15 Oct 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald
Sarkozy has turned out to be an excitable, shallow, disappointing man. Those who placed their hopes in him , who thought he might help France come to its senses about Islam, should now be thoroughly chastened, and look again at the "un-electable" (only if you keep saying that he is) Philippe De Villiers.
15 Oct 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald
A previous post -- one of many on the theme -- at Jihad Watch:
Fitzgerald: Sarkozy: Curb your enthusiasm
Some previous curb-your-enthusiasm posts (lightly edited for clarity) about Sarkozy, who nonetheless is much better than any of the others, save Philippe de Villiers, whose time may well come:
1.
Here's a fine how-de-doo. Sarkozy, on whom so many hopes were placed, comes down on the side of equality of outcome, and does not dare touch the subject that needs to be touched: what is it about Islam that explains subpar economic performance, even in the Muslim lands that have no excuse, for they have received nearly $10 trillion dollars over the past 34 years and have failed everywhere to create the semblance of a modern economy. Nor does he dare touch on what explains the dismal performance of Muslim immigrants, compared to other non-Muslim immigrants -- Hindus, Vietnamese Buddhists and Christians, Chinese -- all over Europe. What is it about Islam that stands a permanent obstacle to integration with Infidels? Could it be, might it be, the very attitudes of hostility and even murderous hatred that one can find set out in Qur'anic passages, in Hadith stories, in details of the life of Muhammad set out in the Sira? No, none of that for Sarkozy.
And what a surprise to see the deplorable Dominique de Villepin stand up for -- well, essentially, for the grandes ecoles, and the meritocracy of examinations, and Long live the khagne! Long live the agregation! For if that goes, then the entire cult of intelligence and merit goes with it. And even though there are plenty of reasons to deplore the recent examples of graduates of ENA and suchlike, the destruction of the examination system, and the obstacle course set up in its place, would be the last nail in the coffin of Jules Ferry and la carriere ouverte aux talents, as well as of the cartable for the little ones, and the cahier, and the cahier de vacances, and the bac, and everything that is left to which even D. de V. sees has its points.
But he, too, does not dare explain what it is about Islam that stunts mental growth, or that prevents genuine integration of Muslims in a society where they do not receive what they regard as their due -- that due being, in the end, the modification over time of that Infidel society to accommodate Muslim demands at every level, until, as has happened everywhere that Muslims become a majority or a too-powerful minority, Islam comes to dominate and Muslims rule. It does not always take place through outright military conquest. See the East Indies, where traders from the Hadramaut settled in Java, and one thing led to another, with the results that can be observed.
[Posted by: Hugh at November 26, 2005 07:26 PM]
2.
Le Pen is disreputable in a hundred collaborationist, poujadist ways. Philippe De Villiers is fine, far more perceptive than Sarkozy, in whom so many (possibly misplaced) hopes have been placed. Some lepenistes apparently believe that Philippe De Villiers is doing Chirac's work for him, but this is never quite explained, since Chirac will soon be out of office, trying to stay out of jail.
It is Le Pen who has been inconsistent. He stood stoutly by Saddam Hussein, and appears to find the Muslim Arabs perfectly acceptable in the conduct of their Lesser Jihad against Israel, possibly a reflection of his most unsavory aspect. The best thing that could happen now for the emergence of a sensible anti-Islam movement in France would be the disappearance of Le Pen, and those of his supporters who supported him slightly or very unwillingly, malgre eux, can turn their attention, and support, to Philippe De Villiers, to give him power that he can trade on.
[Posted by: Hugh at October 28, 2006 1:08 AM]
3.
Sarkozy is good, but Philippe de Villiers is better. One hopes that Sarkozy will not engage in any idiotic "reaching out" to the "youths" in the "banlieues," but instead will make sure that they know that a different view of things now prevails, and the nonsense of the past will no longer be tolerated. Sarkozy was very good on television with the sinister Tariq Ramadan (for whom the jig is up in France, and in Switzerland, which is why he moved on to a temporary post in England, and hopes to take his show on the road to credulous America, where willfully naive Scott Appleby and Notre Dame still await him -- or so he devoutly believes).
Sarkozy has spoken in the past about the possibility of "integrating" the Muslims of France, and has even suggested the desirability of special programs to favor them in employment and with a kind of affirmative action in the schools. He still doesn't realize that teaching Believers French, teaching them about French culture, will not make them any better able to accept Infidel institutions, or make them necessarily loyal to the Infidel nation-state of France, but will assuredly provide many with the tools to better conduct Da'wa, to better promote their own, Muslim, aims. Such courses will be akin to those KGB schools for spies, where the spies were taught the languages and cultures of the West -- but still remained loyal to the Soviet system. Putin, for example, knows German perfectly. He knew exactly how to fit in to East Germany (and there were other KGB agents like him in what was then West Germany). But those KGB agents were not "integrated" into the West, though they were living in that West, and had been taught all about it.
Sarkozy must be very careful. And not hesitate to turn that ship of state completely around so that it rises higher in the water. The motto of the city of Paris, quondam Lutetia -- fluctuat nec mergitur (it bobs up and down on the waves, but doesn't sink, as if Paris were a bar of Ivory soap) just will not do, not for Paris, and not for France.
"Not sinking" isn't enough of a goal. Nor will the faith in making France "prosperous" again sufficient. The Muslim presence is, of course, an enormous economic weight, and drain on the welfare state. But more importantly, it is a great political, social, civilizational weight, a general demoralizer for those who see the problem, and those who perform the mental equivalent of salti mortali in order not to see it.
Sarkozy can help to disabuse the permanent French establishment about the Deux-Rives notion, that somehow France, or France as the leader of Europe, shares a civilization with the Arab Muslims of North Africa (google "Deux-rivistes" and "Jihad Watch"), and that the differences are merely those of that pesky Mediterranean in the middle. And assorted olivier-roys and gilles-kepels should lose their positions of unmerited and baleful influence, and if possible, their government employment at one of those many Centres de Recherches Scientifiques that provide sinecures for so many of the well-degreed and well-connected.
[Posted by: Hugh at May 7, 2007 10:28 AM]
[Posted by Hugh at June 12, 2007]
