Defending the West in Vienna
A select few who see the peril to which their neighbors are oblivious and who proceed to save their community against overwhelming odds, is a familiar literary and cinematic concept. Earlier this month (May 11-12) I had the pleasure of addressing one such real-life group in the capital of Austria, where some sixty activists from 16 European countries and the United States attended a symposium with the self-explanatory title, Counter-Jihad Vienna 2008: Defending Civil Liberties in Europe.
The event, sponsored by Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell and predictably ignored by the media, was part conference—with papers presented and discussed—and part hands-on workshop. Its immediate impact may seem limited, but the same could be said of the early days of each and every major political movement in history.
My keynote speech on the first day focused on debunking the new-fangled Thought Crime of “Islamophobia,” diagnosing the sources of current Western weakness, and recommending some practical remedies. (The address is also available in an elegant German translation.)
The second day of the conference focused on a series of reports—some frightening, others almost surreal—on the erosion of free speech in Europe. The forthcoming implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon (the failed EU Constitution under another name) opens countless possibilities for political repression. The European Commission’s “Framework Decision” provides an idea of what the new regime will be like for member states:
As a follow-up to Joint Action 98/443/JHA, this proposal provides for the approximation of the laws and regulations of the Member States regarding offences involving racism and xenophobia. Racist and xenophobic behaviour must constitute an offence in all Member States and be punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.
This framework decision will apply to all offenses committed within the territory of the EU and by any national of a Member State or for the benefit of a legal person established in a Member State. The definition of “racism and xenophobia” is constantly expanding, and increasingly includes practically all forms of criticism of Islam. The looming horror of the Lisbon Treaty notwithstanding, the repression of free speech and other civil liberties is already a fact in many European countries, as illustrated by the conference participants from those countries.
Denmark has more freedom of speech than any other country in Europe, yet the former leader of the Fremskridspartiet, Mogens Glistrup, was jailed for 20 days for saying, “Muslims multiply like rats, and when they are plentiful enough, they will kill us.”
In Finland, a blogger known as Tomashot, who operated an anti-immigration website, was fined 825 euros ($1,300) and ordered to close down the site. The country’s criminal code (section 11, # 8) states that a person “who spreads statements . . . where a certain race, national, ethnic or religious group is threatened, defamed or insulted, shall be sentenced for ethnic agitation to a fine or to imprisonment of up to two years.” The authorities are currently working to increase the power of the “Anti-Discrimination Board” (Syrjintälautakunta) and to establish a “Super Ombudsman” to oversee all discrimination cases; he would also be able to penalize alleged offenders without a trial. In addition, the authorities intend to make the internet service providers responsible for the “racist” content posted by their clients. But as a Finnish participant explained,
No legal repression is needed when talking about certain things in a certain way is just not done. The guardians of the public sphere take care of that, even if someone is naive enough to try. In the academia, write a research plan about studying “the challenges to democracy posed by changes in the cultural landscape due to the rise of fundamentalism and extremism”—and you won’t get any funding from the state monopoly institutions. Ask for help to study “our prejudices against the so-called terrorists” or “the implicitly racist aspects of the gender equality discourse in the Third World”—and your funding is guaranteed. This happens everywhere, but Finland is specific because we don’t have second or third options. So what remains to the not-PC-enough folks is the blogosphere—and that’s worrying the guardians, and they are trying to do something about it.
Reports from Germany and Switzerland (the latter half-way through the “Year of Intercultural Dialogue”) included the unbelievable case of a senior state persecutor in Berlin who was fired because of criticizing Islam. Roman Reusch, a determined prosecutor of crimes often committed by Muslim youngsters, was fired after a vilification campaign by Muslim activists and left wing politicians. His cardinal sin was to state some facts about the crimes committed by young immigrants in media interviews. At the same time, at the Frankfurt district court a German judge rejected the “hardship divorce application” of a woman regularly beaten by her husband because both partners came from the “Moroccan cultural background.”
In Sweden the rapporteur opened by noting the “overwhelming social consensus which inhibits the airing of dissident opinions: ostracism, loss of employment, and other unofficial sanctions against unorthodox views act as substitutes for judicial action.” Extra-governmental groups such as Antifa (Antifascistisk Aktion) act as enforcers of that consensus by threatening and committing violence against prominent individuals who fail to comply with the politically correct consensus. The anti-immigrant party Sverigedemokraterna, thus faces persistent harassment. The Swedish post office refused to deliver its newspaper in Svedala near Malmö. The country’s trade union representatives have demanded that all known members of the party should be denied trade union membership—which in Sweden is tantamount to virtual impossibility of obtaining employment in the public sector and most skilled trades.
