Hope springs eternal.

I'm a fan of Angela Markel and from what I've seen so far, it sure does look for both France and Germany when Sarkozy and markel replace the morally and intellectually (not to mention, possibly financially) corrupt Chirac and Schroeder.

Go, Germany!

Posted by: voletti at June 28, 2005 7:47 AM

If Turkey accedes to the EU, it's likely the EU breaks up. There are lots of cute comments about Eurabia here, but the serious (and richest) parties of the EU really have reached the end of their patience with the Muslims.

The Dutch -- the most civilized and tolerant people on Earth -- are particularly impatient with the likes that murdered Pym Fortun and Theo van Gogh, and just might enact a Muslim Exclusion Act after the next election.

Once the apallingly corrupt Jacques Chirac goes out of office, the French might become the next Muslim-bashers. Those evil clitoris-cutting-conspirators deface the most beautiful city in Europe.

The Germans are muttering.

And we actually have the new Pope on our side.

Posted by: Loxias at June 28, 2005 12:11 PM

French President elect Nicolas Sarkozy is reportedly also against a full EU membership of Turkey: http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=20910

Posted by: disillusionised_german at June 28, 2005 12:18 PM

But don't mistake Merkel for Margaret Thatcher. She doesn't have the intellect, power, charisma or personality to rival this great former leader. The governor of Hesse(n) Roland Koch (even though he's not that popular because he made loads of cuts in the civil service sector) is a better bet for a strong leader in the future. We'll see. Can't get worse than it is right now though...

Posted by: disillusionised_german at June 28, 2005 12:22 PM

French President elect Nicolas Sarkozy

No. He is not the French President-Elect.

Posted by: Loxias at June 28, 2005 12:37 PM

Business as usual, I'd say. The leaders of the EU can easily exclude Turkey without ever having to mention islam as the reason for its ineligibility. And Sarkozy seems to have some strange ideas about the future direction of France, to say the least.

Posted by: Doctor Phibes at June 28, 2005 1:10 PM

Turkey must now turn again to the United States, that it turned against in so many ways during the past few years, not least when it forced the American army to take Iraq in two weeks with three divisions, rather than four.

The anti-American books, and the anti-American campaigns in the press, are being monitored. Turkish history -- the 1955 attacks on Greeks all over Istanbul, the genocide against Armenians in 1915-1920 and in 1894-96, and other attacks -- these things will not go away.

And even if, in a spirit of insanity, the Anti-Defamation League awards some prize to Erdogan (are they completely crazy, or only partly crazy?), that just will not do the trick for Turkey.

No more need for listening posts on Russia. Russia, awful as it now may be, is much more a logical ally of the United States -- too bad the Russians don't realize that, and instead keep up the KGB patter and refuse to listen to the odd rational politologue (rhymes with "Paleologue"), such as Pavel Felgenhauer. No, the E.U. is a receding dream.

Who to blame? If the secular Turks and the Americans know what is good for both of them, they will make sure that the Turks are instructed to blame "the Arabs" who have (suppress a smile here) "given Islam such a bad image" and "such a bad name." Turn Turkish ire on the Arabs, already despised as a matter of course. Would do Infidels, and Turkey, good. And it also happens to be, by and large, the truth.

Posted by: Hugh at June 28, 2005 2:21 PM

Even Giscard d'Estaing who wrote part of the unalatable EU constitution has openly spoken against membership of Turkey.

Mohammedans (those who are able and willing) must be encouraged to integrate and assimilate. We don't need their mosques and madrassahs, their kids have to go through the regular School-curriculum, no excuses. Troublemakers must be warned and deported if they don't comply. The veil or any kind of religious 'Mummenschanz' has to be banned, not only from the Schools, but in the general public.

If any government is sincere it has to make Mohammedans adjust and respect us (which they don't) not us bending over backwads to accommodate the people who want to destroy us.

Posted by: Terminator at June 28, 2005 2:26 PM

Let me rephrase this: Sarkozy the future French president.

Doctor Phibes is right - no mentioning Islam by the critics of Turkey's EU membership. As long as we can keep them out it's still a good thing though.

Posted by: disillusionised_german at June 28, 2005 2:51 PM

Angela Merkel is the daughter of a pastor who moved to East, from West, Germany. A desire to offer Christianity in the Marxist West? A desire to escape the boom of Ludwig Erhard? Who knows? In any case, anyone at all would be an improvement on Schroder and Fischer -- Garfield the Cat, Elsie the Cow, My Friend Flicka.

As for Sarkozy, he has a number of points in his favor and undoubtedly will succeed Chirac (who, I am told, will not go to jail as he should but will escape, just, justice). He took apart Tariq Ramadan on national television, and that, along with the standing-fast of the U.S. State Department in denying Ramadan a visa, so that he had to conduct by a video-connection his taqiyya despite the best efforts of Scott ("Three-Fundamentalisms") Appleby, one more of the absurd creatures who has to be endured, apparently, as American academic life declines into self-parody. (One more nail in Ramadan's coffin is the "Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan" appended to the interesting, and partly convincing, but in the end too limited by filial piety study of Magdi Allam, that was published last month in Italy under the title "Vincere la paura" ("Conquering" or "Overcoming" Fear).

Sarkozy, however, may not wish to deal as forcefully as must be done with Muslim migration, and the Muslims in France now. After all, it is he who supported so strongly the idea of the French government paying for mosques, on the theory that they could then control the contents of the khutbas, and appoint the imams, and so on. J'en doute. How can an Infidel government succeed at keeping Muslims away from real Islam, when even the Kemalist Muslims who run their tight, army-assisted ship at the Ministry for Religious Affairs in Turkey, cannot keep Islam down and out for long - it keeps coming back, and coming back.

So he heartens, and he worries. But he's the best right now, who has a chance of winning. If only Le Pen would die, and his party disappear, and those who have supported it enroll in one of the respectable outlets for those who fear islamization, and Muslim crime, and Muslim demands, and Muslim disruption of schools and curricula, and Muslim -- everything.

The kind of people who think Tahar Ben Jelloun is a good writer, and who think his silly little book on "racism" (which of course means, in the main, those who do not like the ideology of Islam) good, or who admire the Centre de monde arabe, or are well-pleased with the editorial policy of Le Monde, are unlikely to change their spots. One hopes for, here and there, rude awakenings. And preferably, without the need for bombs to go off to get people, at long last, out from under the covers of denial and wilful misunderstanding. Mental slugabeds -- I know how you hate to get up in the morning, and hear the bugler's call, and all that -- but you really must. Not to go off to Verdun to get killed -- no sir -- just to take back Canal Cinq, and the newspapers, and the universities, and a few things like that. No bloodshed necessary -- not if you operate in time.

In the meantime, along with preeparing the agregation, or visiting the Jardin des Plantes for an illicit encounter, or just buying something in the Monoprix or Prisunic, or any of those other things that one might do, along with that, learn to march, Francais et Francaises, with the slow march of the Foreign Legion. For you are being pushed to the side of your very own country, and hardly realize it yet, and don't know what series of steps, one by one by one, you need to take, without fanfare, or hysteria. One by one.

But, before we say good night (it must be after 9 p.m. in France), why don't we hum a tune together.

No, not Johnny et Sylvie from the days when all the world and love was young. Nor anything from nowadays, hiphoppish or boorish or beurish.

No, let us hum, and then sing a bit, of "La casquette du pere Bugeaud."

Good. We can hear you -- even from here.

Posted by: Hugh at June 28, 2005 3:39 PM