Escape from freedom: Islam gains power in the West, as its aggressive elements learn to apply tactics of 4GW. Meanwhile our elites give way to preseve their own power. This posts borrow its title from that of Erich Fromm’s 1941 book, a work as timely now as then).
- Warming up the engines at the Ministry of Truth, White House, recent but undated — Obama plans to expand the Federal government’s efforts to combat thoughtcrime (which is they list as part of the “Civil Rights” agenda). Don’t worry, it will only protect politically powerful groups — not you.
- “Right-wing author is banned from Islam talk“, Evening Standard, 23 January 2009 — Gotta love the “balanced” headline! This is the only mainsteam media mention I find of the story.
- “Civil liberties group calls for resignation of Prof Janet Hartley“, Alex Singleton, blog of The Telegraph, 23 January 2009 — More details.
- “Dutch Courage“, Mark Steyn, National Review Online, 21 January 2009 — Retreating from freedom in the Netherlands in the probably vain hope of maintaing social peace.
- “Europe has taken over the Holocaust“, Mark Steyn, op-ed in the Telegraph, 24 January 2005 — For Holocaust Memorial Day (various dates around the world), a note about the comparison between it and the travails of the Palestinians.
- “Calgary court bans Syed Soharwardy, Nagah Hage, from Jewish mall“, Ezra Levant, 26 January 2009 — Candadian politicos run the numbers about increasing number of Islamic voters.
- “Pro-Israel rally crashed in Sweden“, Ynet News, 25 January 2009 — “Protestors gathered to support Israel were pelted with eggs and bottles, then dispersed by police.”
Excerpts
1. Warming up the engines at the Ministry of Truth, White House, recent but undated — Obama plans to expand the Federal government’s efforts to combat thoughtcrime (which is they list as part of the “Civil Rights” agenda). Don’t worry, it will only protect politically powerful groups — not you.
The Agenda: Civil Rights — bullet #2
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice’s Criminal Section.
2. “Right-wing author is banned from Islam talk“, Evening Standard, 23 January 2009 — As usual, the people doing the intimidation are treated the best. Power flows from the barrel of a gun. Excerpt:
A right-wing writer has been banned from chairing a debate on Islam at the London School of Economics today amid security fears, the Standard has learned. Douglas Murray, a self-confessed “neo conservative”, was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the university tonight – 24 hours after the end of a week-long sit in at LSE in protest at Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
The commentator and author, who is the director of conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “This is back to the bad old days of the LSE – where the most violent get to dictate people’s education. It is worse than censorship – it’s intimidation.” The debate, which is set to go ahead, is between Dr Alan Sked, a senior lecturer in international history at the university, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim writer and lecturer.
The LSE asked Mr Murray not to attend in the interest of public safety as his presence could provoke further unrest.
3. “Civil liberties group calls for resignation of Prof Janet Hartley“, Alex Singleton, blog of The Telegraph, 23 January 2009 — More details. Excerpt:
Douglas Murray, who runs the Centre for Social Cohesion in Westminster, had been invited by Dr Alan Sked of the LSE’s Department of International History. Dr Sked told the Telegraph that Mr Murray had “never said anything objectionable” during previous speeches at the LSE, but said that University had recently experienced problems from “radical students” at the university, including the occupation of part of the LSE.
The decision to disinvite Mr Murray was taken by Prof Janet Hartley, the Pro-Director, Teaching and Learning, at the LSE. Mr Murray told the Telegraph that he would be willing to chair the event if reinvited.
4. “Dutch Courage“, Mark Steyn, National Review Online, 21 January 2009:
Last year, The New York Times ran a story (front page, above the fold, gosh) on my troubles with the Canadian “thought police”, at the end of which I’m quoted as follows:
“Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world.”
The latest jurisdiction to get way too “comfortable with the regulation of opinion” is the Netherlands. As Andrew noted below, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has ordered prosecutors to put the politician and film-maker Geert Wilders on trial for “making anti-Islamic statements”.
The Dutch, like the Canadians, think they can maintain social peace by shriveling the bounds of public discourse and bringing what little remains under state regulation. But one notices that the coercive urge, which comes so naturally to Euro-progressives, only goes in one direction.
The Swedish Chancellor of Justice shuts down the investigation into the Grand Mosque of Stockholm for selling tapes urging believers to kill “the brothers of pigs and apes” (ie, Jews) because that’s simply “the everyday climate in the rhetoric”.
The masked men marching through the streets of London with placards threatening to rain down another 9/11 on the infidels are protected by a phalanx of Metropolitan Police officers.
The PC nellies of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, happy to hound the last neo-Nazi in Saskatchewan posting to the Internet from his mum’s basement, won’t go anywhere near Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus al-Hayitia, the big-time Montreal imam whose book says infidels are “evil people”, Jews “spread corruption and chaos”, and homosexuals should be “exterminated”.
Instead, the state’s response to explicit Islamic intimidation is to punish those foolish enough to point out that intimidation. You don’t have to be as intemperate as Minheer Wilders can sometimes be: In the Netherlands even the most innocuous statement can get you into trouble. To express his disgust at Theo van Gogh’s murder, the artist Chris Ripke put up a mural outside his studio showing an angel and the words “Thou shalt not kill”. But the cops thought this was somehow a dig at the local mosque and so came round, destroyed the mural, arrested the TV news crew filming it, and wiped their tape.
The Dutch have determined to commit societal euthanasia, and dislike fellows pointing out it might not be as painless as they’ve assumed.
