French Authorities Punish Police Officer
From the desk of Tiberge on Tue, 2008-10-07 03:21
An investigation into terrorist activities in the region of Rhône-Alpes has been making headlines. So far, Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie has expressed her righteous indignation, one hapless functionary has been reprimanded and demoted, and the prefect of the Rhône has spewed forth his apologies to the Muslim community lest they be offended.
On September 16 the department of human resources of the region of Rhône-Alpes received an e-mail from the Rhône police asking if among the salaried personnel of the regional council there were "employees belonging to a religion other than Christianity." The message also inquired if any employees had "requested changes in schedules in order to practice their religion."
The e-mail came from a police agent in the Division of General Information (SDIG), which is under the departmental Bureau of Public Security of the Rhône (DDSP). These agencies were once called "Renseignements Généraux" (general intelligence), roughly equivalent to the FBI in America.
Minister Alliot-Marie immediately ordered the general director of the national police to conduct an investigation and to turn in a report within 24 hours at the latest. "It is totally inadmissible to ask such questions to a local collectivity, on a subject that has no place in the activities of a departmental bureau of general intelligence."
As a result of the investigation, the prefect of the Rhône, Jacques Gérault, admitted that he had ordered a "study on the evolution of radical Islamist networks in the Rhône region, but not on Muslims." He insisted that the functionary who sent the e-mail acted independently, and thought he was doing the right thing, adding that the incriminated police officer had received, until then, good ratings, and that he "regretted his actions." The man was reprimanded and removed from his mission.
A prefect is an agent of the State, whose job it is to represent the State and to see to it that the laws of the Republic are carried out. Some prefects have police powers.
The newspaper Libé Lyon reports:
The prefect reread aloud the e-mail sent by a police officer on September 16: "Would you be so kind as to indicate if among your personnel, you have employees belonging to a religion other than Christianity." Jacques Gérault raises his eyebrows and his voice: "This is 1100 in the time of the Crusades!" The former office chief of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, now representing the State in the department of the Rhône trembles as he reads the e-mail. [...] He wants to set the record straight and to explain the circumstances in which that officer from Lyons sent such a message. The local papers had said that it all was on orders from the prefect. "When you read that, you have the impression that the prefect is running a subversive organization."
He explains that the deputy prefect on security issues had ordered a rapid inquiry from the SDIG. The police had until the end of the month (which coincided with the end of Ramadan) to come up with a report on the radicalization of Islam. Not on the religious practices of Muslims, insists the prefect:
"The fight against extremist networks is essential, natural and will continue. We must sever this link, this confusion, between Islam and radicalism. It is the second religion of France; one day perhaps it will be the first, and that is not my problem. They are French citizens. When you lead people to believe that an order came from the prefect, the Muslim population is going to say once again that we're meddling in everything. I even spoke about this on Thursday with Kamel Kabtane (grand mufti of the Lyons mosque, who had taken his case to the President of the French Republic)."
The officer who sent the e-mail was investigated within 24 hours and did not incriminate his superiors. The prefect goes on:
"He committed not an error, but a grave fault, an individual fault. He acted outside of any authorization. This functionary received two punishments that take effect today. He was reprimanded – and this will stay on his record – and he has been transferred out of his functions as of 8:00 a.m. today. It was important to act quickly. The fault is is serious. The Muslim population must not feel stigmatized. [...] It is the second religion of France. It is as respectable as the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist faiths, and any others. All we wanted was information on cells of radical Islam, exclusively."
Islam is a Deadly Cult.
Submitted by mauramia on Mon, 2008-10-20 14:25.
"Islam is as respectable as the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist faiths, and any others." So tell me, in todays world, how many of the above religions versus the 'religion of peace' condone terror amongst their flock on behalf of their God?
Leftism is a Deadly Cult
Submitted by KO on Mon, 2008-10-20 15:20.
In today's world, leftist Catholics, Protestants, and Jews condone terror "amongst" Catholics, Protestants, and Jews that is committed by Moslems on behalf of their God.
Fair Point.
Submitted by mauramia on Mon, 2008-10-20 21:11.
We basically agree other than for the word 'condone'. While leftist Catholics, Protestants and Jews certainly do condone via their peculiar political philosophy, the actual murder of any victim of the cult of Islam, the God these same Catholics, Protestants and Jews worship dose not in fact demand they personally go and murder those of a different faith, i.e. Muslims, in this the 21st century. That is my understanding on this matter, if I am wrong I am happy to learn how.
Whom do leftists worship?
Submitted by KO on Mon, 2008-10-20 23:39.
Mauramia, I don't disagree with you in principle, if leftist Jews, Catholics, and Protestants worship the same God as their non-leftist co-religionists. However, as with Moslems, one sometimes wonders if they do. For example, if leftist Christians reject the Creation, Old Testament law, the Incarnation, the divine inspiration of Scripture, and the Resurrection, and believe their God forgives unrepentant Palestinian terrorists, if there is even anything there to forgive--do they really believe in the God their historic faiths acknowledge? Most leftists are not claiming they are called on by God to smite their enemies, but liberation theology, including the Black Liberation Theology of Barack Obama's former church, poses a very substantial exception.
They Worship a Failed Ideology.
Submitted by mauramia on Wed, 2008-10-22 12:10.
Hello KO. Unfortunately, I think there's a vast number of people out there with an axe to grind, and somehow manage to grind it under the name of religion. But to answer your question, no, I do not believe that leftist in general believe or worship God, any God, as it appears to offend their political ideologies. As to 'forgiving unrepentant Palestinian terrorist', I'm afraid with men such as Ehud Olmert in power, (now Tzipi Livni ) in Israel, and both of the left wing variety, God has little say in the punishment of these terrorists, as they seem to release them from jail with such boring regularity that I wonder why they bother to put them away in the first place. That aside, I am confounded by the numbers and the hands-off attitude of leaders in Europe when it comes to the Muslim population who have immigrated from their home countries, and it is in fact why I responded to this article in the first place. I resent seeing the continent of Europe dumbed down to accommodate those who have not one iota of ever changing their ways toward their new land, and just what it is they are doing living here if they continue to reside mentally in the dream world of the failed societies they came from, is indeed rather baffling. I could write for hours on this, but I'm confident you get the gist of my words. Thanks for responding.
What to do
Submitted by KO on Wed, 2008-10-22 23:23.
Mauramia: Europeans need to force their political leaders to shut the door to Moslem immigration. They also need to consider surveillance and suppression of dangerous Moslem organizations. They also need to consider whether Islam can be tolerated as a religion, since by the letter it commands its adherents to conquer non-Moslems by force or fraud, then exterminate or exploit them. It is possible that in small numbers, Moslems are free to ignore their jihad duties, but in larger numbers jihad advocates will generally get their way. Thus small numbers of assimilated Moslems will also benefit from the reduction of Islamic numbers in Western countries, since they will be free of the oppression of jihadist religious authorities. Thus Christian, Jew, atheist, and Moslem will all benefit from limiting the presence of Islam in the West. It should be a no-brainer.
Look to the Romans.
Submitted by mauramia on Fri, 2008-10-24 14:10.
Hello KO: As I concur with your statements, we are of one mind. Nevertheless, apathy plays a major part in the upswing of the abundance of Muslim immigrants in today's Europe, this in turn goes back to an educational system that is abysmal at best, and socialist at worst. A vast number of kids coming out of universities today have been inculcated with the political leanings of those who teach them, and they are not teaching them what you and I may consider to be sound ideas for a stronger and better Europe. They in turn cannot string a coherent sentence together to object to anything, let alone the subjugation by stealth of the continent they live on . I consistently write to politicians who overstep their brief, and as I am one voice, my opinion is they ignore my concerns. Apathy has also made the average voter lazy to the point where there is little curiosity in these matters, until one day something dreadful happens and like clockwork, they are the first to be surprised. Well, it's no surprise to those of us who inform themselves on what's coming down the pike, but the problem is by then it's too late. As I said before, my contention is that Islam is no religion, but a murderous cult for power grabbing by religious thugs, all at the cost of mindless Muslims brainwashed enough to be led like lambs to the slaughter who follow such lunacy. The Romans had a brilliant empire which to this day we refer to in our daily lives in one form or another, be it art, science, architecture or their system of government democratic societies still emulate. When that empire fell or shifted, depending on your view, did they sally forth and wreak destruction upon the world for their loss? Like hell they did. It took centuries but they did indeed manage to work with what they had and then came the Renaissance and the beauty of that period. By the same token, Islam has never come to terms at the loss of their world, and until their mindset changes radically, they will firmly retain their place as the most backward seeing and bitter of people. Lovely chatting with you.
