Armenians Remember

April 24 was the day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide. Islamisation, administered by Joachim Véliocas, reports on the event in a post drawn from Le Figaro, accompanied by a link to some horrific photos of the period. Note that the quotes around "genocide" are from Le Figaro:

A march on the Champs-Elysées, trumpet fanfare, flags, rekindling of the flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe with Charles Aznavour: this year the 95th commemoration held a special significance.

The Armenians, who continue to demand that Turkey unconditionally recognize as a "genocide" the massacres perpetuated in 1915-1917, intend to put pressure on the French Senate to vote for a law penalizing the denial of this "genocide".

"It is the 95th anniversary, we approach inexorably the 100th and the question of the recognition of genocide by Turkey is still unresolved," declared Alexis Govciyan, president of the Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF).

The CCAF would like to "relaunch the debate", deploring the fact that the law has been in suspension in the Senate since October 12, 2006, when the National Assembly passed it.

Turkey acknowledges that between 300,000 and 500,000 persons perished. According to Ankara, they were not victims of an extermination campaign but of the chaos of the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

At age 85, Charles Aznavour will officially attend the commemoration ceremonies for the first time as Ambassador of Armenia to UNESCO, Ambassador of Armenia to Switzerland and Ambassador of Armenia to the U.N., declares Seta Papazian, president of VAN (Armenian vigilance against denial).

Note: Aznavour has spoken out in favor of French immigrants, and has deplored the deportation from France of three Afghans. He has been a resident of Geneva for 30 years (for fiscal reasons). He requested an audience with Nicolas Sarkozy to present his own plan for helping the immigrants. He claims that as a child of immigrants he identifies with their plight. But does he not see the difference between Armenian immigrants and North African and African Muslims??? Like so many, he has put the blinders on and joined the ranks of the "bien-pensants".

On Sunday, April 25, VAN organized its sixth "annual day of sensitization to different genocides and their denial". Nine monuments, three meters high, will be displayed on the terrace of Notre-Dame Cathedral in homage to Jewish, Armenian, Tutsi, and Darfurian victims.

France is home to 500,000 Armenians - the largest Armenian population of Western Europe, primarily in the regions of Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.

Note: I feel about this law the same way I feel about other similar laws - I'm totally opposed to any legislation that makes an opinion, however fallacious or repugnant, a crime. It is an ineffective, foolish attempt to force people to say or not to say certain things, and the effect is always a boomerang. The reason for not passing the law, i.e., the desire not to anger Turkey, may be equally condemnable. But forcing the Turks to admit to genocide would only facilitate their entry into the EU, something I certainly don't want. What remains to be seen is whether or not Turkey is admitted even without the recognition of genocide. Should that happen, then it is safe to say that the EU is even worse than Turkey.

Also, I hope the Greeks were not overlooked in the commemoration ceremonies. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks were also massacred by the Turks between 1914 and 1923.

In the map at the top the gray circles show the zones of the massacres and deportations. The red diamonds indicate concentration camps. The arrows point to the direction of the deportations. In the inset, the small gray area is modern Armenia - landlocked, and minus Mt. Ararat, one of its most sacred sites. Some Armenians in Turkey want to enter the EU, probably on grounds they would feel safer, a highly dubious notion.

Click here for the photos, but be advised they are very upsetting.

Civil War

A veritable crime wave in France has alarmed even the French media, exacerbated the already-great fears of the people who risk their lives on a daily basis and prompted one website - Riposte Laïque - to reexamine its own position on the meaning of humanitarian values. Cyrano, the editorialist at RL, has published a lengthy summary of some of these crimes. Since his essay was published there have been several new cases of serious crimes. The following is condensed from the RL editorial:

In Tremblay-en-France (Seine-Saint-Denis), buses were pelted with stones or set on fire as reprisals for the arrests of drug traffickers. The Interior Minister sent riot police to accompany the buses which were again not only pelted with stones but shot at. One of the police cars accompanying them was also pelted, as is customary.

In Grenoble (Isère), Martin, 23 years old, was stabbed and beaten in the center city by a gang of "young people" from the "sensitive neighborhoods". He apparently refused to give a cigarette to one of his attackers. He suffered a perforated lung and his condition is still very serious.

Note: Martin's uncle, instead of denouncing the laxness of the government in matters of crime, instead of denouncing the immigration policy that has generated so many crimes, denounced the "inequalities" in French society as the cause of the horrible crime against his nephew. In a recent post Louis Chagnon denounces, in turn, this blind refusal on the part of victims and victims' families to face reality.

In Ulis (Essonne), two girls, 14 and 15, were repeatedly raped by a gang of minors. Their families went to the police. Because of pressure from the neighborhood and the fear of reprisals, one of them had to leave the neighborhood.

Note: A rally in support of the girls (who were from Mali), was held on April 17. Only about 50 people attended. Though the girls were from Mali, it isn't clear who the assailants were. Five boys, ages 15-17, were arrested. The neighborhood did not seem sympathetic towards the girls. One woman said, "Oh, girls are loose today, that's all. We support the brothers." During the rally someone called out, "They consented to it." I can only guess that they were all blacks, if not Malians. Readers at the François Desouche website, while sympathetic to the plight of the girls, were angry that a rally was held for two Malians, since crimes against ethnic French people barely cause a ripple of protest.

The only comment I can add is that violent crimes will continue to plague the country unabated so long as non-assimilable non-Europeans are allowed in.

In Narbonne (Aude), Moïse Chekroun, a 59-year-old merchant had his shop pillaged and his car sabotaged. "Death to Jews, death to the police", were two graffiti messages left behind. His 13-year-old son was attacked and injured. Chekroun is considering leaving the neighborhood. (...)

Marcel Campion, manager of the Foire du Trône, an annual Parisian fair, reports repeated raids by hundreds of "young blacks", with many acts of violence, and beatings of whites. Violence has increased in the buses of Toulon (Var). A local newspaper "La Provence" notes a "troubling flare-up of acts of gratuitous violence" in Aix-en-Provence, a city usually considered peaceful compared to its neighbor Marseilles. Robbery was the motive in the beating of a man on the beach at Mandelieu-la-Napoule (Alpes-Maritimes). Shots were fired at a worker in Avignon (Vaucluse). Again in Avignon, a 14-year old criminal dragged a 72-year-old woman several yards to steal her handbag. In Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis), reporters from France 3 researching urban violence were doused with tear gas and stripped. In Saint-Quentin (Aisne), a 12-year-old multi-recidivist set fire to the hair of a 90-year-old woman to "give his friends a good laugh." In Perpignan, three policemen were injured on the job, one having his finger pulled off by the man they were trying to arrest. In Arras (Pas-de-Calais), a middle-school pupil, 14, was raped in a public park by three minors, ages 12-14.

