At Home in Europe

Copenhague: Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders reveals himself as an ethnic cleanser...

2009-06-16T01:06:00.005+02:00

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders was interviewed in Danish television last Sunday.

What he says, boils down to a call for an ethnic cleansing of Europe. Listen to his statements here:

In short: There are too many people from Muslim descent in Europe and they have more children than others. Muslims have been contaminated with "a criminal ideology" (Islam). That is why there are so many criminals among them. They have to be sent away immediately. But that is not enough: Anybody who starts "thinking about Sharia and Jihad" or "Caliphate" should be deported too.

"Muslims want to take over our culture" and "change it fundamentally". That is why we have to start deportations to the countries of origin (of their parents).

Like every ethnic cleanser, Wilders adopts a salami tactic: First isolate a part of the ethnic group and earmark them (and their families) for harsher treatment than foreseen in the Law. And in the Denmark interview, Wilders is already targeting a second, larger category: "those who THINK about jihad and sharia". For Muslims, there is not only no freedom of expression any more, but even no more freedom of thinking. Logical conclusion: As you cannot know what a person thinks, every Muslim (or person from Muslim descent) is a potential danger. That is why he is ranting about "tens of millions" of people to be deported from Europe.

Wilders is no more your daily oddball. He has a large constituency in Holland. And more and more admirers in the US, in Israel and in European countries. He has to be taken seriously. Like we should have done, for instance, with that oddball poet Karadzic around the year 1990, when he prepared the ethnic cleansing and mass murder of non-serbian Bosniaks.

The UN The Hague Inernational Court is at this very moment constructing its case against Karadzic, digging into his agitation from before the Yugoslav Civil War.

If we prefer to avoid ethnic cleansing operations in the future, it is there, in the new International Court, where Wilders belongs.

Who has the guts to indict him?

Afghanistan Conference in The Hague: A Turning Point?

2009-03-30T23:06:00.003+02:00

Tomorrow, something new will happen in the windy Dutch government seat at the North Sea. All, I repeat: ALL, possible players in the Afghan drama will come together and talk. Will it be THE turning point, or will it only be a significant step forward?

Obama delivers. A completely new US approach to the world is taking shape. No more imperialist 1000 years' dreams like those in the "American Century" documents of the neoconservatives. A more realistic view takes into account the interests of the Afghan people in all their diversity, and, also, those of the neighbouring countries, as well as those of the world players: the US, Europe, Russia, China, India.

This, in itself, is already a major turning point. But will it materialize into something sensible?

The subject is extremely complicated. Afghanistan is divided in itself along ethnic, cultural and religiuous lines. The Northern neighbours are interested in halting the fundamentalist infiltrations. Pakistan has been considering the country as its backyard, providing a strategic depth against arch enemy India. Iran has a religious (the Shiite Hazaris) and cultural (the large Persian speaking minorities) stake. At the oil and gas producing end, Iran, Turkmenistan and others, as well as Pakistan and India (and China?) at the potential receiving end have an interest in Afghanistan as a necessary transit country. the whole world has an interest in stopping or limiting the poppy (heroine) production. I would like to add the interest the whole world should have in rolling back the safe havens for terrorist fundamentalism.

It is my innermost conviction, that only the Afghan people themselves may find a solution to the problems mentioned above and to others that I did not mention (yet). The Obama-Clinton first measures (reigning in the Pakistan ISI, look for an arrangement with authentic local forces in Afghanistan) and proposals, would possibly create the necessary room for an Afghan awakening taking place.

Many people are critical of the pressure, Obama is putting on Pakistan. I am not. Before 2001, the US were blindly following the Pakistani Secret Service ISI's manipulations in Afghanistan (and Pakistan/Kashmir). Under G.W.Bush this did not change. A decisive key to a solution in Afghanistan, is cutting out the ISI's support to Islamist fundamentalism. It created and maintained in power (with Saudi help) the Afghan Taliban. Facilitated their resurrection after 2002. And let them also develop in Pakistan itself (the Northwest Territories).

Dealing with Pakistan, a country with a huge population, nuclear bombs, and a fierce frustration gainst India, is extremely difficult. Obama's carrot (7,5 billion dollars help) and stick (US intrusions into the Territories, chasing Al Qaeda) is, if I may judge, the only possible way to make things move into the right direction.

Iran has a number of stakes here in common with the US, Russia and Europe. It would like to stop fundamentalist anti-Shiite Sunni rule in Afghanistan. It has an interest in a pacified Afghanistan as a transit country for its oil and gas to the east. It doesn't like Pakistani, nor American, nor Russian, nor European military too close to its eastern borders.

Summa summarum: There are some chances, that the new realistic configuration that has been put in place by the new US Government, will produce a turning point at The Hague. As I said long before this, a counter-guerilla war in Afghanistan by NATO armies is as hopeless as the British (XIXth century) efforts at a "Great Game" and the Russian ones after 1979 were from the beginning. Poor dead and wounded soldiers from Canada, the UK and othe NATO countries have fallen for a chimera. I do not understand, what the US extra-NATO forces have been doing all the way from 2002 to now. They sabotaged objectively the pacification and community-building efforts of the NATO allies. Like tomorrow's host country the Netherlands in Uruzgan. They did not crush Al Qaeda, nor capture its chief. And I regret their vain casualties, too.

The remnants of the neoconservative movement are complaining. Tonight, on Dutch television, Iranian refugee turned Dutch Professor of ethnic integration, Afshin Ellian, criticized sternly and repeatedly Obama's praise for the greatness of the Iranian civilization. As if respect for the Iranian people, holding out against a world wide boycott since 1979 (30 years!), would be a crime! Should we be taking Ellian for a guide, Ellian, who was for years a Tudeh (Iranian Communist Party) propagandist in a Kabul exile under the Soviets?

Other voices from Iran, also shown on Dutch television, tell another tale. A woman refugee fro.m Iran sais, she was moved by the respect Obama finally showed in the name of the American people, for Iranian culture and civilization. Looking at that woman, I thought: She will be able to deal herself, together with her friends, with retrograde mollahs. That is not our task.

Give people room to make their own communities. In dignity. And in their own way. Our democracy is superb. We developed it all by ourselves. in blolod and with much trial and error. Genuine democracy is not imported by force from elsewhere. it is obtained democratically - by the people themselves.

A reading suggestion about "La démocratie des autres" (Amartya Sen): Democracy and its global Roots (2003).

Ms. Verdonk accused of theft

2009-03-03T20:26:00.003+01:00

Ed Sinke, the former Rotterdam agent of Ms. Rita Verdonk, former Dutch Minister of Immigration, has informed Dutch Justice of possible inappropriate appropriation of funds by his former employer.
Rita Verdonk tried to get 4.000 Euros still in the political account of her movement, but that are not her propriety.
Poor Rita is in dire straights.
But rules are rules.
She should know.
Bye, Rita, you were lovely.
Another racist gone down.
She rests in peace.

Dutch hate-mongerer Wilders turned into hero by Rupert Murdoch [EN]

2009-01-23T04:34:00.001+01:00

The New York Wall Street Journal (WSJ), owned by Rupert Murdoch, is known for its heroic struggle against anyone who it deems guilty of blasphemy of the free market, the stock exchange, composite investment vehicles and US moral superiority in the world.
It is so busy with its crusade and its inquisition against men and women who make use of their right to free speech on these subjects, that, alas, it neglected recently its core business, that is, if I am not mistaken, to inform the public, specifically the financial world, about the upcoming financial crisis, about the Ponzi schemes and about the fraudulent balances of main financial institutions.

You and I would expect, that the WSJ, like the London Financial Times, would be doing some self-critical introspection at this point of time.
The opinion makers at WSJ, could, for instance, reflect upon the billions of dollars the US are pumping every year into the Saudi Kingdom, enabling it to maintain a barbaric internal police regime and, worse still, financing fundamentalist and retrograde, even terrorist, institutions abroad.

I have seen nothing of that in WSJ. On the contrary. Not unlike Saudi Mollahs, it identifies Satan as exclusively coming from abroad.
WSJ featured heavily, for instance, the lying demagogue Mark Steyn (America Alone), also known as a Canadian humorist. Steyn specialises in Canada- and Europe-bashing. Collective health care, feminism, birth control, so he says, produce countries that are already lost to (Islamic) barbary. America alone, has to do the job. With crackpot wisdom, for instance, about the Istanbul Aya Sofia, that should be unislamized, he reaches a vast audience. Only a pity, that since 1939 the Aya Sofia building has been desacralized by the Turkish Parliament, and is a Museum now, with exhibits that illustrate the Christian as well as the Muslim history of the 5th Century edifice.
Another Europe-basher (when she is not trying to return to Europe) is Ajaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch parliamentarian of Somali origin, who is employed by the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington since 2006. She, or Daniel Pipes, could well have been the author of the WSJ-opinion under the heading:

"Silencing Islam's Critics - A Dutch Court Imports Saudi Blasphemy Norms to Europe."

It appeared two days after the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th US president, who stated that in the US there has to be a just place for Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Non-believers. Its conclusion:

The [Amsterdam] court yesterday overruled this decision [i.e: the August 2008 Prosecutor's decision NOT to prosecute Mr. Wilders, HR], arguing that the lawmaker should be prosecuted for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and also "for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism."
This is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside. But the successful integration of Muslims in Europe will require that
immigrants adapt to Western norms, not vice versa.
Limiting the Dutch debate of Islam to standards acceptable in, say, Saudi Arabia, will only shore up support for Mr. Wilders's argument that Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties.

