Last year saw a number of instances of “vehicular jihad” in Europe, with the worst attacks being in Nice and Berlin. In response, the civic authorities brought in the cranes and dropped big concrete blocks — what we call “Jersey barriers” in the USA — all over the downtown areas of major cities in Western Europe.
When special events take place, such as festivals, rock concerts, parades, etc., additional barriers are set up on a temporary basis. But the ones in high-traffic shopping districts or tourist zones look to become permanent fixtures, and as a result, municipal governments are trying to pretty them up — putting lipstick on the ubiquitous pig of Islamic terrorism.
In Denmark the authorities refer to such barriers as “terror-blocks”, but Danes being Danes, the popular term for them is “Koran-blocks” (koranklodser).
The following article from Fyens Stiftstidende makes the case for keeping the Koran-blocks ugly.
Many thanks to Tania Groth for the translation:
“Koran-blocks” should not be pretty — they should be ugly
In 2005, the street artist Banksy decorated the Israeli security wall that Israel had built around Bethlehem and Jerusalem to keep terrorists from Palestine out. The wall has proven effective in reducing the number of Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel, but it has also caused a number of inconveniences for Palestinians in general, so as Banksy painted on the security wall, an elderly Palestinian man addressed the artist.
Old man: You’re painting the wall. You make it look beautiful. Banksy: Thanks. Old man: We do not want the wall to be beautiful. We hate this wall. Go home.
In Denmark in 2017 we have experienced an explosion in terrorism related security measures in the form of raw concrete structures to ensure that terrorists cannot drive trucks into pedestrians and participants in events in major cities. These concrete blocks are what the media call terror-blocks, while the in popular lingo they have been renamed Koran-blocks, as attacks perpetrated by using lorries and vans almost all (with one exception) have been carried out by devout Muslim terrorists. You can now experience these Koran-blocks on Strøget (pedestrian street), Nyhavn, at Tivoli Gardens and Copenhagen Central Station.
In Aalborg, a Koran-block has been placed at the end of the entertainment-heavy street Jomfru Ane Gade, and the entire city of Aalborg was literally littered with this type of counter terror measure during the recently completed DGI sports event — and the concrete blocks were also used during the carnival in May. The concrete blocks are not pretty. They are raw and look like foreign objects in a city’s environment. In addition, they obviously lead our thoughts to the terror that often hits European cities. In front of Tivoli they have enclosed these blocks in green boxes with the name of Tivoli printed upon them. These green boxes also function as benches. At the DGI event, the municipality covered the Koran-blocks with cloth advertising the municipality of Aalborg. At Rådhuspladsen [City Hall square] in Copenhagen, the company Tag Tomat have been remodeling one of the Koran-blocks so that it appears as a wooden-covered bench with a bicycle rack and flower bed.
“The idea is that we want to remove people’s fears of war and terror. War and terror exist, but if we change people’s fear and anxiety, we can make them communicate more,” says Anne Tange from Tag Tomat about the remodelling.
In Nyhavn, where the raw Koran-blocks had stood raw, after a few weeks they painted the blocks dark green. The text “Nyhavn” and a heart in gold are painted onto the dark green bottom. This is, in the words of Snaphanen an attempt to make terrorism appear “cute”.
As a society, we should ask ourselves whether security measures against terrorism should be beautiful. Or if these measures against terrorism, out of principle, should be ugly. There is something quite bizarre in utilizing, aesthetizing and — indirectly — idealizing the terrorist threat and the need for anti-terrorism measures such as these. Basically, the concrete elements have a raw and temporary character. As we embellish the concrete elements and make them into benches and advertising pillars, we also as a society accept these counter-terrorist measures as being of a more permanent character, thereby giving up the hope that the terrorist threat and the need for security measures against terrorism is a transient phase that will be replaced by more peaceful conditions within a reasonable period of time.
