A crime against God and humanity

The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was ”a crime against God and humanity” and it was “intolerable” for anyone to deny it, said Thursday Pope Benedict speaking to American Jewish leaders at the Vatican. “How can we begin to understand the enormity of what happened in those terrible prisons? The whole of humanity feels deep shame for the savage brutality shown towards your people,” and the Catholic Church is “profoundly and irrevocably engaged in rejecting all anti-Semitism,” he added.

This was Pope Benedict’s first meeting with Jews since the controversy over traditionalist bishop Richard Williamson—who denies the full extent of the Holocaust and maintains there were no gas chambers—began on January 24, when the Pope revoked the excommunication of the four bishops illegitimately ordained by Marcel Lefebvre in 1988.

On February 5 the Vatican stated that bishop Williamson must recant “in an absolutely unequivocal and public way” his positions regarding the Shoah. Which was in my opinion a very good news, but perhaps not the best way to settle the whole question, as Norm Geras pointed out at the time: “[T]he Catholic Church could simply state that Williamson’s beliefs about the Shoah aren’t compatible with membership.” This time, Pope Benedict went further: not only is denying or minimizing the Holocaust not compatible with being a bishop, but also with being a Catholic, as ”unacceptable and intolerable” in itself.

However, it is to be recalled that the lifting of the excommunication did not by any means heal the schism between Rome and Lefebvrists, as much as the lifting of the excommunications between Rome and patriarchate of Constantinople ( December 7, 1965) did not mark a return to unity between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. In both cases, as Sandro Magister pointed out on his website, the lifting of the excommunication was intended to be the first step toward a possible reversing of the schism. Which means that there are still two separated and independent entities, and therefore Williamson couldn’t in any way be expelled from the Catholic Church, for the simple fact that he is not a member of it (which is not that bad, in my own personal view).

By the way, traditionalist bishop Bernard Fellay—one of those whose excommunication was lifted last month—said in an interview on Wednesday that his movement could not fully accept landmark 20th century Church reforms. He said his Society of Saint Pius X did not agree with a key document of the Second Vatican Council on respecting other religions. Which means that a healing of the schism is theoretically possible but not anywhere near probable.

As for the Jewish reaction to the Pope’s comments, Elan Steinberg, vice-president of American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said that “the crisis is over ... the dialogue between Jews and Catholics can now move forward with confidence.” Malcolm Hoenlein, vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said: “We came here with heavy hearts because of recent events, but we came away pleased and honored by the words of His Holiness.”

*****

PS: Here is the complete text of the Pope's speech to members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, received at the Vatican on February 12, 2009.

Huckabee: Stimulus is 'anti-religious'

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned his supporters Tuesday in an email which was also posted on his blog against the $828 billion stimulus package. “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: it is anti-religious,” he wrote.
(Thanks: Sandra Kennedy Schimmelpfennig)

Yes, both the House and Senate bills have a provision that prohibits federal dollars for higher education construction grants to be used for:
“…modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities--used for sectarian instruction, religious worship…or a school or department of divinity; or in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”
[…]
You would think the ACLU drafted this bill …
[…]
I urge you to try and answer one question: Why would Democrats add this provision into a spending bill that they say is “urgently needed” to help our economy?
The answer is troubling and predictable. For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.

Rome and Venice honor the Dalai Lama

One day after being made a citizen of Rome, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was yesterday in Venice, where he was made an honorary citizen by Mayor Massimo Cacciari.

It was a Tibetan lama who persuaded the Grand Khan to suspend the executions of 100,000 people who were thrown into the river each year; the lama was a friend of Marco Polo, […] but the past is the past and today the communist Chinese authorities have an extremely restrictive and short-sighted view,

said the Tibetan spiritual leader, accusing China of ”deliberately seeking to eliminate Tibetan people, culture and religion.” “In such a difficult period,” he added, “receiving your sympathy and feeling it passed from heart to heart encourages me and makes me happy.”

