Pastor Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has been sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court. Also sentenced along with Rev. Jones were Mark Basseley Youssef, the maker of the notorious Mohammed movie, and six other U.S.-based Egyptian Christians, including a woman who converted from Islam to Christianity.

Everyone should note that this judicial farce was composed and performed in glorious utopia of post-revolutionary Egypt, the Jewel of the Arab Spring, the new democratic heartland of the recently freed Arab world, a land ruled with justice and mercy by none other than President Mohamed Morsi of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the darling of President Barack Hussein Obama.

The charge against the eight defendants, which carries a death sentence under Egyptian law, was “harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam, and spreading false information”.

Anyone who is familiar with shariah will recognize the above as ghiba, or slander, under Islamic law. Insulting Islam or the prophet is a form of ghiba, and is punishable by death.

To better understand what this means in an Islamic context, I’ll resort, as I often do, to ’Umdat al-salik wa ’uddat al-nasik, or The reliance of the traveller and tools of the worshipper. It is commonly referred to as Reliance of the Traveller when cited in English.

My citations are from the Revised Edition (published 1991, revised 1994) of “The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ’Umdat al-Salik by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 769/1368) in Arabic with Facing English Text, Commentary, and Appendices”, edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller.

When the Muslim Brotherhood talking heads on TV tell us that there is no single version of shariah, but lots of different versions, they are engaging in sacred misdirection (kitman) — a perfectly lawful action under shariah. In actuality, Al-Misri’s codification is officially considered an authoritative source on Sunni Islamic law, because it is certified as such by Al-Azhar University in Cairo. There is no higher authority on Sunni Islamic doctrine than Al-Azhar; it is the closest equivalent to the Vatican that can be found in Islam.

Let’s take a quick look at what “slander” means to a devout Muslim. The following is from Reliance of the Traveller, book R. “Holding one’s tongue”, Section 2.0, “Slander (Ghiba), r2.1 (page 730):

Slander and talebearing are two of the ugliest and most frequently met with qualities among men, few people being safe from them. I have begun with them because of the widespread need to warn people of them.

r2.2:

Slander (ghiba) means to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike…

r2.3:

As for talebearing… it consists of quoting someone’s words to another in a way that worsens relations between them.

This is not the common Western understanding of slander. According to the Islamic definition, to slander someone is to say something about him that he would not like.

Continuing with “Evidence of Prohibition”, r2.4:

The above define slander and talebearing. As for the ruling on them, it is that they are unlawful by consensus…of Muslims.

This means that the legal ruling is absolute.

On page 732, the words of Mohammed:

So if I say something about Islam that is true, but Muslims do not want anybody to know, I am still guilty of slander under Islam. This is a vastly different understanding of slander from anything Westerners are used to.

This is why the simple act of quoting from the Koran or the hadith can be considered slander against Islam — provided that a non-Muslim is the one who does the quoting.

The heart of the matter lies in “Talebearing (Namima)”, r3.0 and r3.1 (page 740):

In fact, talebearing is not limited to that, but rather consists of revealing anything whose disclosure is resented… The reality of talebearing lies in divulging a secret, in revealing something confidential whose disclosure is resented. A person should not speak of anything he notices about people besides that which benefits a Muslim…

This bears no resemblance to our understanding of what slander or defamation mean. It is fundamentally different. And it is obligatory. No matter what kind of Muslim you may be, you are in theory beholden to this rule.

By allowing Muslim moderates and cultural experts to tell us what we are allowed to know, and then parroting it back to each other, we have submitted to Islamic law.

Defamation against Islam — slander, ghiba — is considered an act of apostasy. Consulting Book O, “Justice”, in Reliance of the Traveller, we learn that the following acts are considered “leaving Islam” (o8.7):

Among the things that entail apostasy from Islam… are: …

(4)		to revile Allah or his messenger…
(5)		to deny the existence of Allah…
(6)		to be sarcastic about Allah’s name…
		[…]
(15)		to hold that any of Allah’s messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent…
(16)		to revile the religion of Islam…
		[…]
(19)		to be sarcastic about any ruling of the sacred law…
(20)		or to deny that Allah intended the prophet’s message… to be the religion followed by the entire world…

So what is the penalty for non-Muslims who commit any of these crimes? To start with, look at what happens to dhimmis, those who have submitted to Muslims and become non-Muslim subjects — Ahl al-Dhimma — of the Muslim state. Once again, from Reliance of the Traveller, Book O, o11.10:

The agreement [with the dhimmi] is also violated… if one of the subject people… (5) …mentions something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet, or Islam.

And o11.11 says:

When a subject’s agreement with the state has been violated, the caliph chooses between the four alternatives mentioned above in connection with prisoners of war (o9.14)

What do prisoners of war have to do with non-Muslims who commit slander? A look at o9.14 clarifies the meaning: Anyone who has dhimmi status is a prisoner of war in a state of abeyance. If he breaches the dhimmi contract, he reverts to the status of a prisoner of war. This is very important: a dhimmi is not just a second-class citizen, he is a prisoner of war who is in a state of abeyance.

The text from book O, “Justice”, section 9, “Jihad”, “Rules of Warfare”, o9.14:

When an adult male is taken captive [the women and children are made slaves], the caliph… considers the interests… of Islam and the Muslims… and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy.

Thus a dhimmi who slanders Islam reverts to the status of a prisoner of war, and the treatment of prisoners of war is mandated by o9.14 as described above. But none of this applies to us, does it? It could not possibly happen in 21st-century America…

Or could it?

It just happened to Terry Jones. He can thank the Lord that he lives in Florida, which will not extradite him to Egypt so that the sentence against him can be executed. But he would be well-advised not to book a Nile cruise anytime soon.

The language in Reliance is clear: it attempts to make defamation of Islam a crime, with “defamation” being defined by Islam. It aims to deny non-Muslims the right to talk about Islam. This is not defamation as understood in Western terms. “Defamation” under Western law still allows for freedom of speech, unless speech is taken to the extreme of incitement to violence.

But when Muslims accuse someone of defamation, they mean that he does not have the right to talk about Islam. Period.

And our governments are beginning to enforce their version of defamation. The Istanbul Process, the noble endeavor on which our illustrious Secretary of State is so keen, plans to implement shariah in America in incremental fashion.

Under the Istanbul Process, “freedom of expression” will in future be defined by Islamic law. To understand what “freedom of expression” means under the influence of “defamation of Islam”, take a look at the “About OIC” webpage for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation:

Under the Charter, the Organization aims, inter alia, to… Protect and defend the true image of Islam, to combat defamation of Islam and encourage dialogue among civilizations and religions; …

And what is meant by “defamation” here?

