Raffarin fears ‘river of Islam’ from early Turkey membership of EU

At present the conservative estimate is that moslems make up 5% of the European Union's population - add Turkey and that figure leaps to 15%. It wouldn't be "rivers of Islam" it would be a flood. Look how quickly once secular Iran and Iraq have fallen under the true face of islam - imagine Turkey as part of the EU going the same way. Turkey cannot be admitted to Europe until the present collapse of islam is much further down the line.

The Islamization of Europe is already severe, but can perhaps be addressed. With Turkey inside, it will get nasty. If Turkey is admitted to the EU, I will leave Europe and move to the USA.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1336682,00.html

Verheugen: No More Obstacles to Talks With Turkey

After meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyp Erdogan Thursday morning, EU Expansion Commissioner Günther Verheugen is ready to recommend Europe start membership negotiation with Turkey.

"We have been able to find solutions for the remaining outstanding problems," Verheugen told reporters at a joint press conference with the Turkish prime minister after an hour of talks early Thursday.

The EU Enlargement Commissioner expressed satisfaction with Ankara's progress on the road to reforming its legal system ahead of entering talks with Brussels over Turkey's candidacy for entering the EU. There were "no more obstacles" on the table, Verheugen said.

Penal code not a problem

The statement from Brussels was a relief for Erdogan who has been campaigning hard to get his country in shape to join the European Union. Only last month Verheugen had indicated concerns about Turkey's penal code and charges of systematic torture.

On Thursday the German commissioner dismissed these worries, saying: "My conclusion is that there are no more obstacles on the table now. From my point of view there are no further conditions which Turkey must fulfil in order to allow the Commission to make a recommendation."

Verheugen is due to publish a crucial report of Turkey's reform progress on Oct. 6. On the basis of this, EU leaders will decide in December whether to start EU membership negotiations with Ankara.

Erdogan relieved

"I'm very happy as a result of this meeting, which has been very productive," the Turkish leader said. "I believe that this meeting is going to prepare a very positive foundation for the progress report of Turkey," he added, smiling.

Only last week, it looked like Turkey had hit an impasse on its road to Brussels after the legal reforms Erdogan put forth were sharply criticized by hard-liners in Ankara who demanded the new laws contain a ban on adultery. But Erdogan, whose Islamic party represents a good number of conservative voters, withstood the pressure and pushed through the new legislation.

For his part, Erdogan said he would continue to take important steps to reform the penal code to guarantee improvements in human rights and eliminate police torture. "We are very determined to do this .. to implement all the reforms seriously," he told reporters.

Membership hinges on reforms

Turkey's European supporters admit the country doesn't have a chance of getting into the EU if it doesn't implement the legal reforms. "Turkey should not underestimate how much importance the EU attaches to the adoption of the penal code," said Dutch Green Party member Joost Lagendijk, who chairs the parliament's EU-Turkey committee.

Some politicians, who oppose beginning talks with Turkey, don't need to see if Erdogan sticks to his word and gets the reform laws passed.

"Turkey has not satisfactorily finished its homework," Elmar Brok (photo), a member of Germany's Christian Democratic Union and the chairman of Europe's Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Tuesday. He wants the EU to reexamine accession talks with Turkey in two to three years.

But Erdogan doesn't want to wait and will use talks later Thursday with European Commission President Romano Prodi and European Parliament President Josep Borrell to lobby his case.

"Our efforts undoubtedly will be rewarded," Erdogan said. "They have to be."

Turkey's entry to the EU would be the death of Europe and even Western civilisation. With Europe Islamised, America will not be too far behind.

My one consolation was that the EU would oppose Turkey's entry for the simple reason that President Bush's was supporting Turkey's entry. Now even that has failed. What a shame; the EU cannot even be consistent in its opposition to GWB.

I, too, feel something historical ominous, horrifying, is about to occur, like Hilter's victory in 1933.

'Oh, he is just a hothead and can be controlled. Most Germans think he is a nut.' Do folks remember?

