Month: July 2013

Pope lectures on Lampedusa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
The Pope on Lampedusa yesterday. Photo: Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images

Lampedusa is the Italian island that is usually the first bit of land the mostly Muslim illegal aliens come to when leaving North Africa via boat.  Lampedusa and Malta have been plagued for the last few years with the arrival of boat people, some claiming they want asylum—asylum from the turmoil that the US and European countries (including Italy) helped create with their enthusiasm for the Arab Spring and the destabilization of Libya.

Now the Pope unexpectedly arrives on Lampedusa, says Mass and lectures about the “globalization of indifference,”  which is fine, of course, as long as he only exhorts individual Christians to PRIVATE giving (opening their homes and wallets) and does not continue to demand Caesar’s money for the church’s charity.  And, frankly, that is exactly what is happening at least in America as long time readers of RRW know—the political activities of the Catholic Bishops are being funded by you through taxation.

Here is the story from the New York Times:

ROME — Pope Francis traveled on Monday to Lampedusa, the tiny Mediterranean island that has become a gateway to Europe for thousands of desperate asylum seekers and migrants, as well as an unknown number of others who have died during the perilous crossing from North Africa.

It was the pope’s first official trip outside Rome, and he used it to draw attention to a continuing humanitarian problem while chiding the world for its indifference.

“These brothers and sisters of ours were trying to leave difficult situations to find a little serenity and peace…..

Serenity and peace!  Then why do they riot and clash with police on Lampedusa, here is one instance of many!  In that post we quoted a line from The Independent:

Until the recent mass influx of north Africans, Lampedusa was a quiet community that relied on fishing and summer tourism for a living. The endless flow of arrivals and the catastrophic effect this has had on tourism have seen tempers fray.

Gee, not a peep out of the New York Times on the catastrophe for Lampedusa residents.

Not all arrivals are in need of asylum—many are economic migrants not protected by any international law regarding refugees and asylum.  ‘Economic migrant’ is just a fancy phrase to describe illegal aliens.  The NYT continues:

New arrivals on the island, about 75 miles north of Tunisia, are fed and fingerprinted and then separated into three groups: economic migrants, who could be repatriated after their cases are reviewed, and asylum seekers and minors, who after a few days are sent to detention centers on Italy’s mainland.

And here, when the Mayor of Lampedusa calls this a “humanitarian disaster” I don’t think he is talking only about the boat people.  I think he just might mean this is a human tragedy for the Italian people.

While praising volunteer associations, law enforcement officials and residents of the island for the assistance they have provided to the migrants, the pope criticized the “globalization of indifference” that he said was widespread among too many others. We “have forgotten how to cry” for migrants lost at sea and “take care of each other,” the pope said in his homily.  [Maybe Pope Francis could take some of the “refugees” back to Vatican City with him—ed]

Officials in Lampedusa said they hoped the pope’s visit would bring attention to what they saw as a humanitarian disaster.

“This island is the setting of one of the most epochal dramas of our time, but it is ignored,” said Giuseppina Nicolini, the mayor of Lampedusa. “The numbers of those lost at sea are those of a war, but a silent war that no one speaks of, except a few blogs that no one reads.”

Who is silent in the “silent war” (the suffering Italians?) because it surely isn’t the mainstream media that is silent on the plight of the migrants, and what “blogs” is he talking about?

For more on Lampedusa, click here for our complete archive.

Denmark: Opposition party official suggests unhappy Muslims should find another place to live

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Remember yesterday, in a post about Europe and the Arab Spring, here, I reported that writer Anat Berko suggested it will be Western women who lead the way back from the brink of cultural annihilation.

Inger Støjberg Photo: Scanpix

Add Inger Støjberg  to the list!

And, this made me laugh my head off, critics said “her approach to Danish Muslims lacked nuance!”  Nuance!  WTF! (sorry, we don’t use profanity here, but I can’t help myself sometimes!).  Nuance! when Europe is going down the tubes!

From the Copenhagen Post (Hat tip: Fjordman via twitter)

Muslims who show no interest in adopting Danish values ought to think about why they settled in Denmark in the first place, the immigration spokesperson for leading opposition party Venstre argued in an opinion piece published in Politiken newspaper today.

In her piece, Inger Støjberg criticises Danish Muslims who actively try to shield themselves from Danish values and norms and who think that their religious beliefs should not be allowed to be mocked.

Støjberg pointed to a study of Danish Muslims in which 55 percent responded that criticising religion should be banned and 64 percent thought that free speech should be limited in particular circumstances.

“Denmark is the land of the Danes and you are more than welcome to become a Dane and take part in the work and community,” Støjberg wrote. “But to those Muslims who constantly work against us, constantly question us, are unsatisfied, encourage going to holy war in Syria, commit honour killings, belittle our values, flag or way of living – to all of you: Go and find somewhere else to live. No one is forcing you to stay. We accepted you and now it’s up to you to show the necessary respect for our society and the values it is built upon.”  [Of course we all know they are not in Denmark to become Danes, but to change Denmark into a Muslim country.—ed]

Probably squishy men who said this (it’s the same sort of thing they say about Pamela Geller):

Government parties Socialdemokraterne (S) and Socialistisk Folkeparti both said they agreed with the general points made by Støjberg, but that her approach to Danish Muslims lacked nuance.

But, will Støjberg and Venstre go this far?

Spotting an opportunity, Martin Henriksen, integration spokesperson for Dansk Folkeparti, proposed that Venstre should use this opportunity to follow up with strict policies aimed at curbing migration from Muslim countries.

“I think that Venstre and Dansk Folkeparti should join together for the next election with a goal of reducing Muslim immigration to somewhere close to zero. It is the most effective solution to ensure that Denmark will remain socially and culturally united in the decades ahead,” Henriksen said.

By the way, one of the most read posts this year at RRW is this one where Laura Ingraham called for a halt to all Muslim immigration to America.

Addendum: Remember back in 2010 the Ft. Morgan, CO police chief went to Denmark (the trip was paid for by the US State Department) ostensibly to learn how to integrate Ft. Morgan’s Muslim refugee population from a country with lots of successful experience.  Do you think they might send him back now to have a follow-up chat with Henriksen and Støjberg?

Here is our archive of the many posts we’ve written about Denmark and its immigrant population.

Turkey’s Erdogan “sitting on social bomb” (Syrian refugees!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Are refugee camps re-supplying Syrian rebels?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave this summer, you know that Turkey’s increasingly Islamist supremacist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, incidentally often identified as Obama’s only real friend among world leaders (here he names five friends), is having serious domestic problems stemming from his people, mostly the young, who do not want Turkey to become a theocracy.  LOL!  I bet he is watching Egypt very closely!

Obama to Erdogan: I love you! 2011 AP Photo

Now it seems his problems could get worse because he “welcomed” tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to Turkey who are now, to put it mildly, rubbing the locals the wrong way.

From Assyrian International News Service:

Domestic developments in Turkey have turned public focus away from Ankara’s growing problem with Syrian refugees. Caught between its welcoming rhetoric toward predominantly Sunni Syrians fleeing the wrath of Bashar al-Assad, and the realities on the ground in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the problem. All the while, he complains about the lack of international support in this regard.

Meanwhile, unease grows in Turkish towns and cities near the Syrian border where large numbers of Alevis sympathetic to Assad live. It seems that the welcome extended to fleeing Syrians by Ankara is wearing thin among locals, who are turning against the refugees, accusing them of disrupting the normal life of the region.

After a lament about how much all of this is costing Turkey, and that the international community isn’t helping much, comes this dynamite bit of news—refugee camps may be resting places for Sunni-fighters traveling back and forth to Syria.

Meanwhile, Kirisci (Kemal Kirisci, from the Brookings Institution in Washington), like other observers — including the ICG — indicates that the Turkish public appears to be increasingly wary of the presence of an ever-growing number of refugees. “There are reports of complaints about property rents rising in towns and cities close to the border areas as well as about wages being pushed down by refugees who take up jobs in the border regions,” Kirisci wrote in his blog post.  [Ho hum, refugees take jobs and limited rental properties from locals, what else is new!—ed]

Referring to the issue of local discontent, the ICG indicated in April that several of the camps in Turkey are being used by predominantly Sunni opposition fighters from Syria as off-duty resting places to visit their families, receive medical services and purchase supplies. (Are they picking up American weapons there too?—ed)

“This is exacerbating sensitive ethnic and sectarian balances, particularly in Hatay province, where more than one third of the population is of Arab Alevi descent and directly related to Syria’s Alawites,” said the report. Local discontent with the Syrian refugees is, however, not just restricted to the Alevis.

Then there was the thwarted kidnapping of a child (by Syrians) from a prominent Turkish family:

Anger toward the Syrians peaked after the twin car bomb attacks in the town of Reyhanli, near the Syrian border, on May 11. About 53 people, mostly Sunnis, were killed in the atrocity allegedly perpetrated by pro-Assad operatives in Turkey, who were later arrested and now face trials. There were angry demonstrations in Reyhanli against the refugees after the bombing by nationalist elements, leaving many Syrians in doubt as to whether they are safe in Turkey.

Already faced with difficulties as a result of their burgeoning numbers, Syrian refugees also have to cope with claims that are bound to agitate local Turks. Sefik Cirkin, a deputy for Hatay from the ultra-nationalist and predominantly Sunni National Movement Party (MHP), for example, said in June that some Syrians had been thwarted by the Turkish police as they tried to abduct the child of a prominent Turkish family in the region.

Indicating that Reyhanli and Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, were “sitting on a social bomb,” as some tried to ignite sectarian conflict between local Alevis and Sunnis, Cirkin went on to ask in a loaded fashion, “What would have happened if this child had been abducted?”

Erdogan has problems! (no kidding!), and I hope they become so great (refugees cost a fortune!) that he must stop building the massive Islamic center in Maryland!

The last thing Erdogan needs at a time when he is facing nationwide protests by anti-government elements, that are also angry over his failed Syria policy, is to have an Alevi-Sunni conflict on his hands, a prospect that has never been far from the surface in Turkey. Some would argue that he himself fueled sectarian animosity with his pro-Sunni Syrian policy.

Do you remember the Jewish refugees of 1948?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Probably not because it is one of those inconvenient historical truths that is buried by the media and policy-makers in their six-decades-old lament about “Palestinian refugees.”

Jewish refugees cross the desert in Yemen. Photo: Courtesy Israeli National Photo Archive

There is a good summary at Frontpage magazine earlier this month (hat tip: Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum).  We have covered this subject in several previous posts which can be found in our Israel and refugees category, here.

June 20 was World Refugee Day, dedicated to nearly 60 million people worldwide who were forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution. One group of refugees rarely acknowledged is the Jews who were indigenous to Muslim lands but compelled to flee around the time that the State of Israel was established.

A Google search for “1948 refugees” produces about 6 million results. All but a few (at least through page six) are about the Palestinian Arab refugees, as if they were the only refugees of 1948. But it is estimated that from the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War through the early 1970s, up to 1,000,000 Jews fled or were expelled from their ancestral homes in Muslim countries. 260,000 of those refugees reached Israel between 1948 and 1951 and comprised 56% of all immigration to the fledgling state. By 1972, their numbers had reached 600,000.

In 1948, Middle East and North African countries had considerable Jewish populations: Morocco (250,000), Algeria (140,000), Iraq (140,000), Iran (120,000), Egypt (75,000), Tunisia (50,000), Yemen (50,000), Libya (35,000), and Syria (20,000). Today, the indigenous Jews of those countries are virtually extinct (although Morocco and Iran each still has under 10,000 Jews). In most cases, the Jewish population had lived there for millennia.

Read it all.

Photo is from this 2012 article at the Jerusalem Post.

Muslims continue their war on Buddhists by destroying holy site

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is believed the Islamic terrorists did it to get revenge for the Rohingya of Burma.

Brave monks! Photos like this enrage the Islamic supremacists.

Pamela Geller has the whole story, here.

According to intelligence sources, Bodh Gaya has been in the crosshairs of Pakistan-based terrorists, who want to avenge violence against Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar.

The take away for readers here is that you must say NO! to the resettlement of Rohingya in America.  Just a few days ago we again had another call by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to BRING ROHINGYA TO AMERICA!  Here!

Please visit our nearly 6-year-old Rohingya Reports category (151 previous posts) to get the story the mainstream media won’t tell you about the Rohingya.  We weren’t paying attention when the US State Department resettled over 100,000 Somalis in the US, but we have a chance now to stop a Rohingya migration before it gets fully underway.

And, one more thing.  In S.744 the refugee lobby has an important provision they have been after for years—the designation of whole classes and groups of people as automatically assumed to be persecuted just because of who they are.  Presently refugees, in most cases, must prove personal persecution.  If the Gang’s bill becomes law, it would be sufficient only to say—I am a Rohingya Muslim, therefore I am persecuted and entitled to receive asylum.