food with friends in the area. She herself says that she was a little tipsy, but not drunk. At eight-thirty she went to walk her old dog and at the same time to buy ice cream at Time.

“The dog walked loose at a distance, since I saw no one [there is a law against loose dogs in Sweden]. Suddenly two guys appeared at the health center.”

Birgitta says the men were about thirty to forty, and of foreign origin. They asked if she had any cigarettes, but Birgitta said she had none.

“‘You f***ing whore,’ said one of them and then the blow came. I don’t know if I said something.”

Birgitta fell to the ground; the men searched her for money and cigarettes. The dog realized that something had happened. Birgitta began calling for help and one of the men kicked her hard on one knee before they disappeared. The blood was pouring out and someone called the ambulance.

Birgitta thought that her nose bone was broken, but she got away with cuts to her nose, a swollen knee, bruises on her lip, sore teeth, a large bruise on her thigh, a small cut on her hand, and bruises on both arms.

But even if the physical wound will heal, what is worse is the terror of the soul.

“I want to talk about this, otherwise I’ll go mad. I’ve phoned the psycho-social team, but they are on vacation and the Victims of Emergency Crimes are moving at the present. Will I be able to walk outside when it’s dark? I’m even afraid in the daytime, and look over my shoulder all the time.”

Birgitta has hardly been outside her door since the incident, and she had to get rid if the dog, since she can’t walk it anymore.

In spite of all the deficiencies she has felt at home in the area. Close to services, the green area for walking the dog and to find berries in, and a nice apartment — these have redeeming value. But not anymore.

Birgitta and her neighbors start to name six to seven persons in the adjacent houses who have moved or are going to move away. They are disappointed with Gavlegårdarna, which they think ignores the problems and doesn’t inform everyone in the area about the rules, and doesn’t hold meetings in more languages.

“Fewer and fewer Swedes remain. In the past we had good fellowship and people came to meetings. But it has gradually become worse. I pay 5,500 krona for the apartment, but have no rights. I love children and don’t want to live in 50+ housing. Where shall I go?”

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Why Did Europeans Create the Modern World? — Part 4

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

This is the final installment in this series. For previous installments, see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.


The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) in his influential study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism identified capitalism with the Protestant branch of Christianity. I do think it is accurate to say that Protestant nations proved especially dynamic in adopting science and capitalism; Protestantism encouraged ordinary people to read the Bible in the vernacular, which spurred the growth of literacy. Still, there is no doubt that the foundations of capitalism were created in Catholic Europe, in the medieval city-states of northern Italy.

Western wealth began with urban growth and commerce in the twelfth century and accelerated during the Renaissance into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the development of a relatively autonomous class of professional merchants. Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992), an Austrian and later British economist and philosopher, identified a new individualism provided by Christianity and the philosophy of Classical Antiquity which was developed during the Renaissance. He explains this in his classic The Road to Serfdom:

“From the commercial cities of Northern Italy the new view of life spread with commerce to the west and north, through France and the south-west of Germany to the Low Countries and the British Isles, taking firm root wherever there was no despotic political power to stifle it….During the whole of this modern period of European history the general direction of social development was one of freeing the individual from the ties which had bound him to the customary or prescribed ways in the pursuit of his ordinary activities….Perhaps the greatest result of the unchaining of individual energies was the marvellous growth of science which followed the march of individual liberty from Italy to England and beyond….Only since industrial freedom opened the path to the free use of new knowledge, only since everything could be tried — if somebody could be found to back it at his own risk — and, it should be added, as often as not from outside the authorities officially entrusted with the cultivation of learning, has science made the great strides which in the last hundred and fifty years have changed the face of the world.”

Western growth has roots in the medieval period. Nathan Rosenberg and L.E. Birdzell Jr. investigate this in How The West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation Of The Industrial World:

“Initially, the West’s achievement of autonomy stemmed from a relaxation, or a weakening, of political and religious controls, giving other departments of social life the opportunity to experiment with change. Growth is, of course, a form of change, and growth is impossible when change is not permitted. Any successful change requires a large measure of freedom to experiment. A grant of that kind of freedom costs a society’s rulers their feeling of control, as if they were conceding to others the power to determine the society’s future. The great majority of societies, past and present, have not allowed it. Nor have they escaped from poverty.”

World trade grew modestly until about 1840 and then took off. In 1913 the value of world trade was about twenty-five times what it had been in 1800 even though prices of manufactured goods and raw materials were in many cases lower. A true world economy had been created for the first time, centered in Europe. Great Britain played a particularly prominent role in using trade to tie the world and the far-flung British Empire together economically. This was greatly facilitated by the development of new means of transportation and communications. Railroads spread throughout Europe and North America to South America, Asia and Africa and together with steamships drastically reduced transportation costs. Intercontinental trade was also facilitated by the building of the Suez and Panama Canals. The Industrial Revolution represented a point of unprecedented European power.

As late as in 1880, European nations controlled only 10 percent of the African continent. Then came the “scramble for Africa” in which having colonies became something of a status symbol. European imperialism reached its peak in Asia at this time as well when the Dutch extended their rule of Java to cover most of what is today Indonesia, the British deepened their control of possessions such as India, the French established their rule over much of Indochina as well as West Africa and the United States acquired the Philippines in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. Overall, the economic gains from these colonies were in many cases surprisingly limited. They were often acquired more for political than for economic reasons. Technological superiority made many Europeans sincerely convinced that they could “civilize” other peoples, an idea embodied in Rudyard Kipling‘s poem White Man’s Burden.

According to authors Rosenberg and Birdzell, “Colonialism planted the seeds for the early development of today’s North and South American economies — an awesome accomplishment. But the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch colonial experiences and their consequences were various, even in the Americas. Spain and Portugal became major colonial powers without ever becoming advanced capitalist economies….Their most valuable colonies were in Latin America, and the home countries lost these to independence movements while they themselves were in a precapitalist stage of development. By far the most striking accomplishment of British colonialism was that it seeded several advanced Western economies, to the substantial benefit of the colonies: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These colonies’ economic accomplishments also benefited Britain, for controlled and exploitive trade with an economically backward colony is much less beneficial to an advanced country than its trade with other advanced countries. France built and lost a large colonial empire, remembered for the violent collapse of its Indo-Chinese rule and the almost equally violent end of its rule over what was probably its most economically successful colony, Algeria. In retrospect, there is little reason to think that its colonial ventures contributed positively to France’s economic growth.”

There is no general correlation between the magnitude and timing of Western countries’ economic growth and their colonial empires. Germany in the late nineteenth century outperformed France and at times even Britain in industry yet held only few and marginal colonies compared to the latter. Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had the world’s largest empire, yet suffered from inflation and military overstretch. Italy during the same time period was politically fragmented and plagued by attacks from Muslim pirates, yet there was no Spanish equivalent to Galileo during the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born in Poland, which never had a colonial history; Tycho Brahe was from tiny Denmark and Kepler from disunited Germany. England at the time of Newton was not yet a major colonial power compared to the Turks and their Ottoman Empire. The greatest astronomical revolution in history simply cannot be attributed to “colonial plundering” no matter how hard you try.

Imperialist Spain and Portugal did not achieve long-term growth, in contrast to non-imperialist Switzerland or Sweden. Spain and Portugal used slavery widely in their colonies, but lagged behind in the development of modern growth economies. Of the estimated 10-12 million Africans who were forcibly transported across the Atlantic between 1450 and 1900, several million ended up in Portuguese-ruled Brazil. Michael Hart speculates whether interbreeding with low-IQ peoples (African slaves) slightly lowered the national Portuguese IQ during the colonial period.
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Sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), the Portuguese in the mid-1400s engaged in systematic voyages of discovery along the western coast of Africa, culminating when navigator Bartolomeu Dias (ca. 1450-1500) sailed around the southernmost tip of the continent in 1488, thereby opening the sea route to Asia. Mariner Vasco da Gama (ca. 1460-1524) and his crew reached India by way of the Cape of Good Hope (1497-99) and returned successfully to Lisbon loaded with spices and samples of Indian cloth. This triggered several armed clashes with Muslims, who had traditionally controlled much of this lucrative trade.

Lynn White, the eminent American professor of medieval history, states that “By the end of the 15th century the technological superiority of Europe was such that its small, mutually hostile nations could spill out over all the rest of the world, conquering, looting, and colonizing. The symbol of this technological superiority is the fact that Portugal, one of the weakest states of the Occident, was able to become, and to remain for a century, mistress of the East Indies.” This was a radical new development during the Middle Ages, because “before the 11th century, science scarcely existed in the Latin West, even in Roman times.”

