My New Blog

I have a new blog, The Evil Style Queen, motto: "I have a crown and a headscarf and no hangups about wearing either", but one would expect some level of bitchiness anyway, wouldn't one?

I was always amazed that my posts about personal things triggered off so many more reactions than my political commentaries. (Gosh, that sounds pompous, but what else could I possibly say?) So why not put that to good use at a blog of its own?

Right now, it's still in its very early fledgling stage. I intend to "recycle" a lot of posts from here, but there are countless topics in the pipeline, really.

It seems that working on my German blog revived my interest in Roncesvalles, so maybe a blog about style (read: everything that comes to mind) may well be increasing my interest in both.

What else can I say? Enjoy or be irritated, whatever suits you better.

The Eternal Ugly Face of The German Petty Bourgeois

The German nationwide weekly newspaper ZEIT is is highly respected for its quality journalism. With a circulation of roughly 490,000 copies and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly. It is considered to be intellectually upmarket. Its political stance is described as centrist to liberal (in the European meaning of "social liberal"), but has shifted several times between slightly left-leaning and slightly right-leaning. It is known for its broadsheet size and its long and in-depth articles. Their most remarkable feature (but maybe that is just me) is their "personal" column, which is full of advertisements of those who consider themselves bright, beautiful and blameless seeking the likeminded, and of great entertainment value.

Now the German blog Politically Incorrect makes us aware of a video with the comment of Jens Jessen, editor-in-chief of the "feuilleton" (the part of a European newspaper devoted to fiction, reviews, general interest articles or showbiz and society matters) of the ZEIT, obviously taken at his workplace. (I can only recommend to watch the video even if you don't understand German because of the facial expression, body language and the ambience of the office.)

It is about the frighteningly increasing violence of youths with a "migration background" (read: almost always Muslims) against Germans and specifically against those Germans who are specifically helpless, the elderly. Jessen is refering here to an incident in the Munich subway, where a 76-year-old retired headmaster was beaten to a pulp by a Turkish and a Greek youth because he had asked them to stop smoking in a non-smoking car.

By the way, when it happened, the German media took some time until they released the ethnic background of the two youths and refered to them as "young smokers" at first.

Yeah! We have a smoker-problem in Germany!

Thanks to the transcript with the essential bits PI offers, and which I here translate, my English-speaking readers can share this amazing experience:

…One DOES ask oneself whether this pensioner, who refused to tolerate the smoking in the Munich subway and thus triggered off that without doubt unexcusable deed, must be seen within a chain of patronising, reproachs and silly chattings-up, which the foreigner, and namely the young one, has to suffer incessantly. And not just the foreigner. At the end of the day, the old German petty bourgeois*, to use such a negative word, shows his ugly face everywhere. (…)

That is the atmosphere of intolerance against which one has to judge such spontaneous violent acts. (…)

I would like to ask, on the other hand, whether there aren't too many know-it-all German pensioners who make life hell for the foreigners here. And for other Germans as well. To put it like that: I don't think that German society has a problem with criminal foreigners but with home-made intolerance.

I would like to ask, on the other hand, whether there aren't too many late middle-aged German petty bourgeois* schmocks, to use such a negative word, who show their ugly faces everywhere and who have just swapped the portrait of Hitler at their fathers' office walls for one of Lenin.

--------------------------

*The German word "Spießer" Jessen used is virtually non-translatable. "Fuddy-duddy", "square", "stuffy" or "boringly (lower) middle class" all cover a part, but not all, of its meaning.

Suit and Tie Are Not Enough

Today, BILD, the German tabloid shitrag did what in these days and times only shitrags do because serious papers are too busy being good and published the entire sad "German Rathergate" affair.

The following howler is too good to be missed: Oezcan Mutlu, the Berlin lawmaker of whom I wrote in my previous entry:

The fact that Mutlu, a naturalized German and member of a German state parliament, still speaks a sort of semi-"Kanaksprak" shows how seriously he takes his own assimilation

has now the temerity to explain his gaffe away by stating that

Alaattin Kaymak is obviously no professional when it comes to politics and not very eloquent. All I wanted to ask was whether nobody talked to him prior to the programme.

