Colors of Summer

Every summer I try to make ratatouille at least once or twice. This unusually vibrant painting by Renoir, depicting onions, peppers, tomatoes and eggplant, should give everyone the urge to go to the nearest farmers' market. Unless you are lucky enough to have your own vegetable garden.

Ratatouille can be messed up if the tomatoes are not the highly flavorful summer variety. It's one dish I never make in the winter. Nor do I eat it the same day I make it - it should sit at least 24 hours to become full-flavored.

Still Life with Fruits of the South currently resides in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Thanks to zazie.

The Burqa - A Sign Of Western Decadence?

While wearing the burqa is often considered to be a religious custom, many see it as a sign of submission, even degradation, of women. It is on this basis that Nicolas Sarkozy announced amidst much approbation from the deputies in Parliament, that the burqa would not be welcome in the French Republic.

However, some have a more nuanced view of the burqa and see it as a predictable consequence of another type of degradation of women, i.e., the overexposure of nudity and the cheapening of female behavior, as a result of propaganda from the feminist movement. Here is an excerpt from an article by Alain Dumait posted at Les 4 Verités:

(...) I can see that the extension into France of this garment-prison, whether or not it is banned, poses and will continue to pose all sorts of practical problems. It demonstrates, as if that were necessary, that the gulf between what can be called Western modernity and Islamist morality, far from being bridged, is deepening. And this gulf is deepening right within our own country, due to the population, more or less Muslim, of some six million persons.

There is obviously a very strong connection between, on the one hand, the appearance of people, the relation between body and clothing and, for women, their place in society, their freedom, and on the other hand, the culture and even the civilization to which they belong.

According to journalist Denis Bachelot, in his essay "L'Islam, le sexe et nous" (Islam, Sex and Us), the conflict between the West and Islam is not so much religious as it is "sexual", insofar as it deals with the representation of women in all aspects of social and cultural life and even from the individual point of view of her person (...)

In this regard, the generalized wearing of the burqa, not only in Afghanistan and Iran, but also in the Persian Gulf countries, the Middle East, the Maghreb and even in France, is less symptomatic of religious radicalism than it is of an identitarian self-absorption, in which the representation of women is the true keystone.

Now at the same time, the representation of women in Western modernity is more and more depraved, provocative, and on the borderline of pornography. It is no doubt in reaction to this exhibitionism that more and more Muslims, in France and elsewhere, have chosen severity, at the cost of imprisoning women!

Sixty French parliamentarians of all stripes are calling for a commission to inquire into the wearing of the burqa. Why not? The various and sundry testimonies might turn out to be quite interesting. But why not, in a parallel gesture, call for another commission to inquire into post-modern sexual exhibitionism?

Let us try to be logical. The politically correct are pro-immigration. And, I hope, in favor of civil tranquility. I would imagine it is better, from their point of view, that the West and Islam converge rather than diverge from one another on this terrain of modernity. In short, if you want to discourage the wearing of the burqa, perhaps you should put more clothes on the models who pose almost naked in advertisements and magazines to pitch for cars and ice creams... The problem is that the very ones who defend this pseudo-modernity, of which the liberated woman is the symbol (and which, in turn gives rise to a desire for the burqa) are the same ones who want to forbid it!

Alain Dumait is implying here a larger issue - the very presence of massive numbers of Muslims on Western territory is the result of an inner rot, not the result of an invasion against great and self-confident civilized nations. The once great civilized nations have rotted from within, leaving a void where once there was a moral code, standards of behavior, beauty and excellence, a strong religious tradition that was for many a bulwark against such invasions from alien cultures, a way of looking and dressing, a way of expressing one's thoughts, a culture of growth and optimism, despite all the wars and setbacks. Into the breach came Islam. It is filling the breach with its terrorism, its fanaticism and its most strict formalities. Islam found the rotting West a fertile soil for the propagation of its archaic ways. Suddenly, everyone was attracted to the idea of women's enslavement, and polygamy and barbaric ritual killings of both people and animals. Suddenly everyone was defending the right of fanatics to be fanatics. Suddenly everyone was defending this new religion that was so alien to their own rotten habits - or was it so alien after all? Islam had been at war with Christianity since its inception; the rotting West was also at war with Christianity; so there was some common ground.

There will be more than enough blame to go around when the day of reckoning comes for the West. But first on the list (my list anyway) comes "women's lib". A completely deviant movement, not to be confused at all with women's groups whose goal is to prevent women from getting into trouble. The goal of the left-wing (and eventually pseudo-right-wing as well) women's liberation movement has been to aid and abet the forces that set women up for sexual promiscuity and depravity. These include: magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Playgirl, fashion designers, pornographers, media talk shows where the joys of being a "single Mom" are tear-jerkingly inculcated into dumb young girls, bushels of boo-hoo stories about women battered by their live-in boyfriend who is not the father of their three kids and who murders the kids in a drunken rage and the neighbors just can't understand it - they were all such nice people, etc... Such stories are not cautionary tales but lures for gullible, sex-starved young girls who then imitate what they see and hear on the boob tube (a sort of booby trap that sits in the place of honor in the living-room, like an altar, and smirkingly stares down on the rapt viewer).

