Perhaps some French readers of Jihad Watch can fill me in on Philippe de Villiers; I don't know if he is "far right" just because he is speaking forthrightly about the Islamization of France (as Bat Ye'or, who has never been a figure of the Right, has been tarred because of her ground-breaking work in uncovering the machinations of Eurabia), or if he is really a "far right" politician.
In any case, if he is, this is another indication of how the abdication of responsibility of the mainstream political parties all over Europe has created an opportunity which the racist fringe is all too eager to take advantage of. The Islamization of France, and of Europe, is a reality, as we have abdundantly documented here, and has been harrowingly recounted by Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept. It is not a matter of race, but of ideology. It should not be the concern only of Rightists, but of any and all who believe in the equality of dignity and rights of all people. The mainstream European parties, Left, Right, and Center, should be talking about Islamization. That they are not, and that it is only a "Far Right" issue, is an indication of their cowardice and intellectual and moral bankruptcy.
More's the pity, because the more that the cultural and societal defense of Europe is seen only as a "Far Right" issue, the more people of good will will turn away from it, and continue to believe that the right combination of concessions, accommodations, and multiculturalist initiatives will set everything right.
Well, it won't.
"Far-right leader decries 'Islamisation of France,'" from Reuters, with thanks to Sugiero:
PARIS (Reuters) - A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday denouncing what he called the Islamisation of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values.Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, also charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there.
Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated. France's 5 million Muslims make up the largest such minority in Europe.
"I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France," he said in a Europe 1 radio interview kicking off his campaign for the election next year.
He plans to publish on Thursday a book entitled "The Mosques of Roissy" detailing his charges about radicals at the airport. His main rival on the far-right, National Front head Jean-Marie Le Pen, has also stepped up his preparations for the 2007 vote.
Why is it that only so-called right wing politicians and nationalists are the only people who are aware of the problem and/or willing to talk about it?
French speakers can see a recent interview with DE Villiers here http://www.dailymotion.com/fontey/video/130774 where he dicusses his latest book on the Islamisation of Paris airports.
In France even Chirac is considered right wing, despite hosting a major Eurabian conference this week http://www.forumeuroarabe.org/ .
De Villiers is the real deal. I know of no other politician so clear in his mind where the danger lies. Le Pen, the traditional right wing bogeyman, has recently supported the Iran nuclear ambitions and condemned the Danish Cartoons.
So De Villiers is all we have left. He is currently running at around 7% in the opinion polls, with a year to go before an election where Sarkozy is the clear favourite to win.
Is ir true that "Eurabia" in the original French language is still not on sale in france?
If so , i am reminded of Max ophul's son's "le chagrin et la Pitie" a damning inditement of french collaboration and one of the greatest documentary movies ever made. A film that deserves to be amongst the greatest films ever made.
This monumental movie was, i believe banned form cinemas in France for decades.
What such films tell us is that it is mediocrity, banality and garguantian bureacracy which are the greatest propagators of evil.
If Islam takes over france, history will show that these were the major factors in France's downfall.
France is probably beyond the point of no return for a breakdown at this point:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/04/fall-of-france-and-multicultural-world.html
The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War
In my essay about the retreat of the Western world order, I mentioned the possibility of civil strife in the West caused by runaway immigration. This is no longer just a theoretical possibility. It is pretty clear to anybody following the developments in Europe that the situation in France is starting to become rather serious. President Jacques Chirac threw out part of a youth labor law that triggered massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students and unions. The unemployment rate for youths under 26 is a staggering 22 percent nationwide, but soars to nearly 50 percent in some of those troubled areas with many Muslim immigrants. French Jews are leaving the country in ever-growing numbers, fleeing a wave of anti-Semitism. Nidra Poller, American ex-pat writer and translator in Paris, has written some appalling stories about aggressive anti-Semitism, such as the murder and brutal torture of French Jew Ilan Halimi early in 2006.
