EUROPE, HOLLOWED BE THY NAME.

An article from De Standaard aka De Stavda, Belgium's main newspaper:

UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP LETS EVERYONE PRAY

"In Antwerp, at the start of the new academic year, rector Frans Van Loon of the University of Antwerp (UA) announced the inauguration of a new "Stille Ruimte" (Silent Room) on the premises of the university's student restaurant on the Keizerstraat. It is intended to be a prayer room for students of all religions.

The Silent Room is another chapter in the UA's efforts to fully realize its pluralistic goals. The UA is the merger of three small universities, Ruca, UIA and Ufsia of which the latter one was Catholic and the others secular. To illustrate that diversity the UA engaged two architects, Claire Bataille and Paul Ibens, who created a space with sober colours and without references to any religion. At the table, one can study and "establish contacts". . Apart from that, there's separate meditiation benches."

Can you frikkin believe it. Good God. I can imagine myself after a severe sunstroke deciding to go follow a course of Moral Equitism at the UA and meeting American Muslim there, freshly expelled from the United States, de facto having become now Belgian Muslim and studying Toxicology. In dire need of some spiritual dimension in our wretched lives we meet in the Silent Room. "Yo, Ameri, erm, Belgian Muslim, how are they hanging?" I says. "What do you cowardly barbarian expect after torturing and almost murdering an innocent Muslim young man? It is long past time that you learned that the world belongs to Allah (swt) and His servants. If you continue in your arogant unbelief, surely you will be taught some hard lessons about the reality of your situation. Embrace Islam now and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt). Your grandchildren will be Muslim. Allahu akbar!" he answers. Upon hearing the last two words my mental relays click in place, I suddenly realize who I am and like Brandon Routh on steroïds I tear a meditation bench from the wall and crash it on Belgian Muslims head.

OK, I let myself go there. Once again Islam is involved here and Ayatollah Khomeini said that there is no place in Islam for humor. Anyway, I saved the translation of the article's best part for the end:

"With this Silent Room the UA at the same time wants to lower the treshold for immigrant youths in Antwerp. There is no mosque for these muslim youths. But a prayer room where they too can worship, must give the immigrants an argument to pursue higher studies."

Dang. It's really there. That's how it was printed. Let me repeat it for you:

"With this Silent Room the UA at the same time wants to lower the treshold for immigrant youths in Antwerp. There is no mosque for these muslim youths. But a prayer room where they too can worship, must give the immigrants an argument to pursue higher studies."

I really think studying that last sentence is useful since in a couple of lines it says such an awful lot of the mental state of our woolly headed academic crowd who rather engage in hyped up wishful thinking than plant themselves for a couple of seconds on solid asphalt.

First, the Christian religion in Western Europe is in a comatose state. Especially among students the act of worshipping the Christian God is something as utterly uncool as playing Herb Alpert's This guy's in love with you on a groovy Spring Break party with boobies flashing galore. If there are students showing an inclination for indulging in some spiritual activity, their vocabulary will contain words like yin, yang, zen, feng shui and what not. Or they will proudly tell you they arrange their lives in Buddhist fashion. Or, in the worst case, they will confide that they read the Quran and actually find it a book of great wisdom. Especially the girls will tell you that. But a student actively practicing Christianity? If you spot one, let me know and I'll bring my Nikon Coolpix 4800. In short, if the good rector expects his sheep will now flock in great number to the Silent Room, tripping over each other and the meditation benches in the process, he might be in for a disappointing entrée.

Second, all these university guys undoubtedly think very high of themselves and their intellect, but upon hearing them so proudly announce the opening of a new Silent Room I bet they never contemplated whether there might not be a connection between Europes frantic efforts to erase or downplay its judeo-christian heritage and the ever dwindling number of churchgoers. Instead of reinvigorating, redefining and actualizing the christian message for the 21st century, they prefer to cling to hollow multiculti babble which thinly veils the basic atheism they succumbed to a long time ago. An ugly, horrible and utterly sterile nonidentity space like the professors' Silent Room is the perfect visualization of their mental state or what they truly believe. When it comes to God, there is but this void.

