Tag Archives: Europe

If there are no “No-Go Zones” why has the State Dept tried community-organizing them?

There has been a great deal of push back recently on the issue of what have been nicknamed “No Go Zones” in Europe, areas with high concentrations of Muslim immigrant populations, where non-immigrants and even Emergency Services personnel have expressed concern or even fear about entering. Soeren Kern, a Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute and the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group, wrote the first segment in a multipart series on the issue, beginning today with France:

In October 2011, a landmark 2,200-page report, “Banlieue de la République” (Suburbs of the Republic) found that Seine-Saint-Denis and other Parisian suburbs are becoming “separate Islamic societies” cut off from the French state, and where Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law. The report said that Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and instead are immersing themselves in radical Islam. The report — which was commissioned by the influential French think tank, L’Institut Montaigne — was directed by Gilles Kepel, a highly respected political scientist and specialist in Islam, together with five other French researchers.The authors of the report showed that France — which now has 6.5 million Muslims (the largest Muslim population in European Union) — is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.

Kern goes on to list numerous French sources, government, academic and media, which have cited the difficulty French authorities face in controlling the areas- noted for their criminal gangs, and violence against non-immigrant french, together with the challenge of assimilating the primarily Islamic immigrants who live in them.  As Kern’s report notes, both French politicians on the right and left have referred to areas as “areas of lawlessness” where “the police are not welcome.”

Despite the push by left-leaning media to paint the “No Go Zone” issue as one of right-wing fabrication, the reality is that even the U.S. State Department recognizes the challenge, and has been actively involved in… “community organizing” the problem:

Alumni of that program include elites like current President Francois Hollande and former President Nicholas Sarkozy. But it’s been expanded to include people like Tara Dickman, the French daughter of South African immigrants. Obama’s former campaign manager recruited her for training in community organizing in Chicago, and that trip inspired her to create a group called the Collective Against Racial Profiling.

“Within a year, police profiling went from a sort of topic that didn’t exist to a major political stake,” she said. “Fourteen people went to court to sue the state, and then it became a major issue in the elections, there are three law proposals now … and this is really thanks to this trip.”

But not everyone is happy with what the U.S. government has been up to in the banlieues. Among the critics is Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a center-right member of Parliament.

“How will the U.S. government (answer) if the French government decided to go in some suburbs of the United States to say to the people, ‘You are not very well treated by your government, and we are going to help you. You are going to travel in France, be agent for us.’ It is not acceptable. It is not possible,” Dupont-Aignan said.

There’s no question that the French government faces a genuine challenge in these territories, something the Obama Administration recognizes, even if they place the blame squarely on French authorities.  Those animated to score cheap rhetorical points debating over what such zones ought to be called are detracting from a possibility of debate over what ought to be done about them.

Israel bashers’ phony contrition

Dr. Richard Horton, the editor of the English medical journal The Lancet, was not transformed by his visit to Israel last week.

Horton came to Israel last week the guest of Rambam Medical Center in a bid to dig himself out of the hole he dug himself into. On August 19 Horton published a 1,600-word letter criminalizing Israel. In it, Israel was accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The authors called for a boycott of Israel, including Israeli academia. Since its publication on Lancet’s website, the letter has garnered 20,000 signatures.

The letter made no mention of the fact that the war this summer was initiated by Hamas through its illegal missile, mortar and rocket offensive against Israeli population centers. The esteemed medical professionals who wrote the letter failed to mention that Hamas’s operational headquarters was located in Shifa hospital in Gaza. And of course, they ignored the underlying fact that Hamas’s entire campaign against Israel was a crime against humanity.

Immediately following its publication, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of NGO Monitor, exposed that the letter’s principal authors are frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semites. Dr. Paola Manduca and Dr. Swee Ang disseminated a video entitled, CNN, Goldman Sachs & the Zio Matrix. It was produced by the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke.

As Britain’s Telegraph reported, in disseminating the video, Ang exhorted her audience to understand that the Jewish threat outlined in the video is a threat to humanity. In her words, it “is not about Palestine – it is about all of us!” For her part, as the Telegraph reported, Manduca has accused Israel of responsibility for the Boston Marathon bombing. And she disseminated an article comparing Israel to a “strangler fig,” which as the Telegraph explained, “grows around other trees and takes their sunlight, often resulting in the deaths of the original trees.”

Steinberg cataloged Horton’s long record of publishing anti-Israel slanders under the guise of a scientific research. Horton responded with indignation to the initial criticisms of his decision to publish the defamatory letter. He told the Telegraph that the anti-Semitic views of letter authors were “utterly irrelevant.” He called criticism of his decision to publish the letter, “a smear campaign.”

Horton then pledged not to retract the letter – which is still posted on Lancet’s website – “even if [criticism of the authors] was found to be substantiated.”

Yet as the outrage mounted against him, and the stench of the Jew hatred of his colleagues grew stronger, Horton began to feel the heat. So after refusing to publish a letter from Israeli doctors from Rambam rejecting the libelous attacks against Israel, Horton accepted Rambam’s invitation to come to Israel last week and learn firsthand how none of his allegations were true.

At the end of his three-day visit, Horton gave a lecture at Rambam where he condemned the Cossack-style Jew hatred of his colleagues Ang and Manduca. But despite his seeming contrition, Horton did not disavow their letter. He did not agree to remove the slander from The Lancet’s website.

Horton’s selective contrition was an expression of contempt for Israel, for his Israeli hosts and for their Herculean efforts over three days to demonstrate to him that Israel is good, not evil. Yet, instead of calling him on his obnoxious behavior, the heads of Rambam and other critics embraced him and praised his transformation.

As Dr. Anthony Luder, the director of pediatrics at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, wrote in a letter to The Jerusalem Post published Monday, “In what looks like an academic version of the Stockholm Syndrome, my esteemed colleagues at Rambam Medical Center have only succeeded in throwing sand in the face of the medical community by providing legitimization for a hateful hypocrite and terrible scientist.”

Horton’s behavior is very much in keeping with what has become standard operating procedure throughout much of Europe today. First, attack Israel. If you get called on it, issue a clarification or a clearing-of-the-throat apology that does not contain any retraction of your falsehoods. For your willingness to rhetorically temper your mendacious allegations, you can expect to be forgiven by Israel and those who care about truth in your country.

CONSIDER THE new Swedish government’s behavior.

During his inaugural speech last Friday, the new Social Democrat Swedish prime minister, Stefen Lofven, announced that his government will recognize the non-existent State of Palestine.

Israel rightly responded angrily to his statement, noting that the reason no peace accord has been signed between Israel and the Palestinians is because the Palestinians have scuttled and prevented negotiations for the past five years.

In the face of Israel’s angry rebuke of Lofven’s statement, the Swedish Embassy in Tel Aviv issued a clarification saying that Sweden supports a negotiated settlement and values its ties with Israel. Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser told Army Radio that the remark was simply made to jump-start peace talks.

Lofven’s statement was not notable because he revealed himself as a fan of Palestinian terrorists who refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. That’s been Sweden’s policy for decades.

What was notable about Lofven’s statement is that he made it in his inaugural address to the Swedish Parliament.

What this means is that in Sweden, supporting the Palestinians against Israel is not a foreign policy issue. It is a domestic policy issue.

As Benjamin Weinthal documented in Monday’s Post, Swedish Social Democrat politicians with no connection to foreign policy have long records of vilifying Israel and condemning Jews that insist on supporting the Jewish state. Lofven’s government reflects this anti-Israel, and frankly anti-Semitic trend.

Lofven appointed Turkish-born Green Party politician Mehmet Kaplan to serve as urban planning and environment minister in his government. Three years ago Kaplan participated in the illegal, pro-Hamas Turkish flotilla to Gaza as a passenger aboard the Mavi Marmara terrorist ship. In a rally over the summer, he used jihadist language and called for the “liberation of Jerusalem,” and the “liberation of Palestine.” Kaplan has likened Swedish jihadists who travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for Islamic State to Swedish freedom fighters who fought against the Soviets in Finland during World War II.

