CELTIC LOVE STORY 2006 REDUX

With all the crap going on here and all the doom an' gloom around, a man would tend to forget there's still plenty of other, more pleasant things around to grab your attention. Like - if you're susceptible to knight stories peppered with some history - the movie adaptation of the old Celtic legend of Tristan and Isolde.



Which is what Outlaw and the wife did last weekend, a bit unplanned since looking for Mission:Impossible III and finding all dvd copies rented already. So we picked "Tristan & Isolde" by Kevin Reynolds, and never regretted it. It's not a tearjerker like Titanic, and its combat scenes are a far cry from Troy. It doesn't have the historical accuracy of Barry Lyndon, nor will it glue you to your seat the way Lord Of The Rings does. But almost as soon as we flicked off the dvd player, our appreciation started to grow.

The film is a loose adaptation of an old Celtic legend of which the origins can be traced back to either Irish or Welsh folk tales, and of which the story proliferated practically all across Europe, whence the multitude of versions. One of the best medieval authors to put the legend in crafty prose was the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg (died c. 1210). His Tristan is considered - together with Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied - as emblematic cornerstones of the great romantic narratives of the German Middle Ages.

The film's storyline follows the version whereby Tristan (James Franco) is a young Cornish knight (Cornish, from Cornwall, a region in the southwest of England) adopted by King Marke (Rufus Sewell) after a battle with the Irish invaders. The timeframe Tristan and Isolde takes us back to is (very) early medieval, say around 600 AD. The Roman Empire perished 200 years earlier and unity is lost among the various English tribes, which weakens them so that they cannot withstand repeated Irish invasions. In the course of a battle in which Tristan successfully repels an Irish raid and kills the enemy commander Morold, principal warlord of the Irish King Donnchadh (David Patrick O'Hara), Tristan himself is mortally wounded. According to Cornish custom his body is posed for dead on a boat and delivered to the sea. However, the currents take the boat across the Irish Sea and it is King Donnchadh's daughter, Isolde (Sophia Myles) who discovers it and its precious cargo, still clinging to life by a thread. Isolde then carefully nurses Tristan back to life in a hidden alcove on the seashore with the silent knowledge of her servant maid Brangnae (Bronagh Gallagher). Because she doesn't want to reveal her identity to Tristan, nominally still an enemy warrior, upon asked her name she gives that one of her servant. By the time Tristan has regained his strenght again, the two have totally fallen in love, but then the boat's wreck is discovered by Donnchadh's men who now suspect an English knight is around. Sick with fear for her father's reaction, Isolde, who was promised as wife to Morold, urges Tristan to regain the sea and sail back to England, and thus happens.

The consternation in King Marke's camp upon seeing their hero returned from the dead quickly makes place for joy, but the young knight can't forget his Irish heartthrob. One day, King Marke receives a rather incongruous - given the state of war with Ireland - invitation from King Donnchadh for a tournament to be held at Donnchadh's residence, supposedly to herald a new era of cooperation. The price will be Donnchadh's daughter, Princess Isolde. Tristan, not knowing Isolde is actually his savior, volunteers to be King Marke's champion, who is a widower and to whom he feels indebted for having been adopted as an orphan. As could be expected, Tristan wins this tournament, and only then recognizes that he has won his lover for his Lord. Back in England, after King Marke's marriage to Isolde, the two try at first to suppress their emotions but soon see each other again secretly. Word of their affair spreads, and eventually reaches Donnchadh through Wictred, a renegade English knight who envies Markes' kingly rule. The two craft a plan whereby during a visit of the Irish Court to Marke, the latter will be publicly humiliated through disclosure of Tristan and Isolde's affair, and Donnchadh reckons that then is the time to dispose of a weakened Marke and replace him with the more trustworthy Wictred.

Thus happens. Marke, upon finding out he has been cheated on throws the two lovers in jail but it's too late: a number of his men, judging him a fool, have changed allegiance and Donnchadh's troops overrun Marke's stronghold. At the last moment Marke learns of the circumstances under which his first knight met his young wife, and forgives them. Even though Tristan and Isolde are set free and allowed to go wherever they wish, Tristan, not wanting to be remembered as a man who brought down a kingdom through a love affair, throws his weight into battle and narrowly tips the balance by killing Wictred. Although he himself is mortally wounded, the rest of Marke's men take courage and finally beat the Irish.

From then on Marke will oversee the ascent of a strong and unified English kingdom, undisturbed by Irish invasions. His young wife however, beside herself with sorrow over Tristan's death, fades away. So sorry, there's no happy end.

By and large I found Tristan & Isolde quite entertaining. It was also the third movie I saw with Kevin Reynolds as director, after Fandango (1985) and The Beast (1988), and I'd say that Reynolds lacks just that little bit that would make him a real powerplayer among directors. It's not that his productivity is low; Kubrick's was lower. But there seems to be lacking some drive. Either he chooses mostly mediocre scripts, e.g. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), or he isn't a tyrant enough on the set. Possibly a bit too much intimacy too (especially in Fandango). And then there's the fact Reynolds seems to have trouble finding budgets with clout to finance his films - you can see that Tristan & Isolde is really, really low budget. Not surprisingly perhaps, since the only time he really did oversee a huge project, Waterworld (1995), it flopped terribly. That said, Tristan... gets the green light from yours truly, not in the least because of the fine acting. Both James Franco (who was also in both Spidermans) and Sophia Myles (Underworld) glow in their roles - watch out for those two - and Rufus Sewell too plays a very plausible King Marke. The producer of Tristan and Isolde is Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven).

