Again, Books Must Be Burned

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Roland Tichy is a prize-winning German journalist known for his politically incorrect opinions. The following essay was published back in August on the author’s website. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

Again, Books Must Be Burned

by Roland Tichy

Books are burning again in Bad Dürrheim: 3,200 books of the City library were destroyed. To be fair, it must be said that we do not know whether they were shredded or actually burned. At any rate, the action took place publicly, like an ambush, planned beforehand and without the participation of the librarian. Librarian Regina Hofmann had to hastily open her library on the first day of her vacation. Then members of the government presidium sanitized its contents. The rationale was that this had to do with old travel guides, books that were dirty or were never taken out. Ultimately, it was said that this was about a “barrier-free configuration” in libraries, and space was needed for that.

False Writing Style Is Being Eradicated

In the past, Hofmann had culled 500 books to make room for new ones. But this time it is not the usual and understandable update. This procedure is targeting books with a “false” style. These are the ones that, for example contain the word “Negro.” It even affected Erich Kästner, author of such famous children books as The Flying Classroom, Anna Louise and Anton and Lottie and Lisa. Evidently, his books are considered in Baden-Württemberg to be provocative and an offense against the state-sponsored zeitgeist of re-education to political correctness in the schools.

Children’s books being sanitized — this has been going on for some years now. Otto Preußler’s children’s classics such as The Little Witch, Bandit Hotzenplotz or Krabat are being combed through, according to the publisher Klaus Willberberg of Stuttgart’s Thienemann-Publishing. Expressions such as “little Negro” are being deleted. The Hamburg publisher Friedrich Oetinger has also deleted obsolete words including “Negro” and “Gypsy” in all new editions since 2009, because they no longer correspond to the contemporary “picture of humanity and language usage, and could be misunderstood.” Even Maja the Bee is changed in the new edition. Apparently, literature is being sanitized retrospectively — books that are “false” from today’s point of view are banned from libraries.

Erich Kästner For The Second Time

This is not the first time for Erich Kästner. His books had already landed on the bonfires of the infamous Nazi book burning, which plundered the intellectual literary wealth of Germany, in an effort to prevent any form of free thought. And the dictatorship that followed the Nazis also liked burning literature: “On the evening of International Children’s Day in 1955, students and Young Pioneers of elementary school #18 in Berlin-Pankow threw dirty and trashy literature on the fire. They supplied the impetus for a wave of parental gatherings which demanded a ban on trashy and dirty literature in the territory of the German Democratic Republic.” That — as part of our background picture — is the text from East Germany’s General German News Agency.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/8/2015

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Spencer Stone, one of the American heroes who foiled a jihad attack on a French train in August, was attacked by several assailants outside a liquor store after leaving a gay bar in Sacramento. He was stabbed four times and sustained serious injuries, but is expected to survive. Mr. Spencer was reportedly protecting a female companion when he was stabbed.

In other news, four cruise missiles launched by Russia and aimed at targets in the Islamic State reportedly went off course and landed in Iran instead.

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Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, LP, Nick, RRN, 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.

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

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BPE Paper: The Tyranny of Bad Definitions

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Below is a paper presented by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Session 14 “Tolerance and non-discrimination II, including: Combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, also focusing on intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions”, Warsaw, September 30, 2015.

OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Working Session No. 14 Tolerance and non-discrimination II

The Tyranny of Bad Definitions

When working with topics as important as fundamental freedoms, it should be self-evident that one needs to apply very high standards of precision, caution and democratic principles. Failing that, the powerful tools of international law and human rights instruments may potentially fall prey to hostile intentions and misuse.

Overly broad or purposefully vague definitions lend themselves to misuse by enemies of free, secular societies, as has historically been the case in non-democratic societies in the past. Possibly the best known example of this is the term “enemy of the working class”, used by the Soviet Union to discredit, stigmatize and persecute the critics of a fundamentally broken system. As long as the Soviet system retained moral authority, this strategy worked. When the system was exposed, it failed.

In order to promote a genuine rule of law, democracy and freedom, the tools of international law need clear definitions and clear limits to the power that authorities hold over non-criminal citizens. In case of doubt, it is best to err on the side of caution — that is, on the side of less control, restriction and punishment, and in particular to uphold the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

Unclear definitions can be misused by governments and other institution of power to repress, marginalize and stigmatize inconvenient persons, their opinions, or even the topics they intend to discuss. Good laws and guidelines protect against such attacks on freedom of expression and media, whereas bad (usually overly broad) law will be used by enemies of freedom to further their goals.

