Archive for the ‘Europe’ category

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The West’s Politically Correct Dictatorship

December 6, 2016

The West’s Politically Correct Dictatorship, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, December 6, 2016

The brave work of the artist Mimsy was removed from London’s Mall Galleries after the British police defined it “inflammatory.”

In France, schools teach children that Westerners are Crusaders, colonizers and “bad.” In their efforts to justify the repudiation of France and its Judeo-Christian culture, schools have fertilized the soil in which Islamic extremism develops and flourishes unimpeded.

No one can deny that France is under Islamist siege. Last week, France’s intelligence service discovered another terror plot. But what is the priority of the Socialist government? Restricting freedom of expression for pro-life “militants.”

Under this politically correct dictatorship, Western culture has established two principles. First, freedom of speech can be restricted any time someone claims that an opinion is an “insult.” Second, there is a vicious double standard: minorities, especially Muslims, can freely say whatever they want against Jews and Christians.

There is no better ally of Islamic extremism than this sanctimony of liberal censorship: both, in fact, want to suppress any criticism of Islam, as well as any proud defense of the Western Enlightenment or Judeo-Christian culture.

Twitter, one of the vehicles of this new intolerance, even formed a “Trust and Safety Council.” It brings to mind Saudi Arabia’s “Council for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.”

Under this political correctness, the only “win-win” is for political Islam.

It might look like a golden age for free speech: more than a billion tweets, Facebook posts and blogs every day. But beneath this surface, freedom of expression is dramatically retreating.

Students at the City University of London, home to one of Britain’s most respected schools of journalism, voted to ban three newspapers from its campus: The Sun, Daily Mail and Express. Their “crime”, according to the approved motion, is to have published stories against migrants, “Islamophobic” articles, and “scapegoating the working classes that they so proudly claim to represent.” City University, supposedly a place dedicated to openness and questioning, became the first Western educational institution to vote for censorship, and ban “right wing newspapers.”

The filmmaker David Cronenberg called this self-censorship, after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo: “a weird, serpentine political correctness.” It is one of the most lethal ideological poisons of the 21st century. It is not only closed-minded and ridiculous, it makes us blind to the radical Islam that is undermining our mental and cultural defenses.

The countless attacks by Muslim extremists testify that the multicultural world to which we have been led is a fiction. Political correctness simply encourages the Islamists to raise the stakes to win the war they are advancing. The resulting tension has been fed by the Western elites with their sense of guilt for “colonialism” in the Third World.

“ISIS Threaten Sylvania” — an art exhibition featuring cute little stuffed animals picnicking on a lawn, and unaware of other cute little stuffed animal terrorists carrying assault rifles on a knoll just behind them — is the work of the artist known as Mimsy (she hides her identity). The protagonists of this series of light box tableaux are a family of stuffed animal dolls that inhabits an enchanted valley. Gunmen, dressed like the Islamic State henchmen, strike the innocent inhabitants of the valley, at school and on the beach, at a picnic or in a gay pride parade. It looks like an updated version of Maus by Art Spiegelman, a graphic novel depicting Nazi cats and Jewish mice during the Holocaust.

Those wishing to see this artistic panel at the Mall Galleries, in London, will now have to console themselves with the work of Jamie McCartney, “The Great Wall Vagina,” nine meters of female genitalia, less important and less provocative.

The brave work of Mimsy, after the British police defined it “inflammatory,” has been eliminated from the program of this London cultural event. Its organizers informed the gallery owners that if they wanted to put it on display, they would have to shell out £36,000 ($46,000) to “secure the venue” for the six days of the exhibition.

2101The brave work of the artist Mimsy, satirizing the brutality of ISIS, was removed from London’s Mall Galleries after the British police defined it “inflammatory.” (Image source: Mimsy)

Under this politically correct dictatorship, Western culture has established two principles. First, freedom of speech can be restricted any time someone claims that an opinion is an “insult.” Second, there is a vicious double standard: minorities, especially Muslims, can freely say whatever they want against Jews and Christians.

And so it came to pass that the most famous Spanish football team, Real Madrid, removed the cross from its crest after a commercial deal with Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Christian symbol was quickly ditched to please the Islamic Gulf sponsors.

Perhaps soon the West will be soon asked to change the flag of the European Union — twelve yellow stars on a blue background — because it contains a Christian message in code. Arsène Heitz, who designed it in 1955, was inspired by the Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary with a crown and twelve stars on her head: what a heartless “Western Christian supremacist” message!

Political correctness is also having a huge impact on big business: Kellogg’s withdrew advertising from Breitbart for being “not aligned with our values” and Lego dropped advertising with Daily Mail, to mention just two recent cases.