It is a sign of defeat, not for the terrorists, but for the idea that our free and open Western society is only suffering a temporary setback. Therefore, these Koran-blocks should not be pretty. They have to be ugly. It preserves the hope that terrorism is temporary and that the terror is merely a passing phase.
Photo ©Snaphanen.
I’m not a big fan of our former London Mayor, and current Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson. However, following the vehicular jihad on London Bridge, he was criticised for having had the previous, ugly barriers removed, even though that decision was taken before there were any such attacks, either in the UK or, I believe, elsewhere in Europe.
As to keeping such barriers “uglified” (with apologies to Lewis Carroll), I suspect we may have to live with them for a long time to come, so maybe there’s a case for making them less obtrusive. The old, New Scotland Yard building (now being demolished) had them for many years, but in the form of planters.
I’m of the opposite opinion. If it remains ugly it may promote the citizenry rising against the politicians who perpetrated the terrorists on the public by deliberate importation of a debased civilization for their own ease in stealing the populace’s freedoms. You need reminding daily of what’s at stake.
Western Europe is beginning to resemble Israel, where things are architecturally designed so as to minimise casualties.
“Flowerpots” and other similar features.
Who, 20 years ago, would have imagined…
EVIL-ISLAM: “Who, 20 years ago, would have imagined”…We awaken, slumber no more….
Perfect title for a book, or a massive series of articles, taking islam apart, piece by ugly evil satanic piece…..
There is an additional book there, in that phrase, Mike.
Koran Blocks how totally apropos, along with “muslim moderators”…..
Who, twenty years ago, would have imagined…
Twenty years ago… in Israel or Europe?
By then, there were already rumblings among the Algerians and the French Algerians, for that matter. While France’s leaders ignored both.
Here, a look at 1997:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997
The ’90s were a horrific time in Algeria, the natives let me know that when I was there.
I always found that hard to fathom, because I thought the ’90s in the US were largely terrific, and I enjoyed going through high school and college during the second half of that decade.
A lot of people actually imagined and tried to warn about what was going to happen, even long before 20 years ago. Problem is they were treated as fools or racists or whatever the PC culture called them.
In the meantime the same PC culture got people to focus on other “problems” : just think of the number of movies that resolved around “global warming” and “climate change.”
Couldn’t they make them to look like animals? Pigs and dogs would be my choice.
I was just thinking the same. Where I live, it used to be ok even for officials to call these pig sized concrete obstacles by their nicname “concrete pigs”. We had them mainly as a moderate purpose of directing traffic. This was the time before vehicular jihad arrived in Europe. Since those times, and after muslim economic migrants began to arrive with relatively huge numbers, it is now become a tabu to call those small harmless obsicles by that nickname. Heil political correctness 🙁
We’re getting them in Melbourne. Thanks to the Danes for giving them a name.
The B and I have always known them as “Jersey barriers”. This name may have arisen because of their ubiquitous presence in the nigh-eternal building of the New Jersey Turnpike, a particularly ugly road that gave many people from out-of-state a mistaken perception of New Jersey itself.
Actually, the New Jersey Turnpike doesn’t use Jersey barriers. But there are many roads in New Jersey which don’t allow left-hand turns at all, so there’s no reason to cross the median of such a road. Jersey barriers, thus, serve as forcefully enforced highway medians.
A joke among New Yorkers in response to Pennsylvania’s tourism ad, “You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania” is “Yeah, he’s the guy you met because you couldn’t turn around in New Jersey.”
I’m now in DC. Sadly, Jersey barriers barricade nearly every government or tourism-centered building in town. I prefer to call them, “Dhimmi barriers.”
Koran blocks, need verses from the koran etched on them.
Then people will know why they are there.
Perhaps done in a way as a pedestrian winds his way past them, one might glean what the koran is really about.
An infidel verse here, a dhimmi verse there, subjection of woman, a looting verse, jewish anger of Allah, christians causing mischief, abrogating verses, etc.
