RUTHFULLY YOURS

Turkey’s ruling party, and even much of the opposition, seem intent on, if not obsessed with, invading and conquering these Greek islands, on the grounds that they are actually Turkish territory.

“The things we have done so far [pale in comparison to the] even greater attempts and attacks [we are planning for] the coming days, inshallah [Allah willing].” – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, February 12, 2018.

The head of the state-funded Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Diyanet, has openly described Turkey’s recent military invasion of Afrin as “jihad.” This designation makes sense when one considers that Muslim Turks owe their demographic majority in Asia Minor to centuries of Turkish persecution and discrimination against the Christian, Yazidi and Jewish inhabitants of the area.

In an incident that took place less than two weeks after the Greek Defense Ministry announced that Turkey had violated Greek airspace 138 times in a single day, a Turkish coast guard patrol boat on February 13 rammed a Greek coast guard vessel off the shore of Imia, one of many Greek islands over which Turkey claims sovereignty.

Most of the areas within modern Greece’s current borders were under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th century until the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1832. The islands, however, like the rest of Greece, are legally and historically Greek, as their names indicate.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), however, and even much of the opposition seem intent on, if not obsessed with, invading and conquering these Greek islands, on the grounds that they are actually Turkish territory.

In December, for instance, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main Turkish opposition CHP party, stated that when he wins the election in 2019, he will “invade and take over 18 Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, just as former Turkish PM Bulent Ecevit invaded Cyprus in 1974.” He said that there is “no document” proving that those islands belong to Greece.

“What is clear at any rate: the financing [of imams] by foreign actors must stop.” — Jens Spahn, Deutsche Welle.

“The message that ‘If you reach a Greek island, you will be in Germany in six days,’ not only encourages refugees from Syria, but also many people in Bangladesh and India. No country in the world, and no European Union, can withstand that if we give up control of our external borders.” — Jens Spahn, Die Zeit.

“To anyone who makes their way to Germany, it must made be clear that their life here will be very different from that at home. They should think carefully about whether they really want to live in this western culture.” — Die Welt.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has sparked a mutiny from within her own party over a controversial coalition deal that allows her to remain in office for a fourth term. The deal, in which Merkel agreed to relinquish control over the most influential government ministries, has led a growing number of voices from within her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to say — publicly — that it is time to begin looking for her successor.

In a prime-time interview with ZDF television on February 11, Merkel, already in power for 12 years, rejected the criticism and insisted that she will serve another full four-year term. “I ran for a four-year term,” she said. “I promised those four years and I’m someone who keeps promises. I totally stand behind that decision.”

Merkel, who has been called the “Teflon Chancellor” because of her political staying power, may indeed manage to eke out another four years in office, albeit in a much-weakened position. Her decision in 2015 to allow into Germany more than a million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East sparked a mass defection of angry CDU voters to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the third-largest party in the German parliament. As a result, in Germany’s inconclusive election in September 2017, Merkel’s party achieved its worst electoral result in nearly 70 years.

Asked once whether he believed in God, French president Emmanuel Macron replied, “That’s a real question, a complex question. I undoubtedly believe in a transcendence. I am not sure any more that I believe in a God. Yes, I believe in transcendence.”

Another real and complex question for him to answer is that regarding the relationship of the French Republic with Islam. France is a militantly secular country whose militancy has seemed only to grow stronger as the Church grows weaker. France rejects all connection between religion and state; in the mouth of a French intellectual, the words très catho (very Catholic) sound more like an accusation than a description. The ghost of Marshal Pétain—who replaced “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” with “Work, Family, Fatherland”—still rides.

Islam is perhaps about to be made an exception to French laïcité, or the complete separation of church and state. In 2003, then-president Nicolas Sarkozy set up the Conseil français du culte musulman—the French Council of the Muslim Religion. The CFCM was supposed to represent French Muslims, though two-thirds of them have never heard of it. Delegates are elected in proportion to the surface areas of their mosques; the elections are said to be influenced by the various countries that make financial contributions to the respective mosques.

Macron seeks something different. He wants to “structure” French Islam, with a view to undermining extremism and foreign influence. It is said that North African and Persian Gulf states pay some 300 imams in France; they also pay for the construction of new mosques (which is illegal). However, the financing of mosques is very murky: the mosques do not render very clear accounts, hiding behind financial regulations for non-profitmaking organizations that are much less stringent than those for religious organizations.

Patriotism is one of the biggest strengths of a nation. Waving the national flag is so much more than bringing a tribute to successful athletes. It also links us to a heritage and a tradition. Our national flag symbolizes ancient loyalties embodying the legacy of our fathers, which we want to bestow on our children.