Well, the point is, that Mr. Wilders is not seriously criticizing Islam as a religion, but that he is all the time targeting all Muslims, representing them as a permanent danger. He summarily rejects any perspective of "working together for a more perfect union", even systematically refusing proposals for dialogue, made to him by Muslim groups.

Mr. Wilders has had all freedom of speech he could wish for. Now he has to bear the consequences of what he has been saying. The Dutch juridical system is not unlike any other in the Western world. On the issue of blasphemy, it is more liberal than the American practice. It is not of "blasphemy" that Wilders is accused, but of hate-mongering ("haatzaaien"). A nation that is committed to a peaceful togetherness of its citizens and to equality between gender, religion and ethnicity, has to protect itself against systematic hate-mongering.
It is as if the WSJ forgets, that US law is imposed upon the Ku Klux Klan racist hate-mongerers, and rightly so. No "freedom of expression" for them. And people who deny the Holocaust, should we give them "freedom of expression"? In France, Mr. Le Pen, also a parliamentarian and party leader, has been condemned more than once for hate-mongering against Jews and against immigrants from Africa. A former French Communist leader, turned Muslim, denied the Holocaust and was condemned in court, in spite of his old age. That is what a civilized society does. In Europe as well as in the US.

So, it is not about blasphemy, but about systematic racist agitation. And it is not about freedom of expression, but about hate-mongering by someone who knows that he is lying. Or, maybe, he doesn't know, but then a psychiatric team has to be called in.

Back to the WSJ and its tendency to find European (Canadian) giving in ("appeasement", "capitulation"), to the Enemy (in an earlier phase, it was: "soft on Communism"), as a main cause for the actual woes in Wall Street.

As always, its explanation comes from inner policy.
Murdoch and his WSJ team cannot (yet) attack openly the new course of president Obama, who pleads for American-European dialogue, with the approval of a large majority in the US. Therefore, it is being done by the way of a bit of misinformation about an event, most Americans do know near to nothing about.

It all boils down to a cowards' intrigue, to sabotage the new American foreign policy, an offense to a Democracy that defends itself (the contrary to "appeasement"!) and to the integrity of Dutch justice. (Which might come handy in, where the The Hague International Courts for genocide and war crimes are concerned, that are boycotted by the US, and that will have a role in prosecuting war criminals from recent conflicts.)

Well, and if the WSJ is so concerned about Saudi "norms" (which it should be), what about an oil boycott against that regime?

Technorati Tags: Wall Street Journal, Europe, Netherlands, Wilders, Hirsi Ali, Daniel Pipes, Islam, Racism, Mark Steyn

European English Bookshop on HUIBSLOG

2008-09-23T00:00:00.002+02:00

HUIBSLOG and the dedicated Blogs, like this one: At Home in Europe, are about reflexion. Going back and forth between the news and its backgrounds. Looking for integrity in reasoning and in research. This cannot be done without BOOKS.
Nothing beats a monograph. Prefer the original to the translation. Read, study and think for yourself. Avoid compilations with many authors. Trust your language skills. Get to the Original as close as you can!
English reading suggestions and an overview of English book reviews in Huibslog are on the Books in English Page.

For our European English readers, we have preferred amazon.co.uk as our partner. Why? Simple: Delivery costs are so much lower in Europe!
At NO extra cost for you, every purchase by way of the Online-shopping links in HUIBSLOG, helps it to survive.

Ethnic cleansing made the violence fall in Iraq

2008-09-08T01:03:00.002+02:00

Why was the "Iraq Surge" a "success"?
Juan Cole explains it once again:

A crucial element in the fall of violence from the catastrophic levels of summer,2006, was the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad of its Sunnis. I wrote in mid-July:

"As best I can piece it together, what actually seems to have happened was that the escalation troops began by disarming the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them. Shaab district near Adhamiya had been a mixed neighborhood. It ended up with almost no Sunnis. Baghdad in the course of 2007 went from 65% Shiite to at least 75% Shiite and maybe more. My thesis would be that the US inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge). Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods. Newsrack was among the first to make this argument, though I was tracking the ethnic cleansing at my blog throughout 2007. See also Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post on this issue.". . .

As Think Progress pointed out,the Washington Post illustrated Karen DeYoung's important article with a clear ethnic map showing the ethnic cleansing:

The point is not that there are no Sunni enclaves left in Baghdad, only that there are many fewer such enclaves, and that many formerly mixed neighborhoods are now entirely Shiite. In fact, this ethnic cleansing is among the major reason that the some 4 million Iraqis displaced internally and externally by Bush's war refuse to return. They have nothing to return to. The mixed or Sunni neighborhoods from which the Sunnis among them escaped no longer exist. A fourth of the Iraqi refugees in Jordan have, moreover, had a child kidnapped. Even if the child was returned, the family is not going to risk returning.

The Americans built walls in the city, isolating neighbourhoods, with Israeli help. Now, the Sunni exode is worrying the US, and it prepares to crush the Shia. Starting with the Sadr movement. But Sadr hides his fighters among the population. A clash with mainstream Shia politicians and - paramilitary bands is looming.

In my earlier post, I also quoted this:

"As Think Progress quoted CNN correspondent Michael Ware:
' The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad has been — albeit tragic — one of the key elements to the drop in sectarian violence in the capital. […] It’s a very simple concept: Baghdad has been divided; segregated into Sunni and Shia enclaves. The days of mixed neighborhoods are gone. […] If anyone is telling you that the cleansing of Baghdad has not contributed to the fall in violence, then they either simply do not understand Baghdad or they are lying to you.'
"

McCain and ideologues such as Fred Kagan must deny or ignore the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad and other areas, and ignore the millions of Iraqis now living abroad or in other provinces, many of them in dire straits, because their Rambo complex forces them to insist that an extra 30,000 US troops, inserted for 16 months, made all the difference.

McCain's Rambo foreign policy sets him on a course of confrontation with Russia, which he has not forgiven for its aid to Vietnam in the old days, and with Shiite Iran, which his party's propaganda continues to confuse with Sunni radicalism of al-Qaeda.

One of those slick films shown at the convention on Thursday commemorating the victims of 9/11 actually asserted that "it began in 1979" with the taking of US embassy personnel hostage in Tehran. The film then skipped over to the Sunni radicals. I can't understand what the Iranian hostage crisis has to do with 9/11. This conflating of all Muslim movements, in which McCain frequently engages, is just another Big Lie. Iranians were upset by 9/11 and sympathetic to the US, holding candlelight vigils. President Khatami spoke heartwarmingly against the terrorism that had struck the US, explaining that Iran had also suffered grievously from terrorism.

I guess, that, whatever McCain says, the Iraqis will NOT accept a (semi-) permanent American military presence in their country. Much trouble ahead.
Where is the European solution to this danger at our borders?

Technorati Tags: Iraq, USA, Shia, Sunni

Akte Islam bans Fjordman as a "CIA-agent" and finds refuge with local Islam-bashers

2008-05-19T04:25:00.001+02:00

Akte Islam Fjordman
Originally uploaded by huibriethof

This statement comes from "Akte Islam", November 2007. The German 'Pax-Europa' movement, founded by Secret-Services freak Dr. Udo Ulfkotte in 2006 in order to promote European values, like tolerance, Enlightenent and judeo-christian heritage, limits it's action to vulgar Muslim-bashing.

After the flopping of a pan-European anti-Eurabia manifestation on September 11 in Brussels, with Danish-English SIOE and the Vlaams Belang, Ulfkotte bans right-wing extremists and CIA-inspired people like Spencer and Bat Ye'or and their stooges (notably the so-called 'Fjordman') from collaborating with his ailing Pax Europa movement.

Yesterday, Ulfkotte fusioned his Pax Europa club with the German 'Association of Citizen Movements', in order to get "observer status" with the EU, the European Council and, as if that weren't enough, with the UN too.

We wish the new couple a happy honeymoon and we are eagerly expecting the inevitable clash between President Ulfkotte and CEO Schwend.
Technorati Tags: Germany, Ulfkotte, Europe, Islam

Lebanon: The Clash, so long announced and feared.

2008-05-09T22:29:00.001+02:00

Juan Cole follows hour after hour developments in Lebanon. The armed clash, involving Hizbollah and the Lebanese Army, the one the US and so many others longed for, and the same one that so many others (including me) hoped could be avoided, happens these days.

... 2006: young Lebanese visit Beirut neighborhood where their apartment stood, after Israeli bombings ....

An informed observer is cited on Cole's Informed Comment Blog (9.5.08):

An informed observer writes from Beirut:

Beirut Ramping Up

Yesterday afternoon the political fight came to a head, turning to armed conflict throughout key neighborhoods in Beirut. Loud explosions, automatic machine gun fire, rocket propelled grenade, and pistol shots resounded throughout the night.

The fight moved from a vicinity of half a kilometer from . . . Sodeco around 5pm, outwards throughout the city. In the middle of the night, the sound was drowned out by a thunder storm which unexpectedly set in as quickly as the fight which broke out.

Although, the sky was clear in the day, and the temperature cool, the unusual storm caught many of the inhabitants off guard. The loud thunder drowned out the explosions, the downpour took over and things seem to quiet down until 5 this morning.

"Things were quiet in the neighborhood until about 5 and then it went off", explains an AUB student living in the neighborhood of Hamra.

A foreign journalist living in Hamra explained that clashes have been ongoing since this morning, and the streets have reportedly come under control of the members of the opposition forces Hezbollah and Amal militia despite ongoing exchange of gunfire being resounding throughout the neighborhood.

