A National Tragedy

The culturally enriched Vollsmose neighborhood has been in the news yesterday and today. Ethnic Danes have increasingly been subject to harassment and attacks by gangs of “youths” in the area.

Our Danish correspondent TB has this to say about what’s happening:

The situation in Vollsmose is a national tragedy, if you ask me. And the stories keep coming in: the next one is about a couple who almost got themselves killed for talking to the police.

All these stories are reaching Christiansborg [Parliament] now. The Danish People’s Party have started to raise these issues at the highest levels.

Here is the most recent report from the Islamic Enclave Vollsmose of Funen. Pay close attention to the reaction of the police officers in the car when the shooting starts. They simply leave this poor couple unarmed and uncovered in the middle of the battle zone.

Think about it. What a signal to send to the ‘Representatives of The Religion of Peace’!

TB has kindly translated another article, this one from today’s B.T.:

Ethnic Danish couple was seen talking to the police — almost killed.

Smear campaign in Vollsmose: 'They tried to kill us'.


[Photo caption: The couple do not dare to reveal themselves, even though they both have moved out of Vollsmose. (Photo: Sonny Monk Carlsen).]

A Danish couple was nearly killed because they spoke with the police in Vollsmose. Now they have moved out of the area.

It was nearly fatal for two ethnic Danes to talk to police in Vollsmose. Not only were they fired upon with automatic weapons, over the next two years they were attacked with stones, vandalism and harassment.

The couple wishes to remain anonymous, but have chosen to tell about their lives in the Vollsmose ghetto after www.bt.dk yesterday reported how the ethnic Danes are targets in a burglary smear campaign. A smear campaign where nine out of ten of the 150 burglaries that have hit the district of the past four months — according to a police officer — were aimed directly against ethnic Danes.

The young couple’s nightmare began on Thursday 13 August 2009, as they walked up the Vollsmose Alle. The district was in flames that day after a 19-year-old immigrant had tried to run away from police and then crashed his BMW.

“Suddenly a police car came rolling towards us — lights out. The officer rolls down the window and asked if a lot was burning down, where we came from. I could confirm that it did,” says AH, who — at that time — had only lived in Vollsmose for about a month.

“As I answered the officer shots started coming in. Someone was actually shooting at the police! My boyfriend and I threw ourselves to the ground and crawled into the bushes behind us. Then we heard the police car screeching, while it backed away from the scene.”

Frightened, the couple kept lying there until the danger had passed and then hurried home.

“I was thinking: ‘can we live in such a hell ?’ But we agreed that the rioters should not be allowed to scare us away.”

A 35-year-old man was later jailed for firing 8-10 shots at the police with an automatic weapon. After that the trouble in the area calmed down for a short time. But the nightmare for AH and HH had only just begun.

“Young immigrant boys started calling us ‘sticking pigs’ in the street, and my girlfriend was called a whore. We were harassed on the bus until we had to get off, and they twice tried to run my son (who is 10 years old) and me down,” says AH.

Afraid in the kitchen

The harassment made AH’s girlfriend HH move to Sjælland in March 2010.

“I needed a sanctuary where I could live without being afraid. In Vollsmose we did not even dare to stand in the kitchen making dinner when it was dark because we were afraid they could see us through the window. I began to suffer from anxiety attacks,” she says.

AH, however, stayed in Vollsmose, and he refused to stop talking to police in the area. 12th May 2011 things escalated, however. Within a space of three days the couple’s home was attacked with stones three times.

“One of the times we were not at home. We found a paving stone in my son’s bed when we arrived. If he had slept there as he usually does, he could have been killed. The second time HH was nearly hit in the chest. So I have no doubt that they wanted to kill us.”

AH now began to wear a bulletproof vest, he suffered from insomnia, and always had a backpack ready with clothes. Just in case he had to flee from the apartment in a hurry.

“So I accepted the inevitable a few weeks ago and decided to move. But it irritates me constantly, and I still remember how they stood there. Laughing scornfully at us while we carried out our moving boxes.”

Local police in Vollsmose confirm the many incidents of vandalism against the couple, and that they were in contact with an unknown citizen when the shots were fired at the police car back in 2009. But the police did not want to go into details about the couple’s case.

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

“There is Nothing Left for us Danes”

Below is a follow-up to last night’s post about burglaries targeting native Danes in Vollsmose, a culturally enriched neighborhood of Odense.

Many thanks to TB for the translation from B.T.:

A victim of the burglary smear campaign in Vollsmose

Rene: "I dare not live here anymore”


[Photo caption: Rene Larsen has lived in Vollsmose for more than 29 years. Now he has decided to move after having been exposed to both burglary and assault. (Photo: Sonny Monk Carlsen).]