There are also growing examples of legal repression. Dahn Pettersson, an activist of the Alliance Party, was convicted last year of “incitement/agitation against an ethnic group” and sentenced to pay dagsböter, “fines in proportion to his daily income,” totaling $2,600. He was indicted for writing a petition to the municipal council in which he argued that the arrival of large numbers of Kosovo Albanian immigrants to Sweden had led to an increase of heroin smuggling.
The suppression of free speech appears to have gone further in Great Britain than in any other EU country, however. As Paul Weston (one of the participants comfortable with having his name made public) reported, the problem can be traced back to 1984, when Ray Honeyford, a headmaster, wrote an article for The Salisbury Review in which he questioned the values of multiculturalism. Honeyford argued that minority children were being badly let down educationally, and that their future life chances were being sacrificed for Leftist political gain. He was duly chased from his job amid accusations of racism, in an orchestrated campaign that allied the Left with various ethnic-minority spokesmen. Soon thereafter came the Public Order Act 1986, Section 17 of which clarified racial hatred as being “hatred against a group of persons in Great Britain defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins.” Section 18 clarified racist behaviour as “the use of words or behaviour or display of written material intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.” The maximum penalty under this act was two years’ imprisonment.
In 1999 Sir William Macpherson published the seminal Macpherson Report which, in addition to labelling the police as “institutionally racist,” gave birth to eighteen words which have been used by the British authorities to clamp down on any speech critical of any minority group. The exact wording is as follows: “A racial incident is one that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.”
In 1998 the Crime And Disorder Act 1998 extended the maximum jail sentence over and above normal sentence times if racial aggravation was used in crimes up to and including murder. In 2006 the Racial And Religious Hatred Act 2006 was passed which classified religious hatred along the same lines as racial hatred and extended the jail sentence for transgression to seven years. That same year also saw the introduction of the Equality Act 2006, which replaced the Commission For Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission with a single entity, the Commission For Equality And Human Rights or CEHR. In 2007 the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill was passed, with an amendment that bought “homophobic” hate crime in line with the definition of racial or religious hatred, including a maximum jail sentence of seven years. In addition to the above legislation, Britain has also seen the introduction of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, both of which have been used to suppress freedom of speech in the UK.
Paul Weston pointed out that “Ray Honeyford was fortunate that none of the above legislation was in place when he transgressed the racial thought police in 1984”—but other Britons have not been so lucky.
- Robin Page, a television presenter, was arrested in 2002 for inciting racial hatred when he stated that people living in the countryside who supported fox hunting should be granted the same rights as blacks, gays and lesbians.
- Fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Codie Stott was arrested over a “racial incident” in 2006, after she asked her teacher to be moved to a different discussion group where her fellow pupils actually spoke English. She was released without charge but only after spending several hours in the cells where her DNA was taken.
- One of Britain’s top lawyers Robert Kilroy-Silk was not prosecuted for inciting racial hatred after he referred to Muslims as suicide bombers and limb amputators in a 2004 Independent newspaper article, but he did lose his job as a television show host.
- The blogger Lionheart has been arrested and bailed on charges of inciting racial/religious hatred for detailing the activities of Muslim criminals in the Luton area.
- A retired couple, Joe and Helen Roberts were warned by Lancashire police in 2005 that their request to display Christian literature alongside homosexual rights pamphlets at their local council offices was discriminatory and homophobic. (Lancashire police would have to wait a couple of years for the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 to be enacted in order to prosecute them.)
- The use of anti-terrorism legislation has now spread to parents who lie about their post code in order to obtain a place at a desirable school for their children.
- Anti-terrorism laws were invoked when Walter Wolfgang was detained by police in 2005. His crime: attempted re-entry to the Labour Party Conference, from which he had been physically ejected for heckling a speaker over the war in Iraq.
“This is the culture war in all its glory,” concludes Paul Weston. The myriad laws passed in recent years are simply there in order to stifle discussion, let alone dissent, in the ongoing war against indigenous European, Christian, heterosexual families. All animals are equal, says he,
but some are more equal than others. Nowhere is this maxim more apparent than the approach by the police to areas where Islam is at fault and the indigenous European innocent. No imams exposed in Channel 4’s Undercover Mosques program have been prosecuted under any of the legislation outlined above. In fact, the West-Midlands police force attempted to prosecute Channel 4 themselves for inciting racial-religious hatred by dint of their sheer temerity in broadcasting footage of Muslims calling for the overthrow of the West and the murder of homosexuals and the infidel kuffir.