Television pictures this morning reveal and predominantly deserted Beirut. Shops are closed, no cars on the street. Damage so far: bullet holes in cars, shattered shop fronts, freshly pockmarked buildings, and some smoke out of Hariri's Moustaqbal Newspaper headquarters.

Reports of dead are varying between 7 and 15, but a tally will probably be difficult to track unless the fighting factions announce the numbers.

The city yesterday was at 60% blocked, making moving between neighborhoods very difficult. The percentage today is rising although there are no firm numbers. Moving between East and West Beirut has become even more difficult as announcement of the sea road being cut off by opposition Amal forces.

At 3pm yesterday . . . [a] political advisor . . . received a call in the car announcing the opposition's plan to besiege the government seat in the Serrail. This morning, this unconfirmed rumor seems to be becoming a reality, as reports are saying the Serrail is surround[ed] by opposition forces. Unconfirmed reports are saying that the security forces of the Serrail have handed over their weapons, who knows.

On a wider scale, there are reports of fighting in the northern city of Tripoli as well as fighting in the Bekaa valley.

Although the fight which has broken out is predominantly political, it is difficult to separate the sectarian aspect of the conflict whereby so far the greatest clashes are occurring between Sunni and Shia groups. Despite the political wording in both Nasrallah's and Hariri's, the undertone was such that if you are not with us you are against us, and so bring it on... The night clashes echoed the stances.

Also, something to track is the wider regional Arab response. Depending on today's local political positions and regional positions may help the picture of what is to come.

WHAT LED TO THE PRESENT CRISIS:

In the beginning of the week, the Lebanese government removed the head of security from the airport, a government employee who was a supporter of the opposition was sacked, and Hezbollah controlled surveillance cameras were removed from the airport. The impact of the decision has been explosive, yesterday Nasrallah explained in his speech that the decision should be revoked and that anyone tampering with their surveillance system was essentially acting for the benefit of Israel.

The Hariri well, I don't have it under hand, however it would seem that this morning's results mean that what televised offer he made, it was rejected.

SIDE LINE:

ONE NON-OFFICIAL REPORT Describing a TACTIC on the ground

A pro-opposition source called to explained that the tactic on the ground is to take control of key neighborhoods and news outlets of the various loyalist/ or pro-government factions. From here on, it is a matter of time before government seat will fall.

Nobody can win in tribally, religiously and politically divided Lebanon. Everybody will lose. Congratulations to the Bush Government, to Iran and to Israel, who finally succeeded to break the overriding opinion among nearly all Lebanese groups, that they had to stand united, in spite of their differences. An opinion that made them resist, actively and passively, but successfully in the summer of 2006...

The consequences for the European Union are to be studied and put into the Near East EU policies framework. The (mainly EU) peacekeepers at the Southern borders are part of the situation. Will Israel or Syria profit from it?

I will soon write again here about these developments, after having studied reports in other languages than English.

Technorati Tags: Lebanon, Middle East, Beirut, Hizbollah

Holland: Wilders exposed as a lier; former Minister Verdonk starts populist campaign

2008-04-05T01:14:00.003+02:00

Dutch populist politician and producer of the anti-Islam film 'Fitna', Wilders (above), intended to tear off and burn pages of the Koran. Or, at least, show such acts in his propaganda movie. I cannot but justify the countermeasures of Dutch Government, intended to control the damage that would have been done by such a provocation, as it sought international support and condemnation of Wilders' provocations, encouraging Dutch Muslims to appeal to their countries of origin to react calmly. "We are Holland, too", they said. And, generally, it worked. There is no general Muslim upheaval.

The government, and first of all its major participant the christian-democratic party CDA, had it's day on the first of April in the The Hague Parliament, when it exposed, documents at hand, Wilders' blackmail. Wilders had sought to turn public condemnation against the Government, stating (with the help of US-based Ajaan Hirsi Ali), that they had "exaggerated" his intentions, and "capitulated" to world Islam, while his movie was so innocent.

Why the Dutch damage-control was needed and successful - with regrettable exceptions...

In recent days, it became clear, that the severely wounding of three Dutch servicemen in the Afghan province of Uruzgan by roadside bombs, was not (only) caused by American poppy-destruction actions in the region (without the Dutch knowing about it - a scandal in itself), but has to be considered as a revenge of the Taliban against the publication of the Wilders film. A Taliban website claimed so.

At first, Dutch public opinion tended to disbelieve the very impopular Government, but after a second look into the recordings of the parliamentary debate and after having seen Wilders' very infantile reactions, as well as realizing the damage that has been done to the country and to the values it stands for, Wilders is losing rapidly ground. A yesterday poll shows a virtual loss within two days of two of the eleven parliamentary seats of Wilders ' PVV party.

Wilders has nothing against Muslims - if they accept to behave as "Untermenschen"...

Like the German anti-Islam activist Udo Ulfkotte, Wilders claims, that he is only against the Koran (Q'uran) and the Sharia Law, but that he is no racist, for he is not against Muslims as persons. But Muslims should not be allowed to live in Holland, for their religion is incompatible with Dutch values. In so far as it it not possible to make them leave, they should be put under strict supervision and be denied the right to free speech, to having their own organizations, mosques and habeas corpus rights.

In following a 2.000 posts long public discussion thread at the NL. Nu website about Wilders' debate with Government and the other parties, that started in the evening of April 1st and continued through Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd, I observed this change of perception, from pro-Wilders to anti-Wilders, at the end of the thread.

Wilders weakened - Verdonk carries the struggle forward...

With Wilders considerably weakened, a new phenomenon appeared in the evening of April 3. Former Minister of Immigration, Ms Rita Verdonk, whose harsh anti-immigration- and anti-Muslim policies were disavowed by the newly elected parliament in September 2007, held a well-designed roadshow in an Amsterdam establishment. "Iron Rita", who was instrumental in chasing her "friend" Ajaan Hirsi Ali from Holland to the US in 2006, was excluded from the (conservative) Liberal Party and she runs a one woman show since that moment.

Verdonk rallies her sponsors (Amsterdam, April 3, 2008)

Like Wilders' movement, she has no members or caucuses. People may express their opinions, but Rita decides. The Dutch legislation on party-financing is rather outdated, and that helps Wilders and Verdonk to get themselves money through corporate and other undisclosed institutional donations. Wilders got, at least indirectly, support from Pfizer and from sponsors at the American Enterprise Institute. Verdonk gets her money from the same group of real estate owners and -speculants as the late Pim Fortuyn did.

There is some money-laundering involved, but the main reason for the tycoons to spend some money on her, is, that she guarantees the existing gigantic tax-cuts on loan-repayments for housing that exist in Holland. The European Union is working to harmonize those regulations between the memeber states, which would certainly mean, that prospective buyers of real estate will have less money to spend in the near future.

Verdonk's Xenophobia is larger than Wilders'...

Verdonk's political programme, or the trunks of it, that are known at this moment, is potentially broader than Wilders'. Broader in the sense, that it is more consequently xenophobe. Not only against muslims and immigrants, but also against Europe and any non-Dutch influence.

A poll, held today, gives her 22% of the vote. As parliamentary elections are not expected before 2011, this is of a limited interest. What is more interesting, is the question, if her consumerist/populist approach, will durably seduce such a large part of the voters. A one (wo)man party that steps out of the firm Dutch traditions of consultation, compromise and grassroots democracy, would, if it keeps so much support and sympathy as it gets at this moment, become a major cultural change in Dutch traditions.
Her "movement" is called "Proud of Holland", which touches a sympathetic string in the mind of this blogger. The Dutch have many things, values and people to be proud of, but they tend to be so only in private, while publicly disavowing their country, language and culture. One of our characteristics is our well-developed flexibility and adaptability. That is how we made so much profit in trade, in publishing books that are banned in other countries and in providing prohibited drugs to those who are in need of them.

An undutch proudness...

The Verdonkian proudness doesn't seem to imply those national and typical qualities. Under Verdonk, we, Dutchmen, would also be obliged to hide our proudness of non-Dutch heroes and values from our continent, Europe. Verdonk's proudness has a distinct provincial flavour.

In my opinion, the cultural paradox of "Trots op Nederland", will make itself felt very soon. For instance, she intends to suppress the twelve Dutch Provinces (regions). But our Frisians, who love their own language and traditions, will likely not ne very fond of letting go their own Province, that guarantees many aspects of their distint identity, they are so proud of...

Verdonk's action has to be considered as another blow to the construction of a viable European Union and the values it stands for.

Watch Wilders' Fitna movie here and be ashamed with me

2008-03-28T00:35:00.001+01:00

I wasn't ready yet with reproducing the intelligent comments by Green-Left Leader Femke Halsema about Wilders' manipulation of the media, the Parliament and public opinion about his little anti-Islamic movie on HUIBSLOG [NL], when an alert of the Dutch daily "De Volkskrant" announced, that he had published it on "LiveLeak" today.

I have the "YouTube" version here, that features an English translation of the (sparse) comments in Dutch:

Now I understand, why Mr. Wilders was not very keen on publishing his little movie. It is not shocking at all. We all know, that 9/11 was horrible and that terrorism is despicable. Not only fundamentalist Islamists do it, Christian fundis do the same, als well as anarchists, libertarians, hindus and shintoists. Not all of them: Far from that! Only a tiny minority. The whole movie has nothing to do with the way the overwhelming majority of today's Muslims are in their religion.