That is the same Alaattin Kaymak, mind you, of whom I wrote yesterday:

...he was, in fact, a picture of competence, literacy and self-assurance and spoke German without any foreign accent. Compared to Mutlu, who came to Germany when he was five years young and who is an electrical engineer by profession (and, incidentally, the speaker for educational policy of his parliamentary group), he almost appeared as a gentleman and that means SOMETHING.

That said, I wonder what talking to a tongue-tied chat-show guest prior to the programme should achieve.

Sad as it may be, but wearing suit and tie is not enough to pass yourself off as a German, Oezcan.

In Germany, only German citizens can vote or be elected to a parliament. Note that the German citizen Mutlu ("More Education -- More Respect", for what or whom remains open!) addresses his potential electorate and all the fully-assimilated Germans "with an ethnic Turkish background" in German AND and Turkish on the election placard (left). No doubt they all speak German just as well as he does.

The German "Rathergate"

The following was reported by the blog Transatlantic Conservative today.

The German blog Politically Incorrect (PI) has published a video and an audio tape of a political chat show broadcast by the public (state owned) ARD TV station. Here, the German Secretary of Justice, Brigitte Zypries and a Green member of the parliament of the city and state of Berlin, the ethnic Turk Oezcan Mutlu, share a whispered conversation that was evidently not meant to be overheard by the public and which PI noticed (my guess is that they were tipped off) and made public.

The debate was about the frightening increase of violent crimes by "youths with a migration background" (read: Muslims). A former member of such a violent youth gang was interviewed by the host and the question: "What could Germany have done to offer you a better existence?" was met by an unexpected reply: "Well, I can't think of anything specific really. All the opportunities have been there, you just have to look for them a little bit and take them up." Frantic whispering in the background, which could clearly be identified as the question: "Has he not been briefed?" by Mutlu, followed by Zypries' irritated, even angry, reply: "He HAS!"

The take of PI and Transatlantic Conservative, which I share, is that here a German state controlled TV channel is offering biased and doctored content to the tax paying audience who, as the Transatlantic Conservative puts it, "pays for their own media indoctrination". Obviously, the boy had been briefed to make statements along the politically correct line of the German mainstream politics and -media.



Of course, the frantic backpedalling was only to be expected. The comment section of the PI-entry is a psychogram of angry leftists. According to their interpretation, Alaattin Kaymak (the young ex-gang member) had had a hang-up, thus the question about the "briefing" was asked. In fact, Kaymak was, in fact, a picture of competence, literacy and self-assurance, spoke German without any foreign accent and not even an entirely uneducated German, for that. Compared to Mutlu, who came to Germany when he was five years young and who is an electrical engineer by profession (and, incidentally, the speaker for educational policy of his parliamentary group), he almost appeared as a gentleman, and that means SOMETHING.

The fact that Mutlu, a naturalized German and member of a German state parliament, still speaks a sort of semi-"Kanaksprak" shows how seriously he takes his own assimilation and how seriously we take it as well.

Read about the sad affair in German at PI or see a video at YouTube.

Postscriptum: It should be mentioned that a public prosecutor (state attorney) from Berlin, who can claim considerable success with his tough handling of young criminals, was invited to join the panel but didn't get the permission from his senior. Why? Because he, so the senior public prosecutor, "doesn't comply with my policy". That means, in effect, that this was not about the experience of an expert, but about POLITICS and that the senior public prosecutor is acting according to political standards and pressure and not according to the necessities of his job.

Edited to add a later entry about Mutlu.

One Bishop Who Knows about What He Is Talking

The Telegraph informs us in a deserving article by Jonathan Wynne-Jones about "no-go zones for non-Muslims" in Britain.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester and the Church's only Asian bishop, says that people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, he compares the threat to the use of intimidation by the far-Right, and says that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christianity to be the nation's public religion in a multifaith, multicultural society.

