Thank you all. I posted my article because I felt strongly enough about the issue. However, I didn't think my opinion mattered much.
I did not originally intend to add more to that post, but since I did get comments about it and since it was not very clear at times what I was trying to say, I thought I would explain a bit more.
- I did not accuse any specific group of being Nazis. I titled my post the way I did because I thought that was a good way to sum up the entire Blogosphere discussion. I also chose it because I thought it would attract attention. I didn't realize I would get so much.
- Little Green Footballs is not the first to suggest that learning more about your partners today might save you trouble in the future. Vlaams Belang had written about it quite extensively. It is sound advice and it does not hurt to clear up people's positions on various issues. It might "serve the Islamic cause" in the short term, but it will only strengthen the liberal agenda in the long run.
- I did not mean to label SIAD/SIOE in any way. I wanted to bring facts for thought:
1. Left wingers/Anarchists have been wrecking havoc in Copenhagen for weeks.
2. Left wingers/Anarchists have been violently clashing with extreme right groups all over Europe for much longer. Reading in the news about "extreme rightists attacked by left wingers" is not that rare.
Therefore, having a group of protesters brutally attacked is not the start of political violence in Denmark, nor is it the sign that Eurabia is upon us. Does political violence only start when it's directed at your people?
A commentator on my post wrote about SIOE:
I was in Brussels in september and met quite a few demonstraters who were leftish, anarchists and an occasional communist.
I'm sorry, but that does not make me feel any better. I don't like the radical left any more than I like the radical right. Besides, the two ends of the political spectrum meet quite more often than people would think.
Btw, the SIAD protest was tagged as "anti-Islam" in the Danish media. Apparently, it was a protest against Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Commission participation in the Second Arab-European Dialogue on Human Rights and Terrorism. The Saudis were there to complain about European abuses of Muslim human rights. My suggestion to SIAD is to work on PR.
Interesting to note, the Saudis' demands were met by a Vatican counter-demand for more religious freedom in Muslim countries.
- I got several replies about my claim that the extreme right is more dangerous to Europe than Islam. I have voiced this opinion in the past, and it is directly connected to my interest in this topic. Islam and the extreme right are not separate issues. I believe that the existence of such a big group of immigrants, especially one which is as contentious as Muslims, is causing Europe to shift more and more to the right. This is a danger to Europe's liberal values and to its minorities.
Is the crescent a bigger threat than the swastika? There are maybe 5% Muslims in Europe. How many Muslims are currently in European parliaments?
How much did (far) right wing groups get in past elections?
Austria - Austrian Freedom Party (27%, 1999)
Belgium - Vlaams Belang (11% national, 24% Flanders)
Switzerland - Swiss People's Party (29%)
France - National Front (16% 2002, 10% 2007)
Denmark - Danish People's Party (13%)
(Several of these parties were either in government or very close to it)
I do not automatically disqualify the European right, and it is important to remember that Europe is not the United States. Denmark is the country of the Danes and they have no other, and the same goes for every other nation-state. The original ethnic Americans might have felt the same but they weren't asked when the Europeans came a conquering.
The problem is that the line between what is normal and what is scary, can be pretty easy to cross and hard to distinguish. I don't have the answers on how to do it right. Luckily for me, I'm not a political party and I don't have to come up with the answers either. I just fear it will go wrong and I think every step should be critically examined to make sure it doesn't.
- Nobody said anything about my Cologne pictures. I originally brought both pictures because one looked normal and the other scary (the one that appeared on the news), but if you notice - there are no skinheads and no racist or neo-Nazi slogans to be seen in either picture. The scary looking people are German police (I think). Maybe it says something about how the media subtly affect our way of thinking.
And now.. back to the news.
11 comments:
I agree with your basic concern, and it has been an issue for some time that radical Islam could generate enthusiasm for the revitalization of Nazi premises. Fjordman's post of a few weeks ago, regarding "white masochism" brought forward both his own propensity for "white/right" thinking and a conflict in the comments in which I participated, naming myself after the British WWII bombers. I asserted that we must adamantly resist an ideology -- not human beings -- and I was roundly denounced for claiming that "race" is an illusion that has no place in our current discussions. Not a good sign.
