RUTHFULLY YOURS

BARCELONA—Catalonia’s leader said Monday that any declaration of separation from Spain won’t come for at least several days, putting pressure on the government in Madrid to make the next move in the standoff between the country and the restive region.

The two sides were carefully weighing their next steps the day after Catalan voters appeared to overwhelmingly back independence in a referendum boycotted by opponents and marred by violence, leaving hundreds of civilians injured and raising the political stakes.

Carles Puigdemont said Catalan authorities were still tallying the official results and weren’t likely to send them to regional lawmakers until at least Wednesday. The Catalan parliament, where separatists have a majority, would then have 48 hours under the vote’s enabling legislation to declare Catalonia’s separation from Spain.

The central government in Madrid says the vote was illegal because it violated Spain’s constitution, which upholds the “indissoluble unity” of Spain. Police, acting on court orders, tried to prevent voters from entering polling stations and using voting material.

Mr. Puigdemont’s slight delay throws the ball into the court of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a conservative who has taken a hard line against Catalan separation. A strong reaction from Mr. Rajoy—for instance preemptively stripping Catalonia of the autonomy it currently has—would likely bolster Mr. Puigdemont’s support among his voters. The pause also allows the Catalan leader to present himself as open to dialogue, and not solely focused on declaring independence.

Many analysts think secession is unlikely to materialize. “There will ultimately be a settlement on regional financial reform and greater autonomy for Catalonia within Spain but this will be a drawn-out process,” Fitch Ratings analysts said in a research report.

Mr. Puigdemont is seeking to muster international attention and backing for his independence push and assess his domestic support by playing down his urgency, analysts said.

“You burn political capital by moving too quickly and unilaterally,” said Antonio Barroso, a political analyst at consulting firm Teneo Intelligence. CONTINUE AT SITE

A hundred years ago, in the early hours of November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviks grabbed power in Petrograd. Within weeks they took advantage of Russia’s collapsing political and social structure to impose control over the country’s heartland. The result of the coup was a tragedy of world-historical proportions. A vibrant, flourishing culture (see “Remembering the Old Russia,” Breaking Glass, September) was destroyed amid a bloodbath 100 times worse than la Terreur.

In the preceding quarter-century Russia had undergone rapid modernization. On the eve of the Great War she was the world’s fourth-largest economy, her annual growth rate comparable to that of China after Deng’s reforms. Her railway network exceeded 50,000 miles, and her gold reserves were second only to Britain’s. Her wheat harvest had doubled in the two decades preceding 1913. That year Russia had the lowest direct taxes in Europe, four times lower than those of France and Germany, one eighth of the British rate. Real incomes had increased sixfold between 1893 and 1913. Workers’ rights, public health, and literacy were improving accordingly. Of some 150,000 new book titles published worldwide in 1914, over one fifth of them were published in Russia—as many as in Britain, France, and the United States combined. Paul Valéry called the late empire one of the wonders of the world, which, despite its modernity and unlike Western Europe, still retained a Christian outlook.

The leaders of Wilhelmine Germany feared that Russia’s growth would turn her into Europe’s hegemon. As Fritz Fischer established in his 1961 Germany’s Aims in the First World War, the Kaiserreich military and political elite engineered the crisis after Sarajevo to wage a “preventive” war and thus preempt Russia’s rapid economic, demographic, and military rise. The same people actively helped Lenin et al. on their sealed train journey from Zurich to Petrograd three years later, thus sealing Europe’s destiny (as well as their own).

The revolution that ended monarchy in March 1917, leading to its Bolshevik sequel eight months later, did not come because the material condition of Russian peasants and workers was unbearable, or because the war was going badly. The weakness of Nicholas II, the role of his unstable wife, the influence of Rasputin—all were on balance peripheral. The revolution came primarily because Russia’s political and intellectual elite had lost its faith, focus, and nerve.

The most significant trait of the Bolshevik terror during the civil war and in the ensuing decades was the promotion of a quasi religious forma mentis based on anti-Christian zeal, and the parallel insistence on the creation of a New Man divorced from his ancestors, his naturally evolving communities, and his culture. As Trotsky wrote in 1924,

Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.

By claiming that Islam is “feminist,” these self-appointed advocates seem to be trying to convince others that Islam is keeping up with modernity, human rights, and democratic values. This, sadly is a lie, and one that unfortunately seems told to facilitate the assimilation of Islam into Western countries and to improve its image.

Furthermore, both men and women from their earliest age are indoctrinated by a male-dominated society to think that staying subjugated is part of a woman’s fulfillment of her duty toward both her husband and her religion.

Many women like the idea of being supported by a husband and not having to find an outside job. Nowadays, a large number of young women do not even finish their studies, but instead stay home to wait for their “prince charming” to get married. That they would apparently prefer to be their husband’s “slave” and “concubine” to working to support themselves is probably often the main reason they reject Western values such as feminism and gender equality.

Lately, western Muslim “feminists” such as Linda Sarsour or Yasmin Abdel-Magied claim that Islam is a “feminist religion” that respects women’s rights. “Islam to me,” says Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-Australian author, “is the most feminist religion”.

