The Savages Are Restless
Europe is learning too little, too late, that it made a major, maybe fatal, mistake, with the policies of open immigration that let in millions of Muslims, so many of whom are hostile to the European way of life.
Europe is foaming with acts of barbarianism -- from the murder of Theo Van Gogh to the most recent horrible torture-murder of a young Parisian Jew named Ilan Halimi.
The lead barbarian, Youssouf Fofana, 25, who actually proudly took the name Barbarian for his gang, denies, in The New York Times, that their savagery was religiously motivated. Right. All the evidence says otherwise. Paris-dwelling novelist Nidra Poller writes in The Wall Street Journal:
Paris is well aware that the case threatens France's international reputation, but far more than that is at stake. Once again, as in the suburban riots of 2005, the country is forced to come face to face with the criminalized, alienated and racist Muslim youth and their adult enablers in its midst.Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declared, in a long speech delivered at the annual dinner of the CRIF, that this heinous crime was anti-Semitic, and that anti-Semitism is not acceptable in France. He promised that the perpetrators would be captured and punished. Two French policemen were sent to the Ivory Coast with an international warrant to arrest Mr. Fofana who flew there on a one-way ticket on Feb. 15, the day that his photo appeared in Le Figaro. A delegation of the CRIF and members of the Halimi family this past Tuesday met with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
The murder of Ilan Halimi invites comparison with the November 2003 killing of a Jewish disc jockey, Sebastien Selam. His Muslim neighbor, Adel, slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, and gouged out his eyes with a carving fork in his building's underground parking garage. Adel came upstairs with bloodied hands and told his mother, "I killed my Jew, I will go to paradise." In the two years before his murder, the Selam family was repeatedly harassed for being Jewish. The Selam case has not been opened by the magistrate. The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon.
The initial response to the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi suggested a comparably selective ignorance. But many things have changed in French society in the past two years. Then, faced with the new tide of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community was left alone with its distress and at times even accused of being justifiably targeted because of its support for Israel. Today the government has apparently decided that the barbarous hatred unleashed against one Jewish man is a threat to all of France.
Too little, too late, for France and for Europe -- or do they have any hope of getting out of this? (And don't forget the birth rate of all those immigrants, so many of them on the dole in the countries they now call home.) One difference between, say, the Muslims in Europe and the immigrants who founded (and continue to build) this country is in the desire to assimilate -- to join a country already in progress. I think Europe is in for some pretty big trouble -- all of Europe. Is there any turning it back?
It's not a riot in France this week, but half a million are demonstrating. Wanna know why?
"The government wants to let firms offer flexible job contracts to people under 26 which allow them to be sacked at short notice for the first two years."
http://tinyurl.com/kh7fd
In other words, unskilled, inexperienced laborers want to step out of high school into a lifetime of certainty and security. Like their parents did... (Courtesy of, I would argue, the largess of the postwar United States taxpayer.)
Old age kills people, cowardice kills formerly great nations. It's ain't pretty.
Crid at March 7, 2006 10:29 AM
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