Technological developments facilitated this Age of Exploration. Europeans may have been the first to use gunpowder to build large cannon, and while other civilizations in Eurasia used this invention, too, Europeans were especially adept at combining cannon with ships. The Portuguese and others pioneered new types of highly maneuverable sailing ships such as the caravel, and exploration led to improved maps and navigational techniques. The desire to Christianize pagan peoples was still very fresh among leading individuals such as Queen Isabella of Spain after centuries of struggles against Muslims. Government sponsorship was important for the Spanish and the Portuguese and in the seventeenth century for the Dutch East India Company. There was also the basic European curiosity about the world, although Asian spices and the search for material wealth were usually the most direct causes of these voyages. Vasco da Gama famously stated that the Portuguese sought “Christians and spices.”

According to scholar Lynda Shaffer, the Chinese with their large and sophisticated navy “could have made the arduous journey around the tip of Africa and sail into Portuguese ports; however, they had no reason to do so. Although the Western European economy was prospering, it offered nothing that China could not acquire much closer to home at much less cost.” In contrast, the Portuguese, the Spanish and other Europeans were trying to reach the Spice Islands in Indonesia. “It was this spice market that lured Columbus westward from Spain and drew Vasco da Gama around Africa and across the Indian Ocean.” In Shaffer’s view, technologies such as gunpowder and the compass had a different impact in China than they had in Europe and it is “unfair to ask why the Chinese did not accidentally bump into the Western Hemisphere while sailing east across the Pacific to find the wool markets of Spain.”

There is some truth in this. The Age of Exploration with Portugal and Spain initially began with a desire to link the world’s second-most important trading region, Europe and the Mediterranean world, with the world’s most important trading region, the Indian Ocean, and in doing so bypass Muslim middlemen. This is why Christopher Columbus mistakenly believed he had arrived in India when he reached the Americas. Europeans were initially more interested in buying Asian goods than vice versa, but this still doesn’t explain why the Chinese and other Asians didn’t create the equivalent of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Genghis Khan (ca. 1162-1227) and the Mongols are sometimes blamed for this.

The Mongol conquest certainly had a disruptive impact, and the trail of devastation it left behind severely depopulated regions from China and Korea via Iran and Iraq to Eastern Europe. It ended the dynamic Song Dynasty, yet even before this there were few indications that a development towards modern engines or mathematical physics was about to take place in China. A series of typhoons, dubbed kamikaze or “divine wind,” saved the Japanese from the Mongol fleets in 1274 and 1281, but they, too, didn’t develop a fully fledged industry until they adopted a Western model in the late nineteenth century Moreover, even if Western Europe escaped the Mongols, we should remember that Europeans experienced centuries of political disintegration and population decline, longer than in any period in Chinese history for several thousand years. Europe also had to face a more prolonged assault by Islam.

Some Muslims have claimed that scientific advances in the Islamic world were halted by the Mongol conquests. This is inaccurate for a number of reasons. First of all because the conquests didn’t affect Syria, Egypt, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, yet these regions didn’t make any more progress than did the Islamic East. Second of all, science in the Islamic world had already stagnated in many fields prior to this. In astronomy, Muslim achievements peaked after the conquests, in Iran with Mongol encouragement. Hulegu Khan gave his blessing to build the Maragha observatory after his troops had sacked Baghdad and ended the Abbasid Caliphate. His brother Kublai Khan constructed an observatory in China.

In Europe after the invention of eyeglasses and mechanical clocks, new scientific instruments for studying and quantifying the world were introduced, from telescopes and microscopes to thermometers, and their precision was steadily increased. After 1600, John Napier’s logarithms became important and new mathematics such as calculus and analytic geometry contributed immensely to analysis. A fundamental institutional pillar of Western science was the routinization of discovery, or the invention of invention. David S. Landes explains:

“Here was a widely dispersed population of intellectuals, working in different lands, using different vernaculars — and yet a community. What happened in one place was quickly known everywhere else, partly thanks to a common language of learning, Latin; partly to a precocious development of courier and mail services; most of all because people were moving in all directions. In the seventeenth century, these links were institutionalized, first in the person of such self-appointed human switchboards as Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), then in the form of learned societies with their corresponding secretaries, frequent meetings, and periodical journals. The earliest societies appeared in Italy — the Accadémia dei Lincei (the Academy of Lynxes) in Rome in 1603, the short-lived Accadémia del Cimento in Florence in 1653. More important in the long run, however, were the northern academies: the Royal Society in London in 1660, the Academia Parisiensis in 1635, and the successor Académie des Sciences in 1666. Even before, informal but regular encounters in coffeehouses and salons brought people and questions together. As Mersenne put it in 1634, ‘the sciences have sworn inviolable friendship to one another.’ Cooperation, then, but enormously enhanced by fierce rivalry in the race for prestige and honor.”

From the seventeenth century onward Europeans created many scientific societies and journals. No similar arrangements and facilities for the propagation of scholarly learning were to be found outside of Europe. China lacked institutional continuity for learning, and the Middle East and India didn’t do much better. US President Barack Hussein Obama’s Islamophile speech delivered at Cairo University in Egypt in June 2009 contained a remarkably high concentration of half-truths, distortions or plain lies. Take this quote:

“As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar University — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

Is there even a single truthful statement in this entire paragraph? Muslims did create some fine calligraphy, and a few of their scholars made contributions to algebra, but apart from that it’s almost total nonsense. The magnetic compass was invented by the Chinese and possibly by Europeans and others independently. Printing of books, too, was invented by the Chinese, and was stubbornly and persistently rejected by Muslims for a thousand years or more due to Islamic religious resistance. They liked the Chinese invention of gunpowder a lot more.

No direct link has ever been proven between Gutenberg’s printing press and printing in East Asia, although it is conceivable that the basic idea of printing had been imported to Europe. In contrast, we know with 100% certainty that Muslims were familiar with East Asian printing but aggressively rejected it. Scholar Thomas Allsen in his book Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia has described how the authorities in Iran under Mongolian rule in 1294 attempted to introduce Chinese-style printed banknotes but failed due to popular resistance:

“Certainly the Muslim world exhibited an active and sustained opposition to movable type technologies emanating from Europe in the fifteenth century and later. This opposition, based on social, religious, and political considerations, lasted well into the eighteenth century. Only then were presses of European origin introduced into the Ottoman Empire and only in the next century did printing become widespread in the Arab world and Iran. This long-term reluctance, the disinterest in European typography, and the failure to exploit the indigenous printing traditions of Egypt certainly argue for some kind of fundamental structural or ideological antipathy to this particular technology.”

It is likely that due to trade, Middle Easterners were familiar with printing centuries before this incident, yet because of Islamic religious resistance they did not adopt this great invention until a thousand years or more after it had been invented in China. Minorities such as Jews or Greek and Armenian Christians were the first to use printing presses in the Ottoman realms. The first book printed in the Persian language was probably a Judaeo-Persian Pentateuch.

Muslims had access to Greek optical theory. Alhazen’s Book of Optics, one of the best scientific works ever written in the Arabic language, was largely ignored in the Arabic-speaking world yet was studied with interest in Europe. It was written in Cairo, Egypt, but was not studied at al-Azhar close to where Alhazen lived for years. Al-Azhar was a center of religious education and sharia law, not secular learning and science. In contrast, Greek natural philosophy and secular learning was taught at medieval European universities in addition to religious subjects, which is why optics was studied by more European scholars. I have encountered few if any institutions outside of Europe that I would call “universities” in the Western sense before the colonial era. Among the better candidates would be the Great Monastery of Nalanda in India, which was a Buddhist institution. It was not built by Muslims; it was destroyed by them, as were so many cultural treasures in India and Central Asia.

The Chinese education system introduced some level of meritocracy by preventing the bureaucracy from becoming completely hereditary. However, it was rigidly controlled and focused overwhelmingly on literary and moral learning. Men wasted years of their lives on passing higher level exams, often failing again and again. Toby E. Huff has investigated this in The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, second edition:

“From the point of view of this study, the modern scientific revolution was both an institutional revolution and an intellectual revolution that reorganized the scheme of natural knowledge and validated a new set of conceptions of man and his cognitive capacities. The forms of reason and rationality that had been fused out of the encounter between Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christian theology laid a foundation for believing in the essential rationality of man and nature. More importantly, this new metaphysical synthesis found an institutional home in the cultural and legal structures of medieval society — that is, the universities. Together they laid the foundations validating the existence of neutral institutional spaces within which intellects could pursue their intellectual inspiration while asking probing questions. Having laid those foundations, large sections of the Western world in the years after the Renaissance were enabled to go forward with the scientific movement as well as economic and political development.”

