The Serbian Orthodox Church is attempting to strike back against the dhimmi governments that abetted the jihad in Kosovo. From the BBC, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
The Serbian Orthodox Church has filed a lawsuit against the UK, France, Germany and Italy for allegedly failing to protect its churches in Kosovo.Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren, who lodged the complaint, told Serbian media that the four nations had allowed ethnic Albanians to ransack churches.
The state-run Politika paper quotes him saying dozens of Orthodox churches and religious monuments had been destroyed.
Nato-led troops took control of mainly-Muslim Kosovo in June 1999.
The international community forced Serb troops and authorities out of the province amid escalating violence against separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.
Mob attacks
Clashes have continued between the majority Albanian population and the Serb minority since the Nato-led troops moved into Kosovo.
An outbreak of violence in March, in which Serb-owned homes and churches were attacked, left 19 people dead.
Bishop Artemije said the UK, France, Italy and Germany had failed to protect the Orthodox Church's property, followers and institutions.
Monasteries, medieval icons and frescos are among the religious sites to have been destroyed, he said, with 80 churches burned since 1999.
Picture: Albanian Nazi's were specially brutal to the Serb Orthodox clergy. Here an Albanian is murdering an Orthodox priest in Devic in World War 2.
http://faiserbia.showsit.info/
INFORMED CHRISTIAN
Have read link and am apalled at stupidity of Clinton's administration!! There must be more information made available to general Public about the Serbs' struggle against Islam - THE DEATH CULT. As for Al BBC, why are there never any pictures of burned churches??
May God grant them success. Although I am doubtful, given that an enormous coalition of Western powers appear to have some interest that is realized by the cleansing of a Serbian province of its original inhabitants, with their replacement being a Muslim culture ridden through with drug runners, gun smugglers, flesh traders, garden-variety mafiosi and jihadists. What that interest is, I cannot say, as I have been baffled for 10 years. Nevertheless, I will raise a toast of Serbian plum brandy when I arrive at home after work.
I think the fact that 80 churches were destroyed by ethnic Albanians while the usual suspects moralized rather than ACTING morally, shows the double standard that exists between Muslims and Christians, enabled by dhimmi Christians themselves!
Every bit of removal of our heritage by Islam for example, is accomplish in just this fashion, day in and day out, year after year. What will be left of our the Judeo-Christian tradition?
Churches can be rebuilt, but the will to do so must be present as well as the cultural memory to pass on to future generations. At the rate the West is going, there will not be much left to preserve, begining in Europe and ending in America.
Jeff M posted:cleansing of a Serbian province of its original inhabitants, with their replacement being a Muslim culture ridden through with drug runners, gun smugglers, flesh traders, garden-variety mafiosi and jihadists. What that interest is, I cannot say, as I have been baffled for 10 years.
I too have felt completely befuddled, since and during the Kosovo war, as to why a Christian population subscribing and allied to the West, was sacrificed to islam. A Serb nation, that has fought long and hard against the most entrenched enemy of Western civilisation, was sacrificed at the behest of the Saudis. What has always stuck in my mind, was that the bombing of the Serbs started immediately after Allbright's visit to Saudi Arabia.
Sad to confess but I was one of those saps taken in by the muslim cries of victimhood. Needless to say, I don't believe anything coming from anyone committed to islam.
As for the churches, the body of Christian believers is the church, not the structure. Meverthless, it's sad to see history destroyed and rewritten falsely.
Good luck to the Bishop.
I was taken in by the propaganda too. Fat lot of good it did for us to save thousands of Muslims' lives. They still cheered when our people were slaughtered only 2 years after Clinton's brilliant "intervention" of 1999.
Michelle and Suzan,
Me too. I was travelling in China in April of 1999. I remember debating a Chinese national during an all night train ride about the "importance" of stopping Milosevic. A few weeks later, their embassy was bombed (though I still believe it was an accident).
Only recently I learned that the Clinton administration somewhat legitimized the KLA by removing it from the list of terrorist organizations, and that Ali Izetbegovitch (the late president of Bosnia-Herzegovina) was a member of Amin Al Husseinis Hanzar brigades.
