oyvindstrommen.be traktningar

Washington Post’s PostGlobal features an article by guest analyst Dr. Shalimi Venturelli – “Blair and the Veil”:

While no straight line can be drawn from the veil to the murderous martyr, it is still a component of the package that constitutes cultural essentialism, a condition that incubates anti-democratic attitudes of purity and exclusivity, and deep contempt for other faiths and cultural forms.

Deep contempt for other faiths and cultural forms is soon to show it’s ugly face in the comments made to Venturelli’s article. – Islam can not co-exist with any other faith, one commenter writes, and – in case you wondered – he is not a Muslim. Other and more careful commenters say, in various ways, that if you immigrate, you should assimilate.

I am an immigrant. Thanks to my blue eyes and my blond hair I can still pass for being Flemish, at least as long as no one gets me into a conversation lasting long enough to discover my strangely accented Dutch (in the Netherlands, they would say that is true for everyone in Flanders, but I digress). In other words, I am what would often be described as a well-integrated immigrant. I work, I am involved in politics, I watch Flemish TV, hey, I’m even married to a native. That said, there are aspects of Flemish culture that I am not interested in integrating into my own life, and there aspects of Norwegian culture I would not want to give up. I understand perfectly anyone else who feels the same way.

I also understand why British government officials raise the issue of the niqab, the face-covering veil some Muslim women choose to wear. I believe it is pointless to draw any kind of lines, direct or indirect, between a piece of cloth and terrorism, but still I understand why Jack Straw brought it up. I even agree with him. Just like Jack, I’d rather see that no one wore it. But there’s a difference between saying that, and doing as some people want to do: putting down a ban on for instance the niqab or for that matter the hijab. Criticising things you do not agree with, pointing out that niqabs function well as walls, even when not intented to, seeing them as signs of suppression, all this is sensible. All of it is acting according liberal values. Banning the hijab? That’s not liberal.

The issue raises questions far more wide-reaching in its implications than the discussion on terrorism and what to do to fight it. This one is of vital importance: How does Europe tackle difference? Historically, of course, Europe hasn’t done that well. Nazism was the extreme example, but the Jew-hatred of the nineteenth century was more typical, not to speak of the scorn that Irish immigrants were met with in England. “Bloody foreigners” is far from a recently invented insult.

Liberal ideas eventually won over the Jew-hatred of the Nazis. At least in principle. The question that should be asked however, is: Did Europe really have to confront the ideas that led to fascism? As one Norwegian poet put it, after WWII everyone was suddenly democrats. Everywhere, there were only democrats. And it was easy to be a democrat, it was easy to be liberal. After all, the most visible minority group of Europe had been decimated. And another visible European minority, the Roma, had suffered their own Holocaust, the Porajmos.

I live nearby Antwerp. In Antwerp, the orthodox Jews are still a visible minority. You will see them on the streets, you will see them on the tram. Unlike less orthodox Jews, these people dress notably different, so different that you are never in doubt about their background. They are everything but assimilated, and I fail to see the problem. I also fail to see the problem with women wearing niqab. That is, I fail to see how this impacts my life.

Sure, clothing can be used as a wall, or can be interpreted as one even when it is not meant that way; but if you want a liberal society, that means you also have to tolerate those who want to dress differently. If you don’t accept that people act differently from you, if you demand assimilation into your model of what it means to be Flemish or what it means to be English, then you are not liberal.

In spite of that, there are good reasons to bring up debates on both the hijab and the niqab. And that is that there are people who are wearing these eventhough they do not really want to. They have been scared or coerced into doing so. Fighting that with a ban is not smart, and probably not effective, either. Confronting the illiberalism of those who want to force women into wearing a hijab is still at least as necessary as confronting the illiberalism of those who want to rip it off her.

The above picture is quite famous. In 1920, Trotsky was standing next to Lenin (next to the podium, wearing a cap). By 1927, he was quite literally removed from the picture. Through the use of paint, razors and airbrusher Soviet photo retouchers tried to change history when history became too uncomfortable.

Take a look at this facsimile from the website of Vlaams Belang, the Flemish secessionist, far right party (their site). Then take a look at the second facsimilie, showing how it was previously published:

Notice the second picture on the second screenshot? I sure did. It’s a picture of Marie Rose-Morel, a member of the Flemish parliament for the far right party. The man next to her is Volen Siderov, a rather notorious Bulgarian politician. Now he’s there, now he’s gone.

The article does not mention Siderov by name, of course. It simply refers to the interesting chance to get to know politicians from Romania and Bulgaria. This has not been changed. In other words, it seems like it still was interesting to meet Siderov, but his name and his picture is gone. Why? Did Vlaams Belang suddenly run out of server space? Somehow, I just do not think so.

Here’s the rest of the story:

Siderov is the leader of the right-wing party Nacionalen Sayuz Ataka, National Union Attack, often referred to simply as Ataka. He is openly anti-Turk (including ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria for centuries). He is openly anti-Semitic. A former winner of an award of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, he has written several books, including «Bulgarophobia» and «The Boomerang of Evil», the latter placing the blame for most of the world’s ills on the Jews.

One of his chief opponents is Yuliana Metodieva, a spokeswoman of the Bulgarian Helsinki Commitee for Human Rights. She believes he is a threat to Bulgaria’s democracy. I can understand if that doesn’t stop Morel from smiling. Representing the party targeted by the socalled cordon sanitaire, she is used to that kind of talk. But let us listen a bit longer to Metodieva. In an interview she stated:

- His influence is obvious and damaging for our developing democracy. [His] programmes clearly instigate ethnic hatred and even violence […], he has referred to the Roma as ‘cockroaches and termites’. [He once told] cheering supporters that Gypsies should be sent to camps and Jews and Turks should go home [and in the «Boomerang of Evil], Siderov even calls upon ‘Orthodox believers’ to take revenge on the ‘murderers of Jesus’.

With friends like that, it does not even help to have Guy Verhofstadt as an enemy.