We need to be able to recognize and counter such problems and strategies now, as we did before.

A side effect of the free exchange made possible by modern Internet media is that a mob mentality can arise in mere minutes, no longer moderated by the time it would traditionally take to print and distribute paper media. While this new freedom for everyone to express themselves is a fundamental good, it does place a special responsibility on media, and state/international actors in particular, to work and express themselves in a neutral manner, and in particular to have the courage to stand against even massive waves of negative opinion when the facts on the ground warrant it. An example would be the way the Danish government remained firm in the defense of free speech during the Mohammad Cartoon Crisis in 2005/2006.

States, state media and international actors carry a special responsibility in this area. These institutions are funded by taxpayers’ money, and it is routinely assumed that documents and statements from such sources carry great expertise and authority. This also implies that if enemies of freedom and democracy are able to find loopholes in official definitions, documents or laws, those flaws may be exploited to work against the fundamental OSCE principles of freedom and democracy.

The appendix of this paper is a list of terms frequently used in international human rights work, including OSCE documents such as the Annotated Agenda for this conference. Some terms, such as Discrimination, have well established meanings which can be looked up in dictionaries. Others, such as Rightwing extremism, are defined by the institutions that use them.

Note that some terms, including Bias and Incitement, have one definition in general use, but a different definition when used by OSCE or other international institutions. This duality of definition is problematic, for the causal reader will apply the commonly used definition, while the document actually uses a different one. This divergence of meaning can be used by parties hostile to freedom and democracy to create documents with facially neutral language that can be exploited to subvert freedom in our societies. Examples of this include the documents for the Istanbul Process and the Rabat Plan of Action, which are built on the term ‘Incitement’ from article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Even a quick reading of the appendix should make it clear that many problems exist. For example:

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How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?

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The German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) had a nice little arrangement with the “refugees”, supporting their demands and (presumably) expecting them to join a union and vote for the friends of the DGB when they finally become “Germans”.

Unfortunately, the migrants didn’t get everything they wanted, or at least not fast enough, so they decided to occupy DGB headquarters. After that things got ugly, and the union people were not at all happy with the behavior of their culture-enriching comrades.

Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

For the origin of the title of this post, see Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.

Transcript:

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Physician, Heal Thyself

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The following report from Czech Independent TV provides an eyewitness report from a Czech doctor on conditions in Munich hospitals since the current wave of “refugees” began to arrive in Germany. This is the story that the German legacy media have not been reporting — and, if this account is true, that’s because media outlets are actually prohibited from reporting on what’s happening.

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

Transcript:

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Uprising Against Merkel’s Refugee Policy

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The following article from yesterday’s Bild outlines the political difficulties German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing due to the “refugee” crisis. As JLH, who translated the piece, points out, “When Bild prints an article like this, you know that Merkel is in serious trouble.”

Uprising Against Merkel’s Refugee Policy

by Karsten Riechers and Andreas Thewalt
October 7, 2015

Chancellor Angela Merkel has to manage a marathon program today in the refugee crisis. Her day of stress began with a cabinet meeting in Berlin, in which she made Head of the Chancellery Peter Altmaier the refugee coordinator. Then she hurried to Strasbourg and gave a long speech before the European Parliament.

Her key message to the continent: “We are facing a challenge of historic proportions.”

Then in the evening, the finale on TV: Before a public of millions this evening in the ARD program, “Anne Will”, the chancellor intends to explain her course in refugee policy.

There is tense speculation on whether she will repeat her controversial statement: “We can do it!”

Cabinet Decision: Refugee Policy Is the Leader’s Affair

The chancellor must urgently intensify her efforts to convince.

Because concurrence with her refugee policy is crumbling in her own ranks and resistance in the CDU and CSU is growing.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/7/2015

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the Dublin regulations — Schengen Area rules that prescribe the process for handling immigrants — have become obsolete. She says current circumstances require Europe-wide solutions, rather than actions by individual nations.

In other news, Russian naval forces struck the Islamic State with cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, almost a thousand miles away from their targets.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Vederso, VM, 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.

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

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Migration Madness

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If you appreciate this essay by Fjordman, please consider making a donation to him, using the button at the bottom of this post.

