Spanish conservatives are now in open warfare against each other as two opposing factions seek to gain control over the ideological future of the center-right Partido Popular (PP), the main opposition party in Spain. The internal battle has been brewing for a number of years, but has become a very public affair ever since Mariano Rajoy, the party’s leader, lost the general election on March 9.

The fact that the winner of that election, Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was at best a mediocre candidate, one who should have been relatively easy to defeat at the polls, has added to calls for a major reform of the PP. And adding injury to insult, the 2008 vote was a virtual replay of the previous general election in 2004, when Zapatero defeated Rajoy by a similar margin.

Imagine, then, the surprise of many Spanish conservatives when Rajoy announced that, instead of stepping aside, he would like to stay on as leader of the PP. This has raised fears among some party insiders that they are setting themselves up for a third consecutive defeat when the next general elections come around in 2012.

The PP is built upon the foundations of what was known as the Alianza Popular, a party established in 1976 as a federation of several smaller center-right parties, some of which were holdovers from the Franco era. When today’s PP was formed in 1989, its statutes defined the party as “centrist reformist”. And ever since then, the PP has been home to voters of many different ideological backgrounds: conservatives, liberals (in Spain, liberalism refers to classical liberalism, a political ideology that defends individual liberties and personal initiative, and seeks to limit the reach of government in the economic, social and cultural life), Christian democrats, reformists, centrists, etc.

In this context, few within the PP hierarchy have ever actually revealed their true ideological leanings in public. (Indeed, a prominent PP leader once famously said that the only reason he was in politics was for the money.) And herein lies the dilemma facing the PP: By trying to be something to everyone, the party has ended up being nothing much of substance. As the PP tries to build a stronger center, however, it risks losing the right. But by moving further to the right, the PP becomes vulnerable to the Socialist canard of right-wing extremism, which has been Zapatero’s primary political trump card.

Because of the difficulties involved in defining an ideologically-coherent political platform that appeals to everyone on Spain’s center-right, Rajoy has been unable (or unwilling) to offer a viable alternative to the relative ideological cohesion of Zapatero and the Spanish Socialists. In fact, the PP’s response to its unexpected defeat in 2004 has been the relentless pursuit of a highly confrontational populist strategy that for the past four years has been merciless in its criticism of Zapatero.

But apart from disparaging the Socialists, Rajoy has not been very effective at articulating an alternative PP “vision” for Spain. For example, PP spokeswoman Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría recently announced that the PP now stands for a “defense of public health and education and an indispensable social coverage.” To most observers, that formulation sounds a lot more like Socialism than it does Conservatism.

Some party insiders argue that this is where the leadership factor comes into play. For example, former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar enforced strict discipline that kept the party “on message,” a strategy that resulted in two consecutive election victories (his last one yielded an absolute majority in Congress). Unity is, in fact, one of the biggest strategic advantages the PP has enjoyed over its Socialist opponents.

Conservatives Fractured

But that unity is now in danger of collapsing. And in a bid to maintain cohesion, Rajoy seems to be abandoning ideology altogether: Rajoy today is (in public, at least) neither a conservative nor a liberal. In fact, he recently said that: “I do not want a party that is reduced to one single ideology. I want a party that is moderate, open and integrative.”

There is no doubt that many PP insiders share Rajoy’s perspective. Unfortunately for the PP, however, Rajoy also lacks personal charisma, the one intangible electoral asset that could help him compensate for his ideological vagueness by better connecting him to ordinary Spanish voters. But Rajoy insists the PP did not lose the election because of him: “If I thought that my personality complicated the triumph of the PP, I would not stand again,” he said.

Rajoy justifies his continuing as leader because both former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe González and Aznar finally came to power on the third try. Rajoy also defends his decision to stay on based on the logic that he lost the 2008 election by a smaller margin than he did in 2004. “I am going to present myself because the candidacy which I headed improved results,” he said. Indeed, the PP did gain five seats to reach 154 out of 350 deputies, although analysts attribute that to faltering nationalist parties.

If Rajoy represents one side of the internal debate about the future direction of the PP, then Esperanza Aguirre, the ambitious President of the Madrid region, represents the other. Indeed, Aguirre has been at the forefront of efforts to get the PP to do an honest analysis of why it lost the March elections, and how it needs to change if it wants to have any chance at winning the elections in 2012. Rumors abound that Aguirre wants to challenge Rajoy as PP leader at the party’s next national convention scheduled to be held in Valencia from June 20-22.

Aguirre, who repeatedly has called for a “renewal of the message” of the party, has some powerful supporters, including the influential center-right El Mundo newspaper, as well as the popular COPE radio station, which is owned by the Catholic Church.

El Mundo, for example, has carried a series of editorials arguing that Rajoy should resign in order to give the PP a chance of returning to power. “The crude reality is that it was Zapatero who won the elections and who can govern for another four years with 169 seats, which leaves him very close to an absolute majority,” according to the veteran El Mundo editor Pedro J Ramírez. And the influential COPE radio presenter, Federico Jiménez Losantos, has gone on air asking for forgiveness for advising his listeners to vote for Rajoy in the general election.

But in a (shocking) editorial published well before the March elections, Ramírez called for four fundamental changes to the PP platform:
1) Stop opposing homosexual marriage;
2) Start supporting human embryo research;
3) Start supporting government-mandated civics classes; and
4) Stop opposing Zapatero’s desire to negotiate with ETA, the Basque terrorist group.

Such proposals would, in effect, endorse the liberal social reforms that marked Zapatero’s first four years in power. They would also exchange principle for political expediency.

According to one analyst: “If the Popular Party fails to criticize the conversion of gay couples into marriages [a project designed to eliminate religious legitimacy by limiting the voice of religion in society]; if it accepts as inevitable research using human beings as guinea pigs; if it places the good of its children under state control and agrees to the substitution of Christianity with a civil religion; if it chooses to present its candidacy to the 2008 elections without supporting ETA’s victims and without condemning the pacts with terrorists reached by PSOE, it might be able to win the elections, as Ramírez indicates. Nevertheless, the party will not do it in name of liberalism, nor will it be able to lay claim to liberalism as such.” El Mundo’s support for Aguirre may thus turn out to be more beneficial to the Socialist rather than to the Conservative agenda.

Internal Power Struggle

For her part, however, Aguirre has not offered many ideas of her own, other than to say that she thinks the PP can do better and has fallen into traps set by Zapatero in the past legislature, which have resulted in the party being branded as homophobic and the heirs of the Franco dictatorship. Without providing specifics, Aguirre proposes a “central, modern, open and liberal party”, which in many respects is not very different from Rajoy.

All this has led some to suspect that the infighting is less about ideology than about a behind-the-scenes power struggle. Indeed, Aguirre has been engaged in a lengthy dispute with the popular Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, over who should be the rightful heir to Rajoy.

Rajoy has responded to Aguirre’s challenge by implying that she could leave the PP for the Liberal Party. This has played nicely into the hands of the Socialists, whose spokesman, José Blanco, said that Rajoy’s comments were “an unheard of expression of authoritarianism.” The Socialists, of course, thrive off of fear mongering, never missing an opportunity to portray the PP as radicals who want to take Spain back to the right-wing authoritarianism of the Franco period.

Zapatero, meanwhile, has just presented his new government, the first cabinet that has more women than men. Of 17 ministers, nine are women. “I am very proud to be the prime minister who for the first time has made a woman defense minister,” Zapatero said after being sworn in by King Juan Carlos. “Moreover, I feel very proud that there are more female ministers than male.” That has played very well with Spanish voters.

Because Spain has no term limits, Zapatero and his Socialist Party could be in office for a very long time if the PP fails to get its house in order.

 
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.