Note: I will add to the above list the recent attack on a 67-year old man from Narbonne, as reported by Novopress. The father of seven was walking his dog when a gang of thugs, ages 14-15, pelted him with stones. He treated his wounds but two days later had a heart attack. One of the assailants had shouted at him: "Today it's your turn!" Even though there were witnesses, no one came forward. One resident said, "Everyone knows that behind these teens are the big brothers. No one will ever talk." Novopress concludes:

People who are terrorized, or accomplices, cover in a blanket of silence the wild beasts capable of endless violence. This is the true face of the "diversity" that irresponsible pseudo-humanists continue to laud, forever refusing to admit the reality of its daily atrocities.

And here's another story from the city of Perpignan:

Marc-Henri Picard and his wife Myriam were in their apartment with their baby girl. He became angry at the loud continuous racket outside made by scooters that are driven at top speed around the building every Friday and Saturday evening. He admits to being on edge because one month earlier his wife had been hit by a scooter and the baby had fallen out of the carriage. The guy who did it just smiled. This particular Saturday he told the "young people" to quiet down. Twenty minutes later the noise started up again. He took a pitcher of water and threw it at them. Insults flew as well as death threats. Then they broke into the building and climbed the stairs. Terrified, Myriam took the baby and hid in the bathroom. Like madmen they shouted death threats and rape threats against Myriam. She somehow managed to contact the police who came immediately, just before the door broke down completely. Thirty seconds more and the couple would have been killed. Says Marc-Henri: "It's crazy, but we are the ones who have to leave, because our child was in danger."

Back to Riposte Laïque. Cyrano goes on:

Those are a few examples of "daily news items" that you can read about on a daily basis in the regional newspapers. Few of them became national stories, and yet, thirty years ago any crime of this nature would have been on the evening news for several days and provoked general indignation. "Gratuitous violence" is becoming banal, even as it becomes more and more barbarous.

Note: There may be a connection. It may be that the more barbarous the crimes and the more terrorized the people, the stronger the "law of silence" (hear no evil, see no evil, etc...) becomes. People learn to accept anything, and fear is a great silencer.

Cyrano reproaches both the "Right" (meaning Sarkozy) and the Left. The "Right" has failed in its republican duty to protect the citizenry, the Left has not budged one inch from its ideological complicity with the thugs, pinning blame for the violence on social problems and poverty. He points out that the real poverty in France is in the rural countryside, not in Seine-Saint-Denis. He then focuses on the most important point of all:

(...) one cannot help but admit that in most of the crimes listed above the assailants were black African or North African Muslim, while the victims were French or European.

We humbly admit, and this is difficult for us here at Riposte Laïque, being people of the Left (not ideologically, but in terms of humanitarian and democratic values), that certain obvious facts have to be accepted. We too fear "cosseting the Front National", we too defend a humanistic, feminist and social universalism in the purest republican tradition of Jean Jaurès.

But Jean Jaurès also said: "Courage means seeking the truth and saying it, it means not submitting to the passing law of triumphant lies and not echoing imbecilic applause or fanatical hisses. (...) All progress comes from thought, and workers must first be given time and strength to think."

So we are thinking and seeking the truth. And this truth is found in the reality of the facts. And the facts demonstrate that we are witnessing an offensive against the Republic and against the French people, not only from conquering Islam, but from a part of the immigrant population or its descendants who are overtly rejecting our culture, our values and the right of the French people to live in freedom and security.

We are witnessing a rebellion of an ethnic/religious nature, with assaults led by minority residents against a part of the population (the autochthons, the "souchiens", the whites, the Europeans) and against its possessions and its ideals. We are witnessing a remake of what happened in Kosovo or in Lebanon, with the consequences that everyone knows. This is what is simply called a civil war, according to the definitions of the U.N. and the Geneva Conventions. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, it is a fact.

Note: A reminder that "souchien" is based on the word "souche" meaning "root", but the word "souchien" when broken up into "sous chien" means "lower than a dog". The word has come to be used as a term of intense contempt for the French people.

Riposte Laïque has come a long way to the realization of what is really at stake in France. They began to wake up during the conflict in Gaza and the brutality it engendered on the streets of Europe. However, they have a long way to go. So long as they espouse nebulous notions such as "humanistic universalism", so long as the fate of women is the core value of their fight against Islam, they will not be much help. They must remember that most Muslim women WANT to be Muslim and that socialism, in order to function at all, must be tailored to the French alone, not to the entire world. They must also learn to separate the Front National from Jean-Marie Le Pen, who, whatever his merits, became an enabler of the Left and of Sarkozy's "Right". Nonetheless, they deserve some credit for taking a leap forward.

In the first cartoon below, thugs are beating a white man: "Finish him off. He is disgusting with his chalk face, his head of a victim!" "We don't respect your shit laws! We respect Islam and the law of 'might is right!'"

In the second cartoon four remarks from French politicians:

1 - "They must have a monthly salary of at least 2000 euro for them to stop drug trafficking." (The man who said this on French television on April 8, 2010 appears to be a North African, but I cannot identify him.)

2 - "They voted for ME. I ask for FORGIVENESS in the name of the French people." (Former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal. On many occasions she asked for forgiveness for the "crimes" committed by France - colonization, for example. She became known as "Madame Pardon".)

3 - "To avoid riots, I sometimes ask the police to STOP CHASING AFTER CRIMINALS."(Michèle Alliot-Marie in 2008, then Minister of the Interior)

4 - "A law against the BURKA would stigmatize the Muslims!" (Martine Aubry, chairman of the Socialist Party)

Miami-Dade - Update

There has been a temporary setback to the Islamization of the United States, and an undeniable victory for SIOA. Miami-Dade Transit has restored the bus ads aimed at assisting those who would convert from Islam to another religion, and those who just want to leave Islam period. My original post can be reviewed here, with links to Atlas Shrugs and Bivouac-Id. This most recent development can be found in French at Bivouac and in English (a long article, covering background on Atlas Shrugs) at Market Watch. It is good news that the WSJ is waking up to the dangers of Islam. The publication has been an open-borders advocate for a long time.

"The Fatherland Betrayed By The Republic" by Jean Raspail

Update: April 23, 2010 - Recently I received a comment about a July 6, 2006 post on Jean Raspail from Peter Wakefield Sault, the translator who had done the translation into English of Raspail's 2004 essay The Fatherland Betrayed by the Republic. Mr. Sault's excellent translation was the basis for my post, although I did make a few changes to it. Possibly I gave the impression that his version was inadequate, which it is not, though there were a few things I felt (rightly or wrongly) needed improvement. His comment and my response to it are the last two entries in the comment section.

