RUTHFULLY YOURS

Europe in 2017 is racked with uncertainty—the eurozone crises, the endless challenges of the European Union, national elections that resemble endless rounds of bullet-dodging. Yet even these events are insignificant compared with the deep tectonic shifts beneath the Continent’s politics, shifts that Europeans—and their allies—ignore at our peril.

Throughout the migration crisis of recent years I traveled across the Continent, from the reception islands into which migrants arrive to the suburbs in which they end up and the chancelleries which encouraged them to come. For decades Europe had encouraged guest workers, and then their families, to come. As Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel once admitted, nobody expected them to stay.

Yet stay they did, with their numbers swelling even when there were no jobs. Waking up to the results of their policy, European societies rebranded themselves “multicultural” societies, only to begin wondering what that meant. Could a multicultural society make any demands of its newcomers? Or would that be “racist”?

From the 2000s legal and illegal immigration picked up. Boats regularly set out from Turkey and North Africa to enter Europe illegally. Syrians fleeing civil war pushed into the Continent, soon joined by people from across sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Far East.

Today the great migration is off the front pages. Yet it goes on. On an average weekend nearly 10,000 people arrive on Italian reception islands alone. Where do they go? What do they expect? And what do we expect of them?

To find the answer to these and other questions it is necessary to ask deeper questions. Why did Europe decide it could take in the poor and dispossessed of the world? Why did we decide that anybody in the world fleeing war, or just seeking a better life, could come to Europe and call it home?

The reasons lie partly in our history, not least in the overwhelming German guilt, which has spread across the Continent and affected even our cultural cousins in America and Australia. Egged on by those who wish us ill, we have fallen for the idea that we are uniquely guilty, uniquely to be punished, and uniquely in need of having our societies changed as a result.

There is also, for Europe, the sense of what I call tiredness—the feeling that the story might have run out: that we have tried religion, all imaginable forms of politics, and that each has, one after another, led us to disaster. When we taint every idea we touch, perhaps a change is as good as a rest.

LONDON—A vehicle rammed into a crowd outside a mosque in north London early Monday, killing one person and injuring at least 10 others, in what British authorities said was a potential terror attack.

A 48-year-old man was detained by members of the public at the scene and arrested, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. He was transported to a hospital as a precaution and will be taken into custody once discharged, police said. There are no other suspects, police said, although the investigation is at an early stage.

Toufik Kacimi, chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House, told broadcaster Sky News that witnesses heard the alleged attacker say “I did my bit” before being detained. A local imam intervened to protect the man from the crowd, Mr. Kacimi said.

“What I can confirm: It is not a mental health issue, the guy did what he did deliberately,” he said.

One man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Eight people were taken to three hospitals, while two people were treated at the scene for minor injuries, the police said.

“At this stage there are no reports of any person having suffered knife injuries,” the police said, following media reports that the van driver stabbed people.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a potential terrorist attack.

Mohamed Abdulle, a 20-year-old delivery truck driver, said he was two cars behind the van when it swerved into a crowd of people shortly after midnight. He saw two individuals run from the van and people at a nearby shop tackled and held a third person until the police arrived.

The attackers looked like they were in their mid-30s or mid-40s and were white, he said.

“He just swerved into the corner,” Mr. Abdulle said. “I’ve seen six people on the floor. All I could see was people scattered on the floor.”

The Counter Terrorism Command is investigating the incident. “Due to the nature of the incident, the police will deploy extra resources to reassure the public, especially those observing Ramadan,” police said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Observers have surmised that the real reason for the judge’s leniency was that he feared his family might be subjected to retribution from the clan.

“In their concept of masculinity, only power and force matter; if someone is humane and civil, this is considered a weakness. In clan structures, in tribal culture everywhere in the world, ethics are confined to the clan itself. Everything outside the clan is enemy territory.” — Ralph Ghadban, Lebanese-German political scientist and leading expert on Middle Eastern clans in Germany.

“The state promotes organized crime with taxpayer money.” — Tom Schreiber, a member of the Berlin House of Deputies.

A court in Hanover has handed suspended sentences to six members of a Kurdish clan who seriously wounded two dozen police officers during a violent rampage in Hameln. The court’s ruling was greeted with anger and derision by police who said it is yet another example of the laxity of Germany’s politically correct judicial system.

The case goes back to January 2014, when a 26-year-old clan member, arrested for robbery, tried to escape from the magistrate’s office by jumping out of a seventh-floor courtroom window. The suspect was taken to the hospital, where he died. Members of his clan subsequently ransacked the hospital, as well as the court, and attacked police with rocks and other projectiles; 24 police officers and six paramedics were injured.

The judge said he was lenient because the defendants witnessed the death of the 26-year-old and were traumatized. The judge also revealed that he had reached a deal with the clan, which among other effects prevented police from testifying in court.

Dietmar Schilff, chairman of the GdP police union in Lower Saxony, said that the ruling had left many police officers shaking their heads in disbelief: “All police forces expect protection and support from the state.” He added:

“If we want to protect those who ensure public security, it must be clear that anyone who attacks police officers attacks the state — and has to fear appropriate consequences. It does not matter from which milieu the perpetrators come.”

Observers have surmised that the real reason for the judge’s leniency was that he feared his family might be subjected to retribution from the clan.

Middle Eastern crime syndicates have established themselves across Germany, where they engage in racketeering, extortion, money laundering, pimping and trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs.

The syndicates, which are run by large clans with origins in Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, among other places, operate with virtual impunity because German judges and prosecutors are unable or unwilling to stop them.

The clans — some of which migrated to Germany during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war and have grown to thousands of members — now control large swathes of German cities and towns — areas that are effectively lawless and which German police increasingly fear to approach.

Ralph Ghadban, a Lebanese-German political scientist and a leading expert on Middle Eastern clans in Germany, said that the Hanover ruling was a massive failure of the German judicial system. He added that the only way for Germany to achieve control over the clans is to destroy them:

“In their concept of masculinity, only power and force matter; if someone is humane and civil, this is considered a weakness. In clan structures, in tribal culture everywhere in the world, ethics are confined to the clan itself. Everything outside the clan is enemy territory.”

Do you think imposing so-called transgenderism on children as a sexual norm might be harmful to their moral development? Do you question the legitimacy of using made up so-called gender-neutral pronouns as replacements for the standard English words “he” and “she”?

If you answered yes, or even maybe, to either of those questions, then, as of today, you are in violation of Canada’s Human Rights Code, and subject to fines, re-education, or – should you refuse comply and repent – prison time.

Canada’s Senate has passed a “controversial” (read: fascistic) new law, Bill C-16, which adds “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the nation’s hate crime laws – Canada being a world leader in legislating who should be hated and who shouldn’t – thus effectively making it a crime for a business owner to “discriminate” on the basis of not wanting his male employee to wear a dress, or for a teacher not to use a nonexistent, politically correct pronoun whenever a student tells her to. More generally, it makes a hate criminal of anyone who openly expresses a view not perfectly compliant with the zeitgeist on gender identity, transgenderism, or what have you. The debate is now, officially and legally, over.

Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of Canada’s pro-life movement, condemned the passage of Bill C-16.

“This tyrannical bill is nothing but social engineering to the nth degree, all in the name of political correctness,” Campaign Life’s Toronto vice president Jeff Gunnarson told LifeSiteNews.

Jack Fonseca, Campaign Life’s senior political strategist, said the bill will be used to attack Christian belief.

“Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of ‘shield’ to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth,” he told LifeSiteNews.

In other words, a postmodern, nihilistic, neo-Marxist pseudo-theory of sexual identity and systemic oppression, dreamt up by some pretentious careerist professor of “queer studies” climbing out of the academic slime somewhere five years ago, has officially been declared the unassailable Absolute Truth by Justin Trudeau’s government. Unassailable as in “alternative views will not be given a hearing.” Unassailable as in “heretics will be burned.”

One of those heretics, a sort of hero of the martyrs brigade, is University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson, who has stood up publicly, including in front of the Senate committee debating C-16, against the imposition of what he correctly calls “compelled speech” and specifically speech that implies acceptance of a particular, specious (to put it politely) theory of human nature.

LONDON—At least 58 people are presumed dead from the huge blaze that ripped through a west London residential tower earlier in the week, police said Saturday, warning that the number might change as the search operation continues.

The number included the previously confirmed death toll of 30, London police commander Stuart Cundy said.

After facing mounting criticism for being slow to meet survivors and the families of victims, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said the government’s immediate response had been inadequate.

“The support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough,” she said in a statement.

Police said they resumed the search operation in the tower on Saturday after it was suspended Friday over safety concerns, and formally identified the first victim of the fire as Mohammad Alhajali, 23 years old. Some victims of the fire have been identified publicly by family members.

The developments come amid heightened tensions over Wednesday’s fire at Grenfell Tower—a low-income high-rise in North Kensington, near Notting Hill and a few miles from the center of the U.K. capital, that was home to hundreds of people.

Critics have questioned whether officials were too slow to address concerns about fire-safety measures in low-income, public housing. One area of focus has been whether the aluminum cladding on the 24-floor building’s exterior contributed to the fire’s quick spread. The cladding wouldn’t have met widely adopted U.S. standards, according to building groups. CONTINUE AT SITE

The “religious-freedom” plea unwittingly exposes the false claims made by prominent Muslims — such as Iranian-American religion scholar/TV host Reza Aslan and Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who have insisted that female genital mutilation (FGM) is “not an Islamic practice.”

According to National Health Service statistics, at least one girl each hour is subjected to this excruciating procedure in the United Kingdom alone — and this is nearly 30 years after it was outlawed there.

FGM is no less appalling a crime than rape or slavery, yet self-described feminists in the West — including Muslims such as Linda Sarsour and non-Muslim activists on a crusade against “Islamophobia” — are either silent when it comes to barbaric practices or deny their connection to Islam. Does she also support slavery, another practice supported by Islam?

Attorneys for the defense of two Michigan doctors from India, and one of their wives, who were indicted by a grand jury on April 22 and charged with mutilating the genitals of two seven-year-old girls, intend to put forth a religious-freedom argument on behalf of their Muslim clients.

The defendants are members of Dawoodi Bohra, an Islamic sect based in their home country. In the federal case, the first of its kind since female genital mutilation (FGM) was banned in 1996, the defense team is claiming that the practice is a religious ritual and therefore should be protected by U.S. law.

Their plea unwittingly exposes the false claims made by prominent Muslims — such as Iranian-American religion scholar/TV host Reza Aslan and Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who have insisted that FGM is “not an Islamic practice.”

Female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, is the cutting or removal of the clitoris and/or the labia, as a way of eliminating a girl’s sexual desire and pleasure, to guarantee that she be a virgin before marriage and remain faithful to her husband afterwards. According to the World Health Organization:

FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies. Generally speaking, risks increase with increasing severity of the procedure.

The family of a brave teen who tackled a suicide bomber who was trying to enter his school is imploring the Pakistani government for protection as terrorists have warned them they are targets.

The kin of Pakistani teenager Aitzaz Hassan called the 15-year-old “pehlwan” — or wrestler — because of his heavy-set frame. On Jan. 6, 2014, Aitzaz, who had talked about becoming a soldier one day, used his might to keep a suicide bomber from blowing up his classmates.

Aitzaz was standing outside his government school in the northwestern district of Hangu when the terrorist, claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group with ties to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), tried to enter the gates and reach the morning assembly.

The teen quickly tackled the bomber, preventing him from entering the school and reaching some 1,000 students inside. Aitzaz died later at a hospital from injuries suffered in the bomb blast.

Aitzaz’s father, Mujahid Ali Bangash, was working in the United Arab Emirates at the time. He told Agence France-Presse he was “happy that my son has become a martyr by sacrificing his life for a noble cause.”

“Aitzaz has made us proud by valiantly intercepting the bomber and saving the lives of hundreds of his fellow students,” he said.

The teen was posthumously awarded the country’s Sitara-e-Shujaat, or Star of Bravery. The family has been lobbying to make Jan. 6 Aitzaz Day in Pakistan, so all will remember his ultimate sacrifice to stop terrorism.

This April, the family received a threat from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan: “Aitzaz Hasan is not a hero nor a martyr,” the letter said. “If Aitzaz’s brother Mujtaba does not stop meeting media and officials of government institutions, he will be responsible for any loss.”

The TTP shot Malala Yousafzai, a teen advocate for girls’ education, in the head in an Oct. 9, 2012, assassination attempt. She survived and went on to become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient in history.

Aitzaz’s brother Mujtaba went to local authorities shortly after receiving the threat to ask for government protection for the Hasan family. According to Pakistan’s The Nation, authorities are still mulling over the request.

“Despite my plea to the relevant security institutions informing them of the threat, I have not yet received a reply from any of them,” Mujtaba said. “Right now my family only has one guard for protection, provided by the district administration. It is a request to the authorities to give us the required security. My family is going through trauma and need their support.”