5. “Europe has taken over the Holocaust“, Mark Steyn, op-ed in the Telegraph, 24 January 2005 — For Holocaust Memorial Day (various dates around the world), note about the comparison between the Holocaust and the travails of the Palestinians. Excerpt:
From time to time, the late Diana Mosley used to tell me how “clever” she thought the Jews were. If you pressed her to expand on the remark, it usually meant how clever they were in always keeping “the thing” – the Holocaust, as she could never quite bring herself to say – in the public eye, unlike the millions killed in the name of Communism. This is a fair point, though not one most people are willing to entertain from a pal of Hitler.
But “the thing” seems most useful these days to non-Jews as a means of demonstrating that the Israelis are new Nazis and the Palestinians their Jews. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has told the Home Secretary that his crowd will be boycotting Thursday’s commemorations because it is racist and excludes any commemoration of the “holocaust” and “ongoing genocide” in Palestine.
… But, whatever the outcome, it’s hard to see that they {Palestinians} would be any less comprehensively a wrecked people than they are after spending three generations in “refugee” “camps” while their “cause” is managed by a malign if impeccably multilateral coalition of UN bureaucrats, cynical Arab dictators, celebrity terrorists and meddling Europeans whose Palestinian fetishisation seems most explicable as the perverse by-product of the suppression of their traditional anti-Semitism.
Americans and Europeans will never agree on this, and the demographic reality – the Islamisation of Europe – will only widen the chasm in the years ahead. But, if I were a European Jew, I would feel this week’s observances bordered on cultural appropriation. The old defence against charges of anti-Semitism was: “But some of my best friends are Jewish.” As the ancient hatreds rise again across the Continent, the political establishment’s defence is: “But some of our best photo opportunities are Jewish.”
6. “Calgary court bans Syed Soharwardy, Nagah Hage, from Jewish mall“, Ezra Levant, 26 January 2009 — Canadian politicos run the numbers about increasing number of Islamic voters.
Calgary anti-Semites Nagah Hage and Syed Soharwardy have been leading the pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah hate marches in the Jewish neighbourhood of Calgary. Neither Hage nor Soharwardy live anywhere nearby, of course; they truck in their foul-mouthed supporters — who fly the flag of the criminal organization, Hezbollah — to chant “death to the Jews”, and wave swastikas in the face of the local citizens.
… On Friday — finally! — RioCan went to court. (I contend that a court appearance was never necessary; RioCan doesn’t go to court when skateboarders loiter — they just tell the trespassers to leave or they’ll call the cops.) RioCan appeared before Justice C.S. Brooker of Calgary’s Court of Queen’s Bench. Justice Brooker granted an injunction banning Hage, Soharwardy and all of the other trespassers from the mall.
… But the question is: why did it take a court to have to make that order? Why were local politicians silent about this display of bigotry, week after week? Why did the Calgary Police Service permit this unruly mob onto private property in the first place? Why were trespass charges not laid against them weeks ago? Why did the police do nothing when a pro-Israel counter-protester had a shoe thrown at him, and when a rabbi was spat at? Why were assault charges not laid against them?
The answer is obvious: local politicians have done their math. There are only 8,000 Jews in Calgary, and more than 75,000 Muslims. Denouncing anti-Semitic bigotry is fine for politicians when the bigots are politically powerless neo-Nazi skinheads. When they’re radical Muslims, funded by Saudi Arabia, the politicians fall silent.
Same for Canada’s Orwellian human rights commissions. They claim to be against “hate”. They’re awfully brave at taking on Christian clergy who preach the Bible’s “hateful” Book of Leviticus. But notice their cowardly silence in the face of mass hate marches in the streets. Jennifer Lynch is probably off on some other five-star junket to study how Cameroon keeps their people so free.
The police aren’t much better: it’s easier to tell a handful of pro-Israel supporters to leave than to tangle with 200 angry Muslim radicals. It’s not only the politically correct thing to do, it’s just plain easier. I mean, really: who’s more likely to throw a molotov cocktail at you, or stab you — a few middle-aged Jews, or some just-off-the-plane radicals from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, here to promote sharia law?
7. “Pro-Israel rally crashed in Sweden“, Ynet News, 25 January 2009 — “Protestors gathered to support Israel were pelted with eggs and bottles, then dispersed by police.”
A pro-Israel rally in Malmo, Sweden was torn apart Sunday by pro-Palestinian residents who arrived on the scene with eggs, bottles, and tear gas grenades which they threw at Israel’s supporters. Police dispersed the entire crowd.
Hundreds of people took part in the rally in support of Israel, which was held at the city’s main square. … However, a number of pro-Palestinian protestors who did not have a permit to demonstrate took to the streets in retaliation to the approved rally. They were not dispersed by police despite lacking a permit.
“At some point, about a half an hour after the protest began, pro-Palestinian protestors began to throw eggs, bottles, and even a tear gas grenade,” Meier recounted. He added that the lawless protestors disconnected the speakers brought to the square by the Jewish community while its leader was speaking. The act brought the pro-Israel rally to an end, as others could not speak.
At this point, Meier said, police stepped in and asked the unruly protestors to leave. Officers then proceeded to clear the square of all present, including those who had received permission to demonstrate.
Afterword
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To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp interest these days:
- About the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars – my articles
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Other posts about Israel and the Palestinians:
- The Fate of Israel, 28 July 2006
- Another front in the geopolitical struggles shaping our world: demography, 3 June 2008
- To good a story to die: eliminate legitimate grievances to eliminate terrorism, 9 December 2008