January 25, 2004
NERVOUS EUROPE
Former London Times correspondent Robin Shepherd on the Robert Kilroy-Silk affair:
The swiftness of Kilroy's demise points to something more than a simple scrap over political correctness. It's a symptom of a new European reality: surging growth among Muslim populations and establishment nervousness over how to deal with them -- a nervousness that threatens to stifle much-needed debate over events in the Middle East and Muslim integration at home ...
Small but significant sections of that growing Muslim community are either outright hostile to or at least ambivalent toward Western values. Skeptical? Consider the following: A survey conducted by the ICM polling agency and published in December 2002 showed that more than 10 percent of Britain's 1.5 million Muslims believed that further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be legitimate, and 8 percent supported such attacks against Britain. More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks and more than two-thirds believed the war on terror to be a war on Islam.
You’d probably get similar results from a survey of BBC staff.
Posted by Tim Blair at January 25, 2004 04:24 PMTim,
interesting contrast between the SMH coverage of David Kay's resignation as Iraq weapons inspector and the article run by the Sunday Telegraph in the UK. SMH quotes him saying they never existed and the Torygraph has him saying they were ferreted into Syria.
Not a dicky bird about it in the brill Aus broadsheet.
More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks
Tim, by the extra-heavy bold type, may I assume this is particularly ridiculous/threatening to you? Perhaps you are in possession of proof of their guilt? Please share it with us.
Posted by: fatfingers at January 25, 2004 at 04:59 PMHad the poll been conducted in America, I it would have found that significant sections of American “intellectual elite” community are either outright hostile to or at least ambivalent toward Western values.
Posted by: perfectsense at January 25, 2004 at 06:03 PMFatfingers: If it helps, Osama himself has admitted responsibility in a tape for TV.
Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at January 25, 2004 at 06:15 PMIt will be facinating to watch the whole "hijab" controversy play out in France. If pro Al Queda/anti-Western sentiments are that strong in Britain, how much stronger must they be in France which is that much closer to the Middle-East?
Posted by: Leathan Lund at January 25, 2004 at 06:32 PMCan someone (fatfingers, perhaps?) please explain to me how to resolve these two statements:
further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be legitimate
More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks.
Thanks.
Posted by: grybstein at January 25, 2004 at 08:26 PMWithin one generation, millions of people, of one medieval culture, dissimilar to the host nation, settle into insular enclaves and there is puzzlement over why there are tensions with the indigenous people?
They've moved onto new land, which is now their land and they set about recreating there, the land that they left behind.
Posted by: GnuHunter at January 25, 2004 at 09:18 PMI am still trying to puzzle out what immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan living in the UK have in common with Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi Arabian multimillionaire.Why would these same people regard it as legitimate for bin Laden to have planes flown into buildings in a third country the US?
Posted by: Peter at January 25, 2004 at 09:50 PMI think I remember seeing the results of the poll a while ago. Does anyone have a hyperlink to it?
Posted by: Andjam at January 25, 2004 at 10:39 PMCompare that to 31% of Germans under the age of 30 saying that the US could have been behind September 11, and British Muslims sound sensible by comparison.
Posted by: Andjam at January 25, 2004 at 10:47 PMCan someone (fatfingers, perhaps?) please explain to me how to resolve these two statements:
further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be legitimate
More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks.
It sounds like the excuses of a child: "I didn't do it and it's your fault I did it anyway."
It really looks like the battlefield is moving to Europe. Considering the Euros previous responses to ethnic problems, I think the Arab countries should prepare for a large influx of refugees.
Also see Nelson Ascher's blog on this:
http://europundits.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_europundits_archive.html#107437733516350289
"If it helps, Osama himself has admitted responsibility in a tape for TV."
Oh, sure, that's what the Jews want you to think.
Posted by: Angus Jung at January 26, 2004 at 02:37 AMJesus H. Christ, Fatfingers, just how do you manage to dress yourself in the mornings, considering you're such a fucking moron?
Posted by: ushie at January 26, 2004 at 02:52 AMHi, grybstein.
Resolving these two statements:
further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be legitimate
More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks.
...
Translated to playground talk:
"Not guilty" means: "You can't hit me back!"
"Further attacks" refers to the other side of the coin: "Now do what I say, or there's more where that came from!"
If the victim looks angry and ready to fight:
"Can't hit me, can't hit me, you've got no proof!"
If the victim starts to "be reasonable":
"You had it coming." And likely "Now look away and take your hands down!" (heh heh heh)
In other words, these two messages not only match up, they complement each other. It's the failure to fight back that makes the "more where that came from" so punishing. It's endless kicking with impunity on one side and hopeless submission on the other as long as those terms are accepted.
These terms are based on identification with the militant cause, and assert that the attacks will continue, legitimately, and that there is no legitimate reply.
It's a basic, instinctive mix of messages.