To dwell a little longer on Reynolds' curriculum, the one movie that really, really left a lasting impression on me was The Beast (1988), which came out here in Europe as The Beast of War. It tells the story of a Soviet tank crew who, after having destroyed an Afghan village in 1981, get lost in a dead-end valley and are chased by mujahideen. Not surprisingly, Reynolds too calls The Beast his best film. I saw it first in 1989 IIRC at the International Film Festival of Ghent, and back then it was really trendsetting as far as combat scenes go, if you discount Platoon (Platoon was very good for combat scenes and general atmosphere, but I absolutely disliked the pathetical way Willem Dafoe went down as well as the PC message that "the enemy was inside us"). Actually, I'm surprised that The Beast received comparatively little praise since all of it - crew, director, story, special effects - were top notch. After the performance, I walked into the lobby of Decascoop, Gents main movie theatre, and bumped into Mr. Reynolds, a guy from Decascoop and George Dzundza, who plays the bad sergeant Daskal, the tank commander. Dzundza, who I believe is from Georgian origin (that's Georgia in the Caucasus, not in the Bible Belt) is a chap who also played in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. I was able to exchange a few words with Mr. Dzundza about the tank which is more or less a star too in the movie, the way the F-14 Tomcat was a star in Top Gun. As a tank geek, I don't like it when directors fail to come up with "correct" tanks in depicting historical battles, think Patton tanks for Tigers in movies about the Ardennes Offensive. But the T-55 in The Beast was goddam real. I asked Mr. Dzundza how on earth they had managed to get a genuine Russian tank at their disposal (remember, it was still the Cold War) and it turned out it was a Syrian army tank captured by the IDF. For the tank nutters among you, see the poster to the left. The gap between the first and second wheel identifies it as a T-55, not a T-62. I read somewhere that Russian tank designers put in that space to allow for easily making a tank with a blasted track roadborne again in case spare tracks were missing. The idea was that the crew would simply omit "the missing links" and drape the remaining track along the shorter wheelbase.

OK, enough about adultery in the Middle Ages and Soviet Cold War era tanks.



Sorry, I can't help it. Like The Beast, The Beauty also seems to have made a lasting impression on me. Sophia Myles, you are a sight for sore eyes.


MFBB.

P.S.: it's useless to try to warn Mrs. Outlaw. She's computerphobic and doesn't even want an email account.

P.S.S.: for the ladies among you, sorry, but as long as there are no female staffers here at DowneastBlog (Kerry where are youuuuuuuu????), don't count on hulk pics anytime soon.

THE POLICE CARS HAVE TO BE WITHDRAWN IMMEDIATELY!!!

For one year and a half it's been car torching. Since January 2005, the total number of cars put on fire in France, by French youths, is about 62,000 (some 30,000 in 2005, another 32,000 this year alone).

Seems like it's beginning to bore them.

During the night of Wednesday October 25 to Thursday October 26, three buses were set on fire, and had it not been for the alertness of one bus driver who extinghuished the fire on his bus himself, there would have been four.

Welcome to France 2006.

L'incident le plus grave s'est déroulé vers 01H00 du matin, à la limite de Bagnolet et Montreuil, en Seine-Saint-Denis. A l'arrêt Delpêche sur la ligne 122 de la RATP, un groupe d'une dizaine d'assaillants cagoulés a pris d'assaut un véhicule.
Au moins cinq d'entre eux, selon un porte-parole de la Régie, portaient des armes de poing. Selon une source policière, un agresseur a placé son arme sur la tempe du chauffeur pour lui ordonner de quitter son siège.

"Ils ont ensuite dérobé le bus, qu'ils ont conduit sur une courte distance, puis y ont mis le feu", a ajouté le porte-parole de la RATP. Les passagers et le chauffeur, très choqués, n'ont pas été blessés. Selon la même source policière, le bus détourné a "fait un gymkhana" sur plusieurs centaines de mètres, a brisé une barrière puis s'est immobilisé sur le square Lénine, près de la cité de la Noue à Montreuil où il a été incendié. Jeudi matin, les chauffeurs de la ligne 122 se sont mis en grève.

Plus tôt dans la soirée, un autre bus de la RATP avait aussi été pris pour cible non loin de là, à Nanterre, également par plusieurs personnes cagoulées, les passagers ayant eu juste le temps de descendre. Les agresseurs ne portaient pas d'armes visibles et personne n'a été blessé. Le véhicule a entièrement brûlé. Aucune arrestation n'a eu lieu, la police judiciaire des Hauts-de-Seine a été saisie.
A Athis-Mons, une autre banlieue au sud de Paris, un autre bus a été attaqué par trois jeunes gens au visage à demi-dissimulé par des capuches. Ils ont ordonné aux passagers de descendre et ont jeté un cocktail-molotov à l'intérieur. Après leur fuite, le chauffeur a réussi à étouffer les flammes, a indiqué la police.

Un autre bus a été la proie des flammes mercredi soir: aux Minguettes à Vénissieux, un véhicule appartenant à une compagnie privée a entièrement brûlé alors qu'il était stationné, vide, dans une rue.

In short: the worst incident involved ten hooded youths of whom at least 5 had revolvers, who forced a bus on the outskirts of Bagnolet and Montreuil, in the Seine-Saint-Denis Department, to stop. One gunman put a revolver to the driver's temple and ordered him to get off the driver's seat. The thugs then drove the bus themselves over a short stretch, rammed several obstacles in the street and came to a halt on, ironically enough, the Square Lénine (yes indeed, in Paris there are still squares named after a communist mass murderer). Thereupon the bus was torched. It is unclear when the shocked passengers and bus driver got off, but apparently they were still on it during the joyride.

In another incident earlier that evening, in Nanterre, another bus was made to stop by hooded "French youths" and immediately set on fire, whereby the passengers barely had the time to get out.

In Athis-Mons yet another bus was stopped by masked individuals who ordered the people off and then threw a molotovcocktail in the bus' interior. However, they very quickly left and the driver had the sang-froid to extinguish the flames himself. Give that man a cigar.

Finally, in Vénissieux, a bus belonging to a private company, standing empty in some alley, was torched.

Last night, it was a similar story:

BOBIGNY (AP) - Deux autobus ont été incendiés vendredi soir en Seine-Saint-Denis, au Blanc-Mesnil. La circulation des bus a été suspendue dans une large portion du département et devrait reprendre au plus tôt samedi matin, selon la RATP à Bobigny.

En fin d'après-midi vers 18h30, au niveau de la gare SNCF du Blanc-Mesnil, deux personnes encagoulées, dont l'une aurait eu une arme de poing selon des témoins, sont montées à bord d'un bus qui transportait une quinzaine de personnes, a-t-on appris de source policière. Ils ont fait descendre les passagers et le chauffeur avant de prendre le volant du bus et de lui faire percuter une rembarde. Ils ont ensuite mis le feu en répandant de l'essence, précisait-on de même source. Un deuxième autobus a été incendié au Blanc-Mesnil, a-t-on constaté sur place.

So, two hooded French youths of whom one had a revolver forced 15 people off a bus in Blanc-Mesnil, that's in the same Seine-Saint-Denis area, and torched it. A second one was torched in the vicinity, but on that incident no details are available.

