Is Europe poised to follow Britain's example by legalizing Sharia Law?

Fjordman at the Brussels Journal sees exactly that:

Europe’s Decline – Hurrah! We Capitulate!

This story is extremely serious. The European Union is now about to do what senior officials have already agreed upon years ago in meetings with Muslim nations, as documented by Bat Ye'or in her book about Eurabia: To officially recognize sharia law in European countries: [...]

The writing has been on the wall for some time. Europe's socialist elites and Islamic Sharia Law enforcers both have one thing in common; they have no use or respect for the freedoms and rights of the individual. Thus, they also loath American freedom and power, and want to see it diminished by any means possible.


The Pope just completed a vist to France, Tiberge reports:

France’s Decline – How Christian/Muslim Was/Is France?

The Pope’s visit to France is now over, but already there are some repercussions. Benedict XVI spoke at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris, delivering a discourse unanimously praised for its high intellectual level. However, Dalil Boubakeur, grand mufti of the Paris mosque, is not pleased. The reason? “The Christian roots of Europe” so often evoked by Benedict XVI. “The Muslim culture was sufficiently present in France during the Middle Ages. You cannot exclude the contribution of the Muslim civilization to French society,” Boubakeur told Le Parisien. [...]

Predictable. And so it goes.


Related Links:

Our Culture, What’s Left Of It

An interview with Theodore Dalrymple

Sharia Law now legal in Great Britain?
     

European Union: becoming openly totalitarian?

Fjordman at the Brussels Journal makes the case that the European Union is swifty moving in that direction, as they attempt to form a "Mediteranian Union" that would consist of all the member states of the EU, and countries in North Africa and the Middle East. They would be united with the EU by shared laws, that could be used to silence and oppress millions:

European Parliament Bans Opposition

[...] What's worse is that the same EU leaders, including the British Foreign Minister, the French President and the German Chancellor, have officially announced the enlargement of the EU to include Muslim North Africa and the Middle East. A proposed European Arrest Warrant lists a number of crimes, including terrorism, armed robbery, rape, and racism and xenophobia, which are punishable throughout the EU. The European Arrest Warrant requires that anyone who is charged by a member state under the listed group of offenses (which could cover just about anything) may be arrested by the authorities of the issuing state within any other member state. The accused must then be transited for trial to the issuing state within ten days, without any interference, judicial or otherwise, by the executing state.

Racism includes "Islamophobia," according to numerous EU documents. Which means that "Islamophobia" will soon be treated as a crime as serious as rape and armed robbery across most of the European continent. At the same time, European leaders are busy enlarging the EU to include North Africa and the Middle East, thus flooding Europe with tens of millions of additional Muslims. Not far into the future, EU authorities can arrest a person in, say, Denmark or Italy, who has published a cartoon that could be considered offensive to Islam. He or she will then be quietly handed over to the authorities in Algeria, Egypt or Jordan. Remember that blasphemy against Islam potentially carries the death penalty according to sharia. Multiculturalism in Europe is thus reaching its openly totalitarian phase. Those who think this is a joke can look at the Dutch cartoonist who was arrested recently. Several documents that are publicly available (but little known by the general public because they are never referred to by the mainstream media) state that the EU should "harmonize" the education and legal systems with the Mediterranean "partner countries" within the coming decade. This is being negotiated as we speak, behind our backs. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Is this alarmist? I'm sure the Dutch cartoonist who's been arrested doesn't think so. If events continue to converge in the direction they are heading, I don't see how the above scenario would be avoidable. Rather, it would seem inevitable.

Some people think the Irish, who have an opportunity to vote against the Lisbon Treaty (because their constitution requires it), can save Europe from a takeover by the EU, but another article at the Brussels Journal says don't count on that:

Eurosceptics Are Wrong: Don’t Count on Ireland to Save Us from Brussels

There are indications that some Europeans are finding their backbone and using their local governments to speak up and react against this totalitarian threat. But will they do enough in time to make a difference?
     