I do not see anything else than an opportunistic surge into racism, with the sole intention to frighten the people and to seduce them into accepting a leadership that is undemocratic and beset with violence. If Wilders is not after such an outcome, somebody should make him understand. Not tomorrow, but now.

As we said earlier: A psychiatrist is urgently needed.

As my Dutch friends are saying: "Wilders takes us as his hostages". Our shame about him, shouldn't prevent us from taking decisive action. We are living in a liberal, respectful, democracy, after all.

Technorati Tags: Netherlands, Wilders, Populism, Islam

Christian and Muslim Dreams Of Empire: Turkey and Holland

2008-03-09T01:46:00.006+01:00

Thanks to Google Reader, I found this post in the Fistful Of Euros Blog:

Dreams of empire (plus bleg for our Turkish readers)
from A Fistful Of Euros by Guy La Roche
Via Dutch weblog Sargasso.
Somebody in Turkey posted the following video to YouTube:

This was picked up by Sargasso and one of their Dutch readers posted the following response:

Totally inane, of course, but I think it is rather amusing.
And now my bleg for our Turkish readers. Is the YouTube video Great Türkic State
a spoof or is there something more serious, as in juvenile fantasies,
behind it?
Unfortunately, I cannot read the comments to the vid, hence
the question.
I know of Turkish nationalism, but I cannot believe this
would extend to… China.

Well, Guy, the 15 comments on Sargasso by Dutch readers (updated up to 08.03.08, 18:06) are as reserved, ironic and humoristic as your comment is. #03 "Bismarck" says (07.03.08, 22:01) [translation]: "When I was 10 years old, I had the same kind of fantasies. I extended our territories and made a forceful power (or powers) occupy all territories available." 26 Minutes later (#04), he points to a similar imperial fantasy on YouTube, this time Serbo-Russian.
For readers who are interested in subconscious and half-conscious Dutch imperial dreams, I submit some explanations to the second YouTube video you show. It was submitted to Sargasso by "Ini" (#08) at 8:17 in the morning of the following day (8.3). I presume, Ini has spent the night at its' conception.
During the first 12 seconds of the 30-seconds video, the orange Dutch appropriation of the world starts with Indonesia (until 1949 a Dutch colony). Australia is next. It was discovered by Dutch sailors, notably Abel Tasman (who gave his name to Tasmania), during the 17th century, before the British took possession of it. The same applies to New Zealand (named after the Dutch province of "Zeeland"). Manhattan (New York) was a Dutch trade post that was given to the British at the peace treaty of 1662 in exchange for Surinam. The Caribbean Dutch isles of Curaçao etc. also figure on the map. South Africa and parts of Madagascar and the Dutch possessions in West Africa: The latter became English during the Napoleonic wars. The former, populated with Dutch banned criminals and some shiploads of poor Dutch orphan girls, plus German refugees and French Protestants, were incorporated into the British Commonwealth at the turn of the former centuries, thanks to the "Boer" wars. At the Berlin conference of 1878, Madagascar, with its Indonesian immigrants, was incorporated into the French sphere of influence.
So far for more or less understandable Dutch claims.
The other 18 seconds of the video make the whole European Union Dutch and fill the rest of the whole world with orange. Why orange? - Because of the colours of the Dutch royal family, who was (amongst others) nominally heriditary of the French County named "Orange" in the Rhone valley, until the French Revolution (1789-1791).
The author of the video doesn't explain him(her)self. I presume, that he/she followed the same fantasy as the young princess Wilhelmina (born 1880) did during the nineties of the 19th century, when she drew a Dutch imperium over most of Northern Europe, and adding all (former) Dutch possessions in the world (see above).
The commenters on Sargasso appreciate the little video. They understand that the Turkish claims to (former) Turk or Turkmene territories are as empty as supposedly English claims to Anglian an Saxonic territories on the continent would be.
I liked most a comment on Sargasso (#15, at 08.03.08, 18h06), that said:
"Toch geeft zo’n filmpje een mooi alternatief voor de opname van Turkije in de EU: De opname van de EU in Turkije!"
[Translation: "A little video like that provides a nice alternative for the incorporation of Turkey into the EU: An incorporation of the EU into Turkey!"]
Because of a (temporary?) problem at the Fistful site, I couldn't insert this text into the comments rubrique over there. I'll insert a reference as soon as technically possible.

Technorati Tags: Turkey, Europe, Netherlands, UK, YouTube

And what about our Germans? Shouldn't they adopt torture too?

2008-02-20T03:51:00.001+01:00

Ulfkotte and his works

Well, here we are in the land of Udo Ulfkotte. Mr. U.U., before the 11th of September 2001, was convinced, that terrorist actions were mostly due to covert actions of Israel (Gencode "J"). After that date, he changed dramatically his orientation. Europe is victim to an Islamist conspiracy, and left-leaning authorities are their objective or subjective accomplices. Ulfkotte inspires with his so-called "informations" on Islam a whole community of German nationalists and supremacists, who leave their ideas on the comment pages of "Politically Incorrect" and other Hetzblogs.

Although he is under suspicion in Belgium (Antwerp) and in Holland (Amsterdam) of distributing knowingly false informations about immigrants in those cities and the attitude of communal authorities, he continues to publish false information about those EU partners, and declines to correct them, even if evidence is sent to him.

Ulfkotte did not yet give an opinion on the torture issue. Under US pressure, some German authorities let it be known, that they are in favour of, for instance, waterboarding, as a means to deal with presumed terrorists. We are waiting for Ulfkottes verdict. Can we return to Nazi times, and do with captured people everything we want, or is the German Constitution still upright? As soon as "Akte Islam" pubishes its opinion, we 'll keep you informed.

Sarkozy Plan about European guilt: Adoptions galore!

2008-02-20T03:42:00.003+01:00

Sarkozy and his Holocaust Adoption Plan

I am brooding about a proposal to my French readers, to make 81-91 year old Frenchmen forcibly adopt a Jewish French child who was a victim of the 1941-44 holocaust. In my opinion, that would be much more to the point, than French president Sarkozy's idea to impose such a forced "adoption" non all French children at the age of 11. Our octagenarians were in their twenties and thirties, when they could have done something (more) against the deportation of more than 100.000 Jews from France to the Nazi extermination camps.

Shame

It is their shame, allowing for the positive exceptions, that French railwaymen rode without problem the trains of death to their destinations, it is their problem, that the "rafle" of the vélodrôme d'hiver could happen, it is they who should question themselves, how the Drancy concentration camp could function unhampered in the Paris suburbia. That problem is not solved yet. In stead of charging symbolically innocent children (35% of them from immigrant parents) with that guilt, they should do wise, to end their "refoulement", make peace with their conscience and then, yes, only THEN, talk with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in order to demand them to oppose resolutely and without compromise, without subterfuge, and always, genocide and racial discrimination.

Isn't that a better idea than Sarkozy's? I appeal to Mr. Kouchner, for here we are in an evident situation of "devoir d'intervention". The Government, he is a member of, seems to be going to culpabilise French 11-year olds, for something, they are not reponsible for at all. And, in the case of the 35% immigrant children, even their fathers and grandfathers are completely innocent of. This is a form of state-brainwashing, that cannot stand his high humanitarian principles. I do not imply, that the holocaust history should not be taught to French children. Not at all. More attention than now should be given to it. But, please, do it in a historical context, that children of that age can understand!

Other European Countries should Join!

And, thinking about contexts, why should the French Government limit itself to genocides that were perpetrated under foreign leadership? Why, for instance, not force French who are in their fifties and sixties, to adopt, each individually, an Algerian child, that has been a victim of French torture, rape and blind killing during the colonial war from 1954-1962 in that country? An estimated one MILLION Algerians met their death under French intervention. There are a sufficient number of victims in stock for that age-group. And I, for myself, I wouldn't exclude the Jewish victims of Muslim revenge in Oran or in other cities. Nor the poor pieds-noirs who were forced out of the country after the French defeat.

I do not forget the people in their seventies. For them, a Vietnamese child, victim of the French intervention after 1947, that ended so tragically in the defeat of Dien Bien Phu, is the one to adopt immediately.

Summing up: If the principle of Sarkozy's adoption plan is accepted, there is much work to do. Algerian victims and their torturers have to be identified. The same for the Vietnamese.

Then, after the French setting an European example, the British will adopt massively Indian, Burmese, Boer, Egyptian, Persian, Pakistanese, Sudanese, Chinese, and I do not know who else as adoptive children. I do not forget my Dutch and Belgian contemporaries: The former will adopt each an Indonesian child, victim of the so-called "Police-Actions" 1946-1949, while the latter will tend to a Congolese child, raped and mutilated in the wars, the Belgians helped to bring about in their former royal colony.

And why not the Spanish (republican -and non-republican- victim children from the thirties civil war), the Italians (Ethiopian children, victims of the Mussolini invasion) and the Portugese (from all former colonies under Salazar)?

And the Germans, what do we do with our dear Germans? The elder generations have mostly died. The younger ones are pro-Israelian and pro-American. They do not want a new holocaust, even the most right-wing among them. The Germans, they are against the Turks, or the Islam, generally. Allowing, again, for the notable exceptions. Our advice to the Germans is in the next post...

Kosovo - a Precedent?

2008-02-20T03:34:00.001+01:00

Kosovo - a precedent?

