Enough is enough!

Six months ago, he said that those Muslims who want to stay in the country must “rip out and throw away half of the Quran ”. Today, in an opinion piece in a Dutch newspaper, he went further:

Enough is enough. Let us stop beating about the bush with political correctness. […] The core of the problem is fascistic Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Quran. The texts from the Quran do not leave much to the imagination.

In different Suras, Muslims are called upon to suppress, persecute or kill Jews, Christians, believers of other faiths and non-believers, to hit women, and to rape, and to establish a worldwide Islamic state with violence. Suras call upon and instigate Muslims to death and destruction.

Ban that book like Mein Kampf is also banned. […]

How ashamed I am for the Dutch politicians. Their naivety and sickly strive towards the utopian moderate Islam, which will only bring our country hell and doom. How ashamed I am of those in and outside of the Cabinet and Parliament, who refuse to stop the Islamic invasion of the Netherlands. […]

The Hague is full of cowardly people. Scared people who are born cowardly and will die cowardly. Who believe and advocate that Dutch culture will be founded on a Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. […] Who [ignore] the interests Dutch population and cooperate in the transformation of the Netherlands into a Netherarabia as a province of the Islamic superstate of Eurabia.

I have had enough of Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrant. I have enough with the worship of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosque. I have had enough of the Quaran in the Netherlands: ban that fascistic book.

Enough is enough.

Strong words. Provocative words. Insane words from a raving Parliamentarian with a great big shock of dyed blond hair called Geert Wilders. He and his Part for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid) managed to gain 9 seats in the last elections with (most notably) calls for a complete stop to immigration and the rooting out of Islamic elements in the country. To him the cause of crime and nuisance is Moroccan and Turkish “street-terrorists” who behave and think in ways that are at odds with Western ideas of liberalism democracy. Whether on the issue of treatment of women, homosexuals or fundaments of democracy, his warned that “tsuanami of Islamisation” is beginning to swamp the Netherlands and before you know it this will be a country governed by oppressive Sharia law. We must firmly reassert “the dominant Dutch culture”, he says, and no more mosques should be build, because he claims he’s “going crazy with all those mosques”.

Crazy indeed, but was he ever sane? All this preaching and threatening tones about Islamic radicalisation and creeping fundamentalism doesn’t help at all to the growing misunderstanding and divide between large segments of Dutch society. Instead, Wilders’ cheap rhetoric echoes those tried and failed populist insinuations and stereotyping that stirred the entire country when Fortuyn-fever swept through the country a few years ago. Two high profile politically motivated murders, a heightened state of alert, and a continuing wave of Islam-phobia later, and Wilders still wants to provoke and beat the already battered corpse of xenophobia and feelings of them-against-us.

Funny thing is, within the last six months the contents of the Quaran has not changed at all. If anything changed, it’s Mr. Wilders, who has become the very hardened extremist and militant raving village lunatic that he has been warning people will ‘invade’ this country and lead us all to ‘death and destruction’.

The Quran is but a book, a holy book with special meaning to over one million Muslims in the Netherlands. Admittedly, it does contain passages and words that are incongruent with this age and place, but it is not the book that kills and radicalizes. People kill and radicalise, people commit murders and rapes and incite hatred and others towards violence and revenge. It is people who hijack the Quaran, just as people have hijacked the holy Bible or Tora or any other religious text, to justify actions that defy all the teachings of love and compassion contained in the same books all in the name of ‘religion’.

Wilders’ allusion to Mein Kampf is telling. Some sixty odd years, millions of deaths and untold suffering caused by that infamous book penned by Hitler later, Wilders wants to ban a book in a free and democratic society where the freedom of press and belief are fundamental rights of every citizen regardless of race or creed. Who is the fascist now?

Thank goodness no else one in Parliament supports Wilders and his rants, and already a civil suit has been filed against Wilders for inciting hatred between racial groups.

Wilders was right about one thing though…

“Enough is enough”!

