RUTHFULLY YOURS

In President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s view, Belarus is decent and peaceful, but Western Europe is not. Merely because Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, agreed to open a mosque to lure some Turkish investment.

Back in Turkey, things look very Belarusian — even worse — rather than Western European, a culture Erdogan despises.

President Erdogan’s crackdown on dissent goes at full speed. Asli Erdogan, a peace activist and novelist, worked for Ozgur Gundem, a pro-Kurdish newspaper. She has remained in prison since her August arrest. The prosecutors demand an aggravated life sentence plus 17.5 years in jail for her. How did Asli Erdogan, the novelist, “support terror”? This is from the indictment: “… in an understanding of a novelist [the accused] portrayed terrorists as citizens in her columns.”

“In the history of the program, there has never been such an extraordinary situation where I think we can say that a democracy is threatening to turn itself into a dictatorship.” — Frank Schwabe, German Social Democratic lawmaker and human rights expert.

Europe’s unpleasant game with Turkey should end at once, with Brussels and Ankara admitting that the planned marriage was an awfully bad idea from the beginning.

Reading his public speeches, one may think that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be joking; that he is a celebrity stand-up comedian, the best in his profession. In reality, he is not joking. He believes in what he says. And he does not want to make people laugh. He is just an Islamist strongman.

Visiting Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in the first week of November for the opening of a mosque in a dictatorial country where there are 100,000 Muslims, Erdogan accused Western Europe for “intolerance that spreads like the plague.”

Erdogan described Belarus, which Western countries describe as a dictatorship, as “a country in which people with different roots live in peace.” In Erdogan’s view Belarus is decent and peaceful, but Western Europe is not. Merely because Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, agreed to open a mosque to lure some Turkish investment.

Missed in all the media bias is the rejoicing in Hungary, Tel Aviv and in Egyptian President Al Sisi’s government.

He isn’t making with the gags himself, but Donald Trump is boosting global merriment by inspiring his critics to make monumental jokes of themselves. They simper, they sob, they pack suitcases and, most of all, they sneer non-stop at voters deemed so less intelligent than their precious selves.
If US President-elect Donald Trump achieves nothing during his four years in the White House, he has at least given us days of laughter following his election. In this grim world of ours there is often little to laugh about, so thank you, Mr. President-elect, for the hilarity following your election. Observing the mainstream media scrutinizing the tea leaves (and their own entrails) has been side-splitting.

Take the ostentatiously virtuous Peter van Onselen, columnist for The Australian, who wants to tear up his US passport because of the Trump triumph. Perhaps he could tear up his Australian passport as well — just so long as he doesn’t litter our streets with its debris, as angry Clinton supporters have been doing in ‘blue” states in the US.

You see, van Onselen says he could not look his daughters in the eye if he did not protest Trump’s stated intention to see Roe v Wade overturned and, more generally, because of Trump’s attitude to women. Well how does Professor van Onselen look his daughters in the eye while babies in China and India are being aborted purely because they are female? And why didn’t he tear up his US passport when President Bill Clinton seduced an intern in the Oval Office, lied about it and plunged the US into years of hearings and impeachment proceedings? Or when Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy parked a one-night girlfriend in a pond, left her to drown and did not report the accident until the following day? And has Professor van Onselen told his daughters about all John F. Kennedy’s affairs, including his fling with a mafiosi’s mistress?

With red ink engulfing welfare-heavy national budgets, identity politics has become the last, desperate gambit to mine the pockets of the productive, hence the alliance of the Islam and the left. The president-elect’s genius was to recognise those being milked are themselves a marginalized group.
When reason guides the minds of men and women, free-market capitalism and prosperity follow. Reason can either be beaten down or, alternatively, elevated by cultural norms. Islamic cultural norms provide an example of the former; Christian norms an example of the latter. Reason is the enemy of progressive politics. That is why Islamists and the Left find common cause.

Progressive policies are disastrous. They produce human misery: debt, dependency, and division. Debt emerges pari passu with unfillable promises of free stuff. Dependency emerges as regulatory obstacles are put in the way of full employment and the unemployed and the dispossessed are seduced with baubles. Division emerges as sets of citizens are pitted against each other in desperate acts of vote-buying.

But surely progressives aren’t bad people? I will leave the question open. It is an open question when supposed good intentions are not informed by bad experience after bad experience. Okay I have gone too far. They are not bad people. I will settle for deluded or self-serving.

Left-wing prescriptions have a use by date. The use by date transpires when, as Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, “you run out of other people’s money.” What the heck do progressives do then? In the best of all worlds they convert to conservatism, as I did, or at least take their bat and ball, go home and sulk. We don’t live in this world so, for the most part, progressives double down.

Their difficulty is that their rationale of the past, representing working people seeking a better deal, no longer holds water. Working people have long since got the better deal. Capitalism has given it to them. Result: constituency gone. The conclusion: target and build up other, motley constituencies of special interests.

These constituencies are those serially dependent on taxpayer support; those who value the habitat of yakka skinks over people’s livelihoods; those who hold the wellbeing of refugees higher than those of citizens; and those who form ethnic minorities. Who is left behind? Those left behind are the white working class; those who in former days formed the left’s core constituency. But it’s worse than that. Policies which benefit special interests almost always damage and marginalize the interests of the white working class.

Enter Donald Trump, brazenly appealing to the newly marginalized. Seven out of ten whites without college degrees voted for Trump according to exit polling (Edison Research). This was roughly the same proportion as Latino women voting for Hillary Clinton. And by the way, white women overall (53%) voted for Trump. Those misogyny charges didn’t cut it.

One of the frustrations of the coverage of the US elections was the overwhelming focus on the candidates’ personalities rather than on their policies. Expect no change in future US elections. The press is in the pocket of the Democrats and the Democrats have no credible policies. Ergo, the press will continue to focus on digging dirt on Republicans. The Washington Post had twenty reporters gunning for Trump. It is a wonder they found so little on a flamboyant rich guy when you think about it.

No left-wing parties across the globe have credible policies. They are out of other people’s money to spend. A claim of inequality is their last desperate economic cause du jour. But it is a blind alley for the left. The only way to produce less inequality without devastating the economy is to adopt conservative policies of less government and less regulation. Inequality rises when economies struggle and falls when they are buoyant, as competition for labour drives up wages.

It’s offical — Nicholas Sarkozy is out of the running to regain the office he once held:

Fance’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy conceded defeat Sunday in the race to choose the conservative nominee for next year’s presidential election. With more than 3.2 million votes counted from about 80 percent of polling stations, former prime minister Francois Fillon had 44 percent, former prime minister Alain Juppe had 28.1 and Sarkozy had 21.1 percent.

The two candidates confirmed as winning the most votes advance to the Nov. 27 runoff.

In a speech from his campaign headquarters in Paris on Sunday, Sarkozy called on his supporters to vote for Fillon in the second round. “I did not succeed in convincing a majority of voters. I do respect and understand the will of those (voters) who have chosen for the future other political leaders than me,” Sarkozy said.

Fillon may win the nomination of Les Républicains, but his path to the Palais de l’Élysée is likely to be blocked by “far-right” candidate Marine le Pen, who seeks to ride the same anti-establishment wave that saw Britain ankle the EU and Trump put paid to Hillary Clinton’s girlish presidential fantasy.

The conservative nominee is expected to have strong chances of winning the April-May presidential election, because traditional rivals on the left have been weakened by Socialist Francois Hollande’s troubled presidency.

The conservative candidate’s main challenger may turn out to be far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is hoping anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-establishment sentiment can propel her to the presidency. Le Pen, official candidate of her once-pariah National Front party, did not take part in the conservative primary.

The conservatives’ campaign has focused on immigration and security concerns following recent attacks by Islamic extremists.

