The Post-Racial Age Has Arrived in Germany

...or: About people born on the right side. Twice.

The post-racial message of America's President Obama has finally arrived in Germany. How have we survived so long without it?

The director of the publicly funded "Workshop of Cultures" (Werkstatt der Kulturen), "theatermaker" and ethnologist Philippa Ebéné, decided Thursday to remove educational panels covering the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini from a planned exhibiton at her premises to the disgust of a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit and the Berlin Jewish community.

The exhibit covers the immensely topical issue "The Third World during the Second World War" and three of 96 exhibit panels are dedicated to the REALLY topical issue of the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis who had a decisive influence on the Holocaust (we reported many times already). Ebéné stated that she refused to display the information on Husseini out of respect for joint Arab organisations. Her decision was supported by migration commissioner of the Berlin Senate, Günter Piening. In a neighbourhood (heavily dominated by Muslims) like Neukölln a "differentiated presentation" was paramount, Piening stated.

"Not differentiated enough". The mufti and his German buddies.

Maya Zehden, a spokeswoman for the Berlin Jewish community, termed Piening's statement "an appeasement attempt" to ignore the fact that "there was no official resistance from the Arabic world against the persecution of Jews" during the Shoah. She accused Piening of showing a false tolerance to German-Arabs in a heavily Muslim-influenced neighborhood.

In an e-mail to the JPost, Heinz Buschkowsky, the district mayor in Neukölln, wrote that it is a sign of "anticipatory obedience to avoid probable protests. I do not consider this position to be good", notabene pointing out that Piening's statement is a "repression of the facts dealing with anti-Semitism."

Meanwhile, Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement" with the local Muslim community to censor the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric." The Jeruslem Post was informed that the exhibit was intended as a "homage to soldiers from African" countries who fought against the Nazis. Indeed, a crucial aspect of WWII so far totally neglected.

When asked about her opposition to the inclusion of the mufti panels, she asked, "was there ever a commemoration event in Israel to honor the [African] soldiers?" In an Interview with Radio Berlin Brandenburg Ebéné, who has a German mother and a father from Cameroon and is thus, so to say by birth and per definitionem, on the right side, stated: I am not white. I have no reason to be afraid of Arabs", which is rather endearing for somebody who is allegedly heavy into informing the world about the African slave-trade.

My take on all this? This is so rock-solid, die-hard, intransigently and impregnally stupid and so full of the usual German "antifa", politically correct, "fight against the right", "multiculti"anti-West and racist crap, that it defies any serious comment, because that would lend her antics a credibility they don't possess. That Ebéné is first confusing Fascism and National-Socialism and then, when challenged, peddling her family's (the German side, that is) history of saving Jewish children to show that she is by birth DOUBLY on the right side, is only the icing on the cake.

Of course, the reaction of the public, the political classes and the media, or the question how Ebéné could end up in such a position at all, are a different matter.

Eiffel Tower to be Illuminated in the Turkish Colours

The Eiffel tower will be illuminated in the colours of the Turkish flag complete with crescent and star from 8-29 October 2009.

Protesters click HERE.

Duh! Or: Three Cheers to Stalinism

I came across the following while I was doing some modest research on the man-with-migration-background-on-German-female rape statistics. The figures concerning the rape of European women by Muslim immigrants, specifically in the Scandinavian countries, are, thanks to Fjordman, well known. However, figures about Germany are conspiciously missing. I have two explanations for that, which may both apply or be both wrong. The first one is that Muslim immigrant-on-indigene rapes are yet not as ubiquitous in Germany as they are in Scandinavia or the U.K., the other one is that Germany is not on the international map, as in so many other respects. However, searching (without result) for such figures, I came across a study by the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit of the London Metropolitan University "Rape: Still a forgotten issue". As soon I see a feminist issue called "forgotten", all my inner alarm bells start ringing, and I was, not too amazingly, right. The Search for "Germany" led me to the following information dating back to 2001:

Country	Reported Rapes	Population in Mio
England/Wales	9743	52
Germany	7891	82
Greece	170	10
Sweden	1752	9

The interpretation is rather endearing:

If reporting were constant with respect to population, the Greek and Swedish figures should be relatively similar, but the country with a smaller population has a reporting rate ten times higher. Similarly, the German figure should be considerably higher than that for England and Wales, but is actually a fifth lower.