Other leading politicians in the Social Democratic Party have traveled to Israel and participated in riots against IDF forces.

In other words, Swedish politicians have identified anti-Israel activism as a potent tool for garnering domestic support. This is why Lofven spent so much more time discussing it in his inaugural address than he spent discussing the killing fields in Syria and Iraq, for instance.

But just as Horton wasn’t willing to be lumped together with his Ku Klux Klan-supporting comrades, so the Swedes aren’t willing to admit that their hostility towards Israel owes to domestic considerations that have nothing to do with what Israel does.

Horton’s phony contrition and the Swedish embassy’s “clarification” flow from the same source. And they tell us something about what is happening in Europe and how we need to deal with Europe as it transforms itself before our eyes.

Europe is abandoning the ideals of the Enlightenment, and embracing authoritarianism and irrationality.

But it isn’t willing to admit what it is doing. As a consequence, it is possible to harken to those ideals to shame Europeans for their irrational bigotry and so slow the process down.

Horton will no doubt revert to open defamation of Israel in due time. The Swedish government will similarly attack us in due course.

But forcing them to slow down is important.

Whether or not Europe’s downward spiral is unstoppable is irrelevant for Israel because what is clear enough is that if Europe decides to abandon its current path, it won’t be because of anything Israel does.

Facing this situation, Israel must be guided by two goals as it confronts Europe. It needs to stop caring about what Europeans think of it, and it needs to reduce as much as possible its exposure to the European market.

On the latter issue, unless something fundamental changes, it is undeniable that at some point in the next 10 to 15 years, Europe will join the Arab League’s boycott of Israel. Israel needs time to develop alternative markets for its exports.

On the former issue, Europe’s main non-economic weapon against Israel today is the fact that the Israeli public and particularly Israel’s elites still care what Europe thinks of us. Israelis need time to understand that European hatred for Israel has nothing whatsoever to do with anything Israel does.

Erdogan is No Friend

President Obama hosts this week a man he has described as one of his closest friends among foreign leaders. That’s troubling since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan is a man who is no friend of America by any reasonable definition.

Perhaps, Erdogan is so admired because he has achieved in Turkey what Mr. Obama might call “the fundamental transformation” of his country.  In fact, under Erdogan, Turkey has ceased to be the secular Muslim nation it was for over seventy years.  It is, instead, an increasingly  Islamicized state – repressing its own people and hostile to Israel and our interests in its region, and beyond.

This visit is an opportunity to express our disapproval of these trends.  Unfortunately, Mr. Obama will likely instead encourage his friend to think America approves of them.

Farewell to ‘Europe’?

In the space of two weeks, three European governments have fallen, sending seismic shock-waves across the continent and calling into question the experiment that has consumed its elites for decades: the construction of a centralized, socialist superstate known as "Europe."

It may just be that the foundering of the coalition government in the Netherlands, the repudiation of Nicholas Sarkozy in France and the plunging fortunes of the two main Greek parties represents more than a rejection of austerity measures dictated by Brussels at the behest of the Germans.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, these political developments are probably not going to end the creeping, sovereignty-crushing European venture or even mark the beginning of its demise. But they may just constitute the end of the beginning of the end of "Europe" as a single, transnational political enterprise.

To be sure, French voters elected socialist Francois Hollande, who favors the European Union and reflexively supports the vision of its founders that has seen it evolve from a trade pact to a community to proto-political union. Still, his electorate, like the Greeks and Dutch, wants no part of the EU’s main project at the moment – fiscal discipline and budgetary austerity.

The trouble is that such rebuffs threaten the wholesale unraveling of various financial houses of cards constructed in recent months by Germany’s Angela Merkel with help from her very-much-junior partner, France’s Sarkozy. They have been aimed at giving the appearance of managing the yawning economic crises confronting EU members far beyond Greece – including Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and, yes, France. But as publics across the continent balk at taking the unpalatable medicine ordered up by Berlin and refuse to give up their unaffordable social services, short work-weeks and long vacations, there seems little hope that the patient will recover.

Unfortunately, several other worrying factors are adding to the economic turmoil afflicting Europe at the moment. These include the following:

  • In many nations of the European Union, the chickens are coming home to roost as what has been in some nations a decades-long bid to offset declining birthrates among the native population by importing immigrant laborers transforms the host countries. Sarkozy’s fate was ultimately sealed by the decision of supporters of Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Front party not to vote for him in the second round of the French presidential election. Similar sentiments saw Greece’s fascist-sympathizing Golden Dawn party garnering roughly 7% of the polling this weekend at the expense of mainstream conservative and leftist parties.
  • Closely tied to concerns about the numbers of immigrants in one European country after another is the sense that many of them are Muslims who seek to impose the Islamic supremacist doctrine known as shariah where they now reside. As authors like Bat Ye’or, Mark Steyn and Bruce Bawer have observed, the trends are in the direction of such populations exerting disproportionate influence politically and establishing no-go zones and other privileged status. Such developments fuel a sense of inequity and outrage on the part of the natives.
  • Rising hostility towards "the other" in some parts of Europe is also bringing to the fore once again widespread anti-semitism. Jews are discouraged from wearing their religious garb in public as attacks on them and their synagogues have become more and more frequent and violent. Many are fleeing their native lands and those staying behind are becoming fearful – for good reason – to a degree they have not experienced since World War II.

For all these reasons, Europe may soon be in for another of the horrific cataclysms that have plagued it for nearly all of recorded history. In fact, we have become so accustomed to the tranquility and prosperity the continent has known for the past half-century that most of us forget that such conditions are very much the exception there, rather than the rule.

It is unclear how a new round of disorder or even war might be precipitated in Europe. And the mere threat of such a prospect may – as it has in the past – prompt a redoubled effort to shore up the European Union and its faltering common currency, the Euro. The forces being unleashed at the moment, however, may prove resistant to such exhortations to perpetuate what is increasingly perceived to be a punitive and anti-democratic enterprise.

Needless to say, if Europe once again descends into the vortex of economic privation, religious and/or ethnic "cleansing" and possibly strife that has happened so often there, our own tranquility and prosperitywill be jeopardized, as well. We must, however, resist the temptation to try to prop up the European Union as the solution to such prospects and invest, instead, in efforts to work with national governments there to make them more responsible, accountable and disciplined – something the project known as "Europe" has not been to date and can, as a practical matter, never be.

At the very least, we cannot expect that what emerges from the wreckage of profligate spending and subordination of sovereignty that is Europe will provide the reliable partners and robust militaries that we are told will permit us safely to reduce our own capabilities and burden-share with our allies. If history is any guide, it is as likely that we will wind up fighting in Europe again – perhaps catalyzed by an ever-more-bellicose Russia once again formally led by Vladimir Putin – as that we will benefit from substantially greater help from that quarter.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

A Warning From Norway

Almost lost in official Washington’s preoccupation with the partisan slug-fest over raising the debt ceiling and reducing the deficit was the despicable, murderous attack in Norway on Friday.  Unfortunately, such inattention increases the likelihood that the wrong lessons will be learned from the mayhem – and a proper response to the mayhem inflicted upon that Nordic ally will not be forthcoming.

The predictable narrative has already begun to take hold.  The confessed perpetrator of a bombing of government offices in Oslo and a seek-and-destroy operation at a Labor Party youth camp on Utoya Island, Anders Behring Breivik, is depicted as a “Christian,” “conservative” and/or “right-wing extremist.”  His attacks, we are told, were animated by a delusional ambition to save his country from an Islamic take-over.