Muslim blogs are calling for violence against the Jews, the whites and the well-to-do. They say, “We must burn France, as Hamas will burn Israel.” The growth of the Islamic population is explosive. According to some, one out of three babies born in France is now a Muslim. Around 70% of French prisoners are Muslims. Hundreds of Muslim ghettos are already de facto following sharia, not French law. Some have pointed out that the French military are not always squeamish, but there are estimates that 15% of the armed forces are already made up of Muslims, and rising. How effective can the army then be in upholding the French republic? At the same time, opinion polls show that the French are now officially the most anti-capitalist nation on earth. France has chosen Socialism and Islam. It will get both, and sink into a quagmire of its own making. Some believe France will quietly become a Muslim country, others believe in civil war in the near future:
The French Disease
Within 20 years, one person out of four in France will be Muslim, and almost certainly poor and angry. So the French disease progresses. It is chronic becoming terminal. On the way toward collapse, there will be no civil war, just moments of harsh violence. The population will change. People with a high level of productivity will choose exile. People with a low level of productivity will immigrate. Jews and Christians will leave. Muslims will arrive.
The unreported race riot in France
Fredric Encel, Professor of international relations at the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration in Paris and a man not known for crying wolf, recently stated that France is becoming a new Lebanon. The implication, far-fetched though it may seem, was that civil upheaval might be no more than a few years off, sparked by growing ethnic and religious polarization.
I’m not sure which of these scenarios is scarier. People keep talking about the nukes that the Iranians may get, but what about the hundreds of nuclear warheads the French have? Will they be used to intimidate the rest of the West? How do we handle an Islamic France, still the heartland of the European continent, with Muslim control of hundreds of nukes? And how do we handle a Bosnia or Lebanon with a population much larger than either of these countries, and with hundreds of nuclear warheads at stake?
If Muslim immigration continues, the impending fall of France could mark the starting point of the Balkanization of much of Europe, perhaps later even North America. I fear this is a world war. Maybe future historians will dub it the Multicultural World War. Just as WW1 was caused by Imperialism, WW2 by Fascism and the Cold War by Communism, this one will be caused by Multiculturalism. The term “the Multicultural World War” has been coined by Fjordman. I find this to be more accurate than “The Islamic World War” because what will cause this world war is Western cultural weakness, through Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, rather than Islamic strength. As poster DP111 says, this world war may very well be in the form of a global civil war, where you get a succession of civil wars instead of countries invading other countries. Multiculturalism and uncontrolled mass-immigration destroy the internal cohesion of the decadent West, which will slowly fall apart as it has lost the will to defend itself and the belief in its own culture. The wars in the Balkans in the 1990s will in hindsight be seen as a prelude to the Multicultural World War. Rather than a Westernization of the Balkans, we get a Balkanization of the West.
I guess there is some poetic justice in the fact that the country that initiated and has led the creation of Eurabia now gets consumed by its own Frankenstein monster, but we should not gloat over this. The downfall of France is very bad news for the rest of the West. Again, what happens to their nukes and military resources? As stated in the book “Eurabia” by Bat Ye’or, the merger of Europe and the Arab-Islamic world has been encouraged by the French political elite in particular at least since the early 1970s, with a vision of creating a united Europe and Mediterranean basin under French leadership, in what has basically been a French dream since the age of Napoleon, the great hero of current French PM de Villepin. Several prominent French leaders stated quite openly in 2005 that the proposed EU Constitution was basically an enlarged France. Justice Minister Dominique Perben said: “We have finally obtained this ‘Europe à la française’ that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French.” Education Minister François Fillon stated: “This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for.” The French dream of an enlarged France. What they may get is a France carved into tiny pieces.
My personal belief is not that we are witnessing the final triumph of Eurabia, but rather the last spasms of the Eurabian Union. There will be at least as big changes in Western Europe over the coming generation as there were in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall. There will be the downfall and disintegration of an anti-democratic, bureaucratic superstate, the European Union instead of the Soviet Union, and there will be the downfall of “soft Socialism” in the shape of the Multicultural welfare state in the West just as you had the downfall of the “hard Socialism” in the East. The difference is that the downfall of Communism in the East happened through a relatively bloodless “Velvet Revolution,” whereas the downfall of Multiculturalism in the West may turn out to be anything but bloodless. And it will come, sooner than many people think. Multiculturalism, cultural Marxism and the idea of forced cultural equality, will collapse just as Communism, the idea of economic Marxism and forced economic equality fell.
The difference is that when Communism was discredited in Eastern Europe, it was still Poles who lived in Polish cities, Bulgarians who lived in Bulgarian cities etc. When the veil of Multiculturalism disappears, it will be Pakistanis who live in London, Turks who live in Berlin, Algerians who live in Paris and Moroccans who live in Amsterdam. And then the show begins.