The medieval European university represented a real innovation, and Huff places its development, and the decision to include also natural sciences, not just theology, in its regular curriculum at the center of the later scientific achievements of the West:

“We should also not underestimate the magnitude of the step taken when it was decided (in part, following ancient tradition) to make the study of philosophy and all aspects of the natural world an official and public enterprise. If this seems a mundane achievement, it is due to our Eurocentrism which forgets that the study of the natural sciences and philosophy was shunned in the Islamic colleges of the Middle East and that all such inquiries were undertaken in carefully guarded private settings. Likewise, in China, there were no autonomous institutions of learning independent of the official bureaucracy; the ones that existed were completely at the mercy of the centralized state. Nor were philosophers given the liberty to define for themselves the realms of learning as occurred in the West.”

The Chinese had a tradition for viewing non-Chinese as barbarians, but one of China’s main challenges was that scientists found little room for independent thinking in an autocratic system with a centralized bureaucracy focused on Confucian literary classics and calligraphy. “The pursuit of scientific subjects was thereby relegated to the margins of Chinese society.” This does not mean that you cannot find promising beginnings in pharmacology, alchemy or medicine, “But in the end, institutions matter, as many economists have reminded us. Without them, fertile seeds of intellectual brilliance fail to grow into hardy plants.”

In The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Kenneth Pomeranz claims that several Asian countries, especially China and Japan, were at least as advanced as Europe by around the year 1800. Europe didn’t diverge critically from Asia until then, and the Industrial Revolution started in Britain in part due to a geographical accident because they had easy access to coal, and in part because of their overseas colonies and markets. In his view it had rather little to do with superior science or technology.

This claim is flat-out wrong. In the theoretical sciences, Europeans were ahead of East Asians throughout the late medieval and early modern periods, and the gap was rapidly increasing. These advances gradually affected applied technology as well. The Chinese had known about magnetism for centuries, yet they never discovered the connection between it and electricity, exemplified by telegraphy. Did Europeans have “easy access” to electromagnetism? Modern European studies of the speed and properties of light were far more advanced than Asian ones. Was this because Europeans had “easy access” to light? Didn’t they have light in Asia?

Medieval Europeans did well in mining technology, and this knowledge was carried to the New World. The Spanish Empire linked the Americas to the Philippines and Asia through regular convoys across the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish carried so much silver from Mexico to China that the Mexican dollar was a recognized currency in some Chinese coastal provinces. After 1400 China was remonetizing its economy, and silver was becoming the store of value.

Kenneth Pomeranz states that “The enormous demand for silver this created made it far more valuable in China (relative to gold and to most other goods) than anywhere else in the world: and China itself had few silver mines. Consequently, China was already importing huge amounts of silver (mostly from Japan, and to some extent from India and Southeast Asia) in the century before Western ships reached Asia. When Westerners did arrive, carrying silver from the richest mines ever discovered (Latin America produced roughly 85 percent of the world’s silver between 1500 and 1800) yielded large and very reliable arbitrage profits.”

In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, a largely — and in my view excessively — pro-Mongol book, author Jack Weatherford claims that the Mongol conquests triggered the Renaissance in Europe by opening up the continent to ideas from Asia:

“Because much of the Mongol Empire had been based on novel ideas and ways of organizing public life rather than on mere technology, these ideas provoked new thoughts and experiments in Europe. The common principles of the Mongol Empire — such as paper money, primacy of the state over the church, freedom of religion, diplomatic immunity, and international law — were ideas that gained new importance….Under the widespread influences from the paper and printing, gunpowder and firearms, and the spread of the navigational compass and other maritime equipment, Europeans experienced a Renaissance, literally a rebirth, but it was not the ancient world of Greece and Rome being reborn: It was the Mongol Empire, picked up, transferred, and adapted by the Europeans to their own needs and culture.”

So, we simultaneously see claims that the Renaissance was what caused the great advances in Western science and that it was triggered by Muslims in the twelfth century or Mongols in the thirteenth century. At the same time, there was supposedly nothing special about Europe until the turn of the nineteenth century. An intelligent reader will quickly see that all of these different claims cannot be true at the same time, yet they are all made at the same time.

The point here is not what is factually correct, the point is to put down any sense of pride people of European origins might have in their historical achievements. It is a bit ironic that European culture is constantly derided for being racist, oppressive and evil, yet everybody else seems very busy with claiming the honor for having created it. If we are racist oppressors who rape the Earth and create global warming, why are Muslims and others so eager to take credit for having created our culture? Shouldn’t they feel ashamed of themselves instead?

Western Multiculturalists claim that all cultures are equal, yet only one of them created modern organized science. This is the big elephant in the middle of the room. Multiculturalists try to explain this away by claiming that: (A. Science was invented independently in many regions and “merged” into modern science. (B. All cultures and peoples are equal. If one of them appears to be more successful than others, this must be because it exploits and oppresses the others. Since European civilization has been uniquely influential this can only be because it is uniquely evil. Consequently, stamping it out is a good deed for the sake of Earth and for mankind. An alternative way to respond to this explanatory challenge of why modern science emerged in Europe is to ignore the problem all together and talk about zebras and Australian plants instead. This is Jared Diamond’s preferred solution.

The truth is that the Scientific Revolution was the greatest achievement of the human mind in all history, and it was done by Europeans, not by anybody else. We can debate why this was the case, which can make for a fascinating discussion, but the end result is not debatable.

Pomeranz admits that there were no true scientific societies in China, but states that “unlike in Europe, where these formal scientific societies were often essential to protecting science from a hostile established church, in China there was no such powerful and hostile body.”

This is misleading. If the Christian Church had always been anti-science, it is unlikely that the Scientific Revolution would have taken place in Christian Europe. If Mr. Pomeranz had studied Toby Huff’s excellent work he would know that the situation was far worse in China. The Hongwu Emperor, or Taizu, was the founder (rule 1368-98) of the Ming Dynasty. He came from a poor family and created a new dynasty in the world’s largest economy. He was obviously a forceful character, but his case does illustrate underlying problems in the Chinese model. The Emperor thought that the students at the Imperial Academy were too unruly and appointed his nephew as head of the institution. Later he issued a set of pronouncements:

“In the third of these proclamations (ca. 1386) there was a ‘list of ‘bad’ metropolitan degree holders,’ that is, chin-shih or ‘doctorates,’ along with the names of some students. ‘He prescribed the death penalty for sixty-eight metropolitan degree holders and two students; penal servitude for seventy degree holders and twelve students.’ The author of this account in the Cambridge History of China adds that these lists ‘must have discouraged men of learning.’ Appended to the edict was a further reprimand. The emperor ‘would put to death any man of talent who refused to serve the government when summoned. As he put it, ‘To the edges of the land, all are the king’s subjects….Literati in the realm who do not serve the ruler are estranged from teaching [of Confucius]. To execute them and confiscate the property of their families is not excessive.’ The trial and punishment of Galileo (confinement to his villa overlooking Florence) is nothing compared to this.”

Copernicus’s 1543 book about heliocentrism did not produce an immediate upheaval; not until 1616 during the Catholic Counter-Reformation was it officially declared erroneous. As James Evans says, “Owen Gingerich has examined nearly all the surviving copies of the 1543 and 1566 editions of De revolutionibus, which total more than 500 books. The majority of copies in Italy were censored in conformity with the decree. But the decree had almost no effect elsewhere. Not even in Catholic Spain or Portugal were copies censored. The condemnation of De revolutionibus had very little impact on the acceptance of the heliocentric hypothesis. Even the famous trial of Galileo for continuing to advocate heliocentrism after the condemnation only served to popularize the new cosmology.”

One of the reasons why the West has enjoyed exceptionally high levels of sustained innovation is because we have often enjoyed a greater degree of political liberty and free speech than many other cultures. At least, we used to do so. In some critical fields we no longer do. What we are witnessing now is an experiment of unprecedented magnitude in world history: Never before have a massive amount of low-IQ peoples been allowed to settle in lands where the native inhabitants have substantially higher average IQ than themselves.

The European Union is currently promoting mass immigration to Western European countries by peoples from other cultures. It also imposes a centralized, authoritarian bureaucratic structure which used to be alien to pre-Soviet Europe. During all of European history, no single authority has ever been able to successfully censor ideas throughout the entire Continent, which, frankly, has been one of Europe’s greatest strengths. The EU and the national Multicultural elites are now purposefully destroying what have traditionally been Europe’s foremost comparative advantages: High average IQ combined with free inquiry.

