Joe Van Holsbeeck

Last Wednesday Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, was murdered in Brussels Central Station. He was stabbed five times in the heart by North African youths. They demanded that he give them his MP3 player. When Joe refused he was savagely murdered. The atrocity happened during the evening rush hour on a crowded platform. Though there were hundreds of people on the platform, no-one interfered – perhaps because many people do not notice what is happening around them on a crowded, noisy and busy platform where passengers are rushing to catch their trains.

Joe’s murderers escaped and have not yet been traced. The murderers were filmed, however, by security cameras. Today, one week later, the Brussels police released the pictures. The police say they are looking for two youths aged between 16 and 18 years old. Joe’s murder has shocked the Belgians. For an entire week the police, the authorities and most of the media have tried to downplay the fact that the killers are Muslim youths. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Cardinal Godfried Danneels addressed the indignation, but gave it a spin of their own. How was it possible for such an atrocity to take place in a crowd with no-one interfering, they asked. Both Verhofstadt and Danneels said that Joe was a victim of “indifference in Belgian society.” “Where were you last Wednesday at 4 pm?!” the Cardinal asked the congration in Brussels Cathedral during his Easter sermon on Sunday. The Cardinal blamed the murder on the materialism and greed of Western society “where people get killed for an MP3 player.”

Belgian citizens realize, however, that the murder has nothing to do with “indifference in Belgian society,” but everything with a group of North African youths terrorizing Brussels and the “indifference” of the authorities to eradicate this scourge. Last January five Moroccan youths slit the throat of a 16 year old black boy and left him to bleed to death because he refused to buy a cell phone they had stolen. The murderers have not yet been found. Some Belgians doubt whether Joe’s murderers will ever be found, and if so, how long they will have to serve. In 1998 Patrick Mombaerts, a 32 year old electrician, was murdered by a Moroccan youth who was after his money. The murderer spent only seven months in jail because he was a minor at the time of the murder.

Cardinal Danneels

Cardinal Danneels’ disgraceful response, blaming Joe’s murder on the indifference and the materialism of the Belgians, is symptomatic for the attitude of the Belgian establishment, who invariably blame the crime on the victims rather than the criminals. Jean-Marie Dedecker, a senator for Verhofstadt’s Liberal Party, writes in an op-ed article today that the first thing the police officers who investigated the murder wanted to know was whether Joe had made “racist remarks” whilst refusing to hand over his MP3 player. In Belgium, the senator says,

“you will sooner get punished for riding a bike without the lights on than for stealing a bike. [...] Policemen look the other way in order to avoid being accused of racism – because nothing is more detrimental to their career – and also to signal that they hold no prejudices. They behave in exactly the opposite way when they suspect decent citizens of some misdemeanour.”

Equally harsh for Cardinal Danneels, one of the leftists amongst the “princes of the church,” was journalist Luc van Balberghe on his blog:

The cardinal did not condemn the culprits. He made no reference whatever to the policy makers who allowed things to get so bad. Instead, he launched an attack on the whole of society. A totally unjustified attack: that society is thoroughly fed up with the dominance of murdering, thieving and raping Vikings from North Africa, and is not responsible for it.

“Where were you on Wednesday at [4 o’ clock!]” the cardinal asked, pointing his aged finger in the air. I am not accountable to someone who has contributed absolutely nothing to our society, who has looked on and allowed his own church to disintegrate and thereby surrendered a considerable part of our culture, our rules and values. […]

Where was he himself, that Wednesday at [4 o’ clock]? Would he have pitched his lonely strength against a gang whose number increases exponentially at one whistle and who have no regard for a man’s life? Has he not seen the interviews with Magreb youths on TV? “Terrible? Well, people die every day…,” one of the vermin said on TV. You could see him think: another infidel dog less! […]

“Where was I, on Wednesday at [4 o’ clock]?” Well, here is my answer: it’s none of your business, old faggot! But I ask you the same question: where were you when the laws were passed that allowed the killing of innocent children (abortion) and the slaughtering of the terminally ill (euthanasia)?

Meanwhile, yesterday, a Belgian court sentenced Daniel Féret, the leader of the Belgian anti-immigrant party Front National, to 250 hours of public service “helping immigrants to integrate.” Féret, a 61 year old medical doctor and a member of the Brussels regional parliament, was found guilty of publishing racist pamphlets. He will face 10 months in jail if he does not accept the ruling. The Brussels Appeals Court has also barred him from standing for election for the next 10 years. The FN’s webmaster, Georges-Pierre Tonnelier, was fined and also banned from public office.

In 2003 the FN won 5.6% of the vote in Wallonia, the French-speaking southern part of Belgium. A recent poll indicates that it attracts 9.4% of potential Walloon voters today.