Islam is, of course, le Pen’s strong suit — meaning she’s against its encroachment into Christian Europe, as is every patriotic Frenchmen and responsible European. Polls had already shown le Pen clobbering Sarkozy and she’s like to be able to defeat Fillon as well. Juppe had been tipped as le Pen’s strongest rival, but his second-place finish (which ensures him a runoff against Fillon) doesn’t bode well.

Front National leader Marine Le Pen has taken a sizeable lead over Nicolas Sarkozy in a new French presidential election poll. The far-right leader had 29 per cent of the vote when pitted against Les Républicains’ former president, who was eight points behind, and held a 15-point lead over the Parti de Gauche’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the poll released by Ipsos.

Now that Sarkozy is out of the race, French intellectuals are waking up to the real possibility that le Pen will defeat the “conservative” candidate, whether Fillon or Juppe, and trounce incumbent socialist Francois Hollande, should he choose to run again. CONTINUE AT SITE

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she will run for a fourth term next year, launching her re-election campaign at one of the most challenging times the chancellor has seen in her 11 years in office.

Ms. Merkel seeks to lead the conservative ticket at the next general election in the fall of 2017, she told reporters after announcing her decision to leaders of her Christian Democratic Union in Berlin.

“I have thought about it endlessly,” Ms. Merkel said. “After 11 years, the decision about a fourth candidacy is anything but trivial for the country, the party and for me personally.”

The chancellor will also run for a new term as CDU chairman next month. Her nomination as candidate for chancellor still needs to be approved at a joint meeting of the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Social Union.

Ms. Merkel’s candidacy ends months of speculation within her own party, which widely expected her to run again as there is no clear alternative candidate who could fill her shoes.

“She has no choice now,” said Frank Decker, political scientist at the University of Bonn. “Changing horses so close to the election simply would have left her party in great distress.”
Germany in the Age of Populism

German approval for Chancellor Angela Merkel has eroded amid concern about her handling of the refugee crisis and general anxiety about the future, fueling support for an anti-immigrant political party.

The chancellor acknowledged that she would enter an election campaign that will be tougher than any of the three previous contests.

“We will face opposition from all sides,“ Ms. Merkel said, citing both populist and left-wing opponents at home and abroad who “threaten our values and way of life in Germany.” CONTINUE AT SITE

PARIS—Former President Nicolas Sarkozy was knocked out of the first round of the French conservatives’ primary, marking a significant upset in the race to become France’s next president.

Mr. Sarkozy, who centered his campaign on pledges for hard-line security measures and a clampdown on immigration, was hobbled by a late, surprise surge in support for his former prime minister, François Fillon, who ran on a pledge to deliver a shock to the French economy with deep spending cuts and labor overhauls.

Results from 8,890 of the 10,228 polling stations across the country showed Mr. Fillon won 44.1% of the votes, ahead of the 28.3% received by Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppé, who recent polls showed had been the favorite to win the primary. Mr. Sarkozy, by contrast, won just 20.9% of votes.

The former French leader’s elimination in the first round upends a conservative primary that is set to have sweeping consequences in France. Polls show the winner next Sunday would be best placed to win the presidential election in May against the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen.

Mr. Fillon and Mr. Juppé will now advance to a runoff next Sunday. Mr. Sarkozy, who conceded defeat late Sunday, said he would throw his support behind Mr. Fillon. “It is time for me to attempt a life with more private passion and less public passion,” Mr. Sarkozy said.

Until last week, polls had shown Mr. Sarkozy would easily reach the second round and go head-to-head with Mr. Juppé in a second-round race centered on questions of French identity and security in the aftermath of a string of terror attacks in France.

Mr. Sarkozy shifted to the right in his campaign in a bid to reach out to Ms. Le Pen’s supporters. He advocated suspending the right of immigrants to bring their families to France and locking up people of watch lists deemed dangerous by intelligence services. Mr. Juppé, meanwhile, tacked in the other direction, centering his campaign on a pledge to reforge a “happy identity” that respects differences and overcomes tensions in French society.