Europe may not be finished yet, but she will go through a painful period of transition even if we do get a rebirth here. It should be noted that a revolution doesn’t usually come when the oppression is at its worst, but when the grip of the authorities and their totalitarian ideology, in this case Multiculturalism and Political Correctness, seems to be slipping. This was the case with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and it will be the case with the European Union now. I see increasing signs that the idea of Multiculturalism is on the retreat. Even Germany’s and Europe’s largest newspaper ran a series about the collapse of Multiculturalism recently
The whole Le Pen vs de Villiers issue was raised on a previous DW thread here (beginning at 9:50am with a link to Laurence Auster responding to some french correspondents about possible perfidy on the part of Le Pen)
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/010843.php
To summarize, it appears that Le Pen has been courting the Muslim vote and that De Villiers is the "real deal", as Sebastian notes, and much cleaner to boot but being much less well known, his candidacy runs the serious risk of splitting the vote on the right, according to our other regular french poster joiesauvage, who is otherwise in basic agreement with Sebastian about the merits of de Villiers.
And that's about all I know. I do hope both our regular French posters (oh Chevalier de St George of course too!), as well as some french "lurkers", will weigh in here and give the rest of us some insights...
Villiers said Islam was incompatible with the country's democratic system because he said it demanded loyalty to the ummah (world Muslim community) over any individual state, wanted to impose sharia Islamic law and promoted jihad, or holy war.
"I think there are moderate Muslims, they are even the large majority, but I do not believe there is a moderate Islam," he said. "I do not think Islam is compatible with the French republic."
---
Well, that sounds correct to me. Not far right. Remember this site is considered far-right also.
This whole issue of left and right needs a rethink and a redefinition, compared to many or maybe most Jihad Watchers, FREEPERS and LGF'ers I would be considered left, and I don't have a problem with multiculturalism (and am surprised that anyone who is descended from East Europeans would be anti multiculturalist), however multiculturalism has it's limits and that limit is the ability and willingness to assimilate into America and European society.. and there Islam comes up with a definite negative.
The "Right" certainly has allies with Islam when it comes to "cultural issues" and the "culture war", which brought Bush to power and still dominates the landscape.
To wit from USA Today American Muslims gain foothold in US Politics
And let me remind you of what Grover Norquist said, "George W. Bush was elected president of the United States because of the Muslim vote. That's right the Muslim vote". along with, of course the good folk of the Red States, who voted Bible and hormones.
Win the battle, lose the war they say.
"Perhaps some French readers of Jihad Watch can fill me in on Philippe de Villiers; I don't know if he is "far right"..."
-- from the comment by Robert above
Not "far right" at all except in the idiotic terms now imposed on helpless hapless French readers (of Le Monde, of Liberation) and listeners (you too can hear RFI every weekday morning, from 7 to 9, for an earful), and viewers (Canal Cinq will do as an example). In American terms, Philippe de Villiers could be seen as "far right" as Senators Henry Jackson or Gaylord Nelson or Hubert Humphrey or Mayor Fiorello La Guardia or Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson. Does that seem "far right" to you?
One dreams, hopes, that Philippe de Villiers will somehow be a candidate and then be able to attract those in France who have come to their senses. Some even today are willing to vote for Le Pen, but it is hard, and impossible, for most to do so, even if they are aware of the menace of Islam and islamization through Da'wa, demographic conquest, and reflexive appeasement (or dhimmitude). Le Pen, of course, cannot possibly represent or defendthe best in France; he is himself a cultural and intellectual primitive; his famous comment that the death camps for the Jews were a "mere detail" of World War II was not a comment to be criticized in isolation, but as Alain Finkielkraut has noted, a remark far more telling than the easy criticism focussed on that remark alone would indicate (see "La Defaite de la pensee, see "Le Juif imaginaire," see "Memoire en vaine"). Le Pen is a type; the most unpleasant type of petty bourgeois, the Pierre-Poujade type, confused by the world, and hardly the man to represent Les Lumieres, Montaigne and Chateabriand, and if he were elected he would just as soon run out of town those who came up with Bourbaki as he would the Imam Boubakeur.
