Belgium, Islam and the Boomerang of “Multiculturalism”

With some 20 million Moslems, Western Europe is increasingly having to face the issue of their unwillingness to play by the historic rules of immigration – assimilation and respect for national laws. Long avoided by the cultural and political elites, the issue is being brought to the fore by radical, vocal and media savvy, albeit often self appointed spokesmen of the Moslem populations , as well as by an electorate increasingly fed up with high immigrant numbers, criminality and refusal to adapt to local customs. Not surprisingly, the more "tolerant, progressive and open minded" a country, the more likely that such problems become critical. While few European countries are more "progressive and open minded" than little Belgium, its recent problems with the Moslems serve as a likely preview for the others.

Belgium was this author’s first country of contact with the West, after leaving Ceausescu’s Romania some decades ago; it was also the historic source of such artists like Rubens and Van Eyck, and the location of such European artistic jewels as Bruges and Gand - or Brugge and Gent, to be politically, and linguistically correct. Indeed, Belgium is not a country at all but an unstable arrangement between the majority Flemings and the French – speaking, and culturally dominant Waloons, barely kept together by a King and the money coming from Brussels being the "capital of Europe" – European Union’s center - and headquarters of NATO.

Since 1999 the Belgian government is an absurd coalition, "arc-en-ciel" (rainbow) government of Socialists, Liberals, Christian Democrats and Greens – of both the Flemish and Waloon (French speaking) versions. Imagine a US cabinet including Al Sharpton, Ralph Nader, Bush, Daschle, and Kennedy – and one that functions, after a fashion, since 1999, in its Spanish and English versions. But, to quote Mark Twain, I repeat myself…

The usual spokesman of this strange formation is Foreign Minister Jean Louis Michel, whose outspokenness is only matched by his country’s irrelevance in the eyes of both Europeans and the world. For instance, his government decided that it has jurisdiction over all "crimes against humanity", "genocide" and so on, wherever, whenever, by whomever.

At home, as one may expect, the Belgian government is very "tolerant" - so much so as to be a concrete example of what it means to be so open minded as to have your brains fell out – and is being awaken, rudely, by its own policies. And, recently, that "tolerance" turned out to be self – inflicted poison – as one may logically expect.

Consider the latest developments in Antwerp, the country’s second largest city, with a total population of over half a million, of which some 30,000 are immigrant Moslems (many illegal) and 20,000 Jews, who make one of the oldest ( some 400 years before the arrival of the Moslems), richest and largest Jewish communities in Western Europe.

In the last few months, under the pretext of the murder of an Arab by a deranged old Fleming, something called the European Arab League (LAE) started organizing "patrols" in the city, to "watch" over the so- called "racist" police – echoes Al Sharpton’s anti – police militancy in the Big Apple.

The LAE founder, Abu Jahjah, is the poster boy of everything that is wrong and dangerous in Western European Moslem communities – and with European legal, political and cultural inadequacies to answering that danger.

Born in Lebanon, 31 of age, Abu Jahjah arrived in Belgium at beginning of the 1990s, claiming political asylum, due to alleged problems with the southern Lebanon’s dominant terrorist group, Hizbollah. His application rejected, he took a simpler way to stay -married a Flemish woman, got his Belgian citizenship and, promptly, divorced.

Then, at taxpayers’ expense, he studied political science at the (formerly prestigious) Catholic (!?) University of Louvain, where he became a Socialist Party activist and union militant.

From that fashionable political base, he founded , first, a pro – Arab group, El Rabita, later transformed into the LAE. Asked why he choose Antwerp for his activities, his answer was that he was seeking "new cultures"…But, according to the French newspaper Liberation, he sees the city as a "bastion of European Zionism" whom he seeks to transform into a "Mecca of pro-Palestinian action." And, not surprisingly, LAE’s finances remain a "mystery."

Abu Jahjah’s immediate goal, in addition to preventing the local police from dealing with the enormous criminality among immigrant Moslems, is to "simply demand our rights to housing, employment…while preserving our Arab – Moslem identity. " All that because, as quoted in Liberation, December 16, 2002, the State "must accept the reality of multiculturalism." That, presumably, means veils for girls, rejection of "pagan" science studies, taxpayer – paid special meals and vacations for Ramadan, lectures in the Quran, and, specifically, making Arabic an official language , in addition to Dutch, French and German. All these are the logical conclusion of "tolerance", "multiculturalism" and cultural suicide policies of the Brussels government.