I was against the US-NATO war against Serbia when it was fought, in March-May 1999. It is not that I am a friend of Milosevic, far from that. But restoration of the freedom the Kosovar Albanians had under Tito, could have been realised in many other ways. Launching a war of destruction against the Beograd youth who guarded the bridges over the Duna river, against the automobile workers of Kragujevac and bombing the civil airport of the Montenegrin capital, is certainly not my idea of humanitarian intervention. It was more the style of US interventions under the Monroe doctrine in Latin America.

Europe shouldn't have allowed it. Even if you do NOT condemn the way that war was fought, you cannot be happy with its results, from an European point of view. European states should not be dependent on ethnic homogeneity. it is impossible: Ethnicities are mixed among each other in a pattern that reflects centuries of history. A state is judged by its capacity to guarantee and to implement equality of all its citizens before the law and by how it supports cultural freedom for all groups of people who live within its borders.

That is how Europe deals with Hungarians in Slovakia and Rumenia. That is, what Europe demands from Turkey, when we speak of Kurds and Armenians. That is, what Spain allows the Catalans and what Britain allows the Irish in Northern Ireland. That is, why everybody with a sense of civility, opposes a divided Cyprus. And that is, why dividing Belgium into two states, is so disastrous.

After 1999, with the Serb sovereignty over Kosovo confirmed by the security Council of the UN, there were plenty of opportunities left for the EU, to impose a civil construction upon Kosovars as well as Serbs, that would have preserved a federal Serb state with internationally guaranteed minority rights. But the UN rulers of the occupied province, beginning with the maverick Kouchner (now French foreign secretary under Sarkozy), denied the Serbs and the Balkan nations in general, what was already then accepted European standard. In a not so far away future, Dayton (compromises about Bosnia, 1995) and the independence of Kosova (2008), will be seen as fatal errors that may have caused new wars and ethnic cleansings.

Europe and the Belgian Collapse

2008-02-20T03:25:00.003+01:00

Belgian Collapse?

O
my, how wrong I was, when I wrote last November, that the Belgian surrealist magicians were about to solve the national crisis! (Toto le Psycho: "Plan B s'exécute"). There is no plan. Government Ministers are on permanent strike [NL].

Today's Arte television digs into the stubborn Flemish idea of independence. Some marginal Flemish leftist tells them, that it is simply a Flemish employers' illusion. He says they think they will get more profit when the Walloons are out and the obedient catholic Flemish workforce would be alone to confront them. I hadn't thought at that scenario. It is somehow too fantastic, but I am not convinced that it is completely wrong, any more.

Those Flemish entrepreneurs, do they forget, that without Brussels, which is not Flemish, but not Walloon either, their economic power will be more and more illusionary? I cannot believe that. But how could we explain then, this course to a destruction of the Belgian state, which they do not oppose?

I am a Dutch-European Belgian, of Brussels conviction, to paraphrase a Flemish Brussels intellectual, interviewed by Arte, tonight. I cannot tell my new compatriots how to act. I risked a series of suggestions about my city, Brussels, who is to be the orphan of any possible compromise between Flemish and Walloon provincials. In line with my anti-autoritarian tradition, I proposed last week, that the Brussels people themselves create a full-fledged region-community (the
last one multilingual) and leave the other two quarreling regions alone. (Et si les Bruxellois créaient leur communauté à eux?, Toto Le Psycho [FR]). The Dutch version is here. They earned some not unfavourable comment on Medium4You, the Brussels BloggersBlog.

But there is no new 1830 in view. The Brussels people are not (yet) in a mood to defy their two new egocentric rulers. I do not see, however, another way out.

Late Dutch Revenge for the way, the big Powers made a fool of them in Srebrenica

2008-02-03T15:58:00.001+01:00

Why do the Dutch and the Belgians block an SAA?

A Fistful of Euros wonders, why the Dutch dare (together with the Belgians) to block a Serbian Accession Agreement to the EU. The SAA was intended to help the less extremist Serbian factions to accept (grudgingly) Kosovar independence, and to open a fast track to Serbian inclusion into the EU.

Mladic and Karadzic in 1994/95

For both intentions, it is a lame compromise: Even moderate Serbs will not agree, in a foreseeable future, with the breaking of the 1999 UN guarantee of the territorial integrity of Serbia, including Kosovo. They are supported by Russia and by a number of EU members who fear irredentist claims in their own countries. And, less important, but significant, by a growing cabal of extreme right-wing American/European anti-Islam activists. The latter warn against the creation of another "Islamic" state on European soil, like Ariël Sharon of Israel already did in 1999.

On the other side, there is no argument about the necessity and unavoidability of a Serbian membership in the EU. Neither in the most Eurosceptic circles in the EU, nor in Serbia itself. Serbian EU-membership will come, sooner or later. But not now.

The SAA was a wrong signal:
It will not help more moderate nationalists to win today's presidential elections. Perhaps it would even have weakened Tadic and his followers. Serbian frustration over coming European support for an independent Kosova will anyhow have the upper hand over hopes to be in the EU soon.

A commenter, Ivan Nicolic, on A Fistful of Euros, has quite another view:

So, what do we get? We get that the Dutch are blocking democratic Serbia that had nothing to do with Srebrenica, moreover that was fighting against Milosevic, the same person that was giving assistance to those who are accused to be guilty, and yet, asking from Serbia to be responsible for arresting and delivering those two to the Tribunal in Hague, although they are citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Maybe some argument could be found for Mladic, because for some time he was hiding in Serbia, but for Karadzic there is no basis at all to connecting him to Serbia.

Correction: Former JNA General Mladic is a citizen of Serbia, is living publicly in Belgrade and meets there regularly with old comrades from the Yugoslav Army in public places. From time to time, when there is a surge of pressure for his arrest, he goes into hiding in Montenegro.
Nikolic' conclusion on the Dutch move:

And why? Because the Dutch need to wash them selves in their own eyes, not taking into consideration that they could cause even more damage.

Well, I think, that the Dutch accepted the horrible truth about Srebrenica, too late, but nevertheless some five years ago, when the Report on the Srebrenica mission that was commissioned by the Dutch Government, provoked its downfall (April 2002).

Americans and EU-big powers made a fool of the Dutch Srebrenica batallion
Apart from their own failures (politically and military), another, important, circumstance came then finally into the open: The big powers had intentionally left the Dutch Government in the dark about the arrangements they had made with Milosevic and Karadzic/Mladic, about giving up the UN-protected Muslim enclaves (like Srebrenica) to the Serbian Bosnians as a precondition for the ceasefire that was to end the armed phase of the Bosnian conflict later in 1995.

That is why I took the liberty to comment today on the Fistful-site, as follows:

In my opinion, the Dutch Government is taking revenge for the scandalous way, it was kept uninformed of the big countries’ arrangement with Milosevic/Karadzic in the spring of 1995, i.e., to give the latter green light to do away with the (UN-protected) Muslim “enclaves” in Serbian Bosnia, like Srebrenica.
Frustration about the NATO allies, who did not come forward with the promised air support, is still great in the country.
The whole affair has been documented by Frank Westerman (1996,in Dutch), the 2002 Dutch government-commissioned report by the Amsterdam Institute of War-Documentation (English version at the Dutch Government website) and most recently by Florence Hartmann (Paix et Chatiment, November 2007, French), the former porte parole of Carla Del Ponte (TPIY).

The Dutch, while officially referring to the TPIY procedure, are unofficially saying to the Brits, the French (and the US): “Milosevic died, before he could be brought to confirm the 1994/5 deals with you about Srebrenica at the The Hague Court. Give us Mladic, who you helped to protect for more than 17 years, and who is freely walking around in Belgrade, and we’ll see!”

A slightly different French version of this opinion is on: L'Europe Chez Soi, Toto Le Psycho and HUIBSLOG. The Brussels Medium4You Blog Journal also carries that French version, where it provoked some interesting comments.

Technorati Tags: Serbia, Netherlands, Belgium, Srebrenica, European Union

Bulgaria: Children's Homes and Local libraries

2008-02-01T23:06:00.000+01:00

Children abuse and neglect

Back in Brussels, yesterday night, I set foot in a country, shaken by the reporting (originally by the English BBC, and reissued by the Flemish-language public TV) about one of the Bulgarian "orphanages",where not only poor orphans, but also children with a mental handicap and children from criminal families are being stowed away, subject to abuses and neglect.
The Bulgarian children's home in question happens to be located in the region I visited last week. Like a number of similar ones, it is located in a village or small town. Many children are of Rom (Tzigan)origin.
(Derelict apartment buildings in NE Plovdiv, central Bulgaria - the families of the abanoned children live in houses like those)

I do not know, if the situation was better before the year1989, when In Romania (where the same scandal existed) and in Bulgaria the state-controlled system was replaced by rather rude configurations of capitalism. The Bulgarian "home" in question is located in the southern part, at the feet of the Rhodopes Mountains. Ethnic and cultural minorities live there together.
A small economic upsurge is going on in the region,because of growing tourism and of settling of Western Europeans, who buy properties (very cheaply) there. More and more, the (changing)local population is becoming outraged at those scandalous institutions in their midst. I saw the arrestation of a monitor of one of those homes reported on Bulgarian television. The man was accused of sexual abuse of little Rom girls. I think, that there is some hope, that the combination of foreign and national outrage will help, to do away with the scandal. A Belgian Government delegation is visiting Bulgaria and the homes at this moment. Tonight Bulgarian TV showed the Belgians being received in a model institution, that has nothing in common with the home the reporting was about. (Thanks for the tip to my Plovdiv friends).