Sarkozy, the other hope, has said things about the need to create a kind of affirmative action system for Muslims so as to "integrate" them which is impossible, and offers yet another false hope, and another reason to delay the recognition of reality. Sarkozy is, however, the very best that his party has to offer (Chirac should go to jail once he leaves office, and Dominique de Villepin should become the poetry editor of....some very small but chi-chi publishing house, possibly Actes Sud. He has turned out not to be the St. John Perse of the age; one hates to break it to him, so perhaps we can leave that up to posterity).
That leaves Philippe de Villiers. It would be wonderful if some kind of collective coming to one's senses could take place. Alain Besancon, Pascal Bruckner, Alain Finkielkraut, even possibly a Todorov or two, would be nice to see endorsing not the seductively named Segalene Royal (not as seductively named as Orianna Fallaci, however), but Philippe de Villiers. And yes, he may be that unheard-of thing in contemporary French politics, a devout Christian, but so what? So is Pope Benedict, whose view of Islam is also far more realistic than that of Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, Chris Patten, and -- one regrets to add -- all those cheerleading for the Light Unto the Muslim Nations Project in Iraq, which is supposed to lead to "victory" (over what, exactly?) so that we can all turn on the television and keep glued to the latest on what Paris thinks of Nicole, how long Angelina and Brad will endure one another, and whether the Da Vinci Code is merely as truthful as the Bible, or more truthful.
Philippe de Villiers so far looks like the best, Sarkozy next. Le Pen ideally will be incapacitated or die, and then those who were, out of desperation, out of a need to give some sign, will be able to freely vote for a candidate who is respectable, articulate, and not someone who, unlike Le Pen, understands the full scope of the problem, and would be able to articulate it and to carry a larger section of the French population with him in his efforts to protect them, and their legacy, including the two great gifts to the world. To wit: the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the dictee.
Robert--
Might you put quotation marks around the words "far right" in the title? Otherwise, it gives the appearance of accepting the truth of that false and tendentious all-purpose epithet.
"Some even today are willing to vote for Le Pen." Le Pen is unambigously the enemy:
http://www.nysun.com/article/27822
The Christian right wing in France was horrified at Le Pen's Islamic tilt, and I believe that that tilt gave a push to the already existing Mouvement Pour La France (MPF), which may be a fine group (unlike England's nativist BNP, which might do well in the local elections in a couple of weeks, as some like me think good -- to send the Tories a message -- and some think not so good -- as BNP has a prejudice against non-Anglos, though especially Muslims).
MPF is a happier subject:
http://www.pourlafrance.fr/accueil.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouvement_pour_la_France
Nariz, you're not left,
You are right.
It is time for redefining.
The left plays the fool,
in it's nihilistic march
toward greater hedonism,
its lack of internal balance,
it's lack of ability to accept
failure of its utopian plans
even when confronted with the
results of the efforts of generations.
A healthy balanced civilization
doesn't have a north american men/boys love assoc.
A healthy balanced civilization
does not need massive amounts of pornography,
three hundred tv channels of banality,
a car for each person,
twenty feet of three shelves of cold cereal,
A healthy, balanced civilization
protects itself from invasion,
treasures its children and
teaches them right from wrong.
We need balance between
traditional left and right
and it seems to be happening
ever since 9/11.
"BNP has a prejudice against non-Anglos, though especially Muslims..."
-- from a posting above
A prejudice is an irrational fear or hatred. Fear or hatred of Hindus or Jews or blacks by members of the BNP are all examples of prejudice. Fear of a large and aggressive Muslim population, some members of which have taken part in terrorist acts in London and abroad, many of whose members have expresseed in opinion polls their support for such acts of terrorism and their lack of any sense of loyalty to the Infidel nation-state, and that cannot conceivably, given the tenets of Islam, offer such a loyalty -- that fear, or that hatred, is not irrational, is not prejudice. Not in England, not in France, not in Italy, not in India or southern Nigeria or the southern Sudan. It is based on rational fears, based on statements and beliefs and acts too widespread to be attributed only to a "handful of extremists."
By the way, Sarkozy may lose to the socialists in 2007; and LePen is far more popular than de Villiers.
What can one DO with the amazingly foolish French, who have lifetime jobs and such a small future.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/english/20060420.WWW000000369__royal_and_sarkozy_champions_of_their_camps.html
Il miglior fabro.
Hugh is correct. "Prejudice" indicates an irrational or preconceived notion, or as dictionary.com says, "An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts."
and "fabbro" has two B's. i'll be quiet now.