Not surprisingly, the people of Antwerp, including, increasingly, its Jews, find the anti – Moslem, anti – immigration (same thing in that context) Flemish nationalists of the Vlaams Blok – some 30% of local votes the last elections, and growing – more and more attractive - at least in the opinion of Nathan Ramet, leader of the local Jewish community.

And what of the "moderate" Moslems? Noureddin Maloujmaoun, leader of the Executive of Belgium’s Moslems pretends that he criticizes Jahjah’s methods, but, as usual there is always a but, shares his demands.

The situation in Belgium, and specifically in Antwerp, is a case study of what Western Europe is confronted with, and refuses to face, because of its own , self – inflicted, cultural and political problems. Used for decades to instantly, indeed in a Pavlovian manner, accuse any anti – mass immigration, assimilationist or national identity – based group, party or politician of "racism" , the European elites are now faced with a popular reaction which, instead of being handled politically and rationally, is channeled by extremists - hence Vlaams Blok, Le Pen in France, etc.

The obvious principles, having to do with common sense and basic legal principles, to be applied to the uncontrollable mass of Moslem immigration from North and Sub Saharan Africa – overwhelmingly Moslem – are consistently avoided in the name of political correctness. Thus the question of immigrants’ obligations – starting with respect for national laws, which make illegal entry a crime – are never examined – just their real or, more often than not, imaginary "rights."

Is polygamy acceptable? The French legal instances prefer to avoid the issue; same with the veil, and that in a country where "laicité" is supposed to be an iron principle – particularly on the Left. Same with arranged marriages, sexual mutilation of girls, etc. – all implicitly, if not formally tolerated in the name of "tolerance" – open mindedness to the extreme…

Is this coming soon to an American community near you? You bet – already American Moslems’ self appointed leaders are clamoring for treatment similar to that of Blacks and Hispanics – never mind that they are richer than the "oppressor" white group, and nothing good to expect.

Here's an oldie but goodie for you, and if you've already seen it, for anyone who may not have:

Immigration: A Warning From Denmark

Since George W. Bush has put Social Security reform on his political agenda, it may be that immigration is now the third rail of politics. Before it becomes a subject that cannot be rationally debated, it is useful to take a good look at Denmark and the revealing report by Henrik Bering recently published in the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review.

The Danes shocked the world last September 28 when, rejecting the urging of all their political and media leaders, they voted decisively against participation in the new European currency called the euro. It now appears, according to Bering, that another reason for the euro's defeat was fears about immigration, and thereby lies a tale worth repeating.

Denmark has been in the forefront of European efforts to encourage easy immigration and integration of immigrants with the native-born population. Denmark spends one percent of its GNP on foreign aid, the highest per capita in the world.

Denmark's laws spell out generous rights for immigrants. A foreigner admitted to Denmark automatically qualifies for social benefits including free health care, schooling, job training, and an apartment within three months of his acceptance.

The Danish liberals romanticized the immigrants as innocent Third World victims of Western exploitation, people who were more in touch with nature and an understanding of life. The left propagandized the notion that people from different parts of the globe could be transplanted and assimilated into a multicultural Danish society.

In addition to fuzzy idealism, there was a practical side to this easy immigration policy. The Danish birth rate is too low to provide sufficient workers to finance the social benefits of the welfare state. The need for taxes to support the graying population demanded an influx of younger workers.

"Guest workers" started coming in the 1960s, especially from Turkey, Pakistan and the Middle East. And they kept coming; today the foreigners number about 7 percent of Denmark's population.

Conventional Danish wisdom through the 1980s was that these immigrants would be assimilated. Surprise, surprise, multiculturalism bred anger and resentment rather than integration.

Those who warned about culture clashes were ignored or called nasty names like racist or xenophobic. Today, the failure of the immigration policies is so obvious that critical reports have been published by mainstream foundations and agencies. In the middle of the euro campaign last year, the Social Democratic interior minister Karen Jespersen, a former 1960s radical, suddenly said that she "did not wish to live in" a multicultural nation "where the cultures were considered equal." She suggested isolating refugees with criminal records on a "deserted island."

