"The French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo (CH) has a picture of Muhammad on today’s front page. The prophet is crying because, he says, “it is hard being loved by idiots.” Muslim groups in France tried to prevent the distribution of CH by court order, but the court turned down the request because the complaining party failed to name Philippe Val, CH’s publisher. Mr Val, who says that he wants to defend the right to satire and sarcasm, has been put under police protection, as have CH’s offices and its editors."  Paul Belien
(3rd Article Here)

“Youths” Kick Man to Death on Crowded Antwerp Bus

From the desk of Paul Belien on Mon, 2006-06-26 21:38

The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. On Saturday afternoon Guido Demoor, a 54-year old Flemish train conductor on his way to work, was kicked to death by six “youths” on a crowded bus near Antwerp’s Central Station. The incident recalls the rush-hour murder ten weeks ago of Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, in a crowded Brussels Central Station on 12 April.

Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six “youths” got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate passengers. There were some forty people on the bus. Demoor asked the “youths” to calm down, whereupon they turned on him, savagely beating and kicking the man. At the next stop thirty passengers fled the bus. The thugs kept beating Demoor. They then pulled the emergency brake and jumped from the bus leaving their victim to die.

Three Moroccans, two of whom are minors, were arrested today. The website of the Dutch paper De Stentor reports tonight that a fourth suspect, believed to be the ringleader, fled into a shop as the police were poised to arrest him. He managed to escape from the shop when dozens of “youths” came to his rescue. Witnesses had described the culprits as immigrant youths of between 18 and 21 years of age. During the weekend the police had called for witnesses as only four people had come forward. The police offered the witnesses absolute confidentiality and promised not to reveal their identities. “Obviously people fear reprisals,” Gazet van Antwerpen wrote today.

Belgians do not have a constitutional or legal right to bear arms, not even purely defensive arms such as peppersprays. With the police and the government failing to protect law-abiding citizens the latter are, however, totally unprotected. Saturday’s murder has shocked bus drivers and train conductors, but they stress that they are not in the least surprised. Violence on public transport has become a fact of life.

“You see what happens if you intervene,” one of Guido Demoor’s colleagues at Belgian Rail is quoted in the newspaper De Morgen today. “If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive. [...] He was a good man. I would not have dared to do what Guido did. I was beaten up once and since then I have become very careful.”

Another colleague told the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: “After the Van Holsbeeck murder some whined that no-one had intervened. Guido did intervene and paid with his life.” After the assassination of Joe Van Holsbeeck Belgium’s Cardinal Danneels had said that Joe was a victim of “the indifference in Belgian society” because no-one had come to his rescue when two youths stabbed him to death for not handing over his MP3 player.

Today the Cardinal issued a statement saying: “Guido Demoor acted very bravely. The fact that he paid with his life does not mean that he acted wrongly.” In contemporary Belgium it is heroic for an unarmed adult to tell immigrant youths to calm down.

An Antwerp bus driver told De Morgen: “These youths can be very aggressive. If you say one wrong word they throw themselves on you. I do not dare to say anything. I keep my mouth shut.” Public transport passengers declared: “They call you names in a language you do not understand, shouting and abusing you. What can you do? Who can you call for help? I do not know.”

A train conductor told Het Nieuwsblad: “This incident happened on a bus, but it could also have happened on a train. To be honest, I have been working in Brussels’ Midi Station [where the international trains from Paris and London arrive] for 27 years and I am happy to be still alive. I have been eye to eye with aggressive pickpockets on many occasions. These men have no qualms about hurting people. I am not sure that I would intervene if I witness an incident. I do not want to risk my life.”

The unrest among railroad employees after the Demoor murder is huge. Some want to go on strike to pressure the government to give them protection. The Independent Union of Train Personnel (OVS), however, has asked its members not to strike. “Laying down our work would only harm the passengers and make them the victims of incidents for which they are not to blame,” OVS spokesman Hugo De Rycke said. He stressed, however, that the authorities have to do something. De Rycke explained that bus 23 on which Demoor was murdered is known to be dangerous. “Because [bus 23] is so dangerous Belgian Rail at one point provided taxis to take employees to work [in Antwerp’s Central Station]. However, the taxi service was abolished because it proved too expensive,” he said.

Problems occur not only in major Belgian cities, such as Antwerp and Brussels, but also in provincial towns, such as Sint-Niklaas. Last week bus drivers in Sint-Niklaas refused to drive out in protest against the aggressive behaviour of immigrant youths on the buses. In today’s De Morgen drivers, who have all asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, relate experiences of “buses being demolished while en route” and of “youths harassing girls, who beg the driver to protect them.” One of the drivers said: “If they refuse to buy a ticket I leave it. I do not want to be beaten up for one and a half euros.”