The wedding is off

You’d think this kind of thing couldn’t possibly happen today, but three couples refused to get married in a Belgian municipality because the alderman for civic affairs is… black.

That’s the only reason why the couples cancelled at the very last minute in the town of Sint-Niklaas. The mayor’s reaction was shock, however does not think it has anything to do with the fact that the right-wing party Vlaams Belang holds a third of the seats in the city council. The alderman, Wouter Van Bellingen, whose name is as Flemish as it can get, was adopted as a child by Flemish parents. He doesn’t seem too bothered by the whole fiasco.

”If people want to refuse me as the alderman of civic affairs at their wedding, there are three options: they could not marry, they could move house, or they could accept me as their alderman”.

Allochthon, allochthon...

If you’re a white you’re an expat. Every other foreigner is an allochthon.[1]

This differentiation (or perhaps a better word is segregation) is even entrenched in the official Central Bureau of Statistics [Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS] of the Netherlands. In official census surveys, they make the distinction between ‘autochtoons’ (locals) and ‘allochtoons’ (people originally born in a different country). Strictly speaking, the Dutch royal family (of German descent) would be allochtons, but no one would ever dare say in public. And then there’s the third, dreadful distinction: the so-called ‘non-western allochthon’ (niet-westerse allochtoon), defined as someone from :

“one of the countries in the continents of Africa, Latin-America and Asia (excluding Indonesia and Japan), or Turkey.”

Coincidentally (or maybe deliberately) people from these places happen to have a different skin colour. But why are people from Indonesia and Japan not considered a so-called ‘non-western allochthon’?

“On the ground of their social-economic and social-cultural position, allochthons from Indonesia and Japan are seen as western allochthons. It primarily is concerned with people who are born in the formal Dutch-Indies, and employers of Japanese companies with their family.”

In truth, people born in the formal Dutch-Indies are (mostly) white people, whereas people from Japan, a nation long considered developed and part of the civilised world, are supposed to have a more… (putting it mildly in their own words) sophisticated “social-economic and social-cultural position”.

So when are you not an allochthon? According to the CBS, the third generation of people with a different skin colour. So for those in the first and second generation (like me), tough luck… whatever you do, however you try to integrate, eat, dress, drink and talk like a local Dutchman, you look and speak foreign, so you are foreign.

Why is every deed of an allochthon seen in a different light from that of an autochthon? Simple: Because it’s about allochthons! As long as you are deviate from the norm (generations who are born and bred in the Netherlands), your ‘deviation’ is often included in [other people’s] judgement of you and also placed in that perspective. This is the idea that we mention someone by the most characteristic [element] of his/her existence.

[…] It is actually more fundamental [than this]: while you can change your career, you are allochthon for your entire life. You simply cannot stop with it. It is like your gender. Of course, there are people who change their gender, but to change your ethnic background, that is only possible with Michael Jackson […]
Bahram Sadeghi

Time and again you get official statistics which show what a great gap there is between (non-western) allochthons and autochthons. In a recent report, it was revealed that by the year 2050, a third of the population will be ‘allochthon’. This is compared to around the 19% of allochtoons now (or more precisely 10% ‘non-western’ and 9% ‘western’). And in the latest report finds concludes that (so-called non-western) allochthons have less of a rate of success in completing higher education than autochtoons. So, while 60% of the ‘locals’ graduate after five years of tertiary professional education (hbo), only 40% of do so. And in terms of those enrolled in university, while around the half of the ‘locals’ graduate after six years of study, only a third of (non-western) allochthons succeed.

As helpful as they are, statistics are just numbers, figures, calculations and abstract facts which have nothing or little to reveal about reality. They lump people together into nicely compartmentalised groupings which has little purpose other than divide and stigmatise certain portions of the population. It seems like the perfect means for the government machinery to more easily and readily divide, classify and rule the population for the sake of efficiency and bureaucracy.

