Urbaines Sensibles

In France are 751 No-Go Zones that the Police will not even enter because they are afraid. If you visit France do not go where the Police fear to tread.

h/t: Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal

Technorati Tags: eurabia, islam, france, map, urbaines sensibles

The Last Words of the Murdered Man

The BBC Has It:

I would like to thank many people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for me, the British police who are pursuing my case with vigour and professionalism and are watching over me and my family.

I would like to thank the British government for taking me under their care. I am honoured to be a British citizen.

I would like to thank the British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have shown in my plight.

I thank my wife Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.

But as I lie here I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death.

I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like.

I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.

You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.

You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value.

You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women.

You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

Alexander Litvinenko
21 November 2006

Technorati Tags: litvinenko, putin, soviet, russia, polonium

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

There are those who believe that we as Americans must repeal the Patriot Act, grant habeas corpus to foreign terrorists, and refrain from counterespionage on our own soil in order to discover spies who have infiltrated us. These restrictions are necessary, they say, because Liberty demands it.

This is a flawed belief system. Let someone who used to be a conscientious objector, who evolved out of that dangerously naive viewpoint, describe why.

Read the Declaration of Independence, which is the basis of our American ideal of Liberty.

In what order are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Does the order have any import? Or was the order chosen at random?

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Life has to be first. It takes Life to enjoy Liberty. Nobody can be free if they are dead. Security, or safety, is the method by which Life is protected. National defense, and the intelligence methods used to protect it, are central to security and a cornerstone of any sensible national government. Once Life is protected, then Liberty is ensured. And once Liberty is protected, by restrictions on the coercive powers of the government against its own citizens (not on foreign spies and terrorists), then the Pursuit of Happiness is protected. It has to be in that order because that’s the only way it can actually work.

Liberty does not trump Life. Life is the trump, Liberty is the partner suit, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a lesser suit.

Technorati Tags: war on terror, moral clarity, patriot act, counterespionage

Sharia Microstates in Eurabia

Catholicgauze lists some papers he is about to present. One of them is particularly interesting.

United Caliphates of Europe: A Geographical Look at Sharia Microstates
The latter half of the twentieth century saw a large rise in Muslim migration into Western and Central Europe. Originally, Europeans assumed that only a small number of immigrants would arrive and that they would assimilate. However, the promise of Europe attracted a larger than expected number of migrants. At the same time, immigrants interpreted European promises of “human rights” to mean that cultural assimilation would not be necessary. Now original misunderstandings have led to societal conflict, and have helped create spaces where regular law enforcement is nominal at best. Not falling into anarchy, these spaces have instead become microstates under improvised Sharia law. These microstates have similar demographic, infrastructural, and spatial qualities with each other and are each a part of a larger communicative network.
To be presented at the Association of American Geographers National Convention in San Fransisco during April 17 to 21, 2007.

This is one I’d love to see in full.

Technorati Tags: Sharia, Islam, Eurabia

Defining Egotism

Obsolete frets in “Are you scared yet?” finally expressing the dark heart of Egotism at the center of his soul:

The Queen Mary University website talks of a communication office, which seems to go out of its way to be hospitable towards journalistic requests of seemingly any nature. Unless it seems, if you’re either: A. a blogger or B: asking about whether the head of MI5 was paid for her appearance, even if just for expenses. As of writing this post at 23:43, having sent the email in the early hours of this morning, I haven’t so much as got a reply telling me to piss off.

Ahhhhhh…. Shut up!

What a maroon.

In the Koran it is written, Israel is the Jews’ Homeland

Salim Mansur writes on a reconciliation between Muslims and Jews in Pajamas Politics Central. While I feel tempted to nitpick with the bucolic, rosy picture he paints of Muslim-Jewish relations through the ages, ignoring the more blood-red tradition of slaughter, slavery and the dhimmi that has always been at the core of Islam’s relation with the world, I will attempt to restrain myself. He has a beautiful, excellent point in the middle of it.