Third, and most striking of all, is that these wackademics seriously think that installing a Silent Room will make attending university more attractive for muslim youths. The reasons why muslim youths almost as a rule do not pursue higher studies are well documented. It starts at a young age. Among the majority of muslim families, kindergarten is considered a waste of time. In Belgium, one is only obliged by law to send one's kids to school from age 6 on. The result is that Ali, Kareem and Mohammed are dropped in school with language development lagging three years behind that of the average Koen, Jonas and Dirk. It's a barrier from which many never recover, and indeed half of the immigrant youths (which in Belgium means perhaps 80% muslim kids) finish high school without a diploma. It doesn't help either that Muslim parents as a rule refuse to attend regular contact evenings with the teachers. I'm NOT saying here that their kids are more stupid than ours. What I DO know, is that if I kept my kids at home till they're 6 instead of sending them to kindergarten at age 2 1/2, they'd immediately be among the class's worst and it would probably require an effort of several years of all involved to get them to the level of their schoolmates. Then there is the fact that a great many of immigrant teens and adolescents are encouraged to earn quickly - higher studies without acquiring an income are considered a waste of time, especially for boys. The result is that of those who do finish high school, very, very, very few go to university.

All this has been documented ad nauseam. Yet here we have a University Rector who thinks that if he provides an expensive void no one can identify with, muslim youths will have one reason more to embark on an academic career. Our youths, who have by and large flushed God and Christianity through the john, already can't identify with a hollow no man's land. Why would muslim boys and girls, with a resurging sense of pride in their religion and culture, feel attracted by this hollow monstrosity?

Europe, look at that Silent Room. That's you. A void.


MFBB.

HEAVY RIOTING IN BRUSSELS.

For at least three consecutive nights there has been heavy rioting in the Marollen, an old neighborhood near the Palais de Justice in the centre of Brussels. At this moment, Thursday night, things seem to have calmed down but the incidents show once again that every European community with a fair number of North African, read muslim immigrants, is a potential powderkeg needing very little to go off, see also the May 2006 riots in Montfermeil near Paris. So what happened?

On Sunday 24 September, Fayçal Chaaban, a 25-year old Moroccan inmate of Vorst prison (Vorst, Forest in French, is a suburb of Brussels) died. The reason of his death is now subject to investigation, but it appears that he succumbed to an overdose of sedatives which the prison guards administered to cool him down. It is very difficult to get hard data on what happened, but probably the most interesting take on the story is offered by the Arab European League, the notorious Antwerp-based organization of extremist arab youths founded by (former?) Hizballah terrorist Dyab Abu Jahjah. I will quote some (translated) sentences from their Dutch-spoken chapter. Keep in mind that Chaaban was a criminal with a heavy past, who started a career of theft, armed robbery and physical violence when he was only 13 (thirteen), was convicted for theft in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and had been locked up again last September for - who would have thunk it??? - theft:

Fayçal Chaaban was a good acquaintance of present AEL Belgium Chairman Karim Hassoun... [because of intermarrying between the Hassoun and Chaaban families] more details have come to us...

...Fayçal was fasting beacuse of the start of the yearly Ramadan. The food offered to him at night was totally unadequate. When Fayçal complained about this to the guards a word fight started whereupon the guards suddenly decided to put him in an isolation cell.

When he kept protesting, yelling and offering verbal resistance in the isolation cell, the guards decided to tie him up. His two legs were tied up to one arm, so that the other arm stayed free. Fayçal kept protesting and then it was decided to administer sedatives to make him sleep. After the injection he was still being kept tied up.

When 15 hours later the first dose had had its effect, he woke and started to protest anew, whereupon he was administered without thought a second dose. This second injection proved fatal. Fayçal did not wake up anymore and was found dead in his cell at 2.30am on Monday morning.