Admittedly, this writing represents a shocked reaction to what the picture in the text tells. This story could have evolved in many places, as it is a typical consequence of the radical collectivism of our age. The concrete venue is in a place called Ederics. It is located on the scenic North- Western shore of Hungary’s Lake Balaton. Here the rise, bloom and wrecking of what the natives called the “Black Castle” is retraced. It is done to illustrate a general rule. That law is the moving force behind the personalized events traced by the story part of the text.The building’s construction began after the revolutions of 1848 when a Mr. Nedetzky decided to build. Since he often forced travelers passing on the old Roman road on his perimeter to work for him, the interior turned out to be chaotic. Unexpectedly, this became an advantage. The Nazis, Arrow Cross and Communists raiding us tended to become confused by the maze and so missed “stuff”.

In the 1860s, Nedetzky headed a conspiracy against Habsburg autocracy. Betrayal followed and Nedetzky was condemned to death. Romantically embellished by a hanged man, the building became the „Black Castle“. The term „castle“ benefits from a tendency to exaggerate as the house only had twenty six rooms. However, as a child that sufficed as at night ghosts lurked around that devoured kids. The same ghosts were the cause of why local servants disliked to reside on the premises. Below you will discover why this is more than story telling for its own sake.

Following World War I, my maternal grandfather (my father was a physician) purchased the place for his ethnically mixed family. Previously Grandfather Marich used to be a high-ranking civil servant. Reluctant to serve the post-war system, he went into what is nowadays called „agribusiness“. At the very outset he made a major mistake. A neighbor, a typical decadent gentry, lacked cash and asked my grandfather for an interest-free loan. Much later, Grandfather felt it was time to return the money he gave and said so. He was told that the debt had already been repaid. Grandfather questioned the accuracy of this recollection. The implied doubts regarding his word as a gentleman insulted the neighbor. Therefore, he became an enemy. No great loss, one might think. However, decades later, in 1944, Germany occupied Hungary and gave power to the local national socialists. Thereafter our neighbor became important in the Arrow Cross party.

Grandfather Marich’ rise to influence is unusual. In traditional societies, "class" tends to be "caste." Social mobility by merit, the most elementary of all “dreams”, is not common to all societies. Nevertheless, at a time and in a place where it was not customary, the son of a farmer earned a doctorate involving competence in the new discipline of economics. In his later years, he added proficiency as an agronomist. Additionally he was diligent, as an old villager put it “he worked harder than the hired hands“. His fruits were noted for their size and taste. Part of them went into the jam manufactured by my Grandmother who produced the country's leading luxury-class product.

It seems that as a commoner Marich had climbed the career ladder without the help of connections. In doing so, he overcame the exclusionary efforts of the incompetent inheritors of privilege. “Closing the club” to newcomers who aspire to rise is natural. All elites attempt to perpetuate themselves. However, in progressive societies the privileged do not seek “protection” from competition. They merely use their position to provide their own with an access to opportunity. While they absorb new candidates, such elites limit themselves to participation in the success that elevates everybody. In traditional societies, decadent and non-competitive privileged groups concentrate on keeping newcomers out and down.

His economic success doomed my grandfather. Besides the destruction of an able person’s work, the picture, if generalized, also serves to illustrate the rot that befell the societies of an entire region. A lesson to be born out below is that, those that dare to become successful among the failing do so at their peril.

Typically, “work” had little value to landowning gentlemen because those having to labor were of inferior status. (Later the Communists adapted the tradition. The higher in the Party the lower the required performance.) The neighboring “gentlemen” did not work and managed their large estates extensively. Production based on cheap, exploited and reluctant labor was to compensate for inadequate management and an output that was blind to market demands. Furthermore, this system meant non-capital-intensive production, low returns, misused resources and corresponding productivity. From this, you can draw inferences regarding cash incomes.

Alas, the mystery shrouding the house found an amplifier. It consisted of the locals’ inability to understand the rational economic basis buoying its inhabitants who could travel and even had cars. Nowadays too, societies that remain destitute tend to hold that wealth comes from luck or crookedness. Misfortune does not come from “above”. Like poverty, also wealth is the result of human action. Socialism, in its Red (Communist) and Brown (National Socialist) versions, capitalizes on the inclination of the failing, the misinformed, the insecure and the lazy to be predisposed to accept this self-amputating economic theory. Locally, my grandfather's success, although probably self-evident from your vantage point, could not be comprehended. Things might have been made worse by Grandfather’s policy to pay more than the going wage. Unfortunately, "public opinion" agreed on an insane explanation that seemed logical to it. There was a gold mine under the mysterious Black Castle! Good for a laugh now, but one more endangering prejudice then. Once the scum of the earth came to power, the klieg-lights of suspicion were on us.

A complementary idiocy also arose. Once Italy fell, daily hundreds of bombers on their way to Germany flew over us. These raids had the exactitude of clockwork. Some moron decided that Marich is doing' it. From the park, he signaled the "Liberators" with a lamp. All this under the blue skies of the summer!

My grandfather's end came early in 1945. One day the Gestapo fetched him and my grandmother. He was given several choices and one of these was suicide in exchange for closing the case that was triggered by numerous denunciations. To save the rest of his family he took that option. Thus ended an episode that tells how applied anti-Semitism can function even without Jews.

We did not know it at the time, but my grandfather’s demise also meant the beginning of the end of the undertaking and of the Black Castle. Following the outbreak of peace, we had a new occupier. By exploiting its excellent location, the Black Castle was successfully operated as a hotel for diplomats and local entrepreneurs. The total consolidation of Communist power took longer in Hungary than elsewhere in the region. Even so, by 1949, regardless of their devastating electoral defeats, the Communists had, thanks to the Red Army, the country in their grip. Now, unhindered, Socialism could be built. The program of decapitating society by depriving it of everybody daring to think and able to get things done could be implemented. At that point, my family was forced to petition that the state accept the property. The request was granted. With only a few mementoes, my adults walked out. I was not to see the place again until after the collapse of Communism.

By then, collectivism had worked in that it wrecked everything. Slowly, the neglected and mostly unused Black Castle was allowed to crumble. The windows were shattered or plastic sheets stapled into the frames replaced them. The remainder of the façade’s paint is still the one we left behind six decades ago. My grandfather’s fruit trees and other enterprises required too much elbow grease to pursue them and so they also disappeared.

 

The Black Castle in 2007 
 

In 1946 

Driven by emotion, after 1989 I would have liked to get my home turf back. Although not inhabited and in danger of reverting to nature, I could not have it. Only the purchase of the Black Castle was a possibility. Regardless of the prize that I never asked for, this was no option. It is demeaning to buy what is yours.

My stomach is made to churn by the sight and the senselessness of the devastation caused by a mistaken economic theory and its complementary political orders. I resent this decay far more than I regret the original confiscation. What hurts so terribly is not the financial loss but that the original legalized theft had no beneficiary. Indeed, the situation is best described by a reversal of Jeremy Bentham’s “the greatest good for the greatest number”. In this case, the leveling collectivist principle’s political application achieved “the greatest damage to the greatest number“. At least this one result rates as an unqualified success.

Nowadays, whenever I visit Hungary, I avoid the Black Castle.

A quote from Yves Daoudal at his blog, 22 April 2008 [English translation here]

The torrent of "information" on the Chinese anti-French demonstrations is truly amazing. To read the articles and dispatches you would think that all of China had risen up against the evil French who have it in for the Olympic Games, and consequently for the Chinese people.

As if the Chinese had the freedom to think anything at all about this subject let alone... demonstrate!

When you look at the images, you see that a few dozen "students", surrounded by squadrons of police, are demonstrating at the entrances to Carrefour supermarkets.

Nicolas Sarkozy generously hastened to send a letter of support to the handicapped girl who had "protected the torch" in Paris. They say that in China she has become the symbol of the anti-Olympic and anti-Chinese protests.