It should not cause alarm if companies want to decide where to advertise their products, but it is very alarming when it happens due to “ideology.” We have never read about companies abandoning a newspaper or website because it was too liberal or “leftist.” If the Arab-Islamic regimes were follow these views, why should they not ask their companies to stop advertising in Western newspapers that publish articles critical of Islam, or which publish pictures of half-naked women?

Libraries on US campuses are now putting “trigger warnings” on works of literature: students are advised, for example, that Ovid’s sublime Metamorphosis “justifies” rape. Stanford University even managed to exclude Dante, Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and other giants of Western culture from the academic curricula in 1988: supposedly many of their masterpieces are “racist, sexist, reactionary, repressive.” This is the vocabulary of Western surrender before totalitarian Islamic fundamentalism.

France has removed great figures, such as Charlemagne, Henry IV, Louis XIV and Napoleon, from schools, to replace them, for instance, with studying the history of Mali and other African kingdoms. At school, children are taught that Westerners are Crusaders, colonizers and “bad.” In purportedly justifying the repudiation of France and its Judeo-Christian culture, schools have fertilized the soil in which Islamic extremism develops and flourishes unimpeded.

It is a question of priorities: no one can deny that France is under Islamist siege. Last week, France’s intelligence service discovered another terror plot. But what is the priority of the Socialist government? Restricting freedom of expression for pro-life “militants.” The Wall Street Journal called it “France’s War on Anti-Abortion Speech.” France already has one of the most permissive and liberal bodies of legislation on abortion. But political correctness makes one blind and ideological. “In four and a half years, the Socialists have reduced our freedom of expression and attacked public freedoms,” commented Riposte Laïque.

In the US, academia is rapidly closing its doors to any debate. At Yale, professors and students these days are very busy with a new cultural emergency: “renaming.” They are changing the name of buildings to erase all traces of slavery and colonialism — a revisionism out of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

Everywhere in the US and in the UK, an air of hostility is spreading against opinions and ideas that could cause even a hint of distress in students. The result is the rise of what a writer such as Bret Easton Ellis called “Generation Wuss“.

The jihadists surely grin at this Western political correctness, since the result of this ideology will be the abolition of the Western critical spirit and a surreal reeducation of the masses through the annihilation of our history and a hatred of our truly liberal past.

Bristol University in the UK just came under fire for attempting to “no-platform” Roger Scruton for his views on same-gender marriage. Meanwhile, British universities are giving a platform to radical Islamic preachers. In the politically correct universe, conservative thinkers are more dangerous than ISIS supporters. London’s former mayor, Boris Johnson, called this dystopia “the Boko Haram of political correctness.”

Students and faculty at the Rutgers University in New Jersey cancelled a speech by former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Students and professors at Scripps College in California protested the presence of another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who, according to the protesters, is a “war criminal.”

A New York University professor, Michael Rectenwald, who attacked political correctness and the coddling of students, was recently booted from the classroom after his colleagues complained about his “incivility”. The liberal studies professor was forced to go on paid leave. “It’s an alarming curtailment of free expression to the point where you can’t even pretend to be something without authorities coming down on you in the universities,” Rectenwald told the New York Post.

There is no better ally of Islamic extremism than this sanctimony of liberal censorship: both, in fact, want to suppress any criticism of Islam, as well as any proud defense of the Western Enlightenment or Judeo-Christian culture.

Censorship is happening not only in the liberal enclaves on the coasts of the United States, but also in France. The Eagles of Death Metal — the American band that was performing at Paris’ Bataclan Theater when ISIS terrorists murdered 89 people there on November 13, 2015 — were banned by two music festivals: Rock en Seine and Cabaret Vert. The reason? Jesse Hughes, the band’s frontman, gave a very politically incorrect interview:

“Did your French gun control stop a single f*cking person from dying? I think the only thing that stopped it was some of the bravest men that I’ve ever seen charging head-first into the face of death with their firearms. I think the only way that my mind has been changed is that maybe until nobody has guns everybody has to have them. Because I’ve never seen anyone that’s ever had one dead, and I want everyone to have access to them, and I saw people die that maybe could have lived, I don’t know.”

After the jihadist massacre at Orlando’s Pulse gay nightclub, Facebook enforced the pro-Islamic injunction and banned a page of the magazine Gaystream, after it had published an article critical of Islam in the wake of the bloodbath. Gaystream‘s director, David Berger, had heavily criticized the director of the Gay Museum in Cologne, Birgit Bosold, who had told German media that gays should be more frightened of white bigoted men than of Islamic extremists.

Jim Hoft, a gay journalist who is the creator of the popular Gateway Pundit blog, was suspended from YouTube. Twitter, one of the vehicles of this new intolerance, suspended the account of Milo Yiannopoulos, a prominent gay critic of Islamic fundamentalism — but probably not the accounts of Islamic fundamentalists who criticize gays. Twitter even formed a “Trust and Safety Council.” It brings to mind Saudi Arabia’s “Council for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.” Could it be an inspiration for the liberal mullahs?