Snorkling through the Net, I came across this French blog that appears to be critical of "Neo-Conservateurs". It has a long attempted deconstruction of Alexandre Del Valle and his fellow-travelers, in which is written:
"One example of the allance between the new reactionaries and the extremist multi-culturalists is manifested by the "12 intellectuals against 'the new totalitarianism', where the signature of Bernard Henri-Levy ('the anti-fascist') is found next to that of Ibn Warraq, who is close to the far right and a friend of Del Valle."
http://grenoble.indymedia.org/index.php?page=article&filtre=0&droiteA=0&numpageA=1&id=2213
To correct some typos and include some other info for my post above:
"One example of the allance between the new reactionaries and the extremist multi-culturalists [communautaires*] is manifested by the "12 intellectuals against 'the new totalitarianism'," where the signature of Bernard Henri-Levy ('the anti-fascist') is found next to that of Ibn Warraq, who is close to the far right [un proche de l’extrême droite] and a friend of Del Valle."
* The term communautaires seems to have no handy translation into English. Some further comments from the blog quoted above indicate what the blogger, at least, means by the term and by that "alliance" alluded to above:
"...extremist communautaires, arising from one source out of the Right, from another out of the traditional Far Right, and from another out of ultra-Zionist groups, work together to give a theoretical legimitacy to the anti-North-African racism tied to the Colonial period and to immigration.
"Even if, in their respective histories, the new reactionaries are ideologically far from the extremist communautaires, the recognition of a common enemy -- the black and Arab Muslim populations -- has allowed for an ideological rapprochement of these two groups."
"Ibn Warraq, who is close to the far right and a friend of Del Valle."
-- from some Muslim propaganda site
This is utter nonsense. There is nothing "far right" or even "right" about Ibn Warraq. His philosophical tastes run to Spinoza and Hume (the last book he recommended to me was that by Jonathan Israel on Spinoza and the Englightenment). What conceivably could be "far right" about him? Possibly what earns him that title, that transparent attempt to fling epithets about and see if they can be made to stick, is that his book "Why I Am Not a Muslim?" is too instructive, too revealing, too telling, unrebuttable and too hot to handle, and this, combined with his scholarly work on the early history of the Qur'an, and his obvious and dangerous "authenticity" (if such is required, and apparently it is) as someone born into Islam, and completely familiar with it, and with what is said among Muslims that is so different from what is presented for Infidel consumption, make it necessary to blacken his name.
Even if you are as liberal as one can be in everything else, a classical Garibaldian anti-clerical and anti-fascist such as Orianna Fallaci, or a social libertine such as Pym Fortuyn or equal-opportunity mocker such as Theo van Gogh, it doesn't matter. If you recognize the menace of that totalitarian belief-system of Islam, and are capable of worrying aloud, articulately, aboutthe future of Europe, if its peoples do not halt and reverse the islamization of their own societies, then such websites as that quoted will label you of the "far right" -- just as some of those associated with this website have been similarly, and comically, deliberately mis-identified.
As for Ibn Warraq being a "friend of Alexandre del Valle" -- I doubt that he has met him more than once, if at all. And if he did? What makes Alexandre del Valle byeond the pale? Nothing.
Excellent amplification by Hugh. The terms "right" and (better yet) "far right" have apparently become epithets to affix to all critics of Islam. As for Del Valle, that blogger claims that he has a sordid past as an anti-semite; as for his "friendship" with Warraq, the same blogger adduces the fact that Warrag co-wrote a defense of Del Valle
against Xavier Ternisien (Le Monde reporter who has attacked Del Valle for his criticisms of Islam). That blogger is less valuable for the accuracy of his statements than for what he reveals between the lines about our opponents in the war of ideas against Islam: as though a defense of Del Valle against Ternisien is a bad (i.e., "far right") thing!
The university-MSM-permanent gov't cabal running France is wound even tighter than in America. Look for A2, TF1, and the others to really do a number on Monsieur de Villiers. They've already put their tar brushes to him and the fun has just begun.