The resurgence of Europe's "spine"

It seems that local governments along Europe's historic "spine" are attempting to assert themselves. From Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal:

What’s Going Right in Europe – How Localism Might Save the Continent

[...] While France succumbs to North Africans and Germany to Turks, the parties from Old Lorraine, the spine of Europe, are preparing to fight for the preservation of their own identity. Owing to the massive immigration by people from an entirely different culture, many ordinary Europeans no longer feel at home in their own countries. Home is that cosy, often small, place where people feel safe among those whom they know and trust. The fight for the preservation of Europe is a fight for one’s own home, village, town, city, provence. That is why it is a localist issue.

Resistance to Islamization is not a matter of ideology, as one prominent American “anti-Jihadist” seems to think. The successful resistance in Europe has a provincial and an ethnic basis. It is about the right of the Europeans to hand their traditions, their identity, their cultural heritage down to their children so that the latter can continue to enjoy Europe’s ancient freedoms. The spirit of Old Lorraine has survived for 1,200 years. “Populist” parties in Flanders, Switzerland, Lombardia, Cologne and Alsace and other regions along the spine of Europe are popular for the simple reason that they are not prepared to let twelve centuries of capitalist self-reliance, self-governance and limited government fade away simply because foreigners are moving in with a spirit adapted to Arabian desert life. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The article has some interesting figures on illegal immigration in Spain and Italy, the numerous amnesties that have been repeatedly granted over the years to assimilate them, and the political ramifications of that, but the article's not primarily just about immigration.

Belien goes into a detailed history of this European spine, where he claims capitalism in Europe had it's origins, and describes it as a place "...where citizens are still influenced by centuries of independence, self-reliance and adherence to a local identity that opposes centralizing authorities in far-away capitals."

It's interesting history, and it's interesting how he uses it as argument against Robert Spencer's argument that Jihadism should be fought as an ideology. I think there are merits in both points of view. Ethnicity and ideology are often closely linked, so it's not just a simple either/or scenario.

What I don't quite see is, how this spine of Europe is going to manage to exert any political power in the European Union, which seems hell-bent on ignoring or crushing such citizens. Yet there is also resistance to the EU from Ireland and other places, as discussed in one of the links below. It will be interesting to see where this goes.


Related articles at the Brussel's Journal:

Europe’s Fate and Turkey’s Progress

Freedom Fighters in Ireland, the Czech Republic and Germany Oppose EU Treaty
     

Selective Religious Tolerance: a Leftist Tool

One would think that "Religious Tolerance" would be about showing consideration for all religions, but clearly that is not the case in Europe, as Thomas Landen at the Brussels Journal shows us:

Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: Austria, European Parliament, the Netherlands, Belgium

The Austrian authorities have indicted politician Susanne Winter on charges of incitement and degradation of religious symbols and religious agitation. This offence carries a maximum sentence of two years. Last January, Ms Winter said that the prophet Muhammad was “a child molester” because he had married a six-year-old girl. She also said he was “a warlord” who had written the Koran during “epileptic fits.”

The politician, a member of the Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ, an anti-immigration party which is in opposition, added that Islam is “a totalitarian system of domination that should be cast back to its birthplace on the other side of the Mediterranean.” She also warned for “a Muslim immigration tsunami,” saying that “in 20 or 30 years, half the population of Austria will be Muslim” if the present immigration policies continue.

Following her remarks, Muslim extremists threatened to kill Susanne Winter and she was placed under police protection. Today, the Justice Department in Vienna announced that Ms Winter will be charged with “incitement and degradation of religious symbols” (Verhetzung und Herabwürdigung religiöser Symbole). If convicted she may have to serve up to two years in jail for her opinions.

However, Alfred Hrdlicka, the Austrian “artist” who depicted Jesus and his apostles engaging in homosexual acts of sodomy during the Last Supper, has not been indicted. Nor will he be. Depicting Jesus sodomizing his apostles is not considered to be a “degradation of religious symbols” in Austria, but referring to the historic fact that Muhammad married a six-year old girl is “incitement to racial hatred.”