His comments come as a poll of the General Synod - the Church's parliament - shows that its senior leaders, including bishops, also believe that Britain is being damaged by large-scale immigration.

Bishop Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, gives warning that attempts are being made to give Britain an increasingly Islamic character by introducing the call to prayer and wider use of sharia law, a legal system based on the Koran.

In an attack on the Government's response to immigration and the influx of "people of other faiths to these shores", he blames its "novel philosophy of multiculturalism" for allowing society to become deeply divided, and accuses ministers of lacking a "moral and spiritual vision".

Echoing Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who has said that the country is "sleepwalking into segregation", the bishop argues that multiculturalism has led to deep divisions.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, has accused Muslims of promoting a kind of "voluntary apartheid" by shutting themselves in closed societies and demanding immunity from criticism.

In the Synod survey, to be published this week, bishops, senior clergy and influential churchgoers said that an increasingly multi-faith society threatens the country's Christian heritage and blamed the divisions on the Government's failure to integrate immigrants into their communities.
[...]
Bishop Nazir-Ali, whose father converted from Islam to Catholicism, was criticised by Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain. He said: "It's irresponsible for a man of his position to make these comments.

"He should accept that Britain is a multicultural society in which we are free to follow our religion at the same time as being extremely proud to be British. We wouldn't allow 'no-go' areas to happen. I smell extreme intolerance when people criticise multiculturalism without proper evidence of what has gone wrong."

But the Bishop's concerns are shared by other members of the General Synod.

The Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn, which has a large Muslim community, said that it was increasingly difficult for Christians to share their faith in areas where there was a high proportion of immigrants of other faiths.

Read the rest here.

If the Bishop of Blackburn is talking about "faiths" (plural), I wonder which faiths that might be. Jews? Hindus?

The article is, as I said, basically deserving and I suppose we can not expect from a broadsheet newspaper anything more bold. However, as long as we don't even dare to address the problem without the use of euphemisms, relativations and weak, vague and fuzzy statements, such as to blame the Government instead of the immigrants themselves for the failure to integrate (I wonder why other immigrant groups are not doing too badly, integrationwise), or letting a speaker of the British Muslim blather about the lack of "proper evidence", we won't be able to solve it -- in Britain or anywhere else where Christians have become an endangered species.

It is interesting, too, that a bishop with some familiarity with Islam, of all bishops, should be the first to utter such a daring warning. It somewhat reminds me of the many tacit or open Irgunists among the North African Jews in Palestine, when their European brethren still thought that Arabs could be dealt with kindly.

Oh yes, another thing: It is not JUST about faith, is it? Without his habit, Bishop Nazir-Ali would have no problem entering those no-go zones -- and coming back safe and sound.

Hat-tip: Catholic Church Conservation!

Another Delusional Bubble Burst

Dennis Prager is talking to Ann Coulter about the "Jews need to be perfected" very-much-non-gaffe. Warning, only for those with an extremely high vomiting-threshold!



And here was I, thinking that Dennis Prager was an ethical and intelligent man.

Listen to the recording of that mutual masturbation session, but keep your sick bag ready.

One can't be all three: First, a sucker-up to that unprincipled, intellectually dishonest, attention-seeking cackling parrot who would say anything to boost her book-sales figures, second, intelligent and third, ethical.

If one is a sucker-up to that unprincipled, intellectually dishonest, attention-seeking cackling parrot who would say anything to boost her book-sales figures AND intelligent, one is not ethical.

If one is a sucker-up to that unprincipled, intellectually dishonest, attention-seeking cackling parrot who would say anything to boost her book-sales figures AND ethical, one isn't intelligent.

Yep, simple!

Coulter has taught me a lot, generally, about American conservatives.

Let's take the video below. The fact, that this lewd display wasn't followed by any outcry by American Christian conservatives worth mentioning, speaks volumes. And they MUST have noticed what is happening here, musn't they? It's so aptly, albeit crudely, described as "prick teasing", performed here by our devoted Christian Conservative on poor Donny Deutsch. My evil sense of humour tells me, this is sidesplittingly funny, my better half that this is about one of the most undignified ostentations I have ever seen.



