Senate European ultranationalists!

And it gets even worse. One of the Fascists punches someone at the memorial. Right wing websites are celebrating him.

 

Where did you get that last bit?

Your analysis is woefully superficial. Tensions with right wing Waloon and Flemish groups are not new and even less extreme disputes have left the country without government. When a nation-state is historically a battleground itself, and divided between one Latin and one Germanic group, it's going to have issues.

Those issues were in part used to coopt the march. But you're ignoring all that for sensationalist reporting which your link doesn't support.

 

Still worrisome.
But yeah, Trump rally.

 

Ja of course. But it's more that they're using this platform to stage more of their existing fight, not that they were born out of the terrorist attack and subsequent unification/solidarity rallies.

And would hardly be the case that people are scared now if they weren't before, since their ideology is the same.

 

You're on drugs. I didn't post any analysis at all; I described what events had happened. Secondly, PRI's The World (on the radio) interviewed Muslims in Brussels and the consensus was that they're afraid to leave their homes. Save your fauxtrage for something else.

 

I know what to do.

 

Ok, boet, I'll do just that.

"Muslims are afraid to leave their homes, because a group who have always been in favour of breaking Belgium up are in favour of breaking up Belgium."

Seems legit.

 

These are far right thugs who yelled at brown women in the crowd, did the Hitler salute, and had signs against Islam. If you're a dark skinned immigrant, you don't care that their main goal is to break up belgium, you're worried about your safety from all that other stuff. Why is this difficult to understand?

 

It's not; it's just that now it hits American radars so it only matters now.

I found the source stories, too. It was a few people on social media. Not Belgian Muslims as a whole.

Do you have any idea what daily life in these cities is like? I know you don't, but I don't think you know you don't.

 

Yes, good point. They didn't interview every single adherent of the faith of Islam that lives within the borders of Belgium, therefore the article has no validity or relevance.

. . .

 

It's not an article though Wocky. Do you even read any of this before wasting people's time with vacuous nonsense?

(I know the answer, don't worry)

 

I'd like to apologize to everyone in this thread. I seem to have accidentally triggered the "We can't discuss anything beyond what was directly said by the article you post" rule. Had I known, I would have chosen a different article to post. I will learn from this for the future.

 

No what you did Vivienne was you took a situation you didn't understand and attempted to make it sound like something it wasn't.

When this was suggested to you, you went and hid behind huffy indignation.

There are a few anecdotal reports of Muslims saying "here comes bad stuff" in Brussels, that's it. If you'd been to any of the European cities you've cast as irredeemably racist - buoyed by the equally culturally vapid Wocky, no doubt? - you'd know that it's just not remotely accurate.

Did you not work out that Watto was mocking your shrill, clueless nonsense in his American ultranationalist thread?!

 

I am not very youtube trained, but I was thinking of making a great map showing where countries would overlap if every authoritarian faschist party's wishes for maximised state were true. or any maximum state borders. that would get messy quickly and where would you start, especially with charlemagne being seen as founding ruler of both the first german empire and the french empire..

 

out of curiosity, what is Karl der Große called in Dutch?

 

well not sure about dutch but in German yes charleslemagne=Karl der Grosse

 

Karel de Grote.

 

Here's a sampling

As I suspected, Nederlands and Plattdeutsch are quite similar.

To keep things some and European (and make Iello happy), everyone should just call him Karolus Magnus.

 

What are you on, I've not cast any European cities as irredeemably racist.

 

Please, you have a view of Europe that is utterly unconstrained by reality Vivec.

Relevant:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...eport-refugees-from-greece-to-turkey-underway

Further to this, since the West Balkans route was closed the flow of migrants entering Germany/western Europe has dropped dramatically.

But, this too (JoinTheSchwarz):

https://charliehebdo.fr/en/edito/how-did-we-end-up-here/

How did we end up here?
Par Charlie Hebdo - 30/03/2016
For a week now, experts of all kinds have been trying to understand the reasons for the attacks in Brussels. An incompetent police force? Unbridled multiculturalism? Youth unemployment? Uninhibited Islamism? The causes are numerous beyond counting and everyone will naturally choose the one that suits best their own convictions. Law and Order fans will denounce the haplessness of the police. Xenophobes will blame immigration. Sociologists will rehash the evils of colonialism. Urban-planners will point to the evils of ghettoisation. Take your pick.
In reality, the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale. Our noses are endlessly rubbed in the rubble of Brussels airport and in the flickering candles amongst the bouquets of flowers on the pavements. All the while, no one notices what's going on in Saint-German-en-Laye. Last week, Sciences-Po* welcomed Tariq Ramadan. He's a teacher, so it's not inappropriate. He came to speak of his specialist subject, Islam, which is also his religion. Rather like lecture by a Professor of Pies who is also a pie-maker. Thus judge and contestant both.