Let's just say I'm one of those conservatives who were concieved on 9/11.
I have regarded the start point of the modern jihad against the West, with the war in Bosnia and Kosovo. Our acquiescence to the demands of Saudi Arabia and the muslim world, was a spur to the re-invigoration of the modern jihad.
The US, Britain and NATO in 1999, acted in very similar fashion to The Great Powers in 1938, when in Munich, they sacrificed Sudetanland to the Nazis. If we defeat the Jihad against us, future historians will place the Rambouillet Conference alongside the Munich Pact, as one of the great acts of shameful appeasement of modern times.
There was a direct line from Munich to WWII, and so I believe there is a direct line from Rambouillet to 9/11. Appeasement never pays.
I wasn't suckered into supporting Bill Clinton's war on Serbia. I never back the Muslim side. I'm Jewish but all the dynamited Serb Orthodox churched make me want to cry. More prove of the depravity known as Islam
Stop the "Albanian lobbies" like in Washington.
Been to a site with photos of the destroyed churches a while back but forgotten the link (url) to it. You can search foor it, I guess.
March 23, 2004
KOSOVO: FIVE CENTURIES OF STRIFE AND ETHNIC CLEANSING
by Srdja Trifkovic
A Reminder that Srdja Trifkovic is the author of this book.
The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1928653111/qid=1102634659/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4666929-3574515?v=glance&s=books
Read his article here. Its a bit long but good.
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic04/NewsST032304.html
Since March 17 over thirty Serbs were killed in Kosovo by rioting Albanians, hundreds were wounded, and thousands expelled from their homes. In many cases their homes were set on fire, their livestock killed, and their property looted. Two-dozen Christian churches and monasteries were also gutted or dynamited, thus nearly completing the work started in the immediate aftermath of NATO’s occupation in 1999 when over a hundred shrines were destroyed.
“Kristallnacht is under way in Kosovo,” an official of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK) says, “a pogrom against Serbs: churches are on fire and people are being attacked for no other reason than their ethnic background.” Things must be out of control if even UN administrators and NATO officers, who usually deny or minimize Albanian crimes, now admit that we are witnessing a coordinated, premeditated campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The campaign has a simple objective: to expel the remaining Serbs from the province, in addition to a quarter of a million already expelled since the end of the war five years ago. It was no longer possible for the “international community” to remain in denial because its own personnel have been attacked by Albanian mobs forcing their way through UNMIK checkpoints into enclaves inhabited by the few remaining Serbs.
As Christian churches burn in the heart of Europe, as Christians are being martyred by their Muslim neighbors for the mere fact of being what they are, it is time to re-visit the history of the Kosovo conflict. Western media consumers may be forgiven for thinking that the history of that conflict starts in 1989, when the Serbs supposedly abolished the autonomy of that hitherto happy and harmonious multicultural province. This is not true, and a truthful account of the problem’s background is needed for an informed debate, lest the claims of the Albanian lobbies succeed yet again in imposing a Balkan agenda in Washington that is as offensive to decency as it is inimical to American interests.
As in Kosovo, where the minority Christian population was left defenceless against the jihadis and forced to flee, a similar situation has been ongoing in Iraq - the ancient community of Christians in Iraq, are being killed and their churches burnt, while the coalition is paralysed by PC.
Something stinks in the Christian West. I really would like to know what is going in the great minds of the strategic planners in DC, as they systematically sacrifice Christians to the Jihad. Are they under the impression that muslims will be grateful for their generosity? If anything, muslims are filled with nothing but contempt for us, as we sacrifice our natural allies.
Informed Christian: No way is the MSM going to re-visit the Kosovo conflict; it is far too shameful an episode for them. They'd much rather forget all about it. It will be upto BLOG sites such JW and LGF, to raise the issue.
Informed Christian: Thanks for the link. Very informative.
Do I see a decapitation in progress?
Also exchange the burning Yugoslav flag with the American flag in the hands of Hamas/muslim supporters, and then spot the difference, if any.
Informed Christian: No way is the MSM going to re-visit the Kosovo conflict; it is far too shameful an episode for them. They'd much rather forget all about it. It will be upto BLOG sites such JW and LGF, to raise the issue.
