Solutions Implemented During Periods of Chaos

Yorkshire Miner, who contributes and comments here at Gates of Vienna occasionally, has translated the following article about a recent incident in the culturally enriched Vollsmose district of Odense, in Denmark:

Violent accident in Vollsmose

A 19-year-old man was seriously injured after driving into a tree. Neighbors and family in the area gave the police and ambulance personnel a difficult time.

A 19-year-old man at approximately 6 o’clock rammed a tree. This happened on Asaumvej by 105 in the Odense suburb of Vollsmose.

“He simply wrapped his car round a tree, and his injuries are very serious,” said a spokesman from Fynes police, who could not give any more information about the man’s condition.

The police and the accident inspection unit were working to find out the reasons for the accident, but their presence in the area was unwanted. A crowd of people gathered.

“The atmosphere was very bad there, and they themselves will determine what must happen,” said the spokesman to Extrabladet.dk.

“Completely unheard of”

“But we will find the cause of the accident. It is completely unheard of that we cannot work in peace at the scene of the accident,” said the spokesman.

The police are therefore present in force, not only at the scene of the accident, but also at Odense University Hospital where the man was brought.

“Yes, it is the family that is making the trouble; therefore we have many policemen in place to make sure that the doctors and nurses can work in peace,” said the spokesman to Extrabladet.dk.

Yorkshire Miner includes his own observations about the situation in Vollsmose, and the larger implications for Europe and the rest of the world:

These people are acting as if they own the place, which they in fact do. A de facto Islamic state exists, if not de jure. It does not bode well for the future.

Solutions to problems like this are usually only implemented during periods of chaos, or shortly after chaos, when the solutions fade into the general background.

The problem of the Sudetenland Germans in Czechoslovakia is a good example. The solution the Czechs chose in 1948 could not have been on the agenda in 1938; the chaos of the postwar years gave them the opportunity. Whatever the Czechs thought about the arrogant German minority, I am certain it is of minor importance compared to what the Danes think of these arrogant Muslims.

If you have to choose, ethnic cleansing is better than genocide. I suspect the Danes, like the Czechs, will choose ethnic cleansing — they are not a people who hate, but they can quickly develop a feeling of profound contempt.

My own feeling is that Europe is rapidly entering a period of disintegration following the fifty-year gestation of the E.U. If the Lisbon Treaty was the birth of the bastard, then the euro crisis with Greece is the beginning of the death throes. A lot of effort for little reward.

– – – – – – – –

Historians in a hundred years’ time will most likely write about European imperial hubris, for that is what the E.U. is. What bothers me the most is not what happens in Europe, but what happens in America.

The rise of America as an imperial power during and after the Second World War is what protected Europe from complete anarchy. America stepped seamlessly into the shoes of the British Empire after the collapse of the British economy in 1947. The world was not allowed to watch the jackals devour the corpse. Instead of a free-for-all over the corpse of the British Empire, America took over its obligations to Greece and there were only a couple of short wars during the partition of India and in Palestine.

If America collapses, the consequences will not be so benign. The retreat from empire will leave Israel exposed, as well as the Middle East oil fields. Rabid dogs will fight over a bone, and what a bone!

The costs are rising exponentially: $100,000 for a Taliban corpse might eventually be too much for the Americans to pay, especially if they have to borrow from China to do it. $20,000 for a dead American in the War of Independence is what finally drove us Brits out of the U.S.A.

If America is to survive, the cost of killing your enemies has got to be brought down. I think it is about $10/head if you use atomic weapons. I am certain such sordid bookkeeping does not enter the American calculus, but whatever you do, you have to reduce costs.

America, as we were in 1945, is heavily in debt. Imperial overreach, in which your obligations far outweigh your ability to pay for them, is what brought down the British Empire. A bankrupt America would most likely mean a world war as it withdraws from its overseas obligations and bases to balance its books and pay down its debts.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and there is no relatively benign power ready to step into a political vacuum left by a bankrupt America.

I will leave off now, as this is depressing me. We live in interesting times.

How Democratic is Sweden?

As has often been privately noted, subtle logistical engineering and social pressure conspire to keep Swedish elections from being fully free and fair. However, for the first time since I’ve been following the news from Scandinavia, this issue is now being discussed in public.

This discussion started in Denmark, not Sweden. Our Danish correspondent TB has this to say about the op-ed he translated for us:

This op-ed was published a few days ago in Politiken (The New York Times of Denmark, of all places). It is about the design of the Swedish election system and how it actually excludes some voters from voting for the party they prefer (e.g. Sverigedemokraterna). The issue was originally brought up by Danish People’s Party MEP Morten Messerschmidt not that long ago when he suggested that observers should be sent to Sweden to evaluate whether the Swedish elections actually live up to international standards.

Of course, the intellectual elite in Sweden ridiculed him for what he said, hoping the issue would thereby go away. But the tactic seems to have failed, since two professors, one from Sweden and one from Denmark, have now picked up on the subject. And they have a point when they say that there exist fundamental and indeed problematic areas in the so-called Swedish democracy.

But judge for yourself. I must say that I had a tendency to smile during last third of the op-ed. The authors are not without a sense of humor.

Below is TB’s translation of the op-ed from Politiken:

How democratic is Sweden?

Swedish elections do not live up to international standards.

By Jørgen Elklit and Birgitta Widstrand

Jørgen Elklit: Dr. Poli. Sci., Professor in political science at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Birgitta Widstrand: PhD, Researcher at Uppsala University and member of the Swedish Riksdag in Sweden 1991-2002.

Just before Christmas Morten Messerschmidt, who is a member of the European Parliament for the Danish People’s Party, wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Parliament, Mr. Buzek. It was not a traditional Christmas letter that Morten Messerschmidt mailed, however. Apparently Mr. Messerschmidt expressed his concerns about the way Sweden arranges its elections, therefore suggesting that the chairman might consider offering Sweden some help by sending observers for the coming up Riksdag election in September.

Apparently no other Danish media besides Politiken reported about the letter from Messerschmidt. One reason for the apparent lack of interest could be that many were of the notion that Messerschmidt had a hidden agenda, namely to help the Sweden Democrats get into the Riksdag during the upcoming elections. At the moment the party is only represented in some local municipalities, but recent opinion polls shows that the Sweden Democrats would enter the Riksdag if elections were to be held now. Many in Sweden were of the opinion that the suggestion from Messerschmidt was embarrassing, and it was ignored throughout the Swedish media.

Anyway, a discussion about Swedish elections made us — who have both been engaged for many years in election observation and advisory activities in matters of elections and democratic issues in new democracies — start reflecting about what the result might be if one did as Messerschmidt had suggested.

The surprising conclusion was that there actually exist significant problems, at least if one has an agenda of securing genuine democratic elections, that is, elections which in political and journalistic terminology are often referred to as being ‘free and fair’.

We wrote our notions about the flaws in the Swedish elections seen from a democratic viewpoint in a little op-ed, which we, in our utter naïveté, thought we could publish in one of the four biggest Swedish newspapers. Despite the subject’s value for the assessment of the legitimacy of the Swedish elections — which is also questioned by other sides in Sweden and not only by Messerschmidt — we have now been rejected everywhere. ‘We have no room’ was the consistent answer from all of them. Well, Dagens Nyheter was honest enough to admit that this was only one reason among others; perhaps the article was also a little too controversial?

It is obvious that many of the factors involved when assessing elections in new democracies (or whatever they may be) are not problematic when evaluating elections in Sweden. That’s why we have concentrated on the actual voting process, i.e. what happens when the voter comes to the location where he is going to deliver his vote. A lot of what has happened before that (registration of the voters, the political fight before the election, information to the voters etc.) we accept as unproblematic without any further investigation, and there is not much doubt that foreign observers would do the same.

In a democratic system it has to be possible at each election location to vote for the parties and candidates which are represented in the constituency. Both when it is only a single person that has to be elected (as in England), as well as when several individuals have to be elected in each constituency (as in Denmark and Sweden).