Again, ask yourselves these questions: What does it say about those so-called allochthons who are born and bred here and know of no other home than this country? What does this say about the level of integration between people of different backgrounds? And how does making an explicit differentiation between people of so-called ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ background help with integration at all? If anything, it polarises people and society, and plays into the hands of those populist politicians and parties who use these kind of figures and facts to fool the unknowing voter. A popular weblog (Geenstijl.nl) produced a ‘Allochtoon-O-Meter’: with the use of the CBS statistics people can find out the percentage of (non-western) allochthons living in their neighbourhoods. The reactions of readers, those with few or no ‘allochthons’ as their neighbours rejoicing, and those with many ‘allochthons’ in their neighbourhood complaining and planning to move house, shows exactly how this kind of statistics is not at all helpful and counterproductive .

Discriminating, and disappointing… that, however much I personally do not fit into that wrong and racist stigma of the uncivilised, uneducated, benefit-claiming alien with a different skin colour, I should have to live the rest of my life labelled and seen as an ‘allochthon’…

I leave you with remarks from Iranian-born Dutch professor of integration at the University of Amsterdam, Halleh Ghorashi (emphasis mine and square brackets mine). She summed up the problem and issues in better words than I could:

”A positive development is that many more allochthons are belonging to the middle class. They have a great drive to emancipate themselves. The first generation began a new life here, they do everything to make something wonderful of it. And their children want to do better than their parents. That is succeeding more and more; there are many ‘social climbers’ amongst allochthons. Many more follow higher education, have jobs, pay taxes, go vote and feel themselves to be involved in society. But they must prove themselves time and again. [They are asked] time and again to distance [themselves] from the radicals. It is never enough. You become tired of this, and then you retreat to your own circle. […]

You should not lump people together into one [op één hoop gooien]. There are so many different new Netherlanders Turks, Surinamers, Morrocans, Indonesian Netherlanders, Antillians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Somalians, French, Afghans, Spaniards, and many more still. They are often equated with the group that cause problems. Take for example that TV-game show in which a candidate has to give another word for ‘non-conformistic person’ [‘onaangepast persoon’]. Instead of ‘asocial’ she said ‘allochthon’. […]

The new Netherlander is dynamic, future-oriented and self-conscious. He is open, prepared to change, he dares to undergo the experiment. He is hybrid: he dares to combine the best of diverse worlds with one another. […]

It is now about seeking contact with one another. We should look for ways to bridge the differences between groups. This is possible from a communal sense: we all feel like a Netherlander. It is an important step that many more new Netherlanders dare to come out for this: I am a Netherlander. […]

Often it is asked where we are from. Netherlanders always put so much emphasis [on the fact] that we do not belong here. This way, this will never be our country.


[This] was part of the Dutch democratic culture: giving others room. Tolerance is also a characteristic of civilisation. The society of today is no longer tolerant. You can treat others rudely without having to feel ashamed. Tolerance is choosing between two evils: between a taking up a conflict and letting the other be as he is. Now, we appear to be choosing for conflict and for laying down obligations [on others, namely foreigners]. But a hard attitude does not make you feel safer; instead you are going to feel even more unsafe.

We are accustomed to our freedom of expression. we act as if we can say anything, even if you insult others, even if you denigrate others. But the louder you scream, the weaker you stand. Whoever stands strong in his shoes is calm, peaceful, listens, lets others finish talking.

Freedom is important, but you must know how to treat it. Someone who only considers himself, is a democratic amateur. You are a professional when you also know the boundaries of freedom. You must give the other room, you must create room for the other. […] The Netherlands in the past few years has falling back from a professional democracy to amateur democracy.

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[1] Allochthon comes from the Greek ‘allo' = other, and 'chthon' = earth. Autochthon also.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali case continues

Well, even though Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now in the US, she continues to make news across the Atlantic.

In line with her (personal) crusade against Islamic fundamentalism, she warned in an editorial piece in Die Welt (in German) about the dangers of “Prada-Islam”, arguing that even moderate Muslims still pose a danger for modern societies of Europe. The original English version of the article can be found here.