The letter, delivered personally by the president of the Senate Christian Poncelet to the athlete, "was greatly appreciated by the Chinese people", according to a spokesman in the Chinese foreign ministry.

And they tell us the letter was appreciated by the Chinese people.

They take us for idiots.

A new book by Martin Peltier, published by Renaissance Catholique, is briefly summarized at the publisher's website. The very short précis is hardly sufficient to make a judgment, but what struck me was the remark about Nicolas Sarkozy's ulterior motives in his so-called campaign for "positive laïcité", i.e., placing all religions on an equal footing and encouraging equal respect for all of them:
By raising the issue of the "Christian roots" of France and of "positive laïcité" in Rome last December 20, 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made waves. The outrage of the old guard of defenders of laïcité reached the boiling point, and they declared the republican pact to be in danger.

The republican pact referred to is the strict separation of Church and State as decreed by the law of 1905. Since being elected, Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a veritable campaign to bring religion back into the public debate and to persuade the population of its importance. But, of course, he had his reasons...

However, if we take the time to read the book he wrote in 2004 – The Republic, Religions and Hope – and if we compare it to other statements, we soon perceive that the primary concern of Nicolas Sarkozy is Islam. His only reason for modifying the law of 1905 is to integrate Islam. The State will pay for mosques and the training of imams. The ghettoes will thus be pacified.

Beyond this policing effort, the President, indifferent to any revelation, hopes that the three religions of the Book come together to spread their common values on behalf of a humanistic globalization. His God is modernity, his God is the Republic.

I have lost track of the number of times I have said here that Sarkozy's only purpose in opening the debate on religion was to prepare the French population for the institutionalization of Islam. Because without the issue of Islam, there was absolutely no reason to talk about, let alone modify, the 1905 law. For better or worse, the French people had long ago adjusted to the law. But he had to force them to re-adjust to a modified law that allowed State funding for mosques. And in order to do this he created a phony debate on the need for all men to recognize the importance of religion (i.e. Islam).
 
Many Christians did not see this and welcomed the new debate, thinking it applied to them. On the other hand, the defenders of laïcité, most of whom are socialists and pro-immigration, became alarmed at the thought that he was shoving religion down their throats, when in fact he was merely justifying the State funding of Islam.
 
Martin Peltier's book, entitled Nicolas Sarkozy, the Republic, and Religions, can be ordered for 15 euros at the Renaissance Catholique website.

A letter from Howard Stapleton

Dear Sir,

My name is Howard Stapleton. I am the inventor of the Mosquito. The main drive behind my invention was that my 15-year-old daughter was unable to enter our local shop owing to a gang of badly behaved teenagers loitering in the doorway and making a nuisance of themselves. As I discovered later, and sales of my device have proved, this was not an isolated case. Can the Members of the European Parliament who are campaigning to ban my device offer an alternative so that the blight of anti social teenage behaviour can otherwise be resolved without involving millions of Euros?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding voters who are having their quality of life severely diminished and could well benefit from the Mosquito. Further I have numerous “blue chip” customers who have found the product invaluable in protecting their businesses or property. Also numerous Police forces are delighted as it has dramatically reduced the call outs to trouble spots saving thousands daily. It occurs to me that the M.E.P.s who are seeking the ban have not asked their views. I agree that the use of the Mosquito should be legislated so that it is used appropriately in combating anti social behaviour and not as a device to make no go areas for kids.

May I emphasise that the Mosquito runs at a volume which opinion from respected audiologists states there is no likelihood of damage to hearing. It might be of interest to know that a baby’s rattle is louder! Its not the frequency of a noise that causes damage it’s the volume. I can see a very busy Parliament if the Mosquito is banned due to concerns with regard to potential health risks as all of the following are louder than the Mosquito: – traffic noise, aircraft noise, Police sirens and even a classical orchestra! The Mosquito works because the noise it makes is annoying not loud.

Finally I find it extraordinary that an inexpensive solution to a serious problem is at risk of being cast aside for what I can only assume are political motives. Every time I have been interviewed on radio or T.V. where members of the public have been asked their view more than 70 per cent were in favour. Many went on to suggest the Civil Liberties campaigner or the M.P.s who wanted to ban the Mosquito come and live at their address. They would then get a taste of what it was like to visit local shops or children’s play areas trying to avoid often drunken and abusive teenagers. They want our streets returned to law-abiding citizens and will support anyone who can help.

Finally a call to the M.E.P.s who are concerned: why not ask for a demonstration before criticising the one simple device that can give their voters back the right to a peaceful stress free life.

A quote from The Dissident Frogman at his blog, 21 April 2008
 
I understand the temptation to paint Brigitte Bardot as yet another example of the crushing of dissent brought upon the West by the conquering armies of Islam […] As far as I am concerned, this particular case is a dogfight between two equally totalitarian factions. I certainly do not recognize myself in the kind of France Brigitte Bardot (and the company she keeps) mourns […] [H]er getting in trouble for that is not enough of a reason for me to drop my principles and side with one flavor of Fascist just to oppose the other. I’ll just wait on my side of the line in the sand, to see which one comes on top. Rifle at the ready, if need be.

Rachida Dati, the French Minister of Justice, who holds French as well as Moroccan citizenship, has a family that is keeping her ministry busy. Jamal Dati, 35, one of her brothers, is benefiting from a decision to grant him partial freedom as part of a lessening of his one-year prison term for drug trafficking. Another brother, Omar Dati, 36, has also been convicted for drug trafficking.

Le Salon Beige reports that Jamal will serve his one-year term in a detention center from Friday evening at 8:00 until Monday morning at 6:00, and can sleep at home the rest of the week. The electronic bracelet is not appropriate for him since it would “hinder his job” as a pipefitter. On August 21 he had been convicted to twelve months without parole for “acquisition, holding, transferring, transporting, usage and importing of drugs.”

Omar was convicted in December to 8 months in prison for repeat drug trafficking. He, too, does not have to serve his term in prison. 20 Minutes reveals that he was placed under electronic surveillance for family reasons. According to his lawyer André Laborderie:
I requested this measure and a parental release as well because my client has a very sick daughter to care for and must take her to the hospital regularly for extended treatment, but this second request was not granted.

As for the super-star of the family, Rachida Dati, 42, is living up to her reputation as a fashion plate. At least that is the assessment of Rama Yade, 31,, France’s Senegalese-born Secretary of State for Human Rights. According to a brief in Le Post Rama Yade declared:
I have no problem with Rachida Dati, but we don't have the same political methods or the same centers of interest. I tried to share with her my passion for the history of the 5th Republic, but she is only interested in clothes and parties.

Now people are wondering if Rama Yade will be dismissed for her comment. If she is not, then the rumor that Sarkozy’s pretty faces are untouchable and cannot be fired is true. An article in Le Figaro dated April 11 describes the frustrations of members of the governing UMP party over the impunity granted certain ministers:
One unnamed minister sighed: “To survive you have to speak very violently. That’s how you become untouchable and climb up in the polls.” Another minister questions the “cast of pretty faces for government posts.” And a third laments, “To sack Rama or Nathalie is impossible.”

The “Nathalie” referred to is Secretary of State for Ecology, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 34, who last week publicly criticized her superior, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.

Last week student demonstrations in Paris revived fears of another May 68, although so far there is no indication that an event of any magnitude is about to happen. Gérard Pince, economist and founding member of the Blue Revolution attended one of the rallies and tells us why this is no May 68:

Having returned from the demonstration by high-school students, I can relate to you impressions that the media will be very careful not to show. [There were] around 10,000 persons. The front section of the parade was entirely composed of blacks and North Africans waving flags imprinted with the Islamic crescent. They represented one to two thirds of the total number of persons in the groups that followed. Let us remember that this sampling of students reflects the face of tomorrow’s France.
I must say, in all objectivity, that this youth demonstrated no hostility towards the police. I even saw a group of young black girls dance at Place de la Nation singing “Cops! We love you!” The rally broke up without any major incidents, at least as far as I know. I want to reassure you, a repetition of May 68 is not in the offing. We are witnessing a different phenomenon: that of our replacement.