Mr. Fillon’s progression to the second round significantly changes the dynamic of the campaign. CONTINUE AT SITE

THE HAGUE—If the European dream is to die, it may be the Netherlands that delivers the fatal blow. The Dutch general election in March is shaping up to be a defining moment for the European project.

The risk to the European Union doesn’t come from Geert Wilders, the leader of anti-EU, anti-immigration Party for Freedom. He is well ahead in the polls and looks destined to benefit from many of the social and economic factors that paved the way for the Brexit and Trump revolts.

But the vagaries of the Dutch political system make it highly unlikely that Mr. Wilders will find his way into government. As things stand, he is predicted to win just 29 out of the 150 seats in the new parliament, and mainstream parties seem certain to shun him as a coalition partner. In an increasingly fragmented Dutch political landscape, most observers agree that the likely outcome of the election is a coalition of four or five center-right and center-left parties.

Instead, the risk to the EU comes instead from a new generation of Dutch euroskeptics who are less divisive and concerned about immigration but more focused on questions of sovereignty—and utterly committed to the destruction of the EU. Its leading figures are Thierry Baudet and Jan Roos, who have close links to British euroskeptics. They have already scored one significant success: In 2015, they persuaded the Dutch parliament to adopt a law that requires the government to hold a referendum on any law if 300,000 citizens request it. They then took advantage of this law at the first opportunity to secure a vote that rejected the EU’s proposed trade and economic pact with Ukraine, which Brussels saw as a vital step in supporting a strategically important neighbor.

This referendum law is a potential bomb under the EU, as both Dutch politicians and Brussels officials are well aware. Mr. Baudet believes he now has the means to block any steps the EU might seek to take to deepen European integration or stabilize the eurozone if they require Dutch legislation. This could potentially include aid to troubled Southern European countries such as Greece and Italy, rendering the eurozone unworkable. CONTINUE AT SITE

“Allah, kill the despicable Christians. Allah, kill each and every last one of them….” — 16-year-old Muslim son of an Islamic cleric living in Belgium.

“ISIS is not the problem… They shaved my head, they put my head in freezing cold water and then into boiling hot water. They burned their cigarettes on me, they electrocuted me.” — Majed el-Shafie, imprisoned and tortured in Egypt for converting to Christianity.

A Christian girl faces death threats if she does not return to her Muslim abductor who forcibly converted her to Islam. The family of a Christian girl who was kidnapped, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and then forcibly married to a Muslim are now under threat if they refuse to hand back their daughter to her captors.

Islamic hate for Christians was on display throughout the month of August. Shortly after an 80-year-old Catholic priest in France was slaughtered by Muslims who stormed his church during mass, the 16-year-old Muslim son of an Islamic cleric living in Belgium made a video and posted it on social media. In the video, he appears walking along the main street of the Belgian city of Verviers during Ramadan while making prayers to Allah, which include: “Allah, kill the despicable Christians. Allah, kill each and every last one of them….” According to Immigration Minister Theo Francken:

“It’s obvious that his father, the imam, is promoting such ideas not just to fighters to join the battle in Syria, but also to his own children. The young man who appears in the video reflects the father’s views, and I understand and empathize with the great concern that city residents have over this.”

A deportation order was last reported as pending a court appeal.

Similarly, in the August edition of Dabiq, ISIS’s propaganda magazine, the jihadi organization urged Muslims to destroy the “arrogant Christian disbelievers” and urged them to “pray for Allah’s curse to be upon the liars.” ISIS also threatened Christians to “break the cross.” Those who do and convert to Islam will “enter the Gardens of Paradise,” and those who reject Islam and cling to the cross will die in a “futile” war against ISIS.

As if the Christians of Nigeria were not persecuted enough by Muslim groups, Boko Haram’s new leader, known for killing nonconformist Muslims as well, announced that Christians are now its number one and primary target, and that Boko Haram will continue to “bomb churches and kill Christians while ending attacks on mosques and markets used by ordinary Muslims.” Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the new leader, also spoke of “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the Cross.”