“According to the ostrich, very soon there shall be a European Islam, signs of which are already visible in the young women in tight jeans, high heels, black sleeveless tight tops and matching head scarves, all designed by Prada. This Prada Islam will replace the old rural one and function as a vaccine against the Wahhabi Islam of the Saudis.”

Using the analogy of a (delusional) ostrich and (wise) owl, Hirsi Ali argues that to think that Muslims will adopt themselves to European values and culture is a case of “ostrich vision”.

“The ostrich sees only one thing as a setback: the xenophobia of native Europeans. If only the inherently racist white society was to overcome its fear of what is alien, it would notice how migrants have improved the cuisine, the music, the arts and the economy of Europe. The mantra of the ostrich is borrowed from Monty Python: "Always look on the bright side of life."

It is an illusion to believe that the current problems with Muslims are only temporary, and that one day we will have to reckon with radical Islam. More specifically she refers to the treatment of Muslim women, and the fact that many Muslim simply don’t want to be integrated into European societies and accept European values.

She warns of a hardening conflict between the extreme right and “Islam-fascism”, which will worsen with an quota-less immigration policy. The lack of progress in providing development aid to those very countries from which many immigrants tend to flee from to come to Europe will increase the number of illegal immigrants who are being exploited and marginalised.

In contrast, the owl doesn’t put its head in the sand and sees the dangers and injustices coming.

“The owl sees that Islam is not Christianity and that not all Muslims understand or want to share in any European future based on European values of freedom, tolerance and an attitude of live and let live.”

A bleak picture is painted if nothing is done:

“In a worse-case scenario, the warnings of the owl will not be heeded. The optimism of the ostrich will be abandoned. The monopoly of force that is now exclusive to states will be challenged by armed subgroups. European societies will be divided along ethnic and religious lines that are hostile to each other. An already deteriorating education system will not succeed in grooming the youth to believe in a shared past, let alone a shared future. The educating of kids will be left in the hands of their particular ethnic or religious community.

The European states will find themselves limiting civil liberties. Europeans will come to accept the de facto implementation of Sharia law in certain neighbourhoods and even cities. The exploitation of the weak, women and children will be commonplace. Those who can afford to emigrate will do so. This emigration will compound an ongoing brain drain but also an outflow of money and expertise”

The time is nigh, she says, for political leadership and will to do something about the situation. There is hope yet.

“A misguided vision brought Europe to its current predicament; an idealistic vision, convinced of the inherent superiority of enlightened values over the values of oppressive cultures, a vision steeped in individual rights, the rule of law and the equality of men and women, can help guide Europe out of it. It is possible. Europe is not yet lost and members of its immigrant communities can indeed integrate into a European society.”

And Hirsi Ali pronounces some ideas how the problematic causes, reasons and tensions between Islamic and European values can be solved.

“First, controlled or planned immigration. Second, an intervention, sometimes proactive, in countries that generate large-scale exoduses. And third, an active assimilation policy. Member nations that do not meet this or frustrate this policy will be penalized legally and financially.”

Europe must become proactive, she argues, and people should be ‘forced’ to integrate, oddly familiar to the Rousseau-sque idea of human beings having to be coerced to be free.

“EU will implement an assimilation program guided by the lessons learned from the failed policies of member states that attempted to integrate non-Western migrants based on a theory of multiculturalism. It will acknowledge that the basic tenets of Islam are a major obstacle to integration. In practice, Muslims will continue to enjoy religious freedom within the EU, as long as exercising that precious right does not infringe upon the freedoms of others, including daughters and wives.

The argument of the French is that the freedom of conscience and thus, faith, is best guaranteed by a neutral state. Much as I admire the American way of doing things, the French model seems to me to be the best in dealing with the problem of assimilation. It's geared best towards the folly of all religions that indoctrinate helpless children with the superstitions their parents subscribe to.

