Friends in Need

Autumn Fundraiser 2011, Day One
Here we are again at the quarterly fundraiser. That cup you see is in hand for some spare flour, a few beans from the bag, perhaps an extra egg or two. The usual “whatever you can spare would be appreciated”.

It’s darn hard to beg for a living, though in some ways I’ve come to look forward to our blegs. For one thing, during the week or so prior to the fundraiser we spend time contemplating the previous months in search of a theme, a thread in the tapestry. Though the goal is always the same — i.e., raising enough money to extend our work for yet another quarter — each fundraiser week arrives with its own personality in place. Sometimes events overtake the original idea, but for the most part each day adds to or changes the original notion.

This time, we’ve been talking to one another and reading about community, especially the restorative, creative kinds of shared experience that carve out our place in a given group. We lament the old days, before the ready-made communities collapsed, even as we look forward to seeing what will evolve to take their place.

The zeitgeist is percolating with the same themes and questions. As our decline sets in, we turn to one another to ask, in myriad ways, what it takes for survival. Our response often depends on whatever we’re facing at the moment.

Someone has come up with the Rule of Three. The version I found here is somewhat expanded from the original (which contained three components) but still works. Please, for all the literalists in the crowd: remember the purpose of this mnemonic device, which is to help us cement into place the importance of each essential.

The Rule of Three says we can survive this long:

• Three seconds without hope*;
  
• Three minutes without air;
  
• Three hours without shelter (under extreme conditions);
  
• Three days without water;
  
• Three weeks without food;
  
• Three months without companionship or love.

*[the source for that one is at the link]

Hmmm… I wonder if the last essential is at all connected to our decision to fund-raise at three-month intervals? When we set off on this adventure (I mean in Gates of Vienna’s second phase, i.e., after the Baron lost his job and just as the network with Europeans was increasing. The first phase was more avocational than it became in Phase II), we were advised to fund-raise every month. However, such a short interval wasn’t suited to our temperaments. Thus, three months has come to have a Goldilocks’ just-right feel (well, except for those three-month intervals of sending in our self-employment tax payment to Uncle Sam).

To recall the summer bleg is to bring back the shadow of the massacre in Oslo, of the scapegoating of Fjordman, of the strange events like our earthquake and the hurricane which brushed past us on the way north. That week really did feel like survival time, at least in retrospect.

Now, having flown past the tag ends of summer — green tomatoes retrieved from the garden at last — and the better part of Autumn’s glorious colors all but gone, here we are in the “bare ruined choirs” of mid-November. Really, though, Shakespeare should have noted the way oaks in particular cling to their leaves well past the vestiges of reasonable Autumn. With every passing bluster they persist in rattling those dried clusters as if the year were not winding down.

So we arrive at our theme for this week, one we retrieved after a rummage through our communal clue bag to find whichever idea seems to be weaving its way through our thoughts, our conversations, our reading, and our vague, passing dreams. We want to talk about community in its various forms. What works and what doesn’t. What needs to be retrieved (if that can be done), what needs to be let go…there is a time in every season.

Online communities have their own reality. So many readers tell us they turn to Gates of Vienna first… or second, or third. Sometimes daily, sometimes a rush of catching-up on the weekend. Our community here is literally worldwide (if you don’t count China. The firewall Google installed probably had Gates of Vienna on the no-go list? And Turkey blocks us, too, or so we hear.). Thank heavens for translators who command two (or more) languages! In this community, there isn’t much emphasis on current events. Probably there would be if I were in good health. I would at least be examining the artificial community of the Occupiers — perhaps it’s just as well I can’t do that?

For me and the Baron, one advantage to living and working together so closely is the opportunity to indulge at length in questions surrounding (and arising from) the inherent human need for some kind of belonging. I often think of the person in Berkeley, California who wrote in anguish about the necessity to maintain his real identity as a conservative for fear of losing his job and his friends. Gates of Vienna was a partial substitute for him, but the unhappiness of having to survive in an intellectual and social “underground” was taking its toll.

So: we are all friends in need though our needs may differ on the surface. Again, our need of sufficient funds (ah, if only the rumor we are funded by Mossad were true!) brings us to your door, cup in hand. We are friends in need… think of us as your brother-in-law, but at least we’re not sleeping on your couch.