Why, “slander and talebearing”, exactly as described above!

In other words, defaming Islam “means to mention anything concerning a [Muslim] person that he would dislike” or “quoting someone’s words to another in a way that worsens relations between them.”

We cannot come to grips with what slander means under Islamic law until we understand what can and cannot be permitted. Under Islamic law, it is entirely possible that if someone says something that is demonstrably true, but is not something that benefits Islam, that person can be judged guilty under the Islamic concept of slander.

This is how Terry Jones “slandered” Islam. This is why he was condemned to death.

And this is the future of America if Hillary Rodham Clinton and the OIC have their way.

Autumn Fundraiser 2012, Day Three

As Dymphna mentioned on Monday, the theme of this quarter’s fundraiser is “Aftermath: In the Wilderness”. The proximate inspiration for this week’s theme was the recent reelection of Barack Hussein Obama, which has cast old-fashioned liberty-loving conservatives like us into something resembling the outer darkness.

But our theme has, as usual, expanded into other areas. My own aftermath might be said to have begun in 2006, when I lost my programming job. It wasn’t because of my “Islamophobia” — the blog was just getting started in those days — but a result of corporate changes in the company where I worked, plus the need to be closer to home to take care of Dymphna as her illness progressed. New programming jobs in our local area are rarer than hen’s teeth, so I’ve had to eke out a living as a sole proprietor doing a variety of things, taking whatever opportunities come along.

Which brings me to why we have to annoy our readers by begging for money for a week once a quarter.

I know at least four people in Britain who have lost their jobs after being outed as Counterjihad activists. Several others on the Continent are in the same boat. I’m also aware of three people here in North America whose jobs are at risk for similar reasons.

In other words, my situation is not that bad, relatively speaking. I have no career left to worry about, and I can write what I want — for the time being, as long as the First Amendment holds. But when I went fully public several years ago I effectively foreclosed any possible employment opportunities for myself doing anything other than menial jobs. A quick background search on my name would turn up all those dangerous Islamophobes I hang out with. Not to mention Breivik — with whom I never hung out, but that makes no difference, of course.

So, given my advanced age, plus the indelible stain with which I have sullied my name, I’ll be staying in this line of work from now on, supplementing it with whatever editing and programming jobs come my way via other members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

This is why we hammer on our readers once a quarter. If you like what we do, and think it is worthwhile, and want to see it continue, please make the tip cup on our sidebar clink with whatever mite you can spare after the government has vacuumed up most of your paycheck.

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If you want to see how bad an aftermath can get — in this case, the aftermath of July 22, 2011 — look at Norway. As The Observer reported yesterday, academics in Norway risk their careers if their writings are translated for Gates of Vienna, or even cited here with approval.

Norway is now a full totalitarian state, with all the necessary means for repressing dissent. Yet the Nordic frog has been boiled so slowly that most Norwegians seem unaware of what has been done to them.

It’s hard to imagine the level of oppression that is now considered normal in places like Norway, Sweden, and Britain. Social ostracism, physical harassment, the loss of one’s livelihood, the denial of government benefits, arrest and imprisonment — all of these are now an everyday reality in much of Europe for people who dare to speak out publicly as I do. My life is a bed of roses in comparison!

I’m very lucky to live in the USA. It makes me more determined than ever to help provide a platform for European dissidents. The U.S. Constitution still offers me some measure of protection, and I will continue to take advantage of it as long as I can.

As Walt Whitman wrote in “Leaves of Grass”:

I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat;
It is you talking just as much as myself — I act as the tongue of you;
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.

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Yesterday’s donations came in from the following places:

Stateside: California, Georgia, N. Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington

Near Abroad: Canada

Far Abroad: Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, and the UK

Many, many thanks to all who gave so generously.

The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup on our sidebar, or the donate button. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.

The “youths” of Rosengård, a culturally enriched neighborhood in the southern Swedish city of Malmö, regularly set fires and then attack the fire brigade when it arrives to put out the flames. Now Malmö’s firemen are considering a “sick-out” to protest these impossible working conditions.

Many thanks to Michael Laudahn for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

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

A 10-year-old girl attracted the attention of the Finnish authorities by downloading an album by her favorite pop star from the Pirate Bay website. After tracking her IP address, the Helsinki police showed up at the door of her family’s apartment. Her parents are now liable for a €600 fine, and the police have confiscated her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop.

In other news, the violent protests against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood continued in Cairo and smaller towns across Egypt. Meanwhile, Muslims in Malaysia have demanded that the singer Elton John be banned from entering the country because of his “immoral” behavior.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Kitman, RE, Seneca III, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Dr. Bill Warner appeared tonight on Michael Coren’s program to talk about what he means by “political Islam”, and why Islam is fundamentally and irreconcilably different from all other religions:

Hat tip: Flyboy

EMET just sent us the following announcement about its upcoming seminar on the OIC and the Istanbul Process. If you’re in the DC area next Monday, you may want to pay a visit to the Capitol Visitor Center.

The Endowment for Middle East Truth

is pleased to invite you to a policy seminar:

The Istanbul Process and the OIC’s Continuing Efforts to Implement Restrictions to Prevent the “Defamation of Islam”: Part II

On Monday, December 3, EMET will hold a panel discussion about “The Istanbul Process and the OIC’s Continuing Efforts to Implement Restrictions to Prevent the Defamation of Islam: Part II” on Capitol Hill. This is the second EMET panel to focus on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) continued push for UN resolutions calling on countries to criminalize what it terms “defamation of religion.”

The OIC is an association of 56 Islamic states and the Palestinian Authority, none of whom are functioning democracies or defenders of human rights. The OIC is the largest voting bloc in the United Nations, which has enabled its members to dominate UN policy and discussions. This is part of the reason why Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is supremely confident that a large portion of the UN General Assembly will back the PA’s Statehood bid.

One of the OIC’s primary goals is the restriction of freedom of expression at the international level to punish anything deemed critical of or offensive to Islam or radical Muslim leaders. EMET held its first panel on this topic on February 7, 2012.

After being frustrated in earlier attempts to pass “defamation of religion” resolutions at the UN, the OIC changed gears and pushed through Resolution 16/18 in March 2010. Resolution 16/18 calls for the criminalization of “incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief,” and it “condemns…any advocacy of religious hatred against individuals that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” 16/18 also “urges States to take effective measures as set forth in the present resolution, consistent with their obligations under international human rights law, to address and combat such incidents.”