Rachid Kaci and Mohammad Guadi were among the co-signers, with Ibn Warraq, of the letter written in response to Xavier Ternisien's absurd attempt to equate something he calls"islamophobie" -- a name given to those who, having studied Islam as a belief-system, and the observable behavior of Muslims over the past 1350 years, the behavior demonstrated in Jihad-conquest and subjugation of conquered Infidels, apparently do not like what they see -- with the murderous mental pathology, responsible for the deaths of entirely inoffensive and largely helpless people, and not only at the hands of the Nazis, which is called antisemitism.
For more on this:
Libreinformation le 21/12/2003
On parle beaucoup dans les cercles politiques et médiatiques d'un phénomène qui menacerait la République dans ses fondements mêmes : "l'islamophobie". Monsieur Xavier Ternisien avait donné le la en mai 2002 dans une tribune publiée en première page du Monde et intitulée "Les dangers de l'islamophobie". Ce thème a depuis fait flores. Ainsi, un rapport du MRAP publié en juillet 2003 a-t-il dénoncé, avec une rare virulence, les dérives islamophobes d'un certain nombre d'intellectuels. Ainsi, par exemple, l'économiste Guy Millière, un des pourfendeurs les plus constants de la haine islamiste et à ce titre fervent défenseur d'Israël, se voit-il accuser de racisme aigu, d'"islamophobie" mais également d'une haine farouche des homosexuels.
De même, un ouvrage de Monsieur Vincent Geisser intitulé "La nouvelle islamophobie", en référence à l'œuvre magistrale de Pierre-André Taguieff, "La nouvelle judéophobie", vient de paraître en librairie.
Dans cet essai, Frédéric Encel, docteur en géopolitique et auteur notamment de "Géopolitique de l'Apocalypse. La démocratie à l'épreuve de l'islamisme" se voit accuser, sans autre forme de procès, de véhiculer des préjugés "islamophobes".
Ces derniers jours, en pleine flambée de haine anti-juive, c'est au tour des politiques de hurler avec les loups. Ainsi, Monsieur Jean-Pierre Raffarin s'est-il empressé, à l'occasion de l'agression du rabbin Sarfaty, à Evry, de dénoncer, en la mettant sur le même plan que l'antisémitisme renaissant, l'"islamophobie" qui rongerait tel un cancer le pacte républicain.
Il convient au préalable de s'interroger sur ce qu'est "l'islamophobie" dont les pourfendeurs s'abstiennent fort opportunément de donner une définition. S'agit-il de critiquer les aspects cultuels de l'islam, les cinq piliers de la foi, comme la zakat, le ramadan ou le pèlerinage à la Mecque ? Il n'en est rien. Ainsi, un site insultant pour la religion musulmane, dans ses aspects cultuels, "Catholique et Royaliste" (au moment du Ramadan, il y était écrit notamment "n'oubliez pas de mettre à profit cette période où les parasites sont affaiblis par le jeûne diurne pour les attaquer sauvagement à coups de saucissons provocateurs et de petit-salé aux lentilles dans la journée !" sic) a-t-il échappé à la vindicte du MRAP.
En revanche, le MRAP et ses séides ont entrepris de jeter l'opprobre sur tous ceux qui optent en faveur d'une approche critique du dogme islamique orthodoxe et qui s'interrogent sur sa compatibilité avec la philosophie des Lumières. Autrement dit, ils désignent comme "islamophobes" et donc comme racistes des auteurs aussi différents que Ibn Warraq, Guy Millière ou Michèle Tribalat, qui refusent de faire leur le crédo "Islam-religion-d'amour-et-de-paix". Ces derniers osent parler de la division coranique majeure, et commune aux quatre écoles de pensée, entre Dar el Harb et Dar al Islam, ou de l'obligation fondamentale de tout musulman à la guerre sainte contre l'infidèle. Ils militent, non en faveur d'une guerre de civilisations contre le monde arabo-musulman, mais en faveur d'une alternative démocratique dans cette région de la planète. Pour cela, une réforme de l'Islam en profondeur, semblable à celle qu'a connu le christianisme à partir du XVI° siècle, est nécessaire, dans la mesure où la notion d'individu, au cœur de la liberté, est inconnue de cette religion, qui ne connaît que la Oumma, la communauté des croyants. Est-il raciste de souhaiter la liberté et la primauté de l'Homme sur la Communauté pour plus d'un milliard d'êtres humains ? Pour le MRAP et ses séides, il semble que oui …
Ce concept flou et dépourvu de substance d'"islamophobie", au sens où l'entend l'intelligentsia politico-médiatique, contredit la loi française dans ses fondements et dans sa lettre. Sauf erreur, la laïcité est au cœur du projet républicain et permet la critique raisonnée de toutes les religions. En d'autres termes, le blasphème est inconnu du Droit positif français. En outre, la Révolution française est née de la critique du christianisme et du clergé par les Encyclopédistes. Faut-il en déduire que les maccarthystes de l'"islamophobie" rejettent la Révolution de 1789, libératrice de l'Homme ?