In a best-case scenario, there will be no schools indoctrinating poor kids with a hostile view of life. Outside school, parents may favour their religion. When a child is old enough to make one's own decisions, he or she will choose whatever faith or secular mind he or she wants to adhere to. Most important of all, he or she will have learned in school not to impose but to respect the freedoms of the other.”

In another article, Hirsi Ali writes about the plight of women worldwide, especially those living under" brutal and retrograde body of laws" in Islamic societies.

"Wherever the Islamists implement Shariah, or Islamic law, women are hounded from the public arena, denied education and forced into a life of domestic slavery.

Cultural and moral relativists sap our sense of moral outrage by claiming that human rights are a Western invention. Men who abuse women rarely fail to use the vocabulary the relativists have provided them. They claim the right to adhere to an alternative set of values - an "Asian," "African" or "Islamic" approach to human rights.

This mind-set needs to be broken. A culture that carves the genitals of young girls, hobbles their minds and justifies their physical oppression is not equal to a culture that believes women have the same rights as men"

She sketches in this article the attrocious things that happen to Muslim women, many within the European Union.

• Four-year-old girls have their genitals mutilated: some of them so badly that they die of infections; others are traumatised for life from the experience and will later suffer recurrent infections of their reproductive and urinary systems.
  
• Teenage girls are removed from school by force and kept inside the house to stop their schooling, stifle their thinking and suffocate their will.
  
• Victims of incest and sexual abuse are beaten, deported or killed to prevent them from filing complaints.
  
• Some pregnant victims of incest or abuse are forced by their fathers, older brothers, or uncles to have abortions in order to keep the family honour from being stained. In this era of DNA testing, the girls could demonstrate that they have been abused. Yet instead of punishing the abusers, the family treats the daughter as if she had dishonoured the family.
  
• Girls and women who protest their maltreatment are beaten by their parents in order to kill their spirits and reduce them to a lifelong servitude that amounts to slavery.
  
• Many girls and women who can't bear to suffer any more take their own lives or develop numerous kinds of psychological ailments, including nervous breakdown and psychosis. They are literally driven mad.
  
• A Muslim girl in Europe runs more risk than girls of other faiths of being forced into marriage by her parents with a stranger. In such a marriage -- which, since it is forced, by definition starts with rape -- she conceives child after child. She is an enslaved womb. Many of her children will grow up in a household with parents who are neither bound by love nor interested in the wellbeing of their children. The daughters will go through life as subjugated as their mothers and the sons become -- in Europe -- dropouts from school, attracted to pastimes that can vary from loitering in the streets to drug abuse to radical Islamic fundamentalism.
  
  
  

• 
  

Another way the former parliamentarian made the headlines this week: Remember last year she was ‘kicked out’ of her apartment in The Hague by her neighbours? They took the state to court, saying that because of Hirsi Ali’s profile and the death threats against her, the neighbours would be victims in the event of an attempted attack. The local court in December 2005 judged in favour of the neighbours, and said the state had acted “illegitimately” by placing Hirsi Ali in the apartment without asking the neighbours for permission. The case basically decided that there was nowhere Hirsi Ali could live, because nobody in the country would want to have her as a neighbour. The minister of Justice challenged the decision, and the Supreme Court yesterday quashed the lower court decision, and wants a further investigation into the matter.

The Supreme Court held that the interest of the state should be considered when housing certain (threatened) citizens. It was no enough that Hirsi Ali may have posed a threat to the neighbours. Stringent measures taken by the state to guarantee security and safety in the neighbourhood may have the potential to balance out the risks that the neighbours may or may not encounter. The case needs to be reevaluated, especially in future reference to other politicians or persons who face disproportionate levels of threat against their person and life.

UPDATE
23 Oct 2006

In contrast to Hirsi Ali's views of Islam posing a counter force in European societies, Professor of Islamic Law and the Middle East Ruud Peters at the University of Amsterdam argues the contrary:

“Listen to the migration historians, look to the long term […] Politicians can often be short-term thinkers, therefore they often do not see much. But look to the Italian immigrants in the US. They had virtue- and value patterns that strongly resemble those of our Muslim immigrants now. Those problems were also solved. It would be just like before with the Jews. In three generations the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims will exist predominantly in different names and surnames.”