Before the Lisbon Treaty is ratified early next year, the Europeans would be well advised to ponder a quote from Terry Davis, Secretary general of the Council of Europe, in the aftermath of the crackdown against the Vlaams Belang in Brussels last September:
It is very important to remember that the freedom of assembly and expression can be restricted to protect the rights and freedoms of others, including the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This applies to everyone in Europe including the millions of Europeans of Islamic faith, who were the main target of today’s shameful display of bigotry and intolerance.
As I said at the end of my Vienna address, this is insane—and it is up to the millions of normal Europeans and their American cousins to stop such madness. The traitor class wants them to share its death wish, to self-annihilate as people with a historical memory and a cultural identity, and to make room for the post-human, monistic Utopia spearheaded by the jihadist fifth column. This crime can and must be stopped. The founders of the United States overthrew the colonial government for offenses far lighter than those of which the Euro-traitor class is guilty.
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"...the West-Midlands police force attempted to prosecute Channel 4 themselves for inciting racial-religious hatred by dint of their sheer temerity in broadcasting footage of Muslims calling for the overthrow of the West and the murder of homosexuals..."
How perfectly ironic. The "gay community" throughout the West better hope and pray the Utopian Left doesn't prevail in the culture war.
Dr. Trifkovic,I find your work important enough that I press your books,articles and tapes on friends,family and acquaintances.This report was likewise important.One thing I appreciate about your work is that you don't just offer pessimism,but try to come up with solutions.Are there positive developments to report from the Conference?I respect that the mere holding of the Counter-Jihad is such a development...but do you have suggestions how we Americans can help our European cousins?
We, as voting citizens, suppress ourselves. A manufactured sense of guilt was created by the leftists to control the freedom-loving people of the world; however, it was embraced willingly. We were not held at gunpoint (although I am sure that isn't so far away as to require an additional generation of patience), we were eager to fall into the trap. True nobility requires effort. We became lazy--now we pay.
Until the culling...
Leo,
We better start thinking how to help ourselves first. Our own ruling elite is as traitorous as is that of Europe. It's just our "luck" that they want to inundate us with the rejects of Mexico and of Central America, rather than with Muslims -- but that simply means that water in the pot in which they have thrown us to swim our endless laps is being heated 1/2 rather than 1.5 degrees at a time. And, what with CAIR training the FBI and suing people left and right, and mosques sprouting everywhere including West Point and Annapolis, that part of the equation is being squared too...
I have no sympathy for the EU: it created the Islamic beast, arming and training them against the Serbs and Russians, portraying them as nice little Muslims -- but when it rebounds like it did in New York, Madrid and London, they become evil extremists.
It was the same with communism: Europe and US demonised the Czar, let the foriegn Russian-hating Bolsheviks recieve financing, sanctuary and organise in Europe for at least 20 years. They interfered in the internal affairs in Russia, waiting for an opportunity to foment revolution and overthrow the Czar -- which they eventually did during WWI . The only problem is when WW2 broke out, it expanded beyond the old Russian empire.
You should ask yourself which group have promoted multiculturism for there own group interest promoting and lobbying for mass non-European immigration whilst also promoting things that affect the European birthrate, like radical feminism, homosexuality, as well as abortion on demand.
As someone else already asked, what came of the conference? What positive steps are Europeans taking in the ground? Is there any real money behind the counter-jihad movement? This is important because they have billions in petro-dollars and many of "our" politicians are clearly on the take. This is not only ideological; follow the money. We need someone like Soros, say an Icahn or Forbes, to fund a reformative movement.
#6 Sebastian writes: "We need someone like Soros, say an Icahn or Forbes, to fund a reformative movement"
An Icahn or Forbes are global corporatist capitalist. We must remember that this current move of the West into a spiritless void of socialized , mass thinking and ultimate repression of the Truth is as much a product of modern. managerial capitalism as it is of leftist ideologies. The initial thrust in Europe and the US to bring in hordes of immigrant workers was to serve the corporations which in turn would feed some of their profits to the welfare/military state which in turns repays the corporate management with special liscenses, regulatory advantages, contracts, tax loopholes, etc.
These large capitalist will not fund the kind of reform we are looking for. They will battle the likes of Soros for the final, globalized prize but it's like two mad dogs fighting over the same bone. In many ways the Forbes illusion of science (innovation), capital, and management to create our global utopia seems safer but will end in the same void of a socialized, deracintated population seperated from God's everyday meaningful truths.
There is plenty of money in the West to fund a reform movement but it will have to come from the little people like ourselves. Look at the Ron Paul fund raising as an example.