The widespread propaganda that abortion is a "right", when nothing could be further from the truth has been the cornerstone of female liberational dogma. It is the woman who has the responsibility not to get pregnant, not the girl (who volunteers to get into trouble) who has the "right" to an abortion. Abortion as a basic inalienable right was placed on the same moral plane as, for example, the right to home-ownership - and suddenly indoctrinated young girls wanted to exercise their "right". So they sleep around (as they are told they have the "right" to do), then get their abortion (which is also their "right'). The notion of avoiding trouble by not getting pregnant until one is married is anathema to the women's lib movements - it is much too civilized for their cynical agenda, and civilized behavior from women would put them out of business.

In the process two critically important things were destroyed: femininity and masculinity. Both men and women became like teen-age girls. Young boys adopted the same nasalized sing-song chirp of young teenage girls. Both sexes covered their bodies with hideous tattoos. Both sexes lost the very features that had been the basis for sexual attraction - feminine appeal and masculine strength. Instead of attractiveness leading to an attraction that in turn aroused the need and desire for a permanent union, we now have sleaze, orgies on college campuses, fly-by night sexual experiences that often leave women infected or pregnant and deviant sexual practices elevated to the status of "normal." Sex is cheap because women have lowered the price on their own heads to attract the lowest bidder. Eligible, mature men are more scarce than ever, easy girls are now commonplace. When very restrictive laws allowing abortion were passed, the feminists immediately demanded more, until late-term abortions also became their "right". Late-term abortions are an abomination no one ever considered in the years preceding the 60's.

Feminism, a hungry hydra like all "liberal" pressure groups, can never be satisfied.

Contraception was at one time seen as the solution to abortion, a pipe-dream that is now history. The reckless young cannot be bothered with contraception. Even some grown-up women have said they can't be bothered. Not to mention the potential (hormonal) dangers in the pill. So despite contraception, multiple sex partners, illnesses, some of them devastating to the female reproductive system, pregnancies by the bushel, illegitimate births by the bushel, and uncountable abortions all over the Western world became all too common consequences of women's "liberation". Some liberation!!!

(Actually I think the USA has a relatively low rate of abortion, possibly because of our notorious "puritanism" and some residual religious scruples.)

But the feminists were still not content. They had to encourage married women not to care properly for their children, to dump them in day-care while they went off to their beautiful careers. The terms "soccer mom" or "stay-at-home mom" are derisory in the minds of feminist sophisticates.

Feminists have exploited to the hilt and beyond the weaknesses (such as an inclination to exhibitionism) inherent in young girls. Girls have to be ready to assume mature tasks like marriage and motherhood, not jobs in the pornography business.

Young girls with no moral standards to refer to, little or no maternal and paternal guidance, and no prospect for, or even interest in, a permanent relationship, often drift into homosexuality - another major contribution of the feminists to the destruction of femininity.

In such a dysfunctional society, who can be surprised that Islam walks into the breach?

The archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois has a similar message:

I am not sure that in a democracy you can impose an article of clothing. So, if we enter into the realm of a society that is servile, in which the legislator must define how women should dress, I fear that it would be a path rather difficult to follow.

Note: With respect, I think the Cardinal is making an error when he assumes that a democracy cannot impose a type of clothing. If the behavior and outward appearance of women becomes detrimental to a healthier democratic tradition, then the democracy has an obligation take corrective measures, in order to preserve the well-being of women, their children and men, since men are largely conditioned by women, contrary to the myths of the feminists.

Long ago people (men and women) walked naked on the French Riviera. This was certainly ugly to behold, but at least it was restricted to certain areas. Widespread nudity, plus trampish behavior and indifference to the very concepts of taste and modesty should be just cause for a democracy to take action. Whether it should be done by parliamentary fiat or some other more effective means is perhaps the more essential question here.

The archbishop continues:

On the other hand, I can also see how constraints and customs, or lifestyles, can alienate the freedoms of a certain number of people. This is perhaps the case for a certain number of women on whom the burqa is imposed.... But who is going to fathom their conscience to find out if it is really imposed? But it is also true of many of own women who are not Muslims, or dressed in burqas, but who see the female body exposed like a commercial product on billboard ads. I do not see why we don't ban that! It is in keeping with respect for the human person! I mean that I do not think the nude women in advertisements are any more respected than the women who are enclosed in a burqa.

How ironic that at the outset, the feminists denounced the exploitation of the female body as an "object" for the pleasure of men; and then they turn around and do exactly the same thing, except that they go further than any man ever dreamt of going.

Below, a shot of Madonna in one of her more modest outfits. She has been a major influence on young American girls, stimulating in them the desire to be "bad" and to exploit their bodies for material gain.

A Profound Observation

Here's a bit of humor from Le Conservateur. To understand it, you should know a little about Christophe Girard. He is adjunct mayor for cultural affairs under Pierre Delanoé, mayor of Paris. Both men are openly gay. Girard, the father of a son born in 1982, has long been an activist for homosexual parenthood. In 1975 he joined the house of Yves Saint-Laurent and became head of the company in 1997. He joined the Green Party in 1998 and the staff of the Paris municipality in 2001:

According to my fellow contributor "F" who is too busy to write three lines, our beloved adjunct on Kultur at the Parisian Kommandantur, Christophe Girard supposedly declared: "fortunately Michael Jackson died during the Obama administration, and not that of the reactionary Bush."