A few weeks ago, I lodged an official complaint against the Prime Minister for discrimination on behalf of thousands of my Dutch compatriots. This week, the Public Prosecutor announced that he will not prosecute Mr Rutte because the government policy is one of “positive discrimination,” which the Public Prosecutor considers permissible. I will now take the case directly to the court. A government that is positively discriminating in favor of foreigners is negatively discriminating against its own people.

Just as the millions of Dutch, who are currently watching the Olympics on their television sets, are cheering their own athletes, governments should be the cheerleaders of their own people. We need to bring the spirit of the Olympics to politics, the spirit of patriotism. The nation-state has the duty to positively discriminate in favor of its own people. It has to cheer them on, encourage them, be proud of them, as we now are of our athletes. And always will be.

My country, the Netherlands, is doing extremely well in the 2018 Winter Olympics. It is great to see how the Dutch successes are reinforcing feelings of national pride and patriotism. Thank God for the Olympics! Cheering one’s own athletes over foreigners has nothing to do with discrimination, racism or jingoism. Sporting events are one of the few occasions where people can still unabashedly display feelings of national pride without being judged for it by the leftist cosmopolitan elites.

National pride is fantastic. In his farewell address as president, Ronald Reagan said that one of the achievements he was most proud of was “the resurgence of national pride.” Reagan called it “the new patriotism.” Patriotism is one of the biggest strengths of a nation. Waving the national flag is so much more than bringing a tribute to successful athletes. It also links us to a heritage and a tradition. Our national flag symbolizes ancient loyalties embodying the legacy of our fathers, which we want to bestow on our children.

If the Axis had won, would we have seen rampaging mobs? But wait, we have those now, except we call them ‘protesters’. Politically they combine the Tweedledum of Hitlerian thuggery with the Tweedledee of Marxist groupthink and, to our so-called leaders’ shame, our publicly funded and thoroughly colonised institutions urge them on.

I had been putting off seeing the film The Darkest Hour for suspicion that it would be just another revisionist hatchet job and anachronistically present Winston Churchill as a climate-change denier, transphobe, uninvited toucher of female thighs or any of the other things the purveyors of contemporary culture dislike. I saw it only when I was told that it’s not and it doesn’t. But if, rather courageously on the part of the producers, the film concedes no ground to contemporary historical revisionism and instead presents Churchill as a somewhat Hamletian hero, neither does it draw a veil over certain elements of the Great Man’s persona that would indeed provoke disapproval in certain circles today.

It shows him as portly enough that, had they lived in the same era, ‘iconic’ comedienne Magda Szubanski in her role of fat-shamer could have signed him up for a slimming course. Magda, it will be remembered, was a somewhat improbable Jenny Craig weight-loss spruiker before she reinvented herself as the Boadicea of gay love. The film reveals his alcohol consumption, starting with whisky at breakfast, to have been such as to send today’s ‘safe drinking’ campaigners into a decline, with their two units a month or whatever they grudgingly allow; while the Quit lobby would demand that its taxpayer funding be tripled to propagandise against Churchill’s marathon cigar-smoking, which must have kept the Cuban export balance in the black for decades.

Britain’s darkest hour, as every schoolboy probably no longer knows, was precipitated by resistance to Hitler’s attempt to impose a prototype European Union with himself as a one-man Brussels. His blitzkrieg, he boasted, would bomb Britain into submission and burn its cities to the ground. All at once I remembered – but what a coincidence! – that exactly the same incendiary aspiration had been expressed for our own country a few weeks before I saw the film, and expressed not by a foreign belligerent but from within the ranks of the publicly subsidised Aboriginal grievance industry. Readers might recall – or not, since she had her flicker of fame and hasn’t been heard of since – that our very own scorched-earth advocate was one Tarneen Onus-Williams, or Dtarneen as she later decided her name was. Tarneen (let’s stick with that to avoid consonant cluster) is a volunteer with that esteemed body the Koorie Youth Council of Victoria and an employee of Oxfam, the snootiest moraliser in the crowded field of global charity self-righteousness (whose sanctimony has lately being fully stretched coping with allegations of sex abuse among its ‘aid workers’). You can refresh your memory about Tarneen at ‘Happy Invasion Day II’ at Quadrant Online.

The thing that must never be mentioned is being mentioned. Again.

Australia has been “under attack” from a group of Muslim men wanting “to kill as many unbelievers as they can” for about 15 years, a Supreme Court judge has said.

Justice Desmond Fagan made the comments while sentencing Tamim Khaja, 20, who pleaded guilty in October to planning and preparing a terrorist attack two years ago.

The then 18-year-old was arrested while preparing for a lone wolf massacre, either at the US embassy in Sydney, an Army barracks in western Sydney, or at a court complex at Parramatta.