Weekly Roundup: Week 34

“[…] Stay the course, bring them to justice, we will prevail, as the president says.

With this world strategy, the American government has piled failure upon failure, and seen its credibility evaporate. Nonetheless, Bush, his direct surrounding and a big group of neo-conservative thinkers hold fast to this. That is at the moment one of the greatest risks for the West.

And in order to prevent every kind of misunderstanding: nobody here thinks about the sacrifice of Israel. But the fact that has been consistently bypassed is that all problems begin with the relationship of this nation with the Palestine. If there is already a new Sarajevo in the making, such as [Richard] Holbrooke says, then that would now be called Ramallah.”[1]

--

• Corruption, drugs and life under the Americanised Afghanistan
  
  "Even the Commission against Corruption is corrupt...."
• Independent views on the Middle East, by Dahr Jamail
• As the globe gets warmer, the typhoons get bigger and stronger
• How do you respond to terrorism?

>>‘Stelling: Hysterische tijden vragen om nuchterheid’ [Statement: Hysterical times demand soberness], Forum, p17, 26 August 2006, De Volkskrant

Nausicaa Marbe:

“Nowadays we all have fear of flying. Also in the train, on the boat, in the metro and on the bus, in the cinema and restaurant. Rightly so. The world is sown with imbeciles who want to kill out of religious nonsense and hatred. The world has too many naïve people who, under the cover of soberness, deny this fact. The threat of terror is permanent and the knowledge that the terrorist is always a step ahead does not make the danger less real. The power of terrorism rests on creativity and the ability to adapt. The only adequate solution to this is to surpass this.”

Oscar van den Boogaard:

“September 11 was the turning point. While we saw images of planes which flew into the WTC, we understood that the air of lightness has ended. War was not something far away, but among us. It could raise its head at every moment and everywhere. However innocent and lovable we think of ourselves, we had enemyies and those enemies live in our midst. Our eyes opened. We were forced to realism.

From now on we can no longer permit [ourselves] to be naïve or thoughtless. The world is too dangerous. We are more than ever aware of our own vulnerability and that of others. Of what binds us all. Life itself. […]

We must listen, reflect, talk, pay attention, be indignant, firm, active, political, careful, brave, patient, and not let ourselves be led by fears, or our egos, but by our wisdom and love.”

>>‘Commentar: Terroristen of lastposten’ [Editorial: Terrorists or Troublemakers], Forum, p17, 26 August 2006, De Volkskrant

On the 12 Indians who were arrested for looking ‘suspicious’ aboard a Northwest Airlines plane which turned back to Schiphol Airport (AMS) shortly after taking off.

“The more false alarm is set off, the more terrorists get their way without having to do anything. […] There exists a climate of fear and suspicion very easily that will undoubtedly lead to even more false alarms. […] Whoever would rather take certainty for uncertainty is not yet discharged from the duty to make a real estimation of the danger.

In recent times numerous incidents in airplanes have presented themselves, in which suspicion of terrorist activities rested primarily on the appearance of the passengers. [If] they look ‘like Muslims’, and behave ‘supiciously’, then alarm is all too quickly sounded. This alertness does not necessarily contribute to a greater [sense of] security, [but does contribute to] a stigmatisation of all travellers with a dark appearance.”

• To forget, and not let our emotions get in the way, like Chinese Daoist masters have taught thousands of years ago is ‘the Way’ to stop, or at least be unaffected by the escalating violence and the chaos of modernity.