Ivan Rioufol writes for Le Figaro. His column, though relatively cautious in tone, is still a voice of tradition and conservatism in the otherwise uninspiring French media. He also has been maintaining a personal blog within the context of Le Figaro's website, and offers some thoughts on May 68:
Yesterday on France 2, a good documentary put May 68 in the turbulent perspective of the times that witnessed revolts in Eastern Europe (Prague), the United States and even Mexico City. And yet, should we enshrine May 68 to this point, and present it as the liberation everywhere of a narrow and stifling society? The baby boomers had not even waited for 1968 to begin its entry into society. The Neuwirth Law had authorized the pill in 1967. A natural movement towards change was in the air. France would have become modernized without May 68. We can grant it is role as an accelerator. But we can also defend the notion that this “revolution”, because of educational and political inevitabilities, caused us to lose time. May 68 also aided in the setbacks and weakening that France is experiencing today.

As indicated, Rioufol remains cautiously optimistic about the situation today. He is unwilling to go so far as to use the term “irreparable damage,” or to analyze the tremendously coercive forces that cowed people back then into complying with the demands of violent infantile rebels. The powers that be (and that were) were clearly terrified and/or easily bought. This fear transformed our societies into politically correct robots, political correctness being a form of exorcism to chase away the devils of racial differences, intellectual inequalities and criminal intent. By denying the existence of racial and intellectual differences, or the hatred within the heart of criminals, they thought these unpleasant truths would simply vanish. And so the taboo on free speech became a type of "magic" employed to chase away demons that people simply could not face.

Besides Daniel Cohn-Bendit another celebrated communist from May 68, Benjamin Stora, manages to stay in the news in France. Stora, born in Algeria, is an historian and a specialist of Algerian immigration to France. He teaches North African history and French colonization at the Paris VIII-St-Denis branch of the University of Paris. A militant Trotskyist in May 1968, he was, until 1986, a member of the International Communist Organization, a group formed in 1965 as a result of a split within the Communist Party that had taken place in 1952. In 2007 he campaigned for Ségolène Royal. French readers can view a video of his rant in praise of Royal, in which he also extols the return of the authentic socialism which he had hoped would follow her election.

Stora wants to revive May 68 with ethnic minorities as his new tools for overturning the government. These ethnic minorities must “decolonize” themselves, the way Algeria broke French colonial rule. The French weblog Le Conservateur posted this critique of comments he made last week on France Culture radio:

[Benjamin Stora] proudly announced, with a tear in his eye, that 2007 was that last electoral victory of the Right, because soon new ethnic battalions “would upset the balance definitively.” Today Mr. Stora wanted to put us on our guard: staying within the spirit of May 68 is not a matter of commemoration but of mobilization. What is needed, according to him, is to instill in ethnic minorities and the underprivileged (including the notorious migrants created by the Left for its own political purposes) a taste for challenging the established orders, in particular the “ethnic order,” by drawing inspiration from the “decolonization” movements.
 
Must we be reminded of how the little powdered prophets of the salons of 1788 ended up, […] massacred by the very “tools” they claimed to be manipulating, and who completely escaped their control. Beware, Mr. Stora... You were forced to leave your native Algeria to save your skin. Your “protégés” might very well remind you one day that they had already chased you from “their territory.”

Stora’s thinking illustrates perfectly that massive immigration is a tool invented by the extreme Left to shatter European society, and to destroy it. There is no humanism here; his ideas reek of hatred. It is not freedom that Mr. Stora and his clique are calling for, but blood!

If Le Conservateur sounds a warning, its readers go further in denouncing Benjamin Stora, calling him an agent of the government in the service of Sarkozy’s multi-cultural project, and wondering how anyone can tolerate the Trotskyist and Maoist propaganda that spews forth every morning on France Culture radio.

 
More on May 68:

Remembering the Sixties, 13 February 2008

Rivers of Blood and the Mentality of 68, 14 April 2008

Dany at the Elysée: The Apotheosis of May 68, 17 April 2008

Anyone who reads the British newspapers on a regular basis will have noticed an alarming repetition. The same few stories, with minor adjustments, seem to appear over and over again: youth violence, mass immigration, Islamic extremism, terrorists planning attacks, compensation and human rights for criminals, an apparent over-sensitivity to religious minorities and an apparent lack of sensitivity to those of the majority religion and ethnicities. Rather than telling the reader something new, news serves only to clarify what he already suspects. Peruse readers’ comments and, unsurprisingly, more and more do you find expressions of genuine frustration and anger.

But these voices, which speak for so many, are not heard in parliament, nor does the public seem to make any demands on politicians. A march against war in a foreign country can amass thousands, and protests against China’s treatment of Tibet are frequent, but to defend one’s heritage or culture against erosion by political design, or to voice opposition to such a scale of immigration that one’s way of life is changed or threatened, is seen as potentially dangerous – the first step toward full-blown fascism. History repeats itself, yes; but history does not repeat itself as we might expect. Today, we are obsessively fighting the last war. Everyone’s enemy is a “racist” and a “fascist.” These terms are invoked by the far-Left, Jack Straw, David Cameron, and even the B.N.P., to describe their opponents. Yet at the same time we see an extreme ideology spilling out from politics and becoming increasing absorbed by the judiciary, police, schools, local councils, etc., all against the common sense of the public. And we also see a rapidly expanding Islamic militancy, occasionally becoming linked to public figures such as Ken Livingstone, and, consequently, accepted by the public.

Free speech – which has been so horribly eroded in Britain – was meant to guard against extremism and the persecution of both individuals and larger groups because of the establishment of some dubious ideology. Today, it would appear, that prosecutions for hate speech are based not on what is said but who is speaking. Protests in support of al-Qaeda are deemed free speech, as is downloading terrorist material and discussing the validity and possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks. Similarly, as think tanks such as the Centre for Social Cohesion and CIVITAS have said, Britain’s governmental and judicial establishments have failed to tackle honor crime, with police, councils, and teachers afraid of being branded racist if they make any attempt.

Yet such is the extreme nature of the willingness to prosecute anyone who might be suspected of racism against a non-White British person, that a Down’s Syndrome boy with the mental age of a 5 year old was recently charged by the police with “racism and assault” after he pushed a girl in a playground scuffle. The charge hung over he and his family for 7 months, before they received an apology from the courts. Again, after the English Democrats party put up posters with the slogan “save London from Labour's tartan taxes” the police received complaints that this was racist, and are currently investigating the matter. These incidences are far from unique, but merely 2 reported in the week prior to my writing this article.

The effect is stifling. The accusation or even the mere faint suspicion of racism has silenced debate and even the voicing of discontent about mass immigration, discrimination against Whites in employment by the government or government-sponsored institutions, or the rise of Islamic extremism. When, in 2001, Lady Thatcher said she, “had not heard enough condemnation from Muslim priests,” of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C., her Conservative Party publicly rebuked her. When Margaret Hodge suggested that British people had valid concerns over housing, considering the level of immigration, her fellow Labour M.P.s accused her of “using the language of the B.N.P.” When Lady Warsi (a Conservative M.P. and a moderate Muslim) suggested that people had legitimate concerns over immigration she was accused of supporting the B.N.P., and, again, when Prime Minister Gordon Brown dared to utter the words “British jobs for British workers,” members of his Labour Party were “appalled” and accused him airing a policy of the B.N.P.