Templates in cardboard with the verses cut into them in the arabic writing could be clandestinely made and distributed to european patriots. Then thus armed along with a can of spraypaint, the Koran blocks could be marked every night so it will become obvious to those still asleep why they are there.
Let the authorities make a scene of removing the koranic graffiti daily; they dare not make announcement of it lest others start doing the same, and prosecution is unlikely since the graffiti is religious verses from the koran calling for antisocial behaviors.
Why not ‘lan astaslem’?
“We will not surrender”
Plus a few more relevant Churchill quotes 😉
The very act of emplacing Koran blocks everywhere instead of deporting Koran readers is demonstration of surrender.
I consider it a work-around until the Danes figure out how to get out from under the iron yoke of the EU.
Spray paint the blocks with Berlin Wall slogans. Make the passers-by realize they’re in a time warp, and ” We are all East Germans now “.
I like
Nothing is permanent on our planet and these are temporary as well. The ugly ” permanence ” is artistically necessary because it reminds the observer the otherwise placid streets now contain the danger and aggression we associate with war, that eternal plague. The barriers look like little Berlin Walls, don’t they?
Just as Communism seemed a visitation from another world where fear and hate ruled, so Islam does as well. Communism perverted the European rational heritage; Islam pretends it doesn’t exist at all, period. We could talk and negotiate with Communism because it spoke with the language of historicism. It told us we needed to sharpen our intellectual abilities to understand and shape the world around us. Some arrogant types ( such as the Oxford Five ) bought in and spied against us. By way of contrast, the Koranians ( my word ) are at root Fatalists, and thus think human freedom doesn’t exist. They don’t even want to credit their rescuers with the generosity of humanism. Hardly. It was all Ollie’s doing, ya know. He deserves all the laurels.
Dr. Warner says to put Psychopath Mohamd’s violent verses on the blocks. Koran Chapter 9 is loaded with them. Reminds every one what they are up against.
Does Baron Bodissey have a Facebook page? I would like to share this on FB. Thank you.
No, we closed it down when it became obvious Face Ache is a Leftist front. The promise made by Zuckerberg to report to Merkel any Germans who got out of line re immigration was one evil step too far. Not to mention their “curated” news.
We never ran the page anyway; didn’t know the passwords. It was handled by a volunteer admin in Oz and neither of us could remember to check it out.
I joined Farcebook about a year ago, after a number of years of insistence by my best friend, who is functionally deaf and communicates with friends and family via that medium. I use fabricated personal info to retain a bit more privacy.
I use it basically to attempt to educate others about the vile cult known as islam. I also do the same for AGW/global warming/climate change/etc. When I refer to FB’s creator, I call him “MotherZucker”. So far, I have not been shut down or harassed, although I have had a photo removed because it “violated community standards”. (It was a photo of a hot air balloon that had the appearance of a rather plump female nether end, dressed in a thong and fancy nylons.)
All of my posts are public, and I copy posts, articles, and comments of others that speak to the facts of the dangers of islam, of believing in “climate change”, and of the hundreds of years the Left has worked so diligently to subvert freedom anywhere it has made an appearance.
I realize I don’t have much of a following, or MotherZucker’s little gnomes would have cancelled my account, but I have been successful in causing a few people to consider islam as something dangerous and evil. That is my concession to mucking about in one the Left’s open cesspools. No, I don’t do Twitter or any of the other social media platforms.
I try to keep my Facebarf posting as apolitical as possible, because a lot of the people I grew up with turned out extremely pozzed by the Prog agenda. I also try to curate their lunatic left postings off my news feed.
Waste-high concrete mushroom-shaped blocks are all over the residential intersections of Berkeley, California, for the purpose of getting drivers to not take certain streets and to avoid quiet the neighborhoods… rather political too, I think, as they are only in good areas of town.
They are actually serving to diagnose drivers with early Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s and to subsidize auto-body repair shops.