Another driver said: “Last week an old man was beaten up on my bus. The youths were angry because he did not put away his luggage fast enough. They hit him on the eye and threw the luggage on his lap. [...] A bus drive lasts forty minutes. Sometimes they pester and provoke you for a full forty minutes. I remain calm, but some of my colleagues are not able to do so and get into trouble. If I ever get into trouble, I will do as one colleague did recently. He left his vehicle at the bus station and got off, never to return to this job.” Guido Demoor never even got off the bus.

 

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1130
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French police, youths clash at Paris rail station

The Cartoon Affair is putting the Belgian authorities in a pickle. On Friday one of its citizens, the Arab immigrant Dyab Abu Jahjah, who lives in Brussels, decided to put a daily cartoon on the website of his organization, the Arab European League.

“After the lectures that Arabs and Muslims received from Europeans on Freedom of Speech and on Tolerance […] AEL decided to enter the cartoon business and to use our right to artistic expression. […] If it is the time to break Taboos and cross all the red lines, we certainly do not want to stay behind,” he wrote. According to Mr Jahjah he has the right to show abusive cartoons if Western papers have the right to show cartoons that are considered abusive by Muslims whose faith forbids the mere depiction of the prophet Muhammad.

The three AEL cartoons posted so far have been very instructive in that they have all mocked the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust, as if Mr Jahjah wants to emphasize that “islamofascism” is indeed the ideology he adheres to.

The first cartoon, posted on Friday evening, shows Anne Frank in bed with a naked Adolf Hitler. “Write this one in your diary Anne!” Hitler says. The cartoon of the Führer and the little girl in his bed is eerily reminiscent of a story I once heard about a certain leader who took himself a child wife, but I have forgotten who it was. The second cartoon, posted yesterday, shows Jews amidst Auschwitz corpses. “We have to get to the 6,000,000 somehow!” one Jew tells another. “I don’t think they are Jews,” the other one replies. The third cartoon, posted today, shows Steven Spielberg ringing Peter Jackson to ask for his assistance with a Holocaust movie. “I don’t think I have that much imagination Steven, sorry,” Jackson replies.

Personally, I share the American view that – apart from incitements to violence and slander – freedom of speech allows people to say what they like so long as they do not impose their views on others in public spaces and at the taxpayer’s expense. Mr Jahjah says he shares the same view on freedom of expression.

In general, there is a danger in prohibiting certain opinions and an advantage in not doing so. The danger is that prohibition often makes the forbidden acts more attractive. The advantage of allowing people to say whatever they like helps other people to acquire useful information. Indeed, by their words people can be judged. Freedom of speech makes it plain for all to see how despicable some people really are. The AEL cartoons strikingly show where one can find the true heirs of Adolf Hitler in contemporary Europe. If Mr Jahjah had not published his cartoons, the proof that he is an islamofascist would still not have been conclusively delivered. But now it has.

On Dutch television on Saturday evening Mr Jahjah said that people who exercise freedom of expression without tact should be able to stand being offended themselves. “Europe also has its taboos, though they are not religious taboos,” he said referring to the Holocaust.

The AEL cartoons violate Belgian law, because denying and minimalizing the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Belgium. If the Belgian authorities take their own laws seriously they will have to prosecute Mr Jahjah. So far, however, the Belgian authorities have tended to leave Muslim radicals alone (though Lebanese born Mr Jahjah, whom some suspect to be a Syrian agent, has been arrested once, following riots in an Antwerp suburb). The Belgian authorities deny it, but there have been consistent rumours from the 1990s onwards that Brussels has made a deal with terrorists, agreeing to turn a blind eye to conspiracies hatched on Belgian soil in exchange for immunity from attack. In a statement of the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), an al-Qaeda subsidiary, addressing the Belgian King but posted to the French Embassy in Brussels in June 1999, the terrorists explicitly referred to such a deal dating from the summer of 1996.

In 2004 the authorities in the Netherlands prohibited the book “The Way of the Muslim” published in 1964 by the Algerian born Sheikh, Abu Bakr Jabir al-Jaza’iry, dean of the University of Medina. The book states that men are allowed to beat women and that sodomy should be punished by death, specifically as follows: “Take them to the highest building and throw them down with their head to the ground. Then stone them.” While the authorities in the Netherlands banned the book – the only book to be prohibited in the Netherlands apart from Hitler’s Mein Kampf – the Belgian authorities refused to do so.

The Belgian minister of Justice, Laurette Onkelinx, a leader of the Parti Socialiste (PS), told the Belgian Parliament when politicians asked her to follow the Dutch example: “A prohibition might upset the delicate balance between certain cultures.” Ms Onkelinx referred to freedom of speech. “Freedom of speech is one of the foundations of a democratic society. […] This applies not only to information or ideas that are well received, or regarded as harmless or to which one is indifferent, but also to ideas which offend, shock or cause unrest.” She added: “Similar texts have been circulating on our territory for many years and are freely available in certain Islamic bookstores in our country. As far as I know this has not caused deviant behaviour among members of the Islamic community.”