I have no idea what that statement means, but I love it! To cite "Obama" has become a sort of reflex among the really cool, the bobos, the modern folk, you know, the good people! Apparently you have to say "Obama" at least once in every five sentences, or every 100 words. It's a minimum! So, beware, lest your friends catch you red-handed...

To which one of his readers responded:

- The question is: Is it better to live under Bush or to die under Obama?

Or to put it differently, isn't it better for Christophe Girard to die now while he has the chance, while Obama is still here performing his miracles, than to wait and run the risk of living to see a reactionary elected as president of France (not a likelihood in any case)...?

Another reader quotes a comment he read by a young altermondialist:

- I already missed Obama when he went to Normandy, so I couldn't miss the Dalai Lama.

And you thought religion was dead in Europe!!!

He who laughs last...

Sarajevo - A Muslim City

Here is some news from Bosnia, an area I rarely write about. Though it seems to be off-topic, I found it relevant. It was posted at Le Salon Beige from the source article at Zenit, a Catholic information service:

Bosnia is undergoing an "Islamization process" and Sarajevo has become "a Muslim city". So declared cardinal Franc Rodé after a visit to Bosnia on June 19-21. In an interview on Radio Vatican, the cardinal affirmed that Catholics were the main victims of the war and that many have fled the country. Many people left because their houses were burned down, others because of pressures and the fear of being killed. Numerous priests and monks have been assassinated. Churches and monasteries have been burnt or destroyed.

Catholics are far fewer in number, he acknowledged, after visiting the diocese of Sarajevo and Banja Luka, at the invitation of cardinal Vinko Puljic.

In Sarajevo, a city of 600,000 inhabitants, there are only 17,000 Catholics. In the diocese of Banja Luka, there were 150,000 before the 1991-1995 war, and today there are only 35,000.

In spite of everything, the cardinal stated that he encountered no pessimism or discouragement in the Catholic communities. On the contrary, the faithful want to stay and offer their ecclesiastical, social, and educational services to everybody: Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims. In Banja Luka, for example, Monsignor Franjo Komarica is planning a Catholic university that distinguishes itself by its inter-religious dialogue.

"The Church that I saw in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even if it is reduced in numbers, is a living, active church, full of hope," declared the cardinal; "a highly motivated Church, and above all, a Church with no lack of sacerdotal and monastic missions."

In the past several years, more than 100 mosques have been built in places where there were none. "There is a desire for Islamization in the region of Sarajevo, just as there is a desire to make of the Serbian Republic an Orthodox country, " cardinal Rodé commented.

In Serbia, "the government is building Orthodox churches - very beautiful ones, by the way - but there is a policy of identification," he added. "The Serbs, even if those in power today were at one time members of the Communist Party, are now calmly and openly Orthodox."

The cardinal concluded with the hope that people can live in Bosnia-Herzegovina in "relationships of tolerance, and if possible, respect, even kindliness," by trying to "collaborate, for example, in the social sphere."

French readers may enjoy the comments at Le Salon Beige that touch on the ability and inability of the Church to deal with such situations as the divisive war, on the ambiguity of the Vatican, on whether or not French soldiers should have deserted and on the number of mosques in France (apparently there are ten new ones every month!) Here is one:

- Too many Catholics have the sickness of political correctness. They wanted so much to have a dialogue with everyone (including certain other religions) that they partially compromised themselves and adopted alien pseudo-values (the latest one being when a number of Catholic universities adopted the line of materialistic Darwinism!) As for the Holy Father, he can do no more, considering the Church's situation - that of a great edifice that is cracked, undermined from within and without by an increasingly hostile world. In any event, he has the merit of being the first one in half a century to have taken rectifying positions equal to the risks that he grasped completely (among others, he is not lured by the "mono-dia-logue" between Islam and Christianity.) No, the Church is not of this world, it is only in this world.

Question: Is he being too easy on the Pope? Could the Pope do more?

Musical Chairs

The information in the following post is a condensation of an article in Nouvel Observateur.

Nicolas Sarkozy has reshuffled his cabinet, sending former ministers of Justice and Agriculture Rachida Dati and Michel Barnier, respectively, to the EU Parliament, and replacing them with Michèle Alliot-Marie and Bruno Le Maire. Besides her new post as Keeper of the Seals, Alliot-Marie, one of Sarkozy's most faithful and obedient servants, has been granted the rare and honorary title of Minister of State, a title held also by Jean-Louis Borloo, currently minister of Ecology and Environment.

Note: The Minister of State in France is a preeminent position, held by a personality who performs a multiplicity of duties, and who becomes, in fact, a "vice prime minister".

Brice Hortefeux, another Sarkozy favorite, has inherited the coveted post of Interior Minister from Alliot-Marie, whose major contributions seem to have been to watch as Kalashnikov rifles were used against the police, and to break the Ramadan fast every year with an obvious good appetite for the task.

Xavier Darcos leaves the post of minister of Education (apparently he wanted to leave) and goes to the ministry of Labor, while Luc Chatel, a government spokesman, takes over as Education minister, without giving up his post as spokesman.