Those words caused an international uproar, with spokesmen in other countries accusing her of "racially motivated ideas" and darkly threatening international opprobrium. However, few could dispute the problems caused by the refugees.

Denmark's liberal refugee policy, which grants entry to anyone who requests asylum at the border, has become an easy target for members of organized crime from the former Soviet Union, especially Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ukraine. These gangsters have no intention of becoming Danish; they prey on the local population and send huge parcels of stolen goods back to their home countries.

But it was Jespersen's statement that she doesn't want to live in a multicultural state where cultures are deemed equal that struck at a favorite fetish of modern liberals. She was reacting to demands from militant Muslims that they introduce key elements of Islamic law into Danish law, including the death penalty and even mutilation.

And that's not all. A lifelong women's rights activist, Jespersen refuses to recognize as "equal" the Muslim immigrants' practices of denying women access to the labor market, denying them the right to divorce, and subjecting them to arranged marriages.

The pro-immigration Danish politicians mistakenly assumed that, after a generation, the children of the newcomers would marry Danish girls and be integrated into the society. That just didn't happen.

It is estimated that 95 percent of Turks, even in the third generation, still import Turkish wives and even feel an obligation to import their relatives through arranged marriages. The result is a new underclass of people of different appearance and language.

When a ghetto of unassimilated foreigners reaches a certain point, the Danes move elsewhere to escape the problems in the local schools. Americans would understand this phenomenon as "white flight."

Bering describes the financial costs of immigration and the failure of the immigrants to integrate as "staggeringly expensive." Four percent of the population is now costing 34 percent of the Danish social budget, and elderly Danes who paid a lifetime of the highest taxes in the world are being squeezed out of the medical and other benefits they expected.

There is something rotten in Denmark. America should make sure that we don't make the same mistakes, either at home or in "nation-building" in other lands.

One last one, which I am posting in full because I think the repost was removed from the FR archives due to certain freeper replies, and I don't know how much longer it will be at the original site:

International Terrorist Support Groups Thrive in Belgium and Netherlands

Adriana Stuijt

Monday, Sept. 24, 2001

ROTTERDAM – Top international anti-terrorism experts have identified two of Europe's most legally tolerant regions – namely, the Dutch-language areas around Europe's most important west coast harbors, Antwerp and Rotterdam – as the main breeding ground for Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden 's organization even runs shipping companies as fronts from Amsterdam. The British researcher Dr. R. Gunaratna warned that, especially in The Netherlands, because of its total lack of anti-terrorism laws and its very high level of religious, cultural and judicial tolerance, Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist groups are allowed to thrive. They use Amsterdam and Rotterdam as central bases in the West from which they garnish funds, recruit activists from the local Muslim youth cultural groups, and purchase highly sophisticated arms in the world's largest trading hub: Rotterdam harbor.

The Kurdish PKK, the Tamil Tigers and the Philippines' New People's Army all use the liberal Dutch territory, from which they garnish new converts, turn them into activist supporters, launder and raise funds and purchase sophisticated equipment. These Dutch-based groups, especially, also create waves of propaganda material – and, being based in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, also have no difficulty in purchasing any weapons and other high-tech support materials with which to mount terrorist attacks abroad.

A New Form of Terrorism

Another new, disturbing pattern pointing to a new form of terrorism against the civilian population at large has been detected in both harbor towns of Antwerp and Rotterdam: "Muslim cultural organizations" have also turned the streets of Antwerp and Rotterdam into main battlegrounds for Muslim-fundamentalist male criminal youth gangs who deliberately attack, rob and invade ethno-European cultural events and throngs of shoppers in the large shopping districts.

These well-organized attacks are leaving the local Dutch-speaking ethno-Europeans totally vulnerable and defenseless because their governments have no anti-terrorist laws with which to stop such highly aggressive youth groups from forming in the first place.

For instance, about 5.1 percent of Rotterdam's population is of Moroccan origin – yet about 10 percent of all the city's arrested criminal suspects are of Moroccan origin, according to Rotterdam's latest police statistics issued by chief inspector J. Verbeek and Erasmus University.