Posted by: DP111 at December 9, 2004 06:36 PM
They can always blame it on the CIA??
Oh how our intel was so wrong??
We have to get over our mistakes and save the world from these monsters WHO CUTMENS HEADS OFF AND KILL AND RAPE BABYS HAS TO BE STOPPED!!
EUROPE FORGAVE THEMSELVES FOR ALL THE JEWS THEY TURNED OVER TO THE NAZIS TIME TO FORGIVE OURSELVES FOR KOSOVO AND STOP THE MADNESS[MULSUMS]
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength,Sight,Wisdom, and Courage to stay the course to Destory ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Open the Worlds Eyes to their Threat and give the World Strength to Stand and Fight them Amen
Posted by: Informed Christian at December 9, 2004 06:29 PM
Search some of the dimmi watch it was there and the links may still work!!!
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength,Sight,Wisdom, and Courage to stay the course to Destroy ALL islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Open the Worlds Eyes to their Threat and give the World Strength to Stand and Fight them Amen
A very good idea. In the West, a few French journalists were skeptical, and Peter Handke tried to present the Serbian position. There was never any understanding of Izetbegovic and his stated plan to re-impose the Shari'a, nor the slightest comprehension of historic Serbian fears.
In his 1924 Ph.D. thesis, the Serbian writer Ivo Andric correctly analyzed the Turkish behavior in the Balkans as a classic Jihad against non-Muslims. He understood dhimmitude perfectly. Andric received a Nobel Prize for his later novels (Bridge Over the Drina, etc.); few have ever mentioned his early thesis.
During World War II, while the Mufti of Jerusalem was in Berlin, where he helped to raise some S.S. brigades from Bosnian Muslims, the Serbians fought the Germans, were murdered by the tens of thousands in the concentration camp of Jasenovac along with Jews, and suffered in particular during Operation Kozara, where a certain Kurt Waldheim first distinguished himself for his war crimes -- as he did for the remainder of the war, which he spent in the Balkans, though for years he claimed to have returned to Austria.
Had the West showed the slightest comprehension of all this, Milosevic and his followers might never have succeeded. The ecstatic bombing of Serbia, by NATO, was sickening. And even now, the U.N.'s man on the spot, smooth-tongued Paddy Ashdown, last was heard on the radio uttering some respectful words on the passing of -- the prime cause of all that followed, the warrior for Islam and the Shari'a, Izetbegovic.
U.N. Appease(ment)keepers seems more apt.
A shame they aren't mosques being destroyed, because then, at least, the images would be on the Nightly News.
I'm sure it was just a case of the helpful Muslim neighbors merely trying to light the Christmas trees in the sacristies of all of these churches--and something simply got out of hand.
A hundred tipped over candles, maybe?
Kurt Waldheim one of Kofi's illustrious predecessors!
Former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim has been on a watch list of unwanted people since 1987 — when Justice Department probers found he "assisted or participated" in Nazi deportations and the executions of Jews and soldiers in the Balkans during World War II.
(* soldiers = SERBS)
But that hasn't stopped the world body from larding the ex-Wehrmacht intelligence officer with an annual pension of $124,754 — which he receives in Vienna and can expect to collect every year until the day he dies, the Daily News has learned.The American taxpayer has shelled out about 24% of the tab for the 83-year-old Waldheim, who served two five-year terms as UN boss from 1972 to 1982 — and has been a UN pensioner ever since.
In 1986, the then-senator introduced a nonbinding rider to an anti-terrorism bill that would have defunded Waldheim's pension by withholding U.S. contributions to it.
Although the measure was approved, no action was taken to ax the annuity.
Sixteen years have passed, and Moynihan was appalled to learn the payments never ceased. In 1997, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) sought passage of a similar resolution to end Waldheim's benefits. It died in the House subcommittee on international operations and human rights. Maloney told The News she'd reintroduce it in the next session of Congress. "It's a disgrace," she said. "He obtained his UN position under false pretenses, he continues to deny responsibility for his Nazi service — and he still collects a pension."