Yes, it might have looked like a golden age for free speech. But under this dictatorship of political correctness, the only “win-win” is for political Islam.

Categories: "Right wing extremists", "Unacceptable rhetoric" about Muslims, Censorship, Europe, Europe and Islam, European "democracy", European left, European Union, Islamism, Media and Islam, Media and Islamist terror, Obama's America, Political correctness, Political Islam, Western civilization
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

The Death of the Leftist Project (at Least for Now)

November 26, 2016

The Death of the Leftist Project (at Least for Now), PJ Media, Michael Walsh, November 25, 2016

deathvalleyWelcome to Death Valley. You may be here a while (Shutterstock)

The real “leftist ideal” was the European superstate known as the EU, a more benign form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that collapsed in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the Washington Post quoted here doesn’t see it that way, everything since then has been a gradual dissolution, as the Americans — and now, the somnambulist Europeans — have awakened to find a void at the center of their existence.

**************************

Goodbye, so long, auf wiedersehen, farewell —

When Donald Trump shocked the world with an upset victory in the U.S. presidential election this month, much of Europe was aghast. But in at least one critical sense, the result couldn’t have been more European: Across the continent, parties of the center-left that have dominated politics for decades — and that have given Europe its reputation for generous social welfare systems — now find themselves beaten, divided and directionless. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are just the latest members of a beleaguered club.In Germany and Britain, once-mighty center-left parties have been badly diminished, locked out of their nations’ top jobs for the foreseeable future. In Spain and Greece, they have been usurped by newer, more radical alternatives. And in France and Italy, they’re still governing — but their days in power may be numbered. The rout of the center-left has even extended deep into Scandinavia, perhaps the world’s premier bastion of social democracy.

Overall, the total vote share for the continent’s traditional center-left parties is now at its lowest level since at least World War II. Like the Democrats, these parties have been marginalized, with little influence over policy as the right prepares to place its stamp on the Western world in a way that could endure for decades.

“If the left and the center-left don’t get their act together, then we’re looking at a period of very unstable right-wing hegemony,” said Alex Callinicos, a European studies professor at King’s College London.

Good. The cultural Marxist threat I outlined in my recent bestseller, The Devil’s Pleasure Palace — on sale at the link this Black Friday weekend! — has at last begun to recede; now the challenge is to restore Western civilization’s cultural confidence again in the primacy if its message: political freedom, artistic creation, technological advancement, radiant spirituality for all who welcome it. The culture of death and decay — quintessentially satanic — is being roundly rejected around the precincts of goodness.

As recently as a decade ago, the picture was very different. Britain’s Tony Blair was at the vanguard of a generation of European center-left leaders who had emulated Bill Clinton’s pragmatic Third Way politics and seemed poised to ride their marriage of social democracy with market liberalization to an unlimited future of electoral success.But the Great Recession — and the bumpy, deeply unequal recovery that followed — fundamentally changed that.

“With the economic crisis, and the negative effects of globalization, the socialists couldn’t convince the populations in their respective countries that the future lies in a liberal Europe,” said Gérard Grunberg, a historian of socialism at Sciences Po in Paris. “This is the end of the European utopia.”

Even better. The “European utopia” was always a daemonic fantasy, born of bloodshed, guilt, mass murder, and displacement, and protected by the American nuclear umbrella.

That “utopia” emerged in the aftermath of 1945, when politicians across war-torn Europe banded together to build a new continent that would never repeat the grave mistakes of the recent past. This was the genesis of the European Union: an economic union that was meant to become, at least in theory,committed to the common cause of social justice, largely a leftist ideal.

The real “leftist ideal” was the European superstate known as the EU, a more benign form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that collapsed in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the Washington Post quoted here doesn’t see it that way, everything since then has been a gradual dissolution, as the Americans — and now, the somnambulist Europeans — have awakened to find a void at the center of their existence.

Let’s just hope it’s not too late.

Categories: 2016 elections, Europe, Europe and President Elect Trump, European "democracy", European establishment, European left, European Union, European Union - disintegration
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Trump Invites Hungarian PM Orbán to Washington D.C.

November 25, 2016

Trump Invites Hungarian PM Orbán to Washington D.C., Breitbart, Chris Tomilinson, November 25, 2016

orban1ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump has invited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to visit him in Washington D.C.

The Prime Minister said that Mr. Trump then praised the Hungarian government and called the people of Hungary “brave freedom fighters” during a telephone conversation on Thursday night, Hungarian paper Magyar Hirlap reports.

Mr. Orbán also noted that Trump congratulated Hungary for its economic success in recent years saying that he has called the nation’s achievements over the past six years “outstanding”.

After being invited to Washington D.C., Orbán said: “I told him that I hadn’t been there for a long time as I had been treated as a ‘black sheep’, to which he replied, laughing, ‘Me too’.”

