AN AMERICAN EXPAT IN BELGIUM WEIGHS IN.

Readers of this blog may have noticed a certain sourturning of posts by yours truly as well as a narrowturning of subjects towards the rising islamism in Europe. While I assure you that for local native westerners the feeling of an alien belief system incrementally manifesting itself, imposing limitations on free speech and indeed, on freedom itself, is very real, I realize that for somebody living in Akron, Ohio or Manaus, Brazil the succession of posts shedding a negative light on Islam may come over as biased and/or exaggerated. I might add that I myself have no trouble admitting that a part of Muslim anger (but by no means the most important part) is fuelled by European racism. I don't deny that. As a metter of fact, despite not knowing a phenomenon as the KKK in Europe, I fear that racism is much more a European than an American affair. That is why, e.g., America has a coloured Foreign Secretary while not one European country has.

Be that as it may, I stick to my point that the greater problem is not European racism, but European Islam, or rather Islam itself. Population groups who have over time established and proven themselves in Europe have become widely accepted and valued. In the fifties, my own country has known a considerable influx of cheap Italian workers. For the somewhat dumb man in the street, the tanned Giovanni Q arriving in Brussels Central Station in 1955 may indeed not have looked that different from today's Moroccans, and I fear that for quite some time the spaghettis may have had to cope with a considerable degree of (stupid) racism. Anno 2006 however, Italians have perfectly blended in in Belgian society. Not so the Muslim community however, of which the first members arrived on the heels of the Italians in the sixties.

Coming from a native European such as myself, such a statement may seem indeed racist, and in line with all my previous posts. That is why I decided to quote a foreigner - an American.

For some time now, I have known the blog "Bexpat", operated by an American blogger in Belgium who calls himself "Flemish American". Since he has apparently perfectly assimilated into our - ahem - unique society, I took the liberty of linking to him under the label "Belgian Freedom Fighters", see blogroll (I hope he doesn't mind). He doesn't post often, but when he does, it is clear he has pondered his post's subject and come up with a well thought-out opinion. The following is an excerpt from his latest post, "Prophesy":

"I fully understand the sensitivity of the Arab world to these cartoons. How would we feel if someone showed us an indecent picture of the Virgin Mary?" asked Stathis Stavropoulos, a cartoonist at the Greek daily Eleftherotypia.

Guess what Mr. Stavropoulos, I got a picture for you.

A Christian group held a peaceful virgil outside of the theatre in Brussels where the play was being shown. There were no death threats. No one felt in danger.

With the exception of Northern Ireland, Western society has stopped killing and rioting in the name of religion. Sure, we have an occasional fanatic who might kill an abortion doctor, but overall, we have learned to focus our anger and frustration in less destructive ways.

Ironically, apart from the Danish embassies and consulates, they are only hurting their own. Local police are having to fire on local rioters killing local Muslims. Strikes are hurting their own economies and destruction is to their own property.

I'm not sure how this will finally pan out, but I fear for the future of Europe with her high percentage of traditional Muslim immigrants. I find I fear for my own family and of those I love. This is disconcerting.

The enemy is not in Iraq or Afghanistan, he is right next door living in our neighborhoods, going to our schools, trying to date our daughter so he can have his way with her and dump her and others like her until he is ready to settle down to his virgin, Muslim wife.

He doesn't think about the hypocricy of this. He's just interested in taking the pieces of Western society that suit him and he discards the rest or, as we see now, even tries to change it to accommodate him.

I'm just wondering how long it will be before we finally figure it out.

If Flemish American cannot convince you, then maybe another foreigner can - say, a Libyan?

According to Gaddafi the riots in the poor suburbs of Paris last year were “only the beginning of the armed struggle of the Muslims against discrimination in Europe”. "Probably one day Europe will be subordinated to the Islam", Col. Gaddafi claimed, cited by the publication.

Despite the fact that over the past four years tens of thousands of muslims themselves have fallen victim to islamic terrorism, not a peep was ever heard from the muslims vegetating in our midst. In August 2003 e.g., hundred and twenty-five Shiite pilgrims visiting the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, among them Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, were butchered by a suicide bomber. If Google generates a perfumed fart if you look for Muslim protest against that, consider yourself Indiana Jones and the Temple of Boom. By contrast however, London saw this week another culmination of muslim anger over twelve-silly-cartoons-in-a-dipshit-rural-newspaper-in-distant-Denmark:

Ishmaeel Haneef, from the committee, said the demonstrations were continuing because "the provocations have not stopped". "These things are still being republished across the world," he said, using the example of an Italian minister wearing a T-shirt depicting the cartoons. He said the way to "get back to being a civilised world" was to "give the copyright [of the cartoons] over to the Muslim community".

Right. Give the copyright of the cartoons to the Muslim Community. Only way to get back to being a civilized world. And while we are at it Mr. Haneef, why not give you our penal codes? Or our constitutions? Can I offer you the Magna Carta 1215 for free??? The longer this goes on, the more I am inclined to believe that the only way to get back to being a civilised world is to move the Muslim Community over to the hellholes without electricity or running water it originates from. Pardon my French.

MFBB.