With problems so glaring to the ordinary man and so thoroughly repressed by the main political parties, Enoch Powell – M.P., philosopher, poet, man of the people, and visionary – is being rehabilitated, and not just here on The Brussels Journal. Simon Heffer in The Telegraph has said recently that, “Powell was the greatest Conservative thinker in political life in living memory. He foresaw what were then unimaginable tensions caused by forcibly altering the character of a country.” Looking at the visible characters of today’s Conservative Party one could be forgiven for thinking that Powell was the only Conservative intellectual of our time. The Conservative Party seems to have no real vision for the future, and no real appreciation for the past. But, in such an oppressive atmosphere of “political correctness,” and, indeed, political fear, no intellectual development can occur within popular party politics. As such, we are unlikely to see any solutions to growing problems originating with political parties themselves. It is true, of course, that the B.N.P. is the one party that unceasingly opposes political correctness, “Islamification,” etc., but it has yet to transform itself into an intellectual party, and remains one for which the issue of race is central.

Today we are faced with a “multiculturalism” that has eroded British culture and the constant drumbeat of racial “equality” that treats people not as human beings but mere racial blocks. As Rageh Omaar has said in an op-ed piece on Powell’s so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech for The Daily Mail, “Instead of multi-culturalism, we are getting tribalisation,” – a point I made some time ago here. When this is applied to voting and politics it is especially alarming, yet Equalities Minister Harriet Harman, has recently proposed that all-Black shortlists of parliamentary candidates be drawn up, to increase the number of Black and Asian M.P.s – a proposal rejected as “colonial” by those it was designed to promote. Likewise, the Conservative Party now has its own Muslim Forum and the current mayor, Ken Livingstone, is supported by Muslims 4 Ken, while his main rival, Boris Johnson, has also been careful to let his Muslim heritage be known. Again, we have seen the B.N.P. attacked in the last few weeks by Operation Black Vote (which aims to promote, within government, the supposed needs of Blacks and Asians), but on what grounds? Racial exclusivity?

We have reached a point, then, at which racially or culturally distinct ghettos – the unfortunate results of long-term multiculturalism – are mirrored at both lower and higher levels of government and party politics. Moreover, if some young Muslims are surfing the net, and finding inspiration in al-Qaeda and websites peddling Islamic radicalism, so too do we see a similar phenomenon at government level, with, for example, Livingstone now having gained the support of suicide bombing apologist Dr Azzam Tamimi – which he has not rejected. It is remarkable to think that not only Muslims, but Muslim extremists, are now playing an important, if not decisive, role in British politics. Yet, it is not difficult to imagine that Britain fifty years from now will have a political reality not entirely unlike that of Lebanon’s today. We must hope that it does not take the same sort of upheaval – such as Powell predicted for a multicultural Britain – to get there, but such a hope seems to be fading. Two thirds of the residents of Britain now believe immigration will lead to violence.

The last words are Powell’s:
For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organize to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”

 
 
More on this topic:

Rivers of Blood and the Mentality of 68, 16 April 2008

It Is Worse than Enoch Powell Predicted, 16 April 2008

Rivers of Blood Forty Years On, 17 April 2008

Britons Say Enoch Powell Was Right, 19 April 2008

A quote from the BBC, 17 April 2008

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. Of the 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave. […] Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips said the findings were “alarming”. […]

The survey was commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech, in which he described the indigenous population’s “sense of alarm and resentment” over immigration. […] BBC home editor Mark Easton says Powell’s words, spoken to a small gathering in Birmingham’s Midland hotel, still echo down the decades. […]

Asked if they thought immigration meant their local area didn't feel like Britain any more, a quarter of the sample agreed – double the amount who felt this three years ago. Six out of 10 said immigration had made parts of Britain feel like a foreign country. […]

[O]ur correspondent says immigration is now back on the political agenda. He says: “One reason politicians can debate it again, perhaps, is that the latest wave of immigration is different. The million Eastern Europeans who’ve come to the UK in the last three or four years are not looking to settle for good. Their motives are economic. And perhaps most importantly they are white. Forty years after Enoch Powell, the issues of race and immigration have been separated once more.”
 
More on this topic:

Rivers of Blood and the Mentality of 68, 16 April 2008

It Is Worse than Enoch Powell Predicted, 16 April 2008

Rivers of Blood Forty Years On, 17 April 2008

Some of the bits in the mosaic of our time are overlooked because we look for boulders. This column presents underrated issues that might deserve attention.
 
1. About the State of “Nuke Korea.” North Korea seems to get a better deal for disarmament that the old USSR got. Part of the difference – expressed in donations in exchange for unverified disarmament – is explained by a “nut bonus.” Equally dangerous is another divergence. It is the tendency to minimize the problem of consistent non-compliance by treating North Korea as an obnoxious funny midget. In doing so some lose sight of the fact that atomic weapons are our time’s Colt-like “great equalizer.”
 
2. Dealing with Kim by the rules he penned, the following seem to apply. (1) You are to show “respect” and avoid insulting the Beloved Leader who is also the son of the “Hero of all Ages.” (2) If you ask to verify the implementation of agreed upon measures you become an insulting provocative warmonger. (3) While bearing gifts you kowtow to these commandments, the nuclear project to extort you before destroying you continues.
 
3. It is likely that Iran’s nuclear project cannot be halted diplomatically and will not be stopped by the use of force. In this case, dissuasion, that is the threat of nuclear retaliation in response to an atomic attack, will be revived. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) has worked while there was a USSR. Terrorists are operating without a return address and this suggests that tested dissuasion might not work as well in the future as it did in the past. Failure is almost assured unless much non-PC courage is mustered. It must be made perfectly clear that devastation will be “returned to the sender” and that certain states will be held accountable even if the attack has no official point of origin.
 
4. In Europe the piety of many Americans and the inclination of politicians – whether convinced or not – to talk about their deep faith generally elicits derision for its supposed “fanaticism.” Religion tends to have in Europe another definition than in the US. The result is not devoid of oddities. Organized “religion” produced an interesting mutant in Europe. In many countries here, people support with their taxes the recognized churches – and their left-leaning ministers. Where I live, the payments are automatically collected by the state from those who, when registering with the authorities, admit to belong to a religious community. Those who can prove with a statement issued by a church that they have left that organization, receive the status of having “no confession” and need not contribute. (In Switzerland, business must also pay without having the option of discontinuing their membership.) However, in smaller communities the act of “resigning” can become public and that creates a stigma. Could this have something to do with the empty churches? Understandably, where many claim, “I am a good Christian since I pay” the participatory commitment of Americans raises eyebrows.
 
5. Tell someone that out of the three hundred American Nobel prizewinners seventy are foreigners. Those who find this a pleasing negative that shrinks the US come probably from an unsuccessful society. The contempt is symptomatic of underachievers because it testifies to their inclination to overlook success-strategies while, on occasion, these approaches are even resisted.
 
6. Audaciously asserted. The modern state that emerged from medieval chaos was a “security state.” Its initial task was security within its borders. Subsequently security was extended to include protection from other states. In this process, state power grew and became authoritarian (except in places such as England, Switzerland and America). Later the state assumed an additional duty and the “economic security state” emerged. It was to protect against the hazards emerging with industrialization. While providing social security, redistribution developed a pressure group consisting of the recipients and those manning the organs of bureaucratic distribution. Nowadays, in developed societies securing survival is a receding need. The political organization emerging could be called the “opportunity state.” Its responsibility will be to guarantee to all access to the tools required for the effective pursuit of individual happiness. Additionally, this nascent political community has the purpose of securing the environment in which the opportunities to be exploited can unfold unhindered. The crux is that this process implies the cutting back of the state intervention that we – and the negatively effected bureaucracy of “social engineers” – have become accustomed to.
 
7. To serve the future interest of the community, the new public policy has to jettison the old practice of legislated equality. Equal opportunity and therefore the accepted and appreciated inequality of end results are called for. Our prevailing practice uses the ideal of equality to equalize the results of differing inputs. This attempt to make equal what is different has always been an abuse and belongs, by the demands of the future we can have, into the trashcan.
 
