Paris When it Sizzles

Riots continued last evening in Parisian suburbs as African Muslims for the sixth consecutive night frolicked in the streets, having fun, burning vehicles, and fighting with the police.Regardless of the moralistic cliches one might hear from the politicians and the social workers and the professional poverty pimps who feed on government grants baby-sitting the "poor" the fact is that the rioters are very likely having a wonderful time and don't really care about the evils of social injustice at all. For many it's un jour d'fete, Monsieur Abdul's Holiday.
But this too might be true: that some of the rioters are going home after a night of street fighting with their heads cracked, having seen friends knocked down, having been chased and beaten by the police; visceral lessons in aggression and resistance that one will not in a whole long life-time forget. Violence radicalizes faster than anything one will ever hear at the mosque. One good smack on the head is all it takes to radicalize a kid for life. And one good beating that never seems to end is what it takes to turn a thug into our thug. The French are radicalizing a whole generation of Islamic youths in the suburbs by beating them pitifully rather than pitilessly. It's going to come back to haunt the French. The rioters will have learned the lesson of contempt.


..... Look briefly at the lessons from Roland Barthes. What is the mythologie of the theatre of the streets these past nights? It is the significance of the signs of weakness of authority. The mythos that will build over the winter will grow so huge in the minds of the rioters that come spring, after months of germination there will be riots that will sweep France like a tidal wave. The talk, the bragging, the war stories, the lies and make-believe will turn these riots into epics that others will phantasize about in their beds at night until Spring, and then they will go out into the warm nights and re-enact the past battles as heroes in their own minds, and on it will go till there is civil war and the French will finally have to decide if they want anarchy or fascism, chaos or Sarajevo.

Below we have a brief and truncated version of last night's events in Paris. Think of your own home town,though, and of a riot taking place in a suburb across town. It'd take an hour to get there by bus, and really, how often does one go there? It's not your friends rioting, it's those people over there in that other part of town, and they're not like you and yours. In fact, a Paris suburb is more immediate to the reader than is a place across town. The story is right here right now, but across town is an hour away and you don't go there. So it is with the French. this story is less immediate to them than to you who are thousands of kilometers away and yet right there. The French will let this slide till it affects them in person, and even then they'll ignore it if it happens to a neighbour but not to them. They'll ignore it till each and every Frenchman in France feels threatened personally in his own home. The rioting will spread in the springtime. The savages will build up their myths and they'll make them real in the streets when the weather warms.

Tensions Smoulder After Riots Near Paris

POSTED: 4:52 pm EST November 2, 2005

UPDATED: 4:52 pm EST November 2, 2005

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France -- Menacing youths smoked cigarettes in doorways Wednesday and hulks of burned cars littered the tough streets of Paris' northeastern suburbs beset by a week of rioting that left residents on edge and the president appealing for a firm but respectful response by police.

Leaders at Clichy-sous-Bois' mosque prayed for peace and asked parents to keep teenagers off the streets after violence broke out last week following the accidental deaths of two youths. They were electrocuted while hiding in a power substation because they believed police were chasing them.

The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs _ fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers.

The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.

"They have no work. They have nothing to do. Put yourself in their place," said Abderrahmane Bouhout, president of the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, where a tear gas grenade exploded Sunday evening. Local youths suspected a police attack, and authorities are investigating.
***

"People are joining together to say we've had enough," he said. He refused to give his surname because talking to reporters was poorly regarded in his neighborhood.
***

Many immigrant families are trapped in housing projects built to accommodate foreign laborers welcomed by post-World War II France, but which have since succumbed to despair, chronic unemployment and lawlessness. In some neighborhoods, drug dealers and racketeers hold sway and experts say Islamic radicals seek to recruit disenchanted youths by telling them that France has abandoned them.

"French society is in a bad state ... increasingly unequal, increasingly segregated, and increasingly divided along ethnic and racial lines," said sociologist Manuel Boucher. Some youths turn to Islam to claim an identity that is not French, "to seize on something which gives them back their individual and collective dignity."

French governments have injected funds and job-creation schemes for years but failed to cure ills in suburbs where car-burnings and other crimes are daily facts of life.

"No matter what the politicians say, some neighborhoods are all but lost," said Patrice Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie police officers' union. "Police patrols pass through but without stopping and with their windows rolled up."