Much remains to be learned about this evident psychopath and his precise motivations for acting in such a deranged fashion.  Still, an unholy axis of Muslim Brotherhood operatives and those on the Left – groups whose spokesmen, ironically, endlessly inveigh against precipitous judgments when jihadists are the perpetrators – have been quick to find in this attack proof of their favorite meme: that conservatives and Christians are as much a threat to domestic tranquility (if not more) as are those seeking to impose the totalitarian Islamic politico-military-legal doctrine of shariah.  They insist that as much effort (if not more) should be expended by law enforcement and other government agencies to counter such “Islamophobic” right-wing extremists as is applied to Muslim “violent extremism.”

Worse yet, they want us to believe that a number of individuals about whom Breivik wrote admiringly are inciting to violence when they warn about the threat posed by shariah’s adherents.  That list includes prominent, responsible figures on both sides of the Atlantic.  He even cites, although mostly critically, one of my own columns in the Washington Times.

As it happens, the carnage inflicted by Breivik stands in stark contrast to the efforts of men and women across the Free World who are striving not only to raise awareness of what the Brotherhood calls its “civilization jihad,” but are making real progress through entirely lawful means to counter that stealthy effort, again in the MB’s words, “destroy Western civilization from within.”

For example, authentic Christians who are being persecuted for their faith in places like Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt are responding with peaceful demonstrations to the burning of their churches, the kidnapping of their daughters and the beatings and murder of their coreligionists.  Across Europe, citizens and leaders are pushing back legislatively and morally against what amounts to Islamic totalitarianism by; voting to ban minarets in Switzerland, limiting immigration, banning burkas for security reasons, etc. 

The good news is that, in Europe if not in the Muslim world, the popular tide has begun to turn against the Islamists.  Europeans in particular are rediscovering their own values through conservative political parties and the defense of their own free speech. From French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s insistence on his country’s secular identity to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilder’s victory in court for free speech, the fight against Islamicization is actually strengthening Western institutions. 

In other words, the facts are that we are beginning to change public opinion and national policy.  Anti-Islamicization parties are increasingly part of coalition governments in, for example, the Netherlands, Denmark and Italy.  Mainstream parties and governments are adopting conservative platforms that would have been unthinkable even five years ago.

Much credit for that growing public support for the rule of Western laws over shariah is due to the political leaders and writers who have awakened the West from her deadly slumbers.  Citizens all over the Free World have helped to mainstream such realistic – if “politically incorrect” – thinking and have succeeded lawfully in changing government policy on multiculturalism, immigration and counter-terrorism. 

Such developments terrify and infuriate the European elites – especially the radical left, academia and the media, the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a 57-member multinational entity that has become the largest and most powerful block in the United Nations.  They see their toehold in Europe beginning to slip thanks to the rising tide of public support for freedom.  They are determined in the wake of the mayhem in Norway to reverse this trend by demanding that Christians and conservatives be pilloried and suppressed as “Islamophobes.” 

If anything, suppressing warranted alarms about the threat posed to Western civilization by shariah, and hampering legal activities aimed at staving off that menace, would simply play into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and their enablers.   That way lies disaster.

The murderous attacks in Norway last week cry out for justice for the victims, based on a thorough investigation of the crime and its perpetrator.  They also demand that Norway and other civilized nations respond thoughtfully – notably, by resisting the temptation to suppress those warning of encroaching shariah and, in the process, abet those who are striving to insinuate that totalitarian program into freedom-loving lands. 

The tide is turning in Europe and elsewhere towards freedom, free markets and conservative values.   To paraphrase an old folk song, we can’t let a psychopathic deviant – who professes admiration for such principles and their adherents, yet utterly betrays them – to turn us around.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

Geert Wilders in Berlin

These are highlights of a speech given by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders in Berlin to the Freiheit Party (Freedom Party), October 2, 2010:

Dear friends, tomorrow is the Day of German Unity. Tomorrow exactly twenty years ago, your great nation was reunified after the collapse of the totalitarian Communist ideology. The Day of German Unity is an important day for the whole of Europe. Germany is the largest democracy in Europe. Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse. The wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a benefit to all of us, because the wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a prerequisite for the wellbeing and prosperity of Europe.

Today I am here, however, to warn you for looming disunity. Germany’s national identity, its democracy and economic prosperity, is being threatened by the political ideology of Islam. In 1848, Karl Marx began his Communist Manifesto with the famous words: “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism.” Today, another specter is haunting Europe. It is the specter of Islam. This danger, too, is political. Islam is not merely a religion, as many people seem to think: Islam is mainly a political ideology.

This insight is not new.

I quote from the bestselling book and BBC television series The Triumph of the West which the renowned Oxford historian J.M. Roberts wrote in 1985: “Although we carelessly speak of Islam as a ‘religion’; that word carries many overtones of the special history of western Europe. The Muslim is primarily a member of a community, the follower of a certain way, an adherent to a system of law, rather than someone holding particular theological views.” The Flemish Professor Urbain Vermeulen, the former president of the European Union of Arabists and Islamicists, too, points out that “Islam is primarily a legal system, a law,” rather than a religion.

The American political scientist Mark Alexander writes that “One of our greatest mistakes is to think of Islam as just another one of the world’s great religions. We shouldn’t. Islam is politics or it is nothing at all, but, of course, it is politics with a spiritual dimension, … which will stop at nothing until the West is no more, until the West has … been well and truly Islamized.”

These are not just statements by opponents of Islam. Islamic scholars say the same thing. There cannot be any doubt about the nature of Islam to those who have read the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. Abul Ala Maududi, the influential 20th century Pakistani Islamic thinker, wrote – I quote, emphasizing that these are not my words but those of a leading Islamic scholar – “Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle … to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam.”

Ali Sina, an Iranian Islamic apostate who lives in Canada, points out that there is one golden rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In Islam, this rule only applies to fellow believers, but not to Infidels. Ali Sina says “The reason I am against Islam is not because it is a religion, but because it is a political ideology of imperialism and domination in the guise of religion. Because Islam does not follow the Golden Rule, it attracts violent people.”

A dispassionate study of the beginnings of Islamic history reveals clearly that Muhammad’s objective was first to conquer his own people, the Arabs, and to unify them under his rule, and then to conquer and rule the world. That was the original cause; it was obviously political and was backed by military force. “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah,’” Muhammad said in his final address. He did so in accordance with the Koranic command in sura 8:39: “Fight them until there is no more dissension and the religion is entirely Allah’s.”

According to the mythology, Muhammad founded Islam in Mecca after the Angel Gabriel visited him for the first time in the year 610. The first twelve years of Islam, when Islam was religious rather than political, were not a success. In 622, Muhammad emigrated to Yathrib, a predominantly Jewish oasis, with his small band of 150 followers. There he established the first mosque in history, took over political power, gave Yathrib the name of Medina, which means the “City of the Prophet,” and began his career as a military and a political leader who conquered all of Arabia. Tellingly, the Islamic calendar starts with the hijra, the migration to Medina – the moment when Islam became a political movement.

After Muhammad’s death, based upon his words and deeds, Islam developed Sharia, an elaborate legal system which justified the repressive governance of the world by divine right – including rules for jihad and for the absolute control of believers and non-believers. Sharia is the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran, among other Islamic states. It is also central to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which in article 24 of its Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, proclaims that “all rights and freedoms are subject to the Islamic Sharia.” The OIC is not a religious institution; it is a political body. It constitutes the largest voting block in the United Nations and writes reports on so-called “Islamophobia” in Western Countries which accuse us of human rights violations. To speak in biblical terms: They look for a speck in our eye, but deny the beam in their own.

Under Sharia law people in the conquered territories have no legal rights, not even the right to life and to own property, unless they convert to Islam.

Before I continue, and in order to avoid any misunderstandings, I want to emphasize that I am talking about Islam, not about Muslims. I always make a clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam. There are many moderate Muslims, but the political ideology of Islam is not moderate and has global ambitions. It aims to impose Islamic law or Sharia upon the whole world. The way to achieve this is through jihad. The good news is that millions of Muslims around the world – including many in Germany and the Netherlands – do not follow the directives of Sharia, let alone engage in jihad. The bad news, however, is that those who do are prepared to use all available means to achieve their ideological, revolutionary goal.