What the local libraries could do
Another reason, why I am talking about this, is, that we had to say "no" to an eventual participation of the local libraries system in that Bulgarian region within the network I was speaking of in the preceding Log. The reason for that is possibly as sad as the children's home scandal is. The local library system is so under-equipped, that it should first be helped to put up some very basic infrastructure and training. Only then, could it think of developing the skills and the methods the Network is about. There is not enough staff and they are underpaid. The staff get training in software, but there is virtually no hardware and no internet.

Why is there a link between bad care for marginalized children, located in poor regions, and local libraries? That is what I intend to explain to some local librarians, colleagues of the Bulgarian ones, here in Belgium. It runs like this:

Regenerating communities is done by a transversal approach. Why? It is easy to figure out: If, for instance, you renovate the apartment buildings, after one year they will be again in a bad state, if you do not do something, at the same time,about unemployment, schools, etc. If children are not well fed, if they remain constrained to their beds the whole day long, better schools will not help. Programmes by the local library will help the people concerned, to see these connections. It is not (only) a police or a criminal matter. Ethnic and racial prejudices could block efforts to find solutions. That is why a four-year programme for equipping local cultural centers and their librarians with the tools to do their work, is one of the essential transversal measures to be taken.

My second trip to eastern Europe has left me with at least two huge tasks here in Brussels.

Bush and Blair: Bank-Swapping?

2008-01-10T14:14:00.001+01:00

Two CNN-alerts:

1. Tony Blair to join JP Morgan
01/10/08 02:18 AM, EST
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who left Britain's Downing
Street last June, starts work Thursday with one of the best known-banks
on Wall Street.

2. Bush arrives in West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders
01/10/08 03:16 AM, EST
Pushing a "historic opportunity" to work for Middle East peace, President George Bush arrived in the West Bank Thursday to meet with Palestinian leaders, a day after huddling with their Israeli counterparts.

I thought that Blair was Peace-Envoy for the Quartet to Israel and the Palestinians who live in Gaza and on the West Bank,
while Bush is to go in 2009 to some Middle Eastern Investment Bank in Washington, co-owned by the Family Bush.

A new trend among good friends: Bank-Swapping?

Technorati Tags: Bush, Blair, USA, UK, Palestine, banks, Swapping

Juan Cole on another Invasion of the Middle East: Napoleon in Egypt (1798)

2007-12-10T16:02:00.000+01:00

Readers of this Blog often see my Informed Comment-faves on Iraq and the Middle East in general. Their author, history professor Juan Cole, gets a biographical note below. I borrow the following text from a recent post in the FireDogLake Blog by Swopa.

You should go there and read the interesting discussion of the book between Cole and some readers.

Juan Cole was one of the first and most valuable voices to vault into public attention from the political blogosphere. As America blindly stumbled into Iraq in 2003, Cole's analyses and daily summaries of Arabic-language news at Informed Comment became an essential counterweight to government-dictated propaganda in the U.S. media for tens of thousands of regular readers.
But as an outstanding and experienced historian, Dr. Cole's knowledge ranges far beyond Iraq. In Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, Cole provides the same perspective and keen insight regarding a military incursion that occurred two centuries ago -- the French effort, led by then-general Napoleon Bonaparte, to invade and occupy Egypt.

Cole’s fluency in both French and Arabic enabled him to scour and compare contemporaneous sources in each language, and the resulting account gives equal weight to each side of the awkward collision of cultures (including attempts to discern the truth when different retellings conflict). And the tone, although well-informed, is scarcely academic -- because Cole's sources include numerous eyewitness journals, letters, and other firsthand reports, he is able to weave a rich, complex narrative that is as involving as any novel on the subject could be.

Although he almost never makes a direct connection, Cole doesn't have to mention Iraq for several elements of his story to resonate with modern-day news junkies. It's hard not to hear the echoes of neocon self-absorption in Napoleon's efforts to blend Enlightenment philosophy with brutal military conquest, or Iraq quasi-viceroy L. Paul Bremer's clueless egotism in Bonaparte's hamfisted communications with the people of Cairo, or especially the similarly dogged, draining insurgencies that result from a distant nation's attempt to impose its will on millions of people.

The details Cole gleans from his research (some of which he continues to post at a blog devoted to the book), though, make Napoleon's Egypt a unique and personal tale worth reading in its own right. With that, I am delighted to be able to introduce Juan Cole, who is joining us to answer questions about the book.

My appreciation: Juan Cole succeeds in doing two things that, on top of one another, normally are above the forces of a normal human being.

1. He publishes one or more daily inside-informations about what is going on in Iraq, summarily put into the context of his vast knowledge of the Middlke East political, social, economic and historical landscape. Informed, quick and oblective.
2. He continues his in-depth studies, like this one, and plays a role in defending academic freedom against conservative, biased intrusions by the actual US Government, its services and satellite watchdogs, like the AEI & c.

Asked last year, during a brief visit to Holland, how he manages doing so many things in one day, his reply was, that he types very, very quickly on the keyboard... :-)

The Book
The Napoleon book (click on the image to see its Amazon.com page) is reviewed on Amazon by Reed Elsevier as follows:

In July 1798, Napoleon landed an expeditionary force at Alexandria in Egypt, the opening move in a scheme to acquire a new colony for France, administer a sharp rebuff to England and export the values of French republicanism to a remade Middle East.
Cole, a historian of the Middle East at the University of Michigan, traces the first seven months of Napoleon's adventure in Egypt. Relying extensively on firsthand sources for this account of the invasion's early months, Cole focuses on the ideas and belief systems of the French invaders and the Muslims of Egypt.
Cole portrays the French as deeply ignorant of cultural and religious Islam. Claiming an intent to transplant liberty to Egypt, the French rapidly descended to the same barbarism and repression of the Ottomans they sought to replace. I
slamic Egypt, divided by class and ethnic rivalries, offered little resistance to the initial French incursion.
Over time, however, the Egyptians produced an insurgency that, while it couldn't hope to win pitched battles, did erode French domination and French morale. Perplexingly, Cole ends his account in early February 1799, with Napoleon still in control of Egypt but facing increasingly effective opposition. Napoleon's attack on Syria is only mentioned, not detailed, and his return to Cairo and eventual flight to France are omitted altogether.
In a brief epilogue, Cole makes an explicit comparison between Napoleon's adventure in Egypt and the current American occupation of Iraq. Though at times episodic and disorganized, this doesn't detract from the value of Cole's well-researched contribution to Middle Eastern history. Illus. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Georg W. Bush is everything opposite to the 1798 Napoleon. He has no enlightenment objectives. Compare the fate of the invaluable objects robbed from the Iraq National Museum in April 2003 under the eyes of the American invaders with the way Napoleon's expedition opened the way, (through the 3-lingual Rosette Pyramid) to understand ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
I stick to my Caligula comparison. Which is sad enough.
But interesting parallels can be found in the disastrous military history of the temporary occupation. It is there, that Cole applies his "micro"-approach (known from his Informed Comments" on Iraq), citing an abundance of letters home from French participants in the expedition.
The book doesn't describe the end of Napoleon's expedition. However, the way Napoleon and the top generals abandoned the thousands of lesser soldiers they brought to the country, when their defeat became apparent, may forebode the way, in which Bush will end his Iraq adventure.

Buy and read the book.
European readers: On Amazon, switch to Amazon.uk, Amazon.de or to Amazon.fr, to get delivery for a more reasonable charge. Belgian and Dutch readers may prefer to try Proxis, that has an excellent English language books store. French translation of this Post to be published on HUIBSLOG and L'Europe Chez Soi.

After some traveling: Back to Business!

2007-12-06T02:09:00.000+01:00

In October and November, I visited Istanbul and the Balkans by car; went to the opposite side of the European area to the Canary Islands and Morocco by plane. It has been some weeks without direct reporting or commenting in English on European affairs.
But in December, we'll see some fruits of those explorations.
Istanbul was the location of a conference on city regeneration in Europe, organised jointly by the world architects and urbanists organisation INTA, a transborder, Italian-led, cities network, and the Anadolu High School, who was host. Multimillion Istanbul agglomeration played no real role in this event. I tried to discover it on my own. My hopes for Turkish integration into the EU were not disappointed. Istanbul is a modern, western city with all the problems and opportunities that go with such a status.
I stopped by in central Bulgaria, where I discovered the ancient city of Plovdiv (Philippople - Philippopolis, ancient Macedonian capital). Presence of an EU agency, charged with seeking solutions for discrepancies with the EU acquis. Problems with Turkish and islamo-slavic minorities as well as with gypsies. And a rich series of unused opportunities: economic, social and cultural.
Driving back home, I revisited the Serbian countryside, where, as long ago as 1962, we helped to build a motorway ("autoput") between Belgrade and Nish. The Velika Plana people occupy still a warm spot in my memory. However, their actions in Bosnian Srebrenica, just over the Drina border, in 1995, when they started to kill over 8.000 Muslim inhabitants under the eyes of a Dutch UN force, were still visible on the Potocari location. Most shocking were the graffitti the Dutch soldiers left behind after their shameful retreat.
Croatia and Slovenia showed much progress in Europeanisation. Slovenia is already a member of the EU and it is using the Euro as currency. A small, industrious and Austria-dominated region, good at delivering services and receiving tourists. Croatia could become a second, and smaller Poland, in the EU. Very catholic, very pro-US, and, if I may believe Ulfkotte on that point , completely subdued by western secret services and their hired companies. Infrastructure very modern and very privatised.
The Canaries are a subtropical outpost of Spain. No effort has been neglected, to make this African archipelago look like a normal Spanish province. Some 100 KMs from the Moroccan Saharian coast, Europe's Florida is thriving. Two million inhabitants. Equipped with everything you would expect in an 21st century western country.
100 KMs away, lies Morocco, or, to be exact, the former Spanish Sahara, that has been claimed and occupied by Morocco. I was there in 1979. A guerilla was then, and still now, being fought by the saharian nomadic people, bleeding the Moroccan army and resources as well as theirs. No solution on the horizon.
In Morocco itself (Casablanca, Meknès, Rabat, Tangier, Marrakesh), I studied the work of urban regeneration colleagues, working in deprived bidonvilles, where islamist groupings steal the show by providing material and medical help. Conditions for a more secularist and emancipation-oriented policy are weak. No money, no urgency on government level. What could the EU do? Most investments under association contracts go to big infrastructural undertakings. My contribution to another policy could be a research into the conditions under which, some decades ago, the European middle classes decided to forge the welfare state. Such conditions, evidently do not exist in 2007 Morocco. Modernisation, as applied by the new king, in matters like more freedom for women, mostly help middle class and upper class people, who have no interest in sharing their wealth with the poor masses.
Moroccan civilization, its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, preserved by the French during their rule from the twenties to the fifties, offer many opportunities for an independent take-off. But it is not happening. It was sad to see, how a potentially rich and thriving society is condemned to serve, again and again as an economic backyard to the North.