"Should"! You don't say!

At this point, a look at the methodology of the study may be in order:

The base data comprises short questionnaires sent to Justice Ministries in all European Union member states, aspirant states, Switzerland and Norway. Information was sought on:
• Numbers of rape cases reported, prosecuted and resulting in convictions in 1998-2001.
• For countries that failed to respond to the first survey, or provided incomplete data, an opportunity to provide the same information for 1977-1997.
• Any recent research containing either national prevalence data, including unreported rapes, or analysis of the attrition process.
• Details of any major reforms during the 1980s and 1990s with respect to: criminal law on rape; courtroom procedures; guidelines for prosecutors; guidelines for police investigations.
• National provision for forensic medical examinations.
Views were also sought about barriers to successfully prosecuting rape cases and whether rape was currently on the national political agenda. Ministries were, therefore, sent variations of the questionnaire depending on what data had, and had not, been provided previously.

Of 35 Justice Ministries, 21 returned questionnaires, some promptly, others only after multiple reminders by both the research team, and project partners in country. The non-cooperation of some states, and the absence of complete data from others, raises issues about the possibilities of tracking the most fundamental indicators of responses to violence against women, which has not only been recommended by the European Women’s Lobby (2001), but also been matters of policy development during the last four presidencies of the EU.

In other words, this was not a study about rape, but on the willingness of European authorities to comply with mindless, pseudo-academic, feminist projects. No attention was given to the perpetrators, and the authors of the study made no effort whatsoever to ask why some figures were not as they "should" have been.

What about this:

Country	Muslims	Percent
U.K.	1,640,958-2,000,000	2.7-3.3
Germany	4,413,639	4.9
Greece	139,182	1.3
Sweden	270,933	3

I took the figures from the Wikipedia entry about worldwide Islam. Notabene that they are from 2007, not 2001, and that they apply to the entire U.K. and not just to England and Wales. However, as this is a blog entry, not a post-doc project, they will have to do.

Can there be conclusions be drawn from this? Maybe. Here are mine in no particular order. It shows (and I am sure that further figures for different countries would substantiate that) 3% of Muslim population seems to be a critical limit. It shows further, that the Brits are unable to control their Muslim population and to keep track of their population generally. But most of all, it shows that a modicum of knowledge about the countries one attempts to "analyze" is indispensable.

The number of reported rapes in Germany fell from 1984 to 1990, but increases from this year, although with year on year variation. This trend accelerates sharply with a 16 per cent increase between 1997 and 1998 although this decreases slightly in 1999 and 2000 before rising again in 2001. That said, however, the large increase one would expect following reunification, which almost doubled the population, is not evident in these figures.

Yes girls! That is, because there were very few Muslims living in the former GDR and those who WERE, knew quite well that any antics about "religious freedom" and "freedom of speech" wouldn't have taken them all that far in Stalinist Germany. Also, rape was rather frowned upon and there wasn't much room for multicultural empathy for the perpetrator within the great International Socialist brotherhood if it occured -- and that was a good thing.

Duh!

I cross-posted this with an anti-feminist angle at TMDSC.

Obituary for Edward Kennedy

In the past, we may have inadvertently conveyed the impression that the late Edward "Ted" Kennedy was, as were his hailed brothers, in some way an irresponsible womanizer who had left a young woman to die a horrible death in a submerged car because her presence alive might have embarrassed him. We now realise as of Tuesday morning that the scion of the most reprobate and degenerate illustrious and famously fate-stricken family in the entire Western world was in fact the most saintly man who has ever lived, who, with his charitable political activities, brought hope and succour to hundreds and millions of people all over the world.