In 1954, in his essay Communism and Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis spoke of “the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.” Professor Lewis said that “The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, … has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. … The aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same.”

The American political scientist Mark Alexander states that the nature of Islam differs very little – and only in detail rather than style – from despicable and totalitarian political ideologies such as National-Socialism and Communism. He lists the following characteristics for these three ideologies.

  • They use political purges to “cleanse” society of what they consider undesirable;
    They tolerate only a single political party. Where Islam allows more parties, it insists that all parties be Islamic ones; They coerce the people along the road that it must follow;
  • They obliterate the liberal distinction between areas of private judgment and of public control;
  • They turn the educational system into an apparatus for the purpose of universal indoctrination;
  • They lay down rules for art, for literature, for science and for religion;
  • They subdue people who are given second class status;
  • They induce a frame of mind akin to fanaticism. Adjustment takes place by struggle and dominance;
  • They are abusive to their opponents and regard any concession on their own part as a temporary expedient and on a rival’s part as a sign of weakness;
  • They regard politics as an expression of power;
  • They are anti-Semitic.

There is one more striking parallel, but this is not a characteristic of the three political ideologies, but one of the West. It is the apparent inability of the West to see the danger. The prerequisite to understanding political danger, is a willingness to see the truth, even if it is unpleasant. Unfortunately, modern Western politicians seem to have lost this capacity. Our inability leads us to reject the logical and historical conclusions to be drawn from the facts, though we could, and should know better. What is wrong with modern Western man that we make the same mistake over and over again?

There is no better place to ponder this question than here in Berlin, the former capital of the evil empire of Nazi Germany and a city which was held captive by the so-called German “Democratic” Republic for over forty years.

When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected Communism in 1989, they were inspired by dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Václav Havel, Vladimir Bukovsky, and others, who told them that people have a right, but also an obligation, to “live within the truth.” Freedom requires eternal vigilance; so it is with truth. Solzhenitsyn added, however, that “truth is seldom sweet; it is almost invariably bitter.” Let us face the bitter truth: We have lost our capacity to see the danger and understand the truth because we no longer value freedom.

Politicians from almost all establishment politicians today are facilitating Islamization. They are cheering for every new Islamic school, Islamic bank, Islamic court. They regard Islam as being equal to our own culture. Islam or freedom? It does not really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire establisment elite – universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians – are putting our hard-earned liberties at risk. They talk about equality, but amazingly fail to see how in Islam women have fewer rights than men and infidels have fewer rights than adherents of Islam.

Are we about to repeat the fatal mistake of the Weimar Republic? Are we succumbing to Islam because our commitment to freedom is already dead? No, it will not happen. We are not like Frau Merkel. We do not accept Islamization as inevitable. We have to keep freedom alive. And, to the extent that we have already lost it, we must reclaim it in our democratic elections. That is why we need political parties that defend freedom. To support such parties I have established the International Freedom Alliance.
As you know, I am standing trial in the Netherlands. On Monday, I have to go to court again and I will have to spend most of the coming month there. I have been brought to court because of my opinions on Islam and because I have voiced these opinions in speeches, articles and in my documentary film Fitna. I live under constant police protection because Islamic extremists want to assassinate me, and I am in court because the Dutch establishment – most of them non-Muslims – wants to silence me.

I have been dragged to court because in my country freedom can no longer be fully enjoyed. Unlike America, we do not have a First Amendment which guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions and foster public debate by doing so. Unlike America, in Europe the national state, and increasingly the European Union, prescribes how citizens – including democratically elected politicians such as myself – should think and what we are allowed to say.

One of the things we are no longer allowed to say is that our culture is superior to certain other cultures. This is seen as a discriminatory statement – a statement of hatred even. We are indoctrinated on a daily basis, in the schools and through the media, with the message that all cultures are equal and that, if one culture is worse than all the rest, it is our own. We are inundated with feelings of guilt and shame about our own identity and what we stand for. We are exhorted to respect everyone and everything, except ourselves. That is the message of the Left and the politically-correct ruling establishment. They want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity that we refuse to fight for it.

The detrimental obsession of our cultural and political elites with Western guilt reinforces the view which Islam has of us. The Koran says that non-Muslims are kuffar (the plural of kafir), which literally means “rejecters” or “ingrates.” Hence, infidels are “guilty.” Islam teaches that in our natural state we have all been born as believers. Islam teaches that if we are not believers today this is by our own or by our forefathers’ fault. Subsequently, we are always kafir – guilty – because either we or our fathers are apostates. And, hence, according to some, we deserve subjugation.

Our contemporary leftist intellectuals are blind to the dangers of Islam.

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky argues that after the fall of communism, the West failed to expose those who had collaborated with the Communists by advocating policies of détente, improved relations, relaxation of international tension, peaceful coexistence. He points out that the Cold War was “a war we never won. We never even fought it. … Most of the time the West engaged in a policy of appeasement toward the Soviet bloc – and appeasers don’t win wars.”

Islam is the Communism of today. But, because of our failure to come clean with Communism, we are unable to deal with it, trapped as we are in the old Communist habit of deceit and double-speak that used to haunt the countries in the East and that now haunts all of us. Because of this failure, the same leftist people who turned a blind eye to Communism then, turn a blind eye to Islam today. They are using exactly the same arguments in favor of détente, improved relations, and appeasement as before. They argue that our enemy is as peace-loving as we are, that if we meet him half-way he will do the same, that he only asks respect and that if we respect him he will respect us. We even hear a repetition of the old moral equivalence mantra. They used to say that Western “imperialism” was as bad as Soviet imperialism; they are now saying that Western “imperialism” is as bad as Islamic terrorism.

In my speech near Ground Zero in New York on September 11, I emphasized that we must stop the “Blame the West, Blame America”-game which Islamic spokesmen are playing with us. And we must stop playing this game ourselves. I have the same message for you. It is an insult to tell us that we are guilty and deserve what is happening to us. We do not deserve becoming strangers in our own land. We should not accept such insults. First of all, Western civilization is the freest and most prosperous on earth, which is why so many immigrants are moving here, instead of Westerners moving there. And secondly, there is no such thing as collective guilt. Free individuals are free moral agents who are responsible for their own deeds only.

I am very happy to be here in Berlin today to give this message which is extremely important, especially in Germany. Whatever happened in your country in the past, the present generation is not responsible for it. Whatever happened in the past, it is no excuse for punishing the Germans today. But it is also no excuse for you to refuse to fight for your own identity. Your only responsibility is to avoid the mistakes of the past. It is your duty to stand with those threatened by the ideology of Islam, such as the State of Israel and your Jewish compatriots. The Weimar Republic refused to fight for freedom and was overrun by a totalitarian ideology, with catastrophic consequences for Germany, the rest of Europe and the world. Do not fail to fight for your freedom today.

I am happy to be in your midst today because it seems that twenty years after German reunification, a new generation no longer feels guilty for being German. The current and very intense debate about Thilo Sarrazin’s recent book is an indication of the fact that Germany is coming to terms with itself.
I have not yet read Dr. Sarrazin’s book myself, but I understand that while the ruling politically-correct establishment is almost unanimously critical of his thesis and he lost his job, a large majority of Germans acknowledges that Dr. Sarrazin is addressing important and pressing issues. “Germany is abolishing itself,” warns Sarrazin, and he calls on the Germans to halt this process. The enormous impact of his book indicates that many Germans feel the same way. The people of Germany do not want Germany to be abolished, despite all the political indoctrination they have been subjected to. Germany is no longer ashamed to assert its national pride.

