Category: Africa

Sarkozy: We must talk about Islam and the preservation of French culture

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a follow-up on a post I wrote a  month ago about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign to preserve France’s historical Christian heritage and unique culture as large numbers of immigrants fail to assimilate.  Although this writer in the Australian tries to put a negative spin on the plan, it strikes me as an eminently sensible one.  If people don’t talk about the problem, cowering in fear of being labeled racists for example, then bitterness (or worse!) will surely follow.

NO one can accuse Nicolas Sarkozy of mincing his words over Islam, minarets and national identity. We thought he had retreated after his national debate on French identity began degenerating into a forum for immigrant-bashing. Today, he is back on the parapet, warning Muslims to keep a modest profile or face the failure of moderate Islam in France.

[….]

“Christians, Jews, Muslims, all believers regardless of their faith, must refrain from ostentation and provocation and . . . practise their religion in humble discretion,” wrote Sarkozy/Guaino.

Addressing himself to Muslims, he reassured them that he would fight to protect them from discrimination. “But I also want to tell them that anything that could appear as a challenge” to France’s Christian heritage and republican values would “doom to failure” moderate Islam in France.

Sarkozy’s point was that Muslims must integrate into French society, embracing the Republic’s values and traditions. It is legitimate to examine the malaise in Europe, he said, mentioning globalisation as well as Islam. “This dull threat that so many people in our old European nations feel, rightly or wrongly, hanging over their national identity, we have to talk about it together lest repressing this feeling ends up feeding a terrible bitterness.”

Incidentally, this applies to all immigration issues, when the Left especially tries to shut people up with charges of racism and bigotry then bitterness follows.  I don’t see it in this article, but have seen a few articles lately that say (wishfully, I think) that somehow Muslims are integrating better into the US than in Europe.  We will see when our numbers of Muslims reach the same percentage as they are in Europe.  We’ll know if, as in France, rioting unemployed Muslim immigrants begin burning cars by the thousands.   We need to talk now.

Somali suicide bomber was from Copenhagen, grew up in Denmark

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Perhaps you heard on the news that more than twenty, including graduating doctors, had been killed in a suicide blast in Somalia last week; well the BBC is reporting that the Jihadist responsible was a former refugee raised in Denmark.   Note to do-gooders: it is just one more reminder that Islamic supremacism trumps a good life and a bright future in the West for many hard-line devotees of Islam.

A suicide bomber who killed at least 22 people at a graduation in Somalia was brought up in Denmark, officials say.

Somali Information Minister Dahir Gelle told the BBC that the bomber’s parents, who live in Copenhagen, identified their son’s body from photographs.

Reports say he left Somalia when he was a child and spent 20 years in Denmark, before returning to Somalia last year.

He reportedly joined the hard-line Islamist group al-Shabab – although they have previously denied the attack.

Al-Shabab and other radical Islamist groups control much of the country.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) also says the bomber was from Denmark, according to local media.

The Copenhagen Post quoted PET as saying the man was in his 20s and was “a Somali citizen who had residence in Denmark”.

“As PET has indicated numerous times in the past, there are people with ties to Denmark who have gone through militant Islamic training and radicalisation and who are involved in terror-related activities in several countries, including in Somalia,” a PET statement said, according to the newspaper.

The bombing took place at a graduation for medical students on 3 December in one of the few parts of the capital, Mogadishu, which is controlled by the government.

The students had been graduating from Benadir University, which was set up in 2002 to train doctors to replace those who had fled overseas or been killed in the civil war.

Three ministers were among the dead.

Almost exactly one year ago, our FBI brought home the remains of America’s first Somali suicide bomber.  I wonder if Denmark’s PET will do the same?

Canadian Somali youths missing too!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story, sent to me weeks ago by Baron at Gates of Vienna, is another I have shamefully left in my queue.  But, it’s important to post it because I believe on our pages we have covered most of the news on Somali former refugees becoming Jihadists and we need to keep our archives complete.  Use our search function for ‘Somali missing youths’ and scroll back to the earliest posts last year (if you have the interest and stamina!) to learn more.

From The National Post:

TORONTO — Counterterrorism officials are investigating a group of youths who allegedly left Canada for East Africa two weeks ago, amid concerns they may have gone to join the Somali militant group Al-Shabab.

Two sources familiar with the case said investigators had been canvassing Toronto’s large Somali-Canadian community for information about as many as five men who departed Canada together in early November.

They are believed to have flown to Kenya, the sources said. Kenya borders the region of southern Somalia controlled by Al-Shabab, an Islamist militia aligned with al-Qaeda and sometimes likened to the Taliban.

The investigation comes as the Somali conflict has become a key focus of North American counterterrorism officials. Several Somali-American youths have left the Midwestern United States to join the Shabab, and the commissioner of the RCMP said in a speech last month he is concerned about a similar trend in Canada.

“Radicalization within the U.S. Somali community may be an indicator of similar processes at work in Canada,” Commissioner William Elliott said in his Oct. 30 address to the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies in Ottawa.

“As you know, we have one of the largest Somali diaspora communities in the Western world. The potential follow-on threat, from a Canadian and RCMP perspective, is Somali-Canadians who travel to Somalia to fight and then return, imbued with both extremist ideology and the skills necessary to translate it into direct action.”

The Somali threat at home

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I am so pathetically behind in posting stories in my queue, so I’m going to try to get a bunch of stuff up this morning (and not yak too much about each story). 

Incidentally, I only have a few hours each day to work on RRW and find myself easily distracted reading posts at Gateway Pundit, Jihad Watch, New Zeal, Gates of Vienna, Atlas Shrugs, Big Government, and Drudge, just to name a few of my favorites you can find on our blogroll.  So, readers, if you’ve sent me something to post recently, I have it here somewhere!

Here we go, this is the article on the Somali threat:

Yesterday Frontpage magazine posted an article by Ryan Mauro that summarizes pretty well much of what we have posted here on the Jihadist recruitment of Somali former refugees to return to Africa to fight with Al-Shabaab.  Of course the big question is,will they return and use their skills in America?  Thanks to several readers who sent me this link yesterday.

For more in our at least 100 posts on the topic since we began posting on it in November 2008, type ‘Somali missing youths’ into our search function.

Arizona Republic reporter does old-fashioned investigative work on Arizona rape case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Remember the case we told you about here in July?  It is the horrible story of an 8-year-old Liberian refugee girl being raped by neighborhood boys (also Liberians) and then if that wasn’t traumatic enough for the child, her parents blamed her.  Ultimately, social services removed her from the home and later the parents were arrested on various child abuse charges.

But, as interesting and as thorough as this article is, the more incredible thing for me was to see the amount of work the reporter, Daniel Gonzalez, put into the report! 

For this story, reporter Daniel González reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and police records and attended several juvenile-court hearings. The dialog in the story was adapted from police records and transcripts of interviews conducted by police. He also drew from numerous reports about sexual violence and Liberian refugees as well as from conversations with experts named in those studies.

[…..]

In addition, González interviewed more than a dozen Liberian refugees and immigrants living in the Phoenix area, refugee resettlement workers and rape experts in Phoenix and Liberian consular officials in Chicago. And he talked with residents and managers of the apartment complex where the girl lived.

There was a little touch of political correctness in this article, but all in all it was very informative.  Maybe there is hope afterall for the return of good old-fashioned investigative reporting.

I do have one question though about the story.  My understanding is that not all Liberians are here under the Refugee Resettlement Program but are here in a special category—Temporary Protected Status—making their continued residency here even more tenuous.

Now, Mr. Gonzalez, maybe you would like to do some work on that van crash near Tucson that killed Burundian refugees last summer.