Michael Hart in Understanding Human History deals with the issue of whether it is immoral to consider the possibility there could be differences in intelligence between various ethnic groups, and whether believing so makes you a “Nazi.” He suggests that the potential existence of such differences is not a moral question at all, but merely a factual one:

“Such differences (if they exist) are merely facts of nature; as such, they may be unfortunate, but cannot be immoral. Plainly, if such differences actually exist it is not immoral to believe that they exist, nor to honestly state one’s belief that they exist, nor to study the differences. And even if the differences do not exist, a belief that they do (if honestly held) is not immoral, nor is a serious inquiry into the question immoral. The attempt to turn factual questions into moral questions is the essence of dogmatism, and has long been a hindrance to scientific progress. A well-known example involves the conviction of Galileo by the Inquisition in 1633. The members of the court that condemned him were turning a factual question (‘Does the Earth revolve about the Sun?’) into a moral question (‘Is such a belief contrary to scripture, and therefore heretical?’)”

Throughout the Western world there is powerful censorship of anything related to Multiculturalism and mass immigration of non-European peoples. In Europe, EU authorities constitute one of the major forces behind this in collaboration with national authorities, the media and the academia in various countries. Together they promote mass immigration and ideological “anti-racism” through social and legal intimidation as well as propaganda campaigns designed to silence anybody who might conceivably object to the above mentioned policies. This is easily the most serious cases of censorship in this civilization’s history. Much of Europe has enjoyed a remarkable genetic continuity since the Old Stone Age. Native Europeans are now supposed to be displaced by peoples with a completely different genetic profile, but we’re not allowed to debate the long-term consequences of doing so.

When people are asked about what constitutes the most serious case of anti-scientific censorship in Western history, they will usually mention Galileo vs. the Inquisition regarding Sun-centered astronomy. That was indeed a bad moment, but the attempted censorship of the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus had little long-term effect. Moreover, this attempted censorship didn’t do anything to change physical reality. The Earth still orbits the Sun.

When scientists decoded a human genome after the year 2000 they were quick to portray it as proof of mankind’s remarkable similarity. The DNA of any two individuals, they emphasized, is at least 99 percent identical. But new research is exploring the remaining fraction to explain observed differences. After all, you who read these words may well be 99.5 % or more genetically identical to Newton and Einstein, but that last bit made a rather huge difference.

In 2007 The New York Times in the USA, a center-left newspaper very concerned about “racism,” real or imagined, asked in the article “In DNA Era, New Worries About Prejudice” “whether society is prepared to handle the consequences of science that may eventually reveal appreciable differences between races in the genes that influence socially important traits.” Multiculturalists have, reluctantly, admitted that race is not “socially constructed” when it comes to medicine; some ethnic groups are more susceptible to certain diseases than others.

It is likely that we in the twenty-first century will witness a genetic revolution that will change our view of biology as profoundly as the Copernican theory changed our view of astronomy. Maybe we will identify not only which genes are responsible for certain diseases, but also clusters of genes that contribute to unusually high intelligence. Perhaps a few generations from now, claiming that people are more or less genetically identical and that emphasizing differences in natural abilities between various ethnic groups is “racism” will appear just as quaint and irrational as it does for us to read older claims that the Sun orbits the Earth. The big difference is that once anti-Copernicanism had been discredited, the Western world was still much the same as before. If or when anti-racism has been scientifically discredited and it has been conclusively established that people really do have different levels of intelligence and capabilities, an entire civilization, the most creative and influential in human history, could in the meantime have been irreversibly destroyed through organized mass-stupidity.

Research by Rice University professor John Alford in 2008 found that identical twins were more likely to agree on political issues than were fraternal twins. He thinks that political scientists are too quick to dismiss genetics, and believes that genetics should be studied along with social influences. Alford’s research — and there are others studies with similar results — indicates that people who have a similar genetic make-up also think in similar ways.

Let us take this principle and apply it to entire societies: What if culture has a genetic component, perhaps even a powerful one? I am not a believer in genetic determinism as there are quite a few events in history that cannot be successfully explained by IQ or genes, but there are also many that can. Even if genes do not determine everything that does not necessarily mean that they don’t matter at all, yet the ruling ideology in the West today stipulates that everything is “socially constructed” and that all differences between groups of people are caused by prejudice and “racism,” by which is usually meant white racism only.

The case of the state of Israel is interesting. I have heard reports that it is difficult to integrate Ethiopian Jews in Israeli society. This could be because they have a part-African genetic profile which makes them too different from Middle Eastern or especially European Jews. If you postulate that any society cannot successfully absorb a substantial number of people with a radically different genetic profile, this will explain why Africans haven’t been integrated into the United States after living there for several centuries, longer than many European immigrants who were seamlessly assimilated. We could mention the case of the Gypsies, too, who come from India originally and have been living in Eastern and Central Europe for the better part of a thousand years (since the Late Middle Ages) but still aren’t integrated there.

One of our major problems today is what I would call binary thinking. In the binary system there are only ones and zeros, on and off. You cannot be anything in between, just like you cannot be slightly pregnant. When it comes to matters of IQ and genetic intelligence, the basic impulse among most Western academics is to make the entire subject taboo and denounce all those who touch it as “racists.” This is anti-scientific and should be rejected because of this.

On the other extreme you find those who attribute almost everything to genetic intelligence, which is simplistic. It wasn’t genetic changes that made medieval Italians create modern capitalism when Italians in the Roman era had never done the same, and it is unlikely that changes in IQ is the main reason why Scandinavians in the Viking Age were feared and respected as warriors yet are today considered feminized sissies. Western Europe by the early 1900s was the most powerful civilization on Earth and still ruled much of the planet. A century later the same region is weak and doesn’t even successfully rule its own suburbs. I seriously doubt that the average European IQ has drastically declined in the meantime. What happened is that the European spirit was broken, especially by two devastating wars and by the dysfunctional and dangerous Utopian ideologies that were unleashed in the process.

High IQ doesn’t automatically make you a more moral person. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, definitely had very high intelligence, yet this only enabled him to implement evil more effectively. I sometimes wonder whether Europeans have become addicted to implementing destructive ideologies. In that case, high IQ won’t do us much good.

People with an IQ of 100 will always have a far greater potential for great achievements than people with an IQ of 80. To what extent that potential is realized or inhibited depends to a large extent on cultural factors. You can easily destroy the ability of high-IQ peoples to utilize their potential, but you cannot create additional potential for low-IQ peoples. North Korea can be made a poorer country than South Korea through Communism, but West Africans can never become pioneers in space exploration. Likewise, France and Germany have produced many of the greatest mathematicians in recorded history. Algeria and Turkey have produced virtually none. I seriously doubt whether France will continue to produce great mathematicians if it is populated by Algerians, or Germany if it is populated by Turks.

Yes, I know that there are many white Marxists and others who are hostile to Western civilization, and there are many non-whites who genuinely admire this civilization and want to preserve it. Culture does not always follow genes, but on the other hand it is questionable whether the two can be completely separated. What if culture is at least partly the product a specific group of people with a related genetic profile? What if cultural heritage cannot be totally separated from genetic heritage and that in order to preserve the former in any meaningful way you must also preserve the latter? If so, Western culture was historically the product of European peoples and can only be maintained by them. In that case, perhaps US President Barack Hussein Obama will be remembered as a transitional figure in the evolution of the USA from a Western to a non-Western country with a non-European majority.

While Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel contains some worthwhile parts, the overall conclusion is almost certainly wrong. You can just look at the state of California to disprove it. California was by the 1960s and 70s the economic engine of the USA and by the extension the world. By 2009 it is close to bankruptcy. The reason for this is not that the geography of California changed, nor its plants or animals to any significant degree. What changed was the demographic make-up of California. As long as it was predominantly inhabited by whites it was a dynamic region. As soon as it become inhabited by Mexicans and other lower-IQ Third World peoples it came increasingly to resemble a Third World region. Diamond is currently a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which means that he can see clearly that his theories are flawed just by looking out the window.

Jared Diamond is a poor and dishonest scientist for failing to seriously consider alternative hypotheses which sometimes explain observed reality better than his own. So why has he become so popular and influential? Because he gave the Western Multicultural elites exactly what they wanted to hear: People are equal, what matters is geography. This is an ideological green light for mass immigration of people from failed countries and cultures to the West. If you follow this logic to the extreme you should be able to swap the populations of, say, Japan and Kenya. Kenyans would then have access to all those magnificent Japanese plants and would therefore become much cleverer and would develop the next lines of high-tech cars for Toyota and Mitsubishi or sophisticated TVs for Sony. Personally, I don’t buy that idea. The experiences brought by non-Western immigration to Western cities so far indicate otherwise.