Or the weird alliance between Stalin and Hitler that sealed the fate of millions.

Countries with small populations, liberal welfare systems, unprepared law enforcement, will be the most vulnerable. Sweden tops the list in my mind. The darkness will be most noticable in these countries first, I think.

So what the Ottomans didn't accomplish in 1683 at the gates of Vienna, they just had to wait 300 years to get with a waltz through the EU. Sorry, my fellow European infidels, but I hope the EU breaks up. The Turks want in to get to your $$ not to be Westernized.

If the quislings who now control many of the governments in Europe, and are certainly well-established in the EU bureaucracy, decide to let Turkey's request (or, at this point, demand) to be admitted to the EU to go forward, within 10-20 years Europeans will be leaving for the U.S. and Canada and Australia. Prices of property will sink -- permanently. Public schools will be even less safe, preoccupied with the attempt to discipline Muslim children who have no desire to obey Infidel instructors. There will be constant agitation for the Sharia to be applied to family law, including the law of inheritance. In the same way that the U.N. can hardly get anything done because it is focused so much, almost monomaniacally, on the particular objects of Muslim hatred (Israel at first, now broadening a bit to include the United States of America), local and regional and central governments will be preoccupied with Muslim demands, Muslim threats, Muslim agitation, rising Muslim crime against Infidels (from rape to break-ins to street attacks). Most of Europe's Jews will have fled, or be preparing to leave. As in Germany in 1933, there will be non-Jews also ready to leave, in disgust.

In the meantime, the obviousness of the threat will be clear to all American Infidels, and the agitation to forcibly remove all Muslims will become greater, perhaps unstoppable. There will still be apologists for Islam here and there, but in more than a few universities, trustees and presidents will decide that in a situation of national security, apologists for Islam will lose their jobs -- just as Nazi sympathizers did during World War II. The demand for clear statements of loyalty to the nation-state, and clarification as to how such is possible, given the tenets of Islam, will be so loud that no one can ignore them. All other problems, in Europe, and in the United States, will receive far less attention -- including the threat of permanent and irreversible damage to the environment.

Now all of this can be avoided. It does not take the expenditure of money. It does not take the risking of lives. It only requires enough people, enough Infidels, in America and in Europe, to simply study, very closely, what tenets Muslims learn. They can do this by reading, with a guide, the Qur'an and the main ahadith. They can read about Muhammad. They can consult ex-Muslims, defectors from the faith, to learn what is inculcated. They can study the history of Islam, of how non-Muslim civilizations and peoples have fared under Islam -- and they will discover what at first will seem to be a remarkable similarity in the treatment of such non-Muslims through time and over space. However, they will realize that of course such similarity of treatment, after Jihad conquest, is no accident, but simply reflects the clear commands of Islam itself, and of the institution of dhimmitude which inflicts on all Infidels (whether Christians or Jews, or Zoroastrians or HIndus or Buddhists or anything else) the same treatment -- humiliation, degradation, and permanent insecurity -- that because they are Infidels, they so richly deserve.

Some apologists have taken gravely to assuring us that "there is no such thing as Islam." Yes, we know: of course there are differences between Sunni and Shi'a. There are four legal schools within Sunni Islam. There is Ibadi Islam. There are those countries where the criminal punishment follows the strictures of Shari'a more closely, and those that for various reasons do not. There are countries where women cannot drive, and countries where they can conduct research into germ warfare. But in the only matter that Infidels need to be concerned about, which is of course how Infidels are viewed, there is no difference.

The insistence that Islam must cover the globe, that all "obstacles" to its spread, anywhere in the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of Unbelief or Lands of the Infidels, is a reason for waging violent Jihad (and anything can be called an "obstacle" -- the banning of the hijab, limits on the size of mosques, constraints on polygamy, preventing the application of Muslim law to marriage and inheritance questions, even stopping Muslim immigration -- all of that can be said to be offering an "obstacle" to Islam.