Is it possible that conservatism, at least mainstream conservatism, has got no content of its own anymore, no positive goals, no reasonable arguments and certainly no basic ethical consensus, apart from punching "the left" (or what is perceived as "the left"), a bag that is as empty as the puncher -- or as Ann Coulter's shrivelled black little heart, for that.

Academic Research or Preventive Political Tool to Balance Injustice?

While I am writing this, the spat between the German political scientist Matthias Küntzel and Andrew Bostom has acquired some notoriety. Atlas Shrugs offers an overview.

In his book "Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East," Küntzel argues that contemporary Islamic antisemitism is largely due to the infamous Hitler-Mufti connection (I have posted about it, for example, here, here and here) and its ongoing influence in today' Islamic world. Bostom accuses him to fail to examine easily accessible sources which show that Islamic antisemitism, with Koranic and entirely non-Western motifs, was rampant throughout the 19th century in Egypt.

Reactions to Küntzel's failure to acknowledge those sources and Bostom's reasoning are ranging from "one scatches one's head" to "he (Küntzel) must be a masochist".

I have posted some of the thoughts below at the comment sections of several blogs, so I thought why not put it up here as well.

I am amazed at the fact that Küntzel’s reaction (or the lack thereof) causes so much amazement. If one takes his political affiliation into consideration, it's not all that amazing anymore.

Küntzel is a member of the “Anti-German” political left. The Anti-Germans appeared as a distinct political group in the early Nineties as a response to the racist attacks on foreigners and general chauvinism following German reunification. The basic creed of the Anti-Germans includes solidarity with Israel and American foreign policy and a critique of mainstream left anti-capitalist views, specifically the anti-globalisation movement, which are (rightfully) considered structurally antisemitic.

All Anti-German efforts are exclusively focused on fighting antisemitism. I don't have much of a head for political theory but let me try to explain it like that: Anti-Germans think that capital and labour have overcome their antagonism and are focusing their mutual efforts now on destroying the group historically identified with the “greedy side of capitalism” (”raffender Kapitalismus”) — i.e. the Jews. By destroying the Jews, capital and labour allow capitalism to survive. This implies that the working classes can’t be trusted anymore and the Anti-Germans close that gap by a bit of early Marxist theory, whereby first more capitalism is needed until the state of communism can be reached, specifically in underdeveloped (Arab-, Islamic-, fascist-) regimes. This, lo and behold, resolves the problem of “Western imperialism” as well: More of it is needed because antisemitism emerges primarily under conditions of stunted capitalist development and Western capitalism (i.e. the USA and their allies in their “war against terrorism”) thus deserves support.

My own take on that is, that, while a lot of the historical analysis of the Anti-Germans has merit, for example that antisemitism is an integral part of German (and European) culture, their conclusions are weird and speak of a self-hatred I find disturbing.

Understandably in a way, “Anti-Germanism” is an ideology with a lot of allure for those Germans who are decent enough to see antisemitism for the evil it is, yet who can not face giving up their leftist positions. However, it should not be overlooked that here we have a totally fixed world-view, almost bordering, I think, on the cult-like, and if Küntzel blames, in that spirit, the age-old Arab antisemitism on the Germans because achnowledging an equal share in the historic guilt would -- to him -- mean relativizing the German guilt (and gets acclaim for it), historians have a credibility problem.

The fact that Hitler and the Muslims were quite adequate in their genocidal Jew hatred, that maybe even the Mufti might have influenced Hitler more than vice versa, is quite well documented. This blog entry contains a lot of information and leads to further serious sources, which must have been, if this little blogger got it, available to Küntzel as well. But if one considers such facts as something that might be used to relativize the German guilt (and it might indeed), one might easily, consciously or subconsciously, overlook it and then historiography has lost any credibility as an academic field and can consider itself a preventive political tool to balance injustice.

Happy Non-Halal New Year