Migration Madness
by Fjordman

In 2010, Kingsley Okoro left his native Nigeria in West Africa and traveled across the Sahara. With the aid of people smugglers, he crossed the Mediterranean in a rubber dinghy in search of a better life in Europe. Five years later, his dream of a better life in Denmark did not come true. Now, he has a new dream: To return to Nigeria and be reunited with his five-year-old son, whom he left behind. “Life in Denmark has given me mixed feelings. Denmark itself is not the problem. People are very friendly. The problem is that I am not able to adapt to the system,” the bottle collector Okoro says. “I did not know it was this hard to get want you wanted in Europe. I thought it would take a couple of months, then I would get a house and a car. But it takes time.”[1]

Maybe it comes as a surprise to some Africans, but not all Europeans have a car and a house, either. Those that do usually work far longer than a couple of months to earn it. A long time ago, Europe was a civilization of ancient nations that produced the likes of Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, Ludwig van Beethoven and Louis Pasteur. These days, Europe seems to be a place where Nigerians, Somalis, Congolese, Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis travel to get free stuff handed to them from the natives.

On October 6, 2015, thousands of people marched in Copenhagen to demand that Denmark be more open to migrants. Carrying torches, demonstrators shouted slogans like: “Say it loud and clear, refugees are welcome here.” A cheer went up as thousands entered the public square outside of Parliament.

At the same time, some of these “refugees” were complaining about the level of service they were being provided by the taxpayers in Finland. The asylum seekers mainly seem to be young Muslim men coming from such vibrant places as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. One of them was filmed stating that “We want our money” and that the UN must help them in getting what they want.[2] Some of the migrants complain that the food they get served for free is suitable only for animals, that the country is too cold, too boring or that there are too many trees.

In Sweden, the authorities resort to increasingly desperate options to accommodate the vast numbers of migrants, including sports centers and campsites. One of the bureaucrats in charge of dismantling the Swedish nation is Anders Danielsson. He was head of the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) from 2007 to 2012 and is currently Director General of the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket). By October 2015, more than one thousand asylum seekers were arriving daily in Sweden.[3] Danielsson is organizing the reception of so many asylum seekers that they may soon turn his own people into a minority in Sweden. Mr. Danielsson is so proud of contributing to this that he compares himself to Winston Churchill. Churchill fought against an invasion of his country; he did not facilitate it. The Swedish Migration Agency decided that every single person from Syria should get permanent residency immediately. They informed the government about their decision, Danielsson comments. He says in plain words that they “must ignore the consequences” of their own decisions.[4]

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Motets Instead of Mohammed

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From the comments, a video:

Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the godly!
2 Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
3 Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
5 Let the godly exult in glory;
let them sing for joy on their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats
and two-edged swords in their hands,
7 to execute vengeance on the nations
and punishments on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with chains
and their nobles with fetters of iron,
9 to execute on them the judgment written!
This is honour for all his godly ones.
Praise the Lord!

Ritamalik also says, in response to the Muslim cleric who hates music:

I waste no time by arguing to this fanatical Muslim Neanderthal, but instead I let the great Johann Sebastian Bach answer him with Psalm 149 about how the REAL God feels about music!

Indeed. Even those who do not share her religious beliefs still share her enthusiasm for Bach’s rendering of Psalm 149. My Gregorian Chant music director would often remind us that the Psalms are songs and dances,and that singing them is praying twice.

It is difficult indeed to warm to anyone who, for reasons of dogma, hates or reviles music. That is just one reason the Chinese will always be several steps ahead of Islam’s plans. For them Western music is an important facet of educating the whole child.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if China became the repository of Western culture’s art forms? Just as the barbarians saved Roman and Greek knowledge, it can only be partial, but that is better than obliteration. All that Islam comprehends is obliteration.

The Urgent Need for Security, Sovereignty and Defensible Borders

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Below is a paper presented by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Session 12 “Combating Hate Crimes and Ensuring Effective Protection against Discrimination”, Warsaw, September 29, 2015.

Working Session No. 12

Specifically Selected Topic: Combating Hate Crimes and Ensuring Effective Protection against Discrimination

Warsaw, September 29, 2015

The urgent need for security, sovereignty and defensible borders

The Annotated Agenda for this session rightly focuses on the extreme escalation of the refugee inflow to our countries, and rightly notices that even the first step of dealing with the migrants is a severe financial liability to our countries. So, while BPE previously focused on issues of democracy, citizens’ rights and protecting the secular state, recent developments have caused an urgent need to focus more on the harder aspect of security and the profound risks of massive immigration. While we will need to use some harder words than previously, and challenge some of the premises given in the Annotated Agenda, BPE remains firmly committed to the founding principles of the OSCE: Working for the security and freedom for citizens of the OSCE participating States.