Il est donc particulièrement choquant de voir "islamophobie", au sens politiquement correct du terme, et antisémitisme mis sur le même plan, comme l'a fait très récemment Jean-Pierre Raffarin. En outre, si, par extraordinaire, la critique raisonnée du dogme islamique devait être assimilée à du racisme, force serait néanmoins de constater que "l'islamophobie" se limite aux écrits d'une poignée d'intellectuels alors que l'antisémitisme se traduit quotidiennement par des agressions physiques, des injures ou des détériorations matérielles.
Il est d'ailleurs particulièrement piquant de constater que les plus prompts à dénoncer les dérives "islamophobes" sont également les mêmes qui accusent l'armée d'un état juif de perpétrer des "crimes de guerre", dont le gouvernement "impose l'impunité" et est "juridiquement complice" … Comme l'a fort justement écrit Alain Finkielkraut, "l'antisémitisme qui vient" se développe "au nom de l'Autre" …
by Sophie Kulbach.
Note that last quote from Finkielkraut: "the new antisemitism is fashioned on behalf of 'the Other.'"
the liberation of France will not come through the "magic" leadership of some yet to be discovered hero. perhaps a Churchillian personage who will reestablish french cultural values of old.
Whatever leader emerges he will be unable to surmount the mammoth of the bureacracy and entrenched mediocracy of the monster that has been created through the generations of bien pansants of cultural and moral equivalence .
In a country where even the size and shape of a humble carrot is dictated by government. it is easy to see that it is banality which creates evil.
it is the rubber stamp which sent the jews to Drancy for fast forwarding to auschwitz.
it is the rubber stamp that authorized the despoilation of their properties and chattles.
it is the rubber stamp that rules france today has it has never done before in its long history of bureacracy.
it is the rubber stamp that frees the civl servant from having to possess a conscience and distinguish between right and wrong.
When my Aunt, a Jewess hiding in lyon then under the control of Klaus Barbie, was forced to present her forged papers to a local government office for renewal, it was a brave civil servant who renewed and rubber stamped them, knowing full well they were forgeries.
He later paid for his brave deeds with his life
through the work of the police francaise.
The leaders of france are no longer leaders, they are merely Actors or front men for the immense class of civil servants that run the coubtry
And let me remind you of what Grover Norquist said, "George W. Bush was elected president of the United States because of the Muslim vote. That's right the Muslim vote". along with, of course the good folk of the Red States, who voted Bible and hormones.
Win the battle, lose the war they say.
Posted by: Nariz at April 23, 2006 09:10 PM
Oh those despicable "red" states, full of redneck rubes and Bible thumpers; what fools they are! How glibly you stereotype the majority of American citizens, surmising their inferiority to the "blue" sophisticates, those wise and clever elites who know what is best for everyone but just can't seem to convince the thick-headed dolts who don't live in New England or Washington. You persist in making me sick!
And let me remind you that Grover Norquist is not qualified to declare that muslims elected GWB; he's free to say it but that doesn't make it so. That is pure rubbish. There aren't enough muslims in this country to influence the outcome of a presidential election.
An obsessive PC Cultural equivalence stifles all debate in France.
To describe the violence in late 2005 as based in anything other than secular,social or economic problem terms is immediately pounced on as racism.
Finkielraut paid the price for daring to stray from that line. To claim that there was rampant inverse racism directed by the Islamic community against those of european origins.
Such claims must be silenced urgently to maintain the status quo. it is the death of intelligent debate in france.
Others have made similar claims of course, but Finkeilraut was singled out because he is france's top intellectual and a Jew of course.
Finkelraut is now enshrined as a "Deviant thinker" amomgst such media as le monde, the guardian, la reppublica. They seek to describe all rioting as the product of socio econmic faults of western governments. Only westerners can be guilty of racism and any mention of religiously motivated racism is completely taboo.