ICLA Tackles Fundamental Freedoms at the OSCE Meeting in Warsaw

Update: After consulting with its Finnish members, ICLA has corrected the text of its presentation on Jussi Halla-aho. The original text below has been struck through, but left in place.


The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) is meeting in Warsaw this week, and once again the International Civil Liberties Alliance is on hand to remind the other organizations represented there what liberty is all about.

This week’s emphasis is on implementing the “Human Dimension”, and yesterday’s session focused on “Fundamental Freedoms”. In their presentation, ICLA representatives pointed out where fundamental freedoms are at risk in Europe, as civil liberties are being rolled back, restricted, erode, and destroyed in many member states of the OSCE.

Here’s the complete report from ICLA on yesterday’s doings in Warsaw:

ICLA and allied organizations gather at OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Warsaw, 29 September, 2009

ICLA and its allied organizations Pax Europa, Mission Europa and Wiener Akademikerbund attended today’s sessions on Fundamental Freedoms — including Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion or Belief — as well as a follow-up to the Vienna Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting. The afternoon session included topics on Freedom of Assembly and Association, Freedom of Movement, and others.

In activities surrounding the meeting, ICLA and its allied organizations worked to contribute to the broader debate and attempted to foster understanding and mutual respect between the counterjihad and other interested parties and stakeholders in these important areas of concern. ICLA officially issued the following statement at the meeting:

Use of intimidation to curb civil liberties

Recent cases in the OSCE area

We are concerned about the increasing use of intimidation to curb the exercise of civil liberties in the OSCE area. This covers fundamental liberties such as freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and, not least, freedom of expression. Here we present recent cases on the matter, and our recommendations for political initiatives to counter this trend.

Modern, secular society was built with centuries of relevant criticism of religion, in particular by questioning religious authority. No form of intimidation can make us abandon our fundamental values of critical thinking and free speech. We expect our institutions and elected politicians to protect these, to take the relevant precautions as well as any risks involved in doing so.

Unfortunately, we are witnessing a slow but steady decline in the state of civil liberties. This decline is to a great extent due to intimidations, threats or even violence from non-state actors, aided and abetted by our police, courts and other authorities not standing up to the challenges. We need to identify the new challenges and adapt our approaches, so that we are able to counter repressive activity from non-state actors and loosely organized groups in order to preserve freedom and diversity.

Dr. Jussi Halla-aho convicted for ‘incitement to hatred’ “breaching the sanctity of religion” at Finnish court

Dr. Jussi Halla-aho is a Helsinki city councilman, a linguist with a PhD in Slavic studies, and a web columnist who maintains a very popular (and controversial) blog called Scripta. He is best known for being a consistent critic of the problems created by mass immigration and multicultural policies in Finland. After his December 2008 election to the city council of Helsinki, he was accused of ‘racist writings’, due to an article he had written about the increasing number of rape cases by immigrants against Finnish women. The investigation was launched at the request of the Women’s organization of the Green Party, who filed a complaint concerning the last paragraph of text in a blog post of his, and sought the police to investigate to help determine whether the paragraph constitutes incitement to rape. This investigation was abolished on technical grounds, but later Jussi Halla-aho was convicted and fined for “breaching the sanctity of religion” and “inciting hatred against an ethnic group” This investigation was abolished on technical grounds. The court dismissed the charge of incitement to hatred against an ethnic group, but convicted and fined Dr. Halla-aho for “breaching the sanctity of religion” due to his critical articles about Islam.

Disrupting peaceful demonstration I

Copenhagen January 10th 2009

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On January 10th 2009, a legal and peaceful pro-Israel demonstration was held in the town square of Copenhagen, Denmark, in support of Israel against Hamas. Counter-demonstrators disrupted the demonstration with a siren, then assembled with shouts of “Heil Hitler”, “Kill the Jews “, “Allahu Akhbar” and more, accompanied by Hitler salutes. After the pro-Israel demonstration had ended, the pro-Palestine demonstration marched the square with shouts of “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahoud, Jaish Muhammad sauf ya’ud “ (“Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Muhammad’s army will return”), a reference to Muhammad’s violent assault on the Jewish settlement of Khaybar, Medina, and thus an implied threat of violence against Jews. Gülay Kocbay and Havva Kocbay participated in the counter-demonstration, using the siren and holding a speech. They were at the time members of the organisation Muslimer i Dialog (“Muslims in Dialogue”), but resigned due to the siren incident. The open display of anti-Semitism was not mentioned in their resignation announcement. Danish authorities investigated the matter, but decided not to press charges of racism, citing difficulties in identifying the participants.

Disrupting peaceful demonstration II

Copenhagen, August 28th 2009

In August 2009, SIOE organized a demonstration against plans for an Iranian-funded mosque in Copenhagen, Denmark, citing concerns that the mosque would be a front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and that its real purpose was to enable the Iranian regime to keep track of dissidents and to radicalize Muslims in Denmark. The Danish authorities did not permit the demonstration at the desired location in Nørrebro, relegating it instead to be held in front of the Danish parliament. Here, left-wing radicals turned up in order to loudly disrupt the demonstration, and were successful in dissuading many from participating. When the SIOE organizers requested the police to call the counter-demonstration to order, the police officer cited “freedom of expression” as justification for not intervening against the disturbances.

Demonstration at Harrow mosque attacked by Muslims

Demonstration in Cologne obstructed by Antifa activists and Muslims

On 19 September 2008, an approved rally by citizens’ group Pro Köln to protest against the construction of a mosque complex to dwarf the cathedral of Cologne in Germany was brought to an abrupt end when the speaker system was pulled and the people who had managed to access the Heumarkt were besieged and surrounded by aggressive groups of black-clad Antifa activists. Many others who had wished to join the protest were prevented from reaching the rally and blocked at railway stations, or even physically assaulted. The rally was repeated on May 9th 2009 but not allowed to take place in central Cologne. Once again, the Pro-Köln supporters were subjected to harassment and abuse at the hands of Antifa activists and Muslims.

Wilders barred from entering the UK for ‘security reasons’

One of the most worrisome developments in the United Kingdom was the ban on entry for Dutch MP Geert Wilders, known for his short movie Fitna about Islam and terrorism. He was barred entry to the UK on grounds that his entry “would threaten community harmony and therefore public security”, even though Wilders has never advocated the use of violence or threatened anyone. On the other hand, Britain’s Muslim peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to protest Wilders’ appearance and the showing of Fitna in the British Parliament. Rather than reprimanding Muslim peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to protest Wilders’ appearance and the showing of Fitna in the British Parliament. Rather than reprimand Lord Ahmed for this act of intimidation, the British government chose to ban Wilders from entering Britain, returning him upon his arrival to Heathrow Airport. This constitutes not only giving in to intimidation, but is also an abuse of the law guaranteeing freedom of movement within the European Union.

Libel tourism as an assault on freedom of press

Libel tourism is the exploitation of poorly written libel laws in one country to silence critical voices in others. The libel laws of Great Britain have been used extensively for this purpose, due to the fact that the burden of proof in British law is reversed compared to comparable law in other countries. Under British law, an author or journalist sued for libel will have to prove his statements true in order to avoid sentence. Using this approach, persons with deep pockets can silence critical voices. Such a lawsuit was filed in a British court by Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz against American author Rachel Ehrenfeld for her 2003 book “Funding Evil”, even though the book was never published in Britain. Ms. Ehrenfeld was convicted a fine of $225,000 and destruction of her book. As a reaction, in order to protect freedom of press in the United States, US lawmakers passed legislation making the UK law unenforceable in the United States. This protects US authors, but not others. Relevant books, such as Alms for Jihad by Burr & Collins, have been withdrawn or even remained unpublished due to the fear of libel suits. Such books can be found published Samizdat-style on the Internet. The legal problem in Britain still exists, and publishers shy away from critical titles due to the risk of expensive lawsuits. In order to protect authors and journalists, and to live up to modern standards for freedom of press, British law needs to be amended.