In the Dutch-speaking region's latest criminal youth gang attack in Belgium, in the suburb of Hasselt in Antwerp on Sept. 24, large groups of Algerian-Moroccan youths, centrally organized by cell phones and armed with batons and insecticide spray, attacked hundreds of local Flemish citizens holding their traditional end-of-summer fair and circus event at Kruger market square.

Many eyewitnesses who described the terror and destruction at the usually jolly and peaceful Flemish circus fair said the Algerian and Moroccan youths targeted especially women and girls as the youth gangs tore into the carnival goers, spraying people's eyes with insecticides and deodorants; spitting at and insulting especially the Flemish; ordering the girls and women to wear headscarves and calling them whores; cursing the men as "Flemish pork-eaters"; spitting on and befouling with urine and soil the carnival's traditional pancake dinners and destroying the antique, highly valuable carousel and circus equipment hired for the Hasselt community carnival.

Flemish old-age pensioners and children alike were forced to flee in fear of being blinded by spray, and were beaten up and kicked. The Flemish carnival goers – all local residents – had to flee from a steady stream of loud, rude verbal abuse from the young Algerians and Moroccans invading their neighborhood. Many witnesses also said the youths chanted popular slogans used by the Muslim-terrorist organization GIA. Some of these events were described in a local Antwerp newspaper.

Carnival goers who tried to remain and finish their traditional pancake meals or who tried to protect the antique circus equipment were physically attacked by kick-boxing youths. The equipment and musical instruments were destroyed during the racist rampage. There were very few police in attendance. The mainstream Belgian news media briefly described the event as a "scuffle" at a local carnival without mentioning the racist overtones. ,P. In Rotterdam, only about 60 miles north of Antwerp, a similar pattern has also been developing over the past year, with widespread reports of assaults by Moroccan-Algerian youth gangs – described by Dutch police as "criminal youth gangs of North African descent"– but who are described by the news media as being highly centrally organized through cell phones.

These gangs target major shopping districts and traditional European cultural and sporting events to rob, terrorize and abuse especially the ethno-Dutch population. During these organized attacks, the youths are also seen to deliberately target ethno-European girls and women, demanding that they start obeying the strict Muslim shari'a laws favored by terrorist regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which require total subservience to males. Many women shoppers now shun these major shopping districts to avoid such confrontations.

A Sociological Explanation

Dutch sociologists do not link these aggressive criminal North African male youth gangs to any Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist organizations – instead claiming that this first generation of Algerian-Moroccan youths, primarily raised without fathers, were "deculturized" and therefore aimlessly floating into such destructive criminal behavior.

The sociologists, in fact, urged even more government subsidies to these "cultural" groups to try and combat such behavior. By tradition and unlike Christian women, these sociologists point out, Muslim women are never allowed to discipline any of their male children and the cultural groups might be able to better "channel their male energies."

However, there's a much more organized situation going on here than these Dutch sociologists would have us believe. For example, on the night after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, large groups of North African youths congregated in the town squares in Antwerp and also in the town of Ede in The Netherlands. In this town, a huge crowd of Muslim male youths had started to congregate shortly after the attacks and started celebrating what they themselves told the horrified local citizens was their personal "victory against America."

This was too much even for the highly liberal Dutch – Ede citizens called in the local police and demanded the youths' removal. However, the local police station commander lamely excused his lack of inaction by saying that the youths had been "expressing their rights to free speech available to all Dutch citizens" and that he was not allowed to stop the distasteful celebration.

And in a shock survey carried out by Muslim cultural publications the day after the attack, a full 80 percent of the thousands of Dutch Muslims questioned said that they had been in favor of the terrorist attacks.

Besides these clear danger signals from the Muslim community in The Netherlands itself, the Dutch government this week was also warned by the British anti-terrorism expert Gunaratna, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Science at St. Andrews University in Scotland, to "stop disregarding the international fight against terrorism, and start prohibiting these terrorist support groups by law."

He urged the Dutch government to immediately change its laws and immediately prohibit these support groups. "Your country must change its laws at once if it wants to remain free of terrorism," he said.

Dutch Law and Terrorism

The Netherlands does not have any anti-terrorism laws – and thus openly allowed fundraising and arms purchase exporting by, for instance, terrorist support groups during the anti-apartheid movement's support of the terrorist cells of the African Nationalist Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) before 1994.