On Monday, during the citizenship ceremony in Rome, His Holiness said that “this honor of becoming a citizen of Rome is a further encouragement for me to support non-violent action. I will remain committed to non-violence to my dying day.” “I believe that the Tibetan people,” he added, “knowing that I am here in Rome to receive this honorary citizenship, will feel less alone and know that they have not been abandoned.” In welcoming the Dalai Lama to city hall, Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said: ”Your presence here is our moral revolt against injustice, violence and oppression. A moral revolt in favor of the identity of a people and the right of each and every one of us to express their won spirituality and culture.”

Wilders denied entrance to UK

Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party Geert Wilders has come once again into the limelight. But this time it is not because of the low esteem in which he is held by the Dutch court which three weeks ago ordered his criminal prosecution for his “anti-Islamic hate speech,” that is for his statements against Islamofascism, considered “insulting” by the Court itself. This time, in fact, scheduled to attend the screening of his film Fitna in the House of Lords on Thursday, he has been denied access to the United Kingdom, because his presence might threaten civil order and “civil harmony.”

This would be in itself an absolutely unbelievable story. Yet, since I couldn’t say that I’ve never seen anything like this in our old, decadent Europe, I must admit that this is practically the rule, not the exception. Take the case, for example, of commentator and author Douglas Murray, who was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the London School of Economics on January 23, but the LSE asked him not to attend in the interest of “public safety” as his presence could provoke unrest … How sad!

See here and here for further details.

She has gone

She has gone, but she will not be forgotten, nor will those whose acts, conduct and omissions cut short her life.

Eluana: a race against time

This time, I wrote last Tuesday, nothing, but a miracle, will stop Eluana Englaro’s “execution.” Now only one of two things is possible: either I was wrong or a miracle is happening. In fact, the Cabinet of ministers on Friday unanimously approved an emergency decree, which was drafted Thursday, to stop doctors carrying out the Supreme Court ruling authorizing the death by starvation and dehydration of Eluana.

This, despite open opposition—on the ground that the decree was unconstitutional—from President (and Head of State) Giorgio Napolitano, who according to the Italian Constitution must approve the decree before it becomes effective.

”We can’t allow responsibility for Eluana’s death to fall on us,” said Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Eluana, he added, “is not brain dead but breathes in an autonomous way. Her brain cells are alive and send electrical signals and she is a person who could in theory have a child, […] she is in a vegetative state that could change, as has been seen several times.”

But Napolitano’s refusal, as clearly explained in this LifeSiteNews.com article, “has ‘frozen’ the measure and although there is a procedure in place in Parliament to override his decision, it will take 20 days to implement, by which time Eluana will have been successfully dehydrated to death.”

In turn, the Englaro family lawyer, Vittorio Angiolini, said ”There’s no discussion: we’re going ahead,” that is to say that doctors will proceed as planned with the progressive reduction of Eluana’s feeding and hydrating, which they began Friday morning.

Practically, it will be a race against time for the Parliament to try to save the life of Eluana Englaro, and perhaps a further miracle is what is needed to succeed. Pope Benedict, though without referring directly to the case of Eluana, reaffirmed yesterday “the absolute and supreme dignity of every human being,” and asked the faithful to pray “for those who are gravely ill but cannot in any way provide for themselves and are totally dependent on the care of others.”

As it is well known the Englaro case has drawn comparisons with that of Terri Schiavo. Now it seems that even the latest events in the Eluana case have many similarities to the last days of the American woman whose feeding tube was removed in March 2005: the US Congress passed a bill to allow a federal court to review the case, and George W. Bush returned from his Texas ranch to sign the bill into law, but a federal judge refused to order the tube reinserted, a decision upheld by a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.

