The presence of a “neo-Nazi” gang in Israel has caused outrage in the Israeli press and in government circles, reopening debate over Israel's "Law of Return" that grants automatic citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent.
Throughout the 1990s, Israel absorbed over 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, keen to swell the Jewish population out of fears that at some point in the future, the country's Arabs might outnumber its Jewish population.
Israeli officials now concede that more than one in four of those Soviet immigrants were not practicing Jews, and that they included thousands of non-Jews who felt no sympathy for Zionism but saw their claim on Israeli citizenship as a means of escaping the economic ravages of a collapsing Soviet empire.
The eight accused neo-Nazi gang members were all immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit on Monday ordered his staff to examine the citizenship papers of the families of the neo-Nazi gang members. "I will not hesitate to revoke their citizenship," Sheetrit said. "It is certain that this phenomenon is the embodiment of anti-Semitism at its nadir."
But the reasons why a teenager might turn against his own tribe may be more complex than a dubious bloodline or a forged ID. Israel in many ways can be a shuttered, exclusive society in which outsiders find it difficult to fit in.
Some of the Soviet immigrants adapted well to Israeli life, and are now among the country's best doctors, classical musicians, star athletes, and army commandos. But for many, the transition to Israel was jarring and disruptive.
Despite their professional credentials, they were only offered low-paying jobs as hospital cleaners and restaurant security guards, the first line of defense against a suicide bomber. Youngsters fell into gangs and crime; police say that in 2003, Russians immigrants accounted for 14% of the country's juvenile crime wave.
Led by Eli Boynatov, 19, nicknamed "Eli the Nazi", the gang vandalized synagogues near Tel Aviv, beat up Ethiopian Jews, gays, drug addicts and ultra-orthodox youth. The fact that they video-taped their savage acts proved to be their undoing. Police raided the suspects' homes and seized one tape in which "Eli the Nazi" says: "My grand-father was a half-Jewboy. I will not have children so that this trash will not be born with even a tiny percent of Jewboy blood." Such remarks chilled Israelis, who wondered how such hatred could have spread un-detected in their midst.
Monday, September 17, 2007
neo-cons
A neo-conservative (abbreviated as neo-con or neocon) is part of a U.S. based political movement rooted in liberal Cold War anticommunism and a backlash to the social liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. These liberals drifted toward conservatism: thus they are new (neo) conservatives. They favor an aggressive unilateral U.S. foreign policy. They generally believe that elites protect democracy from mob rule. Sometimes the spelling is "neoconservative."
origins of the neo-conservative movement
In their book Right-Wing Populism in America, Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons wrote that:
Neoconservatives, including many Jewish and Catholic intellectuals rooted in Cold War liberalism, clustered around publications such as Public Interest and Commentary and organizations such as the Committee on the Present Danger. They emphasized foreign policy, where they advocated aggressive anticommunism, U.S. global dominance, and international alliances. Although they attacked feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism, "neocons" often placed less emphasis on social policy issues, and many of them opposed school prayer or a ban on abortion. In addition, many neocons supported limited social welfare programs and nonrestrictive immigration policies." [1]
Inter-Press Service journalist Jim Lobe noted that the development of a common understanding on the definition of neoconservative "can help distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration's neo-imperialist trajectory". Lobe identifies the main strands as "the traditional Republican Machtpolitikers (Might Makes Right), such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and the Christian Rightists, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gary Bauer, and Pat Robertson."[2]
Writing in 2002 Lobe and Tom Barry argued that"neoconservatives have a profound belief in America1s moral superiority, which facilitates alliances with the Christian Right and other social conservatives. But unlike either core traditionalists of American conservatism or those with isolationist tendencies, neoconservatives are committed internationalists. As they did in the 1970s, the neoconservatives were instrumental in the late 1990s in helping to fuse diverse elements of the right into a unified force based on a new agenda of U.S. supremacy."[3]
For a list of prominent American neoconservatives, see Neo-conservatives/list.
[edit]Neoconservative forums and advocates
The early leaders of the neoconservative movement were Irving Kristol (author of 1983 book Reflections of a Neoconservative) and Norman Podhoretz, both of whom have served as editors of Commentary Magazine, the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, a centrist American-Jewish organization. On its webpage Commentary boasts it is known "as the intellectual home of the neoconservative movement" which is "vitally engaged in the preservation and spread of democracy and Western values." [4]
Other magazines include the Weekly Standard, currently edited by William Kristol and owned by Rupert Murdoch. The editorial page of Wall Street Journal can generally be relied upon to promote solidly neoconservative analysis. Irving Kristol also founded The National Interest, a journal vying to compete with Foreign Affairs.
