[Reader-list] Polization of Society in Europe

[Rahul Asthana]

After USA,it seems to be Europe turn now

http://www.techcentralstation.com/112204AA.html

Text of the article
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Now that the Cold War is over Western European
countries ought to be role models for the East. What a
farce, then, that Belgium has taken a cue from
Vladimir Putin. In true autocratic fashion the high
court banned Vlaams Blok -- the nation's most popular
political party. The party has since been refounded
and renamed Vlaams Belang, meaning "Flemish Interest."



Vlaams Blok isn't any party I'd want to belong to.
They want to break Belgium in half along ethnic lines
and completely shut down immigration. They even
offered immigrants cash to leave and never come back.
Still, banning a political party -- especially the one
that's most popular -- is no way to behave in a
democracy no matter how kooky the party in question
may be. It's obviously, you know, undemocratic. And it
will only make the targeted party (in whatever new
form it takes) more popular than it was. Opinions
can't be abolished by court order. Political
grievances don't vanish just because party leaders
have to slap a new label on an old bottle. 

 

The best way to shunt the Blok's extremism off to the
side is for one of the more centrist parties to adopt
its moderate planks. They don't have to blacken their
cosmopolitan souls in the bargain. There's a reason
Vlaams Blok is rising in popularity. It's not because
they want an independent state for Dutch-speaking
Belgians. And it's not because the people of Antwerp
have itchy fingers on the genocide trigger. It's
popular because, in a country where the elite wallow
in hysterical Political Correctness, Vlaams Blok is
the only party willing to even discuss immigration at
a time when radical Islam is metastasizing in Europe.

 

The party was banned as racist. I have little doubt
that it is -- at least to an extent. Far-right
anti-immigrant parties are always magnets for racist
nuts and ethnic nationalists. The Belgian high court
has a peculiar definition of racism, though. 

 

One member of Vlaams Blok wrote a political tract
denouncing female genital mutilation in Muslim
countries. The high court says the tract is racist.
Nevermind that "Muslim" isn't a race, the person who
wrote it is not ethnically Belgian. She's a Muslim
woman from Turkey. 

 

Denouncing female genital mutilation is the sort of
thing liberals and feminists recently did -- and
occasionally still find the courage to do. If the
European ruling class wants to relegate this view to
the right-wing lunatic fringe they'll only boost the
clout of the real fringe by making it look more
reasonable than in is. 

 

A liberal tolerant culture can't survive an
infiltration of intolerant illiberal immigrants who
refuse to assimilate even if most immigrants don't
cause any problems. Decent-minded people don't like to
think about this, let alone talk about it. But the
problem can't be pretended away. The murder of Theo
Van Gogh in Amsterdam and the vicious backlash that
followed ought to prove that. 

 

Volksrant reported that ten Muslim and five Christian
sites in the Netherlands were attacked in one single
week. Though no one aside from Van Gogh has been
killed (yet), the attacks included fire-bombing,
arson, vandalism, and nailing bloody pig's heads to
doors. 18 times as many people live in the United
States as in The Netherlands. If Americans reacted as
violently after the attacks on September 11, one
hundred and eighty Muslim sites would have been
attacked by vigilantes in one week alone. Needless to
say, the minor backlash that did follow was an
insignificant blip compared to the fury unleashed in
Holland. Imagine the rage that would convulse Dutch
society if Amsterdam or The Hague experienced an
attack on the scale of what happened on September 11.

 

The Dutch are among the most liberal and tolerant
people on Earth. So why was the civilian response to
terrorism so out of proportion to what happened in the
US? Glenn Reynolds has a theory that might explain
part of it.

 

Nothing breeds that sort of freelance violence like
the perception that the duly constituted authorities
aren't willing to protect the citizenry. People in the
United States didn't doubt that; people in the
Netherlands have had reason to.

 

If Europe's mainstream parties can't come to grips
with this they're toast. There is no shortage of
political maniacs on the margins -- who are totally
uninhibited by political correctness -- who can always
propose a "solution" if no one else will. If (perhaps
I ought to say "when") push comes to shove in Belgium
as it already has in Amsterdam -- watch out. The
extremists will appear a lot more sane than they are
next to the feckless fantasists they'll have to
compete with. They are setting themselves up to
attract more and more frustrated moderates and even
liberals into their ranks. 

 

In time those moderates and liberals may, because of
the slippery workings of the political slope, cease to
be liberal or moderate. The center cannot hold if the
state decrees the center doesn't exist, that the only
choice is between left-wing fantasy and right-wing
lunacy. When the pendulum swings -- and it will swing
-- the ethnic nationalist parties will benefit most.
And the phrase "Old Europe" might apply more aptly
than it does now.





		
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