I have decided to bring the post back to the home page for a re-read. Everything Raspail said is truer now than ever before. I am also leaving intact the second half of the post devoted to the remarks by Michael Hoffman. In light of the way events have unfolded since 2006, Hoffman's views do not seem radical or unusual, at least not the views he expresses here. The rest of his literary output, his general world view, his virtues or flaws as a thinker, may be quite different and condemnable or laudable, but that is another topic. Here, we are dealing specifically with Raspail's essay and Hoffman's retort to it. Also, bear in mind that when I did the post, I added the Hoffman material as an afterthought, having come upon it accidentally, and not having any intention other than to make the post more interesting through the addition of a critique.

Finally, the link to SOS France, where I found the Raspail article in French, is no longer valid, as the website has disappeared, to be replaced by what appears to be a Muslim organization looking for a "buyer" for the site. SOS France was devoted entirely to the fight against Islam and Islamization. An important part of the site was the daily chronicling of crimes in France - one of the most complete listings of crimes anywhere, and one cannot help but wonder what happened. Was the site "highjacked" or did the administrators quit voluntarily?

Here is the original post:

This highly influential essay by Jean Raspail was written in June 2004 and published in Le Figaro Magazine. An English language version was posted at the Revisionist History website where it was savaged by one Michael A. Hoffman II, of whom I knew nothing until I read up on him in Wikipedia (see below). He appears to be a cross between George Galloway and David Duke. His response to Jean Raspail follows the essay.

Now, about this translation. It is my adaptation of the translation by Peter Wakefield Sault mentioned above. I feel his translation, though generally sound, contained numerous garbled phrases and several major inaccuracies that required correcting. However, my own version is certainly open to scrutiny. As for the last paragraph, the quote from the Book of Revelations, I translated Raspail. The actual quote from the King James Bible is in the note.

Jean Raspail is the author of many works, but his most famous book is The Camp of the Saints, written in 1973 and enthusiastically received in the US, though largely ignored in France. That situation has changed and the book remains popular everywhere, including France where it is still in print. A synopsis of the book and an interview with the author were presented in the preceding post.

For those interested, the French version of the essay can be found at the SOS France website.

I circled around this topic like a dog-trainer in the presence of a parcel bomb. It is difficult to approach it directly without having it explode in one's face. There is danger of civilian death. It is, however, the one question of capital importance. I hesitated. Especially since in 1973, by publishing The Camp of The Saints, I had already said it all. I do not have a great deal to add except to say that the the goose is cooked.

Because I am convinced that the fate of France is sealed, because "My house is their house" (Mitterand), inside "Europe whose roots are as much Muslim as Christian" (Chirac), because the situation is moving irreversibly towards the final tumble in 2050 which will see French stock amounting to only half the population of the country (the oldest members), the remainder composed of black Africans, North Africans and Asians of all sorts from the inexhaustible reserve of the Third World, predominantly Islamic, understood to be fundamentalist jihadists, this dance is only the beginning.

France is not the only concern. All of Europe marches to its death. The warnings are numerous - the UN report (which delighted some), incontrovertible works by Jean-Claude Chesnais and Jacques Dupâquier, in particular - yet these are systematically buried, and the National Institute for Demographic Studies [INED] pushes disinformation.

The almost sepulchral silence of the media, governments and community institutions on the demographic crash of the European Union is one of the more striking phenomena of our time. When there is a birth in my family or in the homes of my friends, I cannot look at this baby of our own stock without reflecting upon what negligent governments have in store for him and what he will have to face in his manhood...

Not to mention that those of French stock, bludgeoned by the throbbing drumbeat of human rights, of "the welcome to the outsider", of the "sharing" dear to our bishops etc., framed by a whole repressive arsenal of measures known as "anti-racist" laws, conditioned from early childhood to cultural and behavioral "crossbreeding", to the requirements of "plural France," and well-versed in the errors of old Christian charity, will have no choice but to reduce the price of non-conformity by blending into the new mould of the French "citizen" of 2050, without uttering a syllable of protest.

All the same let us not despair. Without doubt, there will remain what is called in ethnology some isolates, powerful minorities, perhaps about 15 million French - and not necessarily all of the white race - who will still speak our language more or less unbroken and will insist on remaining impregnated with our culture and our history such as was transmitted to us from generation to generation. It will not be easy for them.

Confronted with the various "communities" being formed today on the ruins of integration (or rather on its progressive reversal: it is we who are being integrated into "the other" now, and not the opposite) and which by 2050 will be permanently and institutionally entrenched, this minority will be in some ways - I seek a suitable term - a community of French continuity. It will draw strength from its families, its birth-rate, its endogamy of survival, its schools, its parallel networks of solidarity, perhaps even its geographical areas, its portions of territory, its neighborhoods, even its places of safety and, why not, its Christian, and Catholic faith which, with a little luck, will still be a cement that binds.

This will be frowned upon and the conflict will take place sooner or later. Something like the elimination of the Kulaks by suitable legal means. And then what?

Then France, with all ethnic origins mixed together in confusion, will no longer be peopled except by hermit crabs living in shells left behind by the representatives of a species gone forever called the French species, a species that can in no way claim to be the forebears through some genetic mutation of those who will call themselves by this name in the second half of this century. This process is already underway.

There is a second hypothesis that I could not formulate otherwise than privately and that could necessitate a consultation with my lawyer beforehand: it is that the last isolates resist to the point of committing themselves to a kind of reconquista, certainly different from the Spanish one, but taking as its starting point the same motivation. This would be a perilous story to write about. I'm not the one who's going to do it, as I have already done my bit. Its author has probably not yet been born, but this book will see the light of day at the appointed time, I am sure...

What I cannot understand, what plunges me into an abyss of sorry perplexity, is why and how so many informed Frenchmen and so many French politicians contribute knowingly, methodically, dare I say cynically, to the inevitable sacrifice of a certain France (let us avoid the qualifier of "eternal" which repels sensitive consciences) on the altar of an exacerbated Utopian humanism.

I ask myself the same question in connection with all these omnipresent associations of rights to this, rights to that, and all these leagues, these think tanks, these subsidized headquarters, these networks of manipulators insinuated into all the gears of State (political education, judiciary, parties, trade unions, etc), these innumerable petitioners, these correctly consensual media and all these "clever" folks who day after day and with impunity inoculate their anaesthetic substance into the still healthy body of the French nation.

Even if I can, at a pinch, credit them on the one hand with sincerity, it sometimes saddens me to admit that they are my countrymen. I am about to use the word "renegade", but there is another explanation: they are confusing France with the Republic. "Republican values" have deteriorated ad infinitum, we all know that fully, but never with reference to France. However France is first and foremost a country of people who are blood brothers. Whereas the Republic, which is only one form of government, is synonymous for them with ideology, ideology with a capital "I", the major ideology. It seems to me, to some extent, that they betray the first for the second.