The French haven't forgotten their old ways. No Pasaran! reports that "one of the socialist candidates for the French Presidential elections, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (nicknamed "DSK") has called for the removal of all riot police transport vehicles from the suburbs as a sort of peace offering in the hopes of calming things down during this One Year Anniversary of the 2005 riots. He referred to certain suburbs as "militarily occupied areas" and said that French youths who mill about aimlessly in these neighborhoods should not be treated as if they were on "Indian reservations".

PARIS (AP) - S'adressant "avec gravité" au ministre de l'Intérieur Nicolas Sarkozy, Dominique Strauss-Kahn a exigé jeudi soir le retrait des "cars de police des cités", un "signe" nécessaire selon lui si "on veut retrouver le calme dans les jours qui viennent" et "si on ne veut pas que l'anniversaire" de la crise des banlieues "soit un drame". "Il faut retirer maintenant les cars de police des cités. Ce ne sont pas des terrains conquis militairement et qu'il faut occuper, ce sont des villes où il y a nos jeunes, ce sont des villes où nous sommes tous!", a-t-il lancé.

I do agree to some extent with Mr. Strauss-Kahn though. In my humble opinion, the police cars should indeed be withdrawn from the banlieues immediately.

And replaced with these ones:




STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!
STOP MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO WESTERN COUNTRIES!


MFBB

STATEMENT OF THE UNION.

“The thing that has changed over the past month is that they now want to kill us,” said Bruno Beschizza, the leader of Synergie, a union to which 40 per cent of officers belong. To which Synergie's Deputy Leader Patrice Ribeiro adds: “Tension is rising very dramatically. There is the will to kill.” Action Police, a hardline union, says: “We are in a civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists.” And Joaquin Masanet, Secretary General of the national police syndicate UNSA: "These guys came to kill. They wore balaclavas, and had baseball bats and iron bars."

If you don't believe me, here's the link to Mr. Beschizza's Police Union "Synergie". And here the one to Action Police. Both sites seem to speak of nothing else but the violent encounters with Muslim French youths. For those who thought that the violent riots which rocked France now almost one year ago somehow ended with a whimper somewhere in December, forget it. They were just not reported anymore. This Times article speaks of an average of 112 torched cars a day since January 2006, which jibes fairly well with the October 19 NoPasaran! post, which puts the total tally on 31,614, or an average of 109 torched cars a day. Two weeks ago I mentioned in DowneastBlog's comments section a total of 2,400 wounded police officers since New Year's Day, but the Times now puts the total at "nearly 3,000". To be sure, I need to add some perspective here: if you understand a little French, you can hear Mr. Masanet of UNSA mention here the staggering total of 8 police officers killed an 9,500 wounded over the course of 2005. But that's a total over a whole year - we ain't there yet - and thus far there have not yet been riots like in 2005 (and, of course, this total also includes casualties from non-related incidents, which have NOT been counted in the 2006 number of 3,000 police officers wounded).

While it is clear that the violence has in fact continued unabated throughout the year, especially since last month it seems to have gained momentum, with the French Interior Ministry claiming a total of 480 violent attacks against the police for the whole of France during September, or an increase of 30% compared to August. Towards the end of last month, a law enforcement memo warned of a "climate of impunity" in Seine-Saint-Denis, a notorious district in the north of Paris that includes suburbs like Epinay-sur-Seine. The memo reported a 23 percent increase in violent robberies and a 14 percent increase in assaults in the district of 1.5 million during the first six months of 2006, and complained about young, inexperienced police officers sent into the mêlée and a lax court system (during a certain period of unrest this year in Epinay-sur-Seine, out of a total of 85 juveniles arrested, only one was jailed). I think the table to the left speaks for itself, should you need regulare updates on Frances best hidden war, I recommend checking out NoPasaran! at least once a week (which is also where I got the table from, merci mecs!).


From my perspective in Belgium, Frances northern neighbour, one thing is very obvious, apart from the scale of the troubles of course. That is the TOTAL BLACKOUT in the Belgian Regime Media. One would think that with nearly 32,000 cars burned and 3,000 police officers wounded, it would be frontpage news and/or news item no°1 on TV. After all, Paris is barely 3 hours driving from Brussels. And yet... nothing. Nada. Niks. Nichts. Rien. Could it be that Belgian MSM received secret instructions from the powers that be to broadcast nothing that could smash the wonderful multicultural Utopia to smithereens? Especially around election time? It could be. In fact, it would not surprise me in the least. Belgium is, like France, a country where the Left is entrenched in power to an extent unthinkable in the US. There simply is no alternative viewpoint save from blogs. Unfortunately, despite all the bruhaha about the impact of blogs on the media landscape, fact is that blogs ultimately reach relatively few people. And so it is with sadness and horror that people who get a glimpse of reality, like yours truly, view the march of the ignorant masses towards doom. There are going to be presidential elections come next spring. The main candidate for the French Parti Socialiste is a woman, 53-year old Ségolène Royal. Tens of thousands of French Police Officers may be besieged each and every day, resulting in an everyday average of 14 wounded ones, but Madame Royal, more aware of the grave danger posed by capitalism and free markets, was quoted on October 13 as:

“The capitalists have to be frightened. There is no alternative. They can’t just dispose of people as they wish. They have to be held accountable."

France is fucked up economically, its indigenous population on a march towards extinction, its government and ministers spineless (Président Chirac will withdraw 200 Special Forces from Afghanistan because of mounting Taliban violence there) AND there's an Intifada going on in its cities.

And then you hear the favorite for the presidential elections 2007 rail against capitalism.

More often than not these days, I feel the need to pinch myself in the arm to see whether I'm dreaming or wide awake. It keeps turning out to be the latter. This is 2006, right?


MFBB.