The governments of the Western world must stop heeding the likes of Gilles Kepel (who believes that a new version of Islam will inevitably come to Europe -- though no such phenomenon has ever been seen before -- and that somehow this will be a model for Islam in the Dar al-Islam, and the Infidels need not worry, and all manner of things shall be well). This is, of course, a counsel of despair and appeasement, because in the world of Gilles Kepel, the fact that Infidels too, have a civilization to defend, that whatever minor smooothing of rough edges might -- might! -- develop will not mean a thing as far as the survival of Infidels is concderned -- well, Gilles Kepel is not thinking as a Frenchman, but as an Islamo-Frenchman, more concerned with the fate of Islam in Europe, not with the fate of Infidel Europe.

A little look, now and again, at this website, at www.dhimmitude.org, www.secularislam.org, www.faithfreedom.org, www.nojihad.org, might provide some semblance of reality for those attempting to protect themselves, their families, their civilizations, the mighty legacy of the past. Of course we are silly. Of course we are decadent. Of course we have done many things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone many things which we ought to have done.

But we don't deserve Islam. We really don't.

For those of you who still believe we can have "dialogue" with islam especially the "moderate European version" please take a little trip over to Jihadwatch. There under the title "Beheading DVDs Top Sellers in Baghdad" you will find a sereis of posts from a British Muslim called abushkar33. The posts start in typical muslim fashion i.e, trying to vaguely reasonable but then he completely loses it and spews forth this rabid attack on the West. This is the real face of european islam that lurks behind the "moderate" facade.
You must see it - it's not pretty and it's kind of sad but it's very educational especially for newcomers to dhimmiwatch ..

Why Turkey is even considered is Beyond belief.....Socialy its as backward as the rest of the Middle East in its attitudes. They are not European they Identify better with their Arab brothers not with their European Neighbours.

Let them Join the League of Arab nations instead...their Economical management is "Third world" as well, why shoud the rest of Europe then prop them up?

It wont be a prop up, it will be a hand out because it seems that this is the only type of economic management they know.

I have family in Sweden. Most Swed’s are the most passive people I have ever had the chance to meet. I guess none of it got passed on to me... they visited a few weeks ago, I asked them about their Moslems. All information I have on Swedish Moslems, I got off this site... thank you Robert Spencer... my family informed me that they cant stand the Moslems! I found to be incredible coming from a Swed. This part of my family is very secular. And they hate the Swedish Moslems.. All the info Robert put up here was confirmed by them... Wow... I just wish the left would wake up!

No Islam, Know Peace

What europeans like the French President tend to forget is that on several occassions the (secular) muslim majority in Turkey has elected governments that were so islamist that the miliary had to step in and depose these governments. I read here that 80 percent of turks want the adultery laws to be passed. That is a very pro-islamist majority.

SO....what happens when these 70 million turks can go freely into continental europe where there is no military junta to stop them voting (as a majority) for islamist parties in europe.

Does europe really want to have so many islamist muslims/turks in its country that it one day has to use the military and martial law on a regular basis to stop turkish immigrants/eu citizens from deposing secular governments?

Is that the future the french and others want for europe. The Turks in europe are actually more islamist than their turkish cousins in Turkey. Being european citizens hasn't changed most turks into secularists. Instead it has made them more islamist.

Admit Turkey into the eu and the whole islamist meltdown of europe will tripple in speed. I am not being alarmist...I am just stating the facts.
But europeans have become amazing in their capacity to beleive in absurdities so as to accept atrocities...even agianst themselves. Europeans have a death wish...Big Allah with his best friend Political Correct is in europeans heads, pacifying them for dimmmintude. I think Orwell was wrong with his date for his book "1984"...I think 2084 is a much better estimation of when Big Allah/Brother will be dictator for life of the EU.

P.S. Remember Hitler came to power with 30 percent of the german vote. SO I think 80 percent support for islamism/ideals among turks is a warning sign for us all. After reading how a similar number of (western?) muslim pakistanis in Britain have a majority islamist leaning and I think the evidence is clear...europe is up politically correct suicide creek without a paddle.