8. A time-proven success strategy can turn into a handicap once it is applied under changed conditions. An example from industry is Detroit’s sticking to the once beloved large gas-guzzlers regardless of falling sales. The rule is also applicable to the world of politics. On April 11, Clinton had to back off the attempt to revive a face lifted version the Tuzla sniping fire story. This came with an accusation that the media is treating her like a bank robber. So, by the wish of the embarrassed Clintons –but not the electorate – the issue is to them unilaterally “closed.” Lucky for them if it flies. Some pretend that Hilary has repeatedly told the sniper story. Therefore, the excuse of exhaustion becomes even less convincing than previously. The unabashed and careless distortion is no surprise. In the past, the Clintons have gotten away with fibs that were more brazen. As stated, assuming that old tricks that worked in the past will still score is typical. So is the failure of the old parachute to open again.
 
9. Transcribed from “newspeak.” Zimbabwe had an election. A secret election at that. It was, in a way that gives the term a new Orwellian meaning. Three weeks after the balloting, the results are still a secret of the ageing dictator. For good reason. In his self-delusion, Mugabe apparently underestimated his unpopularity. Thus misled, he failed to counterfeit enough votes to make it over the top. Further innovative elements can be discovered. Until now cheating meant that individual ballots were removed or smuggled into the count. To steal, lock, stock and barrel, an entire election, adds a new twist to an old practice. Expect new absurdities to emerge on this front in the coming week.
 
10. Africa’s problem is an underdevelopment that is anchored in a cleptocratic authoritarianism whose operators benefit from backwardness. (Some dictatorships have not prevented modernization. China on the left and Taiwan/S. Korea on the right have not used state power consistently to suppress advancement. In the latter, economic growth created conditions for a political process that led to democracy.) The “age of the soldier” that followed the “age of colonialism” is hard to overcome. South Africa‘s role in the Zimbabwe crisis partly reveals why. Against dictators whose pigments fit, even the relatively democratic politicians of the continent are reluctant to act, as their means would allow them to. Meanwhile, effective outside pressure is meek as that amounts to “colonialist interference.”
 
11. One hand washes the other. 12 April. In Harare Mbeki met Mugabe prior to the gathering of concerned African leaders. (Being busy with other things, Mugabe refused to attend.) The visit led Mbeki to the original conclusion that “there is no crisis.” The “secret elections” are a “normal electoral process in Zimbabwe.”
 
12. Dictatorship International. The foregoing is not singularly an African problem. Burma’s rulers are also propped up by the solidarity of her neighbors. Notable is the China plays. This is hardly a surprise if we consider how China is ruled, Peking’s comfortable veto in the Security Council, and the return from dealings with otherwise isolated regimes.
 
13. Good opportunities to establish a Palestinian state were let go unused by the chief beneficiaries of its creation. In part the chance was missed because of the record created in the areas already under Palestinian control. One problem is that there is no one to negotiate with as Palestinian institutions do not function reliably and lack permanence. Connected to this is the corruption of the organizations active there. This condition is a cause of the wobbly institutional framework and also its consequence. Since an agreement involves the survival of Israel, the security guaranteed needs to correspond to the risk she takes by entrusting survival to Palestinian promises. It is not convincing when bad governance is attributed to the “occupation” – which only partially exists. Germany and Japan were also occupied. Sovereignty was only returned once local government functioned. The Baltic states under the Soviets had it much worse than the Palestinians. In part independence came because the occupied created good governance wherever the occupant‘s grip could be loosened. Contrary to what the writer heard a commentator say, corruption is not caused by the “Zionist occupant.” Blaming the Jews suggests that if Israel disappears corruption will not be gone – only a good excuse for it will be missed.

A quote from Corriere della Sera, 15 April 2008

[T]he radical Left has disappeared. Communists and greens have vanished, at least from parliament. They do not have a single senator or deputy [in the Italian parliament]. In the stunned eyes of the Rainbow people, the night was made even blacker by the triumph of Silvio Berlusconi, the impressive gains of the Northern League and the hard-to-refute claim of its secretary, Umberto Bossi: “The workers have voted for the Northern League”. Pause for effect: “The workers don’t vote for the Left any more. The Northern League is the new workers’ party”.

[...] Mr Bossi’s claim is backed up by the figures. Take the province of Vicenza. It’s an industrial province, an area of engineering and manufacturing [...] The Northern League outstripped the Rainbow Left at Valdagno by 30% to 2.1% – in a town where forty years ago rioters pulled down the statue to industrialist Gaetano Marzotto. […] The Left was annihilated in the two blue-collar towns of Chiampo (41% to 0.9%) and San Pietro Mussolino, where the local electorate, largely made up of factory workers and their families, gave Umberto Bossi an amazing 49.8% of the vote and the grouping that somewhat presumptuously calls itself the “only Left” a miserable 0.6%. […]

Never before, however, have we seen an entire political area vanish as if it had been swallowed up by the very earth.[…] For the first time in history since the fall of the Fascist dictatorship, Italy’s parliament will not have a single “red” sitting on its benches […] The truth is that this tetchy, daydreaming, belligerently pacifist Left, which in recent years has said no to high speed trains, wind power, peace mission, pension reform and almost everything else, has lost on all fronts. […] As the Left glumly folds away its flags, Silvio Berlusconi, Gianfranco Fini and above all Umberto Bossi smile triumphantly in the background among the celebrating workers that the Left can no longer reach.

A quote from The Economist, 17 April 2008
 
The idea of a permanent president of the European Council was resisted by many smaller countries. But now it is being created, it would be ludicrous to fill it with a minor figure; a Juncker or a Schüssel. To the outside world – India or China, say – the president will speak for Europe. If the EU wants to be a serious global actor, that points to a world figure. Unless Ms Merkel steps forward, which is improbable, the only such person in the running is Mr Blair.

A quote from a communiqué of the French Federation of Le Droit Humain, one of France’s major anti-Christian [“liberal and adogmatic”] Masonic lodges, 11 April 2008 [English translation here]

The French Federation of Le Droit Humain represented by its president, Michel Payen, met on April 8, 2008 with the president of the European Commission, José-Manuel Barroso, [...] This meeting constitutes a major event regarding the place of Freemasonry in the construction of Europe; this place was underscored not only by the interest and attentiveness that President Barroso showed to the delegation and the time he accorded them, but also by the commitments he made to the values espoused by liberal and adogmatic Freemasonry, its positions and its opinions on subjects of concern. It was the first time that Freemasonry, as such, was able to express itself to such a high level European institution.

The delegation received assurances from President Barroso of his attachment to the spirit of "laïcité" and to the principle of separation of religion from the State. The delegation stressed the importance of the Enlightenment in the history of Europe, a dimension to be taken into account at least equally with its religious roots, and certainly more closely tied to the roots of antiquity.

Finally, a principle of communication between the liberal and adogmatic Masonic Orders and the services of the European Commission, to be used whenever needed, was decided upon. Thus the French Federation of Le Droit Humain will propose, in the near future, a recommendation concerning the principle of emancipation that ought to form the basis of all European education systems, in direct relation to a recognition of the contribution of the Enlightenment to the common culture of the peoples that compose Europe, and in accordance with the principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

As we approach the anniversary of May 1968 the websites are posting more and more articles about the on-going after-shocks of that disastrous decade. The leaders of the student revolt had more or less disappeared from the headlines, or were no longer wielding the influence they once did, but as time went on they returned front and center. Yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy met with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, of all people, at Elysée Palace. Dany the Red, now known as Dany the Green for his interest in ecology (which includes one would presume the greenhouse gases that emanate from his mouth), made it to the big time again.