Oriana Fallaci sued for ‘Defaming Islam’

In 2002 in Switzerland the Islamic Center and the Somal Association of Geneva, SOS Racisme of Lausanne, along with a private citizen, sued Italian author Oriana Fallaci for the allegedly “racist” content of The Rage and The Pride. In May 2005, Adel Smith, president of the Union of Italian Muslims, launched a lawsuit against Fallaci charging that “some of the things she said in her book The Force of Reason are offensive to Islam.” Smith’s attorney cited 18 phrases, most notably a phrase that referred to Islam as “a pool that never purifies.” Consequently an Italian judge ordered Fallaci to stand trial set for June, 2006 in Bergamo on charges of “defaming Islam.” The preliminary trial began on 12 June in Bergamo and on 25 June Judge Beatrice Siccardi decided that Oriana Fallaci should indeed stand trial beginning on 18 December. Fallaci accused the judge of having disregarded the fact that Smith called for her murder and defamed Christianity.

OIC seeks to censor art exhibition in Denmark

Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the most famous of the 12 Muhammad cartoons in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, has been living with around-the-clock police protection since a plot to assassinate him was uncovered on February 12th, 2008. This threat has not caused him to repent or apologize for his drawings, and he now proceeds to speak up for freedom of speech, and keeps drawing as well. On August 29th 2009, an exhibition of his latest drawings, including a reproduction of his famous Muhammad cartoon. The OIC spokesman said that the exhibition of the cartoon could incite hatred and intolerance and hurt the sentiments of Muslims worldwide, and wanted it removed. This, of course, is an implicit reference to the violent riots that took place in January/February 2006, a few months after the original publication of the cartoons. Kurt Westergaard, who at the age of 74 states that he is too old to worry about getting killed, refused to give in to intimidation and the exhibition proceeded as planned.

More attempts to shut down ‘offensive’ art exhibitions are listed here.

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Policy recommendations

The International Civil Liberties Alliance sees quite a lot of work ahead before our civil liberties are again sufficiently secured. Governments must be significantly more assertive and effective in protecting the liberties we have long taken for granted. To that end, we recommend the following:

• The authorities must defend our civil liberties using whatever resources are necessary. Lack of equipment or fear of tying up police personnel is not a sufficient reason to abandon the fundamental obligation of the police to protect demonstrators, protesters, and all others who gather peacefully and legally in public.
  
• The government must urgently revise British libel law. The burden of proof must be reversed to prevent misuse of these laws against authors and journalists, who must be free to conduct and publish investigative work without fear of frivolous and costly court cases.
  
• Our leaders must make it clear that truth is an absolute defence. No matter how offensive it may feel to some, speaking verifiable truth must never be made punishable.
  
• Lawmakers and courts must make it clear that criticism of religion does not constitute racism, and thus is not subject to punishment under any form of hate speech law. Furthermore, only individual may be defame. Defamation does not apply to religions or ideologies.
  
• Laws which attempt to resolve conflict by banning expression of negative sentiment (‘hate speech’ laws) are legally problematic, because any such regulations are limitations on our fundamental liberties, and serve to cover up conflicts rather than to solve them. Such broad articles are subject to abuse, when authorities and courts come under pressure from various parties, as occurred with similar laws in the Soviet Union. Due to the dangers inherent in such laws, ICLA recommends that it is in the interest of our freedom to abolish such laws entirely.

In addition, statements were made by ICLA and Pax Europa during the plenary session of the working group on Fundamental Freedom.

ICLA:

Session 3 Freedom of Movement

The International Civil Liberties Alliance would like to raise the issue of Dutch MP Geert Wilders being denied entry into the United Kingdom earlier this year.

He was barred entry to the UK on grounds that his entry “would threaten community harmony and therefore public security”, even though he has never advocated the use of violence or threatened anyone. On the other hand, a member of the House of Lords, Lord Nazir Ahmed, threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to protest Mr Wilders’ appearance and the showing of his short film Fitna in the British Parliament. Rather than reprimanding Lord Ahmed for this act of intimidation, the British government chose to ban Mr Wilders from entering Britain, returning him to the Netherlands on his arrival at Heathrow Airport.

This constitutes not only giving in to intimidation, but is also in our opinion an abuse of the law guaranteeing freedom of movement within the European Union.

The International Civil Liberties Alliance therefore calls upon the OSCE to encourage Participating States to refrain from restricting movement on such whimsical and transparently politically-motivated grounds.

Pax Europa:

Session 3 Freedom of Assembly

Pax Europa would like to draw attention to the OSCE guidelines to Freedom of Assembly which specify that “The state has a positive duty to actively protect peaceful assemblies.” Furthermore, “the state is required to protect participants of a peaceful demonstration from any person or group that attempts to disrupt (…) it in any way.”

These guidelines were not adhered to during the peaceful demonstrations that took place in Copenhagen in January and August 2009.

In January, a legal and peaceful demonstration in support of Israel was disrupted by counter-demonstrators shouting “Heil Hitler” and “Kill the Jews” and other similar references. Danish authorities investigated the matter, but decided not to press charges of racism, citing difficulties identifying the participants.

In August, a demonstration against an Iranian-funded mosque was loudly disrupted by left-wing radicals, who were also successful in dissuading many from participating in the demonstration. A request to the police to call the counter-demonstration to order was fruitless when the police officer cited “freedom of expression” as justification for not intervening against the disturbances.

We call on the OSCE Participating States to ensure that the OSCE guidelines pertaining to Freedom of Assembly are adhered to by member governments in all instances, thereby ensuring the continued right to the very freedoms that make up democracy.

ICLA and its allied organizations remain committed to engaging in the OSCE process, in particular in the area of the Human Dimension.

Help Not Wanted

For those who regularly read the cultural enrichment news, this is a familiar meme: male medical personnel who happen to be infidels are forbidden to minister to Muslim women by their husbands or other male relatives. Their filthy ape-and-pig hands must not touch the pure flesh of Muslimas.

But this incident in Australia has an unusual twist: it was a fellow white paramedic, and not the woman’s husband, who upbraided the good Samaritan and told him to leave. In other words: pre-emptive self-Islamization. Or voluntary dhimmitude; take your pick.

According to The Herald Sun:

Private Ambulance Crew Claim They Were Abused Trying to Help Baby

A PRIVATE ambulance crew who stopped at a major accident where a baby’s life was in the balance claim they were abused and ordered to leave the scene.

Rian Holden chanced on a Melton crash scene where eight people were injured after their people-carrier flipped on Sunday.

He said that he and his partner stopped to help Ambulance Victoria crews, who gladly accepted.

Mr Holden said paramedics were struggling to attend to all the injured — with both a mother and her child in a critical condition.

The private operator, who runs Event Medical Solutions, said he followed instructions of paramedics, helping move the child on to a spine board and administering first aid to others while his partner sat with an injured Muslim woman in traditional dress.

But Mr Holden said problems arose as he took the blood pressure and pulse rate of the injured woman.

Ambulance Victoria operations manager Paul Holman had ordered him to leave.

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“It was in bad taste,” Mr Holden said. “We copped a gob full of abuse. It makes you not want to do that in future.

“It’s all because he has a problem with me. Everyone was helping and we rendered basic first aid.”

Other trained medical professionals stopped at the scene, including two nurses, while bystanders sheltered the injured from high winds.

As helicopters transported the critically injured mother and child, police were asked to ensure Mr Holden left the site.

Mr Holden has written to Police and Emergency Minister Bob Cameron and to Ambulance Victoria chief executive officer Greg Sassella, demanding an apology.

But Ambulance Victoria’s Mr Holman said he was only short with the private operator because he had the welfare of patients on his mind.

He said one of the injured men was becoming irate that Mr Holden was treating his wife — that created a culturally sensitive situation.

“I don’t know him (Mr Holden) at all,” Mr Holman said.

“These people are Muslim. I asked him to get out of the ambulance, thanked him and asked him to leave.

“I was probably short because I had eight critically ill patients. I wasn’t in the mood to have a long conversation.

“He was asked to leave politely. And I did get the police to make sure he left.”

Mr Holman said he was concerned about Mr Holden’s credentials but insisted he had not been rude to him.

Who ministers to injured Muslim women in all-Muslim countries? Are there enough female paramedics to take care of them? Or do ambulance personnel just leave them by the side of the road to bleed to death?

Or maybe they give the husbands instructions: “Make sure that she doesn’t swallow her tongue. Now tie the tourniquet just above the knee…”


For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Hat tip: Sean O’Brian.

Obama's Mask

The video below is from the local Fox affiliate in D.C.