UPDATE: BUS PUT ON FIRE, PASSENGERS FORCED OUT FIRST

From Le Nouvel Observateur:

EVRY (AP) -- Un groupe d'une trentaine de jeunes a incendié dimanche en début d'après-midi un bus des transports en commun de la ville de Grigny (Essonne), après en avoir fait descendre les passagers, selon les autorités.
L'incident s'est produit aux alentours de 14h dans la cité de la Grande Borne et n'a pas fait de blessés, a précisé la préfecture de l'Essonne à Evry.
La police a procédé à une interpellation et se trouvait encore sur place vers 18h30 pour "sécuriser le secteur", selon la préfecture, qui n'a signalé aucun débordement.
Un responsable local de la police, Jean-François Papineau, chef de district à Grigny, a parlé d'une "attaque délibérée". Interrogé sur LCI, il a raconté que les jeunes avaient d'abord fait descendre les passagers du bus, puis avaient aspergé le véhicule d'essence et l'avaient incendié. Lorsque les pompiers sont intervenus, ils ont subi un "caillassage", a ajouté M. Papineau en précisant que l'incendie s'était propagé à quatre véhicules en stationnement à proximité du bus. AP

In short, this afternoon (Sunday afternoon) in Grigny, a Paris suburb, a bus was forced to stop by a mob of 30 Fwench youths, the passengers forced to get out, and then doused with gasoline and put on fire. Mind you, this happened in broad daylight. The fire spread to three vehicles in the vicinity. When firefighters arrived, the Fwench youths pelted them with stones.

I guess it was meant to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

There was end of Ramadan celebration too last evening in Lede, Belgium. Lede is a small town roughly between Gent and Brussels. 58-year old jeweller Edouard Sabbe was killed during a violent robbery of his business by Belgian youths. Roughly one hour after the discovery of the body, a suspect, 23-year old Mustapha A. from Sint-Gillis, a Brussels suburb with a large community of Argentinian gauchos, was arrested. It is as good as certain that Mustapha A. was the driver of the car with which the attackers arrived at Mr. Sabbes business. Rest in peace Mr. Sabbe.

SURE, WE ARE ALL NAZIS....

A while back, we briefly mentioned a story about a girl of Sri Lankan origin in the town of Lokeren, who had joined the Vlaams Belang.

During last Sunday's municipal elections, she was rewarded with a seat in Lokeren's town council. Unbelievably enough, Belgium's The Stavda, sometimes referred to as De Standaard, had an article on her this week.

This is her story.

Friends left her, as a job student she was fired, and on the streets she was scolded for racist by young immigrants. Only because she chose for Vlaams Belang in Lokeren. Aisha Van Zele's revenge is sweet: in January she debuts in the town council. Aisha Van Zele (22) got 475 preferential votes. "I've now got six years to prove we are no racists, even though we maintain a strong stance on immigrants" says the communication sciences student. You won't say so from hearing her name, but she's from Sri Lanka. Has she not, by joining the Vlaams Belang - accused by many of being racist - chosen the side of the enemy? "I arrived in Flanders as a baby. I feel Flemish, speak perfect Dutch, endorse Flemish values and ways. What does my dark skin matter?" [...] "I knew I would be rebuffed when I switched from VLD to Vlaams Belang in June. But that it would prove to be so hard came as a surprise. I lost two weekend jobs in a restaurant and a fashion shop. On the street, young immigrants scolded me for being a racist. Some people started to avoid me as if I had the plague. A couple of weeks ago I went to a café with my sister. She was heartily welcomed, but so-called friends of mine turned away their heads. Luckily there was always my real friends. And besides, I really want to mean something for Lokeren. As a young woman, I dare not to walk some streets past 10pm. In those risk quarters they'd better impose a curfew. Youngsters under the age of 16 should not be allowed to leave without accompaniment."

A couple of things can be learned from this li'l story. Leftists who battled decades for abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and adoption and "liberation" of the woman from under the yoke of men, would rather side with Islamic nutcases who would throw homosexual people from buildings and force women to stay indoors, than get along with a VB member. And Lokeren, a small town of 38,000 between Gent and Antwerp, seems to be having problems too already.

Go Aisha! You rock girl!


MFBB.

IMMIGRANTS SAVE DEMOCRACY IN BELGIUM.

Before you think I have finally gone bananas, let me update you on yesterdays electoral results.

First, like I mentioned already in the comments section, the VB (Vlaams belang, Flemish Interest) does make significant gains in virtually every town from the North Sea to the river Maas, and in several cities (Aalst, Lier) becomes the largest party. The results thus far indicate that the VB almost doubles its number of seats in town councils (from 439 to over 800) as well as its number of seats in provincial councils (from 54 to 87).

In Flanders's big cities, like Antwerp and Ghent, there was a either a status quo (the former) or a slight drawback (the latter). The same phenomenon could be observed in smaller cities with a huge immigrant population, like Mechelen. But especially Antwerp was the focus of national - and international - media attention, since it is the place where the VB originated and since it was considered the main battleground where the VB's strongman Filip De Winter (not the party chief, that's Frank Van Hecke) would challenge the sitting socialist mayor Patrick Janssens. Before October 8, De Winter had indicated he hoped to reach 35% of the vote in Antwerp (in 2000, the party got 33% of the vote). It turned out the VB won "only" 33.5%... while the socialists jumped from 16% to 35%!

Now, the disappointing status quo in Antwerp City is one thing, solid gains all over Flanders are another. To illustrate this, the following table shows the progress the Vlaams Belang made per province (Belgium has five Flemish and five Wallonian provinces) vis-à-vis the previous municipal elections, held in 2000 (in Belgium, there's municipal elections every 6 years):

West Flanders: +7%
East Flanders: +6%
Antwerp: +7%
Flemish Brabant: +6%
Limburg: +6%

Keep in mind that this is a table per province: there is thus also a province called Antwerp, and on the whole and despite the VB status quo in Antwerp City, throughout the province the party chalked up a 7% gain.

But if you had been in Belgium last night and watched TV, the impression you would have got was that VB had suffered a severe setback. There's a saying that Antwerp City, pop. 460,000, is a big village. Yesterday one would have thought that the whole of Flanders was a big Antwerp. The progress made "nationwide" was totally overshadowed by the socialist gain in Antwerp. With the written press it was the same story: the headline of De Standaard, Belgium's main newspaper, screamed "VLAAMS BELANG STOPPED". While actually, it doubled its seats. The headline of Het Laatste Nieuws: "THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE VLAAMS BELANG". Goebbels already said that a lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth, and from glancing at a few newspaper covers today I got the impression that the regime press studied Goebbels well.