Among the flood of references which I accumulate in thick files in support of this assessment, here is one which, though disguised as a well-behaved child, in fact illuminates well the extent of the damage. It is drawn from a speech by Laurent Fabius to the Socialist congress of Dijon, 17th May 2003: "When the image of Marianne in our municipal buildings acquires the beautiful face of a young immigrant Frenchwoman, then France will have reached a new milestone in the fulfillment of the values of the Republic..."

Since we are in the mood for quotations, here are two, to conclude: "No amount of atomic bombs will be able to dam up the tidal wave of millions of human beings that will one day leave the southernmost and poorest parts of the world, to invade the relatively open spaces of the wealthy northern hemisphere, in search of survival." (President Boumediene, March 1974.)

And this one, drawn from the 20th chapter of Revelations:"The thousand years are accomplished. And the nations at the four corners of the earth, that are equal in number to the sands of the sea, are going out. They will march to battle on the surface of the earth, they will invest the camp of the saints and the beloved city."

Note: the actual quote from the King James Bible, Revelations 20: 7-9, is as follows:

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together in battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

Now follows the embittered retort to Jean Raspail by Michael A. Hoffman II. A biography of him in Wikipedia is apparently "cached", and I have not been able to get the link to work. It is accessible if you do a Google search under his name. When an item has been "cached" it has been pulled from circulation, but a "photographed" copy remains. I am printing it anyway, below, after Hoffman's response.

Roots, Not Symptoms: A Reply to Jean Raspail

by Michael A. Hoffman II Copyright (c) 2004 by revisionisthistory.org

How strange--not one word from Jean Raspail about who is really at fault for the invasion of France--the French themselves! Who were (and are) too hedonistic and selfish to average three or more French children per couple. Into this vacuum quite naturally (i.e. by the iron law of biology) rush those people who have enough sense to reproduce themselves (the Muslims) and who need lebensraum. Raspail deals, as do so many others, with symptoms and scapegoating: "those politicians" and that "sepulchral media" who vex "the still healthy body of the French nation."

I assure Monsieur Raspail that the French people are desperately sick, not healthy, and that the "sepulchre" was built by the French themselves and the bones one finds there are of the aborted children who would have obstructed the multiple vacations, the second house, the third car. This sepulchre is also peopled by the spectre of millions of French children who were never conceived, for the same reasons.

Those white nations which do not have sufficient spark of life to reproduce themselves are indeed doomed, but this is no "conspiracy." These are the inevitable wages of the Masonic, "secular Republic" that is France. The same is true for Italy, where the Catholic Church has auto-destructed and Germany, Spain, Sweden...all secular, all playboys and playgirls.

One cannot merely pay lip service to Christianity, tossing a bone to a mere nostalgia. The French, or for that matter the American intellectuals, even on the Right, dare not look to see what culture and religion prevailed when Charles Martel marched to Poitiers in 732, when Isabella reconquered Granada in 1492, when Pius V was victorious at Lepanto in 1571 and Nicholas, Graf von Salm in Vienna in 1529 and John Sobieski in that same city in 1683.

The West today, ruled ideologically by the spirits of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Charles Darwin, Albert Pike, Sigmund Freud and Menachem Mendel Schneerson cannot conquer, except from the cockpit of a glorified airborne video game attached to missiles.

Who is to blame for the demise of Europe-- the healthy, fertile Muslims or the anemic, self-extinguishing denizens of the House of Usher? If lebensraum was a virtue for the Germans is it a vice for the Muslims? The most primitive pagan in the jungle knows what the "advanced" Europeans do not know, that sex without children is death!

And the current "Crusade"? It was only forty years ago that Jacqueline Kennedy wore a black veil at the funeral of her assassinated husband, and Christian women throughout Europe and America--sophisticated women of the middle and upper classes--wore head coverings in church. Now crusader George W. Bush is on a campaign to "free Muslim women" from standards of propriety and modesty not so different--at least in spirit-- from what prevailed universally in the West as recently as four decades ago.

France has banned girls from wearing head scarves in its public schools, lest the girls appear too modest, and this in a France where rectums and genitals are on display on every street-corner kiosk, yet there is a morbid fear of the least display of chastity.

The Muslims rightly despise us because we have lost all self-respect; because we are not the people of the West any longer, but the people of the alchemical crucible of constant, ruinous transvaluation.

The West cannot turn its back on God and retain any territory anywhere, and when I say God I am not speaking of the god of the rabbis.

Roots, not symptoms, Monsieur Raspail.

Hoffman's argument is based on the drop in fertility due to the collapse of Christianity. He is certainly not the only one to criticize the vulgarities of modern life and the suicidal drive of a godless civilization, but he is pinpointing the demise of Christianity as the cause, rather than, say, the overwhelming effects of socialism/liberalism/feminism,multi-culturalism. It would appear that for Hoffman, these "isms" are themselves symptoms, not the root cause. I am not familiar with Albert Pike or Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Nor have I any evidence that Raspail answered back.

Because of the difficulty in linking to the Wikipedia article I am printing it here, with the warning that it has been pulled, and that Hoffman himself may take issue with some of its contents.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael A. Hoffman II, (born 1954, New York), is an American historian and writer, and managing editor of the newsletter Revisionist History. He was educated at the State University of New York at Oswego. He is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and is the author of several books, including:

* The Great Holocaust Trial (1985)
* A Candidate for the Order (1987)
* They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America (1991)
* Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (1995; revised 2001)
* Judaism's Strange Gods (2000)
* The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians (with Moshe Lieberman), 2002.

Hoffman describes himself as a revisionist scholar. Historians of American nationalist and conspiracy movements have called him him a "Holocaust denier and proponent of multiple conspiracy theories"[1] and a member of the white-racist counterculture.[2] He moved from New York to the "white bastion" of Idaho in 1996.

Hoffman's self-described vocation is "researching the occult cryptocracy's orchestration of American history." He believes that this cryptocracy runs American history, laying out Route 66 as an occult trip between Satanic centers, and controlling American thought through psychodramas and killing sprees. He believes that the final plans of this ruling cabal are slowly being revealed through movies such as They Live and The Matrix.[3] Hoffman now writes mainly on World War II revisionism, current affairs, and the occult roots of freemasonry.

