Last week The Brussels Journal brought two stories illustrating how extremist Muslims, a.k.a. Islamists, try to impose their “values” on Europe. We reported how Islamists in Britain have been allowed to introduce “Shari’a swimming” in public swimming baths, whilst in Norwegian kindergartens pigs are banned from fairy tales because the poor, innocent creatures are “unclean” in the eyes of Islamists.

The Turkish authorities deny any wrongdoing in the Koser Kaya case. Last Thursday Dutch television revealed that Ankara influenced the 22 November general elections in the Netherlands. Fatma Koser Kaya, a Dutch woman of Turkish origin, was elected against all odds as a member of the Dutch Parliament after an email called upon Dutch voters of Turkish origin to vote for the woman because “the Turkish community is threatened by assimilation” and “no-one can represent Turks better than Turks.” The email was sent from the Turkish ministry of Religious Affairs to several thousand Dutch voters of Turkish origin.

Yesterday evening, the Dutch television program Nova caused considerable embarrassment in the Netherlands by revealing how the Turkish government influenced last months’ Dutch general elections. In an e-mail sent to thousands of ethnic Turks in the Netherlands the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs called on them to vote for Fatma Koser Kaya, a 38-year old woman whose family emigrated to the Netherlands when she was six years old. Koser Kaya is a member of the leftist “social-liberal” Democrats 66 (D66) party. On 22 November, D66 lost three of its previous six seats in Parliament. Koser Kaya, however, though only sixth on the list of D66 candidates, was elected as one of the party’s three parliamentarians thanks to the 34,564 individual votes she got, possibly as a result of the Turkish government’s interference.

Stripping away the bureaucracy now has an entirely new meaning. From today’s Times:

Europe’s second-highest ranking commissioner was fighting to save his political career last night over pictures showing him naked on a beach with his chief of staff. Günther Verheugen, who is married, is shown – wearing only a baseball cap – with his newly promoted aide, Petra Erler, on a nudist beach in Lithuania. [...] Controversy over Mr Verheugen, 62, who is also Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, is raging in Germany, three weeks before the country is due to take over the European Union presidency.

A quote from Cranmer on his weblog, 8 December 2006

Croydon Council has instituted ‘Muslim only’ swimming times in its public swimming baths [...] and the Shari’a dress code is to be covered from the neck down to the ankle. Have you ever tried swimming wrapped in a sheet? Cranmer can’t help wondering why health and safety factors have been subsumed to this impractical dress code. Croydon Mosque states quite unequivocally: ‘Muslims are not allowed to show off intimate parts of their body. This is non-negotiable. Muslims have as much right to go swimming as anyone else.’

A quote from Terry Eagleton in The London Review of Books, 30 November 2006

Without stereotyping of some kind, social life would grind to a halt. If the plumber turns up to fix the drains dressed in tights and a tutu, I would naturally be liberal-minded enough to invite him to perform a few pirouettes at the sink; but if the bank manager insists on discussing my loan in Latvian, I might take my business elsewhere. Human freedom is a question of life being reasonably predictable, not of being joyously liberated from rules.

Document.no, Norway's largest independent weblog, reports that in Norwegian kindergartens, pigs in traditional fairy tales are now quietly being replaced with other animals. A person who visits kindergartens to read fairy tales experienced that in stories by Asbjørnsen and Moe, the Norwegian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm, the word pig had been replaced with fox. When she discovered the same thing happening in another kindergarten, she wondered whether this was a new policy.

In Sweden previously, the wording of several older books for children such as Pippi Longstocking has been changed to make them more "culturally sensitive."

Winnie the Pooh and Foxlet, anyone? Three Little Foxes? This little fox cried wee wee wee all the way home? The prodigal son tending the foxes?

A quote from John Stossel in The New York Sun, 7 December 2006

Americans are pretty generous. Three-quarters of American families give to charity – and those who do, give an average of $1,800. [...] “You find that people who believe it’s the government’s job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away.” [says Arthur Brooks, professor at Syracuse University] Conservatives are even 18% more likely to donate blood.

Most popular name for newborn boys in Brussels, the “capital of Europe,” in 2005: Mohamed, followed by Adam, Ayoub, Rayan and Mehdi.

Maria van der Hoeven, the Dutch minister of Education, wants to withdraw subsidies from one of the two Islamic high schools in the country. The Islamitisch College Amsterdam (ICA) was established in 2001 and has 800 students. Van der Hoeven told the Dutch Parliament that she “wants to do everything possible to stop the subsidies to the school or to close the school down.” The minister says if the school wants to survive it has to reopen with a new school board. Employees at the school, who have meanwhile been fired, accused the school of channelling 60,000 euros of government subsidies to “extremist organisations outside the country.” Van der Hoeven confirmed that students at the school score very low (3.3 on a scale between 3 and 15). Critics say the school uses books which despise non-Muslims and preach hatred towards them. The minister said, however, the school can only be closed by August at the earliest because otherwise 800 students would lose their school halfway through the school year.