Karen Armstrong, ‘The power of forgetting’, 19 August 2006, The Guardian

“[…] poets and artists have always known how to hold themselves in an attitude of silent waiting. Keats called the creative process "negative capability ... when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason". Wordsworth understood that the poet needs "wise passiveness" and "a heart that watches and receives". When our minds are stuffed with current ideas, we cannot be truly creative because there is no room for anything new. Creation is ex nihilo: out of nothing, the "wild and empty waste" described at the beginning of Genesis.

“People who have no religious beliefs are often willing to talk to contemplative nuns, because these women, who have embraced silence and emptiness, know how to listen. Listening is rare in our chattering society. It is often all too clear that, while their interlocutor is speaking, participants in talk-shows and phone-ins are not really listening, but thinking up the next clever thing that they want to say. I am certainly guilty of this myself. If we are to break the deadly cycle of escalating violence - of strike and counter-strike, atrocity and enraged reaction - we must listen intently to what everybody, even our enemy, is saying, and be sincerely ready to let it change us: to get beyond the rhetoric, decode the imagery, and hear the subtext of rage, grief, fear, pain, hatred and despair.”

• Opinions on the state of Israel and the Palestinian people from two Dutch-Israeli doctors who have worked in Israel for many decades[2]

Annelien:

On checkpoints:

“[For soldiers at the checkpoints] it is sometimes dangerous, of course. But you do not need to treat the Palestinians like dogs, to snarl and to growl.”

On long ques at the checkpoints:

“We have a [festive] holiday or elections and therefore we just lock the Palestinians up [in their villages]. For our security. If I see the ques, I do think of photos of German camps, but as leftist activist you cannot make such comparison. If you are rightist you can, just think of the colonists who called the soldiers at the evacuation of Gaza last year.”

“You cannot oppress three million people in this way. Internally as well as externally that can lead to the destruction of the state. As long as we continue to oppress the Palestinians, the war, the attacks and the Qassam rockets remain. And in the meantime we go downhill morally, we undermine our values.”

Eldad:

“[Israel] is in shambles. We have already gone along the wrong way for a long time. We lean too much on violence. There is no dialogue. The settlement politics of one government after another is lunacy. Israel has become a very malicious country. It has certainly not become what we had hoped for forty-four years ago. Many people believe that, there are only not many who says that out-loud. It takes [time] before achieve [that] insight.

Everyone knows that a two-state solution must come. I compared it once with a strike. [from a strike] you know that it rests on a compromise, though for four weeks [everything will be a mess]. Maybe there must first be many more deaths before we reach our senses. There must first be […] pain and apparently the pain is not bad enough, but the two-state solution will come. Whether I will experience it? Peace with Egypt and Jordan I had not foreseen after the Six Day War. […]”

• Yoel Marcus, ‘A far cry from Ben-Gurion’, 19 August 2006, The Guardian
  
  Criticism of the war was strong, even within Israel. And the Olmert administration bears the brunt of the blame.

“Much has been said and written about the wisdom of launching a full-scale war instead of making do with a retaliatory operation after the kidnapping of two soldiers; about the first Israeli government to allow its citizens to be bombarded by 4,000 missiles from a terrorist organisation; about a million Israeli refugees making a beeline from north to south; about the tremendous loss of life and property. Who would have imagined, with all our military might, that we would not be victorious in a war where Israel was Goliath and Hizbullah was David?

Blindly, without thinking, Israel volunteered to leap for the second time into the Lebanese bog. With an army of reserve soldiers sitting there until the multinational force arrives, it's only a matter of time before Hizbullah creeps out of its lair and batters us with roadside bombs and suicide bombers.

[…]Rather than look before you leap, the Olmert administration was guided by the opposite principle: leap before you look. The bombastic threats against the enemy, the promises of a new Middle East, the talk about disarming Hizbullah and ending the rocket fire - it was more a shot in the dark than a premeditated plan.”

• Roots of terror, at the grass roots

Of the many actual and foiled terrorist attacks, the people involved are surprisingly young, middle-class, well educated Muslims who have lived or been raised in the ‘west’. Does this say anything about the acceptance of ‘western’ societies of Muslims?