Claude Dilain, a Socialist and mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, said that when youths experience social injustice every day, "it is very difficult to have them listen to reason and ask them to respect the laws."

Police said 180 vehicles were torched overnight, most of them in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that includes Clichy, Aulnay and other violence-hit neighborhoods. Police made 35 arrests in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails near Aulnay's town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. In nearby Bondy, a blaze engulfed a store.

Officials said police were harassed by "small, very mobile gangs."
***

In Aulnay-sous-Bois, another northeastern suburb where riot police fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths Tuesday night, workers cleaned up charred debris Wednesday. A group of teenagers chased and threw stones at Associated Press reporters, some shouting "Go home!" and others yelling: "See you tonight."

Associated Press writers John Leicester, Christine Ollivier and Joelle Diderich in Paris contributed to this report.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press
***

Barthes's essay on wrestling stays in the mind reading this. It's a morality play for the stupid, and the rioters will come again and again till the curtain comes down. We stand back and watch, barely suppressing our laughter.

Bravo, les enfants sauvage.

Dear Theo

Honest to God, we are not making this up. There really is somewhere on this Earth a woman this stupid. Theo van Gogh would have ridiculed this idiot, and he would also have defended her right to be so stupid.

What do we do in the encounter with people as stupid as the writer below? Well, a cruel person wouldn't mention the slow moving cow about to step on her. And a really mean-spirited person would post her copy on the Internet where others can find out what a-- well, whatever....

In memory of Theo van Gogh we present an article by the stupidest woman on Earth. Hope you like it.

Tiziana Sforza - Roma - 31.10.2005
The Islamic invasion

A wave of Islamophobia is sweeping Europe: minds are inflamed, veils lowered and sabres brandished. This is a journey through the European mindset, one patterned by fear, apprehension and so-called “rationality”, which seldom leaves room for tolerance.

A report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) of March 2005 denounces what it calls a “growing apprehension and hostility” towards Muslim minorities. Discrimination and intolerance towards Muslims have increased within the EU, most notably following the terrorist attacks of September 11 in New York and further highlighted by the fallout from the Madrid bombings of March 11 and the London attacks on July 7. Aaron Rhodes, director of the Finnish institute, stated upon presenting the report: “Since the war on terrorism has increased in its fervour and the threat of religious extremism has become one of the principal topics of public debate, Muslims have felt themselves increasingly stigmatised because of their beliefs.”

The current situation is placing attempts to integrate Muslims into the EU in jeopardy, further heightening their vulnerability to accusations of human rights abuses. At the same time, however, the situation is also adding fuel to an increasing sense of frustration within the Muslim community, one which is eroding loyalties towards the authorities. Among the causes contributing to an increase in intolerance is the mass media, along with those “media services not presenting a balanced opinion and encouraging stereotypes which view Muslims as aliens in European society and as enemies within our borders.”

Between apprehension and rejection

Following the murder of film director Theo Van Gogh in November 2004, the situation in Holland has escalated, not least due to one of Holland’s most eminent Rabbis, Awraham Soetendorp, declaring that Muslims are being labelled as extremists and terrorists, and comparing their situation to the plight of the Jews between the two world wars. The impossibility of marrying Islam with the body of ideals and values upon which the European Union is built has been one of the war horses ridden by ambassadors of the No vote during the referendums on the European Constitution. As if Islam and Muslims were entirely out of place in Europe! Europe already contains an estimated 12-15 million Muslims, and there are those who maintain that this number will double by 2015. Five million Muslims currently reside in France, three million in Germany, one and a half million in the UK, one million in Spain and almost one million in Italy and Holland.

However, the latest survey by Eurobarometer charting the opinions of current Europeans in light of Turkey’s entry into the EU has shown that 52% of Europeans are against Turkish accession, whereas those in favour stand at only 36%. Among those countries strongly opposed are Finland (79% voted No), Austria (78%) and Germany (71%), whilst Italy’s No vote is somewhat less at 57% and in Britain it stands at 52%.