Eric Spiegelman, who posted this clever montage on Vimeo last week, says:

On Wednesday, the Obamas hosted a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, during which they stood for 130 photographs with visiting foreign dignitaries in town for the UN meeting. The President has exactly the same smile in every single shot. See for yourself - the pictures are up on the State Department’s flickr (link [here]). And, of course, compressed into 20 seconds for your viewing pleasure.

This is fascinating, in a weird kind of way. The mask of facial language says something but I’m not sure I want to know the message in this here particular example.

Would someone send it to Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos and get his take on it? As a forensic psychologist, he’d have something informative to add to any speculation we might make - though do speculate all you want. The more you examine it, the stranger this one gets. I hope Mr. Cosmos will venture at least a short post on the significance -- or not -- of this fey phenomenon.

This reminds me yet again…
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I wish Hillary had won the Democrat nomination; she’d probably have won the national vote, too.

Say what you will about her, Mrs. Clinton has a most animated visage. Just check her out on Google Images - her facial expressions are by turn thoughtful, funny, tired, delighted, outraged, sad, etc. One gets the sense that a real person inhabits her being. Not a real person that I’d ever want to cross, mind you, but she certainly is genuine in comparison to the President she serves.

I wonder how many years he spent in front of the mirror perfecting that smile. Probably more than he spent “writing” his books. Like John Kennedy’s authorship of Profiles in Courage, actually written by Ted Sorensen, Obie Wan’s autobiographical Dreams had a ghoster, too. Like Sorensen, Ayers wrote some of his own books, too (the style of which leads reasonable people to conclude he’s the author of Obie’s magnum opus). Unlike Sorensen, however, one of Ayers’ books was dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, Bobby Kennedy's assassin.

A number of people question the President’s writing skills. Given the fact that the little available evidence of his previous writing shows a less-than-fluid style,the questioners are probably right. What would be useful is a computer analysis of the appearance of word frequency and syntax-- you know, like the ones they've done endlessly on Shakespeare's plays and sonnets.

However, while it's entertaining to expose the guy, traveling that road to definite proof would be a pyrrhic victory. The Obamaists will shrug their Gallic “So. Your point?” and move on. The moderates, that group of uncommitted voters who decide elections, don’t care. Conservative energies need to be harnessed to issues that matter, e.g., the socialist programs being rahmed down our throats.

We have a cabal of maroons leading us into a quagmire designed to destroy the middle class and the small entrepreneur. If they succeed at imposing even half their failure-based programs, the U.S. will become the North American Argentina.

Meanwhile, this public demonstration of Obama’s mask is a small entertainment to distract us as we amble on down the road of good intentions to our fatal destination.

A prediction: our raucous American humor is going to develop a Russian flavor before long. This is the kind of dark humor born of despair. Funny as hell, but as deeply dysphoric, also.

Want to hear my favorite Russian joke?


Hat tips galore to the many readers who sent this in.

Reduced Circumstances

Further update: Japan has checked in. Thank you, first donor from Japan!

Also Portugal, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands yet again.

In the USA: California, and right here in central Virginia.

Update from Dymphna: Fundraising, The Final Day

That phrase has always intrigued me: “reduced circumstances”. It sounds British, but it could also be from the American South. Lord knows after Sherman created that swath of destruction everyone was living in “circumstances” much reduced from what they remembered. When I travel the back roads of the Carolinas or Georgia, I wonder if the South ever managed to entirely recover from Sherman’s depredations.

So here we are, living in reduced circumstances in Eden. The Baron came here first and it was he who named our house when he moved in. After living in the fast lane in Northern Virginia – there isn’t a slow lane in NoVa – this place seemed Edenic to him.

And it is. We had peaches and pears in abundance this year, without having to tend them at all. Also crab grass, but as the Baron likes to remind me, Eden is never perfection. This is Eden… afterwards.

Our reduced circumstances are the same ones facing millions of other Americans and, just as they are doing, we’ll weather them somehow. The only obstacle is Obama. Come to think of it, his program is beginning to resemble the strategy of General Sherman.

Today we wrap up our bleg. Things were slower, but donors continued to arrive, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart:

Upstate New York
Arizona
California (it’s now the “I told you so!” state for me)
Arkansas, right where it meets Tennesee
Florida again – thanks y’all

The Netherlands
Hungary – our first donation from there!
UK – one final time.

Gratias plena to all of you who showed up during the past week. Your generosity will help us to make it through the end of 2009.

We will muddle on through and let you all know if our circumstances fatten up any. In fact, y’all will be the first to know!

And now this post can finally mosey on down the page with all the rest…


Update from Dymphna: Fundraising, Day Six

Fallen from grace…

…or maybe just fallen from the saddle.

Whatever. Either way, we’re sitting here on the hard cold ground of reality counting our blessings.

In our case, enumerated among them would be our contributors. Y’all have really been generous to Gates of Vienna during this fund drive.

Anyone who didn’t receive a response for your gift let me know. We’ve had a few bounces, one from San Francisco and one that looks like it may be from France. The intent of that latter email isn’t immediately obvious.

Today, the Canadians came by again…and again. For the first time since I remember, the Canadians have been more numerous than the Texans.

There were some cowboys, of course. I hope the generosity they display is an indication of good times to come in the Lone Star state.

Norway was represented today. The Baron tells me this donor is further north than usual. I wonder if they’ve had their first frost yet (I never looked forward to a killing frost before but we’ve been infested with crab grass and that stuff is hard on my eyes). I do hope the Norwegians come in honor of Fjordman. There’s no one else like him.

More Virginia donors, too, and a few from Illinois. The former are particularly welcome since it’s like a letter from home. The latter reassure me that not all is lost in Obama country.

California continues to prove me wrong. My original thought, starting out, was that we wouldn’t hear much from them. Whowee, was I ever wrong! Thanks, all of y’all for being so generous in the face of my doubts.

Florida is California’s rival, and some crackers hit the tip cup today, thankyouverymuch. It’s nice to hear from people in the Panhandle (that’s west Florida, though both parts of my home state look like panhandles). For those who’ve never been there, out a ways past the state capitol starts what is known as the “Redneck Riviera”.

Some “show me” donors from Missouri gave to our fundraiser (The “show me” part is a reference to Missourians who don’t take your word for it: they want to see the evidence. In today’s political climate, that sure is a good idea).

And hello, Arkansas. You know who you are.

Last but not least, thanks to the citizens of Oz who arrived today, all looking a bit dusty. Given the dust storms and the aftermath, it was especially encouraging to hear from y’all.


Update from Dymphna: Fundraising, Day Five

Heavens, it certainly doesn’t seem like five days… except perhaps when I consult my gluteus maximus.

Since traffic is slower on weekends, I thought for sure the donations would be also. However, that turned out not to be the case. Again, our donors showed up from nearly all over. I say “nearly” because it’s a rare day when the Texans don’t come by. No doubt some were at church, some were gardening, and others were sleeping off the events of Saturday night?

Here’s our travel log for today:

Illinois, at least three times. Obama’s home state made a fine showing. One thank you note bounced, so if anyone from Illinois didn’t get a response, please let me know.

Michigan, more than once, but I may be leaving someone out. We’ve never heard from anyone in the Upper Peninsula; somehow I can’t picture them being much interested in lower Michigan, much less matters European. In fact, the U.P. has been muttering about secession for years. It sure is another world by the waters of Gitchigumi. For obvious reasons, when the Finns came to America, they congregated there.

Californians are still hitting the tip cup, so I’ll have to eat my words about California being true-blue. They’re obviously not monolithic. Yesterday, one donor said their son had been a liberal in his freshman year at Berkeley but grew increasingly conservative as he moved through school. That gives us hope. Maybe there will be more movement to the right as the large unionized state bureaucracy starts to fissure.

The New Yorkers have arrived in greater abundance, too.

For our European readers, these three states - Michigan, California, and New York - are being slammed with high taxes and a net loss of residents as people head for the door. Conditions are dire in all of them, so it’s cheering when they come by.

We heard from Maine for the first time and from tah dah! Washington, D.C. Both are such Democrat strongholds that one never expects to see them at the Gates. Things are kicking up in Maine, though: the hippies are ageing out and a newer, younger group will be in charge…eventually.

Several Virginians put in appearances, too, with (as they say around here) right nice donations. Thanks, y’all.

And a previous donor from North Carolina returned with money and praises. Come to think of it, we’ve had a number of previous donors. Cool. And even cooler are the nice things they say.

From Europe, we had Brits in abundance. You’d never know there was a downturn in the economy to see the numbers of donors from the UK.