This week I hope you’ll be entertained and pleased to read the daily endorsements we’ve lined up from among our distinguished friends — people whose work we admire and to whom we openly begged for an endorsement for this quarter’s appeal. Their words are inspiring and hopeful.

Wish us luck, leave a tip, and join us in this week’s journey.


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“An Iron Burka Has Descended Across the Continent”

At Fjordman’s suggestion, the shade of Sir Winston Churchill delivered the following speech yesterday at the United Nations.


Ladies and gentlemen, Western Civilisation stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the Western Democracies. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here and now, clear and shining for all our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that the constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of Western peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.

Mr. Secretary General, when military men approach some serious situation they are wont to write at the head of their directive the words “over-all strategic concept”. There is wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought. What then is the over-all strategic concept which we should inscribe to-day? It is nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands.

When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to visualise what is actually happening to millions now and what is going to happen in this period when famine stalks the earth. None can compute what has been called “the unestimated sum of human pain”.

Our NATO military colleagues, after having proclaimed their “over-all strategic concept” and computed available resources, always proceed to the next step — namely, the method.

We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout Western Civilisation are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments to a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police.

Now, while still pursing the method — the method of realising our over-all strategic concept — I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to say. The dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short. Do not let us take the course of allowing events to drift along until it is too late. There is the path of wisdom. Prevention is better than the cure.

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the demise of Communism. Nobody knows what Islam and its international Muslim Brotherhood organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies.

It is my duty to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.

From Gothenburg on the Kattegat to Marseille on the Mediterranean an iron burka has descended across the Continent. Within that suffocating garment lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Western Europe. London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Brussels, and Amsterdam, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Sharia sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Sharia influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Mecca. The Sharia-dominated British Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful erosions of the English Common Law, and violence and degradation on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now being imposed upon Britons. The Islamic organisations, which were once very small in all these Western States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police are enforcing Sharia in nearly every case, and so far, except in Switzerland, there is no true democracy.

An attempt is being made by the Islamic enclaves in England to build up a quasi-Caliphate in their zone of occupied Britain by showing special favours to groups of Muslim leaders. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts — and facts they are — this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.

Outside of the iron burka which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. One cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a strong Australia, Canada or the United States. All my public life I never lost faith in their destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now. However, in a great number of countries, far from the frontiers of Islam and throughout the world, Muslim fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Islamic centre. These Islamic parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilisation. These are sombre facts for anyone to have recite on the morrow of a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains.

Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. From what I have seen of our Muslim antagonists, I am convinced that there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. If the Western Democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles, their power will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If, however, they become divided of falter in their duty and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.


The above text was adapted from Sir Winston Churchill’s speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946. Read the original here.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/13/2011

Events are heating up in Iran. The commander in charge of the Iranian missile development program has been killed in an explosion, which some analysts believe was arranged by Israel or the United States. Also, a new computer virus, a successor to the StuxNet virus, has been discovered in Iran’s computer networks. The Iranian government insists that it poses no threat, and that Iranian programmers are developing software to neutralize it.

In other news, the PVV is investigating the merits of a return to the guilder as the national currency of the Netherlands. Exiting the euro will not solve all of the country’s euro-problems however, since Dutch banks are exposed to more than €70 billion in Italian debt.

Meanwhile, the Russian government has determined that its arms sales to Syria do not violate international law, so it has announced that it will continue to sell weapons to Damascus.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Insubria, KGS, Kitman, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Camp of the Saints: A Wrap-Up

We’ve been posting special reports on the Mediterranean refugee crisis since last March, when the “Arab Spring” was hitting its peak. Our most recent report was six weeks ago, and since then only 141 illegal migrants have arrived on Italian shores.

It’s a safe bet that, barring some new cataclysm in Libya or Tunisia, the “Camp of the Saints” crisis is all but over. After adding the new arrivals, the year-to-date total now stands at just under 61,000. The Cultural Enrichment Thermometer at the top of this post will probably show the same reading from now on.

Back when the crisis began, in January and February, there were predictions — both inside and outside of Italy — that the flow of refugees across the Mediterranean could reach 250,000 to 500,000 before the year was over. The total will obviously fail to reach more than a fraction of even the lower figure before the end of the year.