On July 15, 2011 a summit meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Istanbul launched what became known “Istanbul Process”. At that meeting, Mrs. Clinton committed the United States to a partnership with the OIC for the purpose of implementing the legislative results required by 16/18.

From Dec. 12-14 of 2011, Ms. Clinton hosted in Washington a second meeting “to discuss” with the OIC “how to implement resolution no. 16/18 on combating defamation of religions…” and that the aim of this and further meetings was “developing a legal basis” for domestic and international laws “preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”

On November 19, 2012, the OIC hosted a clearly-related symposium on “Defamation Acts against Islam: conflict dimensions and perspectives of co-existence between Islam and the West”. The session was attended by OIC Secretary General Ihsanoglu, Russian Consul General Sergey Kuznetsov, and others. The State Department originally announced that Anne Casper, US Consul General in Jeddah, would be attending, but when the press took notice of it, that announcement was scrubbed from their website. Presumably, Ms. Casper still attended.

The Istanbul Process is all part of the Obama Administration’s unfortunate willingness to restrict the free speech rights of Americans to placate Muslim radicals who demand that their actions and religion be free from any and all criticism. Other evidence of this tendency by the Administration includes efforts to blame an obscure YouTube video for the terrorist attack in Benghazi, and President Obama’s speech at the UN that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

There are a number of specific reasons, beyond a commitment to free speech, to be very worried about the OIC’s efforts. First, the continued dominance of U.N. human rights discussions by the OIC’s “defamation of religion” rants distracts attention and resources away from actual human rights violations in the world. For example, it distracts from genocides throughout the world (such as are occuring in Syria and Sudan), the arrest of journalists, the persecution of religious minorities, “honor” killings, acid attacks against women, to name only a few. Second, a report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that the OIC’s effort is based on domestic laws OIC members states already exploit to “intimidate and … detain” religious minorities. For example, there is the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian in Pakistan who remains locked in prison for supposedly blaspheming against Islam. So, in addition to the obvious strictures that they place on speech, laws restricting “defamation of religion” are incompatible with other fundamental human rights including freedom of religion.

We encourage you to join us for this important panel discussion.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer sends his analysis of a minor controversy that has been raging within Norwegian academic circles for the past few days. As he says, “It paints a very clear picture of the political climate in Norway at the moment.”

The issue involves a Norwegian writer who had the misfortune to be approved of by Gates of Vienna. Two of his recent articles were translated and posted here, and this innocuous circumstance has put his career in jeopardy. He wrote us yesterday morning and asked that we take down his texts (for copyright reasons). I promptly complied.

This is not the first time that something like this has happened since the Butcher of Utøya did his grisly work on July 22, 2011. To have one’s writings approved by Gates of Vienna can be a death-knell for the career of a Norwegian academic. We are considered, as the Observer puts it, “virtual toxic plutonium” by the elites who run Norway. Our approval gives off a deadly radiation that any Norwegian academic will quite understandably want to avoid.

The calculus that drives these intellectual Inquisitions is strange, when you think about it. The logic runs something like this:

And the corollary, which brought on the present controversy:

Yet this same logic could be extended much further. Let’s follow a different sequence of corollary statements:

This level of absurdity will obviously never hold sway, a fact which highlights the double standard described below by The Observer. Anyone who expresses an incorrect opinion risks being lumped with Breivik through guilt-by-association, no matter how many tenuous degrees of connection have to be devised to achieve this purpose. If you live in Norway and hold an opinion that diverges even slightly from the Progressive Multicultural consensus, the Powers That Be are just waiting for you to put a foot wrong, after which you will experience that bowel-loosening moment when they pounce on you.

It’s a very effective means of squelching dissent and keeping would-be independent thinkers inside a constantly shrinking perimeter fence.

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Here’s what The Observer has to say about the Norwegian Inquisition:

The controversy involving the translation and publication of Alse Toje’s two articles on Gates of Vienna is interesting for a variety of reasons, and I intend to highlight a few of them.

I first became aware of the ‘controversy’ when I logged on to Fjordman’s Twitter page yesterday evening. Apparently another Twitter user, Sigve Indregard (co-author of the very dishonest book Motgift — “Antidote”) had caught wind that someone had translated two of Toje’s articles into English and posted them at GoV. Several other Norwegian Twitter users, whom I would describe as academics, followed suit and demanded that the author explain whether he had given his consent to the translation and the subsequent publication of his article on GoV.

The tweets were nothing but poorly disguised threats in which they, the inquisitors — without outright coming out and saying so — made it abundantly clear that they would instigate a smear campaign against Toje if he didn’t publicly distance himself from GoV and denounce the publication of his articles on said website.

Shortly thereafter Toje tweeted that several of Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s allies (one of the two articles dealt with Thomas Hylland Eriksen) had already started ‘hitling’ him, basically meaning that they had started using guilt-by-association techniques to smear him. Gates of Vienna is considered virtual toxic plutonium by the political correct elites in Norway following the events of July 22, 2011. For the author, an academic, to be associated with Gates of Vienna would be a very unwise career move.

There was actually an article in a Norwegian paper a few years ago which highlighted Toje’s difficulties in finding employment in Norway despite the fact that his credentials were a couple of notches above that of the average Norwegian academic. The reason for his difficulties was the simple fact that he had done some work for the FrP (Fremskrittspartiet, the Progress Party) and hence had become unpalatable for the politically correct academic establishment in the country.

The PC establishment in Norway is almost Stalinist in nature. One only needs to take a look at the Norwegian TV documentary Brainwash to find out that this is not an exaggeration. Most academics are based in Oslo, which is a tiny little city by international standards. Oslo is also a place where everybody knows everybody in academia. Step out of line in there or utter unacceptable truths, and the smear machinery of the elites will come down on you with full force.

Another thing which I find interesting is the double standard employed by the academics involved in this incident. Unbeknownst to him, Toje’s articles were republished in translation at GoV, but unlike Fjordman, who was virtually crucified when it was uncovered that the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik had republished several of his essays in his twisted manifesto, the Grand Inquisitor in the shape of the self-righteous Sigve Indregard and his inner circle of Twitter goons forgave Toje after Toje made it abundantly clear that he had nothing to do with the translations, or GoV in general for that matter.

It’s worth noting that Indregard & Co. belong to the elites that crucified Fjordman after the July 22 massacres. One could of course ask the obvious question, which is: Why didn’t they extend the same privilege to Fjordman? Wasn’t Fjordman also unwittingly ensnared? Breivik didn’t ask for his permission to republish his texts, so why was he vilified for it? Indregard & Co. are oblivious to their own double standard, which is not a surprise when it comes to Norwegian left-wing academics.