A while back Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had made waves when he said he regretted creating a position in his ministry for a secretary of State on Human Rights. The position had been held by Rama Yade, a Senegalese Socialist who was one of Sarkozy's glamorous female appointees of non-European heritage. The position itself has now been abolished, but Rama Yade will receive the strange consolation prize of secretary of State for Sports! Yade frequently defied Sarkozy. Whether she was right or wrong to do so, is not the issue here. She was defiant, that's enough. She has been demoted, but not fired.

Less fortunate (or are they more fortunate?) are former minister of Culture Christine Albanel and former minister of Housing Christine Boutin who were both removed from the government. If Albanel has any integrity she should be glad to be out of there, considering some of the "art" exhibits she was obligated to praise. Albanel is being punished for failing to pass into law the Hadopi bill making it illegal to download music and films.


As for Boutin (left), she is a mixed-up Catholic, who, all the while insisting she is a conservative and loyal to the Vatican's non-negotiable points on ethics and bioethics, nonetheless violated her own stated beliefs often enough for one to question her ability to think logically through her own philosophy. Time permitting, I will elaborate on her removal from office, which she decries as "inhuman" and which she attributes to her having a "foul Catholic mouth". At the same time she claims that the possibility of being sent as Ambassador of France to the Holy See is "interesting and serious."

Note: So Sarko removes her because of her "foul Catholic mouth", but offers to send her to the Holy See as Ambassador! Should she be angry, or grateful to be going to Rome?

Note: The Catholic websites quote her as saying she thought it was "my foul Catholic mouth". The Nouvel Observateur - a left-wing paper - quotes only her saying "my foul mouth".

Sarkozy did not obey his own diktat on parity, since there are now only 13 women vs 25 men in his ministries.


There are two appointments that are causing a lot talk: Frédéric Mitterand as minister of Culture and Pierre Lellouche (left), currently Sakozy's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as secretary of State for European Affairs. Lellouche is passionately pro-Turkey, a fact that leads all the nationalist websites that had predicted Sarkozy would work surreptitiously for Turkey's accession to say: "I told you so".

One final note on this post: Le Salon Beige notes the emphasis on gay rights and anti-family activism in Sarkozy's new cabinet, and quotes a communiqué from GayLib, the gay rights association affiliated with Sarkozy's UMP party. The association cites three new appointments it is happy about:

- The return to the government of Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who now allows civil union marriage ceremonies in his city hall, an example we hope will become generalized in all cities.

Note: Estrosi, a loyal and obedient Sarkozy-ite will be minister of Industry.

- The arrival of Pierre Lellouche, who advocated tougher penalties for those who commit acts of aggression of a homophobic nature and who has always been on the side of GayLib

- And finally, the appointment of Frédéric Mitterand, a great cultural figure, who has always insisted on transparency in matters relating to LGBT.

Note: If you didn't know, LGBT refers to Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender questions.


As for Mitterand (left), nephew of François, the esteemed movie maker is openly gay.

Please Don't Alienate the Muslims

Diana West has written an exceedingly well-reasoned and beautifully expressed analysis of the effects of Islam on America's most cherished possession: freedom of speech. It is very long, but well worth the effort. Here is a short excerpt from the beginning:

(...) Increasingly, however, Americans seem content to regard the First Amendment not as the fundamental working tool of democracy, but as a national heirloom, a kind of antique to admire rather than put to use. I don’t think many of my countrymen perceive how profoundly their attitude toward free speech has changed. But there is a difference between having freedom of speech and exercising freedom of speech, one that has become glaringly and distressingly obvious to me since September 11, 2001. So, while it is true that the US government is not Constitutionally empowered to make laws that censor Americans, it is also true, I believe, that Americans have come to censor themselves. But why?

I speak today in regard to the effect of Islam on speech in America - Islam as it has entered our national discussion and debate – and, I must add, lack of national discussion and debate - since the heinous Islamic attacks on the US nearly 8 years ago.

You may recall that just days after the attacks, then-President Bush said “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.” At that same moment, the Pentagon, just across the river from the White House, was a colossal ruin, there was still carnage and mangled steel in the Pennsylvania woods, and an acrid fire of souls burned at the bottom of Manhattan. But once President Bush uttered that word “crusade” a new fear seemed to grip Washington and the wider world: namely, the fear that the President would “alienate” Muslims, even so-called “moderate Muslims.”

Read more at The Brussels Journal

The Failure of Laïcité

As stated in my previous post, a Salon Beige reader attempted to send three comments on the topic of Islam to Le Figaro. All three were rejected. Each of the three comments is followed by a kind of refrain:

1. The burqa is not even worn in Iran. (Just look at today's news photos).

The women here wear it to provoke. They would be only too happy to have a parliamentary committee set up. Let us not give them a soap box. HALDE might rule in their favor.

However, I would like to know the real reason why André Gerin, of the Communist Party, and his colleagues, raised this question of the burqa. Rather than becoming angry at the result, they ought to have become angry at the cause: the immigration of peoples who, because of their numbers and their cultures, are not assimilable.

Note: A reminder that André Gérin, a Communist, was the initiator of the move to ban the burqa.

In the name of "laïcité" they have felled anything liable to resist the establishment of Islam in France. By denouncing the Christian roots of our civilization and rejecting the values that went with it they have opened the door to the Trojan Horse. There is no longer anything that can prevent them from achieving their ends. For Islam is a proselytizing religion that vomits on the yellow-bellied laïcité, because for Islam there is not and can never be separation from the State.

