Europeans Are Getting Pissed

• Across The Atlantic, Another Mosque Splits A City.New York is not the only city divided over the building of a mosque. In the French Mediterranean port of Marseille, construction of a large mosque is being hotly debated. Even though the cornerstone has already been laid, the project is far from being accepted by everyone.The controversy reflects the deeper tensions simmering beneath the city's surface.France's oldest and second largest city, founded by Phoenician sailors in 600 B.C., Marseille has absorbed waves of immigrants throughout its history and is now a melting pot of cultures.Many people say the mix of politics, immigration and history makes Marseille an explosive place. Only last week, the premier of a film on the Algerian War brought hundreds of angry protesters into the streets declaring that it was anti-French.Djellil sits in a café where the Arab language news channel Al Jazeera plays in the background. He says that like him, many young Muslims are now rejecting a French identity and turning toward the values and religion of their countries of origin.The faces of the Frenchmen, who are Catholic and Jewish, are deeply tanned and wrinkled, attesting to a lifetime spent under the Mediterranean sun. They say they are against the mosque, but their objections seem to be about more than religion."They come here and then they live in their own world," he says. "They absolutely do not want to integrate. Look at these crazy burkas and things like that. How can we be expected to love them?"Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:TundraTabloids.Ian Buruma in Turkish "Today's Zaman" disparages rise of Islam critical parties in europe.The Tundra Tabloids finds it odd that a British writer for aTurkish paper (Todays' Zaman) bemoans the political state of affairs in Europe which sees the rise of Islam critical parties, while completely ignoring the fact that it's the influence of Islam as a religious/political in Turkey under the AKP, which has directly influenced and underlined the positions promoted by these same parties he disparages in his column.Writing in the Today's Zaman, professor Ian Buruma, of Bard college, makes mention of the Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, the Danish People’s Party, led by Pia Kjaersgaard, and Jimmy Akesson’s Sweden Democrats, in saying that they "claim to be the defenders of Western civilization against its main enemy: Islam." Interestingly enough, Buruma, without exception, fails to note the reasons why these political leaders, and their parties, have become relevant in today's European political landscape. He fails to mention that it's the valid threat of the erosion of these European civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the gradual chipping away at their liberal democracies and the destruction of their cultural heritage as a whole, being ignored by the political self anointed elite, that has given life to these new political parties.Note how he takes aim at the American Tea Party movement, a movement by the way, that's founded on the strict observance of the US constitution, as a member of the "populist club", but an Obama administration, who's president ran a campaign that included his own fake presidential seal, an iconic photo of "hope & change", mass faintings in the crowds of his true believers who left these events thinking that they wouldn't have to fill their gas tanks anymore or even pay their rent, .... somehow doesn't quite qualify as one.Ian Buruma is a left-wing ideologue who finds it more important to bolster his fellow socialists in Europe and in the US (Obama and like ilk) than in addressing the actual truth behind the rise of these parties, his refusal to admit anything about the present AKP's role in highlighting European fears of Islam, should not go unnoticed.Read the full story here .click here for comments.

• Europe turns right! AMSTERDAM -- Whatever happened to the good Europeans, those nice folks in small northern countries who liked to think of themselves as the world champions of liberty and tolerance?Of course, many liberal Europeans are still alive and well. But first in Denmark, then in the Netherlands, and now in Sweden, illiberal, populist parties stirring up fear of immigrants -- specifically Muslim immigrants -- have managed to gain enough power to set, or at least influence, their countries’ political agendas.These parties are not confined to Scandinavia and the Low Countries, but are part of a global wave of anger against political elites, who are blamed for all of the insecurities that come with global economics, the financial crisis, and living in more ethnically mixed societies. The psychology behind the Tea Party in the United States and the anti-immigrant parties in Europe is similar, even if their policies vary.Modern European populists don’t wear black shirts, or indulge in street violence. Their leaders are youngish men in sharp suits, who don’t use the language of race, but that of freedom and democracy.The Dutch Freedom Party (whose only member is its leader, Geert Wilders), the Danish People’s Party, led by Pia Kjaersgaard, and Jimmy Akesson’s Sweden Democrats claim to be the defenders of Western civilization against its main enemy: Islam. They talk about Western liberties, including freedom of speech, but Wilders wants to ban the Quran and the burqa, and a Danish member of parliament has called Islam “a plague upon Europe.”Did you know that Geert Wilders has left the VVD in 2004, because the VVD wants to admit Turkey to the EU and Wilders is unconditionally opposed to this?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.