Free speech abroad

Today I have two reports from the front in the global battle for free speech about Islam. Note that in both cases the battle is not between Muslims and Westerners, but between Western authorities and their citizens.

The first, by Dutch lawyer and historian Thierry Baudet, chronicles the torturous path of the trial against Dutch politician Geert Wilders (which I've reported on before). In the first round, public prosecutor Paul Velleman refused to prosecute because he did not consider that various statements made by Wilders (comparing the Koran to Mein Kampf or calling Islam a violent religion) had broken the law. Then judges on the Court of Appeal essentially ruled that Wilders was guilty of hate speech and incitement to discrimination - in other words, pronounced him guilty, not even bothering to preserve any illusion of the presumption of innocence. The District Court in Amsterdam gave in to this pressure and brought Wilders to trial.

At the trial, Vellemans stuck to his original position. The judges disagreed. The trial continued until their bias became so evident that they were dismissed from the case. Wilders isn't out of the woods yet, though, as the case will be retried at some future point.

Nor is Wilders physically safe. As Baudet notes: "while Wilders’s remarks have aroused no social disorder of the sort that the Dutch laws were intended to prevent, he himself receives continual death threats and lives under permanent police protection."

The second case involves the National Archives of Canada. It cancelled the showing of Iranium, a new movie about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, after receiving threats and two suspicious letters. (Watch the Iranium trailer here.) Fortunately, Canada's Heritage Minister James Moore then stepped in, arguing that cancelation was the equivalent of censorship and ordering the Archives to show the film. So far no date has been set.

How, one wonders would U.S. courts or public prosecutors handle a case similar to either of the ones above? Somehow I can't see Attorney General Holder, President Obama, or New York Mayor Bloomberg rising to the defense of free speech if that speech risked offending Muslims. Can you?

What's going on in Turkey?

Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan, who has been doing his best to turn Turkey into an Islamist state, was booed out of a soccer stadium he had helped to build. As Mideast scholar Barry Rubin describes it, "The [TV] announcer, well-known journalist Mehmet Ali Birand, is in shock at an unprecedented display of antagonism toward the regime that has been trying to fundamentally transform Turkey from its traditional status as a secular republic and reverse its long-time alliances with the West in favor of aligning with Iran, Syria, and revolutionary Islamist terrorist groups."

There has been a long series of anti-Western, pro-Islamist statements and actions from the Turkish government for some time now. It's too soon to know if this incident will be followed by others - but I certainly hope so.

Revolt in Tunisia

Now that crowds of angry people have chased out Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, what happens next? French blogger Guy Milliere worries that the situation is very fragile. He gives the Tunisians a 10% chance of achieving a peaceful democracy and a 90% chance either of a military takeover or chaos from which the Islamists will profit.

His reasons? First, the Islamists made a push in Tunisia ten years ago (and were beaten back by Ben Ali), and are ever more strident in Algeria, Egypt and Lebanon. Second, the uprisings were due to economic problems that, in the current global economic situation, are unlikely to improve. Indeed, unrest will only drive away tourists, further depressing the Tunisian economy. And all those educated, unemployed young people will still be completely frustrated.

Milliere hopes he's wrong and I hope so too but, as the military say, 'hope is not a plan.'

Warming to my topic

Jean-Patrick Grumberg, a dissident French blogger, describes here a demonstration in central Paris on December 26 by what he calls Islamo-Palestinian groups celebrating the second anniversary of the Gaza conflict. A small group from the LDF (Jewish Defense League) mounted a counter-protest.

The blog entry includes a video in which a young veiled woman holds up an Arabic flag, saying "you see this flag, and soon it will fly over the Elysee [Palace of the President of France]." Another voice tells an LDF member to "go away, dirty Frenchman of sh---y origin."