LGF's unease with Vlaams Belang is warranted, and the presence of the husband of a member of that party who is a Belgian Parliament member among Daniel Pipes' group of analysts is also a possible compromise that needs watching. Some months ago, Brigitte Gabriel sent a YouTube video around to subscribers that had been posted by an extreme rightist organization. When I alerted several members of concerned organizations about the source of the video -- which I am sure Ms. Gabriel was simply unaware of when she posted it -- I warned that the worst possible case would be for those of us who are actively researching and finding ways to expose Islamism to "stumble into" an alliance with neo-Nazis.
The level of danger posed by radical Islam is tailor-made for a resurgent racist/nationalist reaction, which would play into the hands of the historical Islamist-Nazi element. We have to be continually disciplined: we support and defend democratic institutions, Israel, radical equality. No compromise for fear, here. It's the only way to stay who we are and it's our only way out of this.
Anonymous
Hello,
although i tend to agree with most of your statements, i would like to invite you to introduce a bit of subtlety, things being more complex than what they seem to be:
We are facing a big machine, whose plan is to implement islam on the european soil. This machine has two operators: in one hand, arabic strategists using immigration policies and taking advantages of the western relativist point of view, and one the other hand, european leaders who, for reasons yet to be determined, are working hard to avoid the civil war that could be the outcome of this, outlawing discriminatory attitudes, and restraining freedom of speech. This machine is very powerful, very dishonest, and let's face the facts, they also have superior firepower: they own the police, the courts, the army, the laws and above all, they own the mass media. Considering that TV and in a lesser extent the newspapers tend to become the sole resource for education and information for most of the people, owning the mass media is owning the language. Owning the language is owning the ideas and the concepts, and lets you define things the way you want them to be.
The good people of SIAD/SIOE has already experienced the brutal outcome of this, but it doesn't look like they frankly evaluated this valuable lesson. Try to do something about the crescent moon rising, organise demos, write blogs, communicate, and the whole machine will label you as a right wing extremist. This is automatic, it will happen all the time, and will keep happening no matter the number of skinheads present as double agents in your demonstration. There is no doubt that your motives are racist and xenophobic, you are full of hate and fear. Whetever you say, you are labeled as such, which in most cases is unfair, but you have to remember: this is how the enemy works, this is how the machine fights, and how the empire strikes back, so to speak: this sword of language has been forged long ago by radical lefties and proved itself unbeatable. Nobody found this objectionable 20 years ago, when the extremists were clearly identified and our social-democrazies something worth to be defended. One paradigm shift later, this sword falls on your heads and things get harder to understand.
I just want to state this: beware the power of language. Those nazi devils SIAD/SIOE is trying to eradicate among its ranks have been victim of the same trick long long ago, sometimes very unfairly. I find it highly ironic, albeit a bit sad, to see activists crying for mommy because of the 'extremist' tag assigned to them, and at the same time, defining who's good and who's evil inside its own ranks, who's fighting the good fight and who isn't, all this based on definitions given by mass media and the communication society. This is a strange attitude, being both victims and executioners, all this based on biased and fabricated propaganda. Thousands of nationalists exist, they share the same concerns than you, their only problem being they have been labeled as nazis and extremists for longer than you. Instead of crying wolf, SIAD/SIOE should study nominalism a bit more, and open the dialogue with everybody. Perhaps they would be surprised to realize that except for a few sickos destined to mental institutions, nazis do not exist anymore, and 99,5% of nationalists are good people with good values. It's time for a tabula rasa, here.
What's the point in having tribes of two fighting each other instead of facing the real enemy? TV-Eurabia drops a language frag bomb, and we're done, game over? As long as this attitude prevails, the question is not whether the anti islamic fight will be lost or won, but how fast it will be lost.
With this comment, I do not intend to deny that the "far right" is a potential danger in Europe. However, the way you (Esther) count the support for the "far right" is highly misleading, because you group together socialists and anti-socialists, racists and anti-racists. To my understanding, the Swiss People's Party is anti-racist and certainly anti-socialist; the Danish People's Party is anti-racist, but (loosely speaking) socialist; the French National Front is socialist, and I believe it is fair to call it racist. All what these parties have in common is (a) they are anti-immigration and (b) they are labeled "far right" by their political opponents
(although they do not do so themselves). They will never be able to work together.
You might as well have thrown in the Dutch Socialist Party, which is likewise anti-immigration.
I watch not only words spoken, but deeds done.
Regardless of an "odious past", if these right wing groups --that are worried about the Islamization of Europe-- are moderating themselves, kicking out unwanted racist elements, making sincere gestures towards Jewish communities, as well as inviting well known speakers on anti-semitism, then they shouldn't be included with the knuckle draggers they have left behind.
Common sense dictates that reasonble questions should be asked, and truthfull answers expected, and given in return.
Real anti-semites/racists make no bones over their haterd for "anyone not like themselves". The VB has made every attempt (AFAIK) to be open about their party platform.
We can at least give them the benifit of the doubt until proven otherwise. I would be the first to distance myself from them if they proved themselves not to be who they say they are.
And BTW what happened in Copenhagen appears to be an ambush and murder attempt, not a violent clash between demonstrators. Political murder might no longer be news in Holland, but it would be news in Denmark.
Sure change is a danger to, but no change is even a bigger danger.
Snorri Godhi has a quite confusing way of labelling different parties in Europe. Not all of the parties that are generally labelled as extreme right are totally right, they might mix left and right, they might often be populists more than anything ells. But they all fight the multicultural society and are not that eager about the EU.
They probably talk more about culture than race, and should therefore normally be described as xenophobic rather than racists.
How can one be accused of xenophobia when discussing the superiority of a liberal, pluralistic democratic society that safe gaurds the equal rights of minorities and women?
We have cases here in Finland where "successful" immigrants from Muslim societies still believe that sharia is "still a good thing", with the execution for adultery being viewed positively.
Sorry, but praising a culture that abhors barbarity such as stoning of women and the lobbing off of hands and feet....does not make me xenophobic....
I agree with KGS on seeing what is actually done. I don't think a party's history should hunt it down forever. However, not every party that accepts Jewish members, or even features them prominently, is not racist by definition. For example, see Greater Romania Party (PRM) which has a Jewish-Israeli member of parliament.
Snorri Godhi, please note that PRM, together with Vlaams Belang and National Front make up Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty, a political group in the EU parliament. Additional members: The Italian Tricolour Flame, and the Bulgarian National Union Attack.
As for what happened in Copenhagen - next time I see such an attack reported anywhere, I'll post on my blog. They don't happen every week, but you'll be surprised how often people are ambushed for their ideas.
Esther: I am aware of the grouping of the Vlaams Belang, the French FN, and others, in the European Parliament: That does not change what I said about the French FN, the Danish PP, and the Swiss PP. Please note that the Danish PP is not in the same grouping with the French FN (and of course the Swiss PP is not in the Parliament).
In addition, groups can be made just to gain leverage in the Parliament. The Vlaams Belang and the FN have much in common on immigration and the EU, but I would not think that they see eye to eye in economic policy. More glaringly, the British Conservatives are in the same group as the European People's Party, but on European integration they are pretty much polar opposites.
Snorri Godhi,
Nobody said that political alliances mean that you agree on everything. As you say, you might not agree on economical policy, or on EU expansion. The question is if for Vlaams Belang racism is just like economics. You might not agree, but you're willing to work with those who think differently.
As I wrote in my original article on the subject: After Dr. Ulfkotte left them in the lurch, they suddenly bothered to discover that he's written a book considered to be anti-semitic. So was the problem the fact that he wrote the book or that he dropped the 9/11 protest? Or maybe if he would be in the EUP they would be willing to work together with him on common purposes?
I know things are not black and white, but especially with politics - you should be careful who you're getting into bed with.
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