2. There is no intelligent and open-minded Islam able to adapt to European values (...)

In Islamic lands, a non-Muslim is a second-class citizen. Look at what is happening in so-called moderate countries: the Copts are bullied in Egypt, those who own Bibles are condemned in Algeria, in Turkey it is forbidden to build new churches. Elsewhere, there is condemnation of anything that displays a cross.

In the name of "laïcité", etc... (same as above)

3. Only a committed "laïciste" (i.e., a person who espouses separation of Church and State) wins the approval of web moderators who block any comment pointing to a conquering Islam facing a West that has nothing to offer in opposition except a few parliamentary committees.

In the name of secular religion, France has abandoned all the values that could effectively resist this radical Islam. Tolerance is contrary to conviction: if I tolerate everything, how can I defend my own convictions? Islam by its nature proselytizes (as any religion ought to, otherwise what would be the reality of a faith if its adherents do not wish to share it?) and vomits on the yellow-bellied laïcité because for Islam there is not and can never be separation from the State.

Le Figaro censured the comments no doubt because they are critical of laïcité.

The reader informs us that Le Figaro is staunchly pro-laïcité, which in turn implies a total rejection of religion as a weapon against another religion, i.e., a total rejection of Christianity as a force employable by the French State to combat Islam. France cannot employ Christianity because France is not only spiritually de-Christianized, France is bound by laïcité. Laïcité cannot be a weapon against Islam because it is too weak, and Islam spits on it.

Why is laïcité so weak? As the reader says, there is the absence of a specific conviction. Second, laïcité by its nature, means Church/State separation, a notion completely rejected by Islam. The French State needed, at the outset, to acknowledge the incompatiblity of Islam with the law of 1905. Instead, it chose to circumvent the law by creating a bogus Islam tailored just for France - Sarkozy's pet project was the "Islam OF France." But in addition, the existing religious forces in France, i.e., Christianity and Judaism, that could be and should be creating obstacles to the growth of Islam, are instead welcoming it as a type of salvation. So the religious forces themselves have been emasculated, and are now incapable of distinguishing an enemy from a friend.

The profound irony is that by allowing in the Trojan Horse of Islam, France has destroyed her own laïcité, and is becoming, both openly and furtively, Islamic. But Le Figaro can't acknowledge this, any more than it acknowledges the old adage that you fight fire with fire, (or religion with religion).

Would the sight of thousands of burqas all over France change anything? It might. Which is why Sarkozy may pursue this idea of a parliamentary committee, and fight "heroically" for a ban on the burqa, and appear to the Western media as a "tough" defender of Western values.

Final observation: In 2004, after years of debate on headscarves, a law was finally passed banning them in the schools. Known as the law of March 15, 2004, it banned headscraves from public elementary and secondary schools, in the name of laïcité. Such a law was superfluous because the law of 1905 already banned all religious symbols from public places such as schools and government buildings. Furthermore, banning the scarves did nothing to stop Islamic immigration. It was an empty gesture, just as banning the burqa will be.

Final note: The French State (like any Western democracy in the same situation) could ban Islam on POLITICAL grounds, rather than religious ones, since Islam is a threat to the State, not just a threat to Christianity. Why this has not happened can be attributed to the false god of egalitarianism.

To Ban or Not To Ban?

The burqa - to ban it or not to ban it? - is a topic that is generating much debate at the websites. Most nationalists espouse the more realistic point of view of Yves Daoudal and Jean-Marie Le Pen, i.e., that the burqa is an indicator of the spread of Islamic immigration and to ban it is sheer hypocrisy on the part of those that created the problem in the first place but who refuse to face the consequences of their actions.

This article appeared at Le Salon Beige on June 22:

While the ruling class debates the burqa without questioning the compatibility of Islam with a democratic regime, and without making a connection (between the burqa) and an out-of-control immigrationist policy, several personalities and political parties are citing the Islamization of France as the underlying problem.

The article then quotes a recent communiqué from the MNR (Mouvement National Républicain), one of the breakaway parties that split from the Front National in 1999. It was then headed by Bruno Mégret, who is still associated with the movement:

The MNR notes that since the arrival of the Sarkozy era, we have witnessed a rapid development of Islam in France. The creation of the CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Faith) by the current president of the Republic was an encouragement to Muslims to develop and to, eventually, impose their law, a law that is, however, incompatible with the laws of the French Republic.

After dietary concessions, the official segregation of women, and the authorizations to build new mosques that are often illegally financed by the taxpayers, Islam progresses, as it has been urged to do for seven years, with the on-going aid of the UMP party.

The MNR therefore considers that the UMP deputies who today claim to oppose the burqa, have knowingly participated in the Islamization of our country. If they are sincere, they should resign immediately from the UMP and join the camp of those who have chosen to defend European civilization.

The MNR knows perfectly well that they will do nothing of the sort and that this false resistance is just another electoral maneuver that will be added to Sarkozy's catalogue of saber-rattling (...)

On the other hand, Carl Lang, head of the Parti de la France, another breakaway party (although Lang is still in some way connected to the FN), believes the burqa should be banned:

Sixty parliamentarians are pretending to be concerned over the burqa in France and are demanding the creation of a useless parliamentary committee to study the matter. And yet it was the parties of these very deputies that have been encouraging, for 40 years, on a planetary level, an immigration policy that is destroying our French and European identity.