And this is what happened when word of Chaabans death filtered out of prison:

On Monday night 25/26 September tens of Moroccan youths (I know, actually they are Belgian youths but since the authorities keep referring to Vlaams Belang voters as SS Einsatzgruppen, shit, why not play the game) ventured out in the Marollen, busted several car and shop windows and set one shop and five cars between the Marollen and the Square Anneessens ablaze. Ten youths were arrested, and released 15 1/2 nanoseconds later. Luckily, the owners of the shop and the cars found tremendous solace in the words of Philippe Close, Cabinet Chief to Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans, who hastened to emphasize that there had been no real riots between the youths and the police nor huge gatherings, only isolated incidents. It is possible here that Mr. Close labeled the burning of the shop as antics of bored young people, since the shop in question (Dechamps) did in antiques. Anyway, somewhere in the night of Monday to Tuesday, it was agreed between communal representatives and a delegation of the youths to hold a meeting Tuesday evening to listen to the grievances of the latter.

Dude, BAD LUCK!!!!!! The intended meeting never took place because of - who would have thunk it??? - rio, erm, I mean isolated incidents. Indeed, in the evening of Tuesday, September 26, from 8.30pm on, tens of Moroccan youths ventured out in the Marollen, busted car windows, pleted stones at people passing by and set fire to a youth centre at the Place de la Querelle. When firefighters arrived, they were attacked by the youths who tried to prevent them from extinguishing the fire. In addition, bus stops were shattered and car was set alight. Also, a night shop at the Zuidlaan was looted, although this isolated incident may simply have involved a pious muslim verrrrry hungry after a day's hard fasting. To cut a long story real short, this time 30 youths were arrested, and released after 25 1/3 nanoseconds.

(OK. I made up the nanoseconds last one. Honestly, I don't know if they were released this time.)

Apparently having become smarter, the representatives of the Brussels City Council this time made no rendez-vous to listen to the youth's grievances come Wednesday evening. And goddam right they were, for as far as I know, apart from the usual innocent passers-by stone-pelting, café-burning, carglass-busting, two molotovcocktails have been thrown in the Saint-Peter Hospital, a main hospital in Brussels Centre. I don't know anymore if the firefighters were hampered in their work here too, but the car keys of some fire engines were stolen. 45 youths were arrested, and it appears 31 of them have a criminal past.


So far, so good. There's several striking aspects here. First, the very scant reporting in Belgian MSM on the whole affair. Indeed, it's very tough to get decent and elaborate reporting in Belgoland itself. So much so that I had to gather info at Dutch sites like this one. Could it be that the mainstream Belgian media were kindly requested by the authorities not to shed too much light on the riots lest not more people feel induced to vote for either the Vlaams Belang (in Flanders) or the Front National (in Wallonia). It is a possibility - even without the riots, a poll by newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws found that more than 38% of the vote in Antwerp would go to the VB. Of course, Antwerp is a traditional VB-stronghold, but although the VB results throughout Flanders are expected to be slightly lower, they will proabaly be firmly upward from the previous election. Likewise, in Wallonia too the Front National is expected to make huge inroads in cities hitherto considered the realm of the ruling Parti Socialiste. The powers that be, at least for now, are scared shitless for Election Day, and it might be that their cronies in the media have received instructions not to highlight anything that might induce even more people to vote for VB and FN.

The second aspect worth thinking over is, imho, the reaction of the Moroccan community to the death of a convicted criminal. In unclear circumstances a young thug who has stolen, beaten and vandalized his way through life meets his end. This mere fact leads hundreds of hotheads - no doubt with silent approval from a much larger segment of the Moroccan community - to wreak havoc in the streets of Brussels. Imagine, if you are a male white twenty- or thirtysomething, that you and your friends belong to a white immigrant community in, say, Rabat in Morocco. You were born there from western parents and have lived all your life there, and at some pont in time a number of you wandered off the right track to end up in jail. One of them has a particularly bad record - rape, theft, drugs trafficking, armed robbery etc. One day it transpires that he died in prison. Now do this little thought exercise - would you and your friends venture out in the streets of Rabat and bust cars, set shops alight and even try to set fire to a hospital or a home for the elderly?