Counsel for the defendant, Ian Temby QC, tendered to the court a list of recent sentences handed down to other men who had been convicted of terror offences.

In response, Justice Fagan told the court that Australia had “been under attack for 15 years by about 40 Muslim men, to kill as many unbelievers as they can and impose Sharia law.”

Sitting at Sydney West Trial Courts at Parramatta, Justice Fagan referred to verses in the Koran which he said described the duty of “a Muslim to wage Jihad”.

All true. And absolutely embargoed.

My father’s generation in Iran lived in an environment in which the Islamist party of the country’s clergy cunningly depicted themselves as intending no harm, supportive of the people, and not interested in power. So, before the revolution, many Iranians did not think that Khomeini’s party would be committing the atrocities that they are committing now or that they would have such an unrelenting hunger for power. Instead, during this time, the country thought it was on a smooth path towards democracy, with no expectation of ever returning to a barbaric era. Even the then-US President Jimmy Carter viewed Khomeini as a good religious holy man.

Iranians did not just submit to these new laws; they rose up in protest. This uprising was met with torture, rape, and death. With the regime eager to wipe any who dared to resist, the people had no choice but to surrender. Everyone’s daily activities were now under the scrutiny of the Islamists.

Many will still think it is impossible for something like this to happen in their country. What they fail to understand is that Iran is an example of exactly how successful this meticulous grab for power can be. Islamists in other countries including the West are pursuing the same techniques on the path to seizing power. It is a quiet, and subtle process, until the moment you wake up with no rights, a culture of fear, and no promise that you will live in freedom or even to see the next day.

In Iran, my generation, the first after Islamism came to power, is called the Burnt Generation (Persian: Nasl-e Sukhteh). Our generation earned this name for having to endure the brutality of the Islamist and theocratic regime from the time we were born, to adulthood. This brutality included the regime’s merciless efforts, such as mass executions, to establish its power, impose its barbaric and restrictive rules, and brainwash children and indoctrinate the younger generation with its extremist ideology through various methods including elementary schools, universities, state-controlled media outlets, imams and local mosques, and promoting chants such as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

Graffiti on Jewish-owned homes warn the owners to “flee immediately” if they want to live. Anonymous letters with live bullets are dropped into mailboxes of Jews.

Laws meant to punish anti-Semitic threats are now used to punish those who denounce the threats. A new edition of a public school history textbook for the eighth grade states that in France it is forbidden to criticize Islam.

Those French Jews who can leave the country, leave. Most departures are hasty; many Jewish families sell their homes well below the market price. Jewish districts that once were thriving are now on the verge of extinction.

“The problem is that anti-Semitism today in France comes less from the far right than from individuals of Muslim faith or culture”. — Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Friday, January 12, 2018. Sarcelles. A city in the northern suburbs of Paris. A 15-year-old girl returns from high school. She wears a necklace with a star of David and a Jewish school uniform. A man attacks her with a knife, slashes her face, and runs away. She will be disfigured the rest of her life.

January 29, again in Sarcelles, an 8-year-old boy wearing a Jewish skullcap is kicked and punched by two teenagers.

European officials have been not only mute about the Iranian regime’s attacks on its own people. They have also been missing “a robust defense of Western values”, now under attack in Iran: freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, separation of religion and state, judicial due process.

The European Union these days is alarmed about political reforms in Poland, but totally quiet about Erdogan’s “coup against civilians” in Turkey.

How is it possible that Pope Francis, the world’s highest Catholic authority, does not feel any urgency to denounce the avalanche of anti-Semitism and hate coming from the Islamic authorities, but pleased them by sending a letter of support?

As these last few years of terror attacks should have proven to them, they delude themselves if they think that this deadly ideology will be kept confined to Tehran, Ramallah or Ankara.

Federica Mogherini has been busy in recent weeks, appeasing one repressive regime after another. Mogherini, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, began with Iran. “Mogherini was mute on the popular uprising in Iran,” wrote Eli Lake at Bloomberg.

“She waited six days to say anything about the demonstrations there. When she finally did, it was a mix of ingratiation and neutrality. ‘In the spirit of openness and respect that is at the root of our relationship,’ she said, ‘we expect all concerned to refrain from violence and to guarantee freedom of expression'”.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who was proud to lead “the first feminist government in the world”, merely tweeted that she was “following” the demonstrations in Iran. UN Watch condemned her for being silent. A year ago, Swedish Trade Minister Ann Linde and ten other female members of the Swedish government marched in front of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wearing hijabs. While real Iranian girls were marching to protest the mandatory hijab, Ann Linde was retweeting about laws against climate change during the severest days of Iranian repression in the streets.