IF Turkey joins the EU, then expect the adultery laws to be passed. And what will Europe do then I wonder?

As an Italian Born Aussie......I say Italy should pull out of the EU,so should every other country interested in preserving its cultural identity.....leave the EU to France....after all they seem to always speak about it like it belongs to them.

Any way they started this whole Muslim Immigration flooding in the first place.

Joe Bananas: Actually I think that the admission of Turkey may very well result in other EU countries leaving the EU.

That would be sad, as I think that the European Union has prevented Europe from waging war against itself since it's formation.

But having Turkey as a member would be like having the enemy within.

Old Saying 'Many a slip 'twixt cup and the Lip'
comes to mind. Europeans, even Chirac are indulging in some Taqqiya of their own. They want to keep Turkey 'sweet' but have no intention of admitting her for years and years and years...

Voltaire.

I agree the EU has done good to keep Europe as "one" but now it has also been infected with the Socialist ideology of one world homogenous milkshake thinking.

Turkey is not part of Europe, it will only drag the rest down IMHO.

Hugh,

Your comments and point ov view are the best on the Net and I wait for your commentaries avidly every day. But there are a few things about which I think you are wildly optimistic. First of all, let me tell you that I live in France. Your "thesis" is that people in France or Europe will "react" to Islamic immigration and attempt to turn the tide; you have said that most people here would like to turn back the clock and go back to a time when there was no Islamic immigration. But sadly, that is simply not the case. When the barbarians invaded Rome, the elegant Roman ladies leaned out of their windows and thrilled "When do the rapes begin?" Such is the situation in France today. Most people see Islamic immigration as a GOOD thing. And for the tiny minority who might "react", which might only take the form of "voicing dissent", there are plenty of "hate speech" laws in place to make sure that no public debate on this most critical issue can take place. Talking about Islam in France is a completely TABOO subject...how do you expect anybody to voice dissent on this issue when ALL of the pillars of society, the education system above all, but the media, the elite political class, even the Catholic Church (!) are complicit in the perpetuation of this taboo. All dissent is stifled...how do you expect a "reaction" against the Islamic takeover of France to take place? When I speak to my friends about this, they simply avert their eyes, deny the taboo, and say they just don't want to talk about it. With regard to France, too, remember especially that their views of Islam are conditioned by a fantasist view that the Muslim world is "theirs"; it's their special friend. They think that their Revolutionary "mission civilisatrice" is to convert Muslims to secularism...and they think they are winning! It is with biblical certitude that they will tell you that they are converting Islam to secularism. It is a point of national honor, and to deny it would put too many national "certitudes" and points of pride into question.

But anyway...you're doing a great job...keep it up. When we have all moved to the USA one day, maybe we'll meet...

Message to all: familiarize yourselves with the exploits of: Pelayo, Jan Sobieski, Charles Martel...

Europe, wake up!!!!

To Pelayo

Thanks for your post...was interesting. I agree hugh is the best poster here.

Was just curious, I accept what you say about how it is taboo to talk about the islamisation of france because people are expected to beleive that the muslims there are really becoming secular, as well as due to anti-freedom of speech laws. I saw some tv reports of how some regions in France (especially jewish areas) are getting worried about islamisation and related anti-semitism/violence and so vote for Le Pen. What is your take on this movement...am just curious. Le Pen is much more far right than many of the other right-wing anti-immigration/anti-islamism parties in europe. So if Le Pen is getting 20 percent is this indicating atleast some french are beginning to beleive that the islamists in france are becoming a threat to secular france?

P.S I know it is ironic that people would vote for Le Pen when they are worried about anti-semitic islamist violence.

Son of Albion asks a highly relevant question in the first comment: what happens if Turkey turns officially fundamentalist while already a EU member. No one is considering that possibility, no one asks that question. OK, EU will have the Constitution. But if the future Islamic Turkey one day announces they don't give a damn about the Infidel Constitution, then what? Declare a war within the EU, against its largest member state? Forget about the Constitution, make it optional to follow it? EU didn't even know what to do about that insignificant Austrian semi-Nazi, Haider, so how could they possibly deal with a whole country turning Islamofascist if that happens?

European elites are all too confident that once in EU, Turkey will automatically become more and more secular, European, modern and democratic. It is progressivism at its worst. Europe is so self-confident, so sure that its Western influence has enough allure to modernize and accommodate all Muslims who want to enter, from Turkey as well as North Africa. Our thinking, academic and political, is so full of postcolonial guilt and of self-hate manifested as the critique of "Western Imperialism" that we fail to notice that the "dominant" liberal-democratic ideology that the progressives love to hate, is not so dominant any more, even in our own homes. This progressive self-hating masochism is actually a reverse side of a hidden arrogance: we just can't imagine that our "imperialist" liberal, secular values might be in need of protection. This total refusal to see our values and our world seriously threatened is indeed parallel to the situation in the 1930-ies, as is mentioned above - we learn nothing from history.

- one of the Europeans thinking about getting (back) to the US -

obl r us...

many thanks for your comment. I could write a very lareg tome about Le Pen and his movement, because it can be considered from so many different angles. I hardly know where to begin. I have to say that I have somewhat mixed feelings about this movement. My "regrets" about the anti-immigration movement in France is that it is so ineffective, although that ineffectiveness is not only the fault of Le Pen. Le Pen's movement must first and foremost be understood as a movement of French nationalism. And like French nationalism itself, it is a very confused beast. On the one hand, Le Pen's supporters will bemoan the Islamification of France, but in the next breath they will buy the Eurabic line that "Israel is the major source of world tension", or sth like that. It is very important to understand that the French consider themselves the civilizers of humanity, and Le Pen's movement is no exception to that. And the French dearly cherish the idea that they are the stewards of the Muslim world, and will bring the secular values of Revolutionary France to that world. Nobody else will listen to them, but the Muslim world encourages the French in the fiction that they are listening to them. What I'm trying to tell you is that, as a French nationalist movement, even the National Front buys into this "idee de France".

On the other hand, the FN is the one truly anti-Islamification party, and it is the only place where a Frenchman concerned about the Islamification of France can go. As you most correctly point out, the FN garners 20% of the vote regularly. But that is meaningless. The FN cannot be mentioned in polite conversation. They are "beyond the pale" in French politics. Many of their freely elected officials have been turned out of office on "technicalities" after elections, and even this is rarely reported in the press. But you have a situation where the Left is basically overturning election results they don't like, and nobody raises a peep. The bottom line is that 20% of the electorate is disenfranchised. It's like saying to one fifth of France "we can vote, but your votes don't count". The demonisation of the FN is such that the more moderate right wing parties cannot make alliances with them. Look at the hilarious spectacle of the recent "regional elections" in France. If you put all of the election results together, and include the FN, then the "right" was the clear winner, according to votes cast. But the media's portrayal of election results does not include the FN as a "right wing party". They are an "extreme right wing party". This sleight of hand means that the media and the political class can shout from the rooftops: THE LEFT HAS WON!! THE LEFT HAS WON...but amazingly nobody tells them that France consistently votes for the right in every single election. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER. It's the pro-Islamic Left that runs the debate...and if they say the Left has won, then I guess the Left has won...

When all is said and done, the FN will not be permitted to win. It's impossible. The French judiciary has overturned, discreetly, FN election victories, and they regularly try to keep Le Pen from running, always on technicialities.

In a braod sense, the message to the French electorate is that they shouldn't even bother wasting their vote on an anti-Islamic party. The Dhimmi parties have a stranglehold on power, and they won't give it up. And the French accept it like sheep.

