Saturday, August 09, 2008

Fjordman on France: Can a Wounded Nation Heal Itself?

Below are excerpts from Fjordman’s latest essay at the Brussels Journal:

Here is a quote by Nicolas Sarkozy from 2006, before he became French President:

[S]ecurity is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I’m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

Yes, but what happens when the state neither can nor wants to protect its citizens, which is clearly the case in France and in many other Western countries today? Here is another quote by the same man, this time as president, in July 2008, when he announced the creation of a new “Mediterranean Union” in a huge meeting between European and Arab leaders: “The goal of this summit for the Mediterranean, of this Union for the Mediterranean, is that we learn to love each other instead of continuing to hate each other and wage war,” Sarkozy told a news conference. That same month he also declared that Ireland will have to hold a second referendum after Irish voters rejected the EU Constitution, the same Constitution which French and Dutch voters had previously rejected but which was implemented anyway under another name, the Lisbon Treaty. In saner times we would have called this a coup d’état, committed not just in one country but in many countries simultaneously.

The European Union is an organization of corrupt parasites and power-grabbing traitors, mixed up with some dangerously naive fools. EU leaders are intent on flooding their countries with even more Muslims at the same time as immigrants commit countless acts of violence against native Europeans. The greatest organized betrayal in history is celebrated as a victory for peace and tolerance. Our so-called leaders open the floodgates to people who are, always have been, and always will be hostile to everything we hold dear, and tell us to love them. Unfortunately, others have rather different plans for us.

Iranian writer Amir Taheri explains how al Qaeda’s chief theoretician, Sheik Abu-Bakar Naji, in his new book Governance in the Wilderness suggests that low-intensity war should be extended to anywhere in the world with a significant Muslim presence, creating parallel societies resembling “liberated zones” set up by Marxist guerrillas in parts of Latin America in the twentieth century. The Jihadis are to begin by giving areas where Muslims live a distinctly Islamic appearance, by imposing special styles of dress for women and beards for men. Then they start imposing Islamic law. In the final phase, they should create a parallel system of taxation and law enforcement. This is already being implemented in many European urban areas.
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[…]

In July 2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy, while laying the foundation stone of new rooms for the Arts of Islam at the Louvre in Paris, stated that “France is a friend of Arab countries. Islam is the bearer of one of the oldest and most prestigious civilizations in the world,” and the new exhibition is “an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, refinement, modernity.” Prince Alwalid Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah’s nephew, is an important donor to the project. “France wants peace, France does not want the clash of civilizations between East and West,“ said the French president. “France says to the Arab countries that it will help them acquire the energy of the future, nuclear energy used for peaceful civilian purposes.”

So, France wants peace, and since we all know that Islam is peace, does that mean that France wants Islam? Probably not all the French, but their political elites certainly seem to want it or else have resigned themselves to that prospect.

[…]

Things went seriously wrong with Europe starting with World War I in 1914, which radicalized the continent, paved the way for the totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and in the long run perhaps the European Union. But you could argue successfully that some of the seeds of our current problems were planted as far back as in 1789. In my book, the French Revolution is one of the worst disasters ever to befall this continent, and I simply cannot understand why so many people celebrate it as something positive. France is a wounded nation, a nation that worships its wounds and wants everybody else to share them, too. Until a sound and healthy French culture has been restored, if that is indeed still possible, others should forcefully reject any claims to French moral or intellectual leadership.

10 comments:

Fjordman said...

Thank you for posting. I have to finish the country essays for Holland and and Germany and one for the former Communist countries. Then I will complete the Ten reasons for getting rid of the EU, and I will have enough material for the book Defeating Eurabia, which should still be ready later this month.

Anonymous said...

I will have enough material for the book Defeating Eurabia, which should still be ready later this month.

Is Fjordman writing a book? If so, is there any more information about it available?

Diamed said...

I love this portion:

'It is a bit ironic that European culture is constantly derided for being racist, oppressive and evil, yet everybody else seems very busy with claiming the honor for having created it. If we are racist oppressors who rape the earth and create global warming, why are Muslims and others so eager to take credit for having created our culture? Shouldn't they feel ashamed of themselves instead?

The truth is that the scientific revolution was the greatest achievement of the human mind in history, and it was done by Europeans, not by anybody else.'

You might as well add that the European painters are the best the world has ever seen, that classical music is the greatest musical tradition on earth, that Europeans invented the novel and have the greatest literary tradition on earth, that Europe invented opera, ballet, and the plays of Shakespeare. Then you could bring up the unique value we have for our women, the courage, decency and strength of Europe's warriors compared to others throughout history, our liberating and empowering philosophies, the economic system that freed the human spirit to its productive potential, the rule of law, and perhaps a few major inventions like the car, airplane, computer, phone, refrigerator, antibiotics---

well, you get the idea.

Bravo for standing up for the West.

Whiskey said...

Fjordman, I have four comments for you:

1. In "A Kind of Anger" by Eric Ambler, written IIRC in the late 1960's (Ambler is the creator of the modern thriller and a great writer), he notes that it was tradition of Frenchman to have a revolver in the glove compartment of cars, because of lack of safety. In History Channel's "Human Weapon" the episode on Savate covers the rather violent nature of French society in the 17th, 18th, and particularly 19th centuries, and the need for Savate to allow men to defend themselves from attack, in urban and rural areas.

Sarkozy's view of the State is rather unique, in that for most of the existence of the French state there was not even lip service to the idea that personal security was the duty of the State. It is an interesting contrast with Britain and OTHER European countries where the 18th and particularly the 19th centuries found these native European martial arts dying because safety and stability found no need for them. Whereas in either Paris or the French countryside, the endemic violence guaranteed Savate's survival.