Mr. Entenmann threatens Bigberta with murder. A setback for Ulfkotte?

2007-10-15T01:22:00.001+02:00

The German Islamophobes are putting on a higher gear.
In their hate-blogs, writes Jochen Hoff from Berlin, they are threatening publicly to murder another blogger. An example from the Kewil-Blog :

Wilhelm Entenmann / Website (13.10.07 18:34)

"Schickt n'en Fresskorb nach Sonthofen, packt 'ne Schweinhaxe hinzu,
tut auch Methylphenidat kaufen, dann ist vielleicht bald Ruh'."
Translation: "Send a food-basket to Sonthofen, join a pig-ax to it, buy also Methylpenidate, then, maybe, everything will be quiet."

The object of this call or invitation to murder, is Bigberta, who is living in Sonthofen (Southern Bavaria) and who is an active blogger against xenophobia at "Watchblog Islamophobie". Methylphenidate is a drug that is administered to (young) people who suffer from ADHD.

A certain Mr. Wilhelm Entenmann from Mannheim is the author of this prose.
Bigberta tried at first to engage in a debate with this person in the Watchblog.
But when commenters on her blog and on the Kewil Blog started to attack her even more hatefully, she closed the discussion and announced to Mr. Entenmann, that he will be held responsible in Court for his ramblings.

This creates an awful situation for Dr. Udo Ulfkotte. Although there is no direct link between him and Entenmann, as far as we can see, there is certainly one between Entenmann and "Politically Incorrect", the German anti-Islam Blog that was recently removed from the "Google News list'. "PI" is Mr. Ulfkotte's favourite source for his Islam-bashing postings. Entenmann is also a great fan of "PI", as we see on his blog.

Unconscously, Wilhelm Entenmann from Mannheim delivers proof of what Bigberta and the other bloggers who are attacked by Ulfkotte, have always said: Ulfkotte is sowing hate, racist hate, in society. Therefore, he can be called a "racist". And his ways of Islam-bashing provoke poor people like Van Themse in Antwerp and Entenmann in Mannheim, to menace people with murder. And beyond menace: they execute, what the Ulfkottes only dare to suggest...

Will Ulfkotte succeed in strangling freedom of expression on the Web?

2007-10-11T15:43:00.000+02:00

I read a nearly desperate call of one of the bloggers who are persecuted in Germany by Udo Ulfkotte.

The self-appointed Saviour of Europe (from Islam) wastes his time and money on legal quibbling against at least three German bloggers we know of, demanding huge amounts of money as compensation for alleged calumny.

As always, he uses "Pax Europa" as his vehicle to bear the brunt of his expenditure on legal fees and lawyers, as well as the risk of his finally going out empty-handed. (Like in his legal actions against Belgian authorities who forbade the Brussels 9/11 demonstration).

Ulfkotte's legal tactics have for consequence that individual antiracist bloggers are now in danger of being blooded to a financial death by legal invoices (from lawyers as well as from Ulfkotte and his Pax Europa Organization).

It is a cause of principle: Freedom of opinion, freedom of linking to other people's opinions. The Internet is something different from traditional media. It is interactive. People who feel the need to contradict something, can react, either on the site of their "detractor", or on their own site, and link it to the original post.

On the Net, it is no more like in the traditional printed-paper world. Legal provisions to protect individuals and institutions from slandering in the press, have historically been instituted to limit the abuse by mass media of their near-monopoly of the public sphere. This was done to correct a situation of unequal power, unequal access to the public tribune.

The Net, however, is much more democratic: Anybody can publish, react, link, with about equal opportunity to reach the public and the public opinion. Therefore, everybody can, within the limits of the law, more freely vent his or her opinions and participate in the many dialogues that ensue. This is a fundamentally different situation from the one, the old press laws have been made in.

Does this open the way to a so-called "liberty to offend", as claimed by many ideological allies of Dr. Ulfkotte? (Viz. the danish Cartoons debate!). We do not think so. Bloggers should take up their responsibility for consequences that their words and drawings may provoke.

But nobody can upheld, that opening a discussion about racism, or hidden racism, in Dr. Ulfkotte's recent statements and actions, is irresponsible or provocative in the way, the Danish cartoons and similar systematic slandering of other people's deepest convictions are.

But Ulfkotte, undermining the opinions of his allies, also in this matter, goes for exactly the contrary of "freedom to offend". He goes for Internet Censure by the Courts.

The German Courts work with existing laws. Laws that date essentially from the printed-paper area. Laws that in the matter of press rules, have been sharpened after 1945, in order to avoid the kind of abuse, the Nazis made of the media. These laws need urgently an update for the 21st century. The actual legal situation allows anybody who has the financial means for it, to legally strangle other, less wealthy, bloggers, and to bleed them financially white with court fees and amends.

Ulfkotte has started to exploit this loophole in German jurisdiction. He sues other bloggers for "Verleumdung" (defamation), when they call him a "racist". Even if they only link to an article where such things are written!

Even if Udo Ulfkotte does not agree, and invokes "demographic" reasons for his islam-bashing, the opinion, that Ulfkotte's ramblings are of a racist nature, can be perfectly sustained:

In other countries, where legislation is not narrowed by post-1945 fears of nazist revival, an authority on Islam-Western relations like Olivier Roy, has been able to freely characterise as "racist" a maverick French philosopher (Robert Redeker), who wrote a perfectly "ulfkottean" article in the Paris daily 'Le Figaro'. (Olivier Roy in 'Esprit', November 2006 [FR]). That is why Germany urgently should modernize its legislation on the protection of personal integrity in the media, especially ont the internet. And that is why, if the German Courts would follow Ulfkotte's injunctions, an appeal to the European Court of Justice could well turn into a final victory for the attacked bloggers.

That Ulfkotte abuses of these provisions that were originally intended to guard against new Nazism, in order to silence his critics from the antiracist left, is is proven by the fact, that he doesn't undertake anything against those who defame him from the right. (Examples in At Home in Europe, october 3, 2007). Such a behaviour has never been the intention of the legislators! German parliament and Courts should urgently undertake steps to correct the old provisions in order to make them applicable to the internet-epoch.

Those, who stand up so vehemently for "the freedom to offend" (vide Danish Mohammed Cartoons debate, as well as Ajaan Hirsi Ali's statements to that effect), should also take action here against Ulfkotte and his organization. Freedom is indivisible. If Ulfkotte's anti-Islamist allies let him have his way against anti-racist bloggers, their turn will come next.
Ulfkotte's former "SIOE"-allies from Denmark and Britain are already aware of the possibility that Ulfkotte may do his disorganizing and destabilizing work at the service of unknown secret services! (At Home in Europe, September 13)

So, the only thing that is left to do next, is to organise a public action of bloggers (from left and right) to make Ulfkotte and Pax Europa stop their legal advocacy against freedom of expression on the Net. On the 15th of November, in Frankfurt, a provisional hearing by the Court will decide about the procedure to follow.

Time is short. An appeal to the European Court should be envisaged, if German judges choose to follow Dr. Ulfkotte and his Pax Europa Verein.

It is important, that German judges and legislators be aware of what is at stake, before the Frankfurt Court holds its preliminary hearings on November 15 in the first two cases of Ulfkotte advocacy against freedom of expression on the Web!

Imperfections of EU roaming charges victory

2007-10-08T21:17:00.000+02:00

My small contributions (see under 'roaming charges' in my Euroblogs, [EN], [FR], [DE] and [NL]) to the reform of European "roaming charges" (costs for appeals from and to mobile telephones in Europe from and to different countries/providers) have some reason to be celebrated: Finally, on September 30, all providers are obliged to apply the European maximum tariffs of 49 cts p/Minute for calling abroad, and 24 cts p/Minute for receiving an international call (Plus national VAT).

This means a 60% reduction of consumer costs, coming too late for holiday roamings, but nevertheless welcome. The more so, while costs will continue to be capped at lower levels during the coming years.

Imperfections
SMS- and GPRS (internet) roaming have still to be tackled. If providers do not limit themselves, measures have been announced this week in Brussels, to discipline them.
The application of the caps comes also 3 months too late. It could have been applied on July 1st. That was the intention of the Commission and the European Parliament. Somehow, the providers managed to delay it during the three summer months, thus profiting from the consumers needs to call home during holidays.