– – – – – – – –

For the public authority, who are responsible for the administrative implementation of the election, one of the most fundamental tasks is to secure that no voter is excluded from voting as he or she wishes because of a lack of necessary ballots or because ballots are not available at the voting location. If the ballots are not present when the voter needs them, one has practically excluded the voter from voting as he or she likes. And any kind of exclusion of voters counts as a negative for the quality of a democratic election.

Preparation, printing, and distribution of ballots is a task that normally raises significant logistical challenges, not least in poor third-world countries with a weak infrastructure. It is the responsibility of the election administrator to ensure that the ballots are printed and distributed so that they are available in the right quantity, at the right place, at the right time. It is the prerequisite for the voters to be able to find the names of the parties (and maybe candidates) who have managed an election campaign in their area and for whom they have prepared to choose among and give their vote.

But that is not how it works in Sweden. Here they do not have a common ballot for all parties who are represented in a given constituency or a given municipality. Here they have separate ballots for each party. At the location you find three kinds of ballots which match one’s political preferences for each of the three simultaneous elections for the Riksdag, Landstinget (regional level) and the municipality respectively. The ballots are placed in envelopes and then submitted.

New parties trying to get into the Riksdag (and parties which received less than 1% of the votes in one of the previous two elections) have to pay for the printing of their ballots themselves. At the two other levels, the right for free printing of ballots is obtained if the party was elected at the last election. For each of the three different elections there exist three kinds of ballots: one in which the available candidates from the party have been listed by their names etc., one where this is not the case, and where you can write the name yourself, and one which is completely blank.

Parties that received more than 1 percent of the votes at the latest election can expect (are entitled to) that the election managers will make ballots without the names of the candidates available at the venue of the election. On the other side, all parties are themselves responsible for making the far more important ballots, those with the names of the candidates, available in all the different localities of the election. Obviously this constitutes a huge effort which can be difficult to manage for small parties — and the consequence can be that the voters who arrive at the voting venue to cast their vote will not be able to find ballots of the party for which they would like to vote. In principle they could use one of the blanks, but not many do that.

Some parties come forward with two lists in the same constituency, one normally with the national-level candidates, and the other with local candidates. Since many small parties are often represented, there can easily be 30 different lists available in an election for a Riksdag constituency. And since there are often many small parties represented at the two other levels, and several kinds of ballots, more than 100 different ballots to choose from may easily be found at the respective voting location.

The ballots of the established parties are presented by the election managers, and those with the names of the candidates by the parties themselves, so the picture is somewhat blurred. Add to that the fact that the ballots with the names of the candidates are also often handed out outside the election room by candidates and activists who have been called in by the different parties for that exact purpose.

This whole system of how the voters are given the relevant ballots in the first place deviates significantly from the process we see other places where the voter is given a single common list — or a packet with ballots. A task carried out by the administrators of the election who are — in principle — neutral workers. In Sweden, anyone can actually distribute ballots outside an election venue.

The first fundamental problem about Swedish elections is that new and smaller parties especially are faced with three different problems. 1) They have not printed enough ballots, perhaps because of financial problems, 2) they have not been able to distribute their ballots to all election venues where their candidates are represented, and 3) they do not have enough activists to draw on so that they can hand out ballots outside all election rooms in the constituencies where their candidates are listed.

At the Riksdag election in 2006 no less than 571 million ballots [there are 9.5 million inhabitants in Sweden, equivalent of almost 60 printed ballots per citizen in total. — translator] were printed, and no more than 20 million. of them were actually used. The waste is therefore — to say the least — extremely huge, even when taking into consideration that the ballots are smaller and printed on thinner paper than we are used to in this country [Denmark].

The procedure surrounding the accessibility and handout/delivery of ballots can only be characterized as a systematic (maybe even deliberate?) obstruction of the possibility for potential voters for small and new parties to actually gain access to vote for their preferred party.

This is the kind of issue that all observer organisations (like the EOM from the EU and OSCE/ODIHR) would immediately notice. If the administrative authority, who are responsible for the implementation of an election, cannot secure that all voters can vote for their preferred party without having to go through some kind of trouble, then something is wrong and the election can under no circumstances be characterized as fair!

Of course the financial situation of the parties also plays a role. During the early summer election to the EU Parliament, one of the new parties, the Feminist Initiative [Isn’t that just so typically Swedish? — translator], did not have a chance to pay for the printing of the necessary ballots themselves. They were saved by Björn from ABBA who was able to contribute a million kroner, thereby making the printing possible.

The other fundamental problem with the implementation of elections in Sweden is the tradition of having a representative of the respective parties present at the election venue who hands out ballots to the voters who want to receive them. Here one should take into consideration that the Swedish constituencies are, on average, significantly smaller than their Danish equivalents. Therefore it happens on many occasions — especially outside the big cities, but not only there — that voters and representatives of the parties know each other personally, making it difficult to avoid the social pressure which occurs when it is a familiar person who offers the ballot.

Of course one can accept several ballots, thereby attempting to camouflage which party one will finally vote for, but exactly the fact that you are picking up several ballots signals to the representative of the party that you are probably not going to vote for her party — and that can also be socially incriminating.

It is probably this part of the election which most foreigners find difficult to accept, because they see it as a violation of the principle of secret voting, and as a subtle way of exercising pressure all the way down to the actual voting act itself. This fact makes it difficult to accept the election as being completely fair in relation to the voters.

But no matter what the principle might be of having representatives present, and no matter what the voters should perhaps do, it is a fact that some voters do not take all the ballots. Therefore one can easily figure out who the voter does not vote for. That’s why voters who pick up ballots from new — and possibly controversial — parties will be under suspicion from their fellow citizens of having sympathies for one of those, and that will be stigmatizing per se. And equivalently, if they have to find them on the bookcase that holds ballots inside the election room, because the party does not have representatives outside. Actually, it can be rather complicated to find the right ballot.

According to our notion, however, it is just as much the system of printing and distributing of ballots which is — in principal — inappropriate, because it results in a systematic bias unfavorable to new and smaller parties.

The conclusion is that the problems related to the parties and the production and lack of securing a homogeneous/uniform access to ballots over all of Sweden means that Swedish elections can not be given the label ‘Free and Fair’ — they might be free, but they are not fair. And they have to be that if a political system is to be characterized as democratic.

The solution — in our view — can only be to let Valmyndigheten and Länsstyrelsen [the election authorities in Sweden — translator] share full the responsibility of designing a common ballot which is identical for all parties in each constituency. A parallel solution should be implemented at the two lower political and administrative levels.

If that happens, it becomes irrelevant how the ballot is handed out to the voter, because the voter no longer has to think about which ballots he will accept or not accept — everybody in the constituency is handed the same ballot. That means of course that the ballot will be rather big, but so what? In other countries — such as, for example, Denmark, Bosnia Herzegovina, and the Democratic Republic of Congo — the voters are fully capable of handling big ballots.

The arguments about it being difficult to work with big ballots and many names should not decide whether Sweden should be counted as a country that implements its political elections in a way that fully lives up to international standards, should it?

It is urgent to get rid of these two fundamental problems, but with good will it should be possible to do so before the next election to the Riksdag. It would be rather embarrassing if Swedish elections cannot be unconditionally labelled as ‘Free and Fair’, resulting in Messerschmidt’s suggestion of election observers being a reality at the election in September.

Apart from that, it is rather disturbing to realize that apparently nobody in Sweden seems interested in participating in a discussion about how to implement elections back home in Sweden while at the same time being so busy having a say about the way things ought to be arranged and designed in the new democracies to which they are sending observers.

It would actually make sense to use the lessons learned from the election observers in other countries to perform a service-check back home in Sweden — especially when there are at least a few areas of obvious interest.