Ireland and Australia were here, too. However, like the Texans, the Canadians were doing other things with this lovely Sunday.
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Perhaps both will return tomorrow, as offices open up again for the things we do in cubicles where the boss can’t see us. Hmm…I wonder if Gates of Vienna is blocked in government offices yet? I dearly hope not, since government workers are beginning to become the largest segment of the still-employed.

We shall continue, faithful readers, in our genteel squalor reminiscent of the days after the Late Unpleasantness. As long as the electric grid remains intact, however, we won’t have to go back but part way.


Update from the Baron: Fundraising, Day Four

Well, our flatiron won’t get us to a hotel on Boardwalk anytime soon, but, thanks to our readers’ generosity, we get to keep our house here on Mediterranean Avenue.

As a matter of interest — how long has it been since first class U.S. postage was actually 32¢? It seems very recent…

Today’s roll call includes Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, and at least two from Illinois.

From the Near Abroad, Canada checked in several times, including British Columbia.

Then there was Dublin — the real one, in Eire.

More from France, and a lot from the UK — Dymphna (who is keeping track for me) says the British were in the lead today.

Thank you all for opening your hearts and your wallets for us. May you draw a Get Out of Jail Free card!


Friday’s Update from Dymphna: Day Three of the Bleg

Top of the Hole, eh what??

I’ve been reading a bit of post-Second World War P.G. Wodehouse. This period of his writing is still amusing, but it’s bittersweet, too, as Wodehouse depicts England’s upper class coming to terms with the new socialism and ruination by taxes. Before the war, Bertie Wooster was timeless and Edwardian. But afterwards… reality caught up with Mr. Wodehouse as the upper class began to be obliterated.

In the first novella, Bertie is off-stage in a school that teaches gentlemen to darn their own socks and otherwise learn living skills. Thus, Jeeves is on loan to another feckless soul, Lord Towcester (pronounced “Toaster”).

It is the usual Wodehouse pretzel of a plot, but it resonates nicely with our situation. Fortunately, we are not being forced to sell the crumbling family manse to a rich American. Heh. Our manse may crumble, but that is its permanent state. This condition is not merely existential, as would be the case with an ancient castle complete with chapel and a damp river running too nearby. No, our castle suffers from its humble antecedents and thus presents with a kind of congenital dishabille. The old place was born skewed and out of kilter. Still, it must have been loved from its very beginnings. You can tell.

To the rescue today rode a veritable posse of donors, spread across the globe. Of course there were the Swedes, a Norwegian, some Danes, and Brit or two, plus the Netherlands and someone from the real Vienna. That’s quite a plus.

Canadians popped up and for heaven’s sake, the Californians were on hand in abundance this time. An old friend of GoV, from Washington state was among the repeats. So there, I was wrong about the left coast, hmm? One donor rightly took me to task for that generalization.

A Michigander who’d last given in 2006 reappeared for another go and someone from Mizzippi, who’d given in the previous quarter tipped the cup again. Thanks!

A lone New Englander from New Hampshire tipped the cup. And, no, it wasn’t Mark Steyn. Where is he, by the way?

My big surprise was a donation from someone in my old hometown, Jacksonville, Florida. The place has grown from the small southern city it once was it was into a massive sprawl. Our donor lives in an area that was scrub palmetto and sandburs when I was growing up. Still, it was home for many years and I was inordinately pleased to receive Jax’s gift.

One of the Canadians said:

I just wanted to mention that I am forever stumbling upon references to Gates of Vienna on other blogs. You have an influence that goes far beyond the number of direct visitors to your site. It’s simply one more reason why it is so important to donate to your site — you are an Anti-Islamic force multiplier!

Thanks for another quarter of thought-provoking reading and I hope the worst is soon over for you and the Baron.

From your keyboard to G-d’s eyes, my friend.


Update from the Baron: Fundraising, End of Day Two

Our readers have once again earned their reputation for open-handed generosity. You all made the tip cup plink almost continuously all day long, and kept Dymphna so busy writing her thank-you notes that she wore her fingers out.

In the Far Abroad, we heard from Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and the UK.

In the USA, Texas was front and center once again. We also heard from California, Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, more commonly known as “Northern Virginia”.

There were probably some other places represented in these gifts that I have forgotten. If so, y’all can reprimand me in the comments.

The way this is going, it looks like we will probably be able to skate by for a bit longer. We’re grateful to each and every person who has contributed so far.


Update from Dymphna: Fundraising, End of Day One

The best part of our fund-raising ventures is finding donations from so many different places. Thus far, we have Denmark, the UK, and Australia, all of them from several locations in each country.

On the North American continent, from the vast reaches of Canada we received donations across its breadth (not reaching as far as Vancouver this time, but I’ll have you know we’ve heard from that bastion of the left on several occasions in the past).

The U.S. is always led by Texans, though the very first donation this time around was from New Mexico. Las Cruces looks beautiful, doesn’t it?

Besides the Texans and the Texans, we have donors in the Midwest, the South, and the Upper Plains. No one has checked in from the Northwest, but one brave soul from New England came by with his donation.

Americans know that our coastlines on both sides are bastions of blue, so when someone shows up from either coast, it’s encouraging. I’ll always cherish the donation we received from Berkeley one year. Amazing. The poor donor had absolutely no one to talk to so he had to stay underground when it came to political opinions.

What ever happened to America the Free? I think it was mugged by ACORN and George Soros.

By the way, I’ll be answering those who’ve given me advice about treatments for narcolepsy and fibromyalgia, but not till after the fund-raising is over. If any of your suggestions work even a little, that will be the best gift of all!


22 September

Yes, it’s that time again…

As long as our own personal economic crisis persists, we’ll continue to throw a fundraiser roughly once a quarter. The generosity of our readers is what keeps Dymphna and me afloat, and for that we are deeply grateful.

The response to our “Hard Times” fundraiser back in June was heartening. Some readers signed up for the monthly subscription option, which is an expression of trust: a subscriber likes what he’s reading and is confident that there will be more where that came from.

And so there will be more, much more, given our dedicated corps of tipsters, translators, and contributors. These volunteers do a top-notch job of providing relevant in-depth content for our site. We are pleased to be the American portal for Europe’s crises.

Times are tough for a lot of people right now, and the employment situation here in the USA is likely to get worse before it gets better. Have you heard about our jobless recovery, especially for white men?

Our own circumstances are made more difficult by Dymphna’s medical condition, which limits my choices of what jobs I could possibly take — even if such jobs were available.

Dymphna is mostly unable to get out of the house now, and when she does travel, I have to be her chauffeur — a job she calls “Driving Miss Dymphna”.

The problem with Fibromyalgia is that a person can “look” so well, and yet be unable to function. It has been described as a “soft-tissue” rheumatism. FM can strike at any age, though it affects more women than men. Dymphna knows a young basketball coach who was diagnosed with this condition, and was forced to retire with a disability. Some doctors have decided that Dymphna has narcolepsy, too, but the treatments for it make other conditions worse. The medication is frightfully expensive, so she hoards it for “have-tos”, e.g. the doctor, the dentist, etc. Ironically, the remedies she is given seem to require more remedies for their side-effects.

When you ask Dymphna what the worst thing is about this disorder (besides the pain), she says that, in the long run, it narrows a person’s ability to function, and she has to accept that she is no longer dependable.

So she saves up her energy for special occasions — trying to visit her children and grandchildren, attending two local tea parties, paying a visit to our congressman’s office to beard the beast in his lair — but most of the time she has to stay at home. Outside exertions, even trips to the doctor, are energy-consuming. Dymphna is not bedridden, but things aren’t easy, which means that a lot of the routine chores (including such efforts at housekeeping as I can manage) fall to me.

All of the above makes it problematic to seek work that would require me to be away from home for any significant length of time. Since we live in the middle of nowhere — heck, we have to drive fifteen or twenty miles just to get to nowhere — that limits me to part-time work, telecommuting, or working very close to home. Moving closer to town is not affordable. We chose where we live because it was inexpensive.

With the modest amount of piecework I’ve managed to find over the last three months, plus the generosity of our readers (and our savings), we can eke out a subsistence if we’re very careful. Our circumstances are not a bad way to live. We have no debt, our house is paid for, and I drive a clunker (which they’ll have to pry out of my cold dead hands). I consider myself fortunate to have the options that I do.

Our station in life has fallen to a more modest level, but we’ve kept the wolf from the door — so far.

Once again, I’d like to thank everybody who has helped us.

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The tip cup is on our sidebar to the left, as is a subscription button which opens up to a $10-per-month plan via Paypal. Each of these options leads to a “Natural Intelligence of Central Virginia” screen, which is the name we use for our business account.