Life is Belief & Struggle - Ahmed Shawqi

Saturday, January 23, 2016

The Scent of Women



Much has been written, (well not at first, but in the last two weeks) about the events on New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Finland. Apparently, the number of women attacked in Cologne, stands at 821, and as horrific as that is, the reality is much darker.

A bombshell dossier lifted the lid on the shocking failures of officers to protect women being groped and raped by rampaging refugees during the horrific attacks on New Year's Eve.  

It reveals how police waited more than four hours to take action against the migrants perpetrating the horrific sexual assaults - by which time more than 200 attacks including gang rapes had already taken place.The damning report, compiled by Germany's Interior Minister Ralf Jäger, will fuel growing anger over authorities' handling of the Cologne sex attacks amid suspicions politically correct authorities wanted to cover up the crimes to protect Angela Merkel's open door immigration policy. 

Shockingly it reveals how weeping women ran to officers for sanctuary as early as 8.30pm on the night to tell them they had been sexually assaulted by gangs of migrants. Express UK
Such multitudes will inevitably contain criminals and psychopaths, as in every human population. It is equally inevitable that the behaviour of the latter will be amplified by regular and social media. But we cannot so easily dismiss the gross misbehaviour of migrants and asylum-seekers in Germany and elsewhere a few weeks ago. The sheer scale of these incidents, the organized nature of them, the demonstration of male entitlement conveyed, served to inflame an always-festering stereotype—the perennial bugaboo of the Other as sexual monster. We think of the Southern American preoccupation with supposed Black threats to the “purity” of white women. And we are reminded of Hitler’s own racial obsessions:
“The dark-haired Jewboy lurks in ambush for hours, satanic joy upon his face, for the unsuspecting girl, whom he poisons with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.” Then again he tells of the “rape of hundreds of thousands of girls by bow-legged repulsive Jew-bastards.” And another time: “These dark parasites on our people deliberately rape our inexperienced young blonde girls and thus destroy something which cannot be replaced in this world.”

This sort of thing never lies far beneath the surface, and the New Year’s events were more than sufficient to permit them to burst forth once again. The defensive posture of the police and some media did not help matters, feeding fears of conspiracy among the tinfoil helmet set. It seems almost naive simply to insist that the law be applied, and that the wrongdoers be prosecuted no matter what their ethnicity or citizenship status might be. It is also obvious that the vast majority of asylum-seekers and migrants were likely as appalled by this loutishness as you and I are.

Gross misbehaviour? Loutishness? What happened New Years Eve in Cologne and other European cities wasn’t a question of being ill-mannered and can be easily remedied with a few sensitivity sessions run by the state. 

Let me assure you, and I am speaking as a woman; women don’t want to be raped or molested in the public square because we fear potentially ‘diluting’ our race.  

Funny how it’s only 'rape culture'  when the perpetrators are white western males.

Two Hundred sexual assaults lodged by 8:30pm and the German police did not think to put out a public announcing warning women of an imminent threat to their person? Of course, to do so might have been seen 'to inflame an always-festering stereotype - the perennial bugaboo of the Other as sexual monster'. 

And I really have to question just how obvious it is that the vast majority of asylum seekers were appalled by this. Where is the proof? I would like to believe Dawg is right but I see scant evidence of this. We have the Imam of a Cologne mosque stating the victims brought it on themselves by the way the women dressed and the fact they wore perfume in public. 

Then there is the very progressive mayor of Cologne saying women need to be sensitive to the culture of the asylum seekers and watch our dress and keep men at least one arm’s length away. What's next? We cover up in the chador in public, ride women only trains, taxis and buses? Not leave home without a male relative to escort us? 

That Cologne crowd numbered in the thousands, and yet, men did not overwhelming come to the aid of the women trying to run the gauntlet between the Cathedral and the train station. The few men, and I do mean few men, who tried were beaten by the mob. 

The vast majority of asylum seekers come from some of the most misogynistic, homophobic and racist cultures. The vast majority of asylum seekers are not fleeing to escape the misogyny, racism or homophobic elements of their culture. And if the Imam of Cologne is typical, well then, I suspect, the vast majority are quite okay with those bits of their culture. 

A Women of the World article puts the PC culture in perspective. 

Any discussion of the collective sexual assaults as ethnically, racially and ideologically motivated is off limits. “I am sad but not surprised,” Alice Schwarzer, the leading second-wave German feminist, and editor of Emma.de magazine told Women in the World.

“Many feminists have remained silent from the outset regarding the problem of Islamist agitation, out of fear they will be accused of racism. It’s the old hierarchy of victims, that we already knew in [the student protests of] 1968. Then it was called class struggle before the battle of the sexes. Today it is called anti-racism against feminism.

“It is unfortunately a fact that many of the so called ‘post-feminist’ Internet feminists who are for pornography and prostitution are in favor of the head scarf and even the burqa. They say this is all about the free choice of women But this individualistic reasoning ignores the importance of underlying political structures.”