Nevertheless, the admittedly disappointing result in Antwerp deserves to be scrutinized. And then we see an interesting evolution. Check out the following map:



The map shows the nine electoral districts of Antwerp, which by and large are determined by the center and the suburbs. In case you wonder, yes, "7" is the place the Hoboken in Hudson County, New Jersey, is named after. Since in Antwerp the election was basically a megacontest between the VB and the socialists of the SP.a, the map shows which one is the biggest in each of the nine districts, whereby grey has been chosen for socialists and black for the VB (not a coincidence imho). In Antwerp City, "1", the center, the SP.a is biggest. Good. Now look at the periphery: with the exception of "2" and "4" it's all black. So, socialist are biggest in the center, VB is biggest in the suburbs. How to explain this?

1° Well, firstly, as you may or may not know, in 2004 the Belgian State, in one of its many instances of criminal insanity, granted voting rights in municipal elections to immigrants who do not even have the Belgian nationality on the condition that they know what Smurfs are, can tell Belgian fries from French ones and say "merci" upon receiving their monthly 1,000 EUR stipend from Social Security. Since it is a well-known fact that the socialists were the driving force behind these voting rights, it can be safely assumed that those who use these rights voted SP.a.

2° Secondly, there is the impact of the so-called Snel-Belg Wet (Quick Citizenship Bill), rushed through Parliament in 2000 after the previous municipal elections in which the VB, then still Vlaams Blok, also gained considerably. The "Snel-Belg Wet" (literally "Fast-Belgian Law") gives one Belgian nationality on very easy terms, namely:

* remain in Belgium for some time (some = three years, sometimes as less as two years)
* work in Belgium
* be married to a Belgian

Since North African youths who already possess Belgian nationality almost invariably prefer imported, unspoiled (and unassimilated) girls from Morocco, Algeria et al for brides, the Quick Citizenship Bill granted every newlywed young woman from these countries automatically Belgian nationality, and thus the right to vote. No one argued more in favor of this bill than the socialists, who correctly reckoned that the newcomers would in all likelihood vote for them.

3° Thirdly, there's the fact that those Belgians of North African origin who have been here since decades and whose numbers are quickly rising thanks to a much higher feritlity rate, vote overwhelmingly for the left.

4° Fourthly, not only is the fertility rate of the "old" Belgians much lower, since a couple of years they are moving out of the center in droves. Currently, Antwerp Central has a population of 460,000, of which around 120,000 are immigrants, or one quarter, most of them Moroccans. Of the remaining 3/4 of indigenous Belgians, around 4,000 leave each year and their place is being taken by about 5,000 newcomers of foreign origin, mostly from muslim countries (although recently there's been an influx too of East-Europeans). Almost as a rule, the newcomers vote for socialists.

And these dynamics yield the picture above. The "old" Belgians leave Antwerp Central for the (residential) suburbs and bring their political preferences with them, which explains the very high Vlaams Belang scores in places such as Deurne (nr. 5) where the party received a staggering 43.46% of the vote. Or like in Hoboken (nr. 7) where VB also got more than 40% of the electorate behind it. The very good VB results extend even beyond the nine districts. Not visible on the map, but lying immediately alongside the nine core districts, are such towns like Schoten, Boom, Niel, Borsbeek, Willebroek and Stabroek, and here also VB becomes the biggest party.

However, the other side of the medal is that in Antwerp Central the upward dynamic of the VB has (almost) come to a standstill: from 33% in 2000 to 33.5% in 2006. But as we have seen, since over a timespan of six years tens of thousands of potential VB voters have moved out and tens of socialist voters moved in, one can only conclude that the VB must effectively have grown further strongly in Antwerp City - only among "old" Belgians! Indeed, my fellow Flemish blogger Peter, who lives in Antwerp, gathers that 4 in 10 of every "Flemish" Antwerpian might have voted VB. Which, of course, does not detract from the fact that the socialists won significantly, and that this gain has been brought about largely by the immigrant vote. It is a phenomenon which will produce itself exceedingly all over Europe. We have already seen how, on March 7, 2006, the Dutch municipal elections were won by the Left and how the immigrant vote was largely responible for it. In Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Leiden the native population is effectively being ruled by people of Moroccan origin. Antwerp on October 8, 2006, is basically the same story. The Antwerp City Council has 55 seats. SP.a won 22, and 7 of them, or one third, are going to muslim immigrants: Sener Ugurlu, Karim Bachar, Ouardia El Taghdouini, Youssef Slassi, Fauzaya Talhaoui, Fatma Akbas, and Güler Turan. Only Fauzaya Talhaoui is a veteran. The other six seem to have suddenly come from nowhere, a result of the fact that immigrants not only seem to vote SP.a but in particular for their "own" SP.a candidates. This unlike "native" SP.a voters, who will often vote for immigrants out of a misplaced feeling of having to make good for past colonial injustices or whatever. Possibly the best illustration of this select link of immigrant candidates vs. their "own" electorate was offered in the runup to the elections in Gent, another large Flemish city with a huge immigrant population. There a Turkish candidate for the Christian Democrats, Fuat Korkmazer, opted for distributing leaflets uniquely in Turkish. Hooray for assimilation and the multicultural society!



Notice how the Belgian flag (Black/Yellow/Red) flows over in the Turkish one. If you visit the site of US Congressman Bobby Jindal, who is of Indian origin, which flag do you see up there? Yeah, that one. So, where do you think Mr. Korkmazer's principal loyalty lies, hmmmm? Interesting to know too is that Mr. Korkmazer was chairman of Gent Türk Ocagi, an organization with strong ties with the Turkish racist and fascist organization of the Grey Wolves. When news leaked out in the local Gent press, Mr. Korkmazer first denied his membership (of the Grey Wolves), then stepped down as chairman of Gent Türk Ocagi. It is interesting to notice that this sympathizer, if not member, of the Grey Wolves chose to be a candidate for the Christian Democratic CD & V. Pope John Paul II's would be assassin, Ali Agça, was a former Grey Wolf.

In Brussels, although the situation is more complicated there by the Flemish/Walloon antagonism, the situation is nevertheless comparable. Here too, not only is the number of immigrant councillors steeply on the rise, but also they tend to belong to the left. As Paul Belien from The Brussels Journal reports:

The Brussels borough of Sint-Joost-ten-Node (where the party headquarters of the Vlaams Belang party is located) has 19 councillors of non-European origin on a total of 27. Eleven of the 16 Socialist councillors in Sint-Joost are non-European immigrants, as are 4 of the 5 Christian-Democrats, 2 of the 3 Greens and 2 of the 3 Liberals.

...