Allen West: “We Are Already in a Declared War”

LTC (ret.) Allen West gave one of the speeches at last Friday’s Freedom Defense Initiative event, and it was a real rouser. This was the first time I have ever heard a candidate for national office say such things — exactly the same things I would have said if I had been on the podium. He uttered the forbidden words: “We are against something that is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, and it is called ‘Islam’.”

Voters of the 22nd District in Florida: elect this man to Congress!

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling, and to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer for hosting Col. West at their excellent event:



Long-time readers will recall the “Rosetta Stone” initiatives that were mounted to translate Lionheart’s writings and subtitle Fitna in as many languages as possible. We’re attempting the same thing with Col. West’s speech, so if anyone wants to volunteer to translate it into his native language for subtitling, please drop me a line at unspiek (at) chromatism.net, and I’ll send you the full time-stamped transcript.

We’ve got German, French, Italian, and Dutch covered. If you have another language and want to translate, your assistance would be welcome. Arabic would be particularly valuable.

Below the jump is a transcript of the entire speech (the Youtube version is slightly abridged).
– – – – – – – –

00:00.02   Thank you.
00:04.07   Thank you very much…
00:08.11   and Pamela thank you for that introduction and Robert, it’s great to…
00:12.12   be here with you all today, and I just want to tell you all one thing: if…
00:16.17   the truth has just become hate speech, well, you might as well lock me up,
00:20.20   ‘cause I’m not shutting up.
00:28.32   One of the key conservative principles is national security.
00:32.34   And the fact that we are here, and we are now talking about this issue, this is…
00:36.38   one of the things the American people look to conservative principled….
00:40.41   leadership to do, which is to protect them. And if we do not stand up…
00:44.46   in this great convention that we’re having here right now, and profess who we are,
00:48.49   and that we understand this situation, this issue, the American people will turn away…
00:52.51   from us. You have to hold the conservative leaders that you see here…
00:56.57   this weekend accountable, to do the things to protect you.
01:00.59   Now, let me explain some things. ‘Cause I been sitting back here listening.
01:04.60   I’m sick and tired of people saying “war on terror”. There is no such thing as war…
01:08.64   on terror. In World War Two, how smart would it have been,
01:12.67   if the United States of America said they were at war with the Blitzkrieg.
01:16.69   Or if they were at war with the Kamikaze. A nation does not go…
01:20.72   to war against a tactic. Just the same way,
01:24.74   when you sit around and you see our strategic-level leaders here…
01:28.79   in Washington D.C. go on all these Sunday pundit shows and they talk about…
01:32.84   how great it is that we are directing ‘drone attacks’,
01:36.85   you think back to what happened in Vietnam,
01:40.89   when LBJ was doing bombing approval right here out of the…
01:44.92   White House, that’s not what the strategic level thinker…
01:48.93   is supposed to be doing. That’s not strategic perspective.
01:52.97   A nation goes to war against an ideology,
01:56.98   and that’s what we’ve been talking about here today.
02:01.02   We’ve been talking about the fact that we are against something that is a totalitarian…
02:05.05   theocratic political ideology and it…
02:09.06   is called ‘Islam’.
02:21.16   This is not about Muslims.
02:25.18   It is just the same as in Nazi Germany: not every…
02:29.20   German was a Nazi. Just the same as when I was in…
02:33.24   Iraq in 2003, not every Iraqi was a member of the…
02:37.26   Baath party. What I am talking about here
02:41.30   is an ideology that has existed since 622 AD,
02:45.33   since the 7th century, it got started with a thing called the ‘
02:49.34   Naklah Raid, which was after Mohammed made his Hijra leaving Mecca going out to…
02:53.38   Medina. It has been violent ever since. It has confronted Western Civilization,
02:57.41   and this is just another chapter in the long book…
03:01.42   that they are writing to conquer each and every one of us.
03:05.46   And now is our time, just as our forefathers had to stand, and turn these enemies back,
03:09.47   we must now stand and turn these enemies back, and today.
03:21.56   You have heard [retired military intelligence officer] Stephen [Coughlin] talk about ‘abrogation’. You need to understand things such…
03:25.66   as the treaty of Hudaibiyah, where they will sit and they will deceive you…
03:29.68   by holding off so that they can become strong, which is how back in about 627,
03:33.72   628, that is how Mohammed was able to then go in,
03:37.75   and overtake Mecca. The exact same thing that is happening right now.
03:41.75   You need to understand the traditions of Mohammed. When he wrote letters…
03:45.80   to Chosroes, the Persian emperor, when he wrote letters to Heraclius, the…
03:49.82   Byzantine emperor, that said, “You have three choices. You convert,
03:53.88   you subjugate, or we’re coming to get you. Well guess what?
03:57.92   Back in about 1992, Osama Bin Laden did the exact same thing.
04:01.94   He sent a letter to the United States of America. Later on in about…
04:05.98   2005 or 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did the exact same thing.
04:10.01   He sent a letter to the American people and to President Bush. We are already…
04:14.02   in a declared war, and if we do not have the type of leadership that can understand that,
04:18.05   that can study this enemy, this adversary,
04:22.07   we are on the road to perdition right now in this great country.
04:26.12   We need to understand this. Everyone here has stood and told you…
04:30.14   sharia law is incompatible with who we are
04:34.16   in Western Civilization, and definitely who we are and stand for…
04:38.19   in the United States of America. It is not about freedom. It is not…
04:42.21   about liberty. It is not about protecting human rights or women’s rights….
04:46.26   It is about what Islam says: the word means ‘submission’.
04:50.29   And I don’t know about you all here. I’m not living…
04:54.30   as a dhimmi. I’m not living subject to any…
04:58.34   other type of ideology except for that which is written in…
05:02.35   the Constitution of these great United States of America.
05:18.54   Thank you.
05:22.57   We must understand…
05:26.58   that we have to regain the initiative in this fight.
05:30.63   Just the same as our young soldiers now are operating under these restrictive rules of…
05:34.66   engagement which prevent them from having the initiative against the enemy.
05:38.73   You just saw in Marjan in Helmand province, where the Taliban will come out and…
05:42.74   drop their weapons and walk out and taunt our soldiers and go away to fight again.
05:46.76   That would not happen under my command if I was commander and chief.
05:58.88   And just the same: we need to develop the right type of…
06:02.92   strategic level rules of engagement. Because our…
06:06.92   constitutional rights should not be afforded to illegal…
06:10.96   enemy combatants as stated in the Geneva convention.
06:19.00   We can no longer allow this enemy to…
06:23.05   come in and use this new tactic of ‘lawfare’ which most of the people…
06:27.07   standing here know, that is how they continue to try to get you…
06:31.12   to shut up. We should be going after them,…
06:35.14   not allowing them to use our legal system, and I’ll be damned,…
06:39.16   any lawyer that will stand up and prosecute a United States citizen to take…
06:43.17   away their freedom of speech, they are not my brother they are not my sister.
06:47.20   They need to pack up and leave this country.
06:59.33   If we continue on…
07:03.39   in this politically correct multiculturalism atmosphere…
07:07.43   that’s on steroids, we are…
07:11.44   paralyzing ourselves from taking the right and proper action.
07:15.47   We see what has happened in Sudan. We see what is happening in Austria.
07:19.53   We know about Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. We know what’s happening in Denmark.
07:23.57   Trend analysis is what we called it…
07:27.59   There’s nothing wrong with it. And for you all here…
07:31.61   in the media, stop calling it profiling. It’s about…
07:35.65   identifying the enemy, and what they are doing, and going after them.
07:39.67   When I was a commander in Iraq, I knew that young men on dirt bikes were coming out of the…
07:43.75   groves to lay out IEDs and attack us. I was not going to chase…
07:47.78   women in burkhas in the middle of the night, in their houses.
07:51.80   It’s trend analysis. Stop being politically correct, stop allowing them to come into our…
07:55.84   country.
07:59.86   If you do not understand…
08:03.94   that the reality of your enemy…
08:07.98   must become your own, we can continue in this state…
08:12.01   of denial. When I read the Fort Hood attack based upon what Major…
08:16.07   Hasan did, I was absolutely appalled. When I stood there and watched…
08:20.10   the Sunday show, when General Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army said,
08:24.11   he was more so concerned about diversity being a casualty than the loss…
08:28.16   of the thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood Texas, we have problems…
08:32.19   in the leadership of these United States of America.
08:40.28   We must accept their reality.
08:44.30   And the way ahead is so simple. You’ve got to…
08:48.36   get the right type of leadership in this country. Because that’s what it’s about.
08:52.38   We’ve got to get the right type of leadership across Europe
08:56.39   We’ve got to get the right type of leadership that will not be afraid.
09:00.46   Members of the media: stop attacking Jews and Christians.
09:04.46   Stop being afraid of this enemy. Show the same type of…
09:08.52   vehemence that you want against your fellow Americans…
09:12.55   against them. Because let me tell you something: thirty to forty years from now,
09:16.56   if they’re successful, and they have control of this country…
09:20.60   there will be no free media. There will be no free speech. There will be no freedom of…
09:24.63   expression. And guess what? You, will have been complicit in this,…
09:28.70   because you are too much of a coward to take a stand.
09:40.82   Now,
09:44.84   now is the time for principled leadership in the United States of America,
09:48.85   Because, as the quote that Elisabeth has taken…
09:52.88   from me: when tolerance becomes a one way street,
09:56.91   it leads to cultural suicide.
10:00.95   When I am able to fly to Saudi Arabia with my Bible…
10:04.97   in hand, with my cross around my neck, to go to Mecca,
10:08.98   and go to a church, then guess what? We’re good to go.
10:13.03   But until that point,
10:17.05   we have to understand,
10:21.11   the objectives and the goals that Islam has set…
10:25.14   forward. We have to be proud of who we are.
10:29.15   We cannot have leadership that will go stand before the Turkish
10:33.22   general assembly, and say that America is not a Judeo-Christian nation.
10:37.24   We cannot have a leadership, that goes and stands, in front of…
10:41.26   a university in Cairo, Egypt, and apologizes for the United States…
10:45.30   of America. That is not about what American pride is.
10:49.31   We cannot have leadership that is…
10:53.36   asked, ‘How do you define victory?’, and they cannot.
10:57.39   Well let me tell you: this is how I define victory,…
11:01.40   just the same as Ronald Reagan did when he was asked about communism,
11:05.44   “We win, they lose”. God bless you all…
11:09.47   thank you.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/24/2010

Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/24/2010The big news story today concerns the recent arrest in Turkey of more than forty military officers, who have been charged with attempting a coup. The army and the judiciary are the bulwarks of Turkish secularism, so these arrests may be counted as a major offensive against the secular establishment by the Islamist government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party, the AKP.

Led by the public employees’ union, the general strike in Greece has begun, bringing much of the country to a standstill.

Meanwhile, in the UK, police located a stolen car, but told the car’s owner that they couldn’t retrieve his vehicle. It seems that the car is now in a gypsy camp, and its location is considered a no-go zone. Police are not willing to enter it without a major armed tactical force.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Gaia, Henrik, ICLA, Insubria, JD, KGS, Nilk, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

Towards a New Feudal Netherlands

The Dutch Ummah


Several weeks ago a Dutch reader sent us a set of essays by an expatriate Dutch writer named Arthur Legger. I forwarded two of them — one from The Wall Street Journal and the other from IFPS — to our Flemish correspondent VH, and asked his opinion of them.

As regular readers know, VH is very well-informed on both Belgian and Dutch affairs, and documents his opinions copiously using multiple sources. His reply to me was so thoughtfully pessimistic that I was taken by surprise — VH has an invariably sunny and optimistic disposition, but his outlook for the Netherlands was startlingly gloomy.

With his kind permission, I have merged and edited two of his emails into the essay below. My questions to VH have been interpolated in italics:

The “traditional Dutch liberties” that according to the WSJ existed from 1997 until 2005 had in fact already ceased to exist since the immigration flow started to boom in the mid-1970s. Many non-left-wing and conservative Dutch people learned to be careful after that, to go with the flow, and to share real opinions only with the most trusted friends, and in private.

In the eighties a politician was convicted for stating: “When we have the chance, we will abolish the multicultural society”. And when Frits Bolkestein of the VVD expressed his critique of multiculture and mass immigration in parliament in the early 1990s, a very silent electorate rewarded him with a substantial increase in votes, only to be betrayed by Bolkestein being kicked upstairs to Brussels, to the EU…

In Arthur Legger’s excellent essay, he quotes Dr. Hans Daudt: “Via the main political parties the traditional regent families are still in power.” That, however, may be only partly the case with the royalty and its entourage.

For among that “entourage” is the multicultural elite, and they influence each other and hold power. Princess Maxima — who in 2002 was introduced to the ins and outs of Dutch society by extreme left-wingers and multiculturalists and ex-DDR admirers like Andrée van Es (now Secretary General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and Paul Rosenmöller (ex Pol Pot propagandist who, as a GreenLeft, easily got away with that) — once stated to Gretta Duisenberg (maybe the most notorious Arafat- and Hamas-admirer and anti-Semite in the Netherlands) that Dutch identity does not exist. Duisenberg: “One time Princess Maxima was there at a reception, and I passed by her, and she called me and said: ‘I want to say that I really admire you’.”

That is how bad it is with the Netherlands.

Marcouch and Aboutaleb are indeed “highly integrated”, as Legger writes, but that concerns their ability to play the Dutch political game, and above all both have a double Islamization-Maghrebization agenda that fits in with Multiculturalism and the abolition of the separation of church and state, which the governing CDA and royalty seek to implement.

“…the erosion of traditional Dutch liberties observed by The Wall Street Journal is not caused by the Muslim immigration but by the desire of the Dutch political, cultural and religious elites to create a new, braver Netherlands.”

Agreed, but I think it goes further and is more devastating than that: not a braver, but a feudal Netherlands, like China, a Socialist Netherlands with a permitted and controlled portion of “capitalism” (to produce tax, jizya, and dacha) without the disturbance of the “brussels-sprout-eaters” — the unwilling, anti-utopian, right-wing racist “petit bourgeois” whom they detest, and who should become a silent cheap work force.

They simply don’t want a democracy with its elections of uncertain outcome, they want China-ization. They also don’t want a true trias politica, but absolute power to the elite, like the impatient Mussolini who thought the elite had to take over (revolt!) to enforce the Socialist Utopia on behalf of what were in his view the “passive” proletariat.

And, as Andrew Bostom stated, since Communism was perhaps the Islam of the 20th century, Islam may well be the Communism of the 21st.

The Left, including royalty, together are like a lioness who, since the fall of communism, dreams once again of a utopian Socialist paradise, thanks to the coddling of the lion, who is dreaming of an Islamic utopian caliphate. Both their tails are being stepped on by — this time — Geert Wilders’ electorate, those unwilling “brussels-sprout-eaters”.

At in this stage in the Netherlands this can, I fear, be solved only with great difficulty through democracy (though I hope it will). The Netherlands is split into two incompatible sections. On the one hand are the royalty, the “Provo-elite”, the Islamists, and all their tax-digesting, dependent electorate and foot soldiers, and on the other is the approximately 30% of the population that still has common sense and does not want that “Utopian Socialist Caliphate”.

– – – – – – – –

There is another statement in the WSJ that is important and also noted by Legger: “This is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside.”

He might have extended this a bit, and added “implement” to “export”: the Wilders trial will have as an effect that non-Muslims and indifferent Muslims in the Middle East and maybe the Far East will suffer from the massive encouragement — resulting from that prosecution — to enforce Islam more vigorously upon them. And that will hit back against the West.