That said, there is certainly a broad swath of French public opinion that is against the Islamification of France...but I don't think it will ever amount to anything. Sadly, the French are subjected to so much ideological anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda that they are incapable of articulating another vision of society. They seem to be stuck with their Islamic future, as they would rather be flattered in the alleyways of Casablanca and the streets of Cairo than be seen as a second rate power in the corridors of state in Washington and London.

Last word...M. Le Pen is his own worst enemy, in a sense...he really is a kind of buffoon, and many French people who love their country and resent its Islamification have a distaste for this man. He says the right things many times, and articulates what a lot of French people think, but he is not the kind of thoughtful, reflective leader that the French need, and deserve. Bruno Megret is much more this type, and it's a pity that he is not leading the anti-Islamification movement.

Bon courage...

Pelayo.

Excellent article, yes article, it was very insightful. The Left in France has been in power for so long it knows no opponent (s), there are striking parralels with Islam and Socialism....adherents and leaders of these, see it as their aim, by hook,and crook to make the world submit to them.
Neither can be trusted.

As I said leave the EU to France , those who want to should leave.

Many Thanks Pelayo

You know what you are talking about. French politics has qualities that seem confusing/contradictory to say the least. It is disturbing that political freedom can be curtailed as you explain becuase the french have a heightened super sense of political correctness. I guess this quality in french politics may come down from the time of the french revolution when government was expected to radically change society for the better by regulating everything meticulously. That didn't work back then for the Republic. The republic as I am sure you knew ended up throwing out alot that was good and adopting much new that didn't work. I am worried as you are that this obsession with regulating french society to extemes so as to acheive some kind of utopia is resulting in a dysfunctional society and politics. Over regulation stifles freedom, democracy and difference in society. I guess this striving for a utopia through a rigid ideology is why many islamist muslims and french politicians and academics get along so well. Both are striving for utopias via adherance to a rigid ideology at the expense of peoples freedoms to varying degrees . Follow the secular regulations or allahs word and everything will be allright. Don't think outside of the box if you want to adress a problem...here is the book telling you how to think. Take this attitude to the extreme and you have (in practice) a one party state, with its populous following one ideology no matter its failings and its costs..which in Frances case could be very great.

P.S. The EU seems to have adopted the french utopian over-regualtory model zealously resulting in the same intellectually stifling, anti-democratic and dysfunctional results for society. How this can be changed I am at a loss. Maybe a revolution could do it but that is unlikely. Things havn't got bad enough in europe yet for that revolution (in thought) to occur.

thanks again

Joe:" there are striking parralels with Islam and Socialism...."

Would you mind indicating what these are exactly (except that many Socialists are too naive to realize what Islam is about)?

At least, Socialism (whatever one means by that) does not declare most of humankind (like women, gays and Infidels) subhuman.

Comments like this are not exactly helpful if you want to make more of Europeans resist and oppose Islam. Left-bashing on anti-Islamic sites won't do anything to help the liberals and social democrats of Europe to finally realize that Islam is the most Fascist, consevative and patriarcal ideology alive today and that they have every good reason to fight it. I'd much rather see liberals and Social Democrats joining the fight against Islam than all anti-Muslim votes going to the likes of Le Pen.

It makes no difference, as liberals will cling to their obsolete ideology even as the jihadis kick down their doors and gang rape their daughters. Even then they'll find some way to blame it all on colonialism, Jews, globalisation, or whatever else is in vogue at the time. Try quoting the Koran to a liberal, and marvel at the sleight-of-mind they demonstrate in order to avoid reality. I should know, I used to be one myself - until I read the Koran.

I am an anti-Jihadist because I am liberal...liber, free, libertas, freedom, these notions are completely annihilated by the tenents, spirit and soul of Islam. Whatever one's traditional political orientation or supposed category, if you believe in freedom, one must oppose Islam and oppose forcefully.

two points:

1) it will be interesting to watch raffarin's career from here on out. will he keep his post? will he continue this line of rhetoric? or will he attenuate it in order to be more dhimmi-like?