Later on in this post I’ll speculate on possible reasons for the failure of the experts to predict the numbers more accurately. First, however, here’s a wrap-up of the final news stories. Only one arrival at Lampedusa has been reported since early October, a boatload of forty-four migrants that was rescued off the coast last Friday. Their country of origin was not specified:

Migrants Rescued South of Lampedusa

Group including new mother ‘picked up in Malta waters’

(ANSA) — Lampedusa, November 11 — The Italian Navy on Friday rescued a drifting dinghy with 44 North African migrants on board including a woman who had just given birth south of the stepping-stone island of Lampedusa, midway between Sicily and Africa.

The woman was helicoptered to a Sicilian hospital.

The dinghy, which was said to be “in precarious condition”, was spotted by an Italian fishing boat some 55 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, in waters where Malta has jurisdiction for international rescue operations, the Navy said.

Late last month a load of Afghans, presumably after transiting through the Balkans and Greece, arrived at Bari, on the eastern coast of the heel of the Italian boot:

Italy: Police Find 63 Illegals in Refrigerated Truck in Bari

(AGI) Bari — Sixty-three illegal immigrants, all Afghan men, crammed in a refrigerated truck. Police found them after the mooring, in Bari harbour, of ferryboat ‘Superfast’, coming from Greece. The procedure to send the immigrants straight back to Greece, on the same ferry, was immediately activated. The truck driver, an Albanian, has been arrested.

Earlier in the month an entire people-smuggling ring was busted off the coast of Greece, with thirty-four illegals who were on their way to Italy:

Greece: Network Smuggling Migrants to Italy Busted

(ANSAmed) — Athens, October 5 — A migrant-trafficking ring using boats to smuggle illegal migrants from Greece to Italy was busted by police and coast guard on Tuesday, leading to the arrest of four suspected migrant traffickers and 34 illegals in Messolonghi, western Greece. Acting on a tip-off, as ANA reports, police spotted a vessel in the region of Kryoneri that they considered a likely means for transporting migrants and started following it. At some point, they sighted four vehicles approaching the craft from the beach at Kryoneri carrying migrants, who later boarded the vessel. As soon as the boat set sail, the coast guard stepped in and set up an operation to locate it. It was sighted a short while later by coast guard vessels from Patras and Messolonghi near the island Oxia and then led ashore and searched. On board, authorities found a 25-year-old Ukrainian captain, a 24-year-old Iraqi accomplice and 44 foreign nationals. Of these, 34 were arrested for illegal entry and residence in Greece. A police investigation revealed that the 44 foreigners had been transported to Kryoneri from Athens in order to board a boat bound for Italy, each paying 2,500 euro for their passage.

But the traffic of Tunisians into France has dried up. According to ANSAmed:

France: Arrivals From Tunisia Dry Up

(ANSAmed) — Paris, October 21 — The wave of Tunisian immigrants to France after the fall of former dictator Ben Ali has “dried up”, according to the French Immigration and Integration Office (OFII) Arno Klarsfeld. The wave “has dried up. There have been about 800 voluntary repatriations to Tunisia, with OFII assistance of 300 euros,” said Klarsfeld to LCI, underscoring that at this point there is likely to be “about a thousand” Tunisians left in France.

Between February and June, France turned back over 3,600 Tunisians at its borders, either to their country of origin or Italy, a transit country after the landing on Lampedusa.

Late in September (while I was in England) there was violent incident involving Tunisian refugees in the holding center on Lampedusa. ANSAmed reported that the Tunisian media ignored the story:

Lampedusa: Tunisian Media Ignore Clashes

(ANSAmed) — Tunis, September 22 — With the exception of Le Temps, which only published a new agency piece on the second page highlighted by yellow half-tone, Tunisian media for the most ignored yesterday’s events on Lampedusa. Even newspapers that usually give a great deal of attention to issues concerning immigration from Tunisia to Italy — such as Le Quotidien — did not report on the clashes. The same can be said of online dailies, with the exception of Tunisie Numerique which put a brief piece on its homepage including a link to images of the clashes. The incidents on Lampedusa were however — paradoxically — highlighted on El Watan, the main French-language progressive daily in Algeria.