The decree provoked shrill, even hysterical reactions by the opposition. Antonio Di Pietro, for instance, described the decree as ”an extremely serious danger for democracy,” which is frankly a bit silly. They often seem to have not the slightest idea of what they’re talking about, or rather they are attempting to make people forget the real issue … But I don’t want to spend too many words on the subject here. Rather, I would draw the attention to what Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, referring to the case of Eluana Englaro, said in his homily given on February 1, 2009, at the cathedral in Bologna:

The spiritual event of the West has come to the end of the line: If the life of man does not belong to man but to God, no one has control over it for any reason, [but] if the life of man belongs to man, it is consistent to hypothesize circumstances in which everyone can do what he wants with his life or ask others to put an end to it.

The bishop of Bologna also said that

the illusion of building a human home ‘as if God did not exist’ must at some moment bring us to this point. […] In the body of this woman, and in her fate, there is an image of the fate of the West.

Those very thoughtful and inspired words immediately reminded me of the famous statement contained in the tale of The Grand Inquisitor, told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov: “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is permitted.”

Are we witnessing the fulfilment of what was predicted by Dostoevsky, if not by someone else ... long before him?

The State is a poor good beast ...

“ The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly. A poor cow who does well by you—do not grudge it its hay. It cannot eat bread as you can; let it have without grudge a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield you milk from its teat. You, who are a man walking cleanly on two feet, will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful of clover and welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat. ”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson [from his journals, June-July 1846], in EMERSON IN HIS JOURNALS, selected and edited by Joel Porte, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) - London (England), 1982.

Vatican-Lefebvrists affair: who is to blame?

Bishop Williamson, in order to be admitted to the episcopal functions of the Church, must in an absolutely unequivocal and public way distance himself from his positions regarding the Shoah.

That’s the statement the Vatican issued a few hours ago with regard to the traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust. It’s a good news, a very good news—welcomed by Germany’s Central Council of Jews—as much as German chancellor Angela Merkel’s call upon Pope Benedict XVI to issue a clear statement of opposition to Holocaust denial was, in my view, fully justified.

But, at this point, a question comes naturally: who is to blame for what went wrong in the whole thing? Both within and outside of the Curia, says Italian vaticanist Sandro Magister, many have been blaming the pope for everything, but they are wrong. Ok, it was his decision to offer the Lefebvrist bishops a gesture of benevolence, and it is also certain that the lifting of excommunication followed other previous gestures of openness, such as the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum,” dated July 7, 2007, with the liberalization of the ancient rite of the Mass. But it’s also true that, for one thing,

[t]he lifting of this excommunication […] did not by any means heal the schism between Rome and the Lefebvrists, just as the lifting of the excommunications between Rome and patriarchate of Constantinople – agreed on December 7, 1965, by Paul VI and Athenagoras – did not by any means mark a return to unity between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches of the East. In both cases, the dropping of the excommunication was intended to be simply a first step toward reversing the schism, which remains.

But little or nothing of this, complains Magister, was stated in the decree issued on January 24 by the Holy See. At the point that, “in the “vulgata” diffused by the media, with this decree the Church of Rome was simply clasping the Lefebvrists to its bosom.” Which is simply false.

“Benedict XVI was left practically alone, and the curia was abandoned to disorder” 

As it was not enough, eventually there came the uproar over the shameful interview with bishop Richard Williamson. But the interview, argues Sandro Magister, even though recorded on November 1, 2008, was broadcast on January 21, that is to say the same day on which the decree was signed revoking the excommunication of the four Lefebvrist bishops, Williamson included.

So, in the media all over the world, “the news read as follows: the pope clears a Holocaust denier bishop from excommunication, and welcomes him into the Church.” What followed—the tremendous tempest which scattered the Church—is well known. Well, Magister asks, “was all of this really inevitable? […] Or was the disaster produced by the errors and omissions of the men who are supposed to implement the pope's decisions?” What follows in the article is a very harsh critique of “the offices of the curia from which the Vatican press office and its director, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi receive their orders. These offices of the curia converge in the secretariat of state.”

A thorough reading of the entire article is highly recommended.

Iraq's winning vote

If Iraq’s first postwar election four years ago was mostly “a procedural victory,” last weekend’s vote was a “political triumph.” So says today’s Washington Post.