In these difficult times, where our national identity is under threat, we must stop feeling guilty about who we are. We are not “kafir,” we are not guilty. Like other peoples, Germans have the right to remain who they are. Germans must not become French, nor Dutch, nor Americans, nor Turks. They should remain Germans. When the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited your country in 2008, he told the Turks living here that they had to remain Turks. He literally said that “assimilation is a crime against humanity.” Erdogan would have been right if he had been addressing the Turks in Turkey. However, Germany is the land of the Germans. Hence, the Germans have a right to demand that those who come to live in Germany assimilate; they have the right – no they have a duty to their children – to demand that newcomers respect the German identity of the German nation and Germany’s right to preserve its identity.

We must realize that Islam expands in two ways. Since it is not a religion, conversion is only a marginal phenomenon. Historically, Islam expanded either by military conquest or by using the weapon of hijra, immigration. Muhammad conquered Medina through immigration. Hijra is also what we are experiencing today. The Islamization of Europe continues all the time. But the West has no strategy for dealing with the Islamic ideology, because our elites say that we must adapt to them rather than the other way round.
There is a lesson which we can learn in this regard from America, the freest nation on earth. Americans are proud of their nation, its achievements and its flag. We, too, should be proud of our nation. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was very clear about the duty of immigrants. Here is what he said: “We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else … But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. … There can be no divided allegiance here. … We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

It is not up to me to define what Germany’s national identity consists of. That is entirely up to you. I do know, however, that German culture, like that of neighboring countries, such as my own, is rooted in judeo-christian and humanist values. Every responsible politician has a political obligation to preserve these values against ideologies which threaten them. A Germany full of mosques and veiled women is no longer the Germany of Goethe, Schiller and Heine, Bach and Mendelssohn. It will be a loss to us all. It is important that you cherish and preserve your roots as a nation. Otherwise you will not be able to safeguard your identity; you will be abolished as a people, and you will lose your freedom. And the rest of Europe will lose its freedom with you.

My friends, when Ronald Reagan came to a divided Berlin 23 years ago he uttered the historic words, "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.“ President Reagan was not an appeaser, but a man who spoke the truth because he loved freedom. Today, we, too, must tear down a wall. It is not a wall of concrete, but of denial and ignorance about the real nature of Islam. The International Freedom Alliance aims to coordinate and stimulate these efforts.

Because we speak the truth, voters have given my party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, and other parties, such as the Dansk Folkeparti and the Schweizerische Volkspartei, the power to influence the political decision process, whether that be in opposition or in government or by supporting a minority government– as we want to do in the Netherlands. President Reagan showed that by speaking the truth one can change the course of history. He showed that there is no need to despair. Never! Just do your duty. Be not afraid. Speak the truth. Defend Freedom. Together we can preserve freedom, together we must preserve freedom, and together, my friends, we will be able to preserve freedom.

Thank you.

Europe dumps democracy

The Czech Republic ceased to exist as a sovereign state when Vaclav Klaus, its president, put his signature under the Treaty of Lisbon at 3 pm November 3rd, 2009. The Czech Republic was the last of the 27 member states of the European Union to ratify the treaty which turns the EU into a genuine state to which it members states are subservient.

The new European superstate, however, is not a democracy. It has an elected parliament, but the European Parliament has no legislative powers, nor does it control the EU’s executive bodies. The latter, who also have legislative power overriding national legislation, are made up of “commissioners.” These are appointed by the governments of the member states (although no longer with one commissioner per member state, as was the case so far, but with a total number capped at two-thirds of the number of member states). The EU is basically a cartel, consisting of the 27 governments of the member states, who have concluded that it is easier to pass laws in the secret EU meetings with their colleagues than through their own national parliaments in the glare of public criticism.

The formal decision about who will become President and High Commissioner will be taken in late November. As the wheeling and dealing – all of it behind closed doors so that the people will not know – continues, it is not certain yet that Prime Monister Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium will emerge as Europe’s first president. It is, however, not a coincidence that a Belgian seems the most likely candidate. Belgium is a supranational state, constructed by the European powers in 1830 and made up of two different nations, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. As such, Belgium, whose capital Brussels also happens to be the EU’s capital, serves as a model for the EU in its attempt to build a supranational state out of the continent’s different nations.

Like EU politics, Belgian politics is characterized by a lack of transparency, unaccountability, corporatism and a willingness to bend the democratic rules and legal procedures to allow the political establishment to proceed with their own project and secure the survival of a state which is unloved by its citizens but provides the livelihood of the ruling elites.

Klaus had delayed signing the document for as long as he could. The Czech Parliament approved the treaty last May. On the morning of November 3rd the Czech Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that the Lisbon Treaty did not contravene the Czech Constitution. The president accused the court of bias and publicly stated that he fundamentally disagreed with the court’s verdict, its content and justification. “With the Lisbon Treaty taking effect, the Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state, despite the political opinion of the Constitutional Court,” Klaus said. However, he added, as President he had to respect the verdict. Consequently, he signed away his country’s independence, barely twenty years after its liberation from the Soviet empire.

The pressure on Klaus had been tremendous. Because the treaty could not come into force until the Czech ratification, the EU authorities and the political establishment of the 26 other member states had been tightening the screws on Prague. In early October, the Czech cabinet, under pressure from BerlinParis, had met in an emergency session to consider how to complete ratification in the event of Klaus’s continued intransigence. They even considered impeaching the president. 

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, was very blunt on 15 October: he threatened that “a single man is not allowed to oppose the will of 500 million Europeans.” The “500 million Europeans” referred to the citizens of the 27 member states of the European Union, the “single man” to Vaclav Klaus. Kouchner’s declaration, however, was as deceptive and mendacious as the entire ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty had been throughout the EU. 500 million people had deliberately not been asked for their opinion of the treaty because the European political establishment feared they would vote it down.

Indeed, the so-called Lisbon Treaty is the second version of the European Constitution, which the electorates of France and the Netherlands forcefully rejected in referendums in May and June 2005. Refusing to take the people’s “No” for an answer, Europe’s political establishment simply repackaged the Constitution in a somewhat different order, but without changing its basic content. This Constitution II was called the Treaty of Lisbon, after the place where the new document was signed. It was subsequently pushed through the parliaments of the member states without allowing any more referendums. Only Ireland was obliged to put Lisbon before the people because the Irish Constitution required it. After the Irish rejected the treaty in June 2008, their “No” was also discarded. The Irish were made to vote again. Last October, they gave in, making Vaclav Klaus the last man standing in Europe.

Now, with Mr. Klaus’s signature, the game has drawn to its close and a treaty, so despised by the people that it was never put to them, has turned 500 million Europeans into citizens of a genuine supranational European State which empowered to act as a State vis-à-vis other States and its own citizens. The EU will have its own President, Foreign Minister, diplomatic corps and Public Prosecutor. Henceforward, the only remaining sovereign power of any significance in Europe is Russia. Apart from Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the EU leviathan has a grip on every other nation, whose national parliaments are, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, obliged to “contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union,” i.e. further primarily the interests of the new Union, rather than those of their own people.

 

“I have always considered this treaty a step in the wrong direction,” Czech President Vaclav Klaus said last month. “It will deepen the problems the EU is facing today, it will increase its democratic deficit, worsen the standing of our country and expose it to new risks.” Klaus calls the EU doctrine “Europeism.” In a speech last August, he defined “Europeism” as “a neosocialist doctrine, which believes neither in freedom, nor in the spontaneous evolution of human society.” He said it has the following four characteristics: “(a) economic views based on the concept of the so-called social market economy, which is the opposite of the market economy; (b) views on freedom, democracy and society based on collectivism, social partnership and corporatism, not on classical parliamentary democracy; (c) views on European integration which favor unification and supranationalism; (d) views on foreign policy and international relations based on internationalism, cosmopolitism, abstract universalism, multiculturalism and on denationalization.”

“To my great regret,” he added, “Europe is more and more dominated by this way of thinking despite the fact that it is an extremely naïve, unpractical and romantic utopism, not shared by the European silent majority, but predominantly by the European elites.”