It was not my intention to get Toje in trouble when I translated his articles. I translated them because I thought they were of a high quality and I honestly believed that English speaking readers should be given the opportunity to read them. I guess I underestimated the power of guilt-by-association which exists in Norway, and the very strong need for the politically correct elites to crucify those that don’t agree with them. Toje will be OK, as he has now publicly distanced himself from GoV and made it blatantly clear that he doesn’t espouse the views of GoV, which he is of course more than entitled to do.

With this controversy out of the way, equilibrium has been reestablished in the tiny little duck pond that is Norwegian academia, where everybody quacks in tune and where nobody is allowed to rock the boat.

Autumn Fundraiser 2012, Day Two

This is the second day of our Autumn Quarterly Fundraiser. It is also Tommy Robinson’s thirtieth birthday — the age I’ve always considered as the real beginning of one’s majority. This is where life gets serious. It’s a time for looking back and peering forward.

When Tommy looks back, he sees the Aftermath, the wasteland created in his own life by those in power. The authorities broke his business, took away his computers, harassed his parents in their home, damaged his car, froze his bank account and persecuted him relentlessly. All this for daring to call attention to the things that are deeply wrong in England. All this for demanding that England not to be sold off to its immigrants, that instead Englishmen be permitted to continue to live their proud heritage.

The USSR has moved from Russia to take up residence in England and the rest of the United Kingdom. God help the Brits, and particularly, God help Tommy.

You’re thirty years old today. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Could time have really moved so quickly, carrying you over the white-water rapids of your twenties to this moment? Are you beginning to feel mortal? Many of us are feeling quite mortal for you, even if you’re not.

It’s ironic that your third decade should begin in solitary confinement in Her Majesty’s prison. Given your naturally gregarious nature, this unjust incarceration probably wasn’t in your plans regarding the ways you’d considered to observe the passing of your twenties. Certainly you didn’t think you’d be so utterly alone? In the present moment I doubt it helps much to know that many people all over the world are observing it with you. After all, you can’t see them, nor can they wish you well in person.

Your imprisonment is unjust. We know that quite well, but none of us has any power to help change what is happening to your country or to you. We are hard put to stave off the damage to our own sovereign states. The system under which you live has become increasingly sovietized and impersonal, and you have become an impediment in the rapidly increasing process to make all of you the same.

You’re too much of an individual, Tommy. You’re ornery; you stick your neck out too far. If they cannot crush you and shove you back into line, you will jeopardize the project of leveling everyone into a predictable, passive and manageable sameness.

The one I think of today is your mother. This must be a desperately sad time particularly for her, this first birthday without you. No matter how old our children get their birthdays remain important. That’s a day you and she share in particular, and her memories of your arrival into the world — your first breath, the first time she held the surprising weight of you — are imprinted on her heart. That is why being forced to miss the beginning of your third decade must indeed be a sad occasion, though not nearly so sad as the uncertainty she experiences at not knowing how many more she will be forced to miss.

As many others do, I have the urge to give you something meaningful to mark the occasion, something that would cheer and comfort you, something you could cherish, and above all, something that no one could take away.

As it happens, I do have one small token to offer. Until the Baron told me it was your birthday I hadn’t thought of it as a gift, but now I see it fits perfectly for the occasion. Indeed, it is synchronous, because I received this same gift when I was just your age. It has proved to be of immense value in my own life and I hope it can be such a gift in yours.

One thing is certain: should you find this as useful as I have, then no amount of sorrow or loss can take it from you. You’ll find it an excellent companion no matter where you are or who is oppressing you.

I stumbled upon the efficacy of this prayer by accident. Subsequently, it was to grow on me and within me as the circumstances of my life changed. There have been many paths, some of which I could only see in retrospect. But no matter which road I chose, or which one seemed to choose me, the psalm stayed with me, always there in one form or another.

Let me present the psalm to you first, and then I’ll attempt to explain how it has functioned in my life. No doubt you know this one already, but here I’m asking that you learn to “know” it in a different way, a way that suits your coming of real age as you turn thirty. This version here is my own, though not on purpose. It just became itself under the many years’ use it was put to. Nor do I any longer remember what rendering I adapted for myself. Now, after decades of almost daily use, what you see is its current form. If you in turn pick it up as yours, the words will change again as you make it your own. However that turns out, the structure will remain. And it is through this structure I would have you learn by heart what the Psalmist was praying all those thousands of years ago:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they guide and comfort me.

You have set a table before me in the midst of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil,
My cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

As I said, this is my version, including the punctuation. It doesn’t stray far from whatever “orthodox” form is used in any prayer book.

If you look at it closely, Tommy, you’ll see that this is a distillation; it describes in the most elemental terms the course of a life lived within a spiritual framework. Sometimes I wonder how many generations it took to construct its final form.

Look at the first four lines:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

Is that not the self-satisfaction, even relief, of a child who knows he is safe? This is a kid who knows nothing bad can happen to him.

Then comes the stand-alone,

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.

It took me a few years to comprehend the meaning here. Probably because we’ve coarsened the word “righteousness”, adding “self” as a prefix rather than permit the meaning to come through. For me, this is the adolescent or young man, learning how to move out of that safe pasture and into the real world while still maintaining the things he was taught. In other words, he’s learning to “walk the walk” now.

Then comes the much more difficult part of growing up: walking in an aftermath, a wilderness of what used to be our culture, only we know it’s not ours anymore. Instead, where we used to live has become little more than “the valley of the shadow of death”; those who were supposed to be our leaders abandoned the job to chase money and power.

But notice something here: the Psalmist has moved boldly to the first person, talking directly to God, naming him — You are my rod and my staff and describing how God blesses him even in the midst of his enemies. He is claiming what is his at the same time that he is expressing his gratitude for the largesse of God’s gifts.

Finally, in the last stanza the Psalmist moves back a bit and takes up once more his narrative account of what life will be like lived under God’s tutelage and protection. The final outcome will be to live in his Father’s house. Forever — whatever that means.

This is my gift for you, Tommy. You are in first place when I sit down to consider the fallout of the last few months. There has been so much damage done to so many people, but your being locked into solitary confinement down in the prison basement without any opportunity to have warm clothing is surely one of the worst in a presumably ‘civilized’ country.

Their treatment of you — while aboveground life continues on as if nothing much has happened — makes daily life in England seem sinister now. It is designed to break you and get you back in line. Meanwhile, people go about their daily lives, Parliament bloviates, the Sphinx Queen continues her reign, and the daily papers are all atwitter with endless news of what piece of clothing “Kate” is wearing to what event. It’s all so civilized. It’s all so rotten to the core.