Exactly 50% of the Brussels electorate are either foreigners or naturalized Belgians. Six years ago the figure was only 32%. In Antwerp, where 17% of the electorate are immigrants (11.5% in 2000), one third of the Socialist councillors are Muslims. In Ghent, where 12.6% of the electorate is foreign (8.1% in 2000), one quarter of the Socialist councillors are Muslims. In Vilvoorde, a Flemish suburb of Brussels, where 14.8% of the electorate is foreign (9.3% in 2000), half the Socialist representatives are Muslims.

Now, one could rightfully argue whether dominance, or indeed only a strong presence, of "new" Belgians in Belgian politics necessarily needs to be a bad thing. And my answer is: it doesn't. Or rather, it wouldn't have to be. It wouldn't have to be, if only the newcomers would subscribe to the Leitkultur here, which, despite the obvious drawbacks, still gets Belgium ranked among the world's foremost societies. Belgian industry may not produce things with ringing names like Sweden's Volvo, Saab or IKEA. But small as it is, our little country does produce an awful lot more than beer and chocolate. There are satellite and cyclotron and train builders here, there is top-notch pharmaceutical industry, and there is a powerful car and petrochemical industry. Some Belgian companies create huge artificial islands in the Persian Gulf on which superrich oil sheikhs erect cities, others build technology for integrating laptops in the world wide web. If you computer uses DSL, that was invented here! And why is that? Because our entrepreneurs still have the old zip. Because modest, low profile businessmen from small localities like Dendermonde somehow manage to secure contracts with the South Korean Army. Because our workforce by and large (especially the Flemish part) takes pride in delivering a tough and good job. Because our ways of dealing with each other, either in everyday life or in business, are still ruled to a large extent by old-fashioned, christian-inspired notions such as decency, reliability, honesty.

All this is not meant to denigrate the abilities and ways of other peoples who have come to my country. But we have to face the naked fact that our immigrants are mostly muslims, come mostly from arab countries, and vote overwhelmingly for the left. There is a reason for that. After the end of colonial rule, the arab countries almost without exception embraced socialism as the economical doctrine. Socialism applied without religion is bad enough, see the USSR. But when it is mingled with Islam, it will kill your country's economy. That is why anno 2006 the 22 muslim countries in the Middle East, with 270 million inhabitants, produce about as much as 5 million Finns, if you discount the oil. Somehow, the many millions of Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Syrians and what not who flocked over the decades to Europe, failed to see the connection between the deadly combination of the socialism of their Nassers, Ben Bella's or Assads and their religion. Once in Europe they were showered with all the surplus welfare of our modern and rich societies, and the fact that the state was taking care of them and took responsibility out of their hands must have seemed normal, since where they came from the State had been omnipotent too. It may be one reason why muslim immigrants vote so massively for Europes socialist parties. But in the end, the net effect for Europe threatens to be the same. Already, the economic contribution of muslim imigrants is a mirror image of what passes for economy from Rabat to Baghdad: economies overwhelmingly based on trade with very little real production. Think, e.g. of countless small companies doing nothing but buying secondhand European cars and shipping them to the Middle East. Think of eateries and carpet shops. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. But while that kebab shop around the corner may indeed be an enrichment for Belgian gastronomic diversity, the lack of muslim companies producing anything more complicated than stools or tables can hardly be described as an enrichment for economic diversity.

And so it is with sadness that I see the current developments. The Left, traitors as they have always been when faced with bullies, do not even hide anymore that they are after the immigrant votes NOT because they care so much to reach out for them. It is about power, nothing less. Stayin in power. How do you stay in power when your traditional electorate dumps you? Simple: you usher in newcomers, give them rights, pamper them with free housing and positive discrimination and the only thing you ask in return is that their vote. It works. We see it in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Leiden. We see it in Antwerp, Gent and Brussels. We see it in Londen, Leeds and Birmingham. What we are seeing is that instead of us implanting Middle-Easterners in European economy, it's them implanting Middle-Eastern economy in Europe. Still, Europe can kid itself it's on a par with the US and Japan. But in twenty years? That magnificent Mercedes 280E you buy today is still the work of bright German engineers. But their hairs are silver, and their heirs increasingly scarce. I don't like to say it, but Europe obviously cannot count on Moroccan or Algerian engineers. Twenty years ago I was an engineering student in Gent. In my seven years of study, during which I held class with possibly three hundred different individuals, I have known only two muslim colleagues. The first one did not even make it past his first year. The second was indeed very intelligent and a computer whiz kid. But all in all, one has to conclude that so far, the muslim community among us has shown a spectacular ability to not contribute technical novelties in what is supposed to be the space age.

The Belgian municipal elections offer us an interesting glimpse into the future. A future with bipolar societies. In the cities, a large, miserable immigrant body asking itself why it finds Brussels 2025 not so different from Cairo 1965. Out in the country, an ageing local population angry and desperate over the loss of their country's prosperity, bitterly lamenting the fact they ever thought a limitless and conditionless immigration could ever solve their problems. Bitterly lamenting the fact they were so unbelievably foolish to once scold for racists, xenophobes and hatemongerers, those who saw what was in the making decades earlier.

Yesterday, I noticed an article in Gazet Van Antwerpen in which a certain Jan Hertogen, Sociology Professor and Professional Lunatic, had the following to say about the so-called defeat of the Vlaams Belang:

"The VB has only stalled in cities with a lot of Belgians of foreign origin. Eighty per cent of the inhabitants of foreign origin in the big cities have used their voting rights and stopped the extreme right. Therefore, it's the immigrants who have saved democracy."

Weep Europe. Weep.


MFBB.

LET'S ROLL!!!

Tomorrow, October 8 2006, municipal elections will be held all through Belgium. Out of a population of 10,350,000, 7,57 million are going to cast a vote - or show up at least, since voting is obligatory but no one knows whether in the anonimity of the voting booth you effectively lend your vote to a candidate or draw a monkey on that form. Actually, that number of 7.57 million is not entirely correct, because since 2004 legislation allowing non-EU citizens to vote is into effect. For them, voting is not obligatory, and those who want to participate in the political process have to register. For the upcoming elections, only 100,000 EU citizens and 17,000 non-EU citizens living in Belgium chose to do so, which means that for now their effect on the electoral results will be negligible.