Many Dutch citizens – such as the head of the now-defunct "Anti-apartheid movement Netherlands," the journalist Connie Braam – even actively participated in smuggling weapons and bombs into South Africa from Dutch territory and without any intervention from the Dutch government, which even provided government funding for this terrorist support group.

Dutch law itself contributes to the thriving terrorist support-group culture in The Netherlands. It does not allow any actions to be undertaken against support groups of terrorist organizations if it cannot be firmly proven that their fundraising and other physical support led to the terror attacks.

However, the internal security service of The Netherlands (BVD) itself is also not concentrating on probing such Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist activities as much as they are infiltrating right-wing or neo-Nazi groups, as the Dutch government has traditionally viewed such fascism as the prime enemy of peace and prosperity since the Nazi occupation during WWII.

As long as the Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist support groups do not misbehave inside The Netherlands, they can therefore continue to use the Dutch territory from which to garnish economic and material support – including purchasing highly sophisticated weaponry from the local arms industry – even if these directly lead to terrorist attacks outside The Netherlands, as also happened during the terrorist campaign conducted by the ANC and the PAC against the apartheid government in South Africa prior to 1994.

Belgium does have some anti-terrorist legislation also primarily targeting right-wing neo-Nazi groups – but is juristically more lenient toward Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist support groups on Belgian soil.

Other European countries do have better anti-terrorist legislation, with Great Britain having the most stringent laws due to its Northern Ireland troubles.

Terrorist Support Groups

Gunaratna said many of these groups have been active in The Netherlands for many years. "They conduct fundraisers and launder funds in The Netherlands to carry out violent attacks in Asia and the Middle East," he said.

He also noticed such support groups among other Muslim communities not known for terrorist activities, such as the Sikhs, Sri Lankans, and Pakistani and Kurd cultural groups – many of which are even subsidized by the Dutch government.

American expert Yossef Bodansky, author of a book on bin Laden, also confirmed that Amsterdam-based shipping companies operate as front organizations for the Al Qaida organization. This was also confirmed by the French-Arabian newspaper Al Watan Al Arabi.

Dutch internal affairs minister De Vries shrugged a dismayed "So what can I do about it?" reaction when confronted with these warnings from international experts – telling the TV program "Buitenhof" that he actually "could not exclude that subversive activities might be taking place inside such Muslim cultural groups."

And he even warned a few days later after talks with the 25 mayors of the main Dutch cities in charge of the regional police corps that "the Dutch cannot now start waging a cold war against Muslim religious groups."

He also warned Amsterdam's chief justice officer L. de Wit – who had told the news media that he would call in the defense force in case of pro-bin Laden riots in the capital city – that it was "very foolish to speculate in public about possible riots."

He also considered it unnecessary to rush to protect and beef up the security for all the public buildings and public figures against terrorist attacks. "There is no concrete terrorist threat in The Netherlands," he concluded and advised that only "some public buildings" had had their security stepped up. Al Watan

Meanwhile, Rotterdam's mayor, Mr. I. Opstelten, said the four men arrested in his city last week as suspects connected to the terrorist attacks on America still have not provided any leads that could link them. One is in a routine holding facility for illegal aliens and the other three are in police custody pending the investigation, he said.

The Dutch internal security organization, the BVD, has managed to confiscate a "suspicious parcel" destined for the United States, which was posted in the Swartjan street post office in Rotterdam. The country's anti-terrorist expert P. van der Molen said the main suspect of this Muslim support group, a Tunisian citizen, is still in custody in Brussels, Belgium.

Some anti-Muslim reactions were also recorded in The Netherlands since the Sept. 11 infamy. About 25 incidents were recorded by Dutch police, including arson, graffiti, and threats against mosques and Islamic schools in the towns of Vlissingen, Uden, Zwolle, Heerlen, The Hague and Rijssen. Two Islamic schools were torched, one in Nijmegen and the other in Drachten.

The Dutch cabinet minister in charge of "integration management," Mr. Van Boxtel, said this "unacceptable behavior against our young new Dutch citizens, this mini-terrorism, will be punished with the full force of Dutch law."

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