Now, take a look at this picture:

Recognize the guy on the far right? You’re right. Once again, it is Siderov. The picture is taken at a conference taking place in Moscow in January 2002. Siderov is not alone on this picture either. In fact, he is standing in a group of Holocaust revisionist celebrities. In the back you can spot David Duke, the founder of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. All the way to the left you can see Ahmed Rami of Radio Islam, by the E.U. Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia described as “one of the most radical right wing anti-Semitic homepages on the net with close links to radical Islam groups”.

Confused? You wonder why Vlaams Belang meet with Holocaust revisionists? You wonder what the star of the Bulgarian far right, in spite of its very much outspoken sentiments on Muslims, has in common with an anti-Semitic Muslim radio host from Sweden?

To tell you the truth, it is confusing. At least you know now, why Volen Siderov disappeared. It was becoming a tad too uncomfortable for Vlaams Belang to keep his picture on their website.

Bjørn Stærk commented on my recent post “There’s something about Oriana“, and his comment is well worth reflecting over:

If someone says that Oriana Fallaci was a brave person who upheld European values, that could mean one of three things: 1) They more or less agree with everything Fallaci said, including the insane things, 2) they agree with that they think Fallaci was saying, and don’t know about the rest, or 3) they agree with much of what she said, and are willing to forgive the rest, because her intentions were good and she was on the right side. I believe you’ll find all three kinds of Fallaci supporters, from the insane, to the ignorant, to the partisan [...], the one that applies a lower standard to their own side than the other. The one that says it’s okay to be an idiot, as long as you play on my team.

Bjørn Stærk is right in pointing out that quite a number of the fallacists do not really agree with her. In fact both Hans Rustad at document.no and others express scepticism to some of her more conspirational points, at the same time as they excused Fallaci with “her style” and “her project”. Still, she is seen as the brave woman who dared to speak out. In other words, it is okay to be a rabiate, aggressive conspiracy theorist – and to subscribe a thoroughly manichean worldview – as long as you happen to play on the right team.

What I wonder about, though, is how Hans Rustad came to play on the same team as the woman who wrote this:

The truth, that the responsible have not only kept silent about, but kept hidden as if it was a secret of state, is that it is the largest conspiracy of modern history. Through ideological fraud, cultural filthiness, moral prostiution and wicked tricks, it is the scariest complot that our world has ever created. It is Europe with its bankers that have created the farce called the European Union, with its popes that have invented the fable of ecumenism, with its spineless individuals who have invented the lies of pacifism, with its hypocrites who have put into the scene the fraud called humanitary help. It is Europe with its state leaders with no honour and no wisdom, with its intellectuals with no dignity and no courage. It is the sick Europe. It is the Europe that has sold itself as a whore to the sultans, to the caliphs, to the viziers, to the knights of the new Ottoman Empire. It is Eurabia.

(Oriana Fallaci, the Strength of Reason, my translation from p. 141 in the Norwegian edition)

How can liberals become infatuated with this kind of writing? How can the above be defended because of Oriana’s “style” and “project”? How is it even possible to sell the above as something written by a woman characterised by her “loyalty to Europe”? Sometimes I wonder if some of the fallacists have even read Fallaci.

Does the distinction between different kinds of Fallaci supporters matter, asks Stærk:

If you take a long-term perspective to this, and imagine a future Europe created by the conflict between violent Islamists and Fallaci supporters, then the distinction is not so important. Anyone who supports Fallaci will help to create that Europe, no matter why they do it. If this leads to violent conflict and anti-Muslim persecution, future historians may be justified in placing some of the blame on anyone who today promotes the rhetoric of people like Fallaci.

But there are other perspectives, more relevant to ourselves in our time. There’s the moral perspective, which says that there’s a difference between being an Islamophobe and just tolerating Islamophobes, whether it’s because you’re a partisan hypocrite or because you just don’t know any better. They’re all bad, but different kinds of bad. I see no reason to confuse our understanding of this by pretending they’re all the same thing.

Once again, I will have to agree with Bjørn.

There is an obvious difference between being an Islamophobe and just being tolerant to Islamophobia, there’s a difference between subscribing to fascist ideological thought and just failing to confront the same ideas. There is river five miles wide between being critical towards Islam and supporting a ban on the religion, even if your criticism is based on a monolithic understanding. A river five miles wide where some people are setting up a regular ferry service, based on the notion that the guys on the other side are playing on their own team.

And those people running that ferry service really are promoting the kind of hatred that easily can turn into politically motivated violence. They might not want that, but if you promote Oriana Fallaci’s understanding of Islam, that’s what you will get. To some degree, violent conflict is already here, and I do not want to leave it to historians to criticise those who willingly spread the kind of poison Fallaci stoid for. This is the time to pick up the pen. And here’s why:

Middle Eastern men were openly targetted and assaulted. A young Muslim woman wearing a veil was chased into a kiosk on Cronulla beach. Police tried to move her away from the chanting crowd but were unable to reach the security of the command post. While the woman and police officers hid in the kiosk, a crowd surrounded the kiosk and shouted “Kill the Lebs”, while others climbed on top of the kiosk.

As police horses and special operations officers formed a line and pushed the crowd away, they were bombarded with beer bottles. After half an hour, an ambulance arrived at the kiosk and people were loaded into it. The ambulance, transporting six injured youths, escorted by police and police horses, was also bombarded with beer bottles. One struck an ambulance officer on the head. His colleague suffered lacerations to the arm.

(Wikinews: Violence at Cronulla Beach as 5000 people gather)

^{From a video on the Cronulla riots circulating on the Internet.}

Last year, Australians “fought back” at Cronulla beach. That is, they “fought back” by beating up innocent people. Videos are spread on the Internet, telling the stories of bravery, showing pictures of Lebanese Australians being bashed. Of course, the whole thing is portrayed as a reaction to “years of muggings and rapes”. Because of a number of episodes involving Lebanese youth gangs, apologists around the Australian mobs as an “understandable reaction”. It is odd how, on jihadwatch, for instance, things become understandable when the perpetrators are not of Muslim origin.

Still, I do wonder if some people are actually aware precisely what they saw as understandable.

A number of the demonstrators wore clothing bearing racially-divisive slogans such as “We Grew Here, You Flew Here”, “Wog Free Zone”, “Aussie Pride”, “Fuck Allah – Save Nulla”, and “Ethnic Cleansing Unit”. Chants of “Lebs out”, “Lebs go home” and other discriminatory expressions were continuously shouted out by many of the demonstrators, including some families with young children.

[...]

Through the remainder of the day, several more individuals of “Middle Eastern appearance” were assaulted, as well as several others who were not from this background, including a Jewish boy and a Greek girl.

(Wikipedia)
It is said that when fascism comes to America it will come draped in the flag. In Australia, this was doubtlessly true. At Cronulla beach, the Australia First Party, the Patriotic Youth League and Blood and Honour were present. Amongst the Australian flags on video footage from the riots; it is not difficult to spot well-known Nazi symbols. There is also little doubt that white supremacist groups were inciting more violence. Still, they are using Cronulla as a propaganda tool. All you have to do to discover that is to visit YouTube.

^{Screenshots from Cronulla riots footage.}

In this context, the third kind of Fallaci supporter is very dangerous. And the hateful sentiments growing in the public are indeed also a result of their contribution.

Further reading:

Tim Blair: Beach trash duke it out

And while we talk about race riots… was Windsor really burning?

I have noticed one thing about racists. They don’t like being called racist. I am not a racist, they say, but… But what? But you just don’t like foreigners? You are not a racist, but you think it was just a tad annoying that the bus driver spoke Arabic to a passenger, a guy he obviously knew, instead of speaking your language? Let me tell you one thing. I am totally fed up with people that are not racist. It’s just so politically correct – not being a racist, just as politically correct as it has become to hate foreigners.

While some racists dream off being seen as liberals, however, some liberals seem to long for being racist. It’s probably good for the popularity of their weblogs or something. Hans Rustad, editor of the Norwegian web newspaper document.no, according to its front page a web site standing up for liberal values, wrote an article hailing Oriana Fallaci, quoting Pink Floyd while he was at it – «Oriana: Shine on you crazy diamond»(1)

It’s not easy. It is difficult to find words. It’s about courage. Oriana Fallaci is courageous. She is ill, I think I can notice that. That makes her bite like an animal sometimes. But her spirit is winning. Her courage and loyalty. Towards Europe, towards the European culture.

Let us sum up some of the things Oriana Fallaci was saying in her «Force of Reason», shall we?

Thing #1: Muslims breed like rats

It’s just too juicy to leave out. Oriana Fallaci said Muslims are «breeding like rats». It’s on page 53 of the Norwegian edition. I’m sure you can find it if you look for it, even if you don’t happen to speak – or read – my language. If you can’t: well, screw you, foreign bastard!

I have to give Hans Rustad right, though. From a cynical point of view, I guess one could say that things like this is all about being loyal to European culture. The English novelist Charles Kingsley, for instance, wrote the following illuminating passage in a letter to his wife:

I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw… I don’t believe they are our fault. . . . But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much. (2)

He spoke – as I believe should be obvious to everyone – of the Irish. It’s a long-term hobby for Europeans to speak off people of other ethnicities or religious beliefs as if they were animals of one kind or the other. It’s all part of our heritage, and the ones you should really feel sorry for are probably the chimpanzees.

There are of course those that will say: «But it’s true! They do breed like rats!». Fallaci herself tells us this nice little anecdote of a man she knows about. She does not really know how many wives and children he has, she says. That’s her proof. Now, I could compare this with some nasty literary works in European history, but then – we who dare to criticize Fallaci are often lashed out at because we “do not give any arguments”, “do not take her seriously” or whatever. That’s why I decided to fact-check Oriana Fallacis claim. Here we go.

Rats:

I don’t know squat about rodents. I did however find this very informative Internet site (3) called «Breeding mice and rats», where I read:

We keep a ratio of one male to four females in our boxes. The males are left in the boxes with the females and their litters all the time. The males will help tend the litter (4). Once the male has done his duty with the female, about 21 days later after looking like a furry ping-pong ball you’ll have pinkies. Our average litter size is about 15 pinkies, some of our females continously have 20 in a litter.

Reading this, I got really scared. Muslims have 15 children in average, per litter? And their children are all pinkies? Gee. We’re in deep shit. Then I remembered that this web site wasn’t about Muslims, it was about rats. And mice. So I decided to fact-check the Muslim part too.

Muslims:

In his book «Apres l’Empire. Essai sur la decomposition du systeme americain» the French demographer Emmanuell Todd shows that the birth rate is falling rapidly in most of the Muslim world. There’s simply a demographic revolution going on (5). But of course, Todd is critical towards the Americans and he is French, so he can’t really be trusted. That’s why I checked with the CIA. Here’s the number for total fertility rate – average number of children per woman – in some Muslim countries, taken straight out of their World Factbook:

Tunisia, 1.74; Iran, 1.8; Algeria, 1.89; Turkey, 1.92; Egypt, 2.83; Syria, 3.4; Saudi-Arabia, 4; Iraq, 4.18

Here’s the numbers for some non-Muslim countries: Belgium, 1.64; Norway, 1.78; United States of America, 2.09; Nepal, 4.1

and last but (not) least

Kiribati, 4.16

Of course some might say that Muslim women in Western countries have a higher fertility rate. They are partly right, a report from the French INSEE (Institute National de la Statistique et des etudes Economique) (6), shows that immigrant women of African heritage had around 4 children in average, Tunisians, Turks and Moroccans about 3.3, Algerians 3.2, South East Asians about 2.8 and Portuguese about 2. The report also shows that the number was dropping from 1990 to 1999. Except for the Portuguese, that is.

I tell you, those Portuguese are breeding like rats!

Thing #2: I am a martyr. Everyone who does not agree with me are evil! Evil, I say!

You don’t have to read much of Oriana Fallaci’s book to realize that she was a hero, a Mastro Cecco of our time telling stupid people that the world is round. And around her are heaps and heaps of evil people. The Inquisition were out for Oriana, the modern Inquisition, made up of people dressed in chadors, and pacifists too!

Gee, if I had a bunch of chador-clad pacifists after me, I really would not know what to do.

I’d probably start yelling at everyone, telling them that they are not only grasshoppers – little crunchy insects that taste like peanuts – but also fifth columnists and traitors. Yeah, that sounds cool. Hey you, traitor of Europe! Look at me! I am the one speaking the Truth, I am the one with the Force of Reason! After stating these obvious things, I would continue by putting forth my personal conspiracy theory, and I would include Swiss lawmakers, the European Union, some literary conferences, the Vatican and… hmmm… let’s think – the Illuminati. The Illuminati were always my favourites.

In fact Fallaci did include all of these people when she wrote about the conspiracy to turn Europe into Eurabia, an Islamic province, all of them except the Illuminati, that is. That really ruined her book for me. You can’t even trust conspiracy nuts these days.

There’s another problem with the whole «I am a martyr, poor me!» hypotesis, though. Fallaci said that it is seen as good to paint swastikas on the American flag, and to call Americans murderers and enemies of human kind. «If you do the same thing with Islam, you end up in jail». But Oriana Fallaci was never jailed. She was selling books like crazy, and she was being hailed in the pages of the New York Post, as she gladly pointed out herself. On the cover of the Norwegian translation of Force of Reason, the book was described as a «sharp analysis». So much for some dry academic guy looking into what challenges Europe face as a result of its demographic development (yawn!).

What we need, folks, is a good ol’ conspiracy theory and some nice black-and-white thinking. That will really help. And if it doesn’t, well, at least it’s yet another thing Europeans have good traditions for, isn’t it, Hans?

Thing #3: George Habash is Muslims are bad!

The third and last point on my list is what Fallaci’s book is really all about. Bad Muslims. They are everywhere in her book, there’s just getting more and more of them, and they seem to be much more numerous than they are even when they aren’t that numerous (7). Europe is an Islamic colony. Troy is burning. And there’s only one Islam, «a pool of water that never moves», a quagmire that «loves Death» and «hates Life».

Before she became an Islamophobe prophet, Oriana Fallaci was a journalist. Possibly, this is the reason she knew that she needed some examples to demonstrate this utter evil. There aren’t too many peaceful sufi sheikhs amongst them. Not too many social workers, either. But there is this Palestinian guy called George Habash, who’s even a terrorist and who apparently was quite an eye-opener for Fallaci, because he told her that the Arabs are to «advance step by step. Millimeter by millimeter. Year after year. Decade after decade. Determined, stubborn, patient. This is our strategy. A strategy that we shall expand throughout the whole planet». As Brendan Bernhard writes in the LA Weekly (8)

Fallaci thought he was referring simply to terrorism. Only later did she realize that he “also meant the cultural war, the demographic war, the religious war waged by stealing a country from its citizens … In short, the war waged through immigration, fertility, presumed pluriculturalism.

For Fallaci the statement of George Habash proved that the Muslims have been planning to take Europe over all along. There’s only one tiny little odd thing about it. George Habash is of Christian,Greek-Orthodox background. And his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is not a religious group. It’s Marxist-Leninist. An American journalist, John Cooley, also met up with Habash and was told that the Arab defeat by Israel demonstrated the strenght of «the scientific society of Israel [...] against our own backwardness in the Arab world. This called for the total rebuilding of Arab society into a twentieth century society» (9), «We held the Guevara view of the revolutionary human being, a new breed of man had to emerge, among the Arabs as everywhere else».

I have studied Islam. I am baffled by Oriana’s need to identify Habash with the Muslims – there should be plenty of real-world, bad-ass Muslims out there who are not Marxists of Christian background! Please!

Here’s the letter I had planned to send Oriana Fallaci:

Dear Oriana,

I don’t know what kind of stuff you have been smoking. I sure wouldn’t dare to try any of it, because that must be freaky shit. However, I have a couple of friends who probably wouldn’t mind some experimenting (they are musicians), so please do get in touch.

In the meantime I’ll try to figure out why you pick out holocaust revisionists, of all people, when you want to give examples of how terrible the Swiss anti-racism legislation really is, and why you never say that that’s what they are, but just leave an ambiguous statement about how people are not allowed to tell another version of history than the official one. It’s not like you have problems with namecalling, after all.

Kind regards,

Øyvind Strømmen

5^th Column, Army of the North

I am sad to say I never got the chance to send the letter. Oriana Fallaci passed away in September 2006. Somehow, I feel convinced that I can find some other adressee, though.

-

^Footnotes:

1 Oriana: Shine on you crazy diamond!, document.no, 23.01.2005

2 L.P. Curtis, «Anglo-Saxons and Celts», p.84. Quoted here and other places.

3 http://www.geocities.com/happyherps/rodent_breeding.html

4 Huh? I though they were out drinking mint tea and smoking water pipe with their buddies?

5 Emmanuell Todd, «Apres l’Empire», 2002

6 See: http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/IP898.pdf

7 In 2004, Malta had 3.000 Muslims, according to an article – «Lifting the veil» in Malta Today 26. September that year. According to Fallaci, Muslims constitute 13% of the country’s population. Malta has around 400.000 inhabitants. Mathematics was never my strongest subject in school. Can somebody please explain this one to me?

8 «The Fallaci Code», LA Weekly, March 15, 2006

9«Green March, Black September: The Story of the Palestinian Arabs». John K. Cooley, 1973, p. 135

In short, [Muslims] always work upon the essential characteristics that belong to the mentality of each nation. When they have in this way achieved a decisive influence in the political and economic spheres they can drop the limitations which their former tactics necessitated, now disclosing their real intentions and the ends for which they are fighting. Their work of destruction now goes ahead more quickly, reducing one State after another to a mass of ruins on which they will erect the everlasting and sovereign Islamic Empire.

The man who wrote that did of course not speak of Muslims. He spoke of Jews. His name was Adolf Hitler. And before you come dragging with Godwin’s Law, just give it a few moments thought: Are you sure you have not read something similar lately? Are you sure that you have not heard words pretty much like them? And if you do read on in “Mein Kampf”, do you feel convinced that you will not stumble upon more similarities?

A while back I read a story on the website of the Swedish party Nationaldemokraterna. «We have to realise that different cultures are incapable of living together in the same country. The gang rapes will go on as long as the multicultural experiment is allowed to continue», said one of their representatives. There was a picture of the woman, too, and on her lap she had her doughter: as blond as herself.

I really do hope that this girl one day comes home having found herself a black boyfriend, preferably a Muslim. And I also hope that the black guy, let’s call him Abdoulahat, will be a nice guy, brilliant at baking pepparkakor and at preparing avocado with shrimps for dinner, after a good Senegalese recipe. I hope the two of them will have beautiful little children with a dark complexion and curly hair.

- Grandmother, what big teeth you have got! – It’s because I am a racist nut, dear.

With this dream, dear Swedish «National Democrats», you have my contribution to which apparently has «contributed to [HIV] being transferred to [the Swedish] aboriginals».Once again, hatred is becoming popular in Europe. At the website of the Norwegian far right party with the amusing name the Democrats, Bjarne Dahl writes:

It is a fact that through legislation and through decisions of the courts we ethnic Norwegians have become second-grade citizens. Immigrants from Pakistan, Turkey, Somalia and the rest of the Third World have established their colonies on Norwegian earth, and they are know in parliament, in local city councils, everywhere in the bureaucracy. Today, a Norwegian will have to accept having his rights defined by complete strangers, intruders, who rarely let go off an opportunity to demonstrate that they have become masters in our house.

And maybe you even believe Bjarne Dahl. Maybe you have spent so much time surfing the Internet looking for stories about Eurabia, maybe you have started to believe the fairytales of dhimmitude, peddled by the fascists of today? Maybe you too subscribe to ideas of Europe being doomed; if people could only open their eyes before it is too late! Then, perhaps, you should listen more closely to what the fascists of today are saying, because they are mumbling something more, something which we are not always allowed to hear.

They are saying we deserve it.

These racists do not hate anyone as much as they hate their own. And it’s not only about politicians and journalists, whom it would be «understandable» – an expression of «just anger» – if were lynched, to quote from the website of the Norwegian Forum Against Islamisation. Their hatred also targets those of us who do not see multiculturalism as all bad, and those of us who do not think that Afshan Rafiq is the worst Conservative Party-politician ever elected in the Norwegian parliament. In fact it targets all those who are not voting for «national democratic» parties, those who are to blame for a society «in decay».

Maybe democracy itself has become too soft to function, asks Fjordman – the Norwegian superhero of Islamophobia. Secularism is fatal, writes Ohmyrus at FaithFreedom’s website, and democracy is an intolerant, secular ideology. Sometimes, Marxism is given the blame, or pacifism, the Left, “the traditional parties”. Fjordman blames the feminists:

To your surprise, you didn’t enter a feminist Nirvana, but paved the way for an unfolding Islamic hell. It is correct as feminists claim, that a hyper-feminine society is not as destructive as a hyper-masculine society. The catch with a too soft society is that it is unsustainable. It will get squashed as soon as it is confronted by more traditional, aggressive ones.

In fact, these modern-day fascists have so little faith in the socalled Western values that they think it does not take anything more than Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed saying “Booh!” for Western culture to roll over and die.

I think it will take a lot more than that. I think that these socalled Western values – democracy, freedom-of-speech, religious freedom, secularism, equality of the sexes, etc. – are better than the ideas of Omar Bakri Muhammed and mates. And for that reason, because they’re better, not because they are Western, they will prevail.

The word “Islamofascism” has entered the language the last few years. It is an unprecise word, taken to describe everything from the authoritarian regimes throughout the Muslim world to radical Islamist ideologies that have been suppressed and fought against by those very same authoritarian regimes. In one way, the use of the word is typical to the monolithic understanding of Islam seen much too often in the West.

Often it is used in the same kind of context as the American radio host Michael Savage (a pseudonym for Dr. Michael Alan Weiner) – the best-selling author of “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and other books – uses it, as an excuse for attacking the “vermin of the Left”, “the verminist traitors at MSNBC” and “the scum at CBS”:

You’re talking about four or five outlets with maybe one czar — or two czars rather, three maybe, at the top, in control of the news. They’re all the product of the ’60s. They’re vehemently anti-military. Vehemently anti-war. And ultimately suicidal. And they are dangerous for your children and other living creatures. If they airbrush the enemy, and they have sympathy for the enemy, and they paint horns on our soldiers, and have hatred for our soldiers. And if the enemy is willing to die for their cause, and our administration is not even willing to kill for our survival we are going to lose this war against radical Islam or Islamofascism.

These “very evil” and “very dangerous” people in the media were apparently paying too much attention to American human rights abuse at Abu Ghraib, and not focusing enough on the evils of “these sub-humans”, Savage’s word for Iraqi prisoners. When he states “a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour — a trial and executed. I think they need to be shown that we are not going to roll over to them. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because of the CBS Communists”.

Hearing Michael Savage spout his very own variant of modern-day fascism it is tempting to agree with Joseph Sobran, who calls Islamofascism “nothing but an empty propaganda term, [...] crafted to create hysteria”, “the destruction of any sense of proportion”.

It is tempting. But I do not agree with Sobran.

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Historically, fascism did not go away after the Second World War. It did not die with Hitler or Mussolini. It did not simply disappear. The ideology survived in different forms throughout Europe; in Germany, in Sweden, in England, in France, in Belgium, in Italy, and today it is very much alive in several of these countries and perhaps even more so in Russia and some former East Bloc countries. And, of course, the ideas of fascism did not simply stop at the Bosporus strait or upon reaching the Mediterranean. In Turkey, the Bozkurtlar (Grey Wolves) was founded in 1969, inspired by Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher of Italian fascism.

In the Arab world, the movement with the perhaps most obvious similarities to fascism was founded in 1940 by the Syrian Christian Michel Aflaq. His ideology combined anti-colonialism, pan-Arabism, nationalism and ideas on an Arab socialism, and the movement he founded was Ba’ath (meaning renaissance or resurrecion). The Ba’ath party eventually came to power in both Iraq and Syria. “It was he who created the Party”, Saddam Hussein told an interviewer in 1980. “How could I possibly forget what Michel Aflaq did for me? If it were not for him, I would never have come to this position”. As the Italian historian and diplomat Sergio Romana pointed out in Corriere della Serra in August (an English translation is found here), there’s an obvious irony in this: From 1980 to 1988, the United States was on the side of the fascists against the Islamists [of Iran].