By claiming that Islam is “feminist,” these self-appointed advocates seem to be trying to convince others that Islam is keeping up with modernity, human rights, and democratic values. This, sadly is a lie, and one that unfortunately seems told to facilitate the assimilation of Islam into Western countries and to improve its image.

The religion of Islam is supported by Sharia, a set of religious laws that organize the lives of all Muslims. Sharia — originally, in Arabic, “The Path,” but in modern times meaning Allah’s laws and recommendations — is based on the Quran and the hadiths, which are sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, regarded by many Muslims as the perfect man.

Under Sharia, however, Muslim women enjoy fewer rights than men. In inheritance for instance, “The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females”(Quran 4:11). This law is applied even in countries such as Tunisia or Algeria, in which the legal system is not based on Sharia. As a result, Muslim women habitually inherit far less money than men, an injustice that virtually forces them, economically, to stay submissive to men. It is also a situation that has built into it the reason this law is never repealed by any parliament.

Another “tradition” perpetuated by Sharia is polygamy: allowing Muslim men to have up to four wives:

“And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan-girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four…” Quran (4:3).

Countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, under the pretext of “practicing Sharia,” have thereby legalized — and thereby even further cemented — the submission of women.

In addition, both men and women from their earliest age, are indoctrinated by a male-dominated society to think that staying subjugated is part of a woman’s fulfillment of her duty toward both her husband and her religion.

Women in Islam are often regarded as men’s possessions — here to satisfy and please them whenever their men wish:

“Your wives are a place of sowing of seed for you, so come to your place of cultivation however you wish and put forth [righteousness] for yourselves.” (Quran 2:223).

The concept of women as objects of desire has often led to complicated outcomes:

“Beautified for people is the love of that which they desire — of women and sons, heaped-up sums of gold and silver, fine branded horses, and cattle and tilled land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life, but Allah has with Him the best return.” (Quran 3:14).

From it, “Jihad al-Nikah”, sexual Jihad, has arisen. “Nikah”, in Arabic, actually has multiple meanings, which include temporary marriage as well as offering oneself as a “comfort” to Muslim fighters on the battlefield. Young women recruited by ISIS for “Jihad al-Nikah” are basically “sex toys,” concubines, pleasuring terrorists for a few hours.

A man wielding a butcher knife and shouting “God is great” in Arabic stabbed two ​young ​women to death — slitting one’s throat — outside a French train station before being shot dead by soldiers Sunday morning.

​The Paris prosecutor’s office launched a terrorism investigation into the killings in Marseilles. Hours later ISIS claimed the attacker was its “soldier.”

The unidentified terrorist struck ​his victims — who were just 17 and 20 — ​at the Gare Saint-Charles train station​, cutting one’s throat and stabbing the other in the chest and stomach.​

​He crept up behind his unsuspecting first victim, a witness named Dominique said, according to The Telegraph.

“She couldn’t have seen a thing,” she said.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the man seemed to be fleeing after killing his first victim but turned around and attacked the second woman while again shouting “Allahu Akbar (God is great).

He then rushed towards Operation Sentinelle soldiers responding to the scene and they gunned him down. The soldiers have been stationed around key sites in France am
id an ongoing state of emergency called to combat increasing terror attacks.

“We have until now managed to avoid such dramatic incidents,” said Marseilles Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin. “I think it was a terrorist attack and the individual who was killed seems to have had several identities.”

In the eyes of some, Emmanuel Macron flunked it.

When the French president last week delivered a marathon speech outlining his vision of the European Union, many economists hoped this would include a radical plan for deeper eurozone fiscal integration.

Indeed, the expectation was that this would form the core of his speech. Yet Mr. Macron didn’t say anything about pooling eurozone debts and had little to say on the creation of a common eurozone budget. Instead, the most eye-catching parts of his speech concerned security and defense, where he proposed a far-reaching agenda to secure the EU’s external borders, stabilize its neighborhood and establish a European Defence Force to be funded by a new tax on financial transactions.

But Mr. Macon’s choice of priorities shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It isn’t just that the chances of the EU reaching an agreement on fiscal integration look remote given opposition from several Northern European countries, not just Germany.

The reality is that there is no urgent need for the eurozone to pursue fiscal integration, particularly now that it is in a cyclical recovery. Sure, the eurozone remains vulnerable to shocks. But there is little the eurozone could do that would improve its ability to cope with a crisis in the Italian bond markets—widely perceived to be the biggest threat to eurozone stability—nor the risk that the crisis in Spain over Sunday’s attempted referendum on Catalonian independence spirals into a wider threat to financial stability. For now, the key to strengthening the eurozone lies in policies that will raise potential growth through better functioning markets, which is where Mr. Macron focused his economic agenda.

Europe’s security challenges, on the other hand, really do pose a clear and present risk to the EU’s survival.

