The furor over the Pope’s speech in Regensburg is pitiable and unsurprising. Enough has been said on the content of the remarks: though it is stressed that Benedict XVI merely quoted Manuel II Paleologue’s condemnation of the historical legacy of Muhammed without expressing approval of the assessment, it does seem unlikely that the Vicar of Christ on Earth wholly disagrees with the penultimate Emperor. “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new,” the Pope quotes the Emperor, “and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Anthony Daniels is a 57-year old recently retired psychiatrist. He began his career in Africa and worked for many years as a hospital and prison doctor in Birmingham before he moved to the South of France in 2005. Using the pen name Theodore Dalrymple he writes about the collapse of Western civilization in Europe, analyzing the social pathologies of our time. When he chose his pen name, he says, he opted for a name that would evoke the image of a severe and serious man. Though Daniels sets out to describe decadence, obviously not a cheerful topic, he himself is far from being a misanthrope. He is a “compassionate conservative,” The New York Sun wrote two years ago, “Stocky and balding, he has a wheezy laugh, a pugnacious mouth, and the devil-may-care smile of the born provocateur.”
 
Saturday morning Dalrymple gave a speech for Pro Flandria, a group of conservative, Flemish-secessionist entrepreneurs and intellectuals, in a renowned restaurant in Berlare, a small village not far from the Flemish town of Sint-Niklaas. The previous day, I collected Dr Daniels in Brussels, saving him from having to spend more time than necessary in a city he (like many) utterly dislikes, and drove him to Sint-Niklaas, a place well known to Mark Steyn, one of his fellow contributors to the American conservative monthly The New Criterion.

about the history of Europe. Europe gets itself a history, in a desperate attempt to give it an identity. 

On 11 September, the leader of the Norwegian imams Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni caused a controversy in Norway claiming that George W. Bush and the US were behind the 9/11 attacks. Moreover he denies that such a thing as al-Qaeda exists, and he says the video messages that are said to be from Osama bin Laden are recorded in a studio. The imam received support from other imams in Norway and ordinary Muslims in the street.

A quote from Gideon Rachman on his blog, 13 September 2006

With so much else going on during the fifth anniversary of 9/11, it was easy to overlook the speech given by David Cameron, the leader of the British Conservatives. But Cameron’s address was significant. It marked the death of British neoconservatism. [...] It may indeed be politically astute for Cameron to stiff President Bush, given the latter’s deep unpopularity in Britain. But it was incredibly dumb to choose to do this on 9/11 of all days. American diplomats are spitting at what they regard as a “cynical” move – and that is one of the kinder words employed. [...]

I was criticised for a recent essay about Multiculturalism and Political Correctness, because I labelled Political Correctness as “cultural Marxism.” Danish writer Lars Hedegaard, whom I respect a lot, said that he believes Europe suffers from a death-wish following the world wars and de-colonization, and that Europeans allow themselves to be replaced through immigration because they want to die as a culture. It is true that there is a loss of cultural confidence in Europe, but there is one catch to this thesis: Many Europeans have never expressed any such desire to be wiped out.

Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi says Europe should pay if it wants to stop the flow of African immigrants. Last week Gaddafi told a meeting of the African Union (AU): “In our final statement we will ask Europe to pay 10 billion euros per year if it really wants to stop migration toward Europe [...] Earth belongs to everybody. Why they [young Africans] emigrated to Europe – this should be answered by Europeans.”

At least 200,000 Africans enter Europe illegally every year. Hence, Gaddafi’s price of 10 billion euros means that Europe has to pay 50,000 euros for every immigrant it does not want to take in. Last year the European Commission paid Gaddafi 2 million euros to stop the flow of immigrants passing through Libya.

The unsuccessful train attacks in Germany have almost entirely disappeared from the news, and certainly they have had no impact at all on politics. It's remarkable that only a small technical error by the terrorists makes the difference between a failed attack and an attack that causes a crisis that lasts for weeks, not only for the country but a whole continent. In both cases, however, the intent of the terrorists is exactly the same. The failure of the terrorists has been very convenient for one side of the political spectrum though.

Last Thursday the German police arrested Katharina Plett, a homeschooling mother of twelve. Yesterday her husband fled to Austria with the children. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany since Hitler banned it in 1938. The Plett family belongs to a homeschooling group of seven Baptist families in Paderborn. We wrote about their case last year.

Left: Tobback, right: Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's former and probably future prime minister, arrived in Belgium last Thursday for a private visit. On his way back from the United States, where he talked with Dick Cheney and speeched at New York University, Netanyahu stayed at the castle of the Merode family in Westerlo, 50 kilometers outside Brussels. On Saturday and Sunday he visited the Flemish medieval cities of Leuven, Ghent and Brugge (Bruges).

Kristof Debecker, a reporter of the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, asked the mayor of Leuven if he had considered an official welcome for Netanyahu. Here's what mayor Louis Tobback, a socialist, replied: