RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative”.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

Part 1 can be found here – click.

Part 2 can be found here – click.

The outstretched hand

The hagadah that is read during the pesach [Passover] seder is an intensely concentrated treatise on the subject of freedom. Something similar is happening in France today. The issues are dramatized by reality, realities that were deliberately kept out of sight have suddenly burst into the discourse and cannot be ignored. An intense concentrate of the issues that have been playing out since the end of September 2000* will reach a conclusion on the night of 23-24 April 2017 when the votes are counted and we will know what French citizens have decided to do about jihad conquest. The future of Europe, of the free world hangs in the balance. [* see my latest release, Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century]

Back then, deaf to the alarms of anti-Jewish violence triggered by the al Dura blood libel, French society stumbled from willful blindness to cozy antizionism until the rude awakening of the Charlie Hebdo executions, followed by the November 13th 2015 mass jihad murders. Again, today, the murder of a 67 year-old Jewish woman thrown out the window like a piece of garbage by her Muslim neighbor did not move the media or intrude on a presidential campaign that keeps veering away from the crucial issue of survival.

And now, 18 April, a thunderbolt strikes: Mahiedine Merabet and Clément Baur are arrested in Marseille, suspected of preparing an imminent jihad attack on “the campaign.” They had the full kit: ski masks,koranic verses, a go-pro camera, explosives, nuts and bolts, loaded assault weapons, and a hunting knife for good measure. British intelligence detected their allegiance to Daesh video and informed French authorities. François Fillon is the designated target, “talion law” is spelled out in bullets, and photos of Muslim children killed in bombings are displayed as justification. Mujahidin do not attack civilians…except in retaliation for crimes committed against Muslims.

Four days before the close of the campaign, Islamic totalitarianism pounces on us like a man-eating tiger on a forest path. Doesn’t that change everything? The danger to our democracy is not the employment of family members as parliamentary assistants! Two men of French nationality, one born into Islam, the other a convert, two lowlifes of no particular dimension, two flagged security risks like thousands of others, could have assassinated one of the four leading candidates and an untold number of supporters. Two common ordinary men loyal to the caliphate could have derailed the democratic process. A little monkey wrench thrown into the mechanism brings it to a halt.

On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German
troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving
inhabitants. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and
left the ghetto area in ruins. Surviving ghetto residents were
deported to concentration camps or killing centers.

Background

Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authorities
deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. SS and
police units deported 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and
11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries
murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the
deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000
Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews
remained in the ghetto in hiding. For the at least 55,000-60,000 Jews
remaining in the Warsaw ghetto, deportationseemed inevitable.

In response to the deportations, on July 28, 1942, several Jewish
underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as
the Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB).
Rough estimates put the size of the ZOB at its formation at around 200
members. The Revisionist Party (right-wing Zionists known as the
Betar) formed another resistance organization, the Jewish Military
Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy; ZZW). Although initially there was
tension between the ZOB and the ZZW, both groups decided to work
together to oppose German attempts to destroy the ghetto. At the time
of the uprising, the ZOB had about 500 fighters in its ranks and the
ZZW had about 250.

Najia Karimi is executive director of the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan, a partner of the global women’s group Donor Direct Action.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — I was born in Kabul, raised in Pakistan and returned home after the fall of the Taliban to work in what is now the most dangerous country in the world to be female.

My parents’ generation had much more freedom than I and the other girls in my family did, and the downward trend continues. Young girls today are even more limited in their choices than I was. In Afghanistan, 60% of us are forcibly married by age 16. Only 15% of our girls are educated, and fatwas have been issued in some regions banning girls from going to school at all. Women and girls are punished for any “immoral act” that “brings shame” to the family, including elopement or perceived sexual misconduct. Acid attacks, stoning, rape and murder are all deemed acceptable punishments when a man’s “honor” has been threatened.

Invasions by Russia and the United States, alongside the ever-present threat of the Taliban and other groups, has meant that Afghan girls and women are in danger both inside and outside our homes. And the situation is only getting worse. Women who try to change the system by entering politics are particularly at risk of being targeted with violence. There is almost nowhere safe for us to go, and when we try to make things better, we put our lives at risk.
There is almost nowhere safe for us to go, and when we try to make things better, we put our lives at risk.

Since unlike so many others I’ve had the benefit of an education, I’ve put my privilege to use by working for an Afghan women’s group that runs an emergency women’s shelter in Kabul. We provide a refuge for women and girls fleeing sexual or domestic violence.

Zarmina is one of the many girls who have sought our assistance. Now 14, she was only 2 years old when her mother sold her off to a 22-year-old Taliban member. Four years ago, he forced her to move in with him. Between then and last September, when she came to the shelter, Zarmina was given food only once a day and was raped on a regular basis. When we met her, she was ill and deeply traumatized.

We helped her get urgent medical treatment and support in the shelter. She soon went back to school, but with nobody else to support her, Zarmina is dependent on us. If she returns to her village, the Taliban will stone her to death.

Another girl, Mah Jabin, was 10 years old when she was handed over to a man who beat and raped her over the course of three years. In despair, she poured a gallon of gasoline over herself and lit a match. Her mother found her just in time and put the flames out. She spent a month in the hospital with life-threatening burns and lived with us for a year under continuous medical treatment. We helped her get a divorce and a warrant was issued for her husband’s arrest. She is now also back at school.

These are just two of the roughly 200 cases that we take on every single year.