The Right has never dealt with the "Culture of Critique" very well it seemingly always one step behind its persecutors begging for alms. The mistake it has made for centuries is that it assumes its foes own claim of being beyond reproach, and then begins its arguments. Like you PHDs here, afraid to say or even ask difficult questions of your former liberal proffesors or counterparts at some corrupt think tank that spews the latest "ism." Big controversey over some Lukaks proffesor, but no one asked him the basic question(s) of what he thinks of or what is motivation is to people not exactly like him, but assuming his being beyond reproach morally. Go back to the basics Serge, these immigration policies or non policies and the framework that supports them our are genocide, and then start holding conferences.
@GLA
I agree with you. I only mentioned those men as examples of wealth. There are in fact successful business people, perhaps you or me, who understand that whatever short-term gain can be had through immigration and cultural deconstruction pale to the long-term dangers to their very business. I recall that the Swiss Freedom Party is heavily funded by one such man, a figure villified by the European press. There are plenty of old families in Italy, Germany and France who want to stop what is happening, which is as much the result of a managerial class (lawyers and professors and eurocrats) as big business. What I am suggesting is that business people can be made to see that what is happening across the West is not in their long-term interest. Obviously, the frantic hyper-capitalsim unleashed (perhaps ironically) under Reagan and Thatcher makes this difficult. - Thanks for your reply.
Re: I have no sympathy for the EU
Our sympathy ought to be for the European peoples subjugated by the EU, not for the EU. The first step to what's being discussed in this thread is not in the realm of funding but ideas. Unless a new Euro-ethnocentrism be born, there is no idea around which a successful renaissance can occur. The EU is trying to impose a new, common, false and utopian identity on Europe, but there is an old identity, and its merits are not being praised because there are great historical stains on Europe as well. But the white ethnic will not survive either in Europe or in its diasporas from Canada through the US to Australia and New Zealand, unless he be made to feel that he is heir to a a unique and valuable heritage that is worth preserving and fostering -- from democracy to opera, from meritocracy to literature, from Christianity to viniculture, from rationalism to modern science and medicine. As much as one may loathe the EU, we should feel empathy for the Europeans who are being subjugated by their own traitor superclass or, in the case of Serbia, NATO.
@ James
Was it not the Russian Emperor who created the Peace Conference at the Hague May 18-July 29 1899:
“the Imperial Government thinks that the present moment would be very favorable for seeking, by means of international discussion, the most effectual means of insuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace”
And was it not one of the demands of the Russian Emperor that the Papacy be excluded from these Peace talks? And from this Peace Conference arises the World Court. The same Court which was to condemn the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic?
No, not the same court at all.
As even modestly intelligent and superficially informed obesrvers are well aware, the court godfathered by the Czar is the ICJ (the International Court of Justice), founded a century ago, whereas the kangaroo imitation that killed Milosevic is the ICTY. Confusing the two is on par with believing that the Federal Reserve Board is a bona fide USG institution.
@12Srdja Trifkovic
Did anyone bring up Kosovo during this conference? I seems hypocritical to discuss the islamic threat to Europe while they recognise a stste in the heart of it founded by islamic terrorism and organised crime.
@11michael warning and @12Srdja Trifkovic
I've never heard of this ICJ (the International Court of Justice) where did you find information about this?
Is there any good books or websites about how communism came to Russia. When they talk about communism in Russia they only discuss it in detail from Stalin on upwords as if he usurped some great political movement and downplay the overwelming Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik regime (out of the 330 members in the first communist government over 300 were jewish and there was only 13 ethnic Russians) or even give a positive spin on Jewish characters like Leon Trotsky.
Jacob Shiff funded the Japanese during the Russo-Jap war and personally bragged that he contributed $20 dollars to the bolsheviks during the so-called "Russian Revolution". Years prior internalional press printed anti-czar articles in the press and Rothschild banking held back loan payments to Russia.
Srdja Trifkovic
Agreed, not the same court, but it's beginnings are the Russian Emperor's creation. You may not like the outcome.
The Lisbon treaty and the EU also had beginnings and that beginning is found with Our Founding Fathers, as you state "The founders of the United States overthrew the colonial government for offenses far lighter than those of which the Euro-traitor class is guilty."
Overthrew the old order to establish the new order.
You and I do not like the new order of things, but you and I disagree on how the new order of things started. Always look to the beginning of a political movement to see how it will run out it's course. You do not do this. Complain about the EU etc but it's start was with the Independance of the USA. We created the current order of things. We refused the Divine Order of things. The USA is the author of the Univeral Republic, a new order.
I am not nearly as knowledgable and articulate as most people posting here on Chronicles Magazine (which is what I love about it). I have learned much from regularly reading these posts. I have only one question?
How can people write articles and talk about the upcoming clash between "Islam and Western civilization", without talking about Zionism.