Of course you wouldn't.

But, the reverse situation just produced itself in the Capital of Europe, and, mark my words, this is just the beginning.

Among native Belgian youths, or shall I say native western youths, the common reaction to such an incident would by and large be "Good Riddance". That's just how it is. There may be polite recommendation of an investigation as to the exact circumstances of what is indeed a curious death - but other than that, nothing. Yet here one can witness how immigrants youths stand up for a dead thug as if he were a goddam war hero or freedom fighter, and the irony is totally lost when the Hassoun and Chaaban families lament bitterly about their lovely Fayçal not being able to break Ramadan fast at evening with a decent halal meal - imagine, a good-for-nothing criminal who suddenly discovers the virtues of piously confessing his muslim faith.

I don't want this culture in my country. I don't want this culture in my Europe. The topic of this post is the Chaaban case and the ensuing riots, but I could have added ten cars set ablaze in Schaarbeek last Friday, before Chaabans death. Or the "youths" who wounded themselves in Beringen, province of Limburg, when their improvised explosive device went off. Or the striking drivers of bus and tram companies in areas of Brussels, refusing to do their job after colleagues were threatened with a revolver or physically assaulted.

I sincerely hope the VB and FN win big. There may still be time to turn the tide. May. However, if that tide cannot be turned and Europe is lost, it can still be of service to America. As an example of how not to deal with the problems of muslim minorities, which have the potential of turning in majorities faster than you think.

STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION IN WESTERN COUNTRIES.


MFBB.

FLYING SOCIALISTS SIGHTED IN SWEDEN.

Out of the Swedish power corridors, that is.

On Sunday, September 17, Sweden had parliamentary elections, and on a global agenda dominated by Iran's nuclear ambitions, carbombs in Iraq and what not, it was easy to overlook them - but in the big country on the Baltic an electoral earthquake took place. The Social Democrats of PM Goran Persson lost to a center-right coalition led by a man seemingly coming from nowhere: Fredrik Reinfeldt of the center-right Moderates Party.

"Mr Reinfeldt is promising to reform the tax and benefits system so that taking a job will always be a better deal than receiving social benefits or government training. Mr Reinfeldt, who takes office 6 October, will also make it easier for companies to hire and fire people. He says the move will have a significant impact in reducing youth unemployment, which is among the highest rates in Europe. "We are the party of working people," Mr Reinfeldt (41) told voters throughout the election campaign. He wants to trim the Swedish economy so that it will make the best of the global market. And he has the support of big, as well as small, businesses."

That sounds lovely, isn't it? Well, you may or may not have noticed somewhere that the election was a relatively close call, which would apparently not justify the use of a phrase like "electoral earthquake". After all, the three leftwing parties still secured 171 seats against the 178 of Reinfeldts centre-right bloc (the Riksdag, Sweden's unicameral parliament, has 349 seats). But then you have to know that Swedish politics have been dominated almost constantly by the Social Democrats. in the period since 1932 they were in charge in all but nine years, and the last change of the guard dates from 1994 already. This situation has a lot if not all to do with the Social Democrats being the architects of the famous/notorious (take your pick) welfare state, typically characterized by cradle to grave state assistance as well as insanely high taxes (a municipal income tax of about 30% and a high-income state tax of 20-25% for salaries exceeding 300 000 SEK, Swedish "kronen", per year. Plus, employing companies pay an additional 32% of an "employer's fee". Plus, a national VAT of 25% or 18%). Anyway, for decades the Swedish Democrats literally bought their votes by promising Leif Q to take care of everything if only he'd keep them in power. But on September 17 an apparently sufficient number of Leif Q's were tired of being bossed around and opted for a change. With SD being in power for so long, Sweden has been dubbed a "Democratic One Party State", but like a senior member of Reinfeldts New Moderates said, Sweden has finally become a real democracy....