Important neoconservatives in American politics include Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, William Kristol (son of Irving Kristol), Elliott Abrams (son-in-law to Norman Podhoretz) and Douglas Jay Feith.
Think tanks and organizations closely related to the neoconservatives include American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century and JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs).
[edit]The neoconservatives and the Bush administrations
Many neoconservatives found important positions in the Department of Defense under George W. Bush. They had long argued for a preventive war against Iraq in particular, but also several other Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia).
Immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, they renewed their calls for attack on Iraq. The Bush administration chose to first invade Afghanistan, but the neoconservatives eventually prevailed.
[edit]Criticisms of neoconservatives from within the conservative movement
Neo-conservatism has come in for criticism by some from other strands of the conservative movement. The rather disparagingly dubbed "paleo-conservatives" criticise neoconservatives for being too liberal and too internationalist. Writing in The New American, a publication of the John Birch Society, John F. McManus complains that a neo-conservative is "an opponent of Communism but a supporter of socialism and internationalism." McManus complained of a 1993 article in the Wall Street Journal exporessing support for aspecst of the welfare system. "These neocons have taken over the conservative wing of the Republican party. And they have succeeded in doing so to the degree that the word 'conservative' is now being applied to individuals and ideas that are, in fact, liberal (in the leftist sense), socialist, and totally undeserving of the conservative label," he complained.[5]
Right-wing ideologue Joseph Sobran echoed these sentiments complaining that "As a powerful movement, conservatism also attracted new members who were more interested in power than in principle. Some of these were called “neoconservatives” — admirers of Roosevelt and recent supporters of Lyndon Johnson who cared nothing for limited government and the U.S. Constitution." [6]
[edit]Neocon influence in the US media
The number of neocon dominated/controlled journals and program outlets has steadily increased ever since the introduction of Commentary. Eric Alterman lists the following outlets according to their degree of neoconnery [7]:
Commentary
The Weekly Standard
Most of National Review
Half The New Republic
City Journal
The New Criterion
The Washington Times
Insight
The New York Post
The New York Sun
The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal
60 or so percent of the Washington Post op-ed page
A twice-a-week appearance on the New York Times op-ed page
All of Fox News
Much of MSNBC
A bit of CNN
More and more of PBS
The American Enterprise Institute
The Heritage Foundation
The Hoover Institution
The Project for the New American Century
The US National Security Council
The Department of Defense
Parts of the World Bank and the United Nations Ambassador's office
A healthy chunk of the State Department
The Vice-President's office
And an unknown percentage of what is politely referred to as “the president's mind”
Although not listed in Alterman's list, The Atlantic Monthly also registers increasingly as a neocon dominated periodical.
In Canada, neocon-dominated news outlets include:
'Western Standard
The National Post
Increasingly, since Kenneth Whyte, the former editor of the right-wing and now-defunct Alberta Report' and former editor-in-chief of the National Post and the now defunct weekly magazine Saturday Night, took over as editor-in-chief and publisher of Canada's only weekly news magazine in 2005, MacLeans has also taken on a slick neoconservative bias.
origins of the neo-conservative movement
In their book Right-Wing Populism in America, Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons wrote that:
Neoconservatives, including many Jewish and Catholic intellectuals rooted in Cold War liberalism, clustered around publications such as Public Interest and Commentary and organizations such as the Committee on the Present Danger. They emphasized foreign policy, where they advocated aggressive anticommunism, U.S. global dominance, and international alliances. Although they attacked feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism, "neocons" often placed less emphasis on social policy issues, and many of them opposed school prayer or a ban on abortion. In addition, many neocons supported limited social welfare programs and nonrestrictive immigration policies." [1]
Inter-Press Service journalist Jim Lobe noted that the development of a common understanding on the definition of neoconservative "can help distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration's neo-imperialist trajectory". Lobe identifies the main strands as "the traditional Republican Machtpolitikers (Might Makes Right), such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and the Christian Rightists, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gary Bauer, and Pat Robertson."[2]
Writing in 2002 Lobe and Tom Barry argued that"neoconservatives have a profound belief in America1s moral superiority, which facilitates alliances with the Christian Right and other social conservatives. But unlike either core traditionalists of American conservatism or those with isolationist tendencies, neoconservatives are committed internationalists. As they did in the 1970s, the neoconservatives were instrumental in the late 1990s in helping to fuse diverse elements of the right into a unified force based on a new agenda of U.S. supremacy."[3]
For a list of prominent American neoconservatives, see Neo-conservatives/list.