“there is undoubtedly an antagonistic attitude towards British society among some Muslims, particuarl the younger generation. They are througouly westernised, yet anti-Western […]

But what shapes [their] wider grievance-obsessed attitude? Some blame British or US foreign policy. Others claim it is all about Islam. But that cannot explain why young people appear more zealous than parents who came from traditional Muslim countries.

I think the big factor comes from closer to home—the multicultural identity politics that is institutionalised from the top down. The distinctive identiy promoted by multiculturalism is that of the victim. Each identiy group vies to win prestige and grants by parading its suffering. Thus Muslim community leaders elevate any perceived slight into evidence of a wave of Islamphobia, and depict foreign policy as proof of persecution.”

Certainly the more you are made to feel like victims, coupled with diminishing, or at least lower, prospects of prosperity and ascension of the social ladder compared to your (white) peers, the more these youths are going to feel frustrated and hemmed in. the result is striking out, venting frustrations in a desperate cry for help…or at least attention.

“This sort of victim identify feeds the emotions of pity and outrage rather than any political understanding. And it can lead some to lash out like sullen adolescents.”[3]

• Barbara Toner , ‘Evolution forgot the democratic process’, 19 August 2006, The Guardian

Shocking revelations that, in the UK, though I suspect elsewhere as well, in this day and age a large minority still reject evolution theory in favour of creationism.

“Twelve per cent believe God made the world in the past 10,000 years and put man in it. Another 19% believe God's hand can be seen in all living things, whose existence is otherwise beyond our comprehension. Only 56% put their money wholesale on the theory of evolution. And the reason this is terrifying is that the beliefs of this 31% are rooted in extremes of religion that teach metaphor as fact, and we know where that takes us.”

It’s not so much what they believe in that is the matter, but what the consequences are of the basis of their beliefs, which in turn affect the way many are brought up in their perceptions of and dealings with the world:

“But the worry is that students who buy into creationism aren't prepared to test the evidence against it, and minds closed to the truth have been dangerous since the year dot.

The prime minister put his finger on it a couple of weeks ago in his alarming speech to the News Corp executives in Florida, on the current political state of the world, as viewed by him. The real divisions, he said, were no longer between left and right, but between advocates of modern, open societies and closed, traditional ones - and they are, even if they aren't the only ones.” [emphasis mine]

• On a lighter note…

A campaign by ‘Sex voor Dieren’ [Sex for Animals] last week is collecting signatures to initiate a citizen legislative proposal to make it a right for animals to have sex.

Campaigners argue that millions of animals die yearly in the Netherlands without having had the chance to develop themselves sexually. Some die as virgins. They suggest maybe people can start organising ‘speed dating’ for their pets, or even a ‘peepshow’ for couples, or perhaps start apologising to cows in the field.

“Animals work hard for us people.

They deliver, among other things, milk, eggs, meat, wool, and pleasant company. Therefore animals have the right to good working conditions and pleasure in life. It is up to us to provide for their primary needs of living, such as fun, good food, fun work throughout the week, and now and then healthy love making.

Sex for Animals strives for the animal rights mentioned below:

• The right to sex
• The right to reproduction
• The right to choose partner freely
• The right to family life

These primary animal rights are unfortunately under pressure, because artificial forms of reproduction are more profitable. In order to allow animals to taste love, special effort is necessary.”

Hmmm, I feel guilty now about my little kitty…

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[1] H.J.A. Hofland, ‘De Derde Wereldoorlog’ [The Third World War], Opnion, 7 16 August 2006

[2] ‘Sjifra Herschberg, ‘Reportage Annelien en Eldad Kisch-Kroon: Koppige idealisten’ [Report Annelien and Eldad Kisch-Kroon: Stubborn idealists], p67, 19 August 2006, Vrij Nederland

[3] Mick Hume, ‘Latest drama from the War on Terror: er, all quiet on the Walthamstan front’, Comment, p19, 18 August 2006, The Times [of London]