Imagine living a life where you hardly dare open the door when someone knocks on it. A life where you have to change your route to get home in safety, and where the fear of being assaulted constantly fills your thoughts.

Then you know what it is like to be 55-year-old Rene Larsen in Vollsmose in the year 2012.

“Who are you?”

His voice trembles and fear illuminates the eyes of the middle-aged man in Vollsmose who just opened the door a crack when www.bt.dk knocked at it. In his right hand he conceals a shovel, which always lies next to the door in the event that he has to defend himself.

“Oh, you’re just reporters,” sounding like relief from the 55-year-old single disabled retiree Rene Larsen. He puts down his ‘weapon’ and invites us inside. Immediately he starts to talk about the life as a Dane in the troubled ghetto.

Vollsmose was amazing.

“I came here 29 years ago. At that time it was a fantastic place where everybody knew each other. People were friendly and invited one another inside. I remember that sometimes it could take several hours just to buy a package of bread in the local shop, as there was always someone you just had to talk to or drink a beer with,” he says.

But this is no longer the case.

“Well, It began about ten years ago when they started to shut down everything out here that was Danish. There is nothing left for us Danes. Today no one says hi to each other. You are almost looked down upon as a Dane, and you do not feel welcome anymore,” he says.

The atmosphere in the neighborhood has also become more brutal, a fact which Rene has experienced on several occasions.

“The first time I was assaulted was eight years ago. They broke my femur. Four months ago I was beaten up on a path while I was driving on my electric scooter. They stole all my money”.

Now Rene always takes different routes home on the scooter, and if anyone crosses his path, he turns around. “The attacks have not forced me out before now.” Like so many other ethnic Danes before him, he has been forced to live the same way.

“For the last ten years my children have said that I should move, but I’m probably a little stubborn. And I have so enjoyed the area out here,” says Rene.

The last joy finally disappeared a few weeks ago when Rene came home after having spent Christmas with his family.

“I came home on Christmas Eve. There had been a burglary. Gone were the television, my computer, and my Playstation. They had overturned everything. Even my hospital bed was overthrown.”

A difficult decision

Rene, in shock, made his way back to his family again, but when he returned the next morning, he could see that the burglars had been there again.

“Now they had smashed more of my stuff, stolen my stereo and a half liter of cola.”.

That day Rene made a difficult decision.

“It annoys me endlessly that I have to live like this. My lights are always on. The music constantly plays, and the curtains are drawn. I always thinks about when they might come, and I have to open the door. So now I have decided to move. Its over.”

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/24/2012

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head and almost killed this time last year, made her final appearance in Congress tonight when she attended President Obama’s State of the Union address. She was greeted warmly by members of both parties.

In other news, President Obama said that he is leaving no options off the table, including the use of force, when dealing with the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the captain of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship says that he was ordered by the management of the cruise line that employs him to sail through the narrow strait next to the island of Giglio, where his ship ran aground.

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

Thanks to Caroline Glick, CSP, Kitman, LAW Wells, 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.

Driving the Danes Out of the Area

We’ve posted several times in the past about Vollsmose, a culturally enriched neighborhood of Odense on the Island of Funen in Denmark. A de-facto sharia regime exists in Vollsmose. Neighborhood “youths” harass ethnic Danes and burn cars owned by non-Muslims. Local gangs have been known to shoot at the police.

Our Danish correspondent TB has translated a report on the latest chapter in the ethnic cleansing of the Danes from Vollsmose. In this case, the enrichers’ weapon of choice is burglary, used specifically to target “persons of Danish background” who live in the area.

The translator includes this note:

Pay attention to the Officer in Charge. He is absolutely clueless (or pretending to be?), and his last comment is quite appalling. We are talking about ethnic cleansing here, and he just want to investigate it like any other case.

No wonder the officer who speaks up here wants remain anonymous.

The translated article from yesterday’s B.T.

Police officer: They want the Danes out of the area.

Danes suffer burglary smear campaign in Vollsmose

If your surname is ‘Hansen’ or ‘Nielsen’, and if you live in the Vollsmose neighborhood in Odense, your risk of becoming a victim of a burglary is significantly larger than if you had had a more foreign-sounding surname.

A true intruder smear campaign against ethnic Danes has spread in the troubled district during recent months.

“There is a kind of racism happening out there, where we find that more and more Danes are being chased out of the neighborhood. We have seen a sharp increase in burglaries in the area. Approximately 150 the last four months alone. What is special, though, is that nine out of ten burglaries are directed against ethnic Danes,” a cop at Funen Police explains. He do not want to reveal his identity, out of fear of losing his job. His name is known by the editors of this article. The officer believes that someone is trying to drive the remaining ethnic Danes out of the area.