Another survey was proposed roughly a year ago by Ali Lazrak, a Dutch Member of Parliament of Moroccan origins, which aimed at understanding the reluctance of Italy, Holland and Spain to Turkish accession. For Holland, the Islamic question has split open previous ideals of multiculturalism. As far as Spain is concerned, if Islamophobia has been fostered by the March 11 attacks in Madrid, Italy takes its stance for geographical reasons; Turkey’s accession would make Italy the European border country most likely to be flooded with migrants from Muslim countries on the equator and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Why does Islam engender fear?

The West’s collective imagination has painted a picture of Islam in which fear is always the lowest common denominator. Statistics and surveys record a tendency to exacerbate, exaggerate, and focus attention on specific aspects of Islam: terrorism and jihad, headscarves and Islamic law (sharia) are the reasons oft-cited to justify the fear and rejection of Islam. According to populist political rhetoric, Islam represents a fomenting of disorder which places national cohesion in jeopardy. And this engenders fear.
But what does Europe have to fear when it tells us that we should be afraid of Islam? When Europeans speak of being afraid of Islam, they are in reality thinking of many different things, forgetting that Islam has many followers and therefore, cannot simply be reduced to head dresses flaunted in state schools, to the Taliban in Afghanistan, to terrorism, the Ayatollah of Iran, proclamations on an Islamist internet site, or to Turkey, who now knocks at Europe’s door.

The Algerian crusades, the terrorist attacks during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the western hostages held as described in the Rushdie Affair, the Taliban and violence in the Middle East: all of this has settled into a negative image of Islam, which has added to the tension caused by the social crises Europe is facing: unemployment, social marginalisation and urban violence.

Mass media fosters fear

Islam in western countries does not enjoy a positive image. The mass media is in part responsible for this, particularly when it limits itself to echoing the commonly held misconceptions of society. Generally, attention is paid to minor aspects of Islam, one of which is fundamentalism – now used as a passe-partout to speak of many things which are universally regarded as ‘Islamic’. This is born of a superficial vision of reality, or else, of the fact that there is not always the means to study such a topic in any depth. Changing the way Islam is reported, freeing it of rhetoric and commonplace misconceptions could be an effective means of alleviating the fear of Islam amongst Europeans.
Tiziana Sforza - Roma - 31.10.2005 | Translation : Rachel Thomas & Aliette Boshier

A Season in Hell

In America people would have laughed if they'd asked him what he does for a living, and Jean-Marie had said: "I am an intellectual." Oh, he's a taxi driver, a waiter, a janitor. That's the low opinion most Americans have of intellectuals, and sometimes deservedly. But to translate that into French it means our man is a thinker first, and his source of money is incidental. We can thank the French Revolution for that. And deservedly so. But what is the average French intellectual to make of the sixth day of rioting in the suburbs of Paris now? Is working class solidarity going to hold out when there is no working class left? Is philobarbarism and anti-Americanism all there is to the Revolution anymore? What is to become of the revolutionary heritage of France? Where do the intellectuals stand now that the savages are burning the place to the ground, and the peasants aren't Republicans at all? Are the Muslim sans culottes the vanguard of the new revolution of Man? The French have brought this madness upon themselves, and now Americans are going to laugh. But it's not funny. Eurabia is upon us. It will only get worse, and where will the intelligentsia stand? Are the French going to think themselves right out of existence? This is the merest beginning of the war for France. Either Republican values advance and triumph over the barbarian world or the world sinks into barbarism, and Paris burns to the ground. Le Pen has friends, sorry to say, and he'll find more daily as the riots simmer till spring. The intellectuals will tire of the pose of Left fascism, and the fascist Right will rise up like it did with the end of Leon Blum. Let the snow cover this for now, and the savages will come back in the spring full grown and searching for new places to spread to. In the cafes intellectuals will mutter that this isn't what they wanted at all.

Or is it? Maybe this is exactly what the French want. And if it is, how long will they like it? Then what?
***

PARIS — Unrest spread across troubled suburbs around Paris in a sixth night of violence Tuesday as police clashed with angry youths and scores of vehicles were torched in at least nine towns, local officials said.

Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois — one of the worst-hit suburbs — where 15 cars were burned, said the prefecture that runs the Seine-Saint-Denis (search) region. Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails at an annex to the town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. It was not immediately clear whether there were injuries from the clashes.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174227,00.htm
***

Caught in the middle

By Peter Fray, James Clark
April 19, 2004

As he sits outside shelling peanuts at a wobbly table, Mohamed is not outwardly troubled by the arrest of several young Muslims from his neighbourhood on terrorism charges the day before. The president of the local mosque, he seems resigned to the suspicions that he and millions of French Muslims face every day.

"Sometimes the police call me up about young kids burning cars and want to know why they've done this, and I say, 'Mister, they've done something stupid, but it's not because they are Muslims'," he says.

Mohamed, who declined to give his surname, lives in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a suburb of medium-rise flats in Paris's north-west, near Charles de Gaulle Airport. In this area, the satellite TV dishes point to north Africa and the argot on the streets is Arabic and heavily-accented French. There is nothing pretty about Aulnay-sous-Bois.

To authorities, it is a "chaud" — or "hot" — area, a place where young Muslims, mainly of Moroccan and Algerian extraction, are turning to crime and radical Islam. The day before The Age visited, police arrested 13 suspected terrorists from Aulnay and a similar area, Mantes la Jolie, over alleged links to last May's Casablanca bombings, which left 45 people dead.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/18/1082226632005.html
***
The French can intellectualize till the cows come home, but come April in Paris the sauvages will come out to play, and they'll make the French les miserables.
***
Photo Credit: fr.altermedia.info/index.php?m=2004&w=48

On Schools.

Public education and universal literacy are great-- on paper. There are some people who should never have learned how to read and write. Those would be the few who piss us off on occasion, the morons who send us hate mail. But what the hey, we get over it and get on with living. It takes sometimes a second or two of ill temper before a moment of reflection reveals again that literacy is a gift that belongs to all with the means to hold it. To deny a man literacy is to enslave him. There are obscurantists in this world who do enslave their fellows, and though they are mostly Muslims they are also Left fascist dhimmis, for example, those who chant "No free speech for fascists." These are the vicious little biblioclasts who would murder Socrates and William Tyndale and you. There also school teachers who don't like their work, who hate their students, who really hate Humanity. Educational reform, from where we sit, needs men and women willing to go into the world at large and teach elenchus and aporia to the willing masses, Socratics with guns, armed men and women willing to shoot the bastards who will keep their children from school and the life of the mind for the sake of tradition, culture, and religion.

Unfortunately, we can't rightly shoot all rotten school teachers and village bigots and fanatics. Sometimes we can and must reason with them and teach their children on the sly and hope the kids don't get killed for being inquisitive. But try it once and find out you blew it. Then you'll join us in thinking all obscurantists must be dragged from their caves and killed.

But before we assume that everyone agrees that people have a right to learn and think for themselves we have to ask if it's a good thing at all. Maybe Man is better off being a farm animal. We have to ask "What is the goal of Humanity?" We won't presume to answer that here. Instead, we post an article on literacy in America.

By Paul E. Peterson
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 10, 2005

Among the "talented tenth," those in the top 10 percent of test takers, reading scores have dropped four points since 1971 and math scores have not budged since first measured in 1978. So say the latest (2004) results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's report card.

At the other end of the scale, dropout rates have actually increased since 1990, rising to 30 percent of all seventeen-year-olds. Among African Americans the dropout rate is running somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, a sad fact that remains one of the best-kept secrets in American education. Because few people know the facts, in a recently issued book, Michael Dyson scolds Bill Cosby for (accurately) lamenting the fact that only about half of African Americans graduate from high school. Dyson "corrected" him, saying the dropout rate is only 17 percent, an inaccuracy that earned Dyson warm praise from a New York Times book reviewer.

The reviewer's error only shows how successful the public education cartel has been in misleading the public. To hide actual dropout rates, most school districts report as dropouts only those who entered the year as seniors but did not remain in school until the end of that year. All other dropouts over the preceding three years—and all the summers in between, when most dropping out actually occurs—are statistically ignored.

The U.S. Department of Education has long been complicit in fostering that misperception. To his credit, Russ Whitehurst, head of the department's Institute of Education Sciences, is now actively working to remedy the situation, as are the nation's governors, who are now embarked on a Herculean effort to develop a multistate common definition and gauge of high school completion.

Getting the facts right will be a start. But we then need to do something about it. We currently base our high school policies on two contradictory assumptions: (1) that adolescents are responsible enough that they can choose their own curriculum from the shopping mall of choices available; ( 2) that adolescents should not be held responsible for their performances. Testing expectations should be minimal, and graduation requirements should be easily achievable.