Administrations, both left-wing and "right-wing" (Note: my quotation marks) have justified the illusion of the integration of ethnic communities all the while rejecting any notion of national assimilation.

Note: The above statement is not clear to me. Does he mean that the governments do not WANT national assimilation, or that they refuse to acknowledge the assimilation that has ALREADY taken place in the form of métissage? I tend to think he means that the governments extol the virtues of integration, but close their eyes to the unpleasant reality that ensues .

Behind the myth of national integration, the obvious reality today is one of national disintegration. We prefer our rural France with her country churches to a rural France with her mosques.

The Parti de la France demands the banning of the burqa. We are not in the land of Islam. Let us remain masters in our own house!

Note: He either misses, or avoids, the point that banning the burqa does not mean banning Islam. Quite the contrary... If he deplores the "disintegration" of the nation, then a visible sign of the cause of such disintegration should remain... visible.

Finally, Robert Spieler, head of the Nouvelle Droite Populaire (NDP), still another new nationalist/sovereigntist party states bluntly:

It is not the burqa that must be banned, it is the presence of Islam in our land!

The comments to the Salon Beige article are interesting, in particular one from a reader who posts three comments that he sent to Le Figaro, and that were censured. I would like to deal with that in a separate post.

As a final note, the Times of India reports :

The Islamic seminary of Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband is contemplating a fatwa against buying goods made in France to protest the anti-burqa comments of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mufti Maulana Arshad Faruqui of Dar-ul-Ufba, the fatwa department of the seminary, said it would also call for a boycott of Sarkozy. "If necessary, an edict may be issued to all followers ordering them to shun French merchandise," Maulana Faruqui said.

He said the comment was "one of the most shameful chapters of the mankind". By labelling burqa, 'naqab' or 'purdah' as a symbol of female subjugation, the French president has "violated" the law of his own country, which guarantees its citizens the right to practice their religion unhindered, he added.

"The utterances are an evil ploy aimed at bringing disrepute to France." Faruqui said the statement delivered in the French parliament reeks of a "conspiracy against Christianity too" as even Virgin Mary has always been painted or sculpted with her head covered.

The Burqa - False Problem, False Solutions

My previous post mentioned the position taken by Nicolas Sarkozy on the burqa - the full-length covering worn by some Muslim women. His position was a critical moment in his June 22 address to Congress:

"The burqa will not be welcome on the territory of the Republic..."

In its forcefulness and its pro-Western outlook his latest remark, stating clearly that such a garment has no place on French territory because it symbolizes the degraded status of women, runs counter to his previous remark on a similar subject. The French press has had numerous articles on this recent toughening of his earlier, more liberal attitude. Many applaud his courage. But, the burqa is much more than a question of a woman's place in society, be it Muslim or French. It is, rather, the visible evidence of an unpleasant truth.

It is interesting to note that the original initiative for a law banning the burqa came from the Communists.

Once again, I turn to Yves Daoudal's weekly journal Nº 41, for a general summary of the situation:

The Communist mayor of Vénissieux, André Gérin, requested the formation of a parliamentary committee to study the wearing of the burqa and the niqab in the street, making no attempt to disguise his intention of passing legislation that bans such garments in public places. Two other Communist deputies, 7 Socialists, 43 UMP party members, 3 members of the Nouveau Centre, and 3 independents followed suit. Then, other UMP deputies joined in.

The article speaks of the stormy debate triggered by the actions of the deputies, and of Sarkozy's volte-face:

This is the same Sarkozy who, on June 6, had declared himself to be in "complete agreement" with Barack Obama, who had said in Cairo:

"Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid preventing Muslims from practicing their religion as they so choose, for example, by dictating what Muslim women can wear."

(...) The first thing one observes is that these deputies, who represent the entire political spectrum, having hooked up with a committed Stalinist, are all worried about a phenomenon that their own parties have engendered. For when they were in power, it was these parties that opened wide the flood gates to immigration, that pushed and continue to push immigration, that sang in every key about how immigration was France's good fortune, and that demonized the patriots who warned about the dangers France would face, and that justified laws that dragged anyone who criticized Islam before the courts, and that never cease to clamor for non-discrimination...

But wait a minute. Of course it is discriminatory to forbid women from dressing according to their belief... And to those who say that these women are forced to dress this way and need to be liberated, it is easy to respond that many of these women do it voluntarily, the best proof of this being that many of them are ethnic Frenchwomen who "converted". And those women all tell the same story of how they met a Muslim man, and began by wearing a scarf, then the hijab, then the niqab, as they gradually progressed into Islamic law...

The fact of the matter is that we are seeing more and more burqas and niqabs in our streets, as in the Maghreb or in Egypt, where, only a few years ago, we hardly saw more of them than in France.

Note: He is saying that there are more burqas and niqabs in North Africa and Egypt than there were a few years ago, something I was not aware of.

The debate is ridiculous. As ridiculous as the ban on hoods in street demonstrations. The decree banning hoods was passed last Saturday, in the middle of the debate on the burqa. More and more laws that serve no purpose are piling up. Because French law has always explicitly banned the wearing of anything that masks the face, except during a carnival. Therefore the law has always banned the wearing of niqabs and burqas. If you don't want to see hoods or burqas, you have only to enforce the law...

Note: The hoods he refers to are those frightening face coverings worn by rioters.

He goes on to explain that Jean-Marie Le Pen is the only one he knows of to have pointed this out.

We all know Jean-Marie Le Pen's opinion on this subject, because he has expressed it many times: the increase in the number of veiled women indicates to everyone the progression of immigration on our territory.

This opinion takes on special meaning today. Because these deputies who no longer want to see niqabs or burqas have no intention of defending French identity. They are immigrationists. Their goal, hidden under the cover of an all-purpose "laïcité", is just that - to hide the progression of the most Islamist immigration and the most radical form of Islam.

And they don't run out of steam when it comes to calling for respect for "laïcité", when they are the very ones who finance the mosques (...)

If we forbid women to wear the niqab, they will stop, but they will still be on our soil. It is better to know whom you are dealing with, both in this case, and in general.

The habit does not make the monk, but the proverb can be reversed: one can be a monk without the habit. Women without their niqab will still be Islamists, and even more so since they will feel persecuted.

This is typical of a false problem to which are brought false solutions, based on false principles.

The real problem is one of Islamic immigration. As my good friend Marshall de la Palice says: as long as there is Islamic immigration, there will be a progression of Islamism. Closing your eyes to the truth by banning the niqab changes nothing.

Therefore, it is urgent that immigration be stopped. And it is urgent to stop the false dogma repeated everywhere that Islam is "a religion like the others" and that we must respect it "like the others". The political leaders ought to have at least enough curiosity to ponder what Islam really is. The bishops and the priests too, who participate fully in this illusion of a "religion like the others", and who deceive the Catholic faithful. The bishops' job is not to participate in the inauguration of mosques, but to convert the Muslims.

French readers can consult Jean-Marie Le Pen's video from his "journal de bord". The part about the burqa starts approximately 3 minutes 40 seconds into the discussion.

An English-language discussion on the story can be found at Lawrence Auster's VFR.

Illustration from Le Point.

Reforms, Reshuffling and Repetition

Many months ago, when the combined houses of Parliament met in Versailles to vote on Constitutional reforms, Nicolas Sarkozy let it be known that, in emulation of the American system, he would give a French version of the SOTU address every year. And so he did today, Monday, June 22.

The combined houses, known as the Congress, met to hear their leader deliver the first "state of the nation" address, in which he ran through a list of reforms, measures and plans on a wide variety of topics, although much of it sounded very familiar.

Translating Sarkozy's speeches is one form of self-punishment I renounced long ago. There is sure to be an English-language version posted at the French government website soon. So I am confining myself to a few sound bites provided by Le Figaro:

Nicolas Sarkozy announced his intention to take out a loan in order to cope with the huge deficit facing the country. The money would be borrowed either from financial markets or from the French people.

Note: The idea of borrowing from the people did not go down very well with Le Figaro readers.

The loan would be exclusively to finance national priorities. Three months of discussions with Parliament, the labor unions, and economic and cultural leaders would be needed to determine these priorities and to establish the exact amount of the loan.

He promised not to raise taxes.

Note: It isn't clear how he will "borrow" the money from the people without new taxes, unless he means to borrow from the national health or retirement funds.

He will reexamine the possibility of reforming the retirement program, but the final decisions are put off until 2010.

All those laid off because of the financial crisis should be able to keep their salary level and receive job training for one year. He also wants massive measures in favor of part-time work and he would extend the contract of professional transition.

Note: The contract of professional transition (CTP) was launched in 2005 as a means of fighting unemployment. Those who are unemployed sign the CTP for a period of 8 to 12 months. During this time the unemployed person receives job training and placement in a private or public enterprise. He is assured 90% of his previous salary.

There is some information (in French) about the CTP here.

The burqa - the full covering worn by Muslim women - is not welcome on French territory. "It is not a religious sign, but a sign of servitude," said Sarkozy. It will be up to Parliament to decide upon the wording of a bill on this issue.

Note: His remarks on the burqa made headlines in the English-language press as well. Some called his speech "historic", partly because he was addressing the Congress for the first time, and partly because of his stand on Muslim dress. I will have more to say on this in a subsequent post.

Those interested in an English-language article on the burqa can read the Guardian (among many other sites).

He made the following comment on discrimination:

"Who cannot see that our example of integration is no longer working?" Sarkozy asked. The fight against discrimination will be the priority of his new government: "It must not be based on ethnic criteria, but on social criteria," he added to the applause of his audience.

Note: He seems to be saying that he will solve the problem of integration through social programs, i.e. housing, employment, education, etc... without using the ethnicity of the beneficiaries as criteria. However, for now, I'm not entirely sure what he means. According to Le Point he also said:

"Who cannot see that our example of integration is no longer working? It produces inequality and resentment. To achieve equality, we will have to give more to those who have less."

He intends to defend the law against free downloading of music and films, known as "Hadopi", on grounds that there can be no "lawless zones":

"By defending authors' rights, I am not only defending artistic creation. I am defending also the idea that I have of a free society where the freedom of each person is based on the respect of the rights of others. It is also the future of our culture, the future of creativity that I am defending. That is why I will pursue this to the end", he declared.

In accordance with his policies on the environment, he intends to tax polluters.

He deplored the state of French prisons, saying that 82,000 sentences had not been carried out for want of space. He announced the construction of "new prisons and new spaces in hospitals for prisoners suffering from psychiatric disorders."

Note: He would do better to stop crime by stopping the invasion of foreigners apt to commit crimes. Then he wouldn't need new prisons. But, of course, that is not his intention.

Finally, he will reform local collectivities (or regions), through a "reduction in the number of regional and departmental elected officials."

An English-language version of much of the above material appears at Business Week.

Sarkozy is reshuffling his cabinet. This was not at all unexpected. We knew that Minister of Justice Rachida Dati and Minister of Agriculture Michel Barnier would be leaving to join the EU Parliament. It also turns out that Brice Hortefeux, currently Minister of Labor, will become Minister of the Interior, and that Xavier Darcos, currently Minister of Education will move to Labor. Michèle Alliot-Marie will move from Interior to the coveted post of Minister of Justice. But the big surprise was the appointment of Frédéric Mitterand as Minister of Culture replacing Christine Albanel. He is the nephew of François Mitterand, but his political affiliations are not clear. The chairman of the Socialist Party Martine Aubry insists he was never a Socialist.

I will have more on this also in a subsequent post.

Sex Crimes On the Rise

A recent article in Le Figaro reveals that sexual violence is on the rise in France. Rapes constitute three-quarters of the crimes committed by young persons under the age of 18. In Nº 40 of his weekly journal, available through subscription, Yves Daoudal analyzes the problem from a different perspective than that of the Le Figaro:

The evidence is frightening. Today rapes represent three-quarters of the crimes committed by those under 18. And more than half of those under 13 who get into trouble with the law are indicted for acts of a sexual nature (yes: under the age of 13). One thousand adolescents are implicated every year in matters relating to sexual assaults or rapes: the figures have increased 50% in ten years.

We're told that for the first time this year, the Chancery has become aware of the full measure of this phenomenon. And that the Youth Protection Service is seeking answers.

He then quotes from the Figaro article the explanations of the so-called experts, who attempt to explain the behavior of these young persons through the usual psycho-babble. But who never get close to the crux of the problem.

What catches one's eye immediately is that the Chancery has clearly not taken "the full measure of this phenomenon." And that the Youth Protection Service is not about to find any answers...

It is noteworthy that the ministry of justice, Le Figaro and its "specialists", all follow assiduously a politically correct line, and consequently do not allow themselves to see what this is really about. Since no diagnosis can be made, no remedy can be found. An observer from Mars might be led to think that these articles and the "experts" from the ministry have no idea what is happening in our society, particularly in the "neighborhoods." Moreover, we are told from the start that "this reality spares no milieu". As if the gang rapes were not a specialty of the ethnic neighborhoods and marked by racism: for this is really about humiliating a "white woman". But as everyone knows racism is a one-way street. So mum's the word.

The media accounts of crimes, and prison statistics as well, leave no doubt as to the ethnic origin of a great many criminals, especially sex offenders. But you can't say it, because the dogma states that immigration is France's good fortune. But the fact remains that the reality is there, in front of you. In the big city prisons, the majority of inmates are Muslim. It is not an invention of the "extreme-right."

Numerous reports and studies, have shown that in these environments the parents are remiss first, and the young do whatever they want, going so far as to terrorize the neighborhood. The same studies have shown the importance of pornographic movies that the young, and the very young, watch continuously, thinking that this is how it is in real life. Women are sexual objects, prey, and even if it is not considered seemly to say so, it is not insignificant that the entire Arab-Muslim tradition regards women as inferior, and good only to serve as a field of labor for men when they so desire it, as the Koran explicitly says.

That is not the only explanation, but if you refute it from the start, you are condemning yourself to an absence of will to take action (but it does seem to be the case that no one wants to take action).

It is also true that pornography and extreme violence affect larger layers of our society. It is especially true that the "absence of norms", "educational failings", and "complex family histories" are much more widespread today.

But you have to know what you want. We promote divorce, we praise "extended" families which are really decomposed families, we offer personalities that reject all emotional stability as models, we describe sexual deviations as normal, we make of abortion a right of women when it is the most abject form of violence, we describe any social norm as "fascist", we turn religion - genuine religion - into something inept, even scandalous and inimical to freedom. We have come to the point, today, where we attempt to suppress the sexual identity given to us by nature by persuading everyone that they can give themselves a "gender identity".

And then we're surprised to find that the young no longer have a set of standards to live by...

Viewed from this angle, the triumphant election of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, preceded by his altercation with François Bayrou is significant. Daniel Cohn-Bendit is the personification of the 1968 ideology: it is forbidden to forbid. Which means: it is forbidden to set standards.

And while François Bayrou became indignant at the erotic games of pedophilia that Cohn-Bendit boasted about, it was Bayrou who was subjected to public vindictiveness...

When you have reached that point, and at the same time, as in schizophrenia, any summer camp counselor must be on his guard against the slightest gesture of tenderness or consolation for fear of being dragged into court, it is obviously the society as a whole that has lost its standards. And crime cannot help but increase, punctuated by the empty and soothing lamentations from the authorities.

Photo of Cohn-Bendit during his campaign from Flickr.


Update: July 4, 2009 - Comments have been disabled for this article. Enough is enough.