“Several of the young offenders explicitly said that they want Vollsmose for themselves. Last year we had contact with a Danish family who reported many incidents. The result of the reports: The family’s apartment was vandalized on a weekly basis until they finally gave up and moved out of the area.. Additionally, many of these burglaries resemble real vandalism. It seems like it is a kind of revenge.”

The officer criticizes the authorities’ lack of real handling of the problem. He believes that they are trying to cover up the developments simply because they are controversial.

“Everyone knows it, and it is now an open standing joke among us colleagues (in the police) that when we hear about a burglary, then it’s probably against ethnic Danes. And, unfortunately, we are right almost every time. Why they shut down the discussion I do not know, but I guess it is because it is politically sensitive stuff.”

At the local police office in Vollsmose the deputy police commissioner Bjarne Puggaard confirms that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of burglaries in the area. He does not want to comment on whether ethnic Danes are specifically targeted.

Shortly after the interview with the local police however, www.bt.dk receive a phone call from the head of the entire Funen Police. After a brief reflection, the head of police suddenly confirmed that ethnic Danes are particularly targeted.

“When I read the daily reports and the like, it is my notion that ethnic Danes are over-represented as victims of burglaries in the area. I definitely cannot deny that,” Ebbe Krogaard says. Krogaard is the general manager of the Fyn Police.

He says that in 2010 a total of 94 burglaries were committed against residences in Vollsmose. That figure doubled in 2011. The increase mainly took place in late 2011. Krogaard has no idea as to why it is Danes who are especially hit.

“I have no idea why anyone want to look at the name of the mailbox before committing a burglary. Nor does it have any influence on our approach to this case. We are investigating these cases, like all other matters, and I would like to emphasize that we do everything we can to find the perpetrators.”

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Ideologies That Have No Basis in Reality

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated a surprising op-ed about the official state ideology in Norway, which failed so miserably in the wake of the Breivik massacre.

The translator includes this note:

I have translated an op-ed by Ole Gjems Onstad which brilliantly exposes some of the totalitarian traits found within the Labour Party in Norway. It paints a very clear picture of an ideology that demands obedience and detests dissent.

This op-ed also brilliantly exposes the bizarre consensus mentality that is forced upon the people of Norway. In a scary kind of way it has similarities to the obedience culture found in places like North Korea.

One possible explanation for such a refreshing expression of opinion may be that the article below was published on the BI Business School website. BI is an independent institution, and not an arm of the government — a relative rarity in Norway:

Ideologies that have no basis in reality

An op-ed on the terrorist attack at Utøya by Ole Gjems Onstad

We have felt pride in having a penal code that focuses on illnesses and disregards personal responsibility.

Now we are unable to punish Norway’s worst mass murderer in modern times.

It is quite possible that Norwegian prosecutors would be unsuccessful in bringing Hitler and Stalin to justice. Would a Norwegian court accept that these dictators were sane, in a psychiatric sense?

Utøya has exposed Norway as an ideological country. The ideology that AUF [Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking, the Labour Party’s youth organization] espouse has contributed to a penal code that has made it impossible to punish the man who killed them. That’s not a reward worthy of their efforts; it’s bitter irony.

The Labour Party has often chosen to normalize psychotics and rehabilitate murderers rather than protect the public. Now that the murderer has been sentenced to undergo treatment, it’s unlikely that he will be released soon, but the possibility is still there.

Sanctimonious Norway

Because of our oil wealth, being Norwegian often means being sanctimonious. Norwegian ideologies rarely meet reality: We are progressive and humane; we treat where others chose to punish.

Psychology teaches us that in time of crisis defence mechanisms are strengthened. Many representatives from the ideological Norway now say that we must stand by the principles in extreme situations.

Comfortable life

Norway houses its biggest mass murderer in a comfortable prison where he has three rooms: one for work, one for training and one for recreation and rest. He has two defence attorneys. No one knows what the final bill will be. When murdering so many, publicly paid defence attorneys have a lot of things to cover.

The prison administration keeps stressing that the mass murderer is of course entitled to the exact same treatment as the other prisoners. A well-known Norwegian defence attorney said in a TV talk show that the killer must be treated with respect. Such statements are ideologically correct in Norway, but they may also be regarded as confused, alienated, and blind.

To recognize the inner thunder

Part of the Norwegian ideology that has been exposed through Utøya is the fear of being angry. The fact that so few have demanded retaliation is considered positive. The desire for revenge is primitive and worthy of condemnation.

But it is natural to wish revenge on someone who caused so much pain. If there was ever a day in modern Norwegian history when it was appropriate to recognize this inner thunder, it was on July 22, 2011.