2. I think you overlook the obvious in Western European society -- the growth in European power starting around AD 1000 when the Vikings AND Muslims were pushed back, later the Renaissance and other cultural flowerings, depends on the radically different organizing basis for society: the nuclear family. Monogamy, enforced by the Church, and tribal rough equality equals the ability to marshal far greater resources. Even peasants are a greater resource than educated slaves.

3. The Eurabian project is an attempt by various Elites to roll back monogamy, the nuclear family, and the fundamental organizing basis for society in favor of a Sultan, harems, and great amounts of patronage.

4. Napoleon's grant of property to French Peasants made the countryside innately conservative and characterizes the struggle within France politically: the small property holders in rural areas, suspicious of any sort of "progress" because they rightly think they will lose what little they have, and big city monied interests controlling the central government and intent on taking away property and other rights from the sullen, surly, but tradition-loving French peasantry (who can be both the bedrock of society and unlovely at times).

If Sarkozy represents the interests of the Paris based monied class, De Gaulle represented the attempt to compromise with the peasantry and Paris. Along with the reality that France no longer has the power and influence it had from roughly the 1500's to 1870.

The instability characterizing much of Europe is more the result of Prussia/Germany usurping France as the most powerful European power, with the result that France, like Post-Soviet Russia, desperately casts about for ways to recapture power and importance.

A project that unhappily unifies both Paris and the Peasantry.

Anonymous said...

Iranian writer Amir Taheri explains how al Qaeda’s chief theoretician, Sheik Abu-Bakar Naji, in his new book Governance in the Wilderness suggests that low-intensity war should be extended to anywhere in the world with a significant Muslim presence, creating parallel societies

This is not something new. Muslims have always done this throughout history. Muslims view themselves as the army of allah. No army fragments itself - it stays in an army compound or base, and then extends its operation and influence from a secure base- standard procedure.

laine said...

This is what the West refuses to comprehend, that Muslims are not immigrants like all the previous waves of immigrants to the West, but colonizers, setting up beach heads in every Western nation. This phase is already complete.

Their mosques are not like our churches, but basically their army headquarters.

Now comes the consolidation, increasing their numbers and the push for sharia.

This has all been done through the Trojan horse called multicult with western leftists dragging it in through the gates and shutting up anyone who says that the horse is no gift but an existential threat.

xlbrl said...

I did not have a high opinion of Sarkozy, but you have revealed me to be foolishly optimistic.
We are so grateful to have someone who is a lesser fool, we do not for a time dwell on the fact that he is a fool.
Sarko:
An armed intruder is already risking my life without any input from me. Since he is 1)a criminal, 2)an intruder, and 3)armed, there is a high probability he may not follow the Geneva conventions, or Republican principles. I will make the decisions about my response, not you. You are by all means welcome to bend over in your own behalf. And of course your wife and child as well. I promise not send you to prison for your Republican principles.
My Republican principles are to shoot anyone who enters my house through the window. If some fool Frenchman had done the same before me he wouldn't be coming through my window, would he? So I'll do the same on behalf of the next person with red corpuscles.
Republican principles are not two sheep and a wolf deciding what to have for dinner.
I pray we do not bail you out in the next war.

One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left said...

Yes, times have changed, and not for the better. It seems that in the late 1800's, when bicycles were becoming popular, there was a need for very small, low cost revolvers so that cyclists could protect themselves from dogs. I'm NOT making this up; do a google search for "velo-dog revolver."
What do you think would happen today if you were riding your bicycle, were attacked by a dog, and pulled out your 5.7 mm Velo-Dog and started blasting away?

babs said...

Neptunus Lex, who writes a successful blog mostly about the U.S. Navy, has a little saying:

When you need help immediately, the police are just 5 minutes away...

Needless to say, he owns several guns.

One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left said...

For those who do not speak "French," let me translate Sarkozy's comments into plain English:

"Security is the responsibility of the State,..." - The State ( run by ME ) is mighty and powerful; you are nothing. Know your place, peasant.

"...I am against militias,..." - The State is absolute. There can be no counterweight to the power of the State.

"...I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I'm trying to make you think about that." - because you are STUPID.

"If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he'll use his weapon more effectively than you..." - because you are MORE STUPID than the criminal.

"...you're risking your life." - actually, you are risking the CRIMINAL'S life, we will not allow that.

"If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined,..." - If the criminal did not succeed in destroying your life, the ( supposedly Almighty ) State ( which was not puissant enough to prevent the criminal's attack in the first place ) will destroy your life ( for the criminal. )

"...because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine." - I am a typical lunatic-left, bleeding-heart, soft-on-crime do-gooder who believes that criminals are "victims of society."

"The private ownership of firearms is dangerous." - Eeek! Guns are ICKY! ( because I'm a total candy-ass girlie man ) Guns scare me! ( except when they are in the hands of my HIRED THUG bodyguards payed for by the taxpayers. )

"I understand your exasperation..." - "Aaah feeel yur Pain!" ( Hey, that line worked for Bill Clinton. )

"I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have..." - about being gang raped in the Brussels train station by some of the Muslim THUGS... uh, I mean "Youths"... that I recently imported from the Third World, but you can't be shooting the...uh, "Youths" because I want to import many more of them.

"...the answer is in the efficiency of the police..." - actually, I mean the INEFFICIENCY of the police, but what do I care; I have my HIRED THUG bodyguards payed for by the taxpayers like you. ( You dumb SAPS! )

"...the efficiency of the judiciary process..." - as long as no Muslims are offended!

"...the answer is not in having guns at home." - I will keep you disarmed and helpless; you must remain in serfdom.



There, I hope that clarifies things for everyone.