We would like to express our sincere and deepest hypocrisy to all our readers on this tragic day and hope and pray that they will carry on reading our blog notwithstanding.

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I stole the idea from a back print number of Private Eye who had applied the trick to the death of Princess Diana.

John Paul II -- Hailed and Reviled for the Wrong Reasons

Eric Giunta explains why Pope John Paul II should not be canonized:

Contrary to leftist media reportage, the late Pope was not an authoritarian despot, bent on enforcing Catholic orthodoxy on an unwilling church. Quite the contrary: theological liberals and dissenters flourished in all of the Church's structures, from lay politics and Catholic universities, to the ranks of priests and bishops. Not a single pro-abortion Catholic politician has been excommunicated from the church; only a handful of openly heretical priests were asked to stop teaching theology, but were otherwise permitted to exercise their priestly ministry unhindered. The Church in Austria openly dissents from orthodox Catholicism with papal impunity.

I recommend to read it all at RenewAmerica.com.

Here is Giunta's blog Confessions of a Liberal Traditionalist.

Hun - Throat - Feet

This is NOT a spoof! This is the Turkish flag being flown on top of the Godesburg, the symbol of the town of Bad Godesberg, sub-municipality of the former West German capital of Bonn.

It is to celebrate the 40-year jubiliee of the twinning of Bad Godesberg with the Turkish town of Yalova within the framework of the current town festival, where a delegation from Yalova is present. So flying this flag is, mind you, OFFICIAL. A cursory online search seems to indicate that the German flag code remains silent about the flying of alien national emblems. But is everything that is not explicitly forbidden allowed or even advisable?

The renowned German professor of ancient history and classicist Egon Flaig wrote 2006:

"Then we want the flag of Islam to fly over those lands again, that once had been lucky enough to be submitted to the rule of Islam and having heard the call of the muezzin praising God. Then the light of Islam died out and they returned to infidelity. Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, Southern Italy and the Greek Islands are all Islamic colonies which have to return to the fold of Islam. The Mediterranean and the Red Sea have to become inland seas of Islam, as they used to be". These are not the words of Al Qaeda, they were taken from the programme outlined by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al Banna, in a speech. The Brotherhood has millions of followers today and reaches out far beyond Egypt. Their intellectuals are working in Europe and the United States; they count as "moderates" and are treated as such by the media. Planned re-conquering of "lost" territories are part of the agenda of states that are fighting for territorial dominance. How can it be part of a religious programme? Is Islam a religion like any other religion?

Maybe deeming the reading of classics or ancient history as obsolete was a mistake. But then, I guess it's just the sheer and undiluted German love for totalitarian ideologies that lets them do what they do.

Light and Truth

It's not more than an Internet-rumour yet that Yale is planning to remove the Hebrew lettering from its seal because it could be perceived as "offensive". Maybe it will remain a rumour. But what makes it so frightening is its utter credibility and probability.

Roger Kimball's Yale & the Danish Cartoons: The Plot Thickens at PajamasMedia is worth reading anyway.

Hat-tip: Gudrun Eussner.

Our own fault, no doubt!

Interesting article from Canada:

Politically incorrect, but honest
By Leonard Stern, The Ottawa CitizenAugust 1, 2009

Muslim leaders have long cried foul when the media highlight the religious affiliation of suicide terrorists. Murders of all kinds happen every day and news reports don't note which perpetrators attended a Methodist church or which were baptized Catholic. Why the double standard for Muslims?

The religion of those such as the 9/11 hijackers was -- is -- relevant because, in their minds, the crimes were religious acts. It's impossible to ignore the Islamic dimension of crimes that are executed in the name of Islam. To pretend that the shared religious identity of al-Qaeda operatives is coincidence would be absurd.

Now it's fair to ask the media at least to make clear that while terrorists see themselves as holy warriors, they might not represent true Islam. But that's not what some Muslim leaders are asking. The Islamic Society of North America wants to abandon altogether any mention of the Muslim aspect. "We should just call them criminals," said Muneer Fareed, the Islamic Society's spokesman. The Canadian Islamic Congress has likewise referred to the "myth of 'Islamic' Terrorism."