First of all, it is a clear principle of international law and of OSCE that every nation has the right to live within well-defined and secure borders. However, even that principle seems to be crumbling under the pressure of immigration. The lofty ideal of the Schengen system was that the external borders of the Schengen area would be strongly defended against illegal immigration, in order that internal border control could be eliminated. This system has already collapsed, with Hungary and several other member states making independent efforts to defend their national borders. Given the current security situation and the lack of external border control, this is a logical protective move.

One security issue of particular concern is the fact that the Islamic State has declared that it will send warriors and would-be terrorists along with the immigrants currently entering our countries. These radical Islamists are to be sent here in order to establish and strengthen terrorist networks, and to organize terrorist attacks on our institutions, media and non-Islamic organisations. The recent terrorist attacks on “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris, on an art and freedom conference in Krudttønden, Copenhagen, and on a Copenhagen synagogue demonstrate clearly the kind of attacks the Islamic State and their supporters have in mind. This threat is a cause of severe insecurity, in the here and now.

Given the worsening security situation and the declared intentions of several Islamic organisations, we are faced with some very difficult dilemmas. The ideal situation, as outlined in the Annotated Agenda, would be that terrorism, severe forms of discrimination and other human rights problems cannot rightly be associated with any particular religion. The reality, unfortunately, is different: According to the statistics at the statistics web site The Religion of Peace, almost 27,000 lethal terrorist attacks have been committed in the name of Islam since September 11th 2001. This is an atrocity, and the severest of security problems.

And while there is no doubt that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and do not intend to commit terrorism, a worrisome minority of Muslims does. According to a 2013 PEW survey, 32 percent of Muslims have a positive view of the violent anti-Semitic organisation Hamas. Even in Turkey, which is usually considered a relatively secular Muslim country, 16 percent of Muslims polled support the use of suicide bombings in support of Islam. This public support of terrorism should be a topic of major concern, in OSCE and elsewhere.

Considering the facts on the ground, any rational and unbiased analysis of the security situation leads to the conclusion that the politically correct policy of abstaining from profiling must be abandoned. This was pointed out as early as 2006 by the Serbian-American political scholar Serge Trifkovic in his seminal book Defeating Jihad, but we have not yet found the courage to do so. We urgently need to discriminate between the dangerous and the benign, between friends and enemies of democracy, between constructive and destructive behaviour. Profiling is a necessity for our security, now.

Another radical consequence of the migration wave is that citizens in European countries are now being evicted from their homes by the authorities. As an example, the German city of Nieheim recently used Eminent Domain to evict Bettina Halbei from her home in order to accommodate the newcomers. While the evictions are being battled in court to challenge their legality, the approach as such is certain to increase resentment and the risk of hate crimes against immigrants. Conversely, abstaining from such practices would contribute significantly to the prevention of hate crimes.

Related, the ongoing migration crisis has the potential to dramatically increase the problems of discrimination and intolerance. However, these problems must be analysed with great caution, for in contrast to “Hate crime”, which by definition (hatecrime.osce.org: “Hate crimes always require a base offence to have occurred. If there is no base offence, there is no hate crime.”) contains an explicit criminal element, discrimination and intolerance do not. It is thus unfortunate to treat criminal and non-criminal phenomena as if they were of equal severity, which they are not.

In fact, there are many situations where discrimination is just and proper, for example:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/6/2015

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The European Union is negotiating with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an attempt to obtain Turkish help in slowing down the flow of migrants into Europe. The EU is offering to pour billions more into Turkish refugee camps in the hope that the migrants will remain in Turkey. Meanwhile, Frontex has called for EU countries to deploy 775 more frontier guards to help identify and register “refugees” when they reach European soil.

In other news, five people have been arrested in Australia on terrorism charges in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of a police employee by an Iraqi-Kurdish “youth” in a Sydney suburb.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JFJ, MC, MT, Nick, TP, 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.

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

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/5/2015

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Sweden has told ten Stockholm gymnasiums, which are normally used to house evacuees during emergencies, to stand by to receive some of the “refugees” that are entering the country at the rate of a thousand per day. Meanwhile, Denmark has tightened its citizenship rules, making it harder for immigrants to become full-fledged Danish citizens.

In other news, the city of Casablanca in Morocco cancelled its first-ever beer festival, on the grounds that it would not be in compliance with the law, and would be offensive to Muslims.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, LP, Vlad Tepes, 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.

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

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