No matter, Tariq Ramadan has done nothing wrong. He will never do anything wrong. He lectures about Islam, he writes about Islam, he broadcasts about Islam. He puts himself forward as a man of dialogue, someone open to a debate. A debate about secularism which, according to him, needs to adapt itself to the new place taken by religion in Western democracy. A secularism and a democracy which must also accept those traditions imported by minority communities. Nothing bad in that. Tariq Ramadan is never going to grab a Kalashnikov with which to shoot journalists at an editorial meeting. Nor will he ever cook up a bomb to be used in an airport concourse. Others will be doing all that kind of stuff. It will not be his role. His task, under cover of debate, is to dissuade people from criticising his religion in any way. The political science students who listened to him last week will, once they have become journalists or local officials, not even dare to write nor say anything negative about Islam. The little dent in their secularism made that day will bear fruit in a fear of criticising lest they appear Islamophobic. That is Tariq Ramadan's task.
Take this veiled woman. She is an admirable woman. She is courageous and dignified, devoted to her family and her children. Why bother her? She harms no one. Even those women who wear the total, all-encompassing veil do not generally use their clothing to hide bombs (as certain people were claiming when the law to ban the burqa was being discussed). They too will do nothing wrong. So why go on whining about the wearing of the veil and pointing the finger of blame at these women? We should shut up, look elsewhere and move past all the street-insults and rumpus. The role of these women, even if they are unaware of it, does not go beyond this.

The visible part of a very big iceberg.

Take the local baker, who has just bought the nearby bakery and replaced the old, recently-retired guy, he makes good croissants. He's likeable and always has a ready smile for all his customers. He's completely integrated into the neighbourhood already. Neither his long beard nor the little prayer-bruise on his forehead (indicative of his great piety) bother his clientele. They are too busy lapping up his lunchtime sandwiches. Those he sells are fabulous, though from now on there's no more ham nor bacon. Which is no big deal because there are plenty of other options on offer - tuna, chicken and all the trimmings. So, it would be silly to grumble or kick up a fuss in that much-loved boulangerie. We'll get used to it easily enough. As Tariq Ramadan helpfully instructs us, we'll adapt. And thus the baker's role is done.
Take this young delinquent. H has never looked at the Quran in his life, he knows little of the history of religion, of colonialism, nor a great deal about the proud country of his Maghreb forefathers. This lad and a couple of his buddies order a taxi. They are not erudite like Tariq Ramadan, they don't pray as often as the local baker and are not as observant as the redoubtable veiled mothers on the street. The taxi heads for Brussels airport. And still, in this precise moment, no one has done anything wrong. Not Tariq Ramadan, nor the ladies in burqas, not the baker and not even these idle young scamps.
And yet, none of what is about to happen in the airport or metro of Brussels can really happen without everyone's contribution. Because the incidence of all of it is informed by some version of the same dread or fear. The fear of contradiction or objection. The aversion to causing controversy. The dread of being treated as an Islamophobe or being called racist. Really, a kind of terror. And that thing which is just about to happen when the taxi-ride ends is but a last step in a journey of rising anxiety. It's not easy to get some proper terrorism going without a preceding atmosphere of mute and general apprehension.
These young terrorists have no need to amass the talents of others, to be erudite, dignified or hard-working. Their role is simply to provide the end of a philosophical line already begun. A line which tells us "Hold your tongues, living or dead. Give up discussing, debating, contradicting or contesting".
This is not to victimise Islam particularly. For it has no opponent. It is not Christianity, Hinduism nor Judaism that is balked by the imposition of this silence. It is the opponent (and protector) of them all. It is the very notion of the secular. It is secularism which is being forced into retreat.
Above all, in a sense, this stops us asking perhaps the world's oldest and most important question - "How the hell did I end up here?". "How the hell did I end up having to wander the streets all day with a big veil on my head?" "How the hell did I end up having to say prayers five times a day?" " How the hell did I end up in the back of a taxi with three rucksacks packed with explosives?" Perhaps, very sadly, the only people who are still asking themselves that most important of questions are the unlucky victims. "How the hell did I end up here, six yards away from that big bomb?"
The first task of the guilty is to blame the innocent. It's an almost perfect inversion of culpability. From the bakery that forbids you to eat what you like, to the woman who forbids you to admit that you are troubled by her veil, we are submerged in guilt for permitting ourselves such thoughts. And that is where and when fear has started its sapping, undermining work. And the way is marked for all that will follow.
* Sciences Po is an elite French public research and higher education institution.


I'm... well, there's a lot of tsk tsk from the broadleft on Charlie Hebdo's editorial stance. But... I don't disagree wholly with them? "Because the incidence of all of it is informed by some version of the same dread or fear. The fear of contradiction or objection. The aversion to causing controversy.The dread of being treated as an Islamophobe or being called racist." I've made similar points myself.