He also makes a leisure pursuit of revising the history of indentured servitude and slavery in America. In his cartoonish THEY WERE WHITE AND THEY WERE SLAVES, Hoffman attempts at situating poor whites as holding the lowest post in colonial and post-colonial America, even to the point of citing a non-existent quote from the LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, in which a supposed black slave refers to the poor white as the bottom rung, black slaves occupying the middle, and the white planters as the ruling stratum. According to his book, there were actual white slaves by the hundreds of thousands which served as the historical basis for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and African slavery. This statement ignores the provisional connotations of indentured servitude which is temporary contracted bondage.

References

1. ^ Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California Press:2003
2. ^ Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood, Duke University Press:2003
3. ^ Gardell, 99

Éric Zemmour - LICRA Sues After All

Éric Zemmour, the journalist who tells the truth (review my posts here and here), is in fact being sued by LICRA (International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism) after an initial decision by the organization not to pursue legal action. According to an article at François Desouche:

The federal council of LICRA met on Saturday April 17 and decided to pursue legal action against Éric Zemmour for remarks he made on April 6 on television channels Canal + and France Ô.

Éric Zemmour had declared: "Most drug traffickers are blacks and Arabs," adding "it's a fact" and "discrimination is life". "They have the right", he also added, speaking of those who discriminate.

LICRA has asked its lawyers to take the case to the Common Pleas Court.

SOS Racism, MRAP, the DOM Collective (this sounds like a group representing overseas departments), the FMF (Federation for French "mixité"), and Thierry Ardisson (the host of the TV show where Zemmour made the remarks) are also suing Eric Zemmour.

Note: I had never heard of the FMF, and the word "mixité" can refer to mixing men and women, or mixing races. I don't believe it includes the notion of "miscegenation" as the word "métissage" does, but nowadays the two words are becoming interchangeable. The easiest way to translate "mixité" is "co-ed" or "diversity". The FMF is headed by one Akim Mimoun, who writes at the groups' website:

I am happy to welcome you to the site of the Federation for French "mixité", an association specialized in questions of equality, solidarity, fraternity and promotion of diversity. Today our country must take into account the changes in French society, for the France of yesterday is not the France of today. (...) As an active participant in associations, I want to prove that "Mixité" is an enrichment for our country and that difference is a strength. Just as I am convinced that what brings us together is more important that what resembles us. (...)

Note: French readers who visit the site will have to listen to an obnoxious rap song that will give you an idea of what the FMF is about.

A rally is being held today (Thursday) in support of Éric Zemmour at the LICRA headquarters, 42 rue du Louvre, in Paris. Below is a 45-second video announcing the rally:

Miami-Dade Bows to Islam

America is now living under sharia law. The SIOA poster above was displayed in ten buses of Miami-Dade Transit. The Florida branch of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) saw the poster as promoting "bigotry" and making false statements about Islam. The posters were removed. The story has been reported at Bivouac-Id, from an English-language post at Atlas Shrugs.

Readers' comments to the Atlas Shrugged post, while critical of Islam, too often skirt the main issue: the urgent need to prevent all Muslim immigration into the U.S. All they talk about is suing the transit company, sending e-mails, etc... While it is nice to recognize the evils of Islam, what good does it do so long as they are allowed into this country?

The Church and Pedophilia

The French blogs are still talking primarily about the attacks on the Pope and the Catholic Church, and about the airplane disaster that shook Poland to its roots.

Since I have not felt well this week, recovering from both very costly dental surgeries (no pain, except to my ego and my bank account) and a cold to add to my misery, I decided to just read and not post. Posting tends to put me to sleep when I am sick (sometimes when I'm well, too!), but I will once again attempt to pick up the thread of these stories. I have also received several interesting e-mails that I will answer eventually, and some comments that should be acknowledged at the least. Let's see what, if anything, I can accomplish.


One issue has been the statements made by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in which he made a connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. This is a repeat of what happened in America a few years ago, when the gay community went ballistic over the same controversy, insisting that there was no connection and pointing to the fact that pedophilia is not necessarily homosexual in nature. But I think the point is that even though they are two different types of deviant behavior, there is little doubt that homosexuality contains a large component of pedophilia.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quick to condemn the Cardinal, as La Croix reports:

France condemns an "unacceptable amalgamation" in the controversial remarks of the nº 2 man at the Vatican, cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who linked homosexuality and pedophilia, indicated the French Foreign Ministry.

"It is an unacceptable amalgamation that we condemn," declared Bernard Valero, ministry spokesman, during a meeting with the press. "France is not forgetting its determined commitment in the fight against discrimination and prejudice relating to sexual orientation and gender identity."

The prelate had touched off the fury of homosexual associations when he declared on Monday in Chile: "Numerous psychologists, psychiatrists, have demonstrated that there was no connection between celibacy and pedophilia, but many others have demonstrated, and have told me recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia."

France was the first country to react to these remarks.

Those interested can read Wikipedia's account of Bertone's statement.

Le Salon Beige points out that the Cardinal's remarks have touched a sore spot, since they are a reminder that the great majority of victims of abuse by priests are adolescent boys. LSB quotes from a long text published at Sed Contra, that reviews the origins of the culture of sexual promiscuity that has plagued Western countries for almost half a century:

From the late 60's, homosexual and pederastic demands erupted together within French society, as a revolutionary weapon of destruction of the family, and through it, of the whole society. The FHAR (Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action) is contemporaneous with CARP (Committee of Revolutionary Pederastic Action) baptized in the toilets of the Sorbonne in May 1968: the two were joined in a common cause. The big shots of the Communist Party who were then visiting the Sorbonne were shocked themselves...

Sed Contra then quotes historian Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu:

"The years following May '68 mark a rupture with the era of shame. The press and the radio were no exception as they explored the silence of intimate relations and denounced taboos. That is why the new publicity in favor of pedophilia took on a political dimension: by joining in the movement to radically remake the social and moral order, the defenders of a violence-free and coercion-free pedophilia attempted to give it a legitimacy and to make of it a veritable culture. The underlying motive? Children also have a right to sexuality. (...) From the FHAR to the magazine Gai Pied (Gay Foot), they all demanded, as did Michel Foucault, recognition of marginal sexual practices."

Sed Contra continues:

Between 1968 and the end of the '80's, the whole left-wing intelligentsia signed petitions in favor of lowering the legal age for sexual relations and for the release of the last pedophiles incarcerated by the French Republic. Among the signers: José Artur, Bernard Kouchner, André Glucksmann, Bertrand Delanoë, Jack Lang, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Philippe Sollers, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes and even the very Catholic Françoise Dolto, who never should have stumbled onto the path of this odious demand... In the minds of these people, all the foundations and all the strictures of the natural order should be blown away at the same time. "Down with the society of heterosexual police! Down with sexuality limited to the procreating family! " proclaimed the magazine Tout in April 1971.