Neither has Mr Hrdlicka been threatened by Christian assassins for his “opinions.” The difference between Christian and Muslim extremists is that the former do not aim to kill those who offend them, but the latter do – which is perhaps also why the European authorities fear the radical Muslims and persecute their opponents while they subsidize those who insult Christians. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The rest of the article talks about Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, who have been threatened with death by Muslim fanatics for being critical of Islam. The forces of Europe's multi-culti political correctness are being mustered to deny them protection and effectively silence them and/or force them to leave. Ironically, this emboldens the most violent and threatening Muslims to continue being violent, threatening and intolerant. Why would that behavior be encouraged in a genuinely liberal and tolerant society?

Leftist socialists pretend to be liberal and tolerant, but in reality they are anything but. They are very selective about who and what they support. Any cause they can use against the establishment they support. Everything they do is a means of achieving power; freedom of speech and personal liberty are not values worth protecting for everyone, they are just tools to use selectively in pursuit of political power. The ends justifies the means.

In Turkey, the secular Left opposes the conservative Islamic AKP party. But in Europe, the Left supports Islamists. Why? Because in Europe, Leftists and Islamists have a common enemy they hate; Christian conservatives.

In Iran in the 1970's, the political Left joined forces with the Islamic Right to overthrow the Shah. The Leftists foolishly believed the Islamists would share power with them, and bring about a secular socialist state. Instead, when the Shah was driven out, the Islamists killed or exiled the leaders of the Left and subjugated their followers, under a rigid an intolerant Islamic theocratic state.

Leftists often have self-destructive tendencies, and also fail to learn from their mistakes, repeating them again and again. Even if they won't learn, surely the rest of us can? Their mistakes are a lesson for us all.


Related Links:

Hitler, Islamism and Leftist Liberals...

Political Correctness and Multiculturalism:
The New Tools of "Stealth" Socialism?

Radical Islam, the Western Left, and the
end of democracy; the problems and solutions

     

The Natives are Revolting... in Europe!

We've heard of riots in Europe before, mostly by Muslim immigrants, over cartoons or other grievances, but are we starting to see a backlash by native Europeans? Recent rioting by native Dutch citizens would seem to suggest the answer is yes. Is it a new trend? More from Fjordman at the Brussel's Journal:

Native Revolt: A European Declaration of Independence

After the death last Sunday of Rinie Mulder, a 54-year old indigenous Dutchman who was shot by a police officer, non-immigrant citizens went on a rampage in Utrecht. Apparently Mulder intervened when Muslim youths harassed a pregnant native Dutch woman. Locals claim the police has failed to protect them for years. They say the authorities are afraid of the immigrants and tolerate their criminal behavior.

This issue is not just about Utrecht or Holland. Similar resentment against Muslim immigrants, but at least as much against their own authorities, is quietly brewing among the natives all over Western Europe.

It is insulting that two thirds of the Dutch, one of the founding members of the European community, voted against the proposed EU Constitution, and yet EU leaders will apparently just ignore this and force their massively undemocratic Constitution down people's throats anyway. The German Presidency wants EU leaders to agree on a text for a new treaty by February 2008. The label 'Constitution' is to be dropped, in order to avoid further referendums.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso expressed unease with the prospect of a second Dutch constitution referendum. "Referendums make the process of approval of European treaties much more complicated and less predictable," he said "If a referendum had been held on the creation of the European Community or the introduction of the Euro, do you think these would have passed?"

Although the EU warns against "Islamophobia," those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the Middle East are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The subject of increasing crime in Europe and governments lack of response in dealing with it, has been a contentious topic. Fjordman maintains that much of what is being called "crime" in Europe is really Jihad by Europe's large Muslim immigrant population.



He further contends that the lack of response by authorities is largely due to the European Union, which is run by UNELECTED officials. They feel no obligation to respond to citizen complaints, as they impose their plan to abolish individual nation states in order to create a multicultural "Eurabia":

[...] In the 1990s, Swedish authorities decided that native Swedes and their culture had no more claim to the country than Kurds. At the same time, the country became a member of the EU. Mass immigration to Sweden started years before EU membership and wasn't caused by this, but the EU certainly didn't help. Now suddenly, as with other EU members, Swedes have most of their laws passed by unelected EU bureaucrats rather than their own elected national representatives.