The legitimacy of the term "Islamic terrorism," to denote terrorism committed in the name of Islam, is easy to defend. But in other criminal cases, it's trickier to explore the relevance of culture, race, religion or national origin.

This is an issue journalists, police and politicians struggle with all the time. Much of the gun violence in Toronto, for example, is apparently connected to the black community, often Jamaican-Canadian, whose members comprise a disproportionate number of both victims and assailants. But for a long time you wouldn't have known this from any public discussion about crime in Toronto.

Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente broke the taboo after the 2005 Boxing Day shooting death of Jane Creba, the 15-year-old who got caught in the crossfire between warring gangs. Wente said it was ridiculous that amid all the handwringing over Toronto's unsafe streets, "the word 'Jamaica' can't be found ... even though police will tell you off the record that 80 per cent or more of the city's gun crime is Jamaican-related."

[...]

But covering them up also incurs costs. First, it's dishonest. Politicians and social activists who pretend that these shootings are just expressions of generic "youth violence," when everyone knows otherwise, lose credibility. Secondly, it's impossible to fix a problem when you deny it exists.

[...]

Of course bad people can incubate in any community, but cultural or ethnic groups have particular vulnerabilities. It shouldn't be forbidden to say so. As one who has always emphasized the Islamic dimension of suicide terrorism, I recently received a gloating letter from someone hoping to catch me in an inconsistency. The writer was under the impression that I would naturally object to news reports mentioning the Jewishness of Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street swindler.

Actually, if I had been the reporter to break the Madoff story, I'd have not only highlighted the Jewish connection, I'd have put it in the lead. Heck, I'd make it the headline. Sure it's a little different from the issue of Islam and terrorism -- Madoff wasn't expressing an article of religious faith in defrauding people. But Madoff operated within a defined ethnic network, the monied Jewish community of New York, which is why police classified his escapade as a crime of "affinity."

The crime was made possible because Madoff exploited his position as a big shot -- a macher -- in that network. I mentioned earlier that we shouldn't be afraid to say that ethno-cultural groups have particular vulnerabilities. Madoff was as sleazy as they come but his perceived ability to make money conferred on him much status in the Jewish world, which he took advantage of.

Although financial misbehaviour is an equal opportunity vice, rabbis and others who teach Jewish ethics are not out of line to worry that the accumulation of Ivan Boeskys, Michael Milkens and Bernie Madoffs eventually points to misplaced values in some corners of the Jewish community.

Right now there's a debate whether to situate honour killings in a Muslim context. Some people want simply to place these murders in the catch-all category of "domestic violence." I suppose that it would be politically convenient for multiculturalists to de-Islamicize honour killings, but it sure won't do much towards actually stopping them.

I'd like to add some thoughts. First, the author is writing about political correctness. This strange phenomenon was once inspiredly defined as the doctrine that it is possible to pick up a turd at its clean end. Interestingly, whereas it is applied to criticizing Muslims or people of non-white races, it has never been applied to Jews. Antisemitism, which most people don't even bother to veil thinly as "anti-Zionism", was never something worthy of being covered by the smokescreen of political correctness. Also, and even more interestingly, any attempt to refute antisemitism as what it is, is met by strident complaints that "it isn't possible to criticise Jews anymore" because of -- you've guessed it -- "political correctness". Genuine, valid criticism of Jews as an ethnic group, like here, is as rare as a Blue Mauritius stamp. I think we ought to thank the author for clarifying the difference so lucidly.