He quotes an earlier article of his:

Muslims tend to consider their politics as inseparably bound and shaped by religion. They need, then, to reflect on religious grounds why so many of them wage wars on Jews, when the sacred words are indisputable.

The Koran recites the story of God directing Moses and the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt. It states how Moses was commanded, “Go into the holy land which God has ordained for you” (5:21).

Since Muslims believe the Koran is God’s revelation to Muhammad, how can they reconcile the atrocities committed by their coreligionists in the Holy Land with their scripture’s authoritative words?

Do Conservatives need a BBC strategy?

The Britain and America blog writes that The GOP needs a BBC strategy

The Republican Party needs to wake up to the power of the BBC as a media player in America. Its online services, in particular, are widely read in the US and BBC foreign coverage informs how many US journalists see the world. I sat in the White House three years ago and recommended that the GOP develops a strategy to work with London-based media. I met other GOP officials with the same message earlier this year but nothing GOP appears to have been done.

The BBC remains a respected brand around the world but opinions like those above are not impartial. They do not amount to a public service. They could have come straight from editorial pages of The Guardian or The New York Times.

Conservatives already recognize how skewed towards 60’s style Che Guevara hero-worship the BBC is. It’s too bad, since given their druthers most American conservatives would be anglophiles. But the Beeb isn’t alone.

Charlie “Who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” Rangel (D)

The New York Times covers the triumphalist New York Democrats two days after the elections, with this wonderful quote from Charlie Rangel, who is slated to be the new chair of the appropriations committee. [subscription required]

“Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?”

NY Rep. Charlie Rangel (D)

I asked a Mississippian what she thought about this, and she asked, “does he kiss his momma with that mouth?”

I guess the (D) after his name stands for “dork.”

Or maybe “doofus.”

I’m sure I could come up with more things it might stand for.

H/T: Michelle Malkin

Hello world!

I’m still figuring out how to move posts over from the blogspot site. Everything new should be appearing here.

Technorati Tags: Administrivia

Jesus and Oskar

Note: I am working off of google translations from the German for much of this material. I would greatly appreciate any clarifications from German speakers on points where my understanding is confused or mistaken.

Updated: to clean up confusion about terms.

In an ominously symbolic gesture for October 31 2006, Reverend Roland Weisselberg, a retired evangelical protestant priest minister, doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire in the ruins of the library (or in an excavation next to the library, the reports vary), next to the church of the Augustine monastery in Erfurt in Thuringia in the former East Germany. He lit the match at 10:45AM, during a musical service. His self-immolation was to prove fatal. He died, shortly after noon, in the burns unit of the hospital in Halle.

Before he struck the fatal match, the last words he spoke were “Jesus and Oskar.” [link]

There is no mystery in why a 73-year-old retired priest minister would call to Jesus before committing suicide. But why did he call to Oskar? Who was Oskar?

Before answering that question, let’s explore Reverend Roland Weisselberg’s background.

Weisselberg studied in the 1950’s in Jena and Berlin, and afterwards worked as a reader for a publisher. He was known as a very well read and active Christian. In 1965 he took orders and worked until his retirement in 1989 as a minister in the Windischholzhausen in Erfurt. [link] As an active Christian minister in the Evangelical Protestant church in East Germany, he would have been very involved in the church’s advocacy for increased freedoms and against the totalitarian oppression habitually practiced by the East German state. The identity of Oskar Bruesewitz and the symbolism of his actions would have been well known to Reverend Roland.

Oskar Bruesewitz was an priest evangelical protestant minister who on August 18 1976 set himself on fire “in the busy market square of the town of Zeitz in Saxony, East Germany”[link] in order to protest increasingly severe restrictions placed on Christianity by the hardline Communist East German government.[link] His suicide proved to be a turning point the beginning of the end for East German Socialism, for it empowered the Evangelical Protestant church as an advocate for freedom.