I hope you can make use of the 23rd Psalm. It’s a continuous prayer best begun around the age of thirty. Meanwhile, we will send this letter via the post office and then check to see if you’re permitted to receive books mailed directly from booksellers. Prisoners here may have them. If that’s the case, then I’ll send you Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s letters. His letters from prison, at that.

On the first day of our quarterly bleg, donations came in from the following locales:

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Fjordman’s latest essay has been published at Vlad Tepes.Some excerpts are below:

I have been fortunate enough to meet several of the great personalities involved in the struggle against Islamic totalitarianism over the past few years. In 2012, I met two of them for the first time in southern Sweden. One of them was the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whom I met on October 27, 2012 during a visit to Malmö.

The other one was Lars Vilks, a Swedish art theorist and self-taught artist. His life was turned upside down after 2007, when he started drawing Islam’s founder Mohammad as a roundabout dog. This triggered several explicit death threats from Muslim groups. He has been living under police protection since then, especially following a statement from al-Qaida’s purported leader in Iraq offering a $100,000 dollar reward for his assassination.

[…]

I was fortunate enough to meet Vilks on a different occasion some weeks later, in an informal social gathering. He was again friendly towards me as well as everybody else present. It is madness that such a polite and gentle man has to live as a virtual prisoner in his own home simply because he has painted some controversial portraits of a person why may or may not have lived in the Arabian Peninsula 1400 years ago. But such is the reality of the Western world today, collectively in the grips of a Multicultural madness.

Paul Berman has described the way in which the author Salman Rushdie, since the death sentence handed down to him for insulting Islam by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1989, has metastasized into an entire social class, a subset of the European intelligentsia that now lives in a climate of fear and survives mainly because of bodyguards. Each and every one of them today serves as a living reminder of what we all stand to lose, if we continue to import and appease the forces of Islam.

Read the rest at Vlad Tepes.

For a complete archive of Fjordman’s writings, see the multi-index listing in the Fjordman Files.

The uproar in Britain continues over the removal of three “migrant” children from their foster parents because those parents dared to be members of – gasp! – UKIP. Check the “UK” section of the feed for a number of articles and opinion pieces on the scandal.

In other news, after Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) congratulated Hamas on its victorious ceasefire with Israel, Hamas responded by agreeing to release members of Fatah from prison in Gaza. This is part of an ongoing attempt by Fatah and Hamas to reconcile with each other.

Meanwhile, twelve men have been arrested by a Libyan militia for being gay. They may be mutilated and executed for their crimes.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Kitman, McR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

“Whoever brings about a multiethnic state brings the society into a condition, at the very least, of a potential civil war.”

Our Canadian correspondent Rembrandt Clancy sends his translation of a speech by Manfred Kleine-Hartlage contained in a two-part, subtitled video, and accompanies it with his commentary. He notes:

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage posted the original (single video version) on his blog on 21 November 2012.

The occasion for the speech was Volkstrauertag (“People’s Mourning Day” or Day of Remembrance) in Berlin, before the Reichstag, on 18 November 2012. The speech seems to me to have some interest, and I have tried to retain the rhetorical devices in the translation.

First, the two parts of the subtitled video:

Part 1

Part 2

Rembrandt Clancy has provided context for Manfred Kleine-Hartlage’s speech, followed by the full text of the subtitles.

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage: Speech on Remembrance Day 2012
by Rembrandt Clancy

The German National Day of Mourning (Volkstrauertag or Remembrance Day) fell on 18 November of 2012. While always in mid-November, it is a moveable holiday in Germany. Among the main speakers at the three-hour event outside the Reichstag in Berlin was the political scientist, author and publicist Manfred Kleine-Hartlage (see his blog Korrectheiten). The civil rights party DIE FREIHEIT organised this first memorial of its kind (and not to be the last) to give a voice to the 7,500 Germans who since 1990 “…have become victims of immigrant violence … victims of a policy which is aimed at destroying the society”, says Kleine-Hartlage in his speech. He describes the policy of creating a multiethnic state as a “declaration of war [on the peoples of Europe] by their own elites”, hence a memorial for the fallen.

Mr. Kleine-Hartlage, who lives in Berlin, is currently well known among German counterjihadists for his book Das Dschihadsystem : Wie der Islam funktioniert (“The Jihad System: How Islam Works”: Resch Verlag, 2010). In 2011 he gave an interview on this very question at Gates of Vienna. Another contribution on “Global Governance” also appeared at Gates of Vienna. This latter essay, with its reference to “a global uniform civilization” and the concomitant “destruction of traditional patterns of values and loyalties”, is a good companion piece to the memorial speech below.

Another publication by Kleine Hartlage is Neue Weltordnung” — Zukunftsplan oder Verschwörungstheorie? (“New World Order — Future Plan or Conspiracy Theory”, 2011). He collaborated with Fjordman in the volume Europa verteidigen. Zehn Texte (“Defend Europe: Ten Texts”, 2011), and his latest book is Warum ich kein Linker mehr bin (“Why am no longer a Leftist”, 2012). Kleine-Hartlage reports on his above mentioned blog that he had been a member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party) in the 80s and 90s and had even supported red-green, although only out of habit, until he recognised leftist ideology was bent on the destruction of society, which in turn led him to a critical examination of Islamisation.

I would draw attention to just a few relationships which might be missed in the details after only one viewing. Written on the architrave of the Reichstag before which the speeches are given is the dedication DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE (“for the German People”) and the camera pans on the inscription at a few decisive moments. This inscription, with its word Volk, is a focal point of the talk:

“…the enemy, which wages war against the people [Volk] sits here, in this building [the Reichstag], which is dedicated to just this very people [Volke]”.

Kleine-Hartlage sharply contrasts two otherwise ordinary words: das Volk, the people; and die Bevölkerung, the population. Because a (multicultural) “population” is an inchoate mass of incompatible groups in “enmity”, it is incapable of challenging the political class. In the undeclared war, the Bevölkerung is replacing the Volk, whose homogeneity and common feeling-bond of solidarity remains a threat to the “so-called elites”.