On Mr. Trump’s open attitudes toward Hungary, the prime minister said: “He is much more interested in success, efficiency and results than in political theories,” adding: “This is good for us, as the facts are with us. The economic cooperation has always been good, only the ideologies presented obstacles.”

One of the first European politicians to come out in support of Trump, the maverick Hungarian leader has been a fierce opponent of the migrant policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union’s plans to redistribute migrants across the political bloc.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart London, shortly after the Hungarian migrant referendum, spokesman for the Hungarian government Zoltán Kovács said the Obama administration had left the country feeling abandoned. “My first-hand experience, the experience of the government, [is that] the U.S. has lost interest, and probably with it, knowledge about the region. Europe in general, but most certainly about Central Europe,” he said.

While Mr. Orbán had come out in support of Mr. Trump, Kovács was more cautious than to offer an official governmental endorsement, but did at the time note that the migrant policies of Trump and the Hungarian government aligned.

“If it’s about migration, which seems to be the most acute challenge we face, it’s definitely true that Mr. Trump and the conservative philosophy on migration is a lot closer to us,” he noted.

Hungary, along with neighbours Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland, constitute the Visegrad 4 group, who have been a major bloc in opposition of mass migration within the European Union. The V4 now look to the presidential elections in Austria for another potential ally in the anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ) candidate Norbert Hofer.

After meeting with Czech president Miloš Zeman, Hofer related his intentions for Austria to join the group as well.

Speaking to Breitbart London on the issue, spokesman Kovács said: “Austria has always rather belonged to Central Europe, not the Western part of Europe. With the facts and the consequences of what is happening on the southern and eastern borders of Europe now with migration, it would be an interesting turn and development if the Austrians realised that.”

Categories: Austria, Czech Republic, Europe, Hungary, Islamic invasion, Islamic refugees, Islamisation, Poland, President Elect Trump, Slovakia, Viktor Orbán
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The forgotten European slaves of Islamic Barbary North Africa and Islamic Ottoman Turkey

November 25, 2016

The forgotten European slaves of Islamic Barbary North Africa and Islamic Ottoman Turkey, Jihad Watch, , November 25, 2016

 

Their capture and enslavement was based on elements of Islamic law that are still part of that law in all its various permutations and manifestations.

********************

“Ohio State University history Professor Robert Davis describes the White Slave Trade as minimized by most modern historians in his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 (Palgrave Macmillan).”

“White slavery” is a common term, but it is unfortunate, as the slaves described in this video were not captured and enslaved because they were white, but because they were non-Muslim. Their capture and enslavement was based on elements of Islamic law that are still part of that law in all its various permutations and manifestations.

Categories: Barbary pirates, Britain, Europe, Muslim pirates, Muslim slavers, Ottoman Empire, Thomas Jefferson, U.S Government
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Europe: Let’s Self-destruct!

November 25, 2016

Europe: Let’s Self-destruct!, Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, November 25, 2016

A reasonable question that many Europeans might ask would be whether it is not perhaps time to review priorities?

Perhaps the time has come to look at whether it remains worth it, in terms of the potential loss of human life, to remain party to the 1961 Convention, which would prohibit a country from stripping a returning ISIS fighter of his citizenship in order to prevent him from entering the country?

The terrorist as poor, traumatized victim who needs help seems to be a recurring theme among European politicians. But what about the rights of the poor, traumatized citizens who elected these politicians?

 

Roughly 30,000 foreign and European Islamic State fighters from around 100 different countries, who have gone to Syria, Iraq and Libya, could spread across the continent once the terror group is crushed in its Iraqi stronghold, warned Karin von Hippel, director-general of the UK military think tank, Royal United Services Institute, speaking to the Express on October 26:

“I think once they lose territory in Iraq and Syria and probably Libya… they will likely go back to a more insurgent style operation versus a terrorist group that wants to try and hold onto territory… There has been about 30,000 foreign fighters that have gone in from about 100 countries to join. Not all of them have joined ISIS, some have joined al-Qaeda, Kurds, and other groups, but the vast majority have gone to join ISIS. These people will disperse. Some of them have already been captured or killed but many will disperse and they’ll go to European countries…They may not go back to where they came from and that is definitely keeping security forces up at night in many, many countries”.

Perhaps these scenarios are really keeping security forces up at night in many countries. Judging by the continued influx of predominantly young, male migrants of fighting age into Europe, however, one might be excused for thinking that European politicians themselves are not losing any sleep over potential new terrorist attacks.

According to a report by Radio Sweden, for example:

“Around 140 Swedes have so far returned after having joined the violent groups in Syria and Iraq. Now several municipalities are preparing to work with those who want to defect. This could include offering practical support to defectors.”