One of the promises of Sarkozy's presidential campaign had been to eradicate once and for all the effects of those events of 40 years ago. However, as many analysts (including Dany himself) have pointed out, Sarkozy's election to the presidency is in fact the apotheosis of May 68, and the enshrinement of its ideals.

La Croix has a report on the meeting which, despite my acerbic comments, did have an official purpose:

Forty years after the events of 68, Dany the Red, now Dany the Green, stepped for the first time on Wednesday into Elysée Palace to meet with Nicolas Sarkozy and to discuss Europe.

Co-president of the Green Party in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit's visit was one of several that the French president has been holding with leaders of the various parties in the European Parliament, in anticipation of the French presidency of the European Union that begins July 1.

After the meeting, Daniel Cohn-Bendit in a dark blue shirt over a white tee, without a tie, met with members of the press in the Elysée courtyard and described the encounter as "relaxed."

Cohn-Bendit had brought the president his book on the events of May 68 entitled Forget 68, with this sightly provocative dedication: "For Nicolas. When will imagination be in power? Greetings. Dany". President Sarkozy "laughed and said, 'I will read it'. We made a date to meet later to talk about it," he assured the press.

If you don't know, "Put Imagination in power" was one of the slogans of the revolt.

Cohn-Bendit told the press he had sold Sarkozy on an idea: "Any presidency can only function if there is a basic idea that resonates in France and in Europe." For the ecologist the French presidency of the EU ought to signify that "Europe must now work at regulating globalization socially and ecologically."
 
The president also spoke of Europe's defense. The ecologists – Cohn-Bendit was accompanied by the other co-president of the Green Party, Monica Frassoni – responded, "Europe's defense and the prevention of conflicts." "He said he agreed. We'll see if he means what he says. He understood that you cannot just talk about the military unless you also talk about measures to prevent conflicts, as the Treaty of Lisbon stipulates."
 
A journalist asked if the president wanted "to liquidate May 68", an allusion to candidate Sarkozy's statement in April 2007 just before the election. "No", answered Daniel Cohn-Bendit. "But he's going to read my book. He'll call me and say, 'I was wrong. Forgive me... I'm not going to liquidate 68. On the contrary. It was great. It allowed me to become president,'" he joked.

Some joke. It's true. For once I agree with Dany!

Prodded by the press, the European deputy added: "Listen, we're not going to talk about May 68 on the front steps of Elysée," only to proclaim a moment later: "68 was terrific... It began with an awesome transformation of French society. The proof of that is that a twice-divorced man is president of the Republic!" he exclaimed to the delight of the gallery of reporters.
 
"Go back 40 years to Madame de Gaulle, Aunt Yvonne. She's turning over in her grave!", he concluded before taking off for an interview at Canal Plus.

The reference of course is to the wife of Charles de Gaulle who was known as "Aunt Yvonne." She is known for the quote, "The presidency is temporary – but the family is permanent." She stayed in the background, was a devout Catholic and may well be turning over in her grave.

I should remind readers that for many patriots de Gaulle was no bargain. For some his policy on Algeria marked the beginning of multi-cultural France. His decisions to abandon French citizens in Algeria to their brutal fate after the Evian accords is still regarded as an act of treason. On the other hand others continue to regard him as the last truly pro-France president.

"Neither anxious nor reassured" Daniel Cohn-Bendit left Elysée and its current occupant whom he recently described as an "unrestrained pleasure-seeker". The two agreed to meet again in late June, during the soccer championship finals in Vienna.

 
 
More on May 68:

Remembering the Sixties, 13 February 2008

Rivers of Blood and the Mentality of 68, 14 April 2008

An article from David Lindsay

Forty years ago, Enoch Powell delivered his Rivers of Blood speech. Powell knew and loved the Indian sub-continent, where he observed that all politics was communal. One party was Hindu, one Muslim, one Sikh, one Untouchable, and so forth. As a result – and this is the crucial point – people who lost elections or other votes did not accept the result and get on with things. They rioted, or worse. Sometimes a very great deal worse.

Powell believed that mass immigration from the former British India would import this communal style of politics, and everything that went with it. But he was wrong. Wasn’t he?

Late last month, 300 Labour members in Derby defected to the Tories on an Indian communal basis. The only surprise in any of this is that those in question would want to join the Tories. They had just welcomed a Tower Hamlets Councillor who found the local Respect operation too Trotskyist rather than, as he preferred, Islamist. And they are affiliated to the European People's Party, as is Turkey’s ruling AKP, the leaders of which are in no sense “former Islamists” and would not have been elected if they were.

Apart from that, this sort of thing is entirely predictable, and set to become increasingly common. The Tories’ vehicles toured Ealing Southall proclaiming in various South Asian languages that Muslim, Hindu and Sikh festivals were to be made public holidays by the Tories. Then that party's "Quality of Life Commission" (don't laugh, it's real) published a report advocating that "local communities" be given the power to designate three public holidays in their respective localities.??In other words, the Tories are going to go around Asian areas at the next Election making this same promise all over again, adjusted according to how Muslim, Hindu or Sikh the particular constituency, ward or addressee happens to be.??After this, what else are these unspecified "local communities" going to decide? Who are they, exactly? I think we all know that they are the great and the good of the local mosque, mandir or gurdwara. Getting to decide this, and then a whole lot more, is to be their price for getting out the vote, sometimes consisting of nothing more than reminding their mates to fill in postal ballot papers the right way on behalf of their entire households.??These situations will easily perpetuate themselves, since people will move - not just from around the country, but from around the world - to live in Cameron’s little Caliphates, Hindutvas and Khalistans.

I can only exclaim: “Enoch Powell, thou shouldst be living at this hour!”

 

David Lindsay is a visibly mixed-race English-speaking Christian and social-democrat

 

More on this topic:

Rivers of Blood and the Mentality of 68, 16 April 2008

It Is Worse than Enoch Powell Predicted, 16 April 2008 

 

 

 

 

Ken Livingstone’s support of Palestine and radical cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi seems to be paying off. The Telegraph has announced that Dr Azzam Tamimi, a colleague of al-Qaradawi, is formally backing Ken Livingstone’s bid for re-election as London mayor. Tamimi, is described by the newspaper as, “a Palestinian apologist for suicide bombing”, a supporter of Hamas, and a part of the campaign group, Muslims 4 Ken, which aims to secure Muslim votes for Livingstone.
 
International, multicultural politics are a large part of Livingstone’s campaign for mayor, partly because he views London as a cosmopolitan city, attracting tourists, and with a population composed of all nationalities. This is quite correct. But Livingstone goes further, making much of his support for Palestine in a video interview posted on the Muslims 4 Ken website. Indeed, Livingstone seems almost to portray the mayoral elections as the Palestinian-Israel conflict on a microcosmic or symbolic level. Asked by interviewer Anas Altikriti why the mayoral election “is so significant”, Livingstone responds:
I was a clear opponent of the war in Iraq and have a long history of support for the Palestinian cause […]

Hardly, one would think, of great importance in such an election. Yet, Livingstone continues: Johnson, he says,
[…] has a strong record of support for Israel, and I don’t ever recall him having any sort of reasonable position on the part of the Palestinians.

While Livingstone attempts to show that he – unlike Johnson – is a moderate who appreciates all cultures – pointing out, for example, that he is someone who thinks Muslim women should be allowed to wear the hijab and Jewish people their traditional dress – the invocation of Israel and Palestine is surely a highly emotive issue that can only fuel tensions between London’s Muslim and Jewish communities. He does not link the issue to London’s Jews, of course, but he brings it into local politics, and thus to local people themselves. How would the Muslim community feel if Jews voted en masse for Johnson, giving him the victory, or what would the Jewish community feel if Muslims appear to hand Livingstone the victory? What affect on national politics could this have some time down the road?
 