I myself, being a customer of the Belgian Proximus provider (an affiliate of the giant British Vodafone networks), received today an August bill of € 88.89 (21% Belgian VAT included). International and roaming calls are billed in it for about 0.75 € p/Minute (VAT not included). This in spite of the fact, that I am a member of Vodafone Passport, that allows lower tariffs if I call to or from Vodafone-affiliated networks in Europe. Otherwise, I would have had to pay still more.

During our holidays (the August part), I called from Belgium to France, Spain and the UK; from France to Belgium and the UK; from Spain to Belgium, and the UK. And I received several calls from Holland, Belgium, the UK and Spain in different countries. Always via Vodafone Networks, where the Vodafone Passport is applicable.

Total minutes outgoing European intl calls: 73.43 Minutes
Total Proximus/Vodafone price (without VAT): € 43,1682
Also a middle price p/Minute of: 0,5878, which is 9,878 cts more per minute than it should have been.
Calls received abroad: 2,04 Minutes at 0,8182 € = 0,4011 €.
That is 16,01 cts more p/Minute than should have been billed.

All in all, Proximus/Vodafone stole from me in a petty way (for they could easily have applied the new tariffs by July), in one month:
73.43 x 9.878 + 2.04 x 9.878 = 725,34154 + 20,15112 cts = 745,49266 cts, or 7.45 €, which means: € 9.02 VAT included, or: somewhat more than 10% of my entire bill! Multiply by three months.

This petty manoeuver, during three months, and multiplied by all other consumers' bills (except for corporations, who enjoy preferential tariffs since long), may have paid for the consultants and lobbyists Vodafone hired in 2005-2007, to counter the EU Commission's proposals with literally every possible counter-argumentation. The venerable Financial Times duly reported their ramblings, and was echoed by other media.

We need the EU to protect consumers
All this shows, how necessary (and not at all impossible) it is, to regulate the "free" market with overall European regulations, as long as oligopolists try to profit from the remainders of compartimentalisation by country. (In this case: the fact that licences are being issued by national governments, who receive also the fees).

I celebrate above all this proof of the capability of EU-cooperation, to get provider-consumer relations right on this issue. For the odds were not small: A formal, well financed campaign of big and smaller providers like Vodafone (GB) and France Telecom has been raging. But they did not prevail against Swedish Eurocommissioner Viviane Reding (EUobserver.com, October 2).

This case is a weapon against Euroscepticism. It should be used.

(Parts of this post were originally published at huibslog)

Europe's right-wing extremists show us, how to discuss differences of opinion

2007-10-01T18:57:00.000+02:00

Europe's right-wing extremists show us, how to discuss differences of opinion in a way, compatible with European judeo-christian values. The invectives cited below, are undoubtedly part of the European Christian heritage, particularly that of the years 1922-1945.

No, no: It has not been the popular hate-manifestation that Europe's baldheads hoped for. A mere 200 people gathered on September 11 at the Luxemburg Train Station and the Schuman Square. Most of them were Vlaams Belang activists, who saw the event from their own Flemish perspective: To them, not the "Eurabisation of Europe" was the issue, but the fact, that a socialist, francophone, politician initiated the interdiction. Thus: Yellow lion flags all over! (Photo)
The Anglodanish organisers were not amused at all. But who can forbid freedom of expression on foreign soil? Brethren: You'll have to live with national and regional particularities and sensibilities, if you want to create an Europe of your design...
SIOE not only blames the German maverick politician Udo Ulfkotte for it, bur now also the Flemish extremist party Vlaams Belang.

SIOE website (England), 14.9.07:

SIOE considers that Vlaams Belang played right into Thielemans’s hands, which he must now be rubbing together with glee with an “I told you so” look on his fat face.

Some female Vlaams Belang supporters jokingly wore niqabs in Schumann Square.

Well, if Vlaams Belang doesn’t get its finger out of its political ass pretty damned quick, such women may find themselves compelled to wear niqabs when outdoors, if they are allowed out of the house.

The only way Islamism will be defeated is by fighting it single-mindedly, but you have to have a brain to have a mind, and it’s pretty obvious some leaders of some political parties are brainless.

SIOE-England is good in inventing invectives.
"Single-mindedness" is its trademark.
And, when SIOE burst out into the above philippica, it still had to undergo the treason by Udo Ulfkotte, who retired to Cologne at the last moment.

No wonder, that SIOE-England and -Denmark replied to Ulfkotte's demand to share his costs for juridical action in Brussels, with an email, that Ulfkotte says (on the Pax Europa website), he "regrets not to be able to publish it, because of German laws for protecting identities".

But, maybe, that mail did not only reveal some juicy details about the Pax-Europa/SIOE collaboration, but it may be possible, that it also mentioned Ulfkotte's "ass" as the location where he could stick up his bills...

We demand freedom of speech on the internet! We issue an appeal to SIOE, to publish its mail to Ulfkotte. No backroom dealings between self-appointed leaders! Out in the Open, with it!

We want more of this...

(Updated Oct. 1st, 2007)

Will Ulfkotte sue now his new detractors?

2007-09-17T23:37:00.000+02:00

[Ulfkotte-Images published by SIOE-England on Sept. 7, 2007]

Udo Ulfkotte, during the summer of 2007, sued a number of German Bloggers for qualificating him as a coward, a racist and an opportunist. Conjointly with his organisation "Pax Europa" and its treasurer who is also his spouse, he demands from four or five bloggers more than 200.000 Euros as indemnification. The German Courts have, at first instance, accepted his complaints and have ordered provisional interdictions to the incriminated bloggers.

All those bloggers are from the "left", or, at least, anti racist thinkers and activists.

Now, after his desertion from the Brussels' Sept. 11 demonstration and after his denunciation of the former allies from the Vlaams Blok and from SIOE as "racists" and "extreme right-wing", he is being attacked personally and vehemently by the "right".

Here are some examples of those incriminations from SIOE (England):

Is Udo Ulfkotte exercising dhimmi-status?

(Statement from Anders Gravers and Stephen Gash regarding Udo Ulfkotte’s behaviour.)

"Dhimmi" is a very heavy qualification in Ulfkotte's and SIOE's world. Dhimmis are non-Muslims who, passively or actively, compose with the enemy. Traitors, for short.

Ulfkotte is also accused of foul play:

This [remaining in contact with SIOE-chiefs, HR] was never the case with Udo Ulfkotte. Although he corresponded with Anders fairly regularly he was never fully forthcoming with any news regarding contacts, for example, or interest shown by the media.
[..]
Ulfkotte is not a team player in our opinion and this has been shown to its extreme over the last few days with him appearing on media outlets, especially in Belgium, saying HE cancelled the demonstration.
[..]
He could not have done a better job of trying to make the court case fail to reach a verdict in our favour and undermine SIOE’s lawyer’s attempts to reinstate the march.

We regard his behaviour as despicable and we both regard Ulfkotte as a Judas to the cause of anti-Islamism.

We regard his conduct to be calculated in making the demonstration fail.

(Some emphasis is mine, HR). Here, Ulfkotte is indicted for treachery, misleading people who were dependent on his informations, and, worst of all, intentionally sabotaging efforts to legalise the demonstration. He is regarded as a "Judas to the cause of anti-Islamism".

Could anything worse be said about our staunch defender of 'judeo-christian European values"?

Yes, it can be. SIOE investigators are currently engaged in researches into Ulfkotte's connections with secret services, who could possibly have directed his actions. Ulfkotte is considered as a stooge of manipulations by "Intelligence Agencies" or as a mere opportunist politician. SIOE says:
Why this is so, we are still investigating. He may be employed by the European Intelligence Agencies, he supposedly acts as a consultant to, or it may be solely due to him selfishly pursuing his own political career.
There may be a more sinister reason, but we don’t actually know because he hasn’t had the guts to tell us.
And then follows a typical SIOE-personal bashing:

Udo Ulfkotte has declared he intends to start and lead a political party to combat Islamism.

We believe he couldn’t lead a starving donkey to grass. He is a director of Pax Europa. Well, we believe he couldn’t direct a drinking straw into a bottle.

A denunciation of the political and personal impotence of Ulfkotte, that should merit another alert of the prosecution by Pax Europa!
And look here, how the old antigermanism resurfaces, because of Ulfkotte. Pax Europa should take its responsibilities and pursue the following contempt of democratic Germany by SIOE:

Once again we say, “If Udo Ulfkotte is the best Germany has, to combat the Islamisation of Germany, then God help Germany!”

[..]
Finally, Ulfkotte is qualified as a "saboteur" and a traitor to the German people. Objectively, he is helping to impose "the sharia" on the Germans. And on all Europeans, too:

He is nothing more than a saboteur who is doing no favours for the people of Germany, let alone Europe.

In our opinion he is a pathetic coward and German people would be best advised to avoid him and his future political party, unless they wish to endure an existence under Sharia law.

Well, Ulfkotte sued people for less. For instance, he wants to fine Watchblog Islamophobie-author "bigberta" with more than 60.000 Euros, merely for linking to a blog, where Ulfkotte was qualified as a "racist".
If Mr. Ulfkotte and his Pax Europa Organisation are interested in giving proof of the fact that their juridical actions are not exclusively oriented at people whom they consider as their political enemies, but that they are seriously engaged in upholding European civilized values on the Internet, they know now what they have to do.
They know, that, if they let pass SIOE's incriminations without reaction, their chances in court against the German bloggers who warned against Ulfkotte, become very tiny.