He gets raises
Waldheim's annual haul has shot up in the past 20 years, thanks to at least five budgetary resolutions — passed in the General Assembly by acclamation — that hiked the retirement payouts for all three living ex-secretaries general.
In other words, the assembly voted Waldheim a series of pension-allowance raises — even as evidence surfaced of his alleged role in the mass deportations of Greek and Yugoslav Jews to Nazi death camps, and in the execution of Allied prisoners, in 1942-45.
!972 is the time that the UN became virulently anti israeli and one wonders if this was Kurt's doing.
What happened during the Kosovo War was a play out of the COLD WAR. At the time Russia, Belarus was planning to unite with Serbia for a reconstituted Soviet Union. A revival of communism. The Kosovo War was used as a excuse to level Serbia so America could say to Russia and Belarus " Unite with this scrap heap! ".
The Reagan administration would have done the same thing the Clinton administration did. It too had backed jihad to defeat communism. As we now see a stratigic mistake.
I personally do not support the genocide of Muslims. America's actions in Kosovo was honorable and the humanitarian thing to do. The Muslim population were victims of war crimes and human rights abuses, even as NATO forces witness them slaughtered by Serbs that they were supposed to be protecting them from.
In the Bosnia War during the Pappy Bush adminsitration , we also fought against the Serbs, training the Croation Catholic army in alliance with the Bosnia Muslims to beat back the Serb malitias. That was honorable and human also.
The real shame is we are not doing more now to protect the defeated Orthodox Christians. And THIS failure rest with the present President George W. Bush NOT Bill Clinton. Bush is turning a blind eye to this and is once again capitulated to the Islamic Jihad. Just as he backs the two biggest supporters of jihad,pakistan (which Clinton opposed)and Suadi Arabia he is now turning a blind eye to the persecution of the Serb Christians. The present failure and capitulation is Bush's policy not Clintons. This is a simple everyday fact that many on this list refuse to accept. Bush is now President of the United States not Clinton. It is Bush's responsibility to respond to this or that outrage in Europe.
Nossy
Along with other posters i too must admit my mea culpa with regards to the Clinton's attack on the serbs.
I was fooled by the incessant BBC propaganda like many others and was possibly even more guilty since i had read reams on the WW2 serb resistance and the activities of Ante Pavelic's Ustashe and the Muslim SS troups.
Pavelic died in peace in Madrid, under the protection of Franco and should have gone to Nuremberg with the others who escaped to Argentina and the welcoming arms of Evita Perron.
Evita who was busy carting the stolen Nazi gold bars earned as payment, in her private plane trips to Lucern and other Swiss destinations.
ON her way, being feted by Franco and the Vatican.
Of course like the other posters who had not read Bat Ye'or et al , I was not able to understand that the whole thing was mostly Islamic jihad as yet unrecognised.
Did Clinton, who after all was a Rhodes Scholar understand this?
DId he willingly help the Islamification of the Balkans to deter attention from his private scandals and other advantages, perhaps in the dealings with Arafat?
Did Kurt waldheim, share his fuehrer's admiration for islam and promote its agenda at the UN?
The Treaty of Westphalia is only trotted out when it suits the big players in the Great Game. Otherwise, it's every man for himself. And who's there to witness the struggle? The media. After the fact. Of all the rotten little wars going on in the world the only ones that generate any interest are those the governments of the big powers have a stake in. Before the Russians showed an interest in Jugoslavia, when the Albanians were acting like their former privledged Ottoman ancestors, no one care at all in the West that the nation was being destroyed by Moslem imperailism/parasitism. It swas there for all to see, but it was only after the war made it to television that Westerners cared at all, because prior to that they didn't know it was going on. Fair enough. And to have supported the Moslems is also fair,based on what people in the West witnessed on television. but the media "personalities" had no clue what they were seeing beyond the simple fact that many people were dying. Yes, it was dirty. but how many journalists found out why the war was raging in the first place? No, instead, the idea was that all nations are sovereign until the big governments say they aren't. No one in the West looked at the Albanians and saw what they were doing to Jugoslavia--again.