When it happened, the police lacked the masculine aggressive assertiveness that could have changed the outcome. Only afterwards have the police become indignant — of those who criticize their indecisiveness

Not permitted to become angry

In the aftermath of July 22, the Prime Minister and others have said that we should not look for scapegoats. This rhetorical prohibition of becoming angry has ensured that no one has been held accountable. Are we equally hesitant to look for scapegoats when violations of labour and tax laws occur?

When the government fails, Norwegian ideology requires that the indignation be kept in check.

Failed when it really mattered

Part of the Norwegian ideology is that we are a very democratic country. July 22 shows us that we also fail in this regard, when it really matters:

Government employees who were in the building when the bomb went off have been ordered not to talk to the press.

The police categorically refuse to give any information, and act as a non-democratic state within the state.

The Government neglects fundamental parliamentary rules by appointing a commission to investigate itself.

The main opposition party, Høyre (Conservatives), have for five months hardly said a critical word about this terrible historical event.

Shattered the Norwegian ideology

On July 22, reality shattered the Norwegian ideology, but only for a brief moment — it quickly bounced back again — in funeral eulogies and in media reports. Unity was praised, and the courage to apologize for unnecessary death was missing.

A tenet of the new Norwegian ideology is that oil money will save us from everything. The limitless police resources used after the disaster, major victim compensation, and an army of lawyers. Official Norway seems to think that oil money can buy them a free pass from the charges of unnecessary young death.

Ideology instead of thanks

The Government of course refused to give medals to those who didn’t fail: ordinary citizens on Utvika Camping who felt a flame in their inner selves, and dared, and didn’t hesitate

To give medals to ordinary citizens in this situation would break with the Labour Party’s official ideology and expose the failure of the police. The ideology takes precedent over the praise — even when lives were at stake. It’s arrogant, embarrassingly petty, and ungrateful. Instead there will be an official memorial — that celebrates the State — and the ideology that failed.

It’s painful, but true: Utøya was a place where ideologies that caused so much to go wrong were nurtured. It’s understandable that so many in the AUF don’t want the island to disappear.

But if one wishes to show respect for the dead by learning, one has to let go of ideologies that have no basis in reality.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/23/2012

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt met with the US ambassador in Cairo and reassured her that sharia guarantees personal freedom for all people. There’s no word whether the honorable ambassador was veiled during her meeting with the illustrious Mohammedan gentlemen.

In other news, more bodies have found in the stricken cruise ship Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, bringing the death toll to fifteen. Seventeen people remain unaccounted for.

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

Thanks to Fjordman, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, JP, KGS, Kitman, Nick, Nilk, The Observer, 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.

More on Croatia and the EU

Our Croatian correspondent Vortac sends this follow-up on last night’s post about the referendum on Croatia’s accession to the EU:

I would guess the situation is probably more or less the same in all other ex-communist European countries, which, like Croatia, probably joined the EU for the same reasons.

The all-corrupting aspect of the welfare state is to blame here, since it’s almost impossible for any government to remain uncorrupted when it’s raising (and distributing) billions of unearned dollars in the form of credits and loans. In the case of Croatia, a good part of that money was used to support the welfare paradigm, meaning it was spent on pensions, social benefits, and on a huge state administration.

The ratio between the employed and pensioners in Croatia is about 1.2:1 now, meaning the number of pensioners almost equals the number of the employed, which is of course unsustainable. We also have to bear in mind that many of the employed are in fact working in the public sector, meaning they are by and large also supported out of the state budget, and are not really contributing to the economy.

In effect, we have created a super-welfare state here in Croatia, even worse than in the EU, and of course it’s very hard for the electorate to vote against it, since almost everyone is made dependent, which in turn creates the need for even more debt and even more loans — again resulting in even more corruption.

Additional reading

Wikipedia:

Since 2009, negative trends persisted in Croatia with jobs in the industry declined further by 3.5%.[84] Number of unemployed and retired persons combined exceeded number of employed in August 2010, as it fell to 1.474 million.

The Croatian Times:

The Croatian public sector employs a quarter of the country’s workforce or 400,000 people, a study by Zagreb-based Institute of Economics and Friedrich Ebert Foundation shows.

Google Books:

As a result the present ratio of dependent to employed is almost 1:1 and Croatia has the youngest retired population (the average age is 50 years).

CBC:

Croatian officials, who have launched a pro-EU campaign ahead of the referendum, warned that a “no” vote would deprive the country of the much-needed accession funds, and that even the payment of pensions for retirees and war veterans could be in jeopardy.

Tportal.hr:

“If citizens vote against Croatia’s EU entry, “the first response will probably be a downgrading of our credit rating, and the second an assessment of Croatia’s investment security, given that EU membership is also a measure of security for economic activities,” said Pusic [Vesna Pusic is the Croatian minister of foreign affairs] who joined a rally which her Croatian People’s Party (HNS) held in downtown Zagreb today.