Category Archives: Europe

Anti-Semitism, Europe, Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism

European Racism: New Ghettos, Same Old Bierhalle Mentality……………..

 

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“The victimization of Muslims in Europe is all too real. During the Bosnian Genocide and Kosovo War in the 1990s, over 200,000 Muslims were massacred, 50,000 Muslim women were raped and 2.2 million Muslims were forced to flee their homes, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. These brutal actions were taken in part of an “ethnic cleansing campaign.” In a 2009 referendum, Swiss voters approved a ban on new minarets on Muslim mosques. Minarets neither pose a threat to the national security of Switzerland nor disrupt the pristine beauty of the Swiss Alps. The ban is narrowly targeted towards Muslim places of worship. The tower-like shikara of Hindu temples or the dome of the Sikh Gurudwaras are exempted from this ban. As a person of Hindu heritage, I do not find any solace in this exemption. This past April, France implemented their ban on the niqab, a full face-covering veil. In a study titled, “Are French Muslims Discriminated Against in Their Own Country?”, it was found that in the work force, Muslims have only a 2.5 percent chance of receiving a job interview compared to others. These prejudices are also harbored by minorities. In a private conversation, an Indian restaurant owner in Southern France related, “In India, like in France, most of the problems are because of these Muslims.”……..”

This writer is saying nothing really new, nothing that we didn’t know; but she is citing some interesting examples, also some quite interesting, nay shocking, data.
Everybody who is sober knows that racism is openly rampant in Europe now, that it is mainly aimed at Muslims and Arabs these days. It has always been there, but not so virulent, not so openly accepted, not so legitimized. That is especially true on the “continent”.
Racism and xenophobia have always been a European trait. Sometimes they are submerged for various reasons. That racism is becoming almost institutionalized in the New Europe, with right wing parties from France to Holland and Austria winning elections based on their own un-compiled little “Mein Kampfs“. It is becoming “halal” now in much of Europe to be openly anti-Muslim, just like it used to be “kosher” to be antisemitic, in fact still is in some quarters.

Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Europe, Islamophobia, Middle East Women, Muslims, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Somalia

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Reinvents the Islamic Wheel, the Holocaust and the Two Phobias………….

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“The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression ……… The Christophobia that has plagued Sudan for years takes a very different form. The authoritarian government of the Sunni Muslim north……..”

There are three people the Western media often resort to when they want “objective” opinion on Islamic-Western relations. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one. Not that I disagree with ‘everything’ she espouses: I probably agree with her on some points. Ali hasn’t been on television as much, mostly writings and ‘utterances’. Ali makes sure everyone knows she has nothing but contempt for Islam: all its aspects, not just how it treats women. She does not distinguish between the faith and the “faithful”: an easy shot, some would say a cheap shot. We all know the “faithful” do not all follow the faith. That applies equally to Muslims and Christians. Fair enough, that is her opinion. There is room enough for both Islamophobia (of which she has a severe case) and Christophobia.

Now Christians and the world-wide assault on Christianity is apparently the cause du jour, even in the ongoing Campaign 2012. She certainly is not missing that bandwagon. In these days of fundamentalist ascendancy in the Middle East (and America), the fate of Christians is a legitimate concern. Yet is it a tit-for-tat Fox News (dare I say Geert Wilders) type of approach she takes? The point is: the West is free and democratic, and the Muslim world is mostly dictatorial, that is a fact. It is silly to insinuate that the West should persecute Muslims simply because, for example, Saudi Arabia bans any kind of worship other than Islamic even in private. That is why the West is what it is and Saudi Arabia is not. Could she be angling for a speaker’s slate at the Tea Party Republican National Convention next summer?

I am eager to read her future writings on the Endlösung and how Christians killed 6 million Jewish civilians in gas chambers in a Europe that was nearly free of Muslims. And about the 40 million (or is it 50 million) people of all faiths that were killed in the last European war. No need to mention the mass rapes and the genocide and mass graves of Bosnia. Everybody has a house of glass, but some houses are more so.
There is also a Syrian dude whom the American right wing has been celebrating for years; he is their favorite “witness” in Muslim and Islamic hearings. I suspect if anyone, he will be the one to speak at Tampa (you see, Muslim men rule, even in the Tea Party).
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Europe, Iran, Israel, Middle East

Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust: Demagoguery and Spreading the Bull……….