Legger continues: “Again, the proof is in the timing,” which is absolutely right, but aside from that, Balkenende had already promised the Islamic world that he would go after Wilders when he had the opportunity:

Balkenende letter to Muslims


And that is what is being done now, because fulfills a promise. Balkenende has made an unforgivable major mistake here: giving in = surrender = submission. Any “Super Nanny” could have told them.

Snouck Hurgronje: “It was thought remarkable that the monarch of a powerful European empire [Germany] should go twice to pay homage to the Sultan, the more as it was known that no return-visits of the Sultan followed; the caller therefore showed himself to the inhabitants as the inferior; and simple Mohammedan souls, who draw their knowledge of the world’s map and the world’s history more from legends than from reality, saw in this a confirmation of their belief that the whole earth is subjected to the mightiest Moslem sovereign,” And “To modern states which have Mohammedans as subjects, protégés, or allies, the beautiful task is reserved of educating these and themselves at the same time to this high conception of human society; rather than leading them back, for their own selfish interests, into the ways of mediæval religious hatred which they were just about to leave.”

The former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, warned of opportunistic politicians who side with Islamic extremists: “They have joined the extremists in driving our nation towards a deep chasm, which threatens destruction and national disintegration.”

And that is precisely what I think is happening now.

The Dutch government is, out of arrogant and vicious eagerness, sprinkling oil on the Islamic fire, which will have an effect even in Israel, in India, in Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. We need courageous “Red Adairs” like Wilders or Col. Allen West to try to start extinguishing some of the flames.

But the damage has already been done. It will be a rough ride ahead. Maybe rougher than Arthur Legger in his (again: really excellent) article foresees; but then I am maybe a bit more superstitious.

I’m astounded — I thought Legger was pessimistic, but now it seems that you are even more pessimistic than he!

Yes indeed, maybe I am. The establishment politicians have shown themselves to be ruthless and shamelessly anti-democratic in dealing with different democratic political views, or more precisely: with non-Socialist/Multiculturalist/EU views.

After the assassination of Fortuyn, and later Theo van Gogh, this repetition of events on an even larger scale is worrying, but it does not worry the establishment politicians and MSM at all, and that is why I am afraid they are at it again. Maybe not an assassination (on Dutch territory), for that might trigger a revolt, but by outlawing Wilders and the PVV and scaring off the electorate.

Fortuyn and Wilders: demonization


After Fortuyn was assassinated, and full-grown Dutch politicians exposed their childish and vicious undemocratic hypocrisy, I expected the Netherlands to willingly slide further down the Multiculturalist path, which is in my view towards a merger of Communism and Islamism into a totalitarian Arab-Dutch monoculture.

Obviously, in the Netherlands, there is no room for (democratic) dissidents (this already says enough: Conservatives and classic right-wing politicians are dissidents!) and the citizens are too dependent on government hand-outs or too busy maintaining a life to rise up and stop this. Maybe something will happen that puts the Netherlands back on track (a near-majority vote for the PVV or a revolution), but for anyone with small children and the option to leave, the choice is easily made, especially since children are day in and day out indoctrinated with Multiculturalism and leftist historical lies in schools and the media.

So does this mean that you agree with Legger, that the assassination of Geert Wilders is inevitable, that it’s only a matter of time? And that his trial will destroy the PVV?

Not an assassination (on Dutch soil) per se, but yes: unless people dare to stand up and keep backing Wilders and the PVV in large numbers, the electorate will be scared off, including berufsverboten and more trials, and the PVV will be destroyed by infiltration, smear campaigns, blocking of finances, and by being outlawed. But also with political tricks like betrayal: pretending to have the same positions in order to seize the votes, only to drop them after the elections. Like the VVD has done before.

These are gloomy thoughts indeed.

Gloomy indeed, but I am not giving up. And I still hope that somewhere along the route the boat will change course, even at the last minute.

Anti-Dewinter Rapper Draws Jail Time

We’ve reported previously on the Belgian court case against the youths who composed a rap “song” that threatened Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter with death. The second of the two youths has now been sentenced, and it seems he will actually do some time in the slammer for his Terpsichorean efforts.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated the latest news from De Standaard:

Rapper risks one year in prison for threatening Dewinter

The Public Prosecutor [Openbaar Ministerie] has demanded one year of imprisonment plus a fine of €550 [US $745] fine for Samir Belasri (23) of Wielsbeke, because he wrote a rap song in which he threatened Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang with death. He also uploaded the video onto YouTube. This was decided last Friday in the criminal court in Antwerp, from which the accused had chosen to remain absent.

The text of the “rap” was quite explicit: “*** racist with a big mouth, you will die by a fatal gunshot wound […] The decisions you make will be paid for with your life, on one day or night they will decline you / Becoming well-known will certainly occur / […] It’s time for riots, time for revolution, death to Filip Dewinter are the words of Cicatris”, and “Shots in the dark, a knife in your back […] Didn’t you learn nothing from Theo Van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn? […] This is Cicatris and we do not see this as a joke.” Dewinter discovered the video and subsequently filed a complaint late 2008: “This rap song is a blatant call for murder. These diabolical lyrics can incite an idiot to act on their words.”

– – – – – – – –

Research showed that Samir Belasri was “Cicatris” and Kevin Vanbrabant (27) from the city of Peer “Cyko”. They had composed the song two years earlier in response to the anti-mosque song [the carnival song: “Oh no, not again another mosque”] of Vlaams Belang.

Kevin VanBrabant had already been sentenced in December: “the singer and co-author of the rap song, Kevin VanBrabant, was sentenced to 80 hours of autonomous community service, and must pay compensation of €800. If the community service is not completed, this will be converted into a prison term of 8 months.”

Dewinter, who was present in the courtroom, demanded a moral compensation of €800 [US $1084].

Why Are We Sleeping?

Wafa SultanWafa Sultan was one of the featured speakers at last week’s launch of the Freedom Defense Initiative, which was organized by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. While Dr. Sultan was in Washington, she took part in a panel discussion organized by Former Muslims United and sponsored by the Center for Security Policy.

The Washington Times has posted a report about the event, which also featured Nonie Darwish and Amil Imani. FMU has asked me to note two corrections that need to be made in the article below:

  • Wafa Sultan is the president of Former Muslims United.
  • The right of apostasy pledge was sent to 111 Muslim leaders, not groups.

Panel of former Muslims says U.S. needs to “wake up”; overtolerance could pave the way for shari’a in America

Apostasy killing of former Muslims could become widespread in the United States if the U.S. government and Americans don’t “wake up,” a panel of three former Muslims said on Capitol Hill Thursday.

The talk, hosted by three members of the new civil rights organization Former Muslims United, marked the first public appearance as a self-proclaimed “apostate” of Iranian journalist Amil Imani, president of the group. Imani and the panel’s two other speakers, authors Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan, told the audience that ingrained American religious and ethnic tolerance and myths about Islam are combining to gravely threaten the West.

“Shi’a radical Islam and Wahhabism is coming to this country,” Imani said. “There are 6,000 mosques in the United States now. All the money [we] put into gasoline comes back here and is used in the teaching of hate, violence, etc., etc.” in American mosques, he said.

Sultan, who said she regularly gets death threats and emails from people saying they will cut off her fingers and rape her daughters because she left Islam, said it is merely a myth that Islamic terrorists misinterpret ‘true’ Islam for nefarious purposes.

– – – – – – – –

Westerners “don’t want to judge anybody based on their [religion],” Sultan said, “[But] Islam is not a religion. Islam is a very dangerous political ideology…. There is no such thing as radical Islam and regular Islam or spiritual Islam….There is only one Islam.”

In the fall of 2009 FMU sent a pledge to 111 Muslim organizations in the United States affirming the right of Muslims to leave Islam and not be punished or killed. (Shari’a, Muslim law, calls on Muslims to kill those who convert or otherwise leave the faith.) The document asked recipients to sign and return the pledge to FMU. Just two groups did.