No wonder the United States is desperately searching for ways to import talent from abroad. If we are to regain our educational strength in a world where other nations are passing us by, we need to hold students responsible for more than just selecting the courses they want to take. To graduate from high school, students should be expected to pass, at as high a level as they can, a challenging, substantive examination in a variety of subjects that allow them to demonstrate—to colleges and employers—just how accomplished they are. The Advanced Placement Test is a good beginning, but until more than 9 percent of all public school students take that test, it will not have a broad impact.
***

Tyndale, Luther, Wesley. It's not just Right-wing religious obscurantists who are a menace to Human freedom, and some religious men are our greatest heroes. Tyndale was murdered for translating the Bible into English, Luther was hounded for translating it into German, and Wesley for teaching the working class how to read. Theo van Gogh was murdered for publishing his ideas. You might be next. We welcome your comments here, even if we hate them. Maybe we'll learn something. We tend to think that's what life is about. We'll take our chances here.

To the Barricades!

Armed French racists invaded Clichy-sous-Bois and attacked local residents without provocation recently, setting off a fierce resistence among embattled freedom fighters.

Uh-oh. Actually, the police went to the rescue of the city when Muslim immigrants rampaged and rioted and went nuts in a crime-ridden suburb. Still, it's the fault of the French. Of course it is, just check out this excerpt from the English BBC News.
***
Anger grips Paris riot suburb

By Alasdair Sandford BBC News, Clichy-sous-Bois, France

The evidence of the previous night's trouble is clear to see on the Bosquets estate.

Burnt-out vehicles and debris remain on Clichy's streets

Among the cars parked outside one block of flats are two burnt-out vehicles and small piles of debris. Rocks and stones are strewn across the street.

There is no sign of any security presence and people are shopping and chatting as on any normal day.

It does not take long to get a sense of the hostility some feel towards the police.

A driver pulls up in front of the market, his little boy strapped in the back of his car.

He admits belonging to a group that is sometimes a bit "chaud" - meaning troublesome - a hint at the unrest of the past few days.

He describes the nightly presence of the CRS, the French riot police, as provocation.

"If they didn't come here, into our area, nothing would happen," he says. "If they come here it's to provoke us, so we provoke back."

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4397056.stm
***

Whenever chaud turned into "troublesome" we must have missed that day at BBC Euphemism School. Maybe we were busy learning that the French Revolutionaries were the first to abolish slavery. Maybe we were busy reading The Rights of Man. Maybe we were busy thinking the French are the ones who created a pillar of Modernity that we cannot get enough of and can't afford to let crumble under the weight of philobarbarism.

We have an unlimited hatred of Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault and cetera because we have an equally unlimited love of Abelard, Montesquieu, and Zola, to mention three of hundreds who spring to mind. Where in Clichy-sous-Bois today do we find the Dumas? "Our Area" we read. The French are taken over by German Romantics. Now "Our Area." What next? Will our French friends have to barricade themselves in! In the depths of this debacle, maybe the germination.

Anglican Love-fest Misses Point; Coptic Nun Gets It

The Third Anglican Global South to South Encounter Communique

A Third Trumpet from the South

TRUMPET III

The Third Anglican Global South to South Encounter

Red Sea (Egypt), 25-30 October 2005

The Third Anglican South-to-South Encounter has graphically demonstrated the coming of age of the Church of the Global South. We are poignantly aware that we must be faithful to God's vision of one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. We do not glory in our strengths but in God's strength. We do not shrink from our responsibility as God's people because of our weaknesses but we trust God to demonstrate His power through our weakness. We thank God for moving us forward to serve Him in such a time as this.

A. Preamble

***

3. We were really warmed by the welcome that we received here by the President, the government and the people of Egypt. We valued the great efforts made by the state security personnel who are making the land of Egypt a secure and safe place to all her visitors. We were touched by the warm hospitality of the Diocese of Egypt.