Senior officials say that the closest the EU came to collapse was at the height of the migration crisis in 2015. The arrival of more than one million asylum seekers led to a collapse in public trust in the EU. The flow has since been slowed, with arrivals in Italy and Greece in recent months having diminished to a trickle. But the legacy of 2015 continues to cast a shadow over European politics, as shown by strong support for the anti-immigration Alternative fur Deutschland party in last week’s German elections. EU officials estimate around 200,000 people will attempt to enter the EU illegally this year, in line with the long-term average over the previous two decades, but even this may no longer be politically sustainable. To win back public trust, the EU needs to show it is in full control of its borders. CONTINUE AT SITE

The news from Catalonia — at the time of this writing, Sunday night in America — is not good. There has been violent confrontation over the independence referendum.

Hundreds injured in Catalonia as Spanish police crack down on referendum vote…
Police acting on orders from the Spanish government to stop the voting across the country’s northeastern region clashed with Catalans who were attempting to stop them from confiscating ballots. Videos that emerged Sunday on social media appear to show police using brutal force on people attempting to cast their vote.

Catalonia’s health service said Sunday night that at least 844 people were injured today by the evening — nearly half of them in the Barcelona region, where police fired rubber bullets near at least one polling station, according to The Associated Press. Spanish authorities said 11 police officers were injured in the melees.
— ABC News

For weeks, the Spanish state had been doing all it could to obstruct and suppress the then upcoming October 1st vote. The Madrid government had been threatening people, arresting Catalan officials, and had stepped in to take over the province’s finances.

Spain has taken control of Catalonia’s finances to prevent funds being used for an independence referendum it deems illegal, a move that limits the region’s autonomy and puts in doubt the payment of thousands of public workers’ salaries. — TheLocal.es, September 20, 2017

On October 1st, Madrid followed through with its threats of force should the referendum go ahead.

What immediately comes to mind is that Madrid did not act as forcefully as Franco would have. Franco would have sent in tanks and just killed people. The present Spanish response might have been thuggish, but it was measured. Likewise, the response of the Catalan people and their representatives were also measured.

It was not totally clear how the vote was going to swing. Pro-Madrid media were accusing the Catalans of suppressing local anti-Independence sympathies; and there seemed to be a degree of truth to that, as the data indicated. Still, however, Catalonia had a long history of striving for independence. There seemed to be real local sympathy for their cause. While most anticipated a victory for the pro-independence side, there was also the precedent of how the referendum for Scottish independence failed in 2014. Recently, even the Catalan government produced some disturbing poll results.

Opinion polls are hard to come by but the clearest indication came in July, when a public survey commissioned by the Catalan government suggested 41% were in favour and 49% were opposed to independence. — BBC

Politicians and Muslim community leaders are cautioning against potential community backlash after a suspected terrorism attack in Edmonton Saturday night.

A 30-year-old man is in custody following a high-speed chase just before midnight through streets filled with bar patrons and football fans. A man stabbed a police officer with a knife and deliberately plowed into pedestrians on Edmonton’s busiest downtown strip, police say.

Abdulahi Hasan Sharif is the man accused in the attacks, multiple sources tell CBC News.

The chase ended after a white U-Haul van the man was driving struck four pedestrians and flipped on its side. Cst. Mike Chernyk was the officer injured in the violent altercation, sources tell CBC News.

Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht confirmed that a black ISIS flag was seized from a car where the police officer was attacked. The officer was not critically injured. The condition of the four pedestrians is not known.

“Based on evidence at the scenes and the actions of the suspect … it was determined that these incidents are being investigated as acts of terrorism,” Knecht said.

The incident triggered a torrent of hate messages on social media, much of it targeting Muslims.
‘Hatred has no place in Alberta’

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley thanked first responders for bravery during the chaotic night and urged the public to avoid lashing out.

“The horrific events last night in downtown Edmonton have left us shocked and angry,” Notley said in a statement. “It’s left us shocked at the indiscriminate cruelty and angry that someone might target their hatred at places where we gather with our families and friends.

‘Alberta we must stand together in defence of our loved ones, friends and neighbours’3:12

“Hatred has no place in Alberta. It’s not who we are. We are in this together and together we are stronger than any form of hate.”

Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson called for vigilance and urged the community to remain calm.

“To the best of our knowledge this was a lone wolf attack,” Iveson told a news conference Sunday. “Terrorism is about creating panic and sowing divide and disputing people’s lives, so we can succumb to that or we can rise above it.”

Edmonton suspected terror attack likely a ‘lone wolf’ incident, says Mayor Don Iveson

Members of Edmonton’s Muslim community are strongly condemning the attacks and calling for solidarity within the community.

Edmonton human rights activist Ahmed Abdikadir said he felt “anger and frustration” at news the violence may have been the work of a terrorist. He fears the attack may result in a backlash against the city’s minority communities.

I’ve stumbled across this video from earlier this year, on Jews in Norway, which I think deserves a look.

‘TV 2 Norway investigate Norwegian anti-Semitism. The word “Jew” is a common insult in many communities in Norway. What role does the neo-Nazis’, muslim immigrations and the – BDS (boycott Israel) movement play – if any? And: Can old prejudices be joked away?’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q4tnJmHzk0