Though results are still preliminary, they show that voters strongly rewarded Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his forceful action against extremist militias and his secular nationalist agenda -- and punished religious parties perceived as too sectarian or too close to Iran. The nonsectarian alliance of former prime minister Ayad Allawi also appears to have done well, and nationalist Sunnis gained influence in areas where they had lacked it because of previous election boycotts. In short, Iraq appears to have taken a step toward becoming the moderate Arab democracy that the Bush administration long hoped for.

As we say in Italy, “Time is a gentleman,” or “Truth is the daughter of time,” as an old English proverb goes. But

[o]ddly, the biggest beneficiary of the election other than Mr. Maliki may be President Obama, who has been a skeptic both of progress in Iraq and the value of elections in unstable states.

That’s how the world goes …

Eluana is just one step from the end

About two months ago the Corte di Cassazione, Italy’s top appeals court, authorized the father of 37-year-old Eluana Englaro to remove the feeding tube which had kept his comatose daughter alive for nearly seventeen years. It was then that the last legal obstacle in a landmark “right-to-die” case, which has been also called “Italy’s Terri Schiavo case,” was removed once and for all : Eluana would be sentenced to die an atrocious death by being deprived of water and nutrition, thus paving the way for legalized euthanasia in Italy.

Eventually the transfer was temporarily halted by Italy’s health minister Maurizio Sacconi, who issued an official guideline stating that the suspension of treatment for patients in a vegetative state in public health institutions would be “illegal.” But that last-minute attempt to bypass Supreme Court ruling was overruled in turn by a court in Milan on January 21. As a result last night Eluana Englaro was transferred by ambulance to a clinic in the northern city of Udine, where she will be allowed to die. And this time nothing, but a miracle, will stop her “execution” (I know, it’s a terrible word, but I don’t have a better one).

What is upsetting, apart from the two rulings in themselves, is that the nuns of the Misericordine Order, under whose care Eluana has been surviving for 14 years, had repeatedly declared their availability, “today and into the future, to continue to serve Eluana,” and in a letter published in the November 15 2008 Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, they launched a moving appeal :

If there are those who consider her dead, let Eluana remain with us who feel she is alive. We don’t ask anything but the silence and the liberty to love and to devote ourselves to those who are weak, poor and little in return.

The Vatican’s “health minister,” Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, described the decision to move Eluana as “abominable.” “Stop this murder!” he told La Repubblica daily newspaper two days after Pope Benedict XVI rejected euthanasia as a “false” answer to suffering. The bishop of Udine, Msgr. Pietro Brollo, has called on Catholics in the area to gather outside the clinic to stage a prayer vigil in favor of keeping Eluana alive. Yet, as I said before, this time … well, miracles sometimes happen.

Logorare stanca

“Logorare stanca,” recita il titolo dell’editoriale di Angelo Panebianco sul Corriere di oggi. Un titolo che quasi certamente non ha proposto l’autore, ma che sembra azzeccato nella sua ambiguità, e quasi quasi più perfido del contenuto. Con ordine: logorare chi? Il leader del Pd, qui non ci piove. Ad opera di chi? Dei capicorrente del Pd, anche qui nessun dubbio. Ma stancare? Chi stanca chi? I capicorrente (i logoranti) stancano il capo? Mah, sarebbe una ripetizione: se logori qualcuno vuol dire che lo stanchi. Dunque niente. Ma non dovrebbero esserci dubbi che i logoratori (variante interessante dell’obsoleto “lavoratori”) sono sempre gli stessi. Chi viene stancato, allora? Se non il logorato, direi, il partito nel suo complesso. Ma questa è solo una delle due (almeno) possibili letture, l’altra essendo quello che Trilussa chiamava affettuosamente “er popolo,” (che ovviamente “se gratta - E er resto? - Va da sé... –”). Confesso che io personalmente propenderei per questa seconda interpretazione. Con una coda problematica (ebbene sì, un’altra!): er popolo tout-court oppure er popolo de sinistra e basta? Mah, io non riesco a venirne fuori. E’ un genio, Panebianco, e questo già lo si sapeva, ma pure er titolista der Coriere non è che scherzi … Chapeau!