Livingstone rarely shies away from controversy, of course, and this is both his strength and weakness. His support of radicals such as al-Qaradawi has won him both admirers and detractors. Recently, however, he has come in for criticism for very different reasons. He has been caught on video joking that his greatest achievement was grinding the Labour Party (of which he is a member) into the dust, and it has been discovered that he has 5 children with two women – three of which he had kept secret. Nevertheless, always eager to portray himself as a man of the people, Livingstone suggests that the media is in the hands of “former Left-wing intellectuals” who believe in the “Clash of civilizations”, and who attack him for challenging this belief. London, he asserts, proves the theory wrong, saying that even after the 7/7 bombings there were no riots, and Londoners were brought even closer together. In regard to the media he says,
[… They] hate people like myself more than they hate Osama Bin-Laden. Osama Bin-Laden is the enemy they want. You can paint him as a demon. The last thing they want is someone saying, ‘you don’t have to have a conflict with the Muslim world; you can have peaceful coexistence’. Therefore they seek actually to get rid of me, I mean, as almost a bigger priority than catching Osama Bin-Laden.

This seems to be overstating his importance, but if Livingstone regards himself as a victim of the press, Muslims 4 Ken clearly aim to even the score by taking on his only real rival, Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson. According to The Telegraph, Anas Altikriti has said of him:

Boris Johnson would be extremely bad news for Muslims in London. When the 7/7 bombings happened, Ken condemned them as criminal acts. Boris condemned Islam. We are going door to door talking to everyone we can.

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 16 April 2008

Marriage registrars [in the Netherlands] who refuse to perform same-sex marriages must also be denied from performing marriages between men and women, the Equal Treatment Commission (CGB) ruled yesterday.

In October 2007, the municipality of Langedijk placed an ad for two marriage registrars. The municipality demanded that applicants be prepared to conduct both heterosexual and same-sex marriages. The CGB judged yesterday that municipalities may indeed make this requirement. A local authority is "not violating the equal treatment law if it refuses to appoint a marriage registrar who does not wish to marry persons of the same sex on grounds of religion". […]

CGB also passed judgement yesterday on a case concerning the personnel policy of feminist magazine Opzij. The magazine may not exclude men from editorial positions, according to CGB. By exclusively reserving the position of editor for women, Opzij is making a forbidden distinction on grounds of gender.

If Brigitte Bardot (73) had been fifty years younger, French President Nicolas Sarkozy might have made her France’s First Lady and her nude pictures might have been sold to help charities in Cambodia. Now, instead, the French are taking her to court.

The former French sex symbol stood trial in Paris today for “inciting racial hatred” against Muslims. The public prosecutor demanded that the former filmstar be given a two-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros.

In December 2006, Bardot wrote a letter to Sarkozy, then France’s Interior minister, to demand that Muslims anaesthesize their animals before slaughtering them. In her letter she said, referring to Muslims, that she is “fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its habits.”

Since 1997 Bardot has already been fined four times for “inciting hatred” against Muslims. Recently she was given a fine of 5,000 euros. Public prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court today that she was seeking a tough sentence because she is getting “tired of prosecuting Mrs Bardot.” The former star refuses to shut up. The verdict of the Paris court is expected on 3 June.

In Austria, the authorities are prosecuting the politician Susanne Winter on similar charges of “Islamophobia,” while in Belgium the minister of Justice has asked the European Parliament to lift the immunity of Frank Vanhecke, a member of the European Parliament and a leading member and former president (1996-2008) of the Vlaams Belang party, a secessionist party which aims for the independence of Dutch-speaking Flanders from Belgium. The Belgian authorities want to prosecute Vanhecke for a leaflet his party published in 2005, in which acts of vandalism in the city of Sint-Niklaas were linked to Moroccan youths. As the perpetrators of the vandalism were minors their identity has not been divulged by the authorities and Vanhecke is unable to prove whether or not they are indeed immigrants.

On September 11 last year Mr. Vanhecke was severely beaten up and publicly humiliated by the Belgian police during a demonstration in Brussels to remember the victims of 9/11. If convicted now he could lose his seat in the European Parliament as well as his right to be active in politics.

This Sunday it will be exactly 40 years ago that Enoch Powell, a then 55-year old Conservative member of the British Parliament and a former government minister, gave a speech in Birmingham. It became know as the “Rivers of Blood speech” because it referred to a verse from the Roman poet Virgil prophetizing “wars, terrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood.” The Tiber is the river that runs through Rome.

Mr. Powell warned for the danger of unlimited immigration by people from a culture entirely different to Britain’s. He referred to one of his constituents, a middle-aged working man, who had told him a few weeks earlier: “If I had the money to go, I wouldn’t stay in this country [...] I have three children […] I shan’t be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas.”

Mr. Powell added that “hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking” the same thing. He said that areas of Britain were “undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. […] It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.” He warned that by the year 2000 there would be 5 million to 7 million immigrants and their descendants in Britain, around one tenth of the population: “Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.” He claimed that, if Britain wanted to survive, it was urgent to stop further inflow “without delay” and get the aliens to leave again. A re-emigration policy had to be “adopted and pursued with the determination which the gravity of the alternative justifies.”

As a result of his speech, the politician was branded a racist and sacked from his position in the Conservative Party. Mr. Powell, who died in 1998, remained ostracized for the remainder of his life, and beyond. Last November, a Conservative candidate for parliament was forced to resign after he wrote in an op-ed piece that “Enoch Powell was right.”

Nevertheless, it does appear that Mr. Powell was right. Though according to a report of the British House of Lords published last month, the data about the stock of immigrants in the UK “are seriously inadequate,” the British government estimates that there are almost half a million migrants residing illegally in Britain while the foreign-born legal inhabitants of the country currently account for 10 percent of the population. More than 1 million foreigners have legally settled in Britain in the past decade.

As Mr. Powell pointed out forty years ago, increasing numbers of native Britons are fleeing their country because they no longer consider it “worth living in for [their] children.” Last year Liam Clifford, director of Global Visas, a consultancy which assists people who want to leave, pointed out that the number of emigrants is rising dramatically while “the main reason for these people leaving the UK is the over-stretching of services caused by inbound immigration to the UK.” The same phenomenon can be witnessed all over Western Europe. In Germany and the Netherlands more natives are currently moving out than immigrants moving in. Those who leave no longer feel at home in their own country.

Next month, Europe will remember – and celebrate – the “revolt of May 1968” when leftist students in France and elsewhere rioted against Western society and traditional morality in favor of socialist collectivism and moral and cultural relativism. Though, as Mr. Powell recognized, the working class at that time were already beginning to suffer the consequences of Europe’s refusal to defend its national and cultural identity, the “mentality of ’68” only exacerbated these problems instead of tackling them “without delay.” The fact that Europe’s elites are about to celebrate “May 1968” shows that this mentality is still prevalent.

Hence the topic of the inundation of Europe by foreigners fundamentally opposed to its traditions and values is still as big a taboo as it was when Enoch Powell raised it. A whole range of “anti-discrimination” legislation has been voted in order to assure that it remains so. In his speech, Mr. Powell warned that “There could be no grosser misconception of the realities than is entertained by those who vociferously demand legislation as they call it ‘against discrimination’, whether they be leader-writers of the same kidney and sometimes on the same newspapers which year after year in the 1930s tried to blind this country to the rising peril which confronted it, or archbishops who live in palaces, faring delicately with the bedclothes pulled right up over their heads. They have got it exactly and diametrically wrong.”

They are still as wrong in 2008 as they were in 1968. While Europe praises the ideologues of ’68 as visionaries, it refuses to heed the warnings of the one true visionary of that ominous year. But, as Mr. Powell himself realized, his warning that “rivers of blood” would await Europe if it did not act was bound to fall on deaf ears: “People are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: ‘If only,’ they love to think, ‘if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen.’”

 
This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on April 16, 2008 .