The response is proof of a silent, creeping tolerance in the West for radical ideology, a development that augurs very badly for a free society, panel members said.

Nonie Darwish“You might think the threat is over there in the Middle East,” said Darwish, author of “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror.” “The problem is, we have books in America teaching that apostates must be killed…. The problems emanate from Muslim leadership in America. They won’t sign any document that says, ‘We are against shari’a.’“

Western governments seem oblivious to the apathy of supposedly legitimate organizations about apostasy killings and the growing ubiquity of fatwa (death warrant) issuances, the panel said.

“A fatwa of death can be issued from any country,” Darwish said, citing the 2008 handing down from the Middle East by Al Qaeda of a fatwa on Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders for an “insulting” film Wilders made about the Koran. “Fatwas are issued on Arab T.V. on a regular basis…. And these fatwas are following us right here in America. Why we are sleeping and not making a big deal about that is beyond me.”

Darwish said if free reign for such practices continues, they “will change the culture in America. (They’ve) already changed the culture in Europe.”

Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/23/2010

Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/23/2010The news feed-related Blogger bug has been identified as a new Blogger feature: “automatic pagination”. It causes the blog to paginate after a certain number of bytes have accumulated on the main page. Since the news feed is generally so huge, this makes the main page become much shorter.

I have constructed a workaround that will be more or less permanent. The news feed post here is a stub, with just this intro. The link below leads to the full news post, which is archived in 2003 (which year is otherwise unused). From now on the feeds will be added to January 2003 for permanent storage. This will take the load off the main page.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, Egghead, Gaia, Insubria, JD, RRW, Steen, TB, Zenster, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

A Lion of Al Qaeda in London

“No matter what Muslim leaders do, there will be more friction with the West—regardless of al-Qaeda. There will be more confrontation between the West and Muslims, with attacks even bigger than in 2001.”

Earlier this month Erick Stakelbeck posted his videos interviews with Muslim extremists and Al Qaeda sympathizers who live unmolested in London, many of them at public expense.

One of the British Salafists he interviewed is named Saad al-Faqih. Al-Faqih has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. government, and is wanted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but the British government has declined to extradite him. Al-Faqih refused to appear on camera, but he did consent to be interviewed. Mr. Stakelbeck paid a visit to the terrorist’s home, and has posted an account of the occasion at CBN. Some excerpts are below:

I had come to London to interview men the U.S. government considers extremely dangerous; Islamist ideologues with intimate knowledge of al-Qaeda’s inner workings. And according to intelligence sources, al-Faqih surely fits that bill.

Saad al-FaqihA former medical surgeon, Al-Faqih now makes a living as one of the world’s most vociferous enemies of the Saudi regime. He wants to see the Saudi royal family removed from power (by peaceful means, he says) and replaced with an even more extreme Islamic government than the Saudi Wahhabis currently operate. The Saudis, naturally, do not like this, and have been pressuring Great Britain for years to deport al-Faqih back to Saudi Arabia to stand trial. But the Brits, as I explained in my recent CBN News report and in an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox News, refuse to extradite al-Faqih and other wanted Islamic terrorists back to their home countries over human rights concerns. Basically, they fear the Saudis will torture al-Faqih and the others, most of whom gained asylum in the UK during the 1980’s and 90’s and now walk the streets of London and other cities as free men.

Al-Faqih has built up a dubious reputation during his time in Britain. He was designated by the United States and UN as a global terrorist in 2004 for his links to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Among the charges against him is that he paid for a satellite phone that was later used by bin Laden to help carry out the 1998 Africa Embassy bombings. Here’s more on that, from PBS’s Frontline:

Saad says he’s never met bin Laden, but he is connected somehow. For one, the satellite telephone that bin Laden allegedly used to plan the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings was purchased from a merchant in Columbus, Ohio, on Saad’s own credit card.

[…]

Al-Faqih made clear from the outset that he did not want to appear on camera and was highly suspicious of CBN’s Christian orientation. But he got over his initial misgivings quickly enough and in a wide ranging, hour-plus interview, went on to answer my questions about a variety of topics. Here are some of the most intriguing observations I took from our interview:

Al Qaeda “Can Never Collapse”

– – – – – – – –

Al-Faqih told me al-Qaeda’s structure “can never collapse.” He says it consists of three circles. Inside the first circle is what he calls “the real al Qaeda team who have given homage to Osama bin Laden or other leaders.” Inside the second circle are those who have trained with al-Qaeda but have not formally been accepted into the group. The third, and largest circle, according to al-Faqih, is made up of Muslims who are ready to join al-Qaeda and are looking for the means to enroll in the group (there is no shortage of this type on U.S. soil). Al-Faqih stressed that there are “always new recruits” eager to link up with bin Laden and co. He attributed al-Qaeda’s popularity to there being “no movement in the middle that can satisfy the Muslim world’s hunger for dignity” after years of being, in his words, humiliated by the West. In short, he believes Al Qaeda is the vanguard of Muslim resistance to the hated West, and that there is no other credible alternative to the group. “There has been a failure of Muslim leaders to channel their people against America,” Al Faqih said. ‘But bin Laden has shown people that he can do it.”

Al Faqih blasts America’s longstanding support of the Saudi regime and Israel and labels it as the main cause of Muslim rage against the U.S. This is essentially the same screed we hear time and again from Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in their audio and videotapes. Sadly, it is often enticing to the ears of the Left, many of whom seem to believe that if we just ditch our support for Israel, the terrorists will leave us alone. This ridiculous, naive view discounts 1400 years of Islamic jihad and military conquest against the West, most of which, obviously, occurred before Israel was reborn as a nation in 1948. But I digress.

[…]

Al-Faqih’s highest praise, however, was reserved for Yemen-based Al Qaeda cleric/recruiter, Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who has captured numerous headlines in the U.S. over the past few months for his relationships with both Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and the Underwear Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

“I highly recommend that you read him in English,” al-Faqih said of al-Awlaki, who lived in New Mexico for a time and also attended college in the U.S. “He is a jewel for you. He is very impressive and sophisticated, very linguistic. He is very powerful. His message is that America must change its entire foreign policy. You cannot defeat him.”

I found Al-Faqih’s glowing praise of al-Awlaki very significant. It’s obvious that the 38-year-old Awlaki is moving into the top echelons of Islamic ideologues in terms of global influence. This ascension has serious ramifications for the West. As mentioned, al-Awlaki spent significant time living in the U.S., is fluent in English and knows American culture and customs very well. This has increasingly made him the “go to” cleric for radical young Western Muslims who are seeking to join al-Qaeda.

[…]

Al-Faqih closed our lengthy conversation by calling us a taxi. As we got up to leave, I asked him how he saw the conflict between the West and the Muslim world playing out over the next few years.

“No matter what Muslim leaders do, there will be more friction with the West—regardless of al-Qaeda,” he told me. “There will be more confrontation between the West and Muslims, with attacks even bigger than in 2001.”

Read the rest at Erick Stakelbeck’s blog.

Circling the Wagons

As most readers already know, the Dutch government fell apart last week, which means that there will be a general election in a few months. One would expect the popularity of Geert Wilders to guarantee his party (the PVV) an influential role in whatever government emerges after the elections — if the Netherlands were a healthy democracy.

But the Netherlands is not a healthy democracy. At least some of the major parties that make up the permanent Dutch ruling oligarchy are already closing ranks and attempting to form a cordon sanitaire around the PVV and thus deny it a voice in the future government.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a pair of articles on the topic. First, from De Trouw:

(Resigned) State Secretary: No party should co-operate with PVV

The resigned State Secretary of European Affairs, Frans Timmermans [PvdA, Socialists] recommends that parties that do not want to govern with the PVV should put their heads together. As a group they should prevent Geert Wilders’ party from gaining influence in the government.