The municipality of Lund has dealt with this issue, and Malmö, Borlänge and Örebro have similar views. As Radio Sweden reports:

“Lund’s conclusion is that defectors from violent extremist groups should be handled like defectors from other environments, such as organized crime. After an investigation of the person’s needs, the municipality can help with housing, employment or livelihood.”

According to Sweden’s “national coordinator against violent extremism,” Christoffer Carlsson:

“…You need to be able to reintegrate into the job market, you may need a driver’s license, debt settlement and shelter. When people leave, they want to leave for something else, but they do not have the resources for it, so it is difficult for them to realize their plan. If they do not receive support, the risk is great that they will be unable to leave the extremist environment, but instead fall back into it.”

Anna Sjöstrand, Lund’s municipal coordinator against violent extremism, says that people who have served their penalty should all have support. Last year, the Municipality of Örebro received criticism for offering an internship to a young man who returned after having been in Syria.

“There may be such criticism, but for me it is difficult to think along those lines. They get the same help as others who seek help from us. We cannot say that because you made a wrong choice, you have no right to come back and live in our society,” says Anna Sjöstrand.

According to Sweden Radio, several of the municipalities stress that people who commit crimes should be sentenced and serve their penalties before they can receive support. According to Amir Rostami, who works with the national coordinator against violent extremism:

“If you are suspected of a crime, the investigation of the crime always comes first. But as long as there is no suspicion of a crime, then it is in our own interest to help those that come out of this extremist environment. The consequences for society are quite large if you do not.”

So, in Sjöstrand’s words, travelling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, a bestial Islamic terrorist organization with its sexual enslavement of women and children, rapes, brutal murders of Christians, Yazidis, and other Muslims is just “a wrong choice.” You know, similar to embezzling money or getting into a drunken brawl at a bar, just ordinary garden-variety crime, which should not intervene with your “right to come back and live in our society”. In other words, it seems to support the standard European idea that the terrorist is the victim, not the innocent people he is out to maim, rape, and kill.

According to the Swedish view, burning Christians and Yazidis alive, gang-raping and murdering women and children, and other such “wrong choices” should not get into the way of one’s “rights.” It also seems to ignore the rights of members of the peaceful society who are vulnerable to being attacked. It would be logical to posit that traveling for the express purpose of joining a terrorist organization such as ISIS, which has as its explicit goal the destruction of Western nations such as Sweden, should actually lead to the forfeiture of the “right to come back and live in our society” — especially as those former ISIS fighters evidently do not consider Swedish society “their society.”

Another word that comes to mind is treason. But not for Sweden, such logical moral and political choices. Better to have another go at politically correct policies, doomed to failure, at the expense of the security (and taxpayer money) of law-abiding Swedish citizens, whose rights to live without fear of violent assault, rape and terrorism clearly ceased to matter to Swedish authorities a long time ago.

This hapless attitude towards ISIS increasingly resembles criminal negligence on the part of Swedish authorities. It was recently reported that Swedish police received a complaint of incitement to racial hatred, after an unnamed Syrian-born 23-year-old used a picture of the ISIS flag as a profile picture on social media. Prosecutor Gisela Sjövall decided not to pursue legal action against the man. The reason, according to Sjövall?

“IS expresses every kind of disrespect; it is against everyone except those who belong to IS itself. There is the dilemma, it [offends] too big a group… You could say that merely waving a flag of IS in the current situation cannot be considered hate speech. It is not an expression of disrespect towards any [particular] ethnic group. It has been said there could possibly be some form of incitement, that IS urges others to commit criminal acts such as murder, but that is not the case.”

Since ISIS hates absolutely everybody, according to Swedish law they can apparently engage in as much hate speech as their hearts desire. The terrorists, who are vying for a world-dominating caliphate, must be laughing their heads off.

Sjövall added that because the Nazi swastika is intrinsically linked to inciting anti-Semitism, this contravenes Swedish laws, and that maybe the ISIS flag would be considered as contravening Swedish law in 10 years.

At the rate that Swedish society is self-destructing, there may not even be much of Sweden to speak of 10 years from now.

1752On June 7, 2016, it was reported that British citizen Grace “Khadija” Dare had brought her 4-year-old son, Isa Dare, to live in Sweden, in order to benefit from free health care. In February, the boy was featured in an ISIS video, blowing up four prisoners in a car (pictured above). The boy’s father, a jihadist with Swedish citizenship, was killed fighting for ISIS.

In neighboring Denmark, in March 2015, a Danish MP for the Social Democrats, Trine Bramsen, said about returning ISIS fighters:

“Some constitute a danger or can become dangerous. Others need help. We have actually seen that many of those who come home have experienced such horrors that they need psychological help”.

The terrorist as poor, traumatized victim who needs help seems to be a recurring theme among European politicians. But what about the rights of the poor, traumatized citizens who elected these politicians?