Next, Stern says that the legitimacy of the term "Islamic terrorism," is easy to defend. Yes, it is easy to defend on a factual, intellectually honest basis. However, it is indefensible in day-to-day political discourse. I am under the impression that America and Canada have not (yet) arrived where we are, at a point where any criticism of Islam and Muslims, however fact-based and restrained, comes under attack as "hate speech". Criticizing Islam in Germany is a hermit's profession. It has ostracizing consequences. One is either forced to lie or at least to remain quiet (which is an implied lie) or to restrict one's social contacts dramatically. This and this may serve as a reminder. I, personally, consider it partly as a good thing. It showed me at least that my choice of friends, made long before Islamisation or political correctness became an issue, was right. But I guess if one has small children and thus HAS to socialize with certain people, other parents, teachers, kindergarden teachers, come to mind, it must be hell.

Last, Stern says that "it's impossible to fix a problem when you deny it exists". Again, that is right, but it implies that there ARE people who have both, an interest in and the authority to fix the problem and I challenge everybody on earth to name ONE German who has both.

Case in point (among countless others) is the former Berlin senior prosecuting attorney Roman Reusch, who made two mistakes. In 2008, that was: He took a hard line bringing young criminals to justice and declared publicly that ca. 80% (eighty percent) of those are not ethnic Germans. The result? The Berlin government muzzled and then transfered him to a position where he surely couldn't do any more "harm". Meanwhile, the "no go areas" for the police in Berlin are thriving. Again: I challenge all the world to tell me ONE German who has both, an interest in AND the authority for fixing this problem.

Canada (America), I guess you are better off! See that it remains that way.

Promoting Grievance and Polarization

President Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley met "for a beer" the day before yesterday. This official White House photo by Pete Souza shows them walking from the Oval Office to the Rose Garden.

The story behind that meeting is by now old news. In brief: White cop arrested black Harvard professor (and Obama chum), Henry Louis Gates jr, professor accused cops of racism, Obama ended up stuck both feet in mouth.

How could that happen? As conservative writer Thomas Sowell put it:

The racial-profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in order to get votes. Academics who run black-studies departments, as Prof. Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in racial paranoia.

For “community organizers” as well, racial resentments are a stock in trade. President Obama’s background as a community organizer has received far too little attention, though it should have been a high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.

What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.

To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.

And predictably, Gates is cashing in now on the publicity he triggered off by attributing his July 16 arrest to racism. He is, too, a frustrated elitist. The cops main misdoing was that they treated the professor like an ordinary man. Not like an ordinary BLACK man, mind you, but not with the reverence the professor thought he deserved. He was really lucky that a white cop happened to be the first one on the scene, which enabled him to play the race card.

What is remarkable about that?

First, that it shouldn't take a man with a Ph.D. to know that mouthing off at police officers will dramatically increase one's chance of being arrested. Police officers have the moral and legal authority to use force to serve and protect. They may overstep or fail to exercise their authority, but the general idea is that they must be ready and willing to use force. That means that one should exercise one's best behaviour around them. Always. Gates obviously thought that he was above that.

For Obama, it wasn't quite that easy. After all, he is supposed to show some statesmanship. Therefore, it was remarkable that the Commander in Chief, whose job it is to choose the Attorney General to be the chief law enforcement officer in the United States, was instinctively not, as he ought to have been, on his default position to support the police. Instead, he was in automatic "Promoting Grievance and Polarization" mode, and this is probably the most remarkable bit about that whole sleazy story indeed!

Now the picture! It shows Sergeant Crowley politely helping the older and slightly handicapped Professor Gates down some steps. Both are wearing suits and ties, while the Commander in Chief, in his shirt sleeves, walks ahead, totally detached from the scene, when it ought have to been his, the host's, task to stay close to his guests and to help the professor, his guest and friend, on his way.

I'm sure there are already, and will soon be, many and more clever interpretations buzzing through the Internet, but to me it just seems that the Commander in Chief has simply no manners. One doesn't expect that from a man with such a gentlemanly posture, but, so it seems, it's not enough to look good in suits.

As for Professor Gates, I don't think I will see another poseur and arrogant prick QUITE that awful in a hurry -- when he hasn't been caught on the wrong foot and yelling abuse at police officers, that is.




I, for one, congratulate Sergeant Crowley on his professionality, discipline and restraint.