Excellent sources of opinion and news from a European perspective:

The Brussels Journal

From the desk of Paul Belien on Thu, 2005-06-30 13:08

“I believe in being free, acquiring knowledge, and telling the truth.”

The above quote from the legendary American journalist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) sums it up pretty much. The Brussels Journal is a project set up by European journalists and writers to restore three values that are so lacking in the so-called “consensus-culture” of contemporary Europe: Freedom, the quest for Knowledge, and the Truth.

We defend freedom and, though we do not pretend to know the ultimate truth, we strive to acquire as much knowledge as possible by presenting facts and views that are hard to find in the “consensus-media” of Europe.

¡No Pasaràn!

Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Davids Medienkritik

Policitically incorrect observations on reporting in the German media.

Fjordman

A blog about Islam, Scandinavian affairs and global politics.

EU Rota

News, Views, and Commentary Regarding the European Union

Transatlantic Intelligencer

The principal aim of Transatlantic Intelligencer is to “overcome the language gap” – or, more exactly, some of the language gaps – preventing Americans and other English-speakers from forming an accurate assessment of European political realities. Trans-Int pays special attention to developments in Germany and France, the leading continental European powers. Since there are also multiple “language gaps” within Europe, we are confident that Transatlantic Intelligencer will also be of interest to European readers.

WatchingAmerica

WatchingAmerica makes available in English articles written about the U.S. by foreigners, often for foreign audiences, and often in other languages. Since WatchingAmerica offers its own translations, regular users of our site will enjoy articles not available in English anywhere else. We are a unique window into world opinion.

During the handful of days each year traditionally set aside for such purpose many of us celebrate, and rightly so. Despite the never ending doom and gloom spewed by our news media there are many more reasons to be thankful for being alive here and now than not. Those of us who recognize the benefits of civilization, and the precarious height it has attained, are rightly concerned about its survival. We realize we enjoy today the fruits of the labors of previous generations. We respect their wisdom and sacrifice, and express this in small part by observing the holidays they’ve passed on to us.

Most of the year it is possible to overlook the watered down marxists who tirelessly strive to debase society, defame our heroes, cancel our celebrations, ridicule our joy, and profane our love. Frankly these days we usually have bigger fish to fry.

But our holidays are increasingly marred by social vandals who must be addled with loathing. Not content to suffer solitary alienation or even collective disaffection they feel compelled to foist the products of their guilty conscience and false humility on everyone. Their puerile vicimology assumes we have inherited not a gift from the past but a curse. They see nothing to be thankful for – we are all either exploiters or exploitees. These champions of political correctness are disturbed not one wit by the racist/sexist basis for their claims. Blinded with self-importance the worst seek not only to establish new holidays but to supplant what has existed for generations. Others just make shit up.

Phew. Am I relieved to find out it’s all in my imagination.

The aftermath
Nov 17th 2005 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition

ONE measure of the ambient violence is that the French government this week welcomed the burning of 215 cars in one night as "a near-normal situation". At the peak of the recent riots, over 1,400 vehicles were torched in a single night. A week after the government declared a state of emergency, the Paris suburbs were mostly quiet—although sporadic arson attacks, including on nursery schools, continued elsewhere. The government has rushed through a law prolonging the state of emergency for three months.

What sort of Frenchmen are they?
By Dror Mishani and Aurelia Smotriez

"This problem is the problem of all the countries of Europe. In Holland, they’ve been confronting it since the murder of Theo van Gogh. The question isn’t what is the best model of integration, but just what sort of integration can be achieved with people who hate you."

And what will happen in France?

"I don’t know. I’m despairing. Because of the riots and because of their accompaniment by the media. The riots will subside, but what does this mean? There won’t be a return to quiet. It will be a return to regular violence. So they’ll stop because there is a curfew now, and the foreigners are afraid and the drug dealers also want the usual order restored. But they’ll gain support and encouragement for their anti-republican violence from the repulsive discourse of self-criticism over their slavery and colonization. So that’s it: There won’t be a return to quiet, but a return to routine violence."

France’s Toll of Destruction
From the desk of Paul Belien on Fri, 2005-11-18 23:23

Today in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd Nicole le Guennec, a French sociologist, says that car torching has been a common phenomenon in France for the past fifteen years. If this is true and if 100 is the average toll of destruction each night, a staggering 547,500 cars have been destroyed in France during that period. Probably more, because when one car is set alight and the fire destroys surrounding cars as well, the statistics count it as only one car fire. The worst night is traditionally New Year’s eve. Last New Year’s eve 330 cars were destroyed, a low figure compared to previous New Years when around 400 cars were set alight.

In contemporary multicultural France such staggering figures of lawlessness are considered to be a sign of "normality" and are hardly reported in the mainstream media. Neither is the following little piece of information. This week Professor Dominique Reynié of Sorbonne University in Paris, told the Brussels weekly Knack that the French state was obliged to borrow money last week to pay the wages of its civil servants. "The money has run out. One must concede: this is no example of a strong state."

Perhaps what we are witnessing in Europe, but what the politicians and the media dare not say aloud, is the implosion of the (welfare) state. The Soviet Union suddenly collapsed in 1989, when owing to the inability of communism to create wealth, the state went bankrupt, was unable to maintain its army and hold its empire together. In France, the same thing might be happening. The socialist welfare state is no longer able to maintain law and order and is abandoning entire neighbourhoods to anarchy.

Guy Sorman on the “Autism” of the French State
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Who is going to admit that the French state that gets involved in everything – the economy, culture, military interventions and other noble causes – has become totally ineffective on the ground? Two years ago, it let 30,000 dehydrated senior citizens die in their nursing homes without air conditioning. Now, it proves incapable of resisting a couple of hundred commandos of hooligans. The state? It is everywhere where society no longer needs it and absent where it is most needed. This political autism is the true cause of the conflagration.

Nothing to see here. Move along now.