A couple of weeks later refugees occupied public squares in Milan to protest their plight:

Refugees Occupy Piazzas in Milan Protest

‘Govt has not kept its promises’, says mayor

(ANSA) — Milan, October 5 — Refugees occupied piazzas and blocked buses in a southern suburb of Milan on Wednesday to protest against their living conditions.

Refugees housed at a residence in Pieve Emanuele, south of the city, are believed to have led the revolt.

Around 400 migrants have arrived at the Ripamonti residence in Pieve Emanuele from Libya since May and the mayor of the town Rocco Pinto threatened to resign if the refugees were not transferred to other centres in the local region of Lombardy by the end of June.

Ettore Fusco, mayor of the neighbouring town of Opera, said the protest was inevitable because the government had not kept its promises. “Our country has shown itself once again to be weak and inconclusive,” Fusco said.

“Living in the area and knowing the reality in south Milan we had fully expected this revolt which is the product of abandonment and the lack of care that the central government has failed to give local authorities”.

Dozens of people were injured in clashes between migrants and residents on the southern island of Lampedusa in September.

Tension erupted on the island when migrants set fire to the migrant reception centre on the island to protest against plans for their forced repatriation.

Early this month an interpreter was attacked by culture enrichers at a holding facility near Cosenza, in the arch of the Italian boot:

Interpreter Attacked at Asylum Facility in Southern Italy

(AGI) Lamezia Terme — An interpreter working at a temporary migrant holding centre outside Cosenza, suffered an attack today. The incident took place at Lamezia Terme and led to the arrest of five — three of whom from Ghana, Nigeria and Mali.

Police carried out the arrests on charges of holding the interpreter against his will, of grievous bodily harm, attacking a public official and resisting arrest.

In October the Italians and the Greeks took Britain to task for failing to offer sufficient help to southern Europe during the crisis:

UK Failing to Share Burden of Migration Crisis, Says Southern Europe

Italy and Greece demand help from northern Europe in dealing with surge of refugees since the Arab spring

Italy and Greece have accused Britain and its northern European neighbours of not sharing the responsibility for a crisis in migration that has left them struggling to cope. During a year in which the Arab spring has accelerated migration to Europe and the economic crisis has made it harder to deal with people who arrive, Italy and Greece are seeking a suspension of the EU’s so-called Dublin system — under which Britain deports hundreds of immigrants to southern Europe — because they claim it unfairly compounds their burden.

A special Guardian investigation has discovered that some of those deported from Britain have ended up destitute on the streets of Rome. Under the Dublin rules, now facing a series of legal challenges, EU countries have the right to deport migrants back to the country in Europe in which they first arrived and were fingerprinted.

David Cameron, whose government has promised to cut UK immigration to “tens of thousands”, has backed the Dublin system. Other northern European states are reluctant to change it. But the Italian immigration minister, Sonia Viale, told the Guardian that Europe had failed to give her country enough support. “Italy has been left alone now, for more than eight months, to cope with the exceptionally large flow of migrants from North Africa to Europe. I think it is a duty of all EU member states to support the countries under a strong migration pressure. Immigration is a European issue and requires a European response.”

In Rome, the Guardian found widespread destitution among asylum seekers and refugees, many of whom were returned from other EU countries, including Britain. Refugees, some of whom had tried to burn off their fingerprints, described being locked in an impoverished limbo. Since the beginning of this year more than 60,000 migrants have landed on the Italian coastline. The Italian ministry of the interior says at least half are asylum seekers. Last week the port of Lampedusa was declared an unsafe port by Italian authorities. Officials say the number of people being returned from other EU countries is also increasing. Viale described many of those returned as vulnerable.

[…]

The Home Office points out that the UK, France and Germany all received more asylum seekers last year than Italy.

[…]

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “The Dublin regulation is a simple way of ensuring that the first safe country an asylum seeker reaches takes responsibility for their protection. We will not support measures to abolish this system or suspend transfers under it.”

Finally, the repatriation of Tunisian migrants from Italy has been completed. Somewhat over 3,000 enrichers were deported back to their home country, barely 5% of the total number of illegal immigrants that have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year:

Tunisian Migrant Repatriation Program Completed

(AGI) Rome — With the repatriation of the last 50 Tunisian migrants from Palermo airport, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni’s Sept. 12 agreement with the Tunisian interior minister was completed. Following the agreement, 1,490 Tunisian illegal migrants were sent home in 30 charter flights. In all, with the application of the April 5 agreement, 3,385 Tunisians were sent home.