All forms of deviance (sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, sado-masochism, pederasty, zoophilia, coprophagia) should all be legitimatized, normalized and legalized at the same time. There could be only one restriction, out of deference to the 'rights of man and of the citizen', and that is the consent of the partner...

Note: If you do not know what coprophagia is turn here. But please do NOT read it if you are squeamish. I don't believe the practice ever really caught on! It does make you wonder if these people were not beyond perversity, and truly insane.

But of what value is the consent of a sexual neurotic, raped by his father or his uncle at the age of ten? Of what value is the consent of boys and girls in a day care center? (...)

Sed Contra also cites statistics from the National Institute on Demographic Studies that show that persons who have had homosexual relationships are more likely to be forced into relations than those who have had partners of the opposite sex. This is the case for 44% of homosexual women (versus 15% of heterosexuals) and 23% of the men (versus 5% of heterosexuals). Most of the attacks took place before the age of 18.

Le Salon Beige concludes:

Those who wanted statistics have been served. Those who criticize Cardinal Bertone would do well to keep silent. As for those who promote homosexuality, they should be ashamed.

Addendum: The hypocrites are loose. The mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë, mentioned above, has published a communiqué expressing his anger at Cardinal Bertone. The openly gay mayor had also signed a petition to lower the legal age for sexual relations!

To finish this post on an optimistic note, those who support Roman Polanski in his quest to be exonerated will be happy to learn that he has appealed to Barack Obama. None other than Nicolas Sarkozy was the go-between. The report is from E-Deo:

During his most recent visit to Washington, Nicolas Sarkozy was the bearer of a letter from Roman Polanski to Barack Obama. The French president, who worked behind the scenes in support of the film maker, handed the letter to the American president. In it, the director, whose extradition trial is currently going on, explained to Obama that the two months spent in Swiss prisons, added to the 47 days of incarceration in 1977, in California at the time of the events of which he is accused, were sufficient to cover the penalty he would receive today in the United States. And Polanski added that his extradition would only have the effect of humiliating him in the American media. Nicolas Sarkozy supported his appeal.

The French conservative voters will appreciate their president's support for a sexual criminal on the run...

Another New Party

Former Prime Minister under Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, has announced he is forming his own political party and will enter the 2012 presidential race in an effort to provide an alternative to Nicolas Sarkozy. Called the PRS (Pour une république solidaire - for a republic of solidarity), it will be formally launched on June 19, one day after the anniversary of General de Gaulle's June 18, 1940 appeal.

Dominique de Villepin has been involved in a bitter struggle with Nicolas Sarkozy for a long time. Charged with complicity in allowing false accusations to proceed against his rival Sarkozy, he has recently been acquitted. Wikipedia has a brief summary:

In 2004, French judges were given a list by an anonymous source containing the names of politicians and others who, it was alleged, had deposited kickbacks from a 1991 arms sale to Taiwan into secret accounts at Clearstream, a private bank in Luxembourg. The most prominent name on the list was that of Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin's rival for power in the UMP. The list was later shown to be fraudulent, a discovery Villepin kept from the public for 15 months at a time when the two men were vying for party supremacy. Meanwhile, the source of the list was later revealed to be a longtime associate of Villepin's, one Jean-Louis Gergorin, an executive at EADS. Critics claimed that Villepin, perhaps with the support of then-president Jacques Chirac, had tried to defame his rival. Sarkozy, in turn, filed a suit against whoever was behind the creation of the Clearstream list. An investigation continues.

Dominique de Villepin, then Foreign Minister, also made history when he delivered a speech at the United Nations on February 14, 2003, in which he explained France's refusal to enter the Iraq war as an ally of the United States. The speech was warmly applauded.

Anyone running for high office must have some firm views for or against the entry of Turkey in the EU. Joachim Véliocas, writing at Islamisation, has culled a few samples of Villepin's thinking on this topic of major importance:

- The commitment made by the Europeans cannot be re-examined. Turkey is a candidate country, that hopes to join the EU on the same basis as other countries. (...) Yes, Islam has its full place in Europe. Now, and even more so in the future, let us think about Turkey or even Bosnia, that was able, amidst the worst trials, to keep alive its double heritage, European and Muslim. (June 14, 2003)

- Europe made concrete commitments vis-à-vis Turkey decades ago, and these commitments must be honored. (March, 2008, speaking before students, university professors, diplomats, including the Ambassador of France to Ankara and the Consul General of France to Istanbul.)

Véliocas quotes the website Turquie Européenne that reported the following in 2004:

Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin believes that the refusal to accept Turkey into The European Union for "identitarian or religious" reasons would be "an error". (...) "The notion that Europe can say no because Turkey is Muslim would only serve to increase resentment," declared Monsieur de Villepin. (...)

Note: At the top of the web page cited above, there is a surprising quote from Albert Einstein: "Nationalism is a childhood disease. It is humanity's measles." I don't know what the original context was, but using the quote as a means of persuasion is a telling commentary on the EU's low regard for any country interested in preserving its sovereignty.

At the same website there is an English-language article chiding Sarkozy for his "stubborn" refusal to accept Turkey into the EU, and insisting that if French leaders visited Turkey, their prejudices would disappear. Sarkozy, as of now, is considering a visit to Turkey in November. (Is this the "trick" he will use to make it appear as if he has changed his mind?)

An article at Le Figaro announcing the candidacy of Villepin for the presidency elicited hundreds of comments. A quick glance over some of them indicates that no one is interested in this man as a candidate. Readers cite his lack of ideas and the fact that he has never run for elected office.

Finally, despite what he says about Islam having its full place in Europe, he declared in 2004, when he was Interior Minister:

- "We need a strong policy to combat radical Islam. It is used as a breeding-ground for terrorism. We cannot afford not to watch them very closely."

A Real Winner

I downloaded this back in March, but never found time to post it. A photo contest organized by FNAC in Nice rewarded the photo above, the artistic contribution of one Frédéric Laurent. Novopress, among many sites, reported the disgrace:

A jury of "professionals yesterday discerned its "coup de coeur" (sudden liking, or love at first sight) to this image signed Frédéric Laurent. It was rewarded in the category "politically incorrect." What is "incorrect" about it considering the times we live in? A provocation that will only start up again the debate on desecrating the national flag, usually the fault of "young people" who don't look much like the one in Laurent's photo. That must be what is "politically incorrect".

FNAC is the property of Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR). François Pinault is an intimate friend of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Note: FNAC is an international entertainment retail chain, with a complicated corporate history dating from its founding in 1954.

You can read about François Pinault's fabulous fortune here. For the Sarkozy connection, you'll have to turn to French Wikipedia.

My only comment about the photo is that it makes flag-burning seem almost sanitary by comparison.

Hitler and the Church

The glut of invectives that have been hurled at the Catholic Church in recent weeks has been the main topic at two Catholic websites I visit regularly: Le Salon Beige and Yves Daoudal. While this is not a topic I had any intention of getting involved in, since it is not directly related to what I want to do, it has been impossible to ignore the fact that an unusually widespread and relentless fury is pursuing the Church with fierce resolution. The intent may be to stir up hatred or criticism of the Church, but this would be nothing new. For the French Catholics that I read, this goes beyond that - it is nothing less than a frenzied attempt to finish off the French Church once and for all, and to stigmatize the Pope himself. Popes, I should say, since John-Paul II is also targeted. For French Catholics, it is the French Revolution reenergized to complete its task.

No one denies that guilty parties should be punished. But so many of these charges come to light so many years after the presumed crime, it is impossible to know with certainty which accusations are founded and which are pure fantasy or maliciousness or desire for easy money won in the courtroom.

This situation is similar to the wave of accusations brought against men by their female colleagues that filled our front pages for so many years after the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. Every day we heard of major corporations paying out millions to women who claimed to have been "harassed". Many of the accusations were false, but it was sometimes easier to just pay the women off than to fight them. Since that time the standing of white men in our society has not ceased to diminish in favor of females who are ambitious at best, and feather-brained dolts with no sense of right and wrong, at worst, seeking positions of skill and power for which they are not and will never be qualified.

I was interested in this post from Le Salon Beige because it shows that Adolph Hitler went after the Church with the same deliberateness that he pursued the Jews. For the Nazis, for most pagans, Judaism and Christianity must both perish. The former engendered the latter, and while the Jews were perceived by Hitler as subhuman, the Catholics were perceived as weak, soft, and lacking the violent proclivities he admired in Islam. He perceived Catholic clergy as sexual perverts. Hitler, it would appear, also admired the French Revolution for its violent anti-clericalism.

The article is based on Goebbels' diary, and some of you may be familiar with it. While the diary has been translated into English, I am doing my own rough translation here, from the French version:

May 29, 1936 - Departure for Kiel with the Führer. Major morality trials against Catholic priests. The Führer believes it is a characteristic of the Catholic Church.

October 11, 1936 Koblenz - The atmosphere is good, but social misery is great, especially among wine-growers. The influence of the Church is diminished, especially because of the trial of the Franciscans. I am learning horrible details about this. A pig sty, as it is said in the Book. There you have the Catholic Church - a gang of pederasts!

April 2, 1937 - Phone call from the Führer: he wants to start hostilities against the Vatican. The trials in Koblenz are commencing. As an opener, a horrible sexual crime committed against a young boy in a Belgian convent. I am sending a special envoy from Berlin to Brussels to conduct his inquiry there. The priests do not understand our patience and our mercy? They will learn about our rigor, our hardness and our implacability.

April 30, 1937 - The press is now violently going after the perversity in the Churches. They are using hard-hitting arguments difficult to refute. It is going badly for the priests. The trials themselves unveil the most atrocious ignominious acts. The pillory!

May 12, 1937 - The trial against the priests is becoming more and more nonsensical. Now it is the vicars general and the bishops who are implicated, directly or indirectly. Bishop Preysing made a declaration from the pulpit against our criticisms that have appeared in the press. I'm taking care of this now and I am going to give him a thrashing that will stun him.

In the diary entries Hitler comes across as a reformer of morals.

Some responses from LSB readers:

- Satan is unleashed this year of the priesthood (June 2009-2010). Could it be his swan song?

- To (your) question about Satan's swan song, frankly and without hesitation, I would answer yes. We are not far from the edge of the precipice. The fury against Benedict XVI appears more and more like a resounding media failure. It is comforting to see the diversity of the signatures on the Appeal for the Truth. We can hope.

Note: Whatever Catholics may think, we can be certain that this is not Satan's swan song.

- The Nazis were revolutionaries inspired by the anti-Christian doctrines and hostile to all that the sacred nature of the Church represented. Don't forget that Hitler greatly admired the "sans-culottes" of 1793 and that for him the persecution of Catholics was primordial in Germany from 1933 to 1945, as were Judaism and certain Protestant churches.

Hitler hated the Christian religion. I can tell you that he opened up camps to exterminate Christians, Jews and Protestants hostile to his policies. (...)

The Arcona, a ship that had formerly made connections between Germany and the Nordic countries, sent to the bottom of the sea thousands of innocent Catholics, Jews, Soviets, Poles, etc... All because Hitler admired Robespierre and his clique of madmen who exterminated the people of Vendée.

For the Nazis, Catholics were "brigands" comparable to those in Vendée...

Revolutionaries and Nazis = same combat!

Note: I believe he must be alluding to the Cap Arcona horror, when, in 1945, British planes dropped bombs on ships filled with thousands of holocaust survivors of various ethnic origins. Those killed were originally "scheduled" for extermination by the Nazis, but they had been released and were on board the ships. The British bombing is considered to be one of the worst cases of "friendly fire" deaths ever recorded.

Finally one reader sends this additional item from the Goebbels diary:

May 12, 1937 - (...) We must try to make the Churches bend and make them servants of our cause. Celibacy must also disappear. The goods of the Church will be seized; no man should study theology before the age of 24. We will thus deprive them of their best recruits. We must dissolve the religious orders and remove from the Churches their authorization to teach. And so in a few decades we will reduce them. Then, they will come eating out of our hands (...)

The photo below is one of many fascinating photos you will find here. It shows Catholic bishops making the Nazi salute. Goebbels is on far right.

The accompanying texts to the photos seem to bely what Goebbels said, namely that Hitler had only contempt for the Church. However, the truth may be that Hitler accepted the Church so long as it pledged fealty to him. Insofar as the Church or the priests rebelled, he would have them silenced or killed.

It is very disturbing to see so many French bishops today on the side of Islam. Like déjà vu all over again.


I cannot argue about this topic. Readers may know much more than I or have more fixed opinions. It is certainly a topic to research, but if you have a reasonable comment to make, please do. Topics such as this one often arouse intense feelings.

Before ending this post, I would like to mention this article that has received widespread coverage on the Internet. Former mayor of New York Ed Koch, a Jew and a homosexual, has written an important commentary defending the Pope in the current outbreak of rage against the Catholic Church. Here is an excerpt:

The primary explanation for the abuse that happened - not to excuse the retention of priests in positions that enabled them to continue to harm children - was the belief that the priests could be cured by psychotherapy, a theory now long discarded by the medical profession. Regrettably, it is also likely that years ago the abuse of children was not taken as seriously as today. Thank God we've progressed on that issue.

Many of those in the media who are pounding on the Church and the pope today clearly do it with delight, and some with malice. The reason, I believe, for the constant assaults is that there are many in the media, and some Catholics as well as many in the public, who object to and are incensed by positions the Church holds, including opposition to all abortions, opposition to gay sex and same-sex marriage, retention of celibacy rules for priests, exclusion of women from the clergy, opposition to birth control measures involving condoms and prescription drugs and opposition to civil divorce. My good friend, John Cardinal O'Connor, once said, "The Church is not a salad bar, from which to pick and choose what pleases you." The Church has the right to demand fulfillment of all of its religious obligations by its parishioners, and indeed a right to espouse its beliefs generally.

I disagree with the Church on all of these positions. Nevertheless, it has a right to hold these views in accordance with its religious beliefs. I disagree with many tenets of Orthodox Judaism - the religion of my birth - and have chosen to follow the tenets of Conservative Judaism, while I attend an Orthodox synagogue. Orthodox Jews, like the Roman Catholic Church, can demand absolute obedience to religious rules. Those declining to adhere are free to leave.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church is a force for good in the world, not evil. Moreover, the existence of one billion, 130 million Catholics worldwide is important to the peace and prosperity of the planet.

6000 Turks Gather...

Here is a 30-second video of last night's intimate gathering of 6000 Turks at the Zenith Theater in Paris. See my preceding post.

Turkey at the Gates

Last summer a ten-month extravaganza promoting Turkey and Turkish culture opened in Paris. Known as "La Saison de la Turquie", it has now closed, with the arrival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the French capital yesterday (April 6). During his visit he was scheduled to attend a spectacle at the Zenith Theater where 6000 "European Turks" arriving in chartered buses would gather to hear him speak. The poster above says it clearly: Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet the European Turks, April 7, 2010 at the Zenith Theater.

A reader at an Armenian website, Armen News, asks "What exactly is a European Turk?"

Erdogan, however, seems to know very well the answer to that question. Here is a condensation of an article from Armen News:

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confided Wednesday in Paris that he "had not lost hope" of seeing Nicolas Sarkozy change his mind on the accession of Turkey to the European Union.

"I have not lost hope. I think that Mr. Sarkozy can revise his approach," he declared during a meeting with journalists, before joining the French president for a working lunch. (...)

Along with Germany, France has proposed to the Turks a "privileged partnership" rather than full-fledged membership. Erdogan enumerated the arguments in favor of accession, such as the role Turkey can play as a bridge between the West and the Muslim world, and he insisted on the advanced level of reforms in his country.

"Turkey fulfills many more requirements than some of the 27 member States, be they political or economical," he stated. We have lost none of our determination," he affirmed, adding that he was convinced that "during the negotiations there would be developments that will open up a new era."

Note: An interesting and mysterious comment. Does he have assurances from Sarkozy, or some other source, that accession is really a fait accompli, but that it must appear as if France is opposed?

In addition to his lunch with Sarkozy, Erdogan was scheduled to meet with French Prime Minister François Fillon and French business leaders, and to close the day at a large public gathering of members of the Turkish community living in France. (...)

A very long article at Novopress entitled Erdogan governs as a Sultan enumerates the failed attempts by both military and judges to drive Erdogan, leader of the AK Party, from power. One by one, the instigators of such actions have been summoned by the government and punished. The article concludes:

The secretary of a labor union confided: "We are under pressure. People are joining unions with a religious orientation, that are close to the government." Likewise, a professor reveals: "The representatives of the AK are present in all centers of coordination. The governors, the regional councils, the school principals, the police all are becoming allies of the Party." A journalist with the Turkish Daily News, and opponent of Erdogan, wonders: "This is a democracy where only the army is democratizing. In all other sectors of society members of the AK have taken over. Is this an Islamist democracy?"

And so Erdogan, the popular tribune, reigns as a Sultan. (...)

From Le Salon Beige comes this item:

On Wednesday evening, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on 6000 Turks waving red flags adorned with the crescent and white star, to "integrate" and to ask for dual nationality in order to be the "diplomats" of Turkey in Europe. But he warned against "assimilation".

"There is no problem with integration, but I am against assimilation. Nobody can ask you to become assimilated. For me, asking you to assimilate is a crime against humanity, because nobody can say to you: 'renounce your values' (...) France has given you the right to dual nationality, why not ask for it? Don't be reticent, don't be timid, use the right that France is giving you. Taking out a French passport does not cause you to lose your Turkish identity."

As usual there are some interesting comments after the article. One commenter - zebuloneuf - who has been active in the SITA movement reminds us that, despite the agenda boldly admitted to by Turkish leaders, the pro-Europe factions see no evil, hear no evil. Among the statements made by Turkish leaders over the years, he cites:

"We will conquer you by means of your democratic values, we will dominate you by our Muslim values." (Erdogan)

"One cannot be Muslim and secular ('laïc') at the same time." (Erdogan)

"We will change definitively the secular ('laïc') system. The Republic is living its last days"... (Abdullah Gül)

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the believers our soldiers." (Erdogan, based on a Turkish poet).

Note: The above quote is commonly repeated at the French websites. This is the first I knew that it came from the works of a Turkish poet.

Browsing through the most recent posts on Turkey at Le Salon Beige, I came upon this:

Yesterday (March 9) King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia discerned to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan the King Faisal International Prize, one of the most prestigious decorations of the kingdom, for "remarkable services rendered to Islam", for having "defended the cause of the Islamic nation, in particular the Palestinian cause and the just rights of the Palestinian people."

There is one comment to this post:

- Predictable. Turkey is about to shift. None of our leaders has noticed it: 1) The Turkish Army is very secular 2) The Turkish Army runs the State 3) Europe does not accept point 2!!

The act of entering the EU is the strategy of the AK Party for ridding itself of the army, which guarantees Church/State separation ('laïcité'), and for setting up an Islamic State in Turkey.

The reader provides a link to an article in French translation by Daniel Pipes. Here are two excerpts from the original English-language version:

Barry Rubin of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya not only argues that "The Israel-Turkey alliance is over" but concludes that Turkey's armed forces no longer guard the secular republic and can no longer intervene when the government becomes too Islamist. (...)

As Barry Rubin notes, "the Turkish government is closer politically to Iran and Syria than to the United States and Israel." Caroline Glick, a Jerusalem Post columnist, goes further: Ankara already "left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis." But official circles in the West seem nearly oblivious to this momentous change in Turkey's allegiance or its implications.

The cost of their error will soon become evident.

Pipes' article is followed by a flood of comments. This is common at his website.

Photo below: On October 13, 2009, ministers of the Turkish and Syrian governments met at the border town of Öncüpınar and symbolically lifted a bar dividing their two countries.