But the Ba’ath-party was not the only party to draw inspiration and support from European fascists. A number of Arab nationalist movements teamed up with the Nazis, in the hope that the Germans could help them rid their countries of British and French influence. Romana writes:

At the end of 1941, as the Africa Korps advanced toward Alexandria, a group of Egyptian officers gathered intelligence for Rommel’s General Staff on the movement of British troops.

One of their leaders was Anwar al-Sadat, who became President of Egypt following the death of Nasser. Several crossed through the lines to join Axis troops only to reappear next to Nasser during the 1952 revolution. Jean Lacouture, in his 1971 biography of Nasser, recounted that during those days, while the Germans and the British were fighting in al-Alamein, there were demonstrations in Cairo and in Alexandria. The crowd chanted the praises of Rommel and mangled Mussolini’s name calling him Mussa Nili, the Moses of the Nile.

Often, these connections between Arab nationalists and European fascists were a union based on the principle of the enemy of my enemy being a friend. However, the unquestioned authority of the leader, a single party, the role of the armed forces and the bureaucracy etc. did have ideological appeal and the anti-Semitism of today’s Arab societies is to a large degree a direct import from the West.

Early Islamists also drew inspiration from fascist thinkers. Still, I do not think it is wise to describe Islamist ideology as a whole as Islamofascism. In fact, Islamism draws its inspiration from so many different sources that it is difficult to talk of Islamism as a whole at all. Rather, one could consider Islamism a whole range of different ideologies with only a few common traits, ranging from the jihadism of al Qa’eda to Muslim variants of European Christian Democratic parties. To group them all together is like identifying Swedish Social Democracy with Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology. It might give you the status of a hero in parts of the blogosphere, but it just does not make much sense.

But does it then make sense to speak of some socalled Islamist thinkers as Islamofascists? Stephen Schwartz writes about a speaker at a pro-Hezbollah demonstration:

The Washington Post of August 14 quoted a speaker at a pro-Hezbollah demonstration in Washington, as follows: “‘Mr. Bush: Stop calling Islam “Islamic fascism,’ said Esam Omesh, president of the Muslim American Society, prompting a massive roar from the crowd. He said there is no such thing, ‘just as there is no such thing as Christian fascism.’”

As Schwartz points out that is simply not true. There is such a thing as Christian fascism:

The fascist Iron Guard in Romania during the interwar period and in the second world war was explicitly Christian–its official title was the “Legion of the Archangel Michael;” Christian fascism also exists in the form of Ulster Protestant terrorism, and was visible in the (Catholic) Blue Shirt movement active in the Irish Free State during the 1920s and 1930s.

Both the Iron Guard and the Blue Shirts attracted noted intellectuals; the cultural theorist Mircea Eliade in the first case, the poet W.B Yeats in the second. Many similar cases could be cited. It is also significant that Mr. Omesh did not deny the existence of “Jewish fascism”–doubtless because in his milieu, the term is commonly directed against Israel. Israel is not a fascist state, although some marginal, ultra-extremist Jewish groups could be so described.

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Perhaps we should not only look at fascism from a historical point of view, but also from an ideological point of view? In the article quoted above, Schwartz draws a number of a parallels between the ideology of various extremist groups and the fascists of Italy and Germany. But are these paralells enough to call these Islamic extremists fascists? And what could we achieve by labelling them as such?

One thing we could hope to achieve is an end to the stupidity of parts of the left. If Hizb’allah was recognised as being a fascist organisation, self-declared anti-fascists might have been more reluctant supporting them. And while there’s a risk of obscuring the actual ideology of for instance jihadist groups by referring to them as fascist, there is a chance that the designation might lead to increased understanding on one point: some of the underlying reasons for the blossoming of radical Islamist thinking in parts of the Middle East and amongst the Muslim diaspora in the West could become clearer. After all, German Nazism is rarely seen entirely out of its historical, economical and social contexts. Radical Islamism often is.

Does Islamofascism exist? In “The Anatomy of Fascism”, Robert O. Paxton writes:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Replace “nationalist” with “religious” and I’d say you come pretty close.

^{Update: A typo had sneaked in, identifying the wrong Paxton as the author of “The Anatomy of Fascism”. Thanks to the reader who pointed out this mistake.}

Walid al-Kubaisi is a Norwegian-Iraqi and a well-known critic of both Islamism and conservative Islam. He has gotten coverage in the Brussels Journal for expressing support for publishing the infamous Muhammed cartoons, and in Frontpage Magazine because he has focused on problems of lacking integration.

At document.no, mostly a one-man project, but still the closest you get to a Norwegian FrontpageMag, he has been described as “a brave soul”, “unafraid”, “just getting better and better”. One commenter at the website referred to him as “having more integrity than the naïve Norwegian politicians”.

Even Fjordman, the Norwegian superstar of Islamophobia, has stated that he usually likes al-Kubaisi. In short, al-Kubaisi – not a Muslim, although Brussels Journal claimed so – has been a posterboy Middle Eastern man for the Islamophobes; just what they need to pretend they’re not racist.

That won’t last. In a recent op-ed in one of Norway’s leading tabloids, al-Kubaisi wrote:

The caricature case culminated in a wave of xeno- and islamophobia. And, as a result of the non-functioning integration, scary characters come forth from the shadows. They use the debate as a feint to market a frightening message and they fill a large hole in the public opinion. Hans Rustad [document.no, my note] and the Anfindsen brothers [honestthinking.org] are good examples.

[...]

If you disregard the lessons of history, you will refuse to see in the shadows of future a repetition of the darkest chapters of the past. The message of hatred that viewed Jews as an ethnic threat, led the Jews to Holocaust. In those days, the word “race” had still not been dirtied. So they used that word, rather than speaking of “ethnicity”. Anfindsen uses “ethnicity”. [...] History repeats itself only when people worship stupidity.

Unsurprisingly, neither Rustad nor the Anfindsen brothers are all too happy. Rustad sees it as a “psychological riddle”, no less, that al-Kubaisi has “turned 180 degrees” from criticising Islamism in “a brilliant manner” to attacking Anfindsen. A riddle? Or has al-Kubaisi simply stated the obvious?

If you constantly speak of Muslims in a negative context and constantly speak of them as a source of problem, it does not help that you say that what is needed is a “respectful, but critical evaluation of Islam”.