In the 308 communes of Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, 4,648,649 people will head to the ballot box. Together, they will elect 7,350 town council members as well as 411 provincial council members, out of 31,906 candidates. For those of you who are interested in such matters, if you follow this link you are offered a map of Flanders with the contours of all communes and provinces, and if you click on a commune you get the results of the 2000 elections. Clicking on "Wetteren" e.g. learns us that back then the Liberals (the VLD, who are over here considered "centre right" but who are effectively a lot like the US's Democrats) got 40.1% of the vote, the Christian Democrats (CD&V) 31% and the Vlaams Blok, as the Vlaams Belang was named before it was outlawed in 2004, 8.6%. Notice, as you wander through Flanders electoral landscape, the multitude of parties as compared to the US's virtual bipolar political constellation. There's liberals, socialists, christian democrats, greens and several brands of nationalists, and while there's a 5% treshold for federal elections, for municipal elections a dog with a hat on can come up with a party, if he can fill a minimal list.

The situation in Wallonia, Belgiums French-speaking south with 262 communes, is different to the extent that while in Flanders the five main parties are by and large in the same category, in the south one party is truly incontournable, even after a gazillion of scandals - the Parti Socialiste. In no less than 70% of Wallonian communes the PS is wielding power, either alone or in a coalition, and in 40% of them it provides the mayor. The left's hold on power is the main reason why Wallonia is in such a terrible mess. More electoral info here. Watch out. La langue de Molière spoken.


Whatever which way you look at it, the municipal elections are a test for the real thing - the parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2007. Tomorrow, people will not only judge their mayors and town selectmen, but the PM and the government too. And it don't look too well for them. For one thing, all eyes are on the Vlaams Belang, Flanders' secessionist party, which is labeled as extreme right and virulently attacked day and night not only by the so-called "democratic" parties but by the media, university profs, artists, writers, filmstars, you name it, for being "racist" and "xenophobic". I've been living in Belgium for 41 years now and became interested in politics at age 18, but I can assure you that I never witnessed a smear campaign like the one waged against the VB since at least six months. Someone not familiar with the political situation in Belgium might get the impression, from reading our newspapers, that the typical VB voter is a chap like the one pictured to the right (actually, he looks a bit like me, only I'm fatter. Bastards did a Katie Couric on me).

One week ago, in an effort reminiscent of the 2003 Rock The Vote Tour performed by a Moooooooooooo-ron in the U.S.AAAAAA---, Tom Barman, a Flemish "rocker" as red as Che Guevara is dead, orchestrated the so-called 0110-concerts, free performances by the fine fleur of the Belgian music scene intended to point out to the general public - which is considered too stupid to reach any conclusion by themselves - just how wrong a vote for the Vlaams Belang is and how limitless tolerance towards people of other faiths and cultures is of such paramount importance. Even as gangs of Moroccan youths had rioted like animals in a Brussels quarter not one week earlier. Mr. Barmans concerts were not the culmination of the hatefest yet, however. That was left for Luc Tuymans, a Belgian artist who, truth to tell, is labeled by Tate Modern as "one of the most significant and influential contemporary painters working today". Personally I think, although I recognize his work has a certain technical quality as well as the ability to leave a lasting ephemereal impression - for me anyway - that the man proper is as mad as a hatter and like all ardent leftoids dangerously inclined to endorse the silencing of dissenters. It's even worse: in the face of muslim extremism, he even advocates self-silencing. Over at The Brussels Journal Paul Beliën reports:

Meanwhile, Belgian artists warn that a victory of the “islamophobic” Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party in the local elections on October 8th may lead to violence. In an interview in the Dutch-language weekly Knack Magazine this week painter Luc Tuymans says: “In the worst case you will get organised resistance [by Moroccan youths], perhaps even rather violent reactions. I suspect many shop keepers will have their windows smashed. People do not seem to be aware, but a vote for the Vlaams Belang may have serious consequences. They should realize this before they take a final decision in the voting booth.”

In other words, do not offend your muslim brethren by voting for a party they don't like since you can get your windows smashed. Keep in mind that it's people like Tuymans who always say that it's the VB which creates a climate of fear. On last note on the good painter. Here is how this morally superior being, who despises the racist VB thugs, depicts the US's Foreign Secretary Condoleezza Rice:



Dixit Tuymans: "Condoleezza Rice was encouraged since childhood to accept the racism in the American society and to go far in life. Today she is one of the mightiest women in the world". Interpret as "...But...but how CAN a BLACK woman be a RIGHTWINGER???? a BLACK WOMAN?????". Hence, out of frustration, the grossly exaggerated, caricaturally enhanced negroïd racial characteristics. Artnet may blather about "...Rice's head is massive within it. She looks simultaneously imposing, pinched, irritated and isolated." I am telling you Mr. Tuymans has revealed us his own racist inner self.

To cut a long story short, for the past six months just about everybody has told the Flemings why they should not vote VB tomorrow. And, for that matter, why Walloons should not vote for the Front National. Because they are racist, xenophobic, hateful and what not, things anathema in our wonderful multicultural society. If there are frictions, it's because of the locals. Because we don't reach out to "them", even as a child can see that whole immigrant communities are deliberately folding back on themselves. Even as a neutral observer cannot but conclude that while "we" have given miles, "they" have yet to give an inch. There's an intifada going on right now in France, there's riots in Windsor, UK. There's a civil war in the making in Europe, and sadly enough I'm not kidding. Arms are being stacked and it's not by your local Vlaams Belang chapter. I may not like certain aspects of the VB's economic agenda, or rather I would like them to emphasize certain aspects more - truly free markets, hayekian approach rather than keynesian - but none of that really matters now. At stake is our very civilization. If you think I'm exaggerating, come to France, where police unions are requesting armored cars to venture out in neighborhoods "held" by muslim immigrants. Today's latest No Pasaran's entry was:

A bomb went off in front of the meeting hall where French Presidential candidate Philippe de Villiers was presiding over a campaign event. Just after speaking on the case of Robert Redeker, de Villiers stated, "I do not fear the Islamists". At that moment, a loud explosion took place at the entry of the meeting hall. The meeting hall was not evacuated and local authorities are investigating.

I know what party is the best guarantee for my daughter not wearing a hijab in twenty years. And I strongly suspect many Flemings do. We will vote for who we want.



No matter what Luc Tuymans says.


MFBB.

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.

QUIZ: SPOT THE SEVEN DIFFERENCES!!!

Hint from Outlaw: the fella to the right is out of TP.