Denmark happens to be the European country with the most ISIS fighters returning from Syria, according to a report released in April by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague. The report shows that 50% of the people who left Denmark to fight with ISIS in Syria have returned to Denmark. The UK is second, with 48%, and then come Germany (33%), Sweden (29%), France (27%), and Austria (26%).

In Denmark, four Syrian ISIS fighters were arrested in April when they returned from Syria.

The head of the Strategic Institute of the Defense Academy in Denmark, Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, told a Danish newspaper in April that there are not enough resources to monitor all returning ISIS fighters and thereby ensure their arrest, adding:

“But then again, not all [ISIS fighters] are identical. Some will come home and be a threat to society, whereas others will return disillusioned. If we treat everyone in the same manner, we risk pushing some of those who are in doubt even further in. If someone returns and it cannot be proven that he has committed crimes and if he, besides that, is disillusioned, then he should get help to get out.”

How do you determine with certainty that someone is “disillusioned,” when he could in fact be a ticking bomb waiting to commit terror?

In Denmark, the authorities decided on a prohibition to travel to Syria to join ISIS. That, however, does not solve the problem of what to do with the returning ISIS fighters. It also does not do much to prevent those potential ISIS fighters who have been frustrated in their efforts to join ISIS, from unleashing their terror on European soil instead — as ISIS has in fact commanded them to do.

Several countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, have considered revoking the citizenship of returning ISIS fighters, thereby preventing them from returning. This is certainly feasible in those cases where the person in question has dual citizenship. Political obstacles aside, however, one of the main legal obstacles to countries taking this path is the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which prohibits governments from revoking a person’s nationality if it leaves them stateless.

A reasonable question that many Europeans might ask would be whether it is not perhaps time to review priorities? Perhaps the time has come to look at whether it remains worth it, in terms of the potential loss of human life, to remain party to the 1961 Convention, which would prohibit a country from stripping a returning ISIS fighter of his citizenship in order to prevent him from entering the country?

Presumably, the European people care more about staying alive than the intricacies of international law. When will European leaders mobilize the political will to act?

Categories: Europe, European establishment, European terror threat, Islamic deportations, Islamic invasion, Islamic refugees, Islamic State in Europe, Islamic terror groups, Islamic terrorists returning to Europe, Islamisation
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Amanpour on Trump: Media Faces an ‘Existential Crisis’ — Hints of Journalists in Cages

November 24, 2016

Amanpour on Trump: Media Faces an ‘Existential Crisis’ — Hints of Journalists in Cages, Trent Baker, November 24, 2016

(Please watch the video. Ms. Amanpour calls upon the media to speak “truth to power.” Unfortunately, her version of “truth” appears to be left-wing opinion. Please see also, RIGHT ANGLE: “Like a F—ing Firing Squad” — DM)

 

Tuesday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour delivered a speech at a Committee to Protect Journalists event.

In her speech, Amanpour discussed the state of the media with President-Elect Donald Trump set to take over the White House in 2017.

The CNN International host likened Trump to authoritarians around the world for demonizing the media.

“I was chilled when the first tweet after the election was about ‘professional protesters incited by the media.’” Amanpour stated. “Now, he walked back the bit about the protesters, but not the bit about the media.

“That is how it goes with authoritarians around the world like Sisi, like Erdoğan, like Putin, like the Ayatollahs, like Duterte in the Philipines and all of those people,” she added.

 Later, Amanpour said the media faces an “existential crisis” and could “end up in handcuffs, in cages, in kangaroo courts [and] prisons.”

“First the media is accused of inciting, then sympathizing, then associating – and then suddenly they find themselves accused of being full-fledged terrorists and subversives. Then they end up in handcuffs, in cages, in kangaroo courts, in prisons – and then who knows what? We have stand up together because divided we will fall,” Amanpour said.

“I feel that right now we face an existential crisis, a real threat to the very relevance and usefulness of our profession,” she continued. “Now, more than ever, I genuinely believe that we need to recommit to real reporting across a real nation, a real world in which journalism and democracy are in mortal peril, including by foreign powers like Russia who pay to churn out and to place these false news articles, these lies in many of our press; they hack into democratic systems, not just here as they’re accused of, but also now allegedly in crucial democratic experiences that are going on in Germany and France and elsewhere in Europe.”

Categories: 2016 elections, Europe, Media, President Elect Trump
Tags: , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Erdogan’s true ambitions

November 24, 2016

Erdogan’s true ambitions, Israel Hayom, Dr. Ephraim Herrera, November 24, 2016

(Please see also, Turkey’s Brain Drain — DM)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stances have always approximated those of the Muslim Brotherhood, and, in keeping with that, he protects them. Over the last year, he has strongly condemned the death sentence against ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. He said: “Morsi is the president of Egypt, not [current Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah] el-Sissi.” Hamas representatives feel at home in Turkey. As early as 2012, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was given a royal welcome by Erdogan and the Turkish foreign minister, and Turkey vowed to work toward having Hamas removed from Western terrorist organization blacklists. So his statement to Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan this week, saying that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, is not surprising at all.