Honestthinking.org has more than hinted at Tariq Ramadan being a “janus face” of Euroislam. In fact, the Anfindsen brothers are at least as guilty of double discourse. They do their best at being seen as nuanced and balanced, but just can’t keep themselves from spouting thinking that is nothing but manichean, whether on multiculturalism – described as a betrayal – or on Islam. At the same time completely senseless interpretations of concepts such as ketman is dispersed.

Speaking with two tongues, treating Islam as a monolith and spreading pure fear propaganda or demographic magic work does not make you a fascist. But it does make you an errand boy for that new kind of fascism, that fascism that is clad in suit and tie, and in an academic language, too, that fascism which is becoming increasingly salonfähig. In short, Walid al-Kubaisi, once again, has a point. If you speak of Muslims in the way that the Anfindsen brothers do, you are creating an atmosphere where even the unborn child of a Muslim woman is a threat.

Hans Rustad of document.no does not see Walid al-Kubaisi as a brave soul anymore:

He brands Anfindsen in a way that could be dangerous. What do you do with people who are laying the foundations for a new holocaust in Europe?

The answer is actually quite simple. First of all, it is essential that these voices are not given a monopoly in raising important issues concerning immigration and integration. Secondly, is is crucial that they are not allowed to dress up in the robes of liberalism or concervatism, but that the actual meanings of their words are being exposed, that the actual ideological consequences are being pointed out.

Government gives in to Statoil. That was the fitting title of an article in the English edition of Aftenposten recently:

Norway’s left-centre coalition government was being roundly bashed by environmentalists on Friday, after it bowed to demands from state oil company Statoil and agreed to allow construction of a new gas-fired power plant with no capture of carbon dioxide emissions for its first five years of operation.

The decision literally left some environmental advocates in tears Thursday night, and former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik [from the Christian Democratic Party, my note] said he thought the Socialist Left Party (SV) should withdraw from the government coalition.

For non-Norwegians the story might seem a bit strange. Throughout Europe there are many gas-fired power plants. Often, they are seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to coal and nuclear power. Why then, do Norwegian enviromentalists oppose building a gas-fired power plant? Why does a former prime minister, who himself did step down on the issue, think that the Socialist Left should’ve followed his example? How did the debate on gas-fired power plants become so heated?

The answer is simple. It’s because Norway is different. Known for its petroleum, the country also has vast resources when it comes to renewable energy. For years, Norwegians have been blessed with low energy prizes, thanks to hydropower. In fact, electricity has been so cheap that Norwegians use it for everything. The kitchen stove is electric. Heating is electric, too. Many foreigners will be surprised by how often Norwegian leave lamps burning in rooms there’s no one in, or how local authorities spend little fortunes keeping road lights burning all night where no one hardly ever comes by.

The latest years there has been much talk of an energy crisis in Norway, as a result of increasing prizes and the fact that the country has had to import electricity for several years.

In one way it is very much true that Norway has an energy crisis: no one in the world uses as much electricity per capita as Norwegians. And while cold climate and demanding process industries account for some of that, an important explanation is simply that electricity is being wasted. In other words, Norway does not need gas-fired power plants. Norway needs increased energy-effectiveness and a turn from electric heating to for instance geothermal heating. Additional efforts should be made in the area of renewable energy: wave, wind and solar.

Yet, Norwegian environmentalists have been pragmatist enough to accept gas-fired powerplants with CO2-capture. Parts of the environmentalist movement have even been more positive to this than two of the current governing parties, the Centre Party (SP) and the Socialist Left Party (SV). A scenario with Norway taking a technological lead in the field of CO2-capture has been envisioned. Yet, the now approved plan is to build a gas-fired power plant and eventually equip it with such technology.

There is only one reason for this delay, and this is where Norway goes from being an odd case to being an excellent example of what any environmentalist is up against.

The reason is money. Statoil has argued that a power plant would not be economically viable with a requirement for carbon dioxide emission capture from day one. This is, however, not entirely true. Technology to make it economically viable is available, and has been available for years, a recent report from the environmentalist organisation ZERO shows. The sheer size of the facilities needed at the plant, which is going to be situated at Mongstad in Western Norway, means that it would be a major engineering challenge where current technology would have to be upscaled. This is the kind of engineering challenges the Norwegian industry prizes itself at tackling. But not in this case. In this case, the economic motivation to do so is simply not great enough.

So, while Jens Stoltenberg argues that a gas-fired power plant can still be environmentally friendly and the most important party in government, his Labour, delivers the creative interpretation that this is a “world leading [...] environmental project”, the truth is best described in a silly pop song: It’s all ’bout the money, it’s all bout the dum dum…., and I don’t think it’s funny, to see us fade away, it’s all ’bout the money, and I think we got it all wrong anyway.

There are many good people throughout different industries who do worry about environmental issues. The technological knowledge needed to tackle these issues is available, and change is coming – sometimes as a result of legislation and political demands, sometimes because of customer demands. Still, it goes slow, because one problem remains. Upton Sinclair was correct to note that it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job (and his paycheck) depends on not understanding it. It is logical and necessary to take this conclusion one step further and realise that any economic system that places money above the environment, or makes profit more important than people, is – to put it simply – a destructive economic system. Such an economic system turns us into cannibals with forks, or – as another pop song says: man became the spawn of Satan, driving ’round in cars. The business of business should not be only business.

In the case of gas-fired power plants in Norway, political interference – much of it created by noisy environmentalists for over a decade – has led to the abandonment of several planned plants, and it also has led to the demand that Statoil eventually begins with CO2 capture. The oil industry has fought against these demands all along. This shows that Corporate Social Responsibility declarations are all nice and fine, but without political demands and legislation, they’re not worth much. And when political demands falter as a result of effective lobbyism, they’re not worth too much either.

Does this mean that I oppose free market economy? No. Does it mean that I oppose capitalism? Yes.

The two are often seen as synonomous, but they are not. Capitalism is not simply a market economy, it is an all-encompassing market economy. Capitalism demands access on all areas, not only on the marketplace. Capitalism crawls into your mailbox, or calls you up when you’re having dinner. In this aspect, capitalism is worse than any religious sect. Furthermore, its economic thinking is forced upon institutions where it does not belong: the point of hospitals is not to make a profit, but to give medical treatment; the point of schools is not to earn money, but to educate; the point of universities is not to gather wealth, but to gather knowledge.