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“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust and the danger a nuclear-armed Iran, said on Tuesday that Israel must not shy from acting alone to thwart any threat to its existence. Addressing parliament ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, Netanyahu praised a European Union decision on Monday to place sanctions on Iranian oil exports. “But on this day of international cooperation and an important achievement against Iran, I want to remind everyone of the main lesson of the Holocaust against our people – that ultimately when there is threat to our existence, we must not leave our fate in the hands of others,”………”

Ahmadinejad used to specialize in near denials of the Holocaust. He taunted the West, especially the Europeans who were the planners and executioners and enablers of the Holocaust, with his nonsense. He knows exactly what happened so many decades ago in Europe, what was committed by the parents and grandparents of these Europeans, from Berlin to Krakow to Warsaw to Paris and other places. Not just by Germans: local police forces helped their new German masters round up their own Jewish neighbors to be shipped ‘east’. They were barely less guilty than the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS and even the Wehrmacht. Only about two decades ago, Austria
elected a known former Nazi officer as president (before that he was
their foreign minister then secretary general of the United
Nations!).
Yet his taunts are understandably insulting to the memory of the victims and to their descendents. One dreads what he will say later this week. Mercifully he has been silent on the subject for over a year; maybe someone told him it is not endearing. Maybe he will choose to shut up for once, being embroiled in more important issues at home.
Which brings us to that other Middle Eastern demagogue, Mr. Netanyahu. It is hard to take seriously, or find credible, someone who famously claims that “Ahmadinejad is worse than Hitler“.
Netanyahu has in recent years made quite a political art of using the terrible memory for his own political ends. He is an accomplished expert at what Americans call ‘spreading the bull’, and he knows how to spread it far and wide. In pushing for a destructive war in the Middle East, away from his own borders, he is willing to use any means. He is not being as disrespectful as Ahmadinejad, not nearly so, but he seems to exploit the memory in order to maintain the far right-wing uncompromising coalition that keeps him in power.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Europe, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

On Israelis, Turks, Kurdish Rebels, Iranians, and Arab Oligarchs without Vision…………..

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“According to reports by Turkish intelligence agencies, Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Israel that have been observed in Hatay and Adana provinces in recent months spied for the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after the detection of two Israeli Herons in Hatay and Adana roughly two months ago, claiming that the Herons are collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions. The report asserts that the PKK’s training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey’s Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those locations based on intelligence collected by the UAVs. The report also claims that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member who commanded an assault against a Turkish naval base in İskenderun in 2010, has made repeated trips into Israeli territory, reinforcing suspicions of a possible link between Israeli and the PKK………….”

This was bound to happen. Once the Turks realized how racist the European Union feels toward them and their application for membership. Once they realized that they are the last on the list of countries that would be admitted, if they are ever admitted. Once the Turks realized that their usefulness to the Europeans as an anti-Soviet base and as a source of scarce labor has expired. Once they realized that they do need need Europe as much as they had thought. They turned their attention back to the Middle East, which includes Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

The Turks are in Syria now, more or less, possibly in rivalry with Iran for influence over Damascus now that the Arab leaders are helpless and have no independent vision for dealing with the situation. So far the only Arab vision seems to be pushing for the West to “liberate” Syria from its regime, just as the West “liberated” Iraq and Libya. The Turks are also in Iraq, possibly seen by some Arabs as their last hope to limit Iranian influence, at least in the north and west of Iraq. Odd, a new Turkish-Iranian rivalry over Iraq, just like the old Ottoman-Persian rivalry over Iraq.

All that because the stagnant Arab oligarchs, mainly the Saudis, decided to give up on Iraq because they did not like the way Iraqis chose their government (or maybe because the Iraqis actually had some choice, no matter how imperfect).
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Europe, France, Muslims, NATO, Turkey, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Texas Governor Talking Turkey: Muslims and Terrorism and NATO and Republican Turkeys and Old Hickory…….

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“Well, obviously when you have a country (Turkey) that is being ruled by, what
many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that
type of activity against their own citizens, then yes. Not only is it
time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to
be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their
foreign aid, to go to zero with it.And you go to zero with
foreign aid for all of those countries. And it doesn’t make any
difference who they are. You go to zero with that foreign aid and then
you have the conversation about, do they have America’s best interest in
mind?………..”

That was Texas governor Rick Perry talking Turkey, addressing a hall apparently full of cheering turkeys. Turks would be surprised to hear that their government is Islamic terrorist.
I wrote here once that the Hitler comparison should be banned by a United Nations resolution, and I was half serious. Now I expect Rick Santorum (and fellow right-wingers at AIPAC) to pick up the slack now and call Turkish prime minister Erdogan a new Hitler, thus joining Nasser and Saddam Hussein and Ahmadinejad in the pantheon.
Funny how Hitler was an Austro-German beer-drinking European from a Catholic background, yet Arab and Muslim leaders have the privilege of being exclusively compared to Hitler in the West. Someone like Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory himself) might object, feeling left out, his Trail of (Indian) Tears demeaned. Many Southern (post-Reconstruction) leaders, governors and “famous” U.S. senators, might feel left out as well. With Hitler’s charred remains still warm in Moscow, the French government of newly American-liberated France massacred thousands of Muslim Algerians who wanted either full equality with the white settlers on their land or independence. Europe of the EU is now full of new little leaders that might be carelessly called would be Hitlers, some of them partners in government (Netherlands and that very same Austria). They also aim their fear-mongering and venom toward people that are mostly Semitic. Again.
Cheers
mhg


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Europe, GCC, Humor, Nutrition, WTF

WTF: Serbia bans Alcohol in Parliament, GCC to Follow?………….