[edit]Neoconservative forums and advocates
The early leaders of the neoconservative movement were Irving Kristol (author of 1983 book Reflections of a Neoconservative) and Norman Podhoretz, both of whom have served as editors of Commentary Magazine, the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, a centrist American-Jewish organization. On its webpage Commentary boasts it is known "as the intellectual home of the neoconservative movement" which is "vitally engaged in the preservation and spread of democracy and Western values." [4]
Other magazines include the Weekly Standard, currently edited by William Kristol and owned by Rupert Murdoch. The editorial page of Wall Street Journal can generally be relied upon to promote solidly neoconservative analysis. Irving Kristol also founded The National Interest, a journal vying to compete with Foreign Affairs.
Important neoconservatives in American politics include Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, William Kristol (son of Irving Kristol), Elliott Abrams (son-in-law to Norman Podhoretz) and Douglas Jay Feith.
Think tanks and organizations closely related to the neoconservatives include American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century and JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs).
[edit]The neoconservatives and the Bush administrations
Many neoconservatives found important positions in the Department of Defense under George W. Bush. They had long argued for a preventive war against Iraq in particular, but also several other Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia).
Immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, they renewed their calls for attack on Iraq. The Bush administration chose to first invade Afghanistan, but the neoconservatives eventually prevailed.
[edit]Criticisms of neoconservatives from within the conservative movement
Neo-conservatism has come in for criticism by some from other strands of the conservative movement. The rather disparagingly dubbed "paleo-conservatives" criticise neoconservatives for being too liberal and too internationalist. Writing in The New American, a publication of the John Birch Society, John F. McManus complains that a neo-conservative is "an opponent of Communism but a supporter of socialism and internationalism." McManus complained of a 1993 article in the Wall Street Journal exporessing support for aspecst of the welfare system. "These neocons have taken over the conservative wing of the Republican party. And they have succeeded in doing so to the degree that the word 'conservative' is now being applied to individuals and ideas that are, in fact, liberal (in the leftist sense), socialist, and totally undeserving of the conservative label," he complained.[5]
Right-wing ideologue Joseph Sobran echoed these sentiments complaining that "As a powerful movement, conservatism also attracted new members who were more interested in power than in principle. Some of these were called “neoconservatives” — admirers of Roosevelt and recent supporters of Lyndon Johnson who cared nothing for limited government and the U.S. Constitution." [6]
[edit]Neocon influence in the US media
The number of neocon dominated/controlled journals and program outlets has steadily increased ever since the introduction of Commentary. Eric Alterman lists the following outlets according to their degree of neoconnery [7]:
Commentary
The Weekly Standard
Most of National Review
Half The New Republic
City Journal
The New Criterion
The Washington Times
Insight
The New York Post
The New York Sun
The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal
60 or so percent of the Washington Post op-ed page
A twice-a-week appearance on the New York Times op-ed page
All of Fox News
Much of MSNBC
A bit of CNN
More and more of PBS
The American Enterprise Institute
The Heritage Foundation
The Hoover Institution
The Project for the New American Century
The US National Security Council
The Department of Defense
Parts of the World Bank and the United Nations Ambassador's office
A healthy chunk of the State Department
The Vice-President's office
And an unknown percentage of what is politely referred to as “the president's mind”
Although not listed in Alterman's list, The Atlantic Monthly also registers increasingly as a neocon dominated periodical.
In Canada, neocon-dominated news outlets include:
'Western Standard
The National Post
Increasingly, since Kenneth Whyte, the former editor of the right-wing and now-defunct Alberta Report' and former editor-in-chief of the National Post and the now defunct weekly magazine Saturday Night, took over as editor-in-chief and publisher of Canada's only weekly news magazine in 2005, MacLeans has also taken on a slick neoconservative bias.
ron paul's texas straight talk
Surrender Should Not Be an Option
Faced with dwindling support of the Iraq War, the warhawks are redoubling their efforts. They imply we are in Iraq attacking those who attacked us, and yet this is not the case. As we know, Saddam Hussein, though not a particularly savory character, had nothing to do with 9/11. The neo-cons claim surrender should not be an option. In the same breath they claim we were attacked because of our freedoms. Why then, are they so anxious to surrender our freedoms with legislation like the Patriot Act, a repeal of our 4th amendment rights, executive orders, and presidential signing statements? With politicians like these, who needs terrorists? Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us? This seems the epitome of cowardice coming from those who claim a monopoly on patriotic courage.
In any case, we have achieved the goals specified in the initial authorization. Saddam Hussein has been removed. An elected government is now in place in Iraq that meets with US approval. The only weapon of mass destruction in Iraq is our military presence. Why are we still over there? Conventional wisdom would dictate that when the "mission is accomplished", the victor goes home, and that is not considered a retreat.