The Evangelical Protestant church of East Germany played an increasingly important role in the collapse of the East German communist government. Per Professor Frederick O. Bonkovsky, Sources of East German Revolution and German Unification:

More than any single institution, the East German Protestant Church was mother and midwife to the revolution of 1989 and hence to the reunification of Germany in 1990. Through highly courageous action, which risked its own identity, the church in 1988 served human rights and social dissent by exploiting the fissures in East German socialism. As the events of October and November, 1989, showed, when the push came, the supposedly concrete wall and will of the East German regime crumbled, having previously been undermined and compromised.

The first fissures appeared in the wall of east german socialism back in 1976, as a direct result of Oskar Brueswitz’s self-immolation.

After the 1976 self-immolation of Pastor Bruesewitz protesting state pressure against Christians, the SED became more accommodating. In 1978, for the first time, the top leaders of church and state met personally. Each acknowledged the other’s legitimacy. A year later, when the church criticized the increased military training in GDR schools, the state took the opportunity to call for peace leadership through East-West church cooperation.

Self-immolation is an effective way to draw attention to a political, ideological, or religious cause. If someone is willing to kill themselves by self-immolation, thus not only damning themselves to eternal punishment according to most religions around the world, but also suffering one of the most painful and agonizing deaths which one can suffer, then people pay attention. In 1962 and 1963, and continuing through the Vietnam War, buddhist monks made a practice of it in Vietnam. The sight of it on the evening news stunned and gob-smacked Americans, who wondered who were these insane people in Vietnam and why American kids were over there trying to save them.

What was on Weisselberg’s mind as he lit the match? What bothered him enough, what had him so exercised and troubled, that he put his own eternal soul in jeopardy in order to make a political protest?

In a word, Islam.

At a news conference, the provost of the church, Elfried Begrich said that Reverend Weisselberg had detailed in a letter that the Protestant church should be more aware of the threat posed by the spread of Islam.[link]

Weisselberg expressed the same concern in a letter written to his wife. According to der Spiegel, Weisselberg had been expressing much the same concern for the last three or four years.

The provost at Erfurt and the Bishop of Saxony admitted to confusion and embarrassment over Weisselberg’s act. Their concern was that while there had been some, slight theoretical discussion of the relation between Christians and Islam, there had been no practical dialogue or understanding, and they didn’t want this to cause any unrest. [link]

It is not only clear that the provost and bishop wish to avoid controversy at any cost, but also clear that unrest was exactly what Reverend Roland wanted to provoke. Pretty words did not overthrow the East German socialist state: Unrest and civil disobedience did. Germans must stop resting and start resisting. Some unrest or restlessness or resistance would be good for Germany. Awaken to the dangers of encouraging Islam to form insular enclaves in Germany that breed more jihadists like Mohammed Atta, who was born in Egypt but radicalized in Germany.

Remember what Mohammed Atta looked like? He set himself on fire too, and thousands of others went unwillingly into a fiery death with him.

Reverend Roland was a disturbed man. He committed a mortal sin. I grieve for his widow, who did not deserve to lose her husband like this. And he embarrassed the church hierarchy by his politically incorrect words and his sinful death.

However, he was right about one thing. Islamic Jihadism in Germany is something to be concerned about.

There are no photos (that I could find) of Reverend Roland’s self-immolation. We will not see his picture on the evening news with the teleprompter-reading, blow-dried, vapid descendants of Walter Cronkite. But that doesn’t prevent us from seeing a picture of him within our mental camera, remembering what he did, why he did it, and that we must care.

Care.

Say a prayer for Reverend Roland Weisselberg.

Friends, Germans, all you descendants of the great European civilizations, awaken from your slumber. The Jihad is here, it’s a real threat, and it’s not going to cure itself.

Technorati Tags: self-immolation, Oskar Bruesewitz, Roland Weisselberg