Update: If anyone is still scrolling this far down on March 28, here is Fausta’s (via Instapundit) example of French order and civilization.
2nd Update: If anyone is still scrolling this far down (March 30), Der Spiegel Online has a lengthy (8-part) discussion – “Paving the Way to a Parallel Muslim Society” – that was prompted by the case of the judge who quoted the Koran when denying a wife who was regularly beaten by her husband a quick divorce. From a later section:
In 2005, Hatun Sürücü, a young Berlin woman, was killed because she was “living like a German.” In her family’s opinion, this was a crime only her death could expiate. Her youngest brother executed her by shooting her several times, point blank, at a Berlin bus stop. But because prosecutors were unable to prove that the family council had planned the act, only the killer himself could be tried for murder and, because he was underage, he was given a reduced sentence. The rest of the family left the courtroom in high spirits, and the father rewarded the convicted boy with a watch.
“Living like a German” would seem to be the goal of assimilation, of integration. But, of course, to some of these immigrants that may appear a temptation rather than a goal. But if Germans, themselves, do not see this as a goal, how can an immigrant do so? And do all the EU members, so busy at not being themselves, consider being themselves a burden rather than a gift.
This report is not likely to surprise anyone whose daughter did a year in France in the last few years. In my day, we thought we’d happened along an unattractive but perhaps unrepresentative example (e.g., the Algerian in the Paris hostel who pointed out, unsympathetically, that my coat would not have been stolen the night before if I had only been willing to go to a hotel with him). My daughter’s and friends’ reports from their daughters seem to indicate the pattern has become more frightening: more violent and more pervasive. And, yes, blaming the victim is precisely the reason Sharia law scares me. (Via, of course, Instapundit.)
If we look at the history of Europe over the past 2,500 years, is there any reason to think there will not be a widespread slaughter in the streets when natives get tired of the situation? History does not suggest cultural tolerance. The European behavior of the past 50 years is out of step with the behavior of the previous two thousand years. Is it reasonable to presume the past 50 years have supplanted the culture of the past? If so, why?
People routinely look at the last 1,300 years in evaluating and predicting Muslim behavior. Why not look at the past 2,500 years in predicting and evaluating native European behavior?
You want to see some absolutely frightening patterns of behavior .. check out these stories, all coming from Sweden.
I would post them here but they’re too long and I dont want to alienate anyone :)
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/03/muslim-violence-crime-or-jihad.html
What Elliot has commented on was actually the subject of an internet “feud” between Ralph Peters and Mark Steyn. Ralph Peters said essentially the same point as Elliot here: that the Europeans have a 2,000 years of being a bloody intolorant culture and that the past 50 years has been quite anomalous. Mark Steyn replied by saying that the Europeans really have tossed in the towel, culturally speaking, and that such a bloody response to the muslims is unlikely.
Both men are good thinkers with good arguments. However, I think the burden of argument was more on Mark than on Ralph, given that Ralph has far more personal experience travelling and living in many parts of the world and is fluent in several languages. One thing that both men agree on is that Europe is screwed, one way or the other.
BTW, I just read “America Alone” (Mark Steyn) and “Never Quit the Fight” (Ralph Peters).
Seems like the Continent is getting unlivable for the Jews again.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/100725.html
French Jews petition U.S. for asylum
More than 7,000 French Jews have signed a petition asking for political asylum in the United States because of anti-Semitism in France.
“Following the barbarous murder of a young Jew because he was Jewish, in the context of the rise in anti-Semitic acts committed by Islamic fundamentalists, numerous members of the community no longer feel safe in France,” reads the petition, which was sent to the U.S. Congress. The reference was to Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death last year by an anti-Semitic gang.
The petition asks Congress to enact a law according refugee status to French Jews. “We believe that the United States, known for its traditional welcome to those under threat in their native lands, must open its doors to us,” the petition says.
French communal officials reacted with outrage. “This petition is bizarre, stupid and out of place,” Haim Musicant, director of CRIF, the umbrella organization of secular French Jewish groups, told Israel’s Ma’ariv newspaper. “I don’t feel threatened in France, and the authorities are doing everything they can to protect the Jewish community. French Jews don’t need this kind of petition.”