A random example:

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Sinai bombing death toll 29

EILAT: At least 29 people were killed and scores were injured when car bombs exploded at resorts packed with Israeli holidaymakers on the Red Sea coast of Egypt’s Sinai desert in attacks late on Thursday, which Israel blamed on Al Qaeda.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-10-2004_pg7_8
***

4. We have witnessed in Egypt a wonderful model for warm relations between Christians and Muslims. We admire the constructive dialogue that is happening between the two faiths. We appreciated the attendance of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr Mohammed Said Tantawi, the representative of Pope Shenouda III and other religious leaders at the State Reception to launch our Encounter. We were encouraged by their wise contributions.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3178

Gotta love these Anglicans, witnesses of a wonderful model for warm relations such as this:

Coptic nun stabbed, see pictures below

This is old news by now: for the last week: Muslim demonstrations in front of the Mar Girgis Church in Alexandria (more about this here), and as we're in the midst of all that week of religious hate and sectarian tensions, a Muslim young man two days ago stabbed a Coptic nun in the outdoors of the Church, in addition to a Christian man (said to be a lawyer) who tried to rescue her.

http://theegyptblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/coptic-nun-stabbed-see-pictures-below.html
***

Mullahs Tossing Out Sex Objects

City tackles titillating mannequins

Mon Oct 31, 2005 1:44 PM GMT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Police in northeastern Iran are launching a new morality drive by confiscating alluring mannequins from boutiques and clothes stalls in the bazaar, authorities in the city of Bojnourd said on Monday.

A spokesman for the city's judiciary, who asked not be named, explained the drive would tackle problems of "public chastity". Sixty five mannequins have been impounded so far.

He explained the crack-down on tailors' dummies was part of a larger offensive against anti-social behaviour such as vandalism and biker gangs.

Bojnourd owes its traditional religious climate to the nearby shrine city of Mashhad, a focal point of pilgrimage for the world's Shi'ite Muslims.

http://today.reuters.co.uk

Paris Peace Talks

We have written on these pages before that Mohammed is a child molester, that he had sex with an eight year old girl. Well, maybe that's inaccurate. Aisha, his "wife," might have been nine years old when he started in on her. Heaven help us if we're inaccurate! Inaccurate statements can lead to four nights of rioting. Oh, to be young in Paris.

The inaccurate statements by M. Sarkozy and the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, now withdrawn, have fuelled four nights of violent confrontations between local youths and the police. More than 70 cars have been burnt, scores of policemen slightly injured, a live bullet has been fired at a police truck and a kindergarten and fire station have been vandalised. More than 50 youths have been arrested, some of whom appeared in court yesterday.

Although tempers had seemed to be subsiding on Sunday, a renewed outbreak of violence was feared yesterday after a police tear-gas shell exploded inside a local mosque on Sunday night. Residents accused the CRS riot police of targeting the mosque. Police suggested that a smoking shell might have been carried inside by rioters as a deliberate "provocation".
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article323783.ece

Worthwhile Post

Our friends at Pedestrian Infidel have a 12 step programme for those who seek world domination, of particular importance to those who are Muslims, and perhaps of equal interest to our friends now being stepped on in Europe.

http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com

Babylon Shooting in Sydney

"As long as they're having fun," was the first comment that came out from the discussion we had about the following story. When we finished chuckling the next thing up was that we are seeing the result of criminal activity among Muslims, criminals first, Muslims second. But this is the second post in two days on Crime and Muslims, and one must wonder why such otherwise puritanical fanatics would turn to rioting and murder in major Western cities while at the same time bellowing about the purity of their religious beliefs. What is it about Islam that shows the world in the Islamic daily routine nothing more than murder and mayhem? Are we being too selective in our reporting? Are we too critical of Islam and Muslims from some personal animus? It would be easy, and perhaps far easier, to pick on Guatemalan drug dealers outside our doors than to worry about writing on the problems of Islam; but, our neighbours here do not present a world-wide threat to the civil populations as do Muslims. And, in fairness, the story below might have nothing more to do with Islam than does Catholicism to Guatemalan drug-dealers. Maybe this story is simply one of criminals dealing with each other in Australia.

Man Killed in Cafe Shooting

From:

By Ben Sharkey

November 01, 2005

The drive-by shooting left one man dead and three others seriously injured / file

A GUNMAN sprayed a bustling Sydney kebab cafe with bullets last night, killing one man and injuring three others.

Customers dived behind tables as the balaclava-clad thug opened fire, hitting two men inside the cafe and a third on a bench outside.