The PVV might form a new Cabinet [government] or support one, as Wilders has indicated. To the resigned State Secretary Frans Timmermans, it is paramount that both options should not become reality. In his eyes, the Netherlands is at a watershed, because Wilders wants to “shunt population groups to the side”.

“It would be a historic moment if Wilders should succeed in breaking through into the country’s leadership’,” declares Frans Timmermans. According to him, the PVV goes way beyond the former LPF of Pim Fortuyn. The latter found that immigrants had to adapt, while Wilders focuses on assimilation, the PvdA member states. In the latter case, they must abandon much more of their identity.

CDA [Christian Democrats] and VVD [center right], according to Timmermans, should make it clear right now what their position is on cooperation with the PVV. These two parties, in his eyes, are still “enormously foggy” on the issue. There is no question of a cordon sanitaire against the PVV though, Timmermans finds. It is in his eyes not undemocratic using democratic means to prevent certain ideas from gaining influence in a government.

(Resigned) Vice-PM Wouter Bos [PvdA, Socialists] repeated after his meeting with Queen Beatrix that the PvdA after the elections does not want to be part of a government with the PVV. He also said that it would reflect well on the CDA party leader Jan Peter Balkenende if he would also bar out such cooperation.

But Wouter Bos already hinted this ten days ago. “Actually,” Bos said, “there should be an alliance of all parties that state ahead of the elections that they are not to be willing to form a coalition in cooperation with the PVV of Geert Wilders.”

According to Syp Wynia in Elsevier.nl, this is also an attempt to split the CDA, that has both an electorate sympathetic towards Wilders as well as a multicultural left-wing-leaning electorate. The anti-Wilders movement within the CDA has for several years been led by former trade union leader Doekle Terpstra [“Wilders must be stopped”], who is backed by former CDA-leaders like Ruud Lubbers and Elco Brinkman.

From Spits Nieuws:
– – – – – – – –

Anger at PvdA (Socialists) about cordon sanitaire

The call by the PvdA not to co-operate in a new government with the PVV of Geert Wilders, was not well received. The CDA [Christian Democrats] reject the call, which Wilders considers a cordon sanitaire. Wilders: “The voters will penalize them for this.”

CDA-faction leader Pieter van Geel said: “It is very unwise to exclude each other in advance. That does not fit well in a democracy. We exclude no one. We do not want a cordon sanitaire, which Mr. Bos (PvdA) now seems to be aiming at.”

PVV-leader Geert Wilders considers the appeal by the Social Democrats to be a cordon sanitaire. He calls the plan “an insult to the electorate” and “undemocratic”.

According Geert Wilders, the call by the PvdA further shows “the arrogance of the PvdA [Socialists]. “It is still a big governor’s-clique. The PvdA thinks it is still in power,” Wilders added.

VH notes: The elections for the Dutch parliament will be held Wednesday, June 9, 2010.

And, already in English, from Reuters:

Dutch Parties Tussle Over Approach to Far Right

Labour figure calls on others to keep Wilders out of govt

AMSTERDAM, Feb 23 (Reuters) — A Dutch Labour politician’s call to keep far-right leader Geert Wilders out of a new government has stirred anger among other parties who consider the move undemocratic and likely to drive voters towards him.

Wilders and his Freedom Party have been a focus of debate since the Dutch cabinet collapsed on Saturday, as the election which could be held as early as May will be a key opportunity for the anti-immigration group to increase its influence after a stunning success at European elections last year.

Frans Timmermans, a member of the Labour party and minister for European affairs, said on Monday that Labour would refuse to govern in coalition with Wilders’ party, and he called on other parties to consider a similar approach.

“The Labour party stands for a completely different Holland than the party of Wilders, and for that reason we cannot be in a government with him,” a spokeswoman for the Labour party said.

“He (Timmermans) dared other parties to think the same thing. Do they want to be in a government that segregates people by race and religion?”

Wilders has described the call as an “arrogant” attempt to ringfence his Freedom Party (PVV) and said it was an insult to the democratic system, telling Dutch media “the voter will seek punishment for this”.

Members of other parties have also described the move as undemocratic and warned that it could push voters into the arms of Wilders, considered a maverick among the political elite.

While the socialist SP said it would not consider working in coalition with Wilders’ party due to their policy differences, it criticised Timmermans nonetheless.

“This is unbelievably stupid. What Timmermans is saying is undemocratic, the voter can surely make up their own mind,” said SP leader Agnes Kant in the Dutch daily Trouw. “Wilders can now say there is a barrier being built around him.”

Members of other parties also dismissed the calls, with the head of the Liberal VVD party Mark Rutte telling Dutch radio he was not ruling anyone out as a potential coalition partner and Christian Democrat party chairman Pieter van Geel describing the comments as foolish.

Poised for Gains

Wilders’ party comes first or second in most polls for the next election, and could win up to 24 seats in the 150-seat Dutch Parliament after becoming the second biggest Dutch party in the EU Parliament last year.

So far the CDA and VVD have left the door open to be in a coalition with Wilders. But in recent polls, just 27 percent of respondents said their reaction to a combination of the three in a cabinet would be ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’.

Wilders, who believes that Islam is a violent religion and what he calls the Islamisation of Europe must stop, has consistently challenged the established order with his ferocious debating style, often accusing the government of cowardice.

[…]



Hat tip for the Reuters article: KGS.

Bernard Lewis on “Radical Islam: Israel and the West”

On February 16, 2010, The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem hosted an exclusive seminar featuring Prof. Bernard Lewis, a world expert in the field of Middle Eastern studies and Islam entitled “Radical Islam: Israel and the West”.

An Israeli participant sends the following summary of the topics that were discussed:

The seminar was moderated by Prof. Robert S. Wistrich, the Center’s director and a world expert on anti-Semitism.

Muslims and the West

Prof. Lewis began by explaining that “this is the first time in 1,000 years that the Muslim world is in charge of their own affairs.” In this post-Communist era, “the Russians can’t play a role, and the Americans don’t want to play a role.” This change has created a painful new awareness in the Muslim world and has raised questions regarding why Muslim countries have fallen behind the West. There seems to be two very different answers to this question.

The first approach claims that Western Imperialism is to blame. The supporters of this view place the blame squarely on the United States and Israel (“the ‘illegitimate offspring’ of the United States”), who they see as the face of Western Imperialism today. They believe that modernization is a betrayal of their Islamic heritage and the only solution is to return to authentic Islam, no matter the sacrifice. This is what radical Islam is claiming to be doing.

The second approach claims that the Muslim world has no one to blame but themselves for their current state of affairs. In other words, the Muslim countries haven’t fallen behind the West as a result of Western Imperialism but as a result of their own actions — it is a “self-inflicted condition.” Supporters of this view agree that the solution lies in the modernization of Muslim countries — no finger pointing, just hard work to make it happen.

Prof. Lewis summed it up as follows: “It is important to realize that the greatest tragedy of the Middle East is a result of reforms introduced in the Middle East by Arab and Muslim rulers, not Europeans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.”

Europe and Islam

Prof. Lewis also discussed the concern that Muslims may take over Europe. He pointed out that it is hard to address this issue because there aren’t any reliable statistics regarding the number of Muslims in Europe. However, one indication that this concern may be well-founded is a rise in the number of Muslim names being given to children, and in some European countries these names are now the most popular.

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Historically, it is important to remember that the Muslims made two previous attempts to conquer Europe — the first was in the 7th Century and the second in the 19th Century. The third attempt, which we are witnessing today, seems to have a much better chance at success. This current conquest is being waged in the form of peaceful migration rather than military aggression. As such, it is that much harder for Europe to defend itself.

What (the Muslims) are saying in Europe is that they want the same rights that the Muslims granted Christians and Jews in the classic Muslim state. These seem to be very legitimate claims and they imply that Muslims in Europe aren’t looking to take over Europe, they just want to ensure their basic rights as citizens. “The only question remaining for us to answer regarding the future of Europe,” quipped Prof. Lewis, “is will it be an Islamized Europe or a European Islam?”