In 2009, Erdogan stormed out of a Davos World Economic Forum panel while hurling blame at late President Shimon Peres: “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill,” he said. Last summer, Erdogan hosted Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, further proof of the total cooperation between Turkey and the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip. It appears that it was from Hamas’ office in Istanbul that the cruel murders of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron in 2014 were planned as well as the murder of the Henkin couple last year. Hamas is grateful to the Turkish president. Moreover, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (to which Hamas belongs), sees Erdogan as the next caliph of the Muslim world, the one who will lead Islam’s rule over the entire world.

He has said the following in media interviews: “The Union of Muslim Scholars declares that the caliphate must be established in Istanbul, because it is the [historical] capital of the caliphates. … The new Turkey brings together religion and state, old and new, Arab and non-Arab and unites the ummah [global Muslim community] in Africa, Asia, Europe, the United States and everywhere. The man who is bringing this about in Turkey is Recep Tayyip Erdogan. … He is the leader that knows his God, knows himself, knows his people, knows the ummah and knows the world. It is up to you to stand by his side, to pledge allegiance to him and to tell him: ‘Step forward.'”

In light of this, it is no wonder that Erdogan’s opinions on Israel perfectly line up with the Muslim Brotherhood’s stance, which is not bound by logic. For them, Israel behaves toward the Palestinians the same way that Hitler behaved toward the Jews in the Holocaust. It’s also no wonder that “Mein Kampf” is a best-seller in Turkey.

Turkey belongs to NATO and appears to be a moderate state. However, anyone who follows Erdogan’s policies will see that he succeeded, following the failed coup, in cruelly suppressing any domestic opposition, while firing tens of thousands of state employees, imprisoning journalists, shutting down opposition media outlets and violently fighting the Kurds.

Europe, in its innocence, cooperates with Turkey, which committed to stopping the waves of Muslim immigration to Europe. But the price tag set by Erdogan is high and dangerous: visa-free entry permits to Europe for Turkish citizens. If this agreement comes to fruition, the number of Turkish Muslims living in Western Europe is expected to grow quickly. It has been estimated that there are between 2 million and 2.5 million Turks living in Germany and another 2 million altogether in France, Holland, Britain and Austria. It seems they have more to lose than to gain.

The lesson for Israel is clear: Beware.

Categories: Caliphate, Erdogan, Europe, Hamas, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, NATO, Turkey, Turkey - visa free travel, Turkey and human rights, Turkey post-coup
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

A Word To The Criminal Migrant

November 23, 2016

A Word To The Criminal Migrant, Pat Condell via YouTube, November 23, 2016

Categories: Donald Trump and immigration, Europe, Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Islamic refugees, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Europe Begins to Take Immigration Seriously

November 23, 2016

Europe Begins to Take Immigration Seriously, Counter Jihad, November 22, 2016

seriously

The victory of Donald Trump cements the fear among European elites that was first stoked by Brexit. Can they change quickly enough for their voters?

The Prime Minister of France says that both his nation and Germany are in danger, and the European Union may fall apart.  The hazard?  Governments refusing to listen to their people’s concerns about immigration and Islamist terror.

Immigration was one of the main drivers of Britons’ vote to leave the EU, and Valls said the bloc, which more than a million migrants entered last year, had to regain control of its borders.

He said the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election victory showed how important it was to listen to angry citizens, and that politicians scared of making decisions were opening the door to populists and demagogues.

Valls is worried chiefly about France’s National Front party, which has a number of similarities to the forces that recently won stunning come-from-behind victories in the United Kingdom and the United States.  In the United States, the election of Donald Trump came in large part because of his frequently repeated promises to get tough on immigration.  In the United Kingdom, the so-called “Brexit” campaign struck a blow for Merry England.  Though there are significant security challenges associated with Brexit, in all the results have so far been reassuring to those who backed the Leave campaign.  Voters in that nation reasserted control over their national destiny and character, with the result that in the wake of this election concerns about immigration fell to a recent low among English citizens.  Though immigration concerns remain the single largest issue for Britons, it has in the wake of Brexit fallen to the level of an ordinary political concern — only a few more citizens are very worried about it than are very worried about poverty, for example.

In Germany, however, concerns about immigration are still sky high.

On the other side of the scale are nations like Germany, where a grand total of 15 per cent of residents are immigrants and 38 per cent express concern, and Sweden where 14 per cent are immigrants and 36 per cent are worried.

Also high among German concerns is worries about crime and extremism. Thirty-five per cent of Germans told interviewers they were worried about terror, 28 per cent about extremism, and 36 per cent about crime and violence.