We face the same problem with the war of Islam against the West. All nations are sovereign until they aren't. The Netherlands is sovereign until the Dutch rise up and try to expel the Moslem parasites and terrorists. Will the West intervene again like they did on behalf of the Albanians in Jugoslavia? Why not? They can if they want to. And for the most part, the West will be horrified by scenes of teary-eyed Moroccans crying that their ghettos are burned and they're victims of genocide. Forget the Dutch defending their homeland.
It's sites like Jihadwatch that might save the day next time, if there are enough readers, enough supporters, enough people aware of the reality on the streets rather than the reality on the screen. But how many people among us were on the streets of Belgrade or Tetovo? Only those of us who were disgusted by the Moslems and supportive of the Serbs. It will happen again, though, that the media will destroy any sense of reality for the sake of their fairy-tale ideas about the nature of Islam.
Jugoslavia is waiting to happen again. It might come in the Netherlands, or Sweden, or Baltimore. People here have to make the effort to educate their community members, their neighbors, their close friends so the tragedy of Jugoslavia doesn't happen again. don't count on the government. The best one gets from them is an ex-CIA plaigarist. We have to do this missionary work ourselves, and then the government will follow. Yes, if we turn the mind of our community members, even the media will respond.
Anyone can see what Islam has done in the Middle East and Europe, but they see it and don't get it. You have to work at those who do get it already. Gather the faithful and build from there. Those who supported the destruction of Serbia weren't evil. They simply didn't know the reality of the situation. It will happen again if we don't create a movemnet to stop the invasion of Islam into Europe, the destruction Islam commits on its slaves in Moslem lands, the infiltration of Islam into the schools and churches your families attend. Make it clear to everyone who knows already, and they will follow you. Europe will be Jugoslavia if we don't act. Let's get it right next time. This time.
The Vatican was against this war, I see that one time more was in the truth, this war has been a cleaning genocide against non-muslims not only serbians but catholic albanians, but well people forget very easy and Saudi Arabia and Iran follow to change Europe for re-islamize, and remember so bosnians and Kosovars are perfect terrorists, they aren´t arabics and are fair, they don´t have the refusal of people because they have the equation white race= non muslim and like this time it isn´t truth, they´re perfect terrorists and in addition we have created him the perfect basement, greetings and I pary for these killings, greetings
I did my MA Thesis on the (biased) Media coverage of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Here are some edited highlights, which might explain how some of us were all so badly duped:-
Another tactic used by the Bosnian Muslim forces was the use of "agent-provocateur" mortaring. Both Lord Owen (REF Owen p 112) and General Rose (REF Rose p 25-26) describe how [Bosnian Muslim] troops would set up a mortar position in the grounds of public buildings and then withdraw when Serbs returned the shellfire. Meanwhile, news crews would turn up and just film the Serb artillery response. Owen went on to suggest that a substantial amount of the sniping in Sarajevo was Bosnian Muslim forces sniping their own people. This was confirmed in August 1995, when the French UN troops managed to pinpoint the location of sniper fire.
UN commanders who spoke out about such incidents [Bosnian Muslims shelling their own people] frequently found themselves the subject of spurious Bosnian Muslim propaganda and media vendettas. An example of this occurred after General MacKenzie was infamously quoted in the international press as saying, “If I could convince both sides to stop killing their own people to impress CNN, perhaps we could have a ceasefire” (REF L.MacKenzie p 308) [NB - In fact there is very little evidence that Serbs fired upon their own people]. Having alluded to this tactic he was then subjected to bizarre and totally baseless propaganda, emanating from Bosnian Muslims media, alleging that he had abducted underage Muslim girls. The British UN commander, Major General Bob Stewart, described the claims as slanderous and noted that similar stories continued in for the duration of his stay in Bosnia (REF B.Stewart p 146). Both General Rose and Lord Owen were victims of similar tactics, the latter having an Islamic fatwa issued against him in 1993 by a Muslim committee based in a refugee camp in Croatia (REF D.Owen p. 222).
...