Swedes were used to that laws were passed with their consent and with their best interests in mind, because by and large they had been. Within a few years, all of this has changed. Laws are now passed by EU bureaucrats who don't give a damn about their interests, and by elites who don't care about their own people, in fact view them as potential stumbling blocks for the new Multicultural society. Yet most Europeans still follow these laws. Why? I can see at least two reasons.

Germany's ex-president Roman Herzog pointed out that between 1999 and 2004, 84 percent of the legal acts in Germany stemmed from Brussels, and warned that "EU policies suffer to an alarming degree from a lack of democracy and a de facto suspension of the separation of powers. The question has to be raised of whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy."

Why is this pan-European EU dictatorship still functioning? Because seeing is believing. Most Europeans still don't know that EU leaders are using their money without their consent to merge Europe with the Arab world because their media don't tell them this. Due to the common Euro currency and the lack of national borders they can move around most of Europe at ease, which seems convenient. They don't physically see, however, that the EU has also usurped the power of their national parliaments. The latter appear to be working just as always, but have now been reduced to implementing the policies of unelected Eurocrats. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) How did this all come about? Fjordman explains in detail the relationship of trust that has existed between European Natives and their governments, and shows us how the trust has been exploited, and local political power seamlessly usurped by the unelected elites of the European Union.

At last we are seeing a backlash. Fjordman suggests that native Europeans have learned a few things from the rioting of European immigrants:

[...] The excellent Chinese blogger Ohmyrus has warned against precisely this:

"While it took a long time for Europeans to learn to settle their differences peacefully through the ballot box, this important lesson is slowly being unlearned. The lesson learned from the Danish cartoon affair is that violence pays. Most Western governments caved in by issuing apologies or condemning the cartoons instead of defending free speech. Soon groups that oppose immigration will turn to violence too. If European democracies cannot manage their ethnic tensions, democracy will break down, ushering in dictatorial rule."

(bold emphasis mine) Is it too late for Europe? If Europeans revolt in sufficient numbers, there is still time to reverse the damage wrought by the European Union. Fjordman examines ways this might be accomplished, and also suggests a European Declaration of Independence.

It was difficult choosing excerpts to print here, because the article is very detailed, and those details provide a lot of context, so I definitely recommend reading the whole thing. In it, Fjordman ties together many current trends in Europe, explaining the forces behind them and the inherent dangers. The article also contains many informative embedded links.

Europe faces a rocky road ahead. Fjordman's article is must reading for anyone who wants to better understand what is happening in Europe today.


Related Links:

From Paul Belien:
Utrecht Riots: Neighbourhood Closed Off

The Dutch police deny that the police officer who killed Rinie Mulder is of Moroccan or Turkish descent. Esther, a Dutch blogger, refers to a post on a Moroccan website saying the police officer is Turkish, not Moroccan. The post has, however, been removed. Yesterday, we reported, relying on sources in Ondiep, that the officer was a Moroccan woman. [...]

click above link for more

From Marij Uijt den Bogaard:
Tariq Ramadan and Islam’s Future in Europe

From 2003 to 2006 I worked as a civil servant in the Berchem borough of Antwerp, Flanders. Berchem is a multicultural neighbourhood with many immigrants of Turkish and Moroccan origin. My job was to promote the integration of these people and foster good relations between the different ethnic groups living in Berchem. Prior to 2003 I worked in Antwerp North, another neighbourhood with many immigrants.

During the past years I noted how radical Islamists groups began to take over the immigrant neighbourhoods. I warned for this danger in my reports to the city authorities. The latter made it clear to me that they did not like my reports. They said my reports read like “Vlaams Belang tracts.” The VB is the local anti-immigration party. When I kept reporting about what I saw happening around me I was fired. [...]

click above link for more

More from Fjordman:
Will the Third Rome Fall to Islam?

I recently read the book The Reformation by Owen Chadwick, about the Protestant Reformation and the situation in 15th and 16th century Europe. It is fascinating to read about Western Europe during a period when it was genuinely dynamic, not the anemic and self-loathing continent it is now. But still, I was also struck by how many similarities there are between the situation then and now. This was also during a period of Muslim aggression, as the Turks made inroads into the Balkans and Central Europe, eventually threatening even Western Europe. [...]

click above link for more