The result has been the repeated success of political movements in Germany at the local levels.  Even Angela Merkel has begun to take notice.  During her recent trip to Niger, the German leader cautioned refugees not to come to Germany.  Ostensibly she is worried about the rate of drownings associated with refugee ships crossing the Mediterranean sea.  However, like Valls, she has to be feeling the pressure of the electoral wave.

Merkel’s shift puts her in good company.  Self-described “liberal” politicians in Germany are also now demanding a new crackdown on immigrants, especially those who — as these politicians phrase it — “reject our state and act against our social order.”  It is pretty clear to what that coded language intends to refer.  However, if anyone doubts that the issue is radical Islam, they need only look to the proposed policy solution:  “an expansion of faith-led Islamic classes, which they say should be taught under state supervision in German, by teachers with full training.”  (Emphasis added.)

That move to take direct government control of how Islam is taught represents a solution far too radical for Americans, whose First Amendment protects the church from any such government intervention.  Nevertheless, that such solutions are even under discussion should go a long way to demonstrating that the public’s patience with governing elites is largely gone.  A political community is not just a market, as Aristotle said, but a group bound by shared values and common beliefs.  That basic idea, as old as ancient Greece, is being restored to its central role in public life by another Greek idea:  democracy.

Categories: Europe, Europe and BREXIT, Europe and President Elect Trump, European "democracy", European establishment, European Union - disintegration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Marine Le Pen, ‘far right’ anti-globalist, takes commanding lead in polls for president of France

November 21, 2016

Marine Le Pen, ‘far right’ anti-globalist, takes commanding lead in polls for president of France, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, November 21, 2016

(Please see also, Donald Trump and the Return of European Anti-Americanism. — DM)

A specter haunts Europe, and its name is Trump.  A nightmare looms for the globalist elites, as France looks as though it will follow votes for Brexit in the U.K. and Trump in the United States, rejecting the unlimited flow of foreign nationals and the doctrine of multiculturalism that surrenders national culture.  The U.K. Independent reports that Marine Le Pen, habitually dismissed as “far right,” could become the president of France next spring, if current levels of support continue.

Front National leader Marine Le Pen has taken a sizeable lead over Nicolas Sarkozy in a new French presidential election poll.

The far-right leader had 29 per cent of the vote when pitted against Les Républicains’ former president, who was eight points behind, and held a 15-point lead over the Parti de Gauche’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the poll released by Ipsos.

It was one of five scenarios for the first round of France’s 2017 presidential elections on 23 April, although one that did not include Les Républicains’ Alain Juppé – who remains strong favourite to succeed Francois Hollande as leader.

While Mr Juppé holds leads of between 4 and 7 per cent in three other scenarios including him, the results are likely to add to growing fears that the rise of global populism could see Ms Le Pen secure a surprise victory in the wake of the UK’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s US election win.

Under the French election system, barring the unlikely possibility one candidate gains an overall majority in the first round vote, the two candidates with the most votes will contest a second and decisive round on 7 May.

As Michael Walsh of PJ Media points out, Sarkozy has just about been ruled out as an opponent:

It’s offical — Nicholas Sarkozy is out of the running to regain the office he once held:

Fance’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy conceded defeat Sunday in the race to choose the conservative nominee for next year’s presidential election. With more than 3.2 million votes counted from about 80 percent of polling stations, former prime minister Francois Fillon had 44 percent, former prime minister Alain Juppe had 28.1 and Sarkozy had 21.1 percent.

The two candidates confirmed as winning the most votes advance to the Nov. 27 runoff.

In a speech from his campaign headquarters in Paris on Sunday, Sarkozy called on his supporters to vote for Fillon in the second round. “I did not succeed in convincing a majority of voters. I do respect and understand the will of those (voters) who have chosen for the future other political leaders than me,” Sarkozy said.

The rest of Europe’s leaders (this means you, Frau Merkel) had better wake up.  They have screwed up badly, and their voters don’t.like being held hostage in their own homes by gangs of “youth” who terrify them.

Rick Moran comments:

It’s impossible to overstate the trepidation being felt by Euro-leftists at this point.  A new poll on the presidential race shows National Front’s Marine Le Pen leading in a three-way race, and only 3 points behind in the expected four-way battle for the presidency next spring.

Here’s the reaction of prominent leftist philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy:

“If Trump is possible, then everything is possible. Nothing, from now on, is unimaginable,” Mr Lévy told The Telegraph. 

“As for Le Pen it is unlikely that she wins but it is possible, and that is partly because the people have lost interest in policy, instead focusing on personality.

“The people listen less and less to policy and they even seem less concerned about whether the candidates are telling the truth or not.

“They are more interested in the performance, in the theatrical quality of what is said than whether it is true. And as we know, a fascist can put on a very successful performance.”

Gee…the people have lost interest in what the establishment has to say.  Where have we heard that before?

Categories: Europe, European establishment, France, Globalism, Marine Le Pen, Trump factor
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »