Tag Archives: Europe and the world

Belarusobloggin’

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Want to know what’s happening in the Belarus civil war? Belarus Today‘s yer blog. Except, of course, it’s not. As it says at the bottom of the page:

This website is part of a foreign policy simulation. The events depicted are not actually taking place.

Thank God for that. After all, by the end of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs’s scenario simulation, the NATO Secretary General had suffered a heart attack, Gerhard Schröder had made a fool of himself, Minsk was in flames and USAF and Italian aircraft were heading for their targets..

It sounds fun. Just a pity that the transcript isn’t on the web.

Update: (From Edward, apologies in advance to Alex for butting-in like this, but there didn’t seem to be enough for a separate post here). Events still seem to be tense in Belarus with Lukashenko opponents attempting to gain ‘orange-like’ traction, and EU observers keeping up the pressure. Also it may be worth pointing out that Belarus is another one of those incredible shrinking countries, and I’ve just posted a little data about this on Demography Matters, so either way – with or without Lukashenko – the future looks extraordinarily bleak for these long-suffering people (remember they were also hit by Chernobyl).

Update the second: The Patterson School’s website is here.

Theatre of Citizenship

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Everyone’s been terribly worried about France. First of all, last autumn’s carburning outbreak saw a lot of people who really ought to know better gathering to hail the end of days and the Islamofascist conquest of Eurabia, or something. Now, the students are out on the streets to protest the government’s new labour laws, and perhaps the trade unions will be coming too. And then there was the supposedly anti-semitic stabbing of a few weeks ago.

That stabbing, one will remember, brought thousands onto the streets for a heavily earnest, government supported demonstration against antisemitism, terrorism and a few other isms. I’m usually very sceptical about demos like that, and the Spanish tradition of demonstrating against terrorists-they aren’t listening, after all, and it is always worryingly close to demonstrating in favour of the government. There’s a strong case that one shouldn’t take part in a modern version of the demos by (supposedly) torpedoed merchant seamen that Winston Churchill put on in the first world war to shame strikers.

But is there more use to it than I think? (More, and more sense, below the fold..)
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Katja Gelinsky’s Peculiar America, Pt. 2

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This time on the front page of the German newspaper whose web site has marginally improved. “Prosecutor demands death penalty for Moussaoui”

Well blow me down. In their closing statements, do German prosecutors generally call for less than the maximum punishment for the offense being tried? “Well yes, your honor, we have just spent weeks telling you how guilty the accused is. But never mind that. We believe the accused should be let off with a slap on the wrist.” I don’t think so.

Think what you will of the death penalty, that is the maximum penalty for the crimes to which Moussaoui has pled guilty. The prosecutor would be remiss in his duty not to seek it. Think what you will of the case against Moussaoui, this is the prosecutor speaking, not the judge, still less the jury. He has a duty as an advocate, and he is discharging it.

A prosecutor seeking the maximum penalty is not even news, much less page one. Unless you have a peculiar view of America.

Le Soir on Islam’s Laicism

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An interesting point of view.

“Islam is in fact a laicity-based faith [one
rooted in the separation of religion and government affairs],”
the Franco-Tunisian writer and essayist Abdelwahab Meddeb
explains in an interview. “It has no Church, nor a supreme
moral authority. During his final crusade, the Emperor
Frederick II, had observed that Muslims made a distinction
between the temporal and the spiritual. … We can trace the
origins of the reflection on laicity to Averroès [1126-1198].
He was the first to plant the seeds of the idea that there
existed two truths, one philosophic, the other theologic. He
saw them as twin sisters. But it is his philosophical
successors who end up forging the theory of a dual truth and
bringing about the split between philosophy and theology. …
Let us not forget that the non-separation of religion and
politics is part of the phantasmagoria surrounding the origins
of Islam that is all the rage among fundamentalists.”

By way of Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb, Germany) and its estimable newsletter on European topics. I imagine the article is from Le Soir‘s issue of today, but the link does not specify, and my French is not up to searching it out. Any pointers to and/or translations of the full article gratefully accepted.

Katja Gelinsky’s Peculiar America

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The German newspaper whose web site is now marginally better organized has two reporters based in the United States for its main news section. One, Matthias Rueb, is said to be one of the paper’s heavy hitters. They post him where they want to have an impact, certainly within German debate, and if possible at a European level or in the host country. (The paper has several such correspondents.) This is not his story.
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The cartoon row: aiming for maximum shock value

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Iran newspaper Hamshahri came up with an original plan to counter the release of Danish cartoons making fun of the prophet Muhammad and decided to hold a little cartoon contest to test the limits of free speech:

The daily paper Hamshahri said the contest was designed to test the boundaries of free speech — the reason given by many European newspapers for publishing the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

Fair enough, you’d say? Well, not quite. The theme of the contest is the Holocaust, incidentally called an “incident”:

A serious question for Muslims … is this: “Does Western free speech allow working on issues like America and Israel’s crimes or an incident like the Holocaust or is this freedom of speech only good for insulting the holy values of divine religions?”‘ the paper said on Tuesday.

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The Cat Is Out Of The Bag It Seems

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The Guardian is running a story which seems to cast Jyllands-Posten Jens Kaiser editor in a very sorry light indeed. If this story is confirmed I think the expression would be ‘rank hypocrisy’ rather than ‘free speech outpost’.(Many thanks to commenter Hans for drawing this to our attention).

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Zieler received an email back from the paper’s Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: “I don’t think Jyllands-Posten’s readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them.”

Obligatory Hamlet Reference

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Since I don’t know much about Danish law, I’m guessing that the country — like many EU counterparts — has laws against fomenting religious or racial hatred. Do they only cover acts that take place in Denmark, or do they apply to Danish citizens wherever they may travel?

If it’s the latter, would the imams who took their dossier to the Middle East be prosecutable? Would it be smart of the authorities to bring such a case to trial? And what does the answer to that question say about the rule of law versus mob rule?