So why were the early predictions of the Mediterranean migration numbers so far off the mark?

The total number of “Arab Spring” refugees was even greater than 500,000 — some reports put the figure over a million. But most of them remained in Africa, crossing the border from Tunisia or Libya and taking up residence in squalid refugee camps in Algeria, Mali, Chad, Niger, Sudan and points farther south. Many of them were originally from sub-Saharan Africa, and had migrated to Libya to work in the oil fields. After things fell apart, they simply tried to make their way home.

The heaviest flow to Lampedusa was during the spring, after Col. Muammar Qaddafi deliberately unleashed a wave of refugees on Italy. According to some of the migrants, Libyan soldiers were tasked with forcing non-Libyans into the boats at gunpoint. This was not just an act of revenge against Italy for its involvement in the NATO war, but also part of a larger strategic plan to pressure Italy and France to back off from the attacks on Libya.

However, Col. Ghedafi’s plan failed. It may be that the crossing to Lampedusa was so arduous and dangerous that few of the refugees were desperate enough to attempt it voluntarily. Instead they preferred to travel south in an effort to return home.

Another possibility is that the early predictions originated with people from the aid agencies, who had good reason to issue alarmist estimates in order to drive up their funding from the EU. But that remains speculative; I don’t remember the sources of all those predictions that were flying around back in January and February.

In any case, the crisis was not as bad as originally feared. Sixty thousand refugees is bad enough — and must certainly have accelerated Italy’s economic meltdown — but not the Armageddon that was predicted.


Hat tips: C. Cantoni, Insubria, and JP.

For previous posts about the Mediterranean refugee crisis, see The Camp of the Saints Archive.

Michele Bachmann on Pakistan

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) spoke about Islam at an ACT! for America event last year. As I wrote at the time:

I had never heard Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann speak before, and was impressed with her energy, her spirit, and her thorough grasp of the facts about Islam. She spoke at length about the grave danger of Iran’s nuclear program, and pointed out that anyone who ignores what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning has not learned the lesson taught by Adolf Hitler, who exposed his intentions in detail in Mein Kampf. She also described the foolhardy behavior of the Obama administration, which is actually contributing to the funding of Hamas.

Rep. Bachmann took part in the Republican TV debate last night, and she was just as sharp as ever, demonstrating that she fully comprehends the danger posed by Pakistan and the complexities of dealing with it.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

Vlaams Belang in Ankara

The Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang is sending a delegation to Turkey this week. They have organized an English-language press conference on Wednesday in Akara. The invitation below just arrived in our mailbox.


To the Turkish press
To the International press

Invitation to a Vlaams Belang press conference in Ankara on November 16th

Vlaams Belang makes official visit to Turkey
Vlaams Belang launches remigration-campaign
Vlaams Belang motivates position on Turkey’s accession to European Union

On Wednesday November 16th, at 10.00am, a delegation of MPs from the Flemish political party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in Ghent (Belgium), led by MP Johan Deckmyn, are organizing a press conference at Hotel Dedeman Ankara, Akay Cad. Buklum Sok. No:1, 06660 Ankara.

In this press conference Vlaams Belang brings, at the occasion of a five-day official visit to Turkey especially to Ankara and Emirdag, his motivation and his evaluation of this visit. During this visit to Turkey, several official contacts and a number of site visits are planned.

At this press conference, Vlaams Belang will launch a “remigration-campaign” and will explain its position about the possible accession of Turkey to the European Union.

The language of the press conference is English and there is the possibility to ask questions in English.

Vlaams Belang invites you to attend this press conference.

Johan Deckmyn, MP and delegation leader, can be reached at +32 476 26 97 38

On behalf of Vlaams Belang Ghent

Tanguy Veys
Member of Parliament
Secretary Vlaams Belang Ghent
+32 477 36 52 34

Douglas Murray in Copenhagen

The British opinion writer Douglas Murray recently gave a talk at Trykkefrihedsselskabet (the Danish Free Press Society) in Copenhagen.

Below are some excerpts from his speech. The full video is available at Snaphanen.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video: