I agree wholeheartedly. The U. S. will probably be a “Hispanic” country by 2100.
Posted on 09/14/2004 3:00:57 AM PDT by billorites
TWO TERRORIST dramas began in Iraq on the same day, Aug. 19 when jihadists separately seized 12 Nepalese workers and two French reporters. Although their fates may end differently — the former were murdered and the latter remain alive in captivity — it is striking how similarly impotent both victim populations felt and how differently they responded.
In the Nepalese case, a group of cooks, janitors, laundry attendants and other laborers had just crossed the border from Jordan into Iraq when kidnapped by Ansar al-Sunna, a violent Islamist group. On Aug. 31, an Islamist Web site showed a four-minute video of their executions.
Nepalese responded to this atrocity by venting their anger and assaulting the Muslim minority in Nepal. Hundreds of infuriated young men surrounded Katmandu’s one mosque on Aug. 31 and heaved rocks at it. Violence escalated the next day, with five thousand demonstrators taking to the street, yelling slogans like “We want revenge,” “Punish the Muslims,” and “Down with Islam.” Some attacked the mosque, broke into it, ransacked it, and set fire to it. Hundreds of Korans were thrown onto the street, and some were burned.
Rioters also looted other identifiably Muslim targets in the capital city, including embassies and airline bureaus belonging to Muslim-majority countries. A Muslim-owned television station and the homes of individual Muslims came under attack. Mobs even sacked the agencies that recruit Nepalese to work in the Middle East.
The violence ended when armored cars and army trucks enforced a shoot-on-sight curfew, leaving two protesters dead and 50 injured, plus 33 police, and doing an estimated $20 million in property damage. Thus did a frustrated, enraged, and powerless people overwhelm their authorities and target close-by innocents.
The French response could not have been more different. Threats to murder the two reporters met with a massive governmental effort to save their lives, not by targeting French Muslims but by cultivating them. Paris strenuously pushed local Islamists to condemn the kidnappings, hoping that their voice would convince the terrorists to release the two men.
In the process, Islamic organizations effectively took charge of the country’s foreign policy, issuing statements and acting as though they represented the national population. Bertrand Badie of l’Institut d’etudes politiques in Paris complained that French Muslims became “a sort of substitute for the French foreign ministry.”
Likewise on the international level, Paris called in chits for having stood with the Arabs against Israel and with Saddam Hussein against the U.S.-led coalition. French diplomats openly sought the support of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
These efforts culminated 30 years of French appeasement and, in the scathing analysis of Norbert Lipszyc, “constituted a major victory for Islamists and terrorists.” Lipszyc sees France acting like a dhimmi (a Christian or Jew who accepts Muslim sovereignty and in return is tolerated and protected). “France has publicly confirmed that its dhimmi status, its readiness to submit to Islamist overlords. In return, these have declared that France, dhimmi that it is, deserves protection from terrorist acts.”
If the hostages are released, the policy of appeasement at home and abroad will seemingly have been vindicated. But at what a price! As Tony Parkinson writes in Melbourne’s Age newspaper, “No democracy should have to jump through these hoops to keep innocent people alive.” And jumping those hoops has deep implications.
The historian Bat Ye’or, the first person to comprehend the gradual process of Europe accepting the dhimmi status, observes that this fundamental shift began with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the continent began moving “into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional transatlantic solidarity.”
Bat Ye’or points to Euro-Arab collaboration now being near-ubiquitous; it is “political, economic, religious and in the transfer of technologies, education, universities, radio, television, press, publishers, and writers unions.” She envisions this shift ending in “Eurabia,” or Europe under the thumb of Arabia. Returning to recent events: the abhorrent Nepalese violence reflected an instinct for self-preservation — hit me and I will hit you back. In contrast, the sophisticated French reaction was supine — hit me and I will beg you to stop. If history is a guide, the Nepalese thereby made a repetition of atrocities against themselves less likely. And the French made such a repetition more likely.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of “Miniatures.”
It took them half a century, but after France gave up Algeria to the Algerians, the Algerians went ahead and conquered France.
Seems like we have a lot to learn from Nepal. Who wouldda thunk!
My best friend's mother is French-algerian. She married a US serviceman & moved to the US in the late '50s. Anybody who thinks all french are appeaser pussies should talk to Mrs. G. She hates muslims & is disgusted by the islamification of france.
France is different from the US in degree, not in kind. Will a hispanic US really be any better than a muslim france? Trading our western european culture for a 3rd-world one spells doom just as much as being assimilated by the cult of islam does.
I agree wholeheartedly. The U. S. will probably be a “Hispanic” country by 2100.
Two names El Cid and Charles Martel.
Two names El Cid and Charles Martel.
Agreed. We have to keep "citizenship" sacred or we will head down the same road as the Romans did.
I think they're saying that by 2050 hispanics (of all races) will outnumber non-hispanic whites... considering the fact that the gov't says there's 8 million illegals here & it's probably well over 20 million, I'd say it'll be before 2100 when this nation becomes predominately hispanic in culture (think mexico, not Spain).
Martel was the french guy that drove the muslims out of france, wasn't he? Was El Cid the guy responsible for getting them out of Spain? I can't see a frenchman standing up to the muslims any time soon, & the Spanish recently showed a very disappointing response to muslim terrorism on their soil.
Before you can solve a problem you have to identify it. Here, our political leadership refuses to admit to one. Ask Bush & he'll say illegal aliens work hard and contribute to the economy. What he's really saying is that his big political donors benefit from cheap labor and the downward effect on wages among Americans that compete for work with them.
Ask kerry & he'll say that hispanic culture enriches America. What he's really saying is that uneducated, unskilled 3rd-worlders, dependent on social-welfare programs, vote democrat.
One of those two is going to be President.
France...the only reason they could find to stand up to terrorist is a fashion statement.
From a cultural point of view I think that I, as a New England WASP, have more in common with the values of immigrant groups, such as Hispanics, than I do with other ethnic subcultures.
I agree. See #12. U.S. Citizenship and all the rights thereof must be protected. I have no problem with immigrants, hell, the country is made up of immigrants, but it must be done properly and sincerely in order to enjoy the benefits. Otherwise, it all gets watered-down and cheapened.
Wow! I really need to dust off my history. You are absolutely correct. I was thinking Martel stopped the muslims at the Spanish/French border. Boy was I wrong...Poiters.
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