This to prop up the new secular religion of cultural and moral equivalence, which must be upheld AT ALL COSTS.
Interesting that Sarkozy came to the defence of the belieagered philosopher who dared to speak the truth.
"."M. Finkielkraut est un intellectuel qui fait honneur à l'intelligence française et s'il y a tant de personnes qui le critiquent, c'est peut-être parce qu'il dit des choses justes", a jugé Nicolas Sarkozy..
I like this son of a polish refugee more and more...
"not as seductively named as Orianna Fallaci"
Hugh, you're going blue now? Reminds me why I left my last girlfriend-she gave scratchy fallaci
you went there
Sopphie Kulbach's article reminds us how beautiful, as well as pointed, a French style can be in the right hands. It is not only a very truthful piece, it is in the great tradition of French prose - and I am willing to bet her enemies are not.
Unfortunately, this abuse of "islamophobia" to mean anything the enemy does not like has a familiar sound. It reminds me of the moron who keeps calling me a Communist from these pages because I do not like thieves and scoundrels in power, and the other twerp who called C.S.Lewis a slave-owner. Once you start thinking with the Party rather than with your own head, there is no limit to the amount of trash you may be able to spout.
An obsessive PC Cultural equivalence stifles all debate in France.
Anyone see 'Caché' recently? The film critics fell over themselves to praise what I was led to believe was a thought-provoking and disturbing mystery. Disappointingly it was no such thing; rather a thinly-veiled metaphor for French duplicity over Algeria. Very daring of the director.
Effractor, I watched the movie and what I recall was how it portrayed the way Arabs bear grudges and hand them down from one generation to the next. Quite chilling.
Effractor, I saw Caché and I understood it differently. In addition to what you said, with two families, the french and the immigrant, the topic of self-victimisation of the immigrants is shown, which is used to blackmail the french society.
The real crime was the under-utilisation of Juliette Binoche :-)
Makes me proud to be an English-speaker. Keep that stiff, upper lip, Brittania, and remember the Jewish St. Andrew and Phoenician St. George as long as you wish (isn't ironic that the Irish patron saint, Patrick, was native-born British?).
By today's PeeCee canons, we Yanks have every right to wish that Britain would sink into the sea, since you burned our capital in the War of 1812 and kept us from completing our revolution with the historically inevitable annexation of Canada (a dig to China's easily rankled national chauvinism there).
If we Yanks can forget our feuds after a bit of infrastructure got built with British capital in the 19th century (makes me proud that my country is so easily for sale), the Muslim world can take its long historical memories and sensitivities and shove 'em you-know-where.
Hear, hear, for Andy, Georgie, and Pat!
Can illegal Muslim immigrants in France vote?
Here's hoping the spirit of Voltaire and Descartes rises from the collectivist ashes and defends French Liberty at this darkest moment in their history since goose-stepping hordes marched into Paris.
It is time for Des Chemins de Fer.
(And I don't mean the R/R.)
"Far Right" is an absolutely meaningless term, especially in Europe. It is used to imply that pro-French, pro-Spanish etc. politicians are potential Hitlers. But Hitler was a socialist and never considered himself a man of the right. In fact, he violently suppressed the real German right who were the Junkers, and supporters of the old monarchies.
They called Pim Fortuyn a rightists when he considered himself a classical left-liberal and a gay activist as well.
They label Hirsan Ali, a non-religious black, lesbian, immigrant as far-right.
They label Israeli Knesset-member Avigdor Liberman as a far rightist because he recognizes that muslims will never integrate into Israeli society.
Even Russian neo-Bolsheviks are being called right-wing by the media!
Philippe de Villiers is called "far-right," "Christian-right," or "Catholic-right" when the only label that truly describes his position would be "French Patriot"!
First, why don't we throw out the whole notion of a right-left political spectrum. Especially regarding France and the Arabs, it doesn't work. Giscard brought in masses of Arab immigrants. Raffarin is more concerned over "islamophobie" than over Judeophobia. And they are both labelled right-wing. Le Pen visited Saddam Hussein before the 2003 war. He is called far right.
Next, de Villiers. I must give him credit for once saying that EU foreign aid was something like giving the money belonging to the poor of the rich countries to the rich of the poor countries. I think this makes a lot of sense. Isn't that what foreign aid usually comes down to? But if anybody disagrees, I'm prepared to discuss it.