The testimonies of UN commanders in this section express misgivings about the media’s performance in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. There appears to have been a considerable bias against reporting events from a Serbian point of view. Some journalists themselves acknowledged this lack of objectivity, for instance (Martin) Bell writes that the situation in the former Yugoslavia resulted in the Serbs, “Actually [being] disadvantaged by their overwhelming [military]strength”(REF Bell p.107) in terms of world opinion . The Bosnian Muslim tactic of shelling provocatively, and their attempts to discredit their critics within the UN showed the level of importance they placed on courting the media. This was confirmed by the revelation that they employed, Rudder-Finn an American public relations firm which arranged contacts between their officials and some US journalists. They were paid in excess of $10,000 per month by Bosnian Muslim government to setup interviews with major international news companies and arrange meetings between Bosnian Muslim officials and leading western politicians, including US Vice President Al Gore (REF Lindsay p29).
...
Broadly speaking the impartiality of the media coverage suited most of the protagonists. The Bosnian Muslims and to a lesser extent the Croatians, realised the importance of the international media. They both employed public relations companies and media management agencies, most notably Rudder-Finn. The Bosnian Muslims placed such emphasis on the conflict that they sometimes deliberately provoked Serbian Forces into retaliation, and occasionally shelled their own citizens to refocus the international media on their plight. Conversely, the Bosnian Serbs had little regard for the media and were unconcerned about the impact of a negative public image. Their main spokesperson, Jovan Zametica had very little influence on Radovan Karadzic and was widely despised by their military leader General Ladic. As a result of this, very few international journalists developed a relationship with the Bosnian Serbs. This meant their positions were under reported and the war was increasingly portrayed as the "Good" Croatians and Bosnians being attacked by the "Bad" Serbs.
This portrayal was somewhat of an over simplification and ran into major problems during the sub-war between the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims in 1993-4. Having presented the war as a simple battle of good versus evil, journalists were reluctant to report the Croat-Muslim conflict to the public as they felt they would not understand it. Instead many found it was easier to focus on the misdeeds of the Serbs. As a result of the lack of press coverage of this conflict, even members of the British cabinet such as Douglas Hurd refused to believe that the Moslems and Croats were fighting each other (REF Stankovic p85).
REF Rose = Fighting for Peace: Bosnia, 1994. Rose, Gen. Michael. (Time Warner Paperbacks)
REF MacKenzie = Peace Keeper: The Road to Sarajevo. 1994. MacKenzie, Major-General Lewis. (Douglas & McIntyre )
REF Stewart = Broken Lives: Personal View of the Bosnian Conflict. 1994. Stewart, Lt Colonel Bob. (HarperCollins)
REF Bell = In Harm's Way. 1995. Bell, Martin (Hamish Hamilton Books)
REF Owen = Balkan Odyssey. 1997. Owen, David (Harvest Book)
REF Lindsay = Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy
by James M. Lindsay Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; (September 1, 1994)
REF Stankovic = Trusted Mole: A Soldier's Journey into Bosnia's Heart of Darkness. Stankovic M. 2001. (HarperCollins)
Madeline Albright famously said in October 2000 that her number one priority was getting rid of Milosevic, she “wanted him gone before she was gone” – what a shame her pursuit of Osama Bin Laden hadn't been as vigorous. Milosevic or Bin Laden - who was the biggest threat to America?
Unfortunately, Milosovic was as ruthless and brutal as the forces he was fighting, the media did their bit (missing half the story, as usual) and so we were taken in by the portrayal of the hostilities as one-sided and the Serbs the only bad actors.
waterdragon
the fact that the Serbs have survived the almot continous onslaught of Islam ove centuries show that they are a tough people, not sublect to the weaknesses of our own appeasement society.
I have spoken to several Bosnian Serb refugees whose tales are so HORRIFIC , i could not even recount them on this site.
When you say that there were attrocities on both sides, you are in fact saying that this is THE ONLY way to defend yourself against the scourge od Islamic imperialism, and yes unfortunately history has shown that TOTAL WAR is the only defence against Islam.
OUr wonderful democracy has made us so weak that we can no longer wage it.
But the serbs and the Hindus have not forgotten it.
Like the Armenians and the Assyrian christians, we disgraced ourselves in our treatment of the serbs of their predicaments who were firmly on our side .
Because we are more inclined to appease those who would destroy us than help those who would defend us from destruction.
That is the sad conclusion of years of easy hedonistic existence in western democracy.