Kleine-Hartlage expresses a second pair of opposites which underlies his comparison of Islam with Western culture: collectivism vs. individualism. Collectivism (Islam and Left ideology) corresponds to Bevölkerung. Individualism, as Kleine-Hartlage uses the term, is “anchored” in Christianity or Western culture, and is expressed through “higher ethical values” and “peaceableness”. A society of individuals in solidarity is a Volk. Hence Kleine-Hartlage’s interpretation of counterjihad emphasises a continuity with the West’s Christian roots; a “hermeneutic of continuity”, to borrow a term from Benedict XVI. The reader can find background for Kleine-Hartlage’s insistence on the “conservation” and “protection” of western cultural continuity on his blog placed under the title of his “Political Orientation”:

To the conservation of the open society belongs the repudiation of the ubiquitous totalitarian claim to validity of political ideology; that is, the protection of autonomy for religion, law, science and economics as non-political life-spheres. Above all, however, to this repudiation belongs the protection of cultural bedrocks, which only an open society makes viable: namely, the protection of an authentic Christianity, which does not curry favour with the Zeitgeist; preservation of a national state as the basis of democratic order; and above all, preservation of the family as the basis of society. (And since this self-evident understanding has to be added in today’s world: family means the marriage of man and woman, from which offspring emerge.)

This implies the battle against utopian ideologies which aim at the destruction of these foundations of our culture, by which I mean the fight against utopian ideologies such as globalisation, syncretism, gender mainstreaming, etc. It implies that I also come to grips, in an ideology-critical way, with the kind of political postures, which from the democratic standpoint are above suspicion, but which have a totalitarian reverse side. For example, I fight against an ever so well-intended political correctness, through the implementation of which freedom of speech becomes ever more insistently a mockery, and degenerates to mere constitutional lyricism; against an Islam which one simply cannot neatly separate (and must not) from its political variant, Islamism, as the above mentioned political correctness requires; against ideological speech; against hostility toward science; against hostility toward Christianity and against militant atheism.

[Mr. Kleine-Hartlage continues with a statement in support of Israel]

This description mentions a final pair of opposites: globalisation versus the national state, or in the speech it is expressed as “transference of … rights to supranatural institutions” versus the “demos” or a “people”. The globalisation — national state opposition is the superordinate one because, in the words of the Baron, it “… provide[s] answers to . . . questions, which are otherwise unanswerable.” It makes the other two oppositions interpretable, not to mention mass immigration, Islamisation, elimination of borders, gender mainstreaming etc.

The following video material was originally posted by Manfred Kleine-Hartlage on 21 November at Korrectheiten.

Below is the full text of the subtitles used in the videos:

Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen: I greet you most heartily to today’s mourning event.

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Unity and justice and freedom

Für das deutsche Vaterland!
For the German fatherland!

Danach lasst uns alle streben
For these let us all strive

Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Brotherly with heart and hand!

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Unity and justice and freedom

Sind des Glückes Unterpfand;
Are the pledge of fortune;

Blüh’ im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Flourish in this fortune’s blessing,

Blühe, deutsches Vaterland!
Flourish, German fatherland!

Many thanks.

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage is the first to speak.

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage is a writer and among other things has written the book Das Dschihadsystem [“The Jihad System”]. Mr. Kleine-Hartlage I look forward to your words.

Dear Friends:

In normal times and under normal circumstances a day such as today, Remembrance Day (Volkstrauertag), would be a day of quiet remembrance and of mutual mourning for the people and their representatives.

In normal times it would be a day of prayer: for the dead of past wars and prayer that we might be spared future wars.

In normal times there would be unity concerning the meaning of remembrance days; there would be no necessity to hold political speeches on such a day, and thereby to speak about antagonisms.

In normal times it would not be necessary for us to gather before the Reichstag building in order to form a counterpoint to that which is happening in this building.

But the times are not normal. This Remembrance Day does not fall in a time of peace. It falls in a time of undeclared war which is being waged against the people of Europe.

It falls in times in which it is important even to make mere self-evident matters explicit; as for example, the self-evident truth that one feels bound to one’s own people in a special way, and that this has nothing to do with resentment against other peoples.

We live at a time in which even such self-evident understandings are not understood, for when one makes them explicit, a complete cartel of propaganda institutions work to defame the one who expresses them.

We live in times in which the people must fight for a chance to have any voice at all, because their so- called representatives put things in their mouths which they would never say on their own accord.

We are here today in order to give these people a voice, and hence today’s memorial cannot be a silent memorial, although we all would gladly have it so. Circumstances which we have not chosen, but which have been forced upon us, do not permit it.

That my name stands on the speaker’s list for our current Remembrance Day event is a chance event.

It could just as well have been on the list of victims of immigrant violence whose names are about to be read out today.

Two and a half years ago I was smashed up and kicked severely by a Nigerian. And he kicked and kicked and did not stop. The occasion for this explosion of hatred and violence was that I had asked him to turn down his music which blasted from his shop through the whole of Altstadt Spandau. What saved my life was the circumstance that a very athletically built former police officer came along by chance. He had the capability and the courage to intervene which, as we all know, is an extremely rare stoke of luck. And it is thanks to this stroke of luck that I stand here today.

The case is typical in three respects: the triviality of the occasion — the extreme brutality of the reaction — and the hatred for the indigenous population which explodes at the slightest occasion.

Certainly it is an isolated event in the sense that every single event, tautologically speaking, is an isolated event. But as a social scientist I cannot be content with mere tautologies. When thousands upon thousands of such so called “isolated events” follow a recognisable pattern: when again and again the same constellation arises, when again and again the same mentality is discernable, when again and again the perpetrator originates from the same groups, then I can not pretend the victims of such violence are only the victims of general criminality, like background noise, so to speak, such as there is, and always will be, in every society. For this violent criminality has to have identifiable social causes.

Up to this point even left and liberal do-gooders would presumably respond favourably. Their talk of the “social causes” of immigrant violence (in so far as this can be named as such at all) belongs to nothing less than their standard repertoire and to their standard set phrases. However we must emphasise one thing, and hold them to their word: those who attribute the violent criminality of immigrants to social causes admit accordingly that it is not just a matter of the oft-cited “isolated cases” which have nothing to do with each other, and which point to no recognisable pattern.

The ideology industry of our country will therefore have to decide between one of their two excuses, for they logically exclude one another. For it is also an excuse to speak of “social causes” to the extent that they are invoked by leftist ideologues.

When these ideologues — whether we are dealing with politicians, with journalists, with church representatives, with teachers or professors — when any of these speak of “social causes”, then they do it as a rule without having researched the real social causes. The catalogue of their so called social causes is extremely straightforward.

Immigrant violence exists — according to the prevailing discourse — because migrants are poor; the state does not do enough for their integration; because the fight against the Right is not conducted energetically enough; and — this above all — because the Germans are racists who discriminate against immigrants out of sheer malice.