During that same year 2004, however, Ms Onkelinx and her party applauded the banning of the right-wing Flemish secessionist party Vlaams Blok (VB), Belgium’s largest party. Ms Onkelinx' party is currently demanding that the Vlaams Belang party, the successor of the VB, be stripped of its funds because the party is said to be “Islamophobic.” It will be interesting to see whether the Belgian government will prosecute Mr Jahjah, thereby antagonizing radical Muslims.

Meanwhile the Dutch website Retecool has called upon its readers to send it pictures of Muhammad advertising everyday products. The website is a huge success, though many of the pictures are truly offensive.

The Belgian Muslim artist Chokri Ben Chika who offended many Catholics with his depiction of a partially naked Madonna last September, told a Belgian newspaper on Friday that what he did is allowed because “it was my own constructive attempt to contribute to a multicultural society.” Depicting Muhammad, however, should not be allowed. Mr Ben Chika, who is of Tunisian origin, said: “In Islam it is not done to depict Muhammad. That has [...] to do with the essence of this religion itself. No-one will attempt to make an image of the prophet. There is no tradition of depicting the saints [in Islam], while in Christianity there is.”

Asked why he treats Christianity differently from Islam he explained: “I am an artist and not a hero or kamikaze. I have a daughter, you know.” He added that he understood Muslim anger. “The anger of the Muslims was just the last straw. The Islamic world has been made to suffer one abuse after another: politically, socially and economically.”

A quote from Philippe Val, the publisher and editor of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly in Paris, in The Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2007

In February of last year, the director of the daily France Soir, Jacques Lefranc, decided to publish the [Danish Muhammad] cartoons in France. He was immediately fired. It was in protest against Mr. Lefranc’s firing that I in turn decided to publish the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo. Our front-page headline was “Mohammed Overwhelmed by Extremists,” and had a drawing by Cabu of the prophet, covering his eyes with his hands and crying, “It’s hard to be loved by idiots.” I invited my colleagues from the daily and weekly press to republish the Danish cartoons, too. Most of them published some of them; only L'Express did in full.

Before publication, I was pressured not to go ahead and summoned to the Hôtel Matignon [the residence of the French Prime Minister] to see the prime minister's chief of staff; I refused to go. The next day, summary proceedings were initiated by the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France to stop this issue of Charlie Hebdo from hitting newsstands. The government encouraged them, but their suit was dismissed.

After the cartoons appeared, the Muslim groups attacked me by filing suit against me on racism charges. President Jacques Chirac, who campaigned for this just-completed trial, offered them the services of his own personal lawyer, Francis Szpiner. Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque, who always took orders from the Élysée [the residence of the French President], was apparently not convinced this case was necessary; he told me as much several times. But Mr. Boubakeur was under pressure from the fundamentalists at the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), who had come to dominate the French Council of Muslim Worship, which he heads, and Mr. Chirac.

A quote from Spiegel Online, 15 March 2007

A new wave of anti-feminism is taking hold of Germany. Former career women-turned-housewives are spreading the word about a "new femininity" which encourages women to stay at home and embrace motherhood.

The anonymous letter makes for heartbreaking reading. "Dragging myself from job to job, I used to feel so useless. I wanted to be special but didn't know how -- I was neither fish nor flesh." For this angst-ridden career woman, salvation finally came in the full-bellied shape of motherhood. "With my husband and daughter at my side, I'm so happy and free now," she proclaims.

The 262 pages behind the pink cover of "The Eva Principle" are full of anti-feminist anger. Herman feels that nothing less than the survival of the country is at stake – Germans will "die out" if women don't change their behavior, she says. She sees herself as courageously breaking a "taboo" by criticizing women's liberation.

"Let's just say it loud," Herman writes. "We women have overburdened ourselves - we allowed ourselves to be too easily seduced by career opportunities." She recommends women exchange the cold sphere of work for the "colorful world of children" and discover their "destiny of nurturing the home environment."

A quote from Paul Weyrich and William Lind in The American Conservative, 12 March 2007:

In a striking turn from Americans’ traditional optimism, 48 percent thought life in the future would generally get worse. […] Fifty-nine percent of those polled said that our political leaders, and by implication a political program, should try to lead the country back toward the way we used to be. […]

We believe that the theme of retroculture can and should similarly shape the next conservatism, […] When we are asked, “Just what is it that you guys, as conservatives, want?” our answer will be, “An America pretty much like the one we had in the 1950s.” That may turn off the elites, but our survey gives us reason to think it will resonate with many ordinary Americans.