Sorry if this sounds stupid, but if a trick works it's not stupid, and evidently it works on lots of people, just not George W. Bush, Tony Blair or John Howard at the moment. Over the long haul, the reality has been that the targets of terror have let themselves be talked out of fighting back, they have not retaliated effectively, and facing an endless series of blows with no plan to reply to them, they have given in, like Ronald Reagan in Lebanon, over and over.
Posted by: David Blue at January 26, 2004 at 03:50 AMSir Banagor said it better:
http://www.nerra.com/broadsword/tomes/000187.html
"The reason we are fighting this war is not because nineteen hijackers crashed into a burning building and a handful of others cheered, but because the entire Muslim world not only cheered, but then turned around, pointed at "The Jews" and said that it was their fault, denied they ever did it, denied that it ever could be them, screamed that they hated us anyway, danced in the streets, printed up posters about the heroes who did the deed all while denying they ever really did, and then increased their threats to tell us that if they didn't get more capitulations that it would happen yet again."
Both superficially inconsistent statements fit consistently into that total pattern.
It remains ready to be ignited to renewed visible fury if we seem weak, or compromising, or are bleeding and weeping as on 11 September, 2001. Blood in the water --> frenzy. But even when there is no frenzy, the sharks are still there.
Fatfingers -
Addressing your question with more seriousness than it deserves....
Name a western terrorist group, or any non-Muslim one (other than the Tamil Tigers) that repeatedly uses and glorifies the act of suicide terrorism, wich 9/11 obviouly was.
Setting aside the Osama & Fatboy tape (CIA creation I'm certain), how about the AQ tapes repeatly calling the hikackers Muslim heroes and warning Muslims in the West, quote, "Do not live in hi-rise buildings or use Western airlines", etc.
Has even ONE of the nineteen named hijackers, with families and friends out there, emerged to say "hello, here I am". Has even ONE of their families emerged to say, "No my son died in June that year, here is where he is buried", etc.
Strange, NONE of them were involved, but they ALL... um... "went to Afghanistan and are now missing in action... yeah, that's the ticket...".
Are the testimony of 9/11 passenger families ALL lies made up on the spur of the moment, about calls from loved ones telling of men in red headbands speaking Arabic seizing the planes, etc.?
Is the Saudi govenment themselves complicit in the lie, given that it was grudging and took a while, but they now do categorically admit that was their citizens involved, and that fact along with the AQ attacks there are now the primary forces driving instrospection there?
Etc etc. I could go on arguing that "No, the Easter Bunny does NOT exist, despite what you have been told", but it seems an asinine argument. I only make it since millions of Westerners seem all to willing to consign their grandchildren to the darkness of barbarism, simply because they are uncomfortable with the idea that the Western Civilization that has seen 100 million non-westerners flood into it over the decades might actually be superior (that's spelled S...U...P...E...R...I...O...R ) to the societies that they fled from, and thus that civilization is worth defending. (Defend it?!?!?! Mightn't that..... OFFEND somebody? Horrors!)
Posted by: Andrew X at January 26, 2004 at 04:06 AMTim, by the extra-heavy bold type, may I assume this is particularly ridiculous/threatening to you? Perhaps you are in possession of proof of their guilt? Please share it with us.
If that opinion weren't held by so many of the Loony Left, I'd say fatfingers was some joker pretending to be Michael Moore... pretty weak, though.
Posted by: Spiny Norman at January 26, 2004 at 05:32 AMand 8 percent supported such attacks against Britain.
????? If 8% of British Muslims want Alqaeda to attack the UK, that means 12,000 traitors on British soil.
Is anyone in Britain worried about this?
Posted by: Geoff Matthews at January 26, 2004 at 07:13 AMThe cleaner where I work, a Lebanese Muslim, told me that the World Trade Centre towers normally have ten thousand jews working in them.
He then claims that on September 11 there was not one jew in the building. From that he draws the inescapable conclusion, "That FBI mate, shes a fucking bitch"
Fatfingers own up, do you do the cleaning at a building in Burwood? If so get off the computer and empty the fucking bins!
Posted by: Gilly at January 26, 2004 at 08:59 AMFor fatfingers:
http://www.adhamonline.com/News/Fouda.html
Posted by: uisgebaugh at January 26, 2004 at 01:24 PMThe swiftness of Kilroy's demise points to something more than a simple scrap over political correctness. It's a symptom of a new European reality: surging growth among Muslim populations and establishment nervousness over how to deal with them
Um, establishment nervousness? In the BBC, it's establishment collusion. The BBC willingly, happily does this; they aren't nervous about it at all.
Posted by: tom beta 2 at January 27, 2004 at 12:53 AMBarbara Amiel has written a biting piece about Islam in France (and Europe). Wonder if the CRE and MCGB are going to get all cranky at her too. (Oh yeah and she is a Jew so it makes it even more likely.) Yes there are quite a few people in the UK who are not too happy about the Muslim problem and despite what the Beeb tries to imply they aren't BNP supporters either.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge at January 27, 2004 at 01:08 AM