2) regarding the idea of parallels between socialism and islam, there is likely an enormous discussion that can be had down to all kinds of details. however, it is helpful to note that totalitarian ideas from both left and right have general organizational similarities that cause them to behave in similar ways -- namely, control over individual thinking and behaviour, as well as infallibility of authority. this is why utopianism is dangerous -- in reality, it leads to dystopia, lack of freedom, and state/religious sanctioning of mass murder

Posted by: JTF
"Whatever one's traditional political orientation or supposed category, if you believe in freedom, one must oppose Islam and oppose forcefully"

You are so right JTF..

This Country is about freedom, yours and mine..
It does not matter if we are left or right..

No Islam, Know Peace

Scandie;

I should have said "striking parralell not parralel(s)"

The "parralell" I was refering to is the one I mentioned on that post....I was not equating Islam with the wider Ideoligies and policies of Socialism.

Regards

Pelayo, thank you for the kind words. On June 23 Robert Spencer posted at this site something I wrote called "Douce France." If you read it, possibly you will no longer think of me as "wildly optimistic." But instead of despairing, one keeps hoping that first one person, then two more, then a hundred more, then ten thousand more, will let the scales fall from their eyes, and begin to understand what demographic conquest by Muslims will mean, for them, for their posterity, for the survival of something called European civilization. That European countries, that the EU bureacracy, that much of the press (Le Monde, Liberation) and television and radio, is in the hands of appeasers, quislings, and fools, is true, and that they prevent the articulation of home truths, and so the general population remains confused, demoralized, and even, in some cases, unwilling or unable to understand the real situation, is also true. But the main culprit I still think is the elite, the products of ENA, the jouranlists at Le Monde and Liberation, Canal Cinq, RFI, and the rest -- the population that actually has to endure the changes in their lives that Muslims have brought about are quite another matter. But they lack a voice that is firm, sober, respectable, coherent, even witty.

In Occupied France, from the first days, the Fifth Column was active. The Alsatian elevator man at Paris-Soir handed over the keys to the printing plant to the Germans as soon as they entered Paris. "Au pilori" with its constant antisemitism and anti-Americanism, bears comparison to the French press today, or perhaps one ought to have put that vice-versa. But there was a difference. Then, the Occupier was clearly from without, a foreign country, foreign troops. And sensible people could tell the difference between propaganda and the truth. When the Germans broadcast from Radio-Paris, French children sang to the tune of La Cucaracha:

"Radio-Paris ment, Radio-Paris ment
Radio-Paris est allemand.

Now the propaganda, the defeatism, is much more insidious. And the enemy, millions strong, which does not strut about in uniforms and jackboots, but simply is, and contains within its belief-system the frightening wellsprings of primitive hysteria and hate (not all still are fed by those wellsprings, but many are -- and that is the problem). So the heat is slowly turned up, not enough to cause anyone to jump out of the pot, but enough so that in the end, you will be cooked. And not by Careme.

Aware of all this, one must nonetheless talk, think, and act as if enough people will come to their senses in time. For there is still time -- time to kick out the likes of Chirac and D. de V., time to scrap the Euro-Arab Dialogue and instead of seeking still greater "cooperation," having as little to do with the Muslim world as possible -- keeping it disarmed, keeping Muslims out, making the conduct of Muslim life difficult in the Bilad al-Kufr, expelling all Muslim non-citizens as security threats (for we have no way to distinguish the true "moderates" from those who feign moderation, or are only temporarily "moderate"), and then following it upo with expulsions of those about whom it can be shown that they do not accept the institutional arrangements, and understandings, that underlie the laic state of France. This is not a horrible thing to contemplate, but a perfectly sensible thing, and it is fully in accord with the behavior of states since time immemorial -- not least in the Middle East, where the Arabs are past masters of whole-sale movement of peoples.

No, Pollyanna has never been a favorite character. And yes, en voyant les hommes, il faut que le coeur se brise ou se bronze. Okay, I have hardened my heart, and doing my damnedest. How about you?