Palladio's life and legacy

Speaking about Antonio Canova at the beginning of this month, I wrote that it was not just because he was born in a small village located a few miles from the North-Eastern Italian town where I live, but rather because Canova is the greatest Italian sculptor of the modern times that I felt the need to write that post. Well, I suppose I’m bound to repeat myself on this occasion. Yet, this time the subject is not a sculptor but rather an architect, Andrea Palladio, who was born in Padua—about 30 miles south-west from my hometown—and spent his life creating villas, churches and palaces in Vicenza, Venice and the surrounding Veneto, my home region—but, once again, it is not because of that … that I’m writing this post, but rather because Palladio is the most significant figure in the history of Western architecture!

And five centuries after his birth he not only remains—thanks to his exceptional buildings, which somehow encapsulate the legacy of Italian Renaissance architectural practice—Europe’s greatest architect, he also deeply influenced the theory and understanding of architecture through his celebrated treatise I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, published in Venice in 1570.

Hence the title of a major new exhibition which will be held at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD, from January 31 to April 13, 2009: “Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy.” It is the first exhibition devoted to Andrea Palladio to be held in London for over 30 years. The show has travelled from Vicenza—where it drew over 100,000 visitors—to mark the 500th anniversary of Palladio’s birth and will move to Washington until Fall 2009. See here and here for further details. Here is the official webpage of the exhibition. And if you are in London, don’t miss it, otherwise you'll have to wait some thirty years before you’ll be given another opportunity to forget gray London, financial worries and winter melancholies ...

Venetian miracles

Venice has a reputation for being one of the most expensive cities in Italy. And as far as I know it’s a well earned reputation. That’s why, had I not read it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it: a new “restaurant for pilgrims” in Venice, which means cheap, quality lunches—three-course lunches for a tidy 13 euros ($17)—to visitors to St Mark’s Basilica! The La Basilica restaurant is run by a local catering company on behalf of the St Mark’s Procurators, a non-profit outfit that manages the wonderful Byzantine cathedral. See here for further details.

In sympathy with society?

“ A man must be in sympathy with society about him, or else, not wish to be in sympathy with it. If neither of these two, he must be wretched. ”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson [from his journals, March-April 1848], in EMERSON IN HIS JOURNALS, selected and edited by Joel Porte, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachsetts) - London (England), 1982.

I have been posting for months now thoughts by Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his Journals, and will probably continue to do so, because it’s my firm conviction that “The Sage of Concord” has still much to teach us all. A few days ago, thanks to Tom, I discovered that someone is being doing something similar with Emerson’s fellow Transcendentalist (and best friend): The Blog of Henry David Thoreau. If you take the time to check it out I’m sure you’ll enjoy the visit.

Long life to the terrorist!

In the 1970s, during the anni di piombo (“years of lead”), Cesare Battisti was a member of the so-called Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), a terrorist group which was much like the Red Brigades, though smaller and less known. Arrested by Italian police, he escaped from prison in 1981, while awaiting trial on four charges of murder allegedly committed in the late 1970s, when he was still a member of the above mentioned armed group. Eventually he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life.

In the meantime Battisti, after flying to Latin America, where he lived in the 1980s. There he started writing crime novels and became a cult figure among intellectuals and the left-wing opposition in Paris, where he had taken refuge in 1990 and where a court had refused an extradition request from Italy, arguing that Battisti’s trial would be based on testimony from informers. This was a consequence of the “new deal” started by French socialist president François Mitterand, who in 1985 granted an amnesty to far-left terrorists from Italy who renounced their past and promised to keep out of domestic politics. But in 2004 Chirac’s Government abandoned Mitterrand’s policy, and another court approved the extradition of Battisti, who in turn disappeared and eventually fled to Brazil, where three year later, in March 2007, he was arrested.