Schwarzer, who works in Cologne, became a lightning rod for feminist and anti-racist anger after New Year’s Eve when she condemned the attacks on women as a “gang bang” designed to terrorize women. In self-defense, however, Schwarzer says she never sought to ignore the fact that there is “a problem with epidemic, structural violence against women in Germany, as anywhere in the world”. 

“Violence is always the dark core of domination, whether it is between ethnic groups, or between different peoples or between the sexes. We feminists have successfully fought this violence over the past 40 years. Today the victims know it is not them but the perpetrators who must be ashamed. However the crime scene on New Year’s Eve seems very strange, because in Germany we have never seen this before: mass sexual violence in public with a powerless police looking on. This is a whole new dimension. “I think this explosion of sexual violence on the same night in five countries and in a dozen cities is no coincidence. This is organized.”

Her unflinching approach has nothing to do with scapegoating a religion, and everything to do with ideology, the feminist insists. “I’m not talking about Muslims, or Islam as a faith. I’m talking about the politicization of Islam, the right-wing Islamism, whose banner is the veiling of women. This started in Iran in 1979 with Khomeini, and (elsewhere) it has been financed by Saudi Arabia. The Islamists firmly established themselves in Afghanistan and Chechnya (with introduction of Sharia law in 1994), Algeria (200,000 dead in the 1990s) and are now are arriving triumphant in the heart of Europe.

So yeah, Dr. Dawg, we are entering the Camp of the Saints territory, and you were warned.

But progressives were too busy singing Imagine and picturing the world without borders to care about anything other than the "Other".   

But oh me, oh my, 'What is to be done?", barks the Dawg.

What a farce of a question. 

Monday, January 18, 2016

Flowers in Space

This is really just too cool for words; flowers grown in space.

Scott Kelly has the greatest job of all - astronaut.

Why we should all get out more





My daughter fell in love with Paris. She thought it was the most beautiful city on the earth and started her  22nd birthday at the top of the Eiffel Tower.  

 Of course, she has never been to Jerusalem, but  I found these pictures by photographer Laurent Kronental of  post-modern architecture beautiful and so oddly compelling.



Kronental’s Souvenir d’un Futur project documented the lives of senior citizens living in the housing estates surrounding Paris built after WW2. Age has only given the buildings dystopian charm. 
 


Thursday, January 7, 2016

Irony attack: Iranians stand up for the Sanctity of Embassies!



 Al Jazeera is reporting the Iranians are claiming their embassy in Sanaa, Yemen has been deliberately attacked by the Saudi Air force:

Iran has accused the Saudi-led coaliton of an air strike on its embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa amid rising tensions between Tehran and Riyadh.  Iran's foreign ministry said on Thursday that Saudi jets "deliberately" struck its embassy in an air raid that injured staff.

"This deliberate action by Saudi Arabia is a violation of all international conventions that protect diplomatic missions," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was quoted as saying by state television.

However, there were no visible signs of damage on the building, according to an Associated Press reporter, who visited the site.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen will investigate Iran's accusation, coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said, according to a Reuters news agency report.Asseri said coalition jets carried out heavy strikes in Sanaa on Wednesday night targeting missile launchers used by Houthi fighters against Saudi Arabia. He added that Houthis had used civilian facilities, including abandoned embassies.

Asseri said the coalition had requested all countries to supply it with coordinates of the location of their diplomatic missions and that accusations made on the basis of information provided by the Houthis "have no credibility".

So no one can find any evidence of the Iranian Embassy being hit…so it must be a case of the Iranians are standing up for the ‘principle of the sanctity of embassies’. Really this warms the dark corners of my heart.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Real Game of Thrones



Everyone is hating on the Saudis. Even the Toronto Star gets its hate on. Of course, I was way ahead of the Saudi Haters and at least my sense of morality is not hanging precariously from a sliding scale on in the Hate of the Month club. TheToronto Star hits all the latest progressive talking points on Saudi hate.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and his regime may posture as steely guardians of Mideast stability, after their mass execution of “inciters of violence and terrorism.” But sheer fear, not considered resolve, is the driving force behind a state bloodbath that has fanned tension across the region.

Salman has confounded allies including the United States and Canada, infuriated Iran and dampened prospects for settling wars in Syria and Yemen with his brutal recklessness. The execution of 43 mostly Saudi Sunni jihadists and four Shias — including the popular cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr — has also cast a shadow over efforts to combat Islamic State and other terror groups.

Yet it is Saudi weakness not strength that has brought the Mideast to this ugly juncture. A regime that was truly secure wouldn’t have to resort to such barbarity, the largest mass execution in decades.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has rightly joined the international chorus decrying the executions, the tensions they have provoked and the problems they have caused for allies. Salman, who was installed this past year, is sending an age-old message that there’s a new sheriff in town, one who won’t brook any trouble. 

The executions, by beheading and shooting, were timed to rally the House of Saud’s ultraconservative base behind the government, to crush domestic Sunni support for militant groups after a wave of bombings and shootings that have shaken the kingdom, and to warn the country’s unhappy Shia minority not to get out of line.
The regime has reason to fear for its legitimacy.

There is just so much wrong with this editorial that it’s easy to get lost. And if capital punishment is now the progressive yardstick of who we should never ally ourselves with, well there goes the Dauphin’s hopes of a free trade deal with China - also known as the World’s No.#1 executioner.

The talking heads have suddenly woke up to the fact there is a war going on in the Middle East, that no one in the West wanted to name or think about (mostly because it’s a war without Jews directly involved), and we are  smack dab in the middle of it. 

This is not a ‘good guy’ vs bad guy’ kind of conflict.  More like  ‘baddie vs other baddie’ instead.  As Henry Kissinger once remarked about the Iran-Iraq war; isn’t it a shame they both can’t lose?
 
Of course, it’s being waged by some traditional western allies against Iranian hegemony, and it’s been going on directly and indirectly since the Iranian Revolution of the Seventies, most often through a series of proxies.

Let me explain something to all the new armchair experts on the Sunni-Shiite religious divide. The Iranians came to aid of the ‘Shias’ in the Lebanese civil war, mostly by dividing the secular Amal movement. The religious Shias split off from their secular brethren and formed Hezbollah. Hezbollah grew, prospered and only exists only due to Iranian patronage. During the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006 there was a popular joke making the rounds in Lebanon and it went like this; Hezbollah is Lebanon and the rest of us are just tourists.

No one ever asks themselves how it came to be that Syria, a country with a large Sunni majority, came to be aligned with the Iranians. No doubt someone will bore you with the explanation that the Alwaite minority rules over the confessional as in a ‘fair balancing of power’ but the truth is the Alawites are sect of Shia Islam; ergo, this is why Iran has always supported the Assad regime ‘cause they go with their own – every time. And Syria is crucial to maintaining Iranian hegemony.  

I know most Westerners do not care about Yemen per say, let alone Middle East geography, but it is really is in everyone’s interest to pay attention. There is a reason the Saudi executions came now, and the act was committed from a place of strength and designed to send a big FU message to Mad Mullahs of Iran. The Saudis have been biding their time with these prisoners, some of them for years, and the Saudis would not have executed these men unless they were operating from a position of strength. On the day of the execution, the Saudis also announced the UN brokered ceasefire was over in Yemen. 
Yemen's descent into its current hell would never have happened, if the Mullahs were not busy trying to create another area of influence in the heart of the Sunni Gulf states. The Iranians were threatening the bread and butter of the Gulf States by controlling the Hanish Islands.  What makes these little islands important is their strategic location. Control those islands and you control the entrance/exit from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Arden, and if you control the entrance and exit from the Red Sea; you then control a not so insignificant portion of world trade. 
On December 10th,  the Saudi Coalition took back the Hanish Islands from their Iranian proxies – the Houthis of Yemen - another Shia sect. Not only were the Hanish Islands used as supply depot by the Iranians to keep the Houthi minority armed and dangerous; the Iranians, by holding these tiny islands, could control trade coming through the Suez Canal down the Red Sea or coming in from the Gulf of Arden. 

Once the Islands were back in Saudi command, everything else has been falling into place for the Saudis and their allies. The Houthi have no resupply route and should start to run out of weapons within the next few months.  This is why now there is currently a major escalation by the Saudi Coalition forces in Yemen. 

What you really have to ask yourself is why suddenly so many Westerners are suddenly upset that the Mullahs are getting their comeuppance...and read the comment section on the Al Jazeera site. It’s pure gold.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Guitar Tales

What is more powerful than a young man and a dream? Apparently, a mitzvah. As Jews, we are commanded, to perform the law. One of the greatest of all mitzvots is the obligation of Tzedakah. In English, this is often translated as the giving of charity, but the root of the word means righteousness and justice. To give Tzedakah is to bring forth acts of righteousness and justice into the world. This is why, the giving of Tzedakah is an obligation on all Jews, even poor Jews must perform acts of Tzedakah. The two of highest forms of Tzedakah are to give anonymously or to enable the recipient to become self-reliant with the act of giving of Tzedakah.

This is a story of how a single random act of kindness by a stranger transformed the life of a young man with a dream.



(h/t Rafi at Life in Israel)

Incitement


There has been an interesting experiment dealing with two Facebook pages. One incites against the Jews, the other the Palestinians. The creator of both pages reports each page for violating Facebook's community standards. The page inciting against the Palestinians is removed, the incitement page against the Jews is determined not to have violated Facebook's community standards.




ניסוי בהסתה: שני עמודי פייסבוק זהים, אחד מסית נגד ישראל, שני נגד הפלסטינים.את מי פייסבוק הסירו?*The big Facebook experimentOne page incites against JewsOne page incites against MuslimsWhich page will be closed by Facebook?*(רוב הסיכויים שתכף אחסם אז דברו איתי באייסיקיו.או באינסטגרם @ivgiz)
Posted by Ivgeni Zarubinski on Monday, January 4, 2016