I would just once like to see one of these ideologues name a single country in the world that is less racist than Germany! Just a single one! There is no other country in the world where one is as careful not to judge single individuals based on general opinions about an ethnic or religious group. Where else is it so important to a person as here not to be precluded by prejudice from seeing in every single one of his fellow men an individual, and not just a mere exemplar of a group to whom one ascribes some characteristics.

And yet this aversion to prejudices can even be quite dangerous. Take this Nigerian: were I to have harboured the prejudice that he would be violent no matter what, then I would not have gone to him at all, but would have called the police immediately. That I did not have this prejudice, THAT is what nearly cost me my life.

Just so that we get this straight: This is no plea that we be guided by prejudice in the future. Rather it is a plea to reject the blanket suspicion that the German people are a nation of racists, and to reject it for the absolutely racist defamation that it actually is, and which is pulled out of thin air.

The political Left never researches the real social causes of migrant violence; they take this violence mostly as an occasion to demand what they would demand and pursue anyway; namely, the expansion of the welfare state at the expense of the taxpayers, more permanent posts and more tax revenue for deserving comrades and their projects, the gagging of their political opponents, more propaganda, more censorship, and the intensified intimidation and defamation of their own people.

Part 2

Leftist ideologues always understand by the “social causes” of migrant violence only one thing: namely, that their ideology and their interests have not been sufficiently served.

It is not self-evident, and it does happen by itself, that men succeed in living together peacefully and in a well ordered manner; it is even an astonishing wonder they succeed time and again. Every culture is a fine tissue of thousands upon thousands of largely unwritten rules, moral concepts, common memories and shared convictions. Every culture is a unique, specific answer to the question of how man manages not to be wolf to man. And when I say “unique”, it means perforce that the answers for every culture turn out differently.

There are cultures in which the family clan and its unconditional cohesion are the foundation of the society’s protection of individuals; on the other hand, there are individualistically informed cultures such as ours, where people entrust this protection to the state and its laws; and it can entrust it to them, normally, because we depend on others to do the same thing.

There are cultures in which the capability and readiness to use violence has prestige value, and there are societies such as ours in which violence is proscribed.

There are cultures in which yielding qualifies as a sign of weakness, and there are societies like ours in which conflicts are considered as simple differences of opinion which at best are dealt with discursively, and at worst are brought before a court.

In this respect these other cultures do not necessarily function worse than ours, but just differently. Islam for example, as a cultural system, accomplishes that which a cultural system must: it orders the society. But it orders it differently than our Christian or Western system. The problems only begin where two, three, four or more different and incompatible cultures are forcibly confined together in the same country; that is, where there is the herding together of what does not belong together.

Whoever brings about a multiethnic state brings the society into a condition, at the very least, of a potential civil war. Whoever pursues this plunges the society into a permanent structural crisis which persistently intensifies with advancing mass immigration; he stirs up conflicts, he encourages vigilante justice, he destroys the societal consensus of values and he destroys the preconditions for social peace. Who teaches his children peaceableness does so on the basis of higher ethical values which in the end are anchored in Christianity. But whoever forces men raised for peacefulness to live together with others who come from violent cultures — like this Nigerian — such a person purposefully and systematically makes victims out of them, and he invites an infinite guilt upon himself.

The 7,500 Germans who since 1990 have become victims of immigrant violence are victims of a policy which is aimed at destroying the society — out of ideological blindness; out of greed for a cheap, easily exploitable workforce — whose situation is at the same time so precarious that the welfare state will ultimately collapse from excessive demand. This too is a desired outcome for certain people, a desired outcome of mass immigration: out of hatred for their own people; hatred of these damnable Germans, whom they wish to disown — not least — out of lust for power.

There is a reason why, in all Western countries, there is a functional elite which pursues the destruction of peoples and their transformation into mere fragmented “populations”: “Peoples”, namely, are solidarity communities, which can sometimes send their rulers packing. The battle cry with which the rulers in the East German Socialist Unity Party were toppled 23 years ago was not: “We are the population.” It was: “We are the people.”

A mere population consisting of dozens of ethnic groups in enmity with each other will never overthrow their rulers. They simply cannot do it. A democracy requires a demos, it requires a people. A despotism, on the other hand, a dictatorship, a totalitarian system — yes, that requires a population.

The destruction of peoples is one side of the coin the other side of which is the transference of their rights to supranatural institutions: to the European Union, the WTO, IMF, NATO, UN and dozens of others — all institutions which are not to be controlled from below, but which determine our lives: they prescribe for us the rules by which we have to live; they prescribe for us what foodstuffs we are to eat, with what people we have to coexist in our own country, against whom we are to wage war and into which inscrutable bank conglomerate our tax money disappears.

What is in the making here is a global despotism of elites which systematically eludes every responsibility and every safeguard. And part of this process is the systematically precipitated mass immigration, this largest-ever mass migration in 1,500 years (at that time this mass immigration led to the collapse of Roman civilisation).

Against today’s event it is argued that Remembrance Day is devoted to the mourning of German war victims, — and crime victims are not war victims. But I say — they are exactly that! They are victims of a war which is being waged against all the peoples of Europe, not just against the German people. But when I say that a war is being waged, I have also to answer the question as to who the enemy is.

Are the enemy young migrants who are waging their private jihad against a people whom they hold in contempt because those people bring up their children to be peaceable? I would say these are at most auxiliary troops, apropos the Antifa; the Autonomists; the Antideutschen; the fighters against the Right, pampered with tax money; and all the small leftist IM-types [Unofficial Collaborator-types for the Stasi = Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter] who only too gladly give full scope to the swine in men and allow free reign to their joy in self-righteousness, denunciation, mobbing and man-hunting. Such as these are the auxiliary troops.

Is the enemy perhaps in the Muslim Brotherhood, or in the Turkish government, or with the Milli Görüs [National Vision — Turkish nationalists]? I would say they are at most — but at least! — the staff of the auxiliary troops.

No, the enemy, which wages war against the people [Volk] sits here, in this building [the Reichstag], which is dedicated to just this very people [Volke]. And not only there: the enemy sits not only on government benches and in parliamentary seats, it sits also in the main editorial offices, professorships, in the head offices of banks and major corporations, in the EU bureaucracy, in the boards of multi-billion dollar propaganda foundations and the luxury villas of their financiers. The enemy is found in Berlin, Brussels, in New York, in Washington — it sits where the societal powers agglomerate, the visible power as well as the invisible.

The war, for whose victims we mourn today, is a rulers’ war, a war of tiny elites against the rest, it is a war of those in power against the people.