And here is where the last chapter of this story begins: on January 13 Brazilian Justice Minister Tarso Genro decided to grant asylum to Cesare Battisti, on the grounds that he risked “political persecution” were he to be extradited to Italy. Tarso Genro explained that his decision was based on a 1951 Brazilian statute and a subsequent 1997 law defining the guidelines for granting asylum that included ”the real threat of persecution due to race...or political opinion,” Ansa reports. As it was not enough, last Friday the president of Brazil, Inacio Lula da Silva, sent a letter to his Italian colleague Giorgio Napolitano in response to his letter in which the Italian president expressed his “astonishment and regret” about Tarso Genro’s decision. Lula basically maintained that the Brazilian government can take its own decisions to grant political asylum or not to whomever it wants. At last, Brazil’s top prosecutor, Antonio Fernando Souza, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to end extradition proceedings against Battisti. As a result, today Italy has recalled its ambassador to Brazil for consultations.

Here is an interesting comment by the Economist:

Brazil’s reasons for protecting Mr Battisti are unconvincing. The justice minister, Tarso Genro, referred to his country’s tradition of harbouring political exiles, ranging from Alfredo Stroessner, a particularly nasty ex-dictator (of Paraguay), to Olivério Medina, an ex-guerrilla (in Colombia). Now that democracy is the norm in the Americas, that tradition is anachronistic. Mr Genro also seems to think that Mr Battisti was convicted of political crimes, rather than plain murder.

Two sentiments underlie Mr Genro’s reticence. One is Brazil’s reluctance to examine its own past. Whenever the question of an inquiry into the military government of 1964-85 arises, it is quickly squashed (unlike similar demands in Argentina or Chile). The second sentiment, that of solidarity, is to be found among some members of Lula’s party who were far-left militants in the 1970s. In Italy, which lost a former prime minister to the Red Brigades and had a government adviser murdered as recently as 2002 by its imitators, attitudes are much less indulgent.

It’s also worthy to note that once again a “progressive” and “enlightened” Western government has decided to go to Battisti’s rescue. Perhaps in Brazil and other left-oriented countries you must be a former terrorist, preferably a convicted murderer, to have granted what is denied to almost anyone else: a hearty welcome by the highest authorities, loyal and supportive friends (in the government), and a safe place to live in.

Beckham and Capello: a matter of Destiny?

Will David Beckham make the move from Los Angeles to Milan? The turning point of the whole story might have come in Bologna on Sunday, writes the Los Angeles Times, when the LA Galaxy star and former captain of England’s national team—due to return to Major League Soccer on March 9—made his third consecutive start and scored his first goal for the seven-time European champion AC Milan.

“He knows our desire, if he goes it will be a disappointment because of the contribution he is giving in terms of quality and balance,” said Monday coach Carlo Ancelotti, speaking on Italian radio.

It’s also worthy to note that with England’s manager Fabio Capello set to announce his squad for a friendly against Spain on February 11, David Beckham’s excellent performance for Milan could not have come at a better time. Not by chance Capello is expected to fly in for the match on Wednesday in Milan in order to observe Beckham playing for the Rossoneri.

As a moderate soccer fan, I wouldn’t overrate the importance of the whole matter, nonetheless I can’t help noting this singular irony of fate: one of the best soccer player and one the most brilliant coaches ever, the former English, the latter Italian, one has “bewitched” the most successful soccer team in Italy, the other has “conquered” England. And their paths cross in Milan … Do you believe in Destiny (I mean in “crossed destinies”)?

PS
I am bound to say that I would like David Beckham to stay beyond his loan ending in March. Well, you know, I have been a supporter of Inter Milan FC—AC Milan’s city rival—since the times I was old enough to remember, but I can’t stand both its radical-chic president Massimo Moratti and its vain coach Jose Mourinho. So sorry ...

If Europe is no longer Europe

In a famous essay published March 13, 2003 in the Wall Street Journal, The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt, Oriana Fallaci maintained a “scandalous” thesis:

Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. It lodges thousands of Islamic terrorists whom governments don’t know how to identify and control. People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism [...] they feel protected.