At the risk of being too long, here's my (very) informal translation of Grumberg's analysis of these remarks and of the situation in general:

"Two short sentences which show that on French soil, the enemies of Israel and the enemies of the French are the same over-excited people. Two short phrases which show a confident Islam, sure of its imminent victory, sure that France already belongs to it, already strong enough to announce proudly, in the heart of Paris and without any complex, its political goal: the taking of power in France.

The pretentious assurance of these Muslims is of course nourished by the complicity of the French and European governments, by the complicity of the Left parties (who are, as if by accident, equally hysterically anti-Zionist) and, alas, by the passive resignation of the French who have been deprived of any democratic means of expressing their opinion. This portends nothing good. Beyond that, it poses three questions:

1) Given the Muslims who proudly announce that their flag will soon fly over the Elysee, how does one describe the French people who support them? Traitors of the nation? Autistic? 'Care bears' who think that everything is greatly exaggerated in order to frighten people? The anti-racists who think these demonstrations are delusions used by the extreme right to fuel its populist demagogy?

2) Will there be a moment when the French will look reality in the face, or has reality become 'Islamically incorrect'?

3) You have seen the video, you have seen the arrogance of the young woman. Now imagine that same young woman, had Israel been defeated. And ask this question: on which side would it be better for the people of the (still) free world to be, in terms of their own interest? On the side of Israel, or of the Palestinians?"

Anyone who claims that the French have the 'Muslim problem' under control should watch this video, or another one linked to my earlier entry.

Jews leaving Europe?

David Rusin of Islamist Watch reports that a number of Jews are leaving Europe to escape the rising tide of antisemitism, reflected in a general atmosphere of fear as well as physical attacks on Jews. The danger stems primarily from Muslim youths, although traditional far-right groups are also involved.

He cites examples from the Netherlands, where EU Commissioner Fritz Bolkestein said Jews had no future because of "the anti-Semitism among Dutchmen of Moroccan descent, whose numbers keep growing," and Sweden, where the 700 Jews remaining in the city of Malmo experience frequent hate crimes. The population of Malmo is now 20% Muslim.

As Rusin writes: "It has become fashionable to equate the plight of today's Muslim population in Europe with that of the continent's oppressed Jews during the 1930s. However, one can tell which group faces the real threat in modern Europe by watching migratory trends. While European governments are planning fences to keep Muslims from entering illegally, Jews are exiting in droves. People vote with their feet."

This is the second time in the last five to ten years that there has been a reported uptick in Jewish emigration from Europe. I don't know the exact numbers, but things do appear to be deteriorating.

START Treaty won't stop

Just before Christmas, the U.S. Senate ratified the START treaty with Russia that contained preambular language linking offensive missile reductions to U.S. limits on new defensive missile systems. It ratified the text based on President Obama's assurance that such language was not binding.

Now an indignant Russian Duma is promising to pass a resolution affirming that Russia does indeed consider the preambular language to be legally binding. The Duma would ratify the START treaty, along with any related statements and reservations, in February.

If that happens, there should be some red faces in Washington (I say 'should' because shame is an outmoded and fast-disappearing emotion). The great display of domestic bipartisanship and 'resetting' U.S.-Russian relations achieved by ratifying the START treaty will look like a farce. I have to imagine that the State Department and White House are scrambling to control the damage.

Explaining nature

Several US news stories have reported dead birds falling from the sky or dead fish watching up on the beaches in puzzlingly large quantities. Our scientists are scratching their heads and trying to explain these phenomena.

In the Mideast, on the other hand, explaining animal behavior is much easier. A regional governor in Egypt couldn't dismiss the theory that the sharks who went on the attack near the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh were sent there by the Mossad.

Saudi security forces were even more vigilant, arresting a tagged vulture for flying overhead in yet another dastardly Mossad plot. The Saudis still aren't out of danger, though: the Israeli researchers who tagged the bird report that there is still one vulture unaccounted for, presumably flying somewhere over Saudi Arabia.

I think I'll go for my PhD in natural sciences in Cairo - should take me about a week, after I learn how to say 'Zionist plot' and 'Mossad' in Arabic!