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Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam
LondonTimes Online ^ | December 04, 2004 | Charles Bremner

Posted on 12/07/2004 12:20:04 PM PST by robowombat

Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam By Charles Bremner Islamic fundamentalism is causing a 'clash of civilisations' between liberal democracies and Muslims

DAYS before she was due to be married, Ghofrane Haddaoui, 23, refused the advances of a teenage boy and paid with her life. Lured to waste ground near her home in Marseilles, the Tunisian-born Frenchwoman was stoned to death, her skull smashed by rocks hurled by at least two young men, according to police. Although the circumstances of the murder are not clear, the horrific “lapidation” of the young Muslim stoked a French belief that the country can no longer tolerate the excesses of an alien culture in its midst.

A few days ago, pop celebrities joined 2,000 people in a march through Marseilles denouncing violence against women, particularly in the immigrant-dominated housing estates. The protest against Islamic “obscurantism” and the “fundamentalism that imprisons women” was led by a group of Muslim women who call themselves Ni Putes ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissive).

The movement, which emerged three years ago to defend Muslim women, is spawning similar groups across Europe, supported by a mainstream opinion that has recently abandoned political correctness and wants to halt the inroads of Islam.

From Norway to Sicily, governments, politicians and the media are laying aside their doctrines of diversity and insisting that “Islamism”, as the French call the fundamentalist form that pervades the housing estates, is incompatible with Europe’s liberal values.

The shift is not just a reaction to exceptional violence such as the Madrid train bombings, or the murder of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamic Dutch film-maker, by a Dutch-Moroccan. It stems from a belief that more muscular methods are needed to integrate Europe’s 13-million strong Muslim community and to combat creeds that breed extremists and ultimately, terrorism. With mixed results, governments are trying to quell the scourge by co- opting Muslim leaders to promote a moderate European Islam.

In Germany, with its three million — mainly Turkish — Muslims, and France, with its five million of mainly North African descent, television viewers were shocked when local young Muslims approved of Van Gogh’s murder. “If you insult Islam, you have to pay,” was a typical response.

“The notion of multiculturalism has fallen apart,” said Angela Merkel, leader of Germany’s Christian Democrat opposition. “Anyone coming here must respect our constitution and tolerate our Western and Christian roots.” Italy’s traditional tolerance towards immigrants has been eroded by fear of Islamism. An Ipsos poll in September showed that 48 per cent of Italians believed that a “clash of civilisations” between Islam and the West was under way and that Islam was “a religion more fanatical than any other”.

Similar views can be heard across traditionally tolerant Scandinavia — and no longer just from the populist rightwing party’s such as Pia Kjaersgaard’s People’s Party in Denmark. The centre-right Government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has equipped Denmark with Europe’s toughest curbs on immigration, largely aimed at people from Muslim countries. In Sweden, where anti-Muslim feeling is running high and mosques have been burnt, schools have been authorised to ban pupils who wear full Islamic head-cover, although the measure comes nowhere near France’s new ban on the hijab in all state schools.

In Spain, with a rapidly rising population of nearly a million Muslims, the backlash has been less visible despite the bombings, but thousands demonstrated in Seville this week against plans to build a mosque in the city centre. The Government has also won approval by sending 500 extra police to monitor preachers and Muslim associations.

Police across the EU are closely watching prayer meetings in makeshift mosques in cities and housing estates, and media accounts of the jihadist, anti-Western and anti-semitic doctrines of the imams are fuelling public anger. In Germany, pressure is growing for sermons to be preached in German rather than Turkish or Arabic. Hidden TV cameras recently broadcast an imam in a Berlin mosque telling worshippers that “Germans can only expect to rot in the fires of hell because they are nonbelievers”.

The debate over the limits to free speech is loudest in France, which now acknowledges the failure of its “republican” approach to integration whereby immigrants were supposed to blend harmoniously into society and not exist in separate communities.

Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister, is deporting foreign imams who support wife-beating and other uncivilised practices. This week the Government moved to ban a Lebanon-based television channel for anti-semitic broadcasting. The left wing, which long shunned criticism of Islam as the stock-in-trade of Jean-Marie le Pen, the far-Right leader, now denounces the “totalitarian”, anti-feminist, antisemitic doctrines of the fundamentalists. Jacques Julliard, a leading left-wing commentator, said the Left’s longstanding tolerance had been used as “an agent for the penetration of Islamic intolerance”.

Some on the Left have also taken strong exception to the concept of “Islamophobia”, a supposed sin defined by EU anti-racism watchdogs as akin to anti-Semitism.

The French consensus was symbolised by the 80 per cent public support for the head-scarf ban, which started with little trouble in September. While many Muslims felt stigmatised, the Government took comfort from the approval of the ban by a substantial minority of the 10 per cent of the population that is of immigrant origin.

Among them is Fadela Amara, a Muslim town councillor from Clermond Ferrand, who heads the Ni Putes, Ni Soumises movement. “The veil is an instrument of oppression that is imposed by the green fascists,” she says. Mme Amara, who led the Marseilles march, advocates an “open Islam, an Islam of French culture a bit Gallic around the edges”. This is also the aim of the state, which two years ago created a national Muslim Council to promote moderate mainstream Islam. The council was set up by Nicolas Sarkozy, the then Interior Minister, who now heads the UMP, President Chirac’s centre-right party.

M Sarkozy has just caused a stir by going a stage further, proposing that France’s rigorously secular state fund the building of mosques. “Whether I like it or not, Islam is the second biggest religion in France. So you have to integrate it by making it more French,” he said. To general dismay, however, the national council is coming increasingly under the effective control of radicals.