The Romans and their successors
Submitted by KO on Sat, 2008-10-25 00:31.
Nice chatting with you, Mauramia. It is certainly self-defeating to dwell on the past without an equal commitment to the present and the future. Moslems who yearn for the glory days are making a mistake unless they are excited by their past to improve the present and excel the past in the future. I don't see living in the past as their biggest problem, however. Their biggest problem is the structure of their religion itself, in which the deity is 100% transcendent and unknowable except through the keyhole of the Koran. The Christian God, by comparison, has spoken to many men, involves himself in their history, calls intimately to everyone, and took human form to suffer the indignity of the consequences of sin in order to redeem human beings from their sin. Christianity presents a much higher level of interaction between humanity and the divine than Islam, a much more personal relationship, and a much stronger basis for the mutual respect among human beings that is the foundation of the West's ability to create larger networks of voluntary cooperation than are found in the Islamic world. Too great an orientation to the past on the part of Moslems may be a result of the diminished connection to reality that results from their theology, but is not its cause.
I don't want to spend too much of your time with uninformed speculations, however. My main point is that France, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Portugal, and even Belgium suffer more from a self-defeating, backwards orientation towards the imperial past than any Moslems. The educated elites of these countries feel guilt for the harshness of their ancestors in building and maintaining empires, and now feel they must apologize to all formerly colonial peoples and permit them to colonize the quondam imperial homelands. They feel they are defeated imperialists and must pay a debt by not asserting themselves, indeed by punishing themselves, or at least the ordinary people in their nations. Post-imperial guilt underlies socialism, anti-Americanism, anti-nationalism, and irrational environmentalism. Europeans want to make themselves small--though they do this in reference to their image of themselves as once having been large. The presence of the former colonials even preserves an imaginary empire in the present. The attempt to lead Third World countries at the head of loose alliances like the Commonwealth, la francophonie (with an emphasis on phonie), and now Eurabia betokens an indulgence in imaginary empires.
Europeans need to act again like the parvenues that set up the successor states to the Roman Empire: the Franks, the Lombards, the Visigoths, the Saxons, and so on. They were hungry, and they were not hampered by imperial guilt. Even after those nations had been around a long time, they were builders and explorers, not courtiers and stay-at-homes. Europeans need to be pre-imperial again, and not post-imperial.
The Romans themselves were pre-imperial once. As you say, look to the Romans.
KO: Late Post.
Submitted by mauramia on Mon, 2008-10-27 14:37.
Greetings again KO and forgive this late post, but the weekend was a busy one. I do not have your knowledge on the minutiae of Islam, and confess to not knowing enough of its teachings, but I do see the fallout of same by the behavior of those who profess it to be a religion of peace. I don't think the people of Holland would quite agree with that line, all things considered. Christianity today is more familiar and accepting of its adherents sins and is not so rigid, but in the past that religion has also committed acts we cannot in conscience be proud of. If the same thing were to happen today, Christianity as a religion would be boiled in oil, and rightly so, but not so with Islam. It clings to a time that is alien to the eyes of most Westerners, and again, I think much of the bitterness associated with that religion is a direct consequence of thugs who use it for their own agenda, and to my knowledge the Koran has not been reformed. Yet there was Mustata Ataturk of Turkey who was a Muslim, but none of the above, and a contradiction to what we generally see as the mindlessness of a religion gone mad. On the other hand, you have the Archbishop of Canterbury who clearly states that segments of Sharia ought to be part of English Law. How on earth are we meant to reconcile these 2 extremes? Perhaps with your better knowledge of all things religious you have the answer to this dichotomy, because I certainly don't.
The leaders of the countries you refer to of past empires are subjecting the people of Europe to an unimaginable future with their insane behavior. Perhaps the better way would be for said leaders to don a hair shirt to assuage their guilt, and discard this nonsensical notion of beating their breast at the altar of international opinion by giving away the farm. But the fact is they aren't hungry enough, as you said, to now make a stand by saying enough! we have gone this far and no further, we will stop mass immigration to our countries and restructure from within. That would take actual courage and you know as well as I that the second such words are uttered out come the liberals to call them racists. Well, KO, I am no racist, but I am a realist, and I say enough already with this rubbish political correctness that is nailing shut our coffins to a better future. Our countries are at stake here and the economy is far from healthy, so when thing become ugly, i.e. job redundancies, homes repossessed, riots in the streets, what do you suppose the same alleged leaders will do other than the well worn band aid they habitually throw at such things?
