The Spreading Scent of Cologne, Gatestone Institute, Denis MacEoin, January 26, 2016
What appalls so many onlookers is that this damage to European societies is being done with open eyes and listening ears, and that many lessons have not been learned.
What appalls so many onlookers is that this damage to European societies is being done with open eyes and listening ears, and that many lessons have not been learned.The city of Cologne, still famous for its scented water, has become, since last New Year’s Eve, best known for the depredations and misogyny of a growing population of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The events of that evening, when hundreds of women were assaulted, manhandled, and even raped by thousands of migrant newcomers who could not be restrained by the police, spread across the world in days if not hours.
At first, the police played down the seriousness of the incidents, but by January 10th, the BBC reported that the number of criminal cases had risen to 516, forty percent of which were related to sexual assault. According to German police, “Asylum seekers and illegal migrants from North Africa comprise the majority of suspects.” This has been confirmed by Germany’s interior ministry, which has stated that almost all those involved were migrants.
A scene from New Year’s Eve in front of Cologne’s central railway station, when hundreds of girls and women were sexually assaulted, mostly by migrants.
Of course, Cologne was only the most prominent city to undergo such an ordeal: According to the Washington Post, “No city was hit harder than Cologne, where gangs of mostly young men are alleged to have ‘hunted’ women, corralling them before groping, assaulting and robbing them.” A smaller number of incidents occurred in other German cities such as Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt. In the thirteenth-century city of Bielefeld, more than 500 presumed asylum seekers attacked the Elephant Club , a night spot, and assaulted some of the women there. There were similar cases on the same evening in Austria, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden….
…There are an estimated 750 zones urbaines sensibles (“sensitive urban zones”) in France; many cities in Europe have such high levels of Muslim exclusivity that they have become no-go zones for the police, the fire brigade, social workers and others. According to one report
“It’s not Norway or Europe anymore, except when there is welfare money to be collected. The police have largely given up. Early in 2010 Aftenposten stated that there are sharia patrols in this area, and gay couples are assaulted and chased away. Immigrant Fatima Tetouani says that ‘Grønland is more Muslim than Morocco.’”
Three months earlier, retired police Chief Superintendent Torsten Elofsson of Malmö, Sweden’s third city, declared that the crime rate in the city was skyrocketing due to the influence of uncontrolled immigration and the presence of no-go areas. The French city of Marseilles, with a 30%-40% Muslim population, has been declared “the most dangerous city in Europe” because of an increasing level of extreme violence, riots and rapes.
What appalls so many onlookers is that this damage is being done with open eyes and listening ears and that many lessons have not been learned, not just in the past year but over decades. What on earth, many of us ask, could have impelled so many European leaders — among whom German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands out — to have opened their arms to potentially millions of immigrants without imposing checks, registration at the point of entry, or other legal controls?
…Welcoming people who fear for their lives and their children’s futures is a strong trait of Western civilization. Unlike so many other cultures, the Judaeo-Christian and post-Enlightenment West has a deeply-rooted commitment to human rights, and those rights are not restricted to ourselves but to all mankind. Both Judaism and Christianity are suffused with a sense of human brotherhood, and that sense has led to the modern ideals of rights for women, people of all races, homosexuals, the disabled, religious minorities, and the victims of violence. Nowhere, perhaps, has this been more visible in the United States, a country that was built on the backs of immigrants.With this in view, and with the memory of the Holocaust and Europe’s failure to prevent it in mind, it was inevitable that European countries would at first welcome the poor, hungry and distressed of Syria and other places.
…There may not be a Huntingtonian “Clash of Civilizations” at present, but cultural clashes have been dominating the debate, even if many worthy individuals and organizations prefer to turn a blind eye to their consequences.Catholics settled within a generation or two to become loyal citizens with a minimum of foreign cultural traits….In Western countries, freedom of speech and expression is supposed to be a non-negotiable value of public life, with open comment and debate regarded as the life-blood of an open society (as defined, for example, by the late Sir Karl Popper). But, as case after case has shown in Europe and the United States, freedom of this kind is anathema to all devout Muslims. Novels have been banned; authors and translators attacked, flogged and murdered; cartoons have led to rioting, a film-maker was stabbed through the heart — all for having said or illustrated something that allegedly offended some Muslims. Meanwhile, Muslim radicals make use of their freedom to write, publish, and post on the internet vast quantities of hate speech, that often includes a denial of the right to Western freedoms, not only to themselves but to everyone… As recently reported by London’s Daily Mail, Muslim hate speakers are given free rein to address students at many British universities. The double-standard and hypocrisy is that the same universities have banned controversial but important speakers such as the feminist Germaine Greer, historian David Starkey, or just about anybody who supports the state of Israel. And if speakers are not actually banned, hordes of ideologically-inspired students and outsiders will turn up to disrupt their lectures with shouts, screams, and threats. This happened on 19 January, when a mob of anti-Israel activists at King’s College, London, attacked a talk given by Ami Ayalon, now a peace activist and former head of Israeli secret service Shin Bet and commander-in-chief of the navy. The meeting was disturbed by protestors, thought to be from the KCL Action Palestine student group, who threw chairs, smashed windows, and set off fire alarms.
Not all of these bans have been down to Muslims, but many — including the anti-Israel campaigners — have included a large Muslim presence. Anyone who speaks out against the clash between extremist Islam and European culture is bound to be condemned as a “racist” or an “Islamophobe.” Such is the illiberal “liberal” culture that sees even the mildest concern to be opposed to the “righteous” tendencies of our moral guardians — such as highly conservative Christians like Britain’s intolerant Mary Whitehouse.
…Fortunately, recent events have been something of a wake-up alarm. Norway is already providing classes for refugees on Norwegian cultural norms, including sexual mores. The Danish parliament has debated doing the same, and Belgium has just announced that it will makes classes on “respect for women” obligatory for all non-European migrants and refugees. Will Germany follow? Or will political correctness insist that doing so would be contemptuous of the autonomy and cultural rights of non-white people?”