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Serb deputies drinking        They may look stoned out of their f–ing heads, but they’re stone sober.


“The Serbian parliament has banned alcohol after media reports of excessive drinking, a top official said Friday. “The ban applies to every one without exception, from bringing in alcohol, to serving or consuming it,” Veljko Odalovic, the parliament’s secretary general, told the Tanjug news agency. “Both restaurants in the parliament will no longer serve alcohol, it is absolutely forbidden,” he added. The new rules included a ban on anyone who is drunk from entering the parliament. Some health officials here estimate that one in six people in Serbia have a drinking problem.………”

Now for some Middle East legislatures to emulate these good Serbs. Especially on my Gulf. The Saudi rubber-stamp fully-appointed, anally-retentive Shoura Council should start by quitting the vast quantities of coffee and tea they imbibe at public expense. The rump Bahrain parliament (normally about 30% freely elected, now about 10% elected) can give up all that unhygienic kissing (of you know what and where). The rest of the Gulf, especially the Salafis and Muslim Brothers among them, can stop drinking any Vimto immediately. As for the Yemenis, there will always be some qat.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Economics, Europe

Floating To Loftier EU Afghan Relations: Trade, Aid, War, and Drugs…………

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“The European Union agreed Monday to negotiate a partnership pact with Afghanistan including counter-terrorism, development and fighting drugs, ahead of the departure of NATO combat troops in 2014. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels gave the European Commission and EU chief diplomat Catherine Ashton a mandate to negotiate a “Cooperation Agreement on Partnership and Development” with the Afghan government. “There is a need to plan for what happens after transition to Afghan security control in 2014 and the continued involvement and support of the European Union for Afghanistan,” said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. NATO-led combat troops are gradually withdrawing from Afghanistan with the aim of handing Afghan security forces full control of the battle against the Taliban in three years. “The international engagement in Afghanistan is evolving from its focus on security and stabilization towards political and economic cooperation,” EU foreign ministers said in a statement. The EU and its 27 member states provide around one billion euros a year in assistance to Afghanistan…………”

Europe and Afghanistan have an even tighter trade relation: that of drugs. Afghanistan is the major source of drugs to Europe. It is smuggled from Pakistan and Afghanistan and through Iran and Turkey, among other routes. Maybe Catherine Ashton and the Taliban Salafi mullahs will get together and smoke the “peace pipe” from the local poppy, singing Kumbaya as they drift toward loftier heights of Euro-Afghan cooperation.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Europe, Finance, U.S. Politics

Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles: European Economy, American Economy…………

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“The debt crisis sweeping southern Europe and lapping France is cause for alarm in Washington and Beijing, but not it seems for the rank and file of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. On the contrary, at a meeting of Merkel’s Christian Democrats the mood among delegates ranged from triumphalism over Germany’s economic strength to complacency about the crisis and blind faith in Berlin’s ability to shield Germany from it. Merkel warned on the first day of the congress Monday that Europe faced what could be its “toughest hour since World War Two.” But her message didn’t register with many of those in the hall or with the German media. Much press coverage focused on domestic issues – the minimum wage, childcare and education………… Unemployment has fallen to its lowest levels since German reunification in 1990 and the smaller “Mittelstand” firms that form the backbone of Europe’s largest economy have strong order backlogs.…….”

That “alles” also includes the United States, speaking of economics. While U.S. corporations have rushed during the past two decades to export more jobs than products, German firms have focused on keeping jobs inside Germany. German government policies have helped. The American corporatist right-wing has been making a lot of noise about patriotism, while facilitating the opposite: the weakening of the Middle Class in favor of corporations. Even Dick Cheney’s beloved Halliburton, beneficial of so many American government contracts moved its headquarters to the Persian-American Gulf, to be near the potentates so beloved by the Cheneys, and for patriotic tax purposes.
Remember all the swooning over the “Japanese model”? I was in graduate school in those days and I remember that it immediately preceded the long stagnation of the Japanese economy. Forget the Japanese model, forget the crazy Tea Party model. Go the German model, but that may require some sort of mass lobotomy for the corporate and political leaders. And who is going to perform that? Will Obamacare cover that (Germany, like all other industrial countries except the United States, has a robust public health system)?
Cheers
mhg


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