Bye the by, I'm not overly familiar with the time limitations when corresponding with you via the Brussels Journal, so I have no idea when they will close this discussion down. Or perhaps they don't?
No problem, Mauramia.
Submitted by KO on Mon, 2008-10-27 19:02.
I don't think there is any time limit on TBJ discussions. Now and then someone posts a response to a 3-year-old entry.
Ataturk and Williams make an interesting dichotomy. Ataturk stands for the possiblity of Westernizing Islamic countries. That involves restricting the sphere of Islam and creating a powerful secular state that is nationalist and not religious in its orientation. The experiment continues. The anti-Western, anti-secular forces in Turkish politics are powerful. Notwithstanding the supposedly secular orientation of the Turkish state, Christians have fared very poorly from the beginning, I believe. The Armenian Christians did quite badly under post-Ottoman Turkey, as Greek Christians have done badly. The whole country used to be Christian but was invaded and forcibly converted. Now it is fundamentally Islamic, which means fundamentally anti-Christian. To be anti-Christian is to be anti-Western. So I don't think there is anything encouraging in the examples of Ataturk and Turkey regarding the compatibility of Islam and the West.
People like to say they are waiting for the Reformation of Islam. They act as if it was the Reformation which brought the stable, relatively tolerant regime to the West in which people of different faiths live side by side. Balderdash. The Reformation unleashed civil war and war among peoples on an unprecedented scale. Only by suffering the consequences of religious discord to the hilt--to the bitter end--did European peoples devise ways to minimize the harmful consequences of religious friction. One way was to reduce diversity of faiths, yet guarantee certain limited rights within that reduced diversity. We have just about forgotten that formula. "Tolerance" in reality is a specific peace treaty between specific groups, not a universal principle applicable in every circumstance.
What people don't understand is that the Wahhabists and related fundamentalists are the Reformation of Islam. They seek to restore it to its pristine state, as the Christian Reformers sought to do. If Islam follows the route of Christendom, there will be horrendous wars between so-called Islamic states and jihadist reformers, wars endangering Islam itself, before both sides can come to a stable peace.
Rowan Williams appears to typify the left-liberal who just wants to get along with everyone, especially Moslems, and will sacrifice national sovereignty, national security, and national culture to do so. He represents, in my humble opinion, the erroneous left-liberal view of Christianity that requires pacifism and the redistribution of wealth, both of which are guaranteed to destroy any civilization that embraces them. Christianity is about a relationship to the living God, who died that we may live, not about destroying human society. Christians need to recover non-liberal Christianity. In the Biblical world, nations are a fact of life, part of the way people live, not something to be eroded, undermined, betrayed, corrupted, and extinguished.
Left-liberal Christians are probably more dangerous than Moslems. They make common cause with atheistic and multiculturalist destroyers, and even lend them a patina of spiritual and moral respectability.
Yes, KO
Submitted by R. Hartman on Wed, 2008-10-08 20:40.
"he is willing to see France die"
Don't forget France's role in harbouring Khomeiny untill Carter forced the Sjah to release all Islam fundamentalists from prison, freeing the way for Khomeiny's return and the instigation of the current Iranian fundamentalist regime. So it's not all too surprising. Also remember France 2's role in the Al Dura hoax... The chauvinist French ironically indeed have a serious death wish.
Death wish or arrogance?
Submitted by KO on Wed, 2008-10-08 22:37.
Do liberals have a death wish, or are they simply so arrogant regarding their invulnerability and unaccountability to those they hold in contempt that they are incapable of assessing the likely consequences of their actions? Or can both explanations be true at the same time?
Death Wish
Submitted by KO on Tue, 2008-10-07 15:13.
The prefect is sacrificing his investigator on the altar of political correctness. It is not unreasonable, when attempting to identify Moslem extremists, to start from the total pool of Moslems in government positions who may provide avenues of infiltration. The posture of the prefect is an unconditional rejection of such rational profiling. A true naive-liberal, he is willing to see France die, as long as it remains naive-liberal to the death.
He also overlooks the obvious point that for Moslem activists, and therefore inevitably for us Westerners, today is the time of the Crusades.
If he came to the U.S., he could probably find a job at the TSA, whose main purpose is to institutionalize the rejection of rational profiling at the federal level.