This Bundestag, this political class, which looks after the political affairs of the rich and powerful — this political class does not have the right at all to mourn for German dead, for they are not their dead! They do not have the right to organise a people’s day of mourning, for they have dissociated themselves from their people, they have deceived, betrayed, sold them and are working on their destruction. They have not even the right, as they now do, to mourn the foreign victims of extreme right-wing violence, for they also have these dead on their conscience. And the tears which they now shed are crocodile tears.

We mourn today for the victims of an extremely one-sided war. It is time for the peoples of Europe to embrace the unstated, but very effectively campaigned declaration of war made by their own so-called elites, and answer it adequately.

I thank you.

George Igler of Discourse was on Ezra Levant’s program tonight to talk about the Rotherham foster-care scandal in the UK:

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes.

From Little Notes from Paris, via Vlad Tepes:

Israeli mother makes human shield during incoming rocket attack from Gaza

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer sends his translation of an op-ed from today’s Dagbladet. He says, “The political elites in Norway and Europe are clearly getting very worried indeed.”

Note: This week’s conference in Budapest is specifically directed against what it calls “Fjordmen” — which means that this blog and others like it are in the crosshairs.

Funded by the Council of Europe, the conference will train and bankroll “watchdogs” to keep an eye on the likes of us. They are nothing less than the secular European version of the OIC’s “Islamophobia Observatory”.

I say: Let them watch!

They can’t watch us more intently than the elites of Norway have been doing for the past sixteen months. The klieg lights have been in my eyes for more than a year. I’m used to them.

Let them watch! Let them read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest!

They will discover nothing more than the truth. It’s there for all to see.

Here’s what Dagbladet says:

The Europe of hatred

by Torgeir Larsen

State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, (AP — Labour Party)

Social crisis, mass unemployment and young people without future prospects breed hatred and intolerance in Europe. And the symbolic face of the European hatred is Norwegian.

If there is something we owe the victims of July 22, then it has to be to stand up against extremism and the ideology of hatred in our very own Europe. This week we are doing just that in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. That’s where we and the Council of Europe greet researchers, online activists, organizations, the Department of Facebook of Europe, the European Broadcasting Union and many others. The theme is the fight against hate speech and intolerance in the public sphere, particularly on social media and on the web where Norwegian and European “Fjordmen” and organizations such as the Prophet’s Ummah spread their message.

Fifty European bloggers will also be there. They will receive training that will enable them to become “watchdogs” on the net, and monitor, report and oppose those that spread hatred, because the backdrop of contemporary Europe gives cause for concern.

Mass unemployment characterizes the continent. One out of every four Spaniards is unemployed, in Greece one in five are unemployed, and these two countries are followed by a large number of other European countries with unemployment rates between 10 and 20 percent. Several central and eastern European countries are also affected, but that crisis receives less attention because they are not part of the eurozone.

At the same time figures from OECD show that the wealth gap is increasing between generations and regions in Europe. The salary ratio in Europe is also falling, meaning that payment of wages relative to capital is on the decrease. This is especially noticeable for those at the lower end of the scale — young people trying to become established. It literally means bigger gaps between rich and poor and that those at the bottom are paying the highest price. The result is an increase in social pressure. The economic forecasts indicate that the crisis is here to stay and that we’re stuck with high unemployment rates. The prospect of real economic growth in the affected countries is nowhere to be seen, which means that we have only seen the beginning of the political consequences of the crisis.

Democracy is dependent on voters who feel represented by those they elect. Many feel resigned, faced with the current crisis. The belief in political solutions is fading virtually all over Europe, voter turnout has decreased, and studies carried out by the European Development Bank (EBRD) show a significant drop in trust and support for democratic institutions. Not surprisingly the effects are more noticeable in the newer European democracies. The combination of short democratic histories, social crisis and increasing wealth gaps give rise to anti-democratic forces. The pressure against minorities is increasing, the search for scapegoats intensifies and the European extreme-right movements have gained more influence.

Hungary is one such example. There the extreme right wing party Jobbik has received 20 percent of the overall vote. It is a nationalist and anti-Semitic party that, set against the Hungarian crisis, has managed to mobilize against the country’s large Roma population. We also remember the dread leading up to this summer’s European Soccer Championships in Poland and Ukraine where we feared that racists and neo-Nazis would win the battle for the soccer stands.

Another strong trait of today’s extreme-right movements in Europe is a strong anti-Muslim rhetoric. The French “Bloc Identitaire” has become known for serving “identity soup” containing pork to homeless people in France. This wing of the European extreme right has a long history in Europe — a history which Norway also is a part of. Faced with the necessary evaluation of the nation’s state of preparedness on July 22, 2011, we should not forget this — the political background to the tragedy.

It may be an uncomfortable realization, but we are certainly part of the history of the European extreme right. The term Quisling has for more than 70 years been a European and international expression. The symbolic face of the rise of the new extreme right in Europe of today is also Norwegian. Perform a quick Google search on the extreme right in Europe today and you’ll see why. Several of the texts that appear are illustrated with the face of the mass murderer of July 22. This requires that we commit ourselves, and we take that commitment very seriously.

Norway has made the fight against increasing intolerance and hatred in Europe to one of our main priorities on several different arenas. The Council of Europe is one of them. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) is another. The Foreign Ministry has also created a project for the protection of minorities which also includes continental Europe.

Furthermore, there are the EEA grants, Norway’s contribution to social and economic cohesion in the EU, a unique instrument at our disposal for the defense of tolerance, democracy and coexistence in Europe. In line with the democratic warning signs in some countries we have redirected our support towards civil society, to strengthen the legal protection of vulnerable groups and the integration of minorities. Separate funds have been established for NGOs in the Baltic countries and Central and Southern Europe. The main purpose of the funds is to report and document hatred and intolerance.

History never repeats itself. Yet we know how extremism rose in the vacuum that appeared when democracy faltered and the economy failed between the two world wars in the last century. In my opinion no one has described this more lucidly than the economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi in his book The Great Transformation from 1944. Here he shows how economic upheaval, extreme distribution problems and social fear produce opposing forces in the form of political extremism on the right and left, looking for scapegoats, populist “us-them” ideology, persecution of minorities and hatred.

July 22 showed us that democracy cannot be taken for granted — not today — and not even in Norway. The perpetrator has received his sentence, but the hatred lives on in a continent which is hit by mass unemployment, growing inequalities and social crisis. The fight against intolerance and extremism in Europe must be intensified. And that is a battle where Norway will lead the way, just as we are alongside the Council of Europe in Budapest this week.