The attack occurred at 9.30 at The Babylon Cafe on Ware St, Fairfield, while at least 20 people were dining.

"We heard noises and we thought it was kids playing with bangers but then glass started spraying everywhere," one witness who was playing cards said.

"Everyone started jumping on the ground and turning over tables."

"We panicked and ran out to the back to hide. There were holes in the glass the size of a five cent coin."

Witnesses said the gunman was seen getting out of a black Honda car on Ware St.

He then began firing at a 19-year-old man sitting on a bench outside the cafe, hitting him in the arm.

The gunman then calmly walked into the cafe and began spraying the room from the ceiling to the floor. A 48-year-old man shot in the neck was killed instantly while a 40-year-old was shot in the chest.

"He's died for nothing, he was just standing there he's got nothing to do with anything that's bad," a shocked friend of the deceased man said shortly afterwards.

Another witness who dived on to the ground to save himself said "there couldn't have been anything organised about it ... he was just shooting everyone, young people and old people".

Police said last night at least one man wearing a balaclava had fired the shots before fleeing with one or two others of middle-eastern appearance in a sedan.

He fled in a vehicle which carried a registration plate beginning with the letters WHV.

Following the shooting the men were rushed to Liverpool hospital where police called for backup to deal with angry relatives.

Relatives of the victims had to be controlled by police after the shooting occurred.

Carloads of relatives were pulling up to the hospital with family and friends.

One grief-stricken cousin of the deceased had to restrained at the scene. He wept openly in front of the hospital.

Police are looking for three or possibly four men involved in the shooting.

"At this stage it is possible the shots were fired from a person on foot but a car was involved and the car is a black Honda last seen heading towards Smart St, Fairfield," Superintendent Ray King said.

"There are four in hospital and one dead.

"They can't confirm the calibre of the gun that was used or the number of bullets."

The arcade has been blocked off.

Operational Support Group officers were called in to control the situation.

"At this stage that is under control, OSG officers have the situation at hand."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17102662-2,00.html
***

Cafe scene of two shootings

From: AAP

November 01, 2005

THE Sydney cafe where one man was shot dead and three others injured by gunfire was also targeted at the weekend, police said today.

Shots were fired at the Babylon Cafe in the Civic Centre Arcade at Fairfield in Sydney's southwest about 9.40pm (AEDT) yesterday.

It understood a lone gunman fired on the same cafe about 2.30pm on Saturday.

No one was injured in that incident, when a man was believed to have got out of a car, walked towards the cafe and opened fire before driving away.

Fairfield police superintendent Ray King said today that police would investigate the link between the earlier shooting and last night's fatal incident.

"We are looking at the link with the shooting on Saturday," he told ABC radio.

Two of three men injured in the latest shooting, both aged 48, will undergo surgery today.

One man, from Hinchinbrook, is in a critical condition, while the other, from Smithfield, is in a serious condition.

The third victim, a 19-year-old man from West Hoxton, is in stable condition.

Police have not released the name of the hospital where the men are being treated.

A fourth man, who died from gunshot wounds at the scene, has yet to be formally identified.

Supt King said it was a traumatic event for witnesses.

"There was a lot of emotion amongst a number of people at the scene last night," he said.

"There was a lot of people in that vicinity and police had difficulty in trying to establish a crime scene ... a number of people were quite emotional."

After the shooting, three men were seen driving a black Honda Civic towards Smart Street in Fairfield.

Specialist officers from State Crime Command squads are involved in the investigation.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17103050-1702,00.html
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There's no certainty that the shootings above were committed by Muslims, and none that they were motived by Islam. Our question is what will come of it if the criminals are captured, found to be Muslims, and are then excused from deportation due to problems with the legalities of sending them to their home countries-- if they are indeed immigrants. Can we allow Basra behaviour in Sydney without allowing for the fact that if we do we should also allow for Basra punishments? To allow criminals to shoot civilians in Sydney without the full wrath of the legitimate law coming down on them as a result is to once again delve into the depths of dhimmitude, letting some escape justice for reasons of cultural senstitivies or what have you when the obvious conclusion for any one else would be to deport the criminals because they do not warrant the protect of the state.

We'll wait and see what the Australian goverment does, if anything, about murder in Sydney, and we'll watch to see how they deal too with "hate crimes" such as Protestants reading the Koran. What is the priority?