Amongst the knowledge gathered is the knowledge of the environmental problems caused by an oil-based economy. On this knowledge we need to act, independently of what people with much money try to tell us.

In a recent post, Norwegian blogger Martin Grüner Larsen pointed at some of the things that have been written on the socalled cartoon war at a leading Norwegian newspapers discussion forum on the web. Our foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, was, for instance, referred to as a “cartoon quisling”, a betrayal the government will have to pay for “at the next crossroad”, because it is only surpassed by what Quisling did in 1940.

Another poster said that Norway should get rid of Muslims, before it’s too late. And a third poster said Muslims are pouring into Norway, and that we should open our eyes.

For me, none of these opinions are very surprising. I’ve heard these sentiments one thousand times before. And make no mistakes: these ideas are spreading, they are dangerous, they are a greater threath to European society than Osama bin Laden is in his wettest dreams. This, dear readers, is how fascism looks like anno 2006.

Harsh word, huh? Fascism? Well, consider this discussion at Bjørn Stærk’s blog. Thanks to the post “Living with terrorism”, Bjørn, who used to a be warblogger and who definitely could be called an Islam critic, has even become featured on Dhimmi Watch, simply because he appealed for moderation, for rationality and for avoiding hystericism. Well, I guess being mentioned in Der Stürmer is good for your ratings (that one was definitely too harsh; although I disagree strongly with mr. Spencer, and although I consider this talk of “dhimmitude” to be mostly rubbish and nonsense; it is some of his readers who quack like fascists, not himself). Lots and lots of people who probably have never visited Bjørn’s blog before turned up just to tell him off.

One guy said that it might be necessary to eliminate Islam, but that this didn’t worry him that much. A woman told the story of how she had stared really hard at a Muslim (that is, someone with Middle Eastern looks) wearing a big coat on the train. The guy, who had been fidgeting his ticket nervously (what would you do if a crazy looking woman stared at you?), eventually got off the train and left. Aha! Proof! It must have been a terrorist! Next time I’ll report him, the woman wrote, we need to use all weapons against the jihadists! Even utter stupidity.

Then Bjørn was called quisling, too. And coward. And mentally retarded. Some Texan informed us that his state, his county, his city, his friends and his family would fight Islam and it’s followers until it is destroyed. Does it start to sound familiar now? Have a feeling you’ve heard it before?

Dare I say that if you quack like a fascist, you might be a fascist? Dare I say that fascism is once again on the rise? Dare I point at the historical ties of far right parties all across Europe? Dare I mention that the same guy who translated one of the first Holocaust revisionist works into Dutch went on to found a political party which is today one of Belgium’s largest? Dare I point out that he was never the only one in that party meddling with revisionism? To be sure, Vlaams Belang isn’t made up of fascists only, and most of its voters are not fascist at all. Still, in most Flemish cities, between one fifth and one third are voting for a political party with fascists in its midst.

And I am supposed to be scared of the Muslims (1)? Come on…

Lets go back to Bjørn’s post and follow the discussion a bit further, shall we? One poster told Bjørn that he is a “stupid sucker”, and that he should “go preach [his] garbage to idiots who are fond of being molested by goat herding cave dwelling muslim garbage. The civilized world does not believe one single word of [this] idiotic rambling and defense of a culture that no sane person of any other culture would dare defend. Stupidity is clearly a European liberal method of learning. You mastered it well”.

This poster had a certain liking for the CAPS LOCK-button and called himself a TRUE EUROPEAN.

I couldn’t stop myself. I was foolish enough to shoot in that if that civil war some of the modern day fascists is talking about actually is coming up – and if one side is made up of Caps Lock-hugging “true Europeans” – I’ll take my chances with the Muslims. I’d rather fight with the ?ydowska Organizacja Bojowa than with the SS, I said. And then Lesli from the United States joins the debate, saying:

After reading most of the comments pro and con Bj[ø]rn’s position, Your comment [Øyvind] is the one that needs commenting on the most… (2)

Oh, really? Is that so? Well, quack-quack to you, too, Lesli.

By now, some people who haven’t read the footnotes (3), will be whining “You moron! Quisling! Coward! Politically correct dhimmi!”. Others will start looking for their Caps Lock-button. Why don’t you criticize Islam, they will scream, maybe inserting a few references to various unpleasant regimes inside and outside the Muslim world. Well, why don’t I? Actually, previously mentioned Martin Grüner Larsen has answered that question. He points out that Islam isn’t monolithic, but rather a variety of cultural practices, a number of political movements, etc:

If you are criticizing Islam, you could – in reality – be criticizing everything from the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to the government of Taliban, to an Ethiopian women’s culture, to Iranian authorities, to the dervishes, to the cosmological world-view of a beduine, to a branch of poetry, to the intentions of an oud-player in Istanbul, to Arab slave traders in the nineteenth century.

I’m not criticizing Islam because, in most cases, it does not make sense to me. As Larsen also says, female genital mutilation is not a problem because it is practiced in Muslim cultures, it is a problem because a woman is being mutilated. The burqa is not a problem because it is Muslim, but because it is obligatory and suppressive. Al Qa’eda is not a problem because they pray to Allah, but because they kill people. The sexist views often found in fundamentalist and conservative Islam is not a problem because they are based on one reading of the Qu’ran, but because women are being suppressed. All blame can’t be taken away from Islam, but the blame can also not be given to all Islam.

It’s difficult to criticize the religion of Asma Barlas for being sexist or the religion of Ghaffar Khan for being violent. It’s difficult to tell Irshad Manji that all Muslims hate gays.

Parts of the European left have been unwilling to confront people they disagree with when those people happen to be immigrants. I’m not. If someone quacks like a fascist, I don’t care if her name is Sabiya, Sara or Susan, I will criticize her no matter what.

Footnotes:

1. In fact some Muslims do scare me. After all the Flemish aren’t the only ones capable of quacking like a fascist, sometimes this kind of quacking is also done in mosques.