Although she was talking about the war in Iraq, her words fit almost exactly what is going on in these very days in two European countries, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

Last Wednesday a Dutch court ordered the criminal prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), for his “anti-Islamic hate speech,” that is for his statements against Islamofascism, considered “insulting” by the Court itself. So, as my friends of www.actforamerica.org put it, the message is clear: it’s okay for a radical Muslim to call for your death, but don’t you dare criticize the Muslim for doing so.

Expectedly, “the Jordanian group ‘The Messenger of God Unites Us’ greeted the news with much happiness,” Klein Verzet (a Dutch blog in English) reports. And as it was not enough the State of Jordan

has issued a request for Wilders' extradition to stand trial in Jordan for blasphemy of Islam, a crime for which Shari'a law declares the penalty to be death. The Dutch parliament has taken the extradition request very seriously, and has shut out Wilders from all multi-lateral negotiations. As a precaution, Wilders no longer travels abroad unless he can obtain a diplomatic letter from the destination state promising he won't be extradited. For years now, Wilders has lived under looming death threats complemented by the threat that any day, Interpol might issue a warrant for his arrest at Jordan's behest.
[…]
What a difference a few years make. When we started this blog, the Dutch had a reputation comparable to the Danes. But now it seems that the Netherlands has joined the madness of the UK, France, Sweden and Norway, in their mad dash to destroy the spirit of the native people, for diversity's sake.

Well, actually, in the meantime two Dutchmen, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, were being murdered for their outspoken opposition to Islamization in the Netherlands.

Let’s now talk about what is going on in the UK. Last Friday the Evening Standard reported that

Douglas Murray, a self-confessed “neo conservative”, was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the university tonight — 24 hours after the end of a week-long sit in at LSE in protest at Israel's attacks on Gaza.
The commentator and author, who is the director of conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “This is back to the bad old days of the LSE — where the most violent get to dictate people's education. It is worse than censorship — it's intimidation.” The debate, which is set to go ahead, is between Dr Alan Sked, a senior lecturer in international history at the university, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim writer and lecturer.
The LSE asked Mr Murray not to attend in the interest of public safety as his presence could provoke further unrest. A spokesman added: “He has spoken at LSE in the past and will be welcome to do so again in the future.”

By the way, as a British journalist noted (Phyllis Chesler reports), the London School of Economics had no such fears when known “members of Al-Mujaharoun, a pro-terror Islamist organisation,” spoke there. “The presence of the group was announced in advance, but that was OK with the School. Presumably that was because it was also OK with the Islamic campus ideologues in front of whom it cowers.”

And here is what Melanie Phillips and Oliver Kamm have to say :

MP :

Another victory for the forces of darkness, thanks to the pusillanimity of the LSE which, finding itself on the battlefield of the war to defend civilisation, has run up the white flag.

OK :

The LSE's conduct is cowardly and unconscionable. A university is a place for the untrammelled discussion of ideas. The LSE has curtailed the ability of one invited guest to contribute to a discussion - as chairman of a debate and not even as a speaker - because of a presumed threat of violence arising from the offence he might thereby cause. I've seen the LSE's internal correspondence on this. It refers to complaints made about Douglas's views on Islam. It seems that Douglas has been disinvited because of the effect on the sensibilities of students - or on "campus relations", as one particularly arch piece of misdirection has it - at a time of Middle East conflict.
[…]
It is the LSE's responsibility - stemming from its function as an institute of learning - to rescind its decision, allow the event to take place as planned, and to send down any student who tries by violence or threat to prevent a guest from speaking.

Perhaps Oliver is wasting his breath with his call for the LSE to think again, and Melanie is right: they raised the white flag on the crumbling building.

Is Obama a neoconservative?