These European elites are currently deciding whom to appoint as the Union’s first President and first High Commissioner (the EU’s common Foreign Minister). The 27 EU governments have already agreed that the former should be a Christian-Democrat and the latter a Social-Democrat. Diplomatic sources say that Herman Van Rompuy  has the best chances of becoming President, while the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is tipped as High Commissioner. Incidentally, Mr. Miliband, too, has a link to Belgium. His father, the Marxist ideologue Ralph Miliband, was born in Brussels and spent the first sixteen years of his life in the Belgian capital.

Although the Belgian Christian-Democrats are considered to be conservatives, they are close to the Social-Democrats, their preferred partners in government. Both Messrs. Van Rompuy and Miliband represent the “Europeism” which Czech President Klaus so abhors.

 

Originally posted at Hudson New York

Let’s not die for timid and misguided political correctness

The fact that the latest suspected terrorist threat involves students should come as no surprise. It is the predictable result of three things: an insatiably violent Islamist ideology; the politically-correct refusal of our political class to admit reality; and the comprehensive neglectfulness of our university authorities. This country has already produced a number of students who have gone on to become jihadist murderers. If this situation is not to get even worse, it is time not just to start asking questions, but to demand answers.

Greedy for the extra cash they bring, our universities desperately seek overseas students and often ask no questions when some of them fail to appear for classes. Following the introduction of tougher visa rules in the United States, the number of visas issued to students from Pakistan since 2001 has more than doubled in the UK. The problems that this brings with it are now being displayed.

In 2007, at Portsmouth University alone, 379 students from Pakistan were unaccounted for. Immigration minister Phil Woolas recently admitted that the student visa system is "the major loophole in Britain’s border controls". It is a loophole that risks becoming a death-trap. Yet those like me who have repeatedly warned about the consequences of our appalling immigration policy and flawed border security policies, and the fact that our universities have become centres of Islamic radicalisation, have been ignored – even as we have been, sadly, vindicated.

Last summer. the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), in conjunction with the polling company YouGov, released a survey of Muslim student opinion in the UK. Forty per cent of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims; a third supported the introduction of a worldwide caliphate instituted in accordance with sharia; and a third believed that killing in the name of their religion could be justified. This is the sea in which Muslim students who go on to carry out acts of terror are able to swim. But instead of engaging with the problem, Bill Rammell, the Minister for Higher Education, attacked the poll for finding out these things and declared that the problem of radicalism on campus was in fact "serious, but not widespread". It is just one example of a government that cannot make the moral distinction between firefighter and fire.

In its recently published counter-terrorism strategy, "Contest 2", the Government congratulated itself on its "key achievement" of promoting the UK as "a centre of excellence for Islamic studies outside the Muslim world". Yet – as the CSC again warned, two weeks ago, in a publication on the sources of foreign funding to UK universities – such courses are at huge risk of being sponsored by exactly the type of people who have caused the problem.

The Iranian government recently revealed that it was in talks with British Islamic studies departments – the same ones that the Government has described as a vital component of its counter-terrorism policy – in order to "train and educate experts on Islam". So now the Iranian regime, the world’s largest sponsor of Islamic terror, is funding the very institutions the UK Government says are part of the means of stopping that terror.

Meanwhile, there is a situation on campus which not only radicalises British students, but says to Pakistani and other foreign students that the most backward ideas of their own societies – in relation to women, non-Muslims, homosexuals and others – are entirely acceptable in Britain.

And so figures like the Hamas spokesman Azzam Tamimi repeatedly appear on UK campuses. Last month, after weeks of effort, we finally managed to prevent Hizbollah spokesman Ibrahim el-Moussawi from entering the UK to lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He was only eventually barred when I threatened the Home Secretary with the issuing of an international arrest warrant if Moussawi were to enter the country.

Last month, Bilal Philips, barred from entering Australia because of security concerns, was scheduled as guest of honour at the Queen Mary University Islamic Society’s (ISOC) annual dinner. The annual dinner of City University’s ISOC last week had advertised guest speakers including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual leader of three of the 9/11 hijackers.

During the Gaza conflict, Islamic and far-Left student societies up and down the country held "sit-ins" to protest against Israel’s defensive action. During a tense period some universities – including Cambridge – stood up to the protesters. Others – including Oxford – caved in and gave into the demands of the "occupying" students. Such small acts of appeasement on behalf of university authorities give the radicals the idea that right is on their side and that, given time, everyone will see this.

Muslim students who don’t care about foreign conflicts are made to feel un-Islamic unless they endlessly whip themselves up into a fury against Israel and America. At the time that the Gaza demonstrations were going on up and down the country, I was due to fulfil a longstanding commitment to chair a discussion at the London School of Economics. Shortly before the event, I was contacted by the university and told not to come to campus because there was a threat of violence if I did.

Just as, internationally, the Islamists give us the offer "say my religion is peaceful or I will kill you", so domestically we are told "say there’s no radicalism or we’ll be radical".

Like the Government, the Conservative Party refuses to identify – let alone deal with – the problem. Our politicians are stuck in what some think is complacency but which is in reality simple cowardice. David Cameron and shadow security spokeswoman Dame Pauline Neville-Jones try to make the Tories appear tough by saying a Conservative government would ban the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. But Tony Blair said exactly the same thing in 2005. Our politicians are keener to position themselves than to take vital decisions.

The Government knows that three quarters of all terror plots being investigated in Britain originate in Pakistan. With such a colossal Pakistani community in the UK it is unsurprisingly tough working out who poses a problem and who is part of the non-extremist mainstream. They could make a start by working out who is actually here.

In February, it transpired that the Foreign Office is spending £400,000 on television adverts to be aired in Pakistan, explaining that Britain is not "anti-Islamic". Even by the standards of this Government, that strikes one as ignoble as well as ineffectual. This country should look like a less attractive proposition than it currently does, not a more attractive one.

As it is, any aspiring jihadi would not only currently find it easy to come to Britain, they would find in our universities the ideal place to take cover and, indeed, inspiration. It is why you are more likely to become a terrorist in this country if you have been to university.

There are many messages that we should be giving out. But one in particular should go straight away to our political class: political correctness may be something that they are willing to fight for, but it is not something that most of us are willing to die for.

Originally published in The Telegraph

Douglas Murray is director of the Centre for Social Cohesion

From fashion to fortitude: the road to resilience

This is the text of a speech by Dr. Liam Fox, currently Shadow Defence Secretary and Member of Parliament for Woodspring, UK, on March 31, 2009.

Politics and public policy do not exist in a vacuum. They exist within and interact with the social values and fashions of the day.  We need to understand, and if necessary correct for, these trends if we are to control our direction of political travel. The alternative is to drift in the wake of the conventional wisdom of the day and we need to decide whether we shape the world around us or are content to be shaped by it.

Maybe we should remember that only dead fish go with the flow.

Since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, we have transformed our world. While we have lurched at times into bloody conflict, we have also excelled in literature, art, science and medicine. We have expanded the rule of law and democratic systems in our world and we have alleviated more physical poverty in our own generation than in the whole of history. The triumph of our political and economic systems, with strong and decisive leadership, have enabled us to see off the threats of Nazi fascism and Soviet communism. Yet there is a crisis of confidence, an uncertainty and a lack of optimism in our society which I believe should trouble us.

Today, I want to first look at a number of factors which I believe threaten to derail the trend of our progress, sap our political strength and threaten the resilience of our country at a time of considerable external threats.

Some of these factors may seem trivial when considered alone. Certainly, none of them are lethal in themselves but cumulatively they are profoundly affecting the body politic. Diminishing social mobility, the cult of the celebrity society, the decline in serious learning, the increasing disregard for empiricism and social attitudes verging on valuephobia threaten to cast a shadow on the enlightened western liberalism which has taken us so far.

 It takes only a passing glance at any newsstand today to see the influence of celebrity. Society seems obsessed with celebrity, fame and trivia while serious learning and difficult achievement take second place.  Where in previous generations youngsters would aspire to be scientists or astronauts the answer to the question "what would you like to be?" is now simply:  " famous". 

In a time when it is possible to be famous simply for being famous (and moreover wealthy for simply being famous) it is an understandable temptation.  Yet, the celebrity culture masks one of the most worrying trends in society in recent years. The decline in social mobility in the last decade in Britain should be a prime concern in a country which needs to harness the potential of all its citizens if it is to compete successfully in a cutthroat global economy. But while social mobility has diminished in the new Labour years we have a plausible alternative – we have the illusion of social mobility in the celebrity culture.

Yet while the pages of Hello! and OK may be opened up to reality TV stars and footballers’ girlfriends, the doors of the universities and the law seem to be closed to far too many. And the dangers of aversion to difficult learning should not be underestimated. While India is producing huge numbers of mathematics, physics and chemistry graduates British numbers are falling, being replaced with soft subjects such as media studies. The unavoidable consequence is that we will have to import these skills from abroad or do without them altogether. Hardly a great accomplishment for our educational system.

My next concern is that the moral relativism which emerged post war- and which is probably unavoidable in a liberal society- has morphed into something much worse- what we may call intellectual relativism. It is a state of affairs where people seem to believe that the validity of their views is determined by the strength by which they hold them not by any reference to empiricism.  Thus we get the use of phrases such as "well that is your truth- it’s not mine" or the increased frequency of the one word which is doing untold damage to the concept of objectivity – "whatever".  When confronted with evidence which undermines the fashion du jour or your own prejudices simply lift your hand and say  " whatever" and you can avoid all the discomforts of the value of truth or objectivity or of being plain wrong.  "Whatever" means never having to say you’re stupid.

This trend is exacerbated by the culture of political correctness.  In line with the lack of critical analysis generally, political correctness further restricts free expression and, by extension, thought.  How often do we hear people say " of course you’re not allowed to say that are you" or  "I’m not supposed to think that, am I ?". This is neither a small nor a trivial matter.  Political correctness is not just linguistic repression. In the name of liberal thought it is the very antithesis of liberalism.  In true Orwellian doublespeak fashion it is the imposition of a particular set of, usually left leaning, social and cultural mores.  The good manners and respect for others’ differences on which civilised behaviour depends should not be confused with the restrictive language and thought control which the PC culture promotes. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression are essential in the pursuit of reason.  It is reason that will lead us to truth and the pursuit of truth has been the driving force behind progress since the Enlightenment.  We cannot allow the age of reason to gradually shift into reverse.

There seems to be a particular confusion when it comes to the expression of social, moral or religious values in some quarters.  Indeed there are those who almost seemed so afraid of causing offence to anyone that they prefer to express no values whatsoever. What we may term valuephobia is manifested in some of the debate around issues of tolerance, diversity and the secular Society.

To tolerate is to treat with indulgence, liberality and forbearance.  But tolerance is not the same as surrender.  Because we tolerate the views and ideas of others does not mean acquiescence to them or the glib acceptance of the creed of inevitable moral equivalence.  An enlightened society tries to resolve conflicts of ideas with reason but it has to be a two-way process.  We are all in some aspects of our lives majorities and other aspects minorities- be it in gender, race, religion or politics.  While majorities have to tolerate the views of minorities, minorities also need to tolerate the rights of the majority to disagree with and even disapprove of them.  Tolerance certainly does not require the majority to ditch or apologise for its value set simply because a minority dislikes them.  The tyranny of the minority would not be any more tolerable than the tyranny of the majority.  Tolerance itself must be equally applied.

Confusion also seems evident in the debate about the concept of the secular Society. A secular society does not have to be a valueless society.  Because a state does not have an affinity to a set religion does not mean it should avoid value systems.  For the most part our concept of right and wrong is in tune with our basic instincts and our understanding of the consequences of our actions.  These rights and wrongs are codified by religions not invented by them. In any case there are other, different, non- religious values which are part of our heritage-the concept of looking after those who cannot look after themselves, of hard work, perseverance and saving for a rainy day. States cannot operate without values and the seemingly all pervasive fear of causing offense because someone may disagree needs to be balanced by considerations of the benefits that can accrue to individuals and society alike of clear guidance on what is desirable behaviour.

Similar problems exist in our discussions about the diversity within our society.  Britain has historically had a reasonably good track record in the assimilation of minority populations.  Yet we have been so obsessed in recent years with celebrating diversity that we have forgotten to celebrate our commonality.  Diversity is a good thing but we are also a society with a strong historical identity and we must not lose sight of who we are and how we have come to be the people we are.  If we fail to emphasise what we have in common and the cohesive forces which have made us the country we are then we will produce not diversity but fragmentation. It has been interesting to watch in the recent American presidential election groups within the electorate referring to themselves as Irish American, Italian-American or African American. While clearly retaining their cultural identity, the common word is always American.

How are some of these trends affecting our political discourse.

A lack of critical thinking and an over accommodation with the conventional wisdom and fashion can result in policies which are one-dimensional.  An example is the debate about poverty.  An increase in material wealth has not diminished many of the social problems associated with the most deprived parts of our society.  It has been a personal source of irritation that so much of the debate about poverty, including among many of our churches, has been about material poverty.  Whilst the work to eradicate material poverty is important and must continue, we must also realise that on its own this is not enough.  The real poverty which stops so many young people from getting on the ladder to better well-being is the poverty of ambition, the poverty of aspiration and the poverty of hope.  I am lucky.  I came from a privileged background.  We were not wealthy but my parents had a richness of ambition for their children, for their education and well-being.  You see, it’s true, you don’t have to be posh to be privileged.  We need to break away from the uni-dimensional debate about poverty simply as a material issue. Until we address some of the personal spiritual poverty, the lack of ambition and the lack of hope which afflicts some of our most disadvantaged citizens then we have no chance of making real poverty history.

All of these are important factors to get right if we are not to cast a shadow on the enlightenment.

But there is another area where I believe the lack of critical thinking puts our society at a disadvantage and that is in terms of our security.

There seems to have been a view developing in recent years that defines peace simply as the absence of war.  If only we can avoid armed conflict the argument seems to say then we will live in a more peaceful world.  But peace is not simply the absence of war.  Real peace has an unavoidable set of values which accompany it.  Freedom from tyranny, freedom from oppression and freedom from fear are essential for real peace.  Unfortunately we sometimes have to fight and even to die for these freedoms. The need to maintain public support for the conflicts which are sometimes required to ensure these freedoms is a burden which democratic states have to carry but many of our enemies do not.  The absence of a clear and rational argument for the necessity of military action in certain circumstances can hand the advantage to those who wish to undermine our democratic systems and, indeed, our whole way of life.

This is where our social attitudes, our political direction and our national security converge- in the crucial question about the state of our national resilience.

For it is our resilience-  our political and social fortitude- which will determine whether or not we are able to deal with the threats and challenges which lie before us.

Our current enemies answer to no public caucus-no court of electoral legitimacy. It is we, in the conflict adverse West-who carry what can be a fundamental weakness. We must make it a strength if we are to prevail. And the threats we face are many, diverse and imminent.

Beyond the credit crunch there is a big bad world out there: The twin threats of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism; a resurgent Russia; a violent Islamist fundamentalism; an emboldened Iran and the global threats of climate change and pandemic.

 

Russia

First, a resurgent Russia.

Russia is not a failed state but it is being increasingly likened to a gangster state, a state fattened by hydrocarbon wealth but unable to translate this into shared wealth and stability. It is probably not a direct threat to this country but threatens our interests abroad and our allies.

Russia’s swift and strategic invasion of Georgia in mid-August 2008 highlighted the stark reality of energy geopolitics in Eurasia.  Aside from the objectives of scuttling Georgia and Ukraine’s NATO membership hopes and demarcating a clear sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space, Moscow intended to send the message to the broader West that it takes the competition over control of energy resources more seriously than any other player in the game.

As the whole world watched what looked like a juggernaut roll into Georgia, Russian officers on the ground witnessed a poor fighting force using out-of-date equipment with huge deficiencies in night fighting capability, communications, and supply and maintenance. Consequently, Russia is working hard to improve these capability gaps in its ground forces.

Russia will spend over $200 billion between now and 2015 upgrading its forces.

We now have Russian strategic bombers probing British airspace again-something that occurred on a regular basis during the Cold War. There are reports of similar activity by the Russian Navy inside British territorial waters.

The cyber attacks in Estonia, Georgia and most recently in Kyrgyzstan, where the finger still points at Russia is another reason why we must maintain our vigilance and invest in the technology to deal with future threats.

While some debate the merits of Britain building two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, Russian plans for its navy include the construction of six nuclear powered aircraft carriers, eight ballistic missile submarines, and the largest nuclear icebreakers in the world for use in the Arctic.

The latter is of great importance to the Russian Navy as the scramble for Arctic resources heats up and the ice continues to melt. In 2007, Russia announced its intention to annex a 460,000 square mile portion of ice-covered Arctic. Scientists claim that that area, on which Russia has audaciously set its sights, may contain 10 billion tonnes of gas and oil deposits. With ice melting in the Arctic, and shipping passages and possible mineral exploitation becoming an increasing possibility, we may be witnessing a scramble for this resource-rich territory with all the tensions that this will bring.

Russia may be building from a low base given the degraded state of its conventional forces and it may not pose a direct threat to the security of this country but the Russian leadership has shown in Georgia how they could destabilise our allies and indirectly threaten our security through their strangle hold on energy supplies.

 

Iran

Secondly, there is the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and the subsequent nuclear proliferation and regional arms race that could follow. 

There are those who say that we must accommodate Iran as a nuclear weapon state. Let me give you three reasons why this is simply not acceptable.

First, the nature of Iran’s leadership.  Those such as President Ahmadinejad who talk about wiping Israel off the map simply do not belong in the civilised family of nations.

Secondly, the Iranian regime has shown itself to be, par excellence, a net exporter of terror and destabilisation. Do we really want to see nuclear weapons added to this mix? Do we really want to see Hamas or Hezbollah able to make a dirty bomb – a subject I will come to in a moment.

Iran has already shown its intent to destabilise the region. According to intelligence sources, Tehran has already begun the process of building a new supply line to replenish depleted stocks of missiles and other materiel for Gaza terrorists.  Hamas are currently trying to acquire new missiles from Iran, especially Fajr missiles which could hit Ben Gurion airport or Tel Aviv if launched from within Gaza. Do we wish to see fissile material added to this mix?

Thirdly, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon then Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are likely to be next in the queue. Surely we do not want a new nuclear arms race in the world’s most unpredictable region. After all that we went through in the Cold War, is this a legacy we want to leave to the next generation?

 

Nuclear Terrorism

Thirdly, and this ties into my point regarding Iran, is nuclear terrorism. Put simply, nuclear terrorism is a problem that is not going away. I am afraid that many decision-makers in the West wish to ignore the issue hoping that by doing so the threat will simply disappear or at least not happen on "their watch". This is both naive and dangerous. 

Much has been written and discussed on what form a nuclear terrorist attack may take. Of course, as with most things, there is a higher probability of one kind of attack over another. Regardless of the method, any successful or attempted nuclear attack would have a huge impact on our way of life.

It is generally accepted that there are three distinct possibilities: 

  1. An attack on a nuclear installation, for example, a nuclear reactor; 
  2. A dirty bomb using radioactive material to contaminate a wide area; 
  3. The explosion of a nuclear device itself with mass fatalities and potentially catastrophic economic circumstances.

Of these three it is the second, the detonation of a dirty bomb, that I am most concerned with. 

While it may be regarded by terrorists as the poor man’s nuclear bomb it could be socially and economically devastating – while relatively simple to carry out.  The creation of a nuclear bomb itself would require access to uranium or plutonium, a dirty bomb could be made out of a wide range of radioactive materials.  These sorts of radioactive materials can be found in a range of hospital equipment and machines discarded on industrial sites. 

The first ever attempted dirty bomb terror attack occurred in November 1995 by a group of Chechen terrorists. A Russian television station was informed that 10lbs of dynamite had been buried with caesium in a Moscow park.

While the bomb was not detonated and later found by police neither the terrorists nor the source of the caesium were ever identified.  Nonetheless, the terrorists successfully sowed the intended seeds of fear in the minds of both the populace and the authorities.

The struggle against nuclear terrorism can only be won out right by taking preventive and pro-active measures. We would have lost the battle if terrorists were able to detonate a nuclear device in one of our cities or major shipping lanes. Regardless of our response after the attack the physical, psychological, and economical damage would have already been done.

Islamic Extremists

And while we are dealing with all of these we will still have to deal with the ever-present threat of Islamist fundamentalists and their violent anti-west campaigns.

There are those in the Islamic world who dislike us for what we do – our involvement in Iraq or our close ties with Israel. Their resentment is a reaction to our deeds but our differences are largely containable. But there is another group who hate us – not for what we do – but for who we are. They hate our culture, our way of life, our history and our traditions. They are irreconcilable to our political system and our values. They will have to be confronted as they have already decided to confront us. We must not make the mistake that everyone who wishes us ill is reconcilable by dialogue and reason. Fanaticism is alien to our way of thought but we must not forget that it exists or what it can mean. The 1930s should have taught us that lesson.

In an age of global terrorism no one, no where is safe.

We need to show the political, economic, and military commitment to the battle with global terrorism that we brought to the long battle with communism in the cold war. It is where our resilience will matter.

Terrorists make an intention assessment not a capability assessment.  It is not based on the fact that the state is stronger, which it clearly is, but on what it is willing to do.  The asymmetric advantage for the terrorist depends on the fact that the state will adhere to legal and ethical international norms while they have no requirement or intention to do so.  In the Cold War when faced with a nuclear threat we responded with a nuclear deterrent of our own.  This was in the classical mould of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.  When dealing with terrorism it is essential that we speak loudly and clearly and also be willing to use, not just carry, the big stick.

 

Conclusion

The threats I have outlined are both real and imminent. Immersing ourselves as a society in celebrity headlines and trivia and pretending the dangers don’t exist would be irresponsible. Politicians need to be frank with themselves and with the public about the risks we face. Both politicians and the media need to get away from the bad habit of saying what people want to hear and tell people what they need to hear because they are going to have to confront the inevitable. As a society we have to find the resilience to deal with the challenges of our generation as previous generations dealt with theirs.

We can begin by understanding who we are and what brought us to where we are before we lose our hard won gains. To shape the world or be shaped by it?  That, indeed, is our question.

 

Our German problem, and theirs

It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where the German Army is?

If it’s the few thousand social worker-servicemen in Afghanistan, they’re probably tucked securely into bed. That’s because German soldiers serving with the U.S. and other allies have a curfew, among other “national caveats” that prevent them from making a serious military contribution to the fight against the Taliban.

Chancellor Merkel is certainly better than her predecessor in showing solidarity with the U.S. She has silenced much of the carping criticism of American foreign policy; rapidly censured Russian aggression against Georgia this past summer; and offered important intelligence cooperation in the war against Islamofascism. And Germany has been surprisingly stalwart in standing by Israel in the ongoing fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But on crucial issues Germany still lags, especially by continuing to trade with the Iranians and especially in Afghanistan, where their obduracy is helping to jeopardize the fight against the Taliban and thereby bringing into question the very future of NATO.

Following World War II, of course, the Germans were the very model of cooperation. They acted as good democrats in supporting NATO and the progressive unification of Europe; as penance for the War, they made extensive reparations to individual victims of Nazism, to Israel and to others; and as the largest economic power in Europe, they were generous in helping to revive the continent.

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