Reluctantly, some intellectuals have lately concluded that the model for Europe should be the US. On Tuesday a writer for Libération, the French left-wing daily, noted that immigrants in the US threw themselves into “the American dream” and prospered. “There is no French, Dutch or other European dream,” she noted. “You emigrate here to escape poverty and nothing more."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: axisofevil; axisofweasels; elbaradei; eurabia; honorkillings; iaea; islam; muslimwomen; napalminthemorning; neoeunazis; religionofpeace; wot
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1 posted on 12/07/2004 12:20:07 PM PST by robowombat
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To: robowombat

Nice sentiment, but the Europeans hate America to the point of irrational behavior. If they sink under the weight of Islam and the demographics of aging and immigration, I certainly hope we will not be called upon (again) to right the situation.


2 posted on 12/07/2004 12:22:23 PM PST by OpusatFR (I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus under the Chrishanukwaanzramadan tree)
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To: robowombat
"Lured to waste ground near her home in Marseilles, the Tunisian-born Frenchwoman was stoned to death, her skull smashed by rocks hurled by at least two young men, according to police"

Islam - religion of peace!

3 posted on 12/07/2004 12:23:43 PM PST by patriot_wes
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To: OpusatFR

Let them sink into another 100 years war.


4 posted on 12/07/2004 12:27:20 PM PST by Brilliant
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To: robowombat

Europe is slow to learn. It took them 20 years to learn Hitler was bad. Some still don't get it.


5 posted on 12/07/2004 12:28:28 PM PST by bmwcyle (I wear sleepwear therefore I think (When they are off I am single minded))
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To: robowombat

I wouldn't want to make light of this post, but I was sure this thread was going to be about Euro potheads.


6 posted on 12/07/2004 12:28:45 PM PST by Ohiomedina (Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.)
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To: robowombat
The protest against Islamic “obscurantism” and the “fundamentalism that imprisons women” was led by a group of Muslim women who call themselves Ni Putes ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissive).

Islam's treatment of women is its Achilles heel. Islam has resisted Christianity, but it may not be able to withstand Feminism.

7 posted on 12/07/2004 12:29:45 PM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: OpusatFR

Something tells me they'd rather surrender than ask for our help.


8 posted on 12/07/2004 12:29:50 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: robowombat

"Reluctantly, some intellectuals have lately concluded that the model for Europe should be the US."

They are totally ignorant of reality, and do their utmost to avoid it, as evidenced by the first word, "reluctantly..."


9 posted on 12/07/2004 12:30:11 PM PST by Brilliant
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To: robowombat
Reluctantly, some intellectuals have lately concluded that the model for Europe should be the US. On Tuesday a writer for Libération, the French left-wing daily, noted that immigrants in the US threw themselves into “the American dream” and prospered. “There is no French, Dutch or other European dream,” she noted. “You emigrate here to escape poverty and nothing more."
10 posted on 12/07/2004 12:30:34 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: robowombat

I think the french will eventually kick out the algerians and other moslem people from france. the moslems have overplayed their hand by a country mile.

as far as the US is concerned the big thing is insuring the european moslems return to their countries of origin.

and also developing technology to kill the cost desalination so that the price of water in algeria is as cheap as it is in france.


11 posted on 12/07/2004 12:30:57 PM PST by ckilmer
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To: robowombat
Don't worry, Europe usually comes up with a solution (like Hitler) that will take care of the problem. Unfortunately, America will eventually have to take care of the solution...
12 posted on 12/07/2004 12:31:15 PM PST by 2banana (They want to die for Islam and we want to kill them)
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To: robowombat

“If you insult Islam, you have to pay,” was a typical response.

Then allow me: EAT PORK, RAGHEAD!!!


13 posted on 12/07/2004 12:31:25 PM PST by shekkian
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To: robowombat

It is has been our good fortune that when people immigrate to this country, if not the generation that immigrates, the succeeding one always become and see themselves as Americans. Immigrants in Europe never see themselves as nothing but members of their home country. Muslims are simply that, Muslims. Does not do much to nurture harmony.


14 posted on 12/07/2004 12:32:06 PM PST by speed_addiction (Ninja's last words, "Hey guys. Watch me just flip out on that big dude over there!")
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To: robowombat

ping


15 posted on 12/07/2004 12:34:06 PM PST by JeffersonRepublic.com
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To: robowombat
Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam.....who are the real Drug Pushers?

naw,....

/sarcasm

16 posted on 12/07/2004 12:37:10 PM PST by maestro
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To: OpusatFR
"If they sink under the weight of Islam and the demographics of aging and immigration, I certainly hope we will not be called upon (again) to right the situation."

We have our own "demographics of aging and immigration" problem. Thankfully it is Hispanics who are coming to our rescue instead of Muslims like in Europe. Things could be worse for us.

Unless we can convince western families to stop aborting their babies and began raising them, western culture will submerge beneath the waves of third world immigration within 100 years. There will be nothing we, or anyone else, can do about it to "right the situation".
17 posted on 12/07/2004 12:39:22 PM PST by monday
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To: OpusatFR
If they sink under the weight of Islam and the demographics of aging and immigration, I certainly hope we will not be called upon (again) to right the situation.

Oh we'll be called upon alright. I just hope we don't go.

18 posted on 12/07/2004 12:39:33 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: Aquinasfan

I wouldn't count on it. Any kind of freedom is ananthema to Islam (except the freedom to slaughter innocent people). The very foundations of Islam are conquest and submission: Conquest of infidels and submission to God, and by extension, their male (so-called) protectors.


19 posted on 12/07/2004 12:41:42 PM PST by Conservative Canuck (The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness)
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To: robowombat

I almost got stoned to death in college. That weed was potent!


20 posted on 12/07/2004 12:42:34 PM PST by Cobra64 (Babes should wear Bullet Bras - www.BulletBras.net)
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