MFBB.

EMPEROR MANUEL II PALAIOLOGOS SEZ:

F*CK YOU MOOOSLIMS!!!!

OK, I made that one up. American slang was less a rage in the fifteenth century than today. What Manuel really said was:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

What a frikkin mess. I spend 11 days and a gazillion of British Pounds in Scotland, and what do I find when I return? Btw, not to mention what I found in Inveraray Castle: two walking tents and a frikkin islamist eejit with jihadi beard and skullcap - but I digress. Yeah, what do I find here huh? The Pope who finally calls a spade a spade and then squirms like Dracula on the Costa Brava at noon and in skimpy swimwear. And why? Because it seems that by quoting a Byzantine Emperor lying six feet under since 600 years, the adherents of a certain religion once again feel "offended". There must be definitely sumpin dead wrong with the Islamic Offense Scale. Photos of crazy Indonesian muslims burning effigies of Benedict are one thing. It's quite another when the Deputy Leader of the ruling Turkish AKP Party, a fella by the name of Salih Kapusuz, says that Benedict will go down in history "in the same category as leaders such as [Benito] Mussolini and [Adolf] Hitler."

Who was this emperor? Manuel II Palaiologus was a Renaissance Man in a dying Reich, at the same time an intellectual, soldier and statesman. But his many talents bought the crumbling empire he was overseeing only a few decades time before it finally succumbed in an orgy of destruction, rape and murder wrought by the followers of Muhammad. Historically, the Byzantium Palaiologos ruled was in fact the surviving eastern half of the Roman Empire of which the western half was overrun in 410 by the Visigoth strongman Alaric. While what people popularly assume to be the sole Roman Empire lay in ruins, that eastern half would actually survive for more than a thousand years yet, and know many strong, illustrious and inspired rulers. One of the most renowned of them all was the famous Justinian I, who ruled from 527 till 565. The world benefited greatly and, to this day, from Justinians reign, for his Chief Legal Counsellor Tribonianus first drafted the new Imperial Civil Law known as the Corpus Juris Civilis (529) and then the Codex Justinian (534), which would much later even serve as the model for French civil law as described in the Code Napoléon. Under Justinian, Byzantine architecture blossomed, the results of which can still be seen in Constantinople, now Istanbul, whereby the Hagia Sophia Church, now a museum, is but one example. Then there was Justinian's brilliant general Belisarius, whose troops Justinian basically used as a firebrigade all along the empire's frontiers and who by the end of Justinians reign had made the Mediterranean Sea a Byzantine Lake (the pink areas are the later acquisitions):



The following map shows you what the Byzantine Empire looked like just prior to its demise in 1453:



Yeah, that scale you see at the bottom covers 1 1/2 mile. The once mighty Byzantine Empire had been reduced to a city-state, something like a medieval Singapore if you like. The difference between both maps is 700 years or something of constant attacks, overwhelmingly at the hands of muslim invaders. But don't say that too loud, cause you might offend the followers of the prophet (no pbuh, thanks). The actual date of the fall of Constantinople is May 29, 1453 and those who brought it about were the 150,000 soldiers of the Ottoman ruler Mehmed II. Mehmed is Ottoman, or Turkish if you want, for Muhammad. But that must be a koinsidens of course. Anyway, it was no day you would have liked to be around, if you were not a muslim, that is: Killing, raping, looting, burning, enslaving, went on and on according to tradition. The troops had to satisfy themselves. The great doors of Saint Sophia were forced open, and crowds of angry soldiers came in and fell upon the unfortunate worshippers. Pillaging and killing in the holy place went on for hours.

The 29th of May is a day which is still celebrated in modern Turkey. Those defenders who fell in battle were actually the lucky ones. Among them was the last Byzantine Emperor or, indeed, the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologus, who died sword in hand.

He was the son of Manuel II Palaiologos, of offensive quote fame. In other words, dad knew what he was talking about.



MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM JONATHAN C. RANDALL

Between 1986-1989, during the latter part of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which contrary to the American occupation of Iraq did cause millions of refugees, the US supplied the mujahideen with ample stocks of weaponry and ammo to fight the invaders. In 1991 that same US built and led a giant global coalition to oust Saddam Husseins army from Kuwait, where it had caused death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. And during the late nineties it was again the US which intervened in Europes own backyard on behalf of Bosnian muslims. Thousands of mujahideen must have watched from hilltops how "Christian" US warplanes pounded "Christian" Serb military positions and infrastructure. All that means that in just one decade, America came up for muslims thrice.

Let us never forget how, on September 11th 2001, America was rewarded.




A while ago I came across this web initiative aiming to honor the 9/11 victims by getting as many blogs as possible to shed some light on the lives and personalities of all the near 3,000 victims who perished in the attacks. I signed up, and the name DowneastBlog was allocated was Jonathan C. Randall. Jonathan was a 42-year old resident of Brooklyn, NY. He was a manager at Marsh & McLennan in One WTC. Jonathan seems to have been a nice and kind personality who did not seek the spotlights, which is why I found it hard to collect some hard info on him. Luckily I stumbled on this fitting fragment from an acquaintance which I think comes from the New York Times:

It is late Saturday morning at Kensington Stables, on the edge of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Jonathan C. Randall sits patiently, smoking a cigar, waiting for his 11-year-old daughter, Katharine, to finish her weekly riding lesson. It is a calming routine for both father and daughter, a treasured escape from times made hectic by divorce and a thousand other pressures. It is what Mr. Randall, 42, lived for.

"Jonathan had been bouncing around for a while until Katie was born, but then he got his life together," said Gindy Bladen, his former wife. "He was completely committed to her."

He also got more involved with a local church, the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn Heights. He was assistant treasurer at the church council, and sometimes moderated discussions after prayer services.

"He was very definitely a peacemaker," said the Rev. Dr. George R. Muenich, its pastor. "He had that gift."

Mr. Randall also led a Bible study group at Marsh & McLennan, where he was a manager. But he always reserved time for Katie. "Whenever he was with her you could tell that he was totally enjoying the moment," said Matthew Steffanie, a neighbor. "He seemed to have an inner peace."

If you knew John, you might want to add something for an epitaph here.

If you are of Christian faith, please join us in the following prayer for John and his relatives. If you adhere to another religion and are a decent peaceloving human being, you might want to pray in the manner you like:

Our Father, who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Amen.


MFBB