The way I see it, perhaps a little simplistically, is that the Jewish interests that control the banking, Federal Reserve, and media in this country, who have pushed for open borders and political correctness at home and a globalist agenda abroad, are the same interests that control the EU and their banking, media, and immigration policy. In fact all our so called neo-cons are nothing but a bunch of Trotskyites from days gone by, pushing for the same ideals, undermining our constitution and civil liberties to put money and power into Zionist pockets.
Is radical Islam dangerous? Yes. Would it ever stand a chance if Europe and North America stuck to some conervative Christian roots? Absolutely not! Hard to do though when you are being sabatoged from within.
I found it rather disgusting to see Zionists in the US clamouring for the bombing of Serbia in 1999, and supporting the separation of Kosovo. This was not a Muslim problem. Zionists, using US taxpayer dollars imported radical Islam into Yugoslavia, and created the problem as part of their agenda. Serbia stood in the way of their plans and they made an example of them. Now Iran stands in the way, and they are next. Putin's Russia also stands in the way but unfortunately you cannot just bomb them. So instead, you fund terrorism and revolutions in their backyard to undermine their influence. In addition you do a media campaign to try make Putin look like a tyrant who is backtracking on democractic reforms.
Islamic extremism is just a tool to bring about a "clash between Islam and the West" and create international government. It is not the problem. I believe that to solve the problem confronting Europe as well as America, one needs to identify the true problem. I believe Zionism is a bigger threat than radical Islam. I fear Zionist control of Russia much more than an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Perhaps I am being naive.
I am open to any comments.
We have all heard about the situation in the E.U. and Canada. However, I have yet to read why all this is happening. Why have these countries criminalized all criticism of multiculturalism?
@15Daniel
Your right but I think terming it as zionism is a bit of a cop out. Jewish communism and feminism and demonization of christian culture was a major force before the creation of the zionist state and things like pro abortion and radicical feminism dont directly benefit the Jewish state.
The problem with Russia is that the US and Europeans hate Russians so they supported the communist invasion of Russia for 20 years prior to the anti Russian takeover over Russia in 1917 and support these ant-Russian jewish oligarghs who were in control of Russia during the 90's.
Representatives of the former Yukos oil company have had meetings with whitehouse officials in the whitehouse gathering political support whos main shareholders are fled to the safety of Israel and in Britian organised crime boss Boris Berezovsky brags that he has influence and friends in both Labour and Conservative parties.
i think it is necessary to discuss zionism and the influence of Jews in European society. What I find quite amazing is how David Irving actually got jail time for questioning the holocaust. On the other hand, muslim groups that sued the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten (for printing the Mohammed cartoons) were brushed off in court.
And what about the Serbian swimmer who was banned from competition for wearing a "Kosovo is Serbia" t-shirt?
Freedom of speech is more equal for some than for others, it seems...
Taksei,just got our power back after two too long days.Every storm now challenges our crumbling infrastructure! I agree with your reply,no problem.I do ,however,support financially and politically some overseas organizations that,in my opinion,are"Counter-Jihad".I just wondered if the author had some suggestions.I see no conflict with my domestic and foriegn activities.I'm a good Christian anti-Jihad American.Whythe heck not?
John Wesley had this to say of Islam
Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it...have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind.
The Doctrine of Original Sin, Works (1841), ix. 205.
If ever there is a requirement to break a nation from within, then the best way is to allow in millions of Muslims into the country, while protecting the invaders under the umbrella of multiculturalism.
And so it has been
There is hardly any doubt that opening the gates to unrestricted immigration of Muslims into Britain will be regarded as supreme betrayal of the people of Britain. This was done knowing full well that such an invasion will destroy the UK.
G K Chesterton wrote a fictional novel “The Flying Inn”, that set out such a course of events, a political elite that sets out on the Islamisation of Britain - but who would have ever guessed that such an elite would ever be in existence, leave alone in power.
Mr. Warning @ 14
Your words:
"The USA is the author of the Univeral Republic, a new order."
The roots of the "new order" put forth their first fruit in the French Revolution, the roots thereof going much deeper. Thirteen of the twenty and some odd British colonies asserted their ancient rights as Englishmen over against a Crown and upstart Parliament which were trampling rights going back at least a far as the Magna Charta. This is hardly being "the author of the Universal Republic, a new order. In fact, the thirteen colonies were already republics which established a union thereof. But neither with the Articles of Confederation nor with the Constitution did the create a "nation" or "A republic."
Now, I would agree with you if you want to talk about Lincoln and his "Republicans." That, as we say in our climes, is a horse of quite a different color.