Iran

When asked about the current situation in Iran, Prof. Lewis was very optimistic. “The regime is extremely unpopular, there is a great desire for change and the prospect in Iran is encouraging.”

He explained that “the revolution has reached the Napoleon stage” and as such “we shouldn’t give Iran the gift of Patriotism.” We must be very careful not to slip into the trap of strengthening the resolve of the Iranian radicals by questioning their rights to Nuclear weapons, giving them a reason to unite their people from within.

Radical & Moderate Islam

One development that does concern Prof. Lewis is the growth of radical Islam in several Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia is the most extreme example (“Wahhabism is the official religion of Saudi Arabia at the present time.”) and Turkey is also showing signs of a change in ideology (“What is happening in Turkey is alarming as it appears to be the first successful attempt to undo the Kemalist Revolution.”).

The good news, however, is that not all Muslims or Arabs are extremists or Jihadists, and we must support and strengthen these moderates. Prof. Lewis pointed out that authentic Islam is not about violence (“Sharia law states not to harm non-combatants and that suicide in all forms is forbidden”.) and that moderates (i.e. “those who don’t make the headlines”) are more than willing to accept the modern world and the West.

This article was compiled by the staff of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Center (www.sicsa.huji.ac.il) is dedicated to an independent, non-political approach to the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge necessary for understanding the multi-faceted phenomenon of anti-Semitism.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/22/2010 — NOT!

Something is wrong with Blogger: when I post the news feed, it chops off most of the current posts from the main page. When I originally posted tonight’s news feed, Blogger removed all but the top three posts from our main blog page.

This is unacceptable, so until Blogger fixes the problem, I am suspending the news feed.

I’ve tried all the solutions I could think of — streamlining the HTML, etc. — but nothing has fixed the problem. If anyone knows of any workaround for this bug, please let me know.

I’ll test the situation every evening, and resume the news feed if the bug ever gets fixed.

I apologize for the inconvenience. However, the availability of our recent posts is more important than displaying the news feed.

[Post ends here]

The Only Real Revolutionary Movement in the UK

EDL header


Aeneas sends the following exchange taken from the English Defence League forum. I don’t yet have a link for the posts below, but here is the text. Spelling, punctuation, and a little bit of the syntax have been fixed up:

I read the mainly left-wing urban75 forums without posting, and there was a thread called ‘EDL leadership arrested.’ While most of the backwards mainstream leftwing element that post on there were over the moon, this post was an unusual piece of realism:

EDL: Birmingham demoI see. So Police raid self-proclaimed Anarchist squats filled with people who make no bones about the fact that they are there to cause mayhem and yet people on their way to take part in legal protests, and who call for them to be peaceful, get stopped on their way and their homes then get raided by gun toting cops.

You lot want to be stopped by the Police. It’s why you make such a song and dance about the squats and so on. It’s just a game to you. An excuse to have some high jinx all safe in the knowledge that the ‘Pigs’ will pile in and arrest you giving you all some war stories to tell around the fireplace.

The EDL must be scaring the s**t out of the people that matter. Your response of just calling them fascist and so on is so out of touch as to make it embarrassing. I mean the UAF is the establishment. It’s funded by them.

English nationalism is the only real revolutionary movement in the UK at the moment. Yes, the EDL might not be the ones who promote it to its conclusion, but they represent the tip of a very large iceberg of slow-burning resentment that has not had a chance to really articulate itself at the moment. But it will come, and the potential political earthquake that it represents dwarfs anything that the British left can even begin to contemplate.

And the actions of the Police today show that it’s being taken very seriously.

Bloody hell, I read about it and it makes me almost want to join up with them. It’s a f***ing disgrace what happened, and whilst you indulge in your onanist enjoyment at what you see as the right getting one stuck on their chins, take a moment to really think about what these people have actually gone to do in such a short amount of time. And then think about what could be done with the resentment that they are feeling by somebody with half a brain.

It ain’t going to be the BNP for all sorts of reasons, but somebody, somewhere is going to emerge and things could really be up for a serious shaking up.

This was the reply:

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Things have moved on. This ain’t the 70s and 80s anymore, despite your yearnings for a time when socialism actually mattered, rather than it just being something desperate to latch on to, just to keep its head above the water.

The EDL are not the BNP. They are not the National Front. And they are not C18. They are a grassroots movement that has sprung out of nowhere, and which nobody within the political establishment (and I include the BNP here) know how to respond to. The left are confusing the fun of a day out and waving their trendy credentials in public with actually coming up with a serious response to this grouping.

Now I don’t think they are going to be storming the gates of Downing Street any time soon but they represent something (not sure myself), and that something has mobilised a segment of the mainly white, but not exclusively, working class in a way that the left has not managed for years, and the fact remains that if any real changes to our political system are going to happen in this country then the group that gets the biggest white working-class support is the one that will bring it about.

Islam Explained for Those Who Do Not Read the Koran

VV&D logo


The French Counterjihad site Truth, Values, and Democracy (Vérité Valeurs et Démocratie) has posted an excellent short guide designed to help people who are otherwise unfamiliar with Islam understand Muslim practices and priorities. Gandalf has kindly translated the article into English for us.

Update: This article was actually written by Gandalf, and translated by L’échappée belle. Also, a minor change of wording in the translation has been made, at the request of the author. Sorry for the mix-up:

Islam explained for those who do not read the Koran

Islam is not as complicated as they would have you believe.

You have the Koran: a hodgepodge written by unknown men under poorly understood conditions. But this doesn’t matter, because even Muslims don’t really care about the Koran’s historical origins. Only its current contents have importance in their eyes.

You have a prophet: Muhammad, whose deeds are known thanks to the following texts:

  • The Sira, which is a biography of Muhammad
  • The Hadith, which are records of oral testimony about the acts and words of Muhammad

From these basics, the Islamic doctrine is simple:

  • To establish an Islamic society arranged by the rules contained in the Koran and in the words of the Prophet, which are grouped under the name “Sharia”.
  • To faithfully imitate the conduct of Muhammad, who is the archetype of the perfect Muslim.

That’s all you need to understand Islam.

What is a “Muslim”?

A Muslim (“one who submits” in Arabic) is one who accepts and seeks to conform to the rules of Sharia and tries to imitate Muhammad. If you do not fall into this category, you are a “kafir”.

What is a “kafir”?

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A kafir is not equal to a Muslim. He is an inferior, despicable and impure, cursed by the god of the Muslims and destined to burn in hell.

What does it mean to imitate Muhammad?

To eradicate the kuffar (plural of kafir), to destroy their cultures and their societies in order to erect in their place an Islamic society ruled by Sharia.

The example of Muhammad shows that all methods are possible: proselytism, threats, rape, torture, pillage, trickery, and/or murder. No tactic is better than another and all are fair game depending on conditions. The goal is the same: the disappearance of the kuffar.

Islam is thus a process working towards the elimination of the kuffar and the destruction of their societies in order to install a universal Islamic civilization.

The ostensible complexity of Islam is simply due to the different interpretations as to how to achieve this goal, but they all involve the disappearance of the kuffar at some stage…without exception.

That’s it. As you can see, Islam is not complicated at all.

If you want to know the details, you can always read the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith.

“But that cannot be the whole story,” you will object. “My Muslim friends and neighbors are perfectly respectable and pleasant!”

Indeed, outside the context of Islam, they are human beings like anyone else, neither better nor worse. But this does not change the fact that when they act as Muslims, even in a courteous and friendly manner, they are participating in a system that is working toward your extermination and the destruction of your society.

People are not the problem here; the source of the problem is the Islamic ideology that demands the extermination of kuffar like you.

Finally, there is only one really useful thing to know about Islam:

A kafir can expect nothing good from Islam, absolutely nothing.