“With Barack Obama about to become president, is there any chance neoconservatives will finally return to the roost?” Gabriel Schoenfeld asked in the Wall Street Journal. If only a month ago the question would have seemed preposterous, now, according to Schoenfeld, it shouldn’t any more. And there are solid arguments for that. Obama’s insistence on the theme of “personal responsibility,” for instance, which is one purchase point for the original neocons, when they were still Democrats, back in the 70s. And what about his belief in the need for supporting and encouraging fathers’ active participation in parenting?

It was, after all, alarm about the disintegration of black families in the 1960s that helped propel rightward the liberal pillar -- and neoconservative founding father -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Four decades later the same problem afflicts the urban underclass. Mr. Obama's photogenic First Family serves as a more potent counter to the allure -- such as it is -- of the ghetto lifestyle than any policy initiative ever cooked up in a neoconservative think tank.
But the incoming president -- himself the son of a single mother -- not only walks the walk, he talks the talk. During the campaign he boldly told an African-American audience that "We need fathers to realize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. . . . What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. . . . It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Furthermore, Obama’s foreign policy echoed many longstanding concerns of the neocons :

Even on foreign policy, Mr. Obama has an opportunity to build a coalition with hawks. Ironically, the surge in Iraq -- which Mr. Obama irresponsibly opposed -- may allow for a safe American withdrawal on something approximating the timetable he has called for. His emphasis on winning in Afghanistan and cleaning out the al Qaeda redoubt in Pakistan is common sense. His pledge not to permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons differs not a whit from President Bush's policy.
And with regard to the Gaza conflict, it is also welcome to recall that, touring the embattled Israeli town of Sderot during the campaign, Mr. Obama stated -- in words that neoconservatives are now quoting aloud -- that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that."

Would Obama really do much that was different from the Bush administration? Ron Radosh asks in his blog. He reports that a left-leaning journalist, TNR’s John B. Judis called Obama’s Inaugural Address “a disappointing hodge-podge,” “too abstract” and neither “original nor compelling.” He didn’t like the call to get rid of “worn-out dogmas,” fearing, as Radosh puts it, that Obama was just not talking about those of the right.

Judis was also disturbed when Obama said that “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” Judis writes: “This strikes me as either boilerplate or an exaggeration of the danger posed by al Qaeda. It is reminiscent of George W. Bush and his catch-all war on terror. Obama and the country clearly face grave problems overseas; but they can’t be reduced to a ‘far-reaching network.’” Really?? And reminiscent of Bush? This, as we know, is about the nastiest smear a liberal could make against Obama.

When all this is said—and much more might be said on the subject—how can we help asking ourselves whether Obama is “a liberal mugged by reality?”

A morning with Cyrano

I went to the theater this morning with a bunch of my 16/17 year old students to watch the famous play by Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, in French, its original language. It was well performed by a French professional theater company, and most students seemed to have enjoyed the experience. As for myself, my school French turned out to be very poor, but I had no problem with the below quoted and sublime passage ...

Un baiser, mais à tout prendre, qu’est-ce ?
Un serment fait d’un peu plus près, une promesse
plus précise, un aveu qui veut se confirmer,
un point rose qu’on met sur l’i du verbe aimer;
c’est un secret qui prend la bouche pour oreille,
un instant d’infini qui fait un bruit d’abeille,
une communion ayant un goût de fleur,
une façon d’un peu se respirer le coeur,
et d’un peu se goûter, au bord des lèvres, l’âme !


A kiss, when all is said,—what is it?
An oath that's ratified,—a sealed promise,
A heart’s avowal claiming confirmation,—
A rose-dot on the ‘I’ of ‘adoration,’—
A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,—
Brush of a bee’s wing, that makes time eternal,—
Communion perfumed like the spring’s wild flowers,—
The heart’s relieving in the heart’s outbreathing,
When to the lips the soul’s flood rises, brimming!

Act III, Scene ix

Airline passengers: In whose hands?

The crash of US Airways 1549 into the Hudson River in New York City has inspired a former professional military pilot an interesting post. Airline passengers normally don’t spend much time thinking about who are sitting in the front two seats of the airplane, but they should ...