I think this is the key point, though it will be overlooked in the rush to prove the author right by silencing him:

This is not to victimise Islam particularly. For it has no opponent. It is not Christianity, Hinduism nor Judaism that is balked by the imposition of this silence. It is the opponent (and protector) of them all. It is the very notion of the secular. It is secularism which is being forced into retreat.

The conclusion, about us all wandering around veiled and converted to Islam, is a leap but the questions they ask are valid, and not exactly rabidly ultranationalist.

Thoughts, JTS?

 

No, Ender, it's your caricature of me that's unconstrained by reality.

 

Good stuff!

 

I do understand the concerns about borders/sovereignty since Britain is a migratory recipient and there's definitely instances of Eastern European migrants monopolising low-wage labour sectors. But, on the whole, the Brexit is a stupid idea and should be resisted. Britain was already wise enough to avoid the common currency, the rest of it is pretty much a blessing.

 

http://www.economist.com/news/europ...ty-netherlands-has-found-geert-wilders-guilty
The Netherlands has found Geert Wilders guilty of hate speech

But it may only boost the Muslim-basher’s popularity

Dec 11th 2016 | Europe


GEERT WILDERS, the Eurosceptic, anti-Muslim populist leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), has spent the past decade testing the limits of the Netherlands’ tolerance for intolerance. On December 9th he discovered he had at last managed to go too far. A court in Amsterdam found Mr Wilders guilty of public insult and incitement to discrimination, over a speech in which he called for “fewer Moroccans” in the country.

Members of the Moroccan-Dutch and other ethnic minorities were pleased to see the state take their outrage seriously. But Mr Wilders vowed to appeal, and he responded to the verdict with an all-out attack on the Dutch judiciary. “The Netherlands has become a sick country,” he said in a video message. He accused the judges who sentenced him of political bias and of infringing freedom of expression, and added: “No one trusts you anymore.” He will no doubt repeat this attack incessantly during his campaign for the national elections, scheduled for March 15th. He is currently leading in the polls.

Mr Wilders has built his political career on cultivating popular resentment against immigrants, Muslims, the European Union and what he terms the “multicultural elite”. He was first tried on hate-speech charges in 2010-2011, after he wrote an article terming Islam a “fascist ideology” and calling for banning the Koran. The Dutch legal code bars insults and incitement to hatred or discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or handicap. But in that case the judges ruled that Mr Wilders’s speech constituted protected criticism of a religion, rather than an insult to or incitement against its followers.

The current case concerns a speech Mr Wilders gave at the end of the campaign for regional elections in 2014. Crucially, Mr Wilders took aim not at Islam, but at an ethnic group. In a call-and-response with a crowd of PVV supporters, Mr Wilders asked whether they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans”. When they answered “fewer”, he replied:“Then we’ll take care of that.” Afterwards, as thousands of Dutch (some of Moroccan ethnicity, some not) filed legal complaints against him, Mr Wilders claimed that he had been referring only to “criminal Moroccans”. (The Netherlands’ large Moroccan-Dutch population, descended in part from factory workers who immigrated in the 1970s and 1980s, has disproportionately high rates of unemployment and crime.)
At the trial, Mr Wilders and his lawyer repeated the claim that he had meant to refer to criminals. They also argued that Moroccans were not a race and were thus not a protected category, and that a conviction would be a dangerous encroachment on freedom of speech. The panel of three judges rejected these arguments, but did not impose the fine of €5,000 ($5,300) requested by the government, saying the conviction itself was punishment enough.
Dutch Muslims were enthused by the verdict. Many have felt increasingly alienated by the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the Netherlands since the late 1990s. In their eyes, the judgment showed that the system can treat their complaints of discrimination fairly. “It has given a boost to people’s faith in the state,” says Ahmed Marcouch, a Moroccan-Dutch MP from the Labour party. “It shows that there are established norms, that nobody is above the law.”
Mr Wilders, however, cast the decision as yet another stroke in a conspiracy against him by the ruling elite. During the trial he cited a poll his party had commissioned that found that 43% of Dutch agreed that the country had too many Moroccans. After the verdict, he tweeted that the judges had condemned not just him, but “half of the Netherlands”. This strategy of persuading white Dutch that liberal efforts to combat discrimination are implicitly calling them racist has been an important element of Mr Wilders’s success.
Many Dutch, across the political spectrum, were angered by Mr Wilders’s attacks on the independence of the judiciary. Others worried that the verdict had indeed limited freedom of expression. Next week the Dutch parliament is scheduled to debate the possibility of eliminating the section of the law under which Mr Wilders was prosecuted, though most parties favour keeping it. Yet even those who celebrated the verdict against him acknowledge that his supporters’ anger will only lead to greater political division. “The gap between the two sides is getting bigger,” says Munire Manisa, a city councillor in an Amsterdam neighbourhood with large ethnic Moroccan and Turkish populations. “And it doesn’t help when the politician who’s leading in the polls attacks the state and the rule of law.”

Yet, his party is currently the leading party in national polls.

Thoughts, SuperWatto, Debo?