To be sure, the victory for the right is also due to the fact that Sweden's four centre-right parties - the Moderate Unity Party, the Liberals, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats - decided to come up as a united front under the name Allians för Sverige (Alliance for Sweden), agreed upon one PM candidate - Mr. Reinfeldt of the Moderates - AND still boasted a strong social program. One has to understand that you don't win Europeans over to the right by appealing upon things like individualism and/or taking pride at not needing state support. For five decades now, Europeans have been pampered with a gazillion of government measures seemingly taking every responsibility out of the citizen's hands, and in this field the Swedish state was and is a champ: check out this social security overview and you will understand why Swedish taxes are so high.

That is why Mr. Reinfeldt in his bid for PM decided to take a different course than his predecessor Bo Lundgren, held responsible for the Moderates' disastrous 2002 showing, and instead of hammerring upon less taxes and regulation chose to emphasize small pro-business adjustments and a soft approach for reforming social security. In fact Reinfeldt did not rock the boat and even beat the Social Democrats on their own turf. Personally, I have reluctantly come to agree that this is the best way for rightist parties to regain power in Europe. A series of small incremental steps intended to streamline social security and in the process regularly confront the electorate with the (necessary) fait accompli. Reform is needed, but it has to be done stealth mode so as not to lose control again to the socialists at the first occasion. Using this technique, Germans are right now getting slowly accustomed to the knowledge they will have to work till 67. If a rightwing party would trumpet that out loud, it would be kicked out in no time.

There is another not entirely unimportant aspect in the Right's victory in Sweden, and that is that Reinfeldts bloc finally broke the taboo on Swedish unemployment. The official unemployment figure hovers around 6.5 per cent. Reinfeldt stated clearly that if you would add the people on sickness or disability leave or in government job-training programs, the figure would be higher than 20 percent. Desperate to demonstrate that the famous European welfare state is at least as good as the despised US in keeping people at work, socialist parties all over Europe have indeed for decades sexed up unemployment figures by not taking into account categories like the abovementioned. I can tell, as I know all too well from Belgian experience. Here too the Swedes seem to have been real champs, check out this amazing TCS column, Crazy for work in Sweden. But again, it seems enough citizens were finally fed up with the charade.

Some quick country facts: Sweden's consolidation as a nation happened fairly early for European states, namely in the 12th Century, and perhaps not coincidentally with the Christianization of the country. In 1389, Norway, Sweden and Denmark formed one unity under one monarch through the Union of Kalmar, but in 1521 King Gustav I of the House Vasa broke with that union and laid the foundations of the Sweden as we know it today. In the 16th and 17th centuries Sweden was despite its small population of approximately 2 million, one of Europes superpowers, and its most famous characters from that era are Gustavus II Adolfus who fought (and died) in the Thirty-Year War, and Charles XII who famously invaded Peter The Great's Russia but in the end was utterly defeated at Poltava in 1708.

In the 19th century, the two most relevant socio-economic phenomena to occur in Sweden were massive emigration to the US (an estimated 1 million between 1850 and 1910) and industrializaton (from 1870 on). In the 20th century, Sweden managed to stay neutral in both world wars, and after that latter conflict acquired worldwide fame with quality automotive and aeronautical products. During the Cold War it remained nonaligned, and it only joined the European Union in 1995. Today, Sweden, with capital Stockholm, has a population of app. 9,060,000, which on a surface of 449,964 sq km (173,732 sq miles) still translates in a very low (average) population density for European standards. In 2005, its GDP was estimated at $268 billion. The colours of the Swedish flag are yellow and blue. If you look closely, you can discern a woman on the photo. Rumor has it that one in every two Swedes is a woman. Before you pack your coffers for Stockholm, keep in mind that probably not all of them look like the one pictured.


MFBB.