They claim progress is being made and we are fighting a winnable war, but this is not a view connected with reality. We can't be sure when we kill someone over there if they were truly an insurgent or an innocent Iraqi civilian. There are as many as 650,000 deaths since the war began. The anger we incite by killing innocents creates more new insurgents than our bullets can keep up with. There are no measurable goals to be achieved at this point.
The best congressional leadership can come up with is the concept of strategic redeployment, or moving our troops around, possibly into Saudi Arabia or even, alarmingly enough, into Iran. Rather than ending this war, we could be starting another one.
The American people voted for a humble foreign policy in 2000. They voted for an end to the war in 2006. Instead of recognizing the wisdom and desire of the voters, they are chided as cowards, unwilling to defend themselves. Americans are fiercely willing to defend themselves. However, we have no stomach for indiscriminate bombing in foreign lands when our actual attackers either killed themselves on 9/11 or are still at large somewhere in a country that is neither Iraq nor Iran. Defense of our homeland is one thing. Offensive tactics overseas are quite another. Worse yet, when our newly minted enemies find their way over here, where will our troops be to defend us?
The American people have NOT gotten the government they deserve. They asked for a stronger America and peace through nonintervention, yet we have a government of deceit, inaction and one that puts us in grave danger on the international front. The American People deserve much better than this. They deserve foreign and domestic policy that doesn't require they surrender their liberties.
Faced with dwindling support of the Iraq War, the warhawks are redoubling their efforts. They imply we are in Iraq attacking those who attacked us, and yet this is not the case. As we know, Saddam Hussein, though not a particularly savory character, had nothing to do with 9/11. The neo-cons claim surrender should not be an option. In the same breath they claim we were attacked because of our freedoms. Why then, are they so anxious to surrender our freedoms with legislation like the Patriot Act, a repeal of our 4th amendment rights, executive orders, and presidential signing statements? With politicians like these, who needs terrorists? Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us? This seems the epitome of cowardice coming from those who claim a monopoly on patriotic courage.
In any case, we have achieved the goals specified in the initial authorization. Saddam Hussein has been removed. An elected government is now in place in Iraq that meets with US approval. The only weapon of mass destruction in Iraq is our military presence. Why are we still over there? Conventional wisdom would dictate that when the "mission is accomplished", the victor goes home, and that is not considered a retreat.
They claim progress is being made and we are fighting a winnable war, but this is not a view connected with reality. We can't be sure when we kill someone over there if they were truly an insurgent or an innocent Iraqi civilian. There are as many as 650,000 deaths since the war began. The anger we incite by killing innocents creates more new insurgents than our bullets can keep up with. There are no measurable goals to be achieved at this point.
The best congressional leadership can come up with is the concept of strategic redeployment, or moving our troops around, possibly into Saudi Arabia or even, alarmingly enough, into Iran. Rather than ending this war, we could be starting another one.
The American people voted for a humble foreign policy in 2000. They voted for an end to the war in 2006. Instead of recognizing the wisdom and desire of the voters, they are chided as cowards, unwilling to defend themselves. Americans are fiercely willing to defend themselves. However, we have no stomach for indiscriminate bombing in foreign lands when our actual attackers either killed themselves on 9/11 or are still at large somewhere in a country that is neither Iraq nor Iran. Defense of our homeland is one thing. Offensive tactics overseas are quite another. Worse yet, when our newly minted enemies find their way over here, where will our troops be to defend us?
The American people have NOT gotten the government they deserve. They asked for a stronger America and peace through nonintervention, yet we have a government of deceit, inaction and one that puts us in grave danger on the international front. The American People deserve much better than this. They deserve foreign and domestic policy that doesn't require they surrender their liberties.
White people 'a minority by 2027'
A team of demographers from Manchester University has claimed that the number of white people living in Birmingham will be overtaken by the number of those with other ethnic origins by 2027.
The news came as it emerged that 35 towns and cities in Britain have at least one ward which is "minority white".
And experts have already forecast that Leicester could become the first city in which white people are a minority in four years' time.
Ludi Simpson, a social statistician at Manchester University, said the Pakistani population in Birmingham was likely to double by 2026, but with two-thirds of this increase due to the relatively younger age profile of Pakistanis, rather than increased immigration.
Dr Simpson said: "The overall picture is one of rapid natural growth plus some immigration, mainly of young spouses.
"Birmingham is likely to become a minority white city in 2027, but a diverse one in which the white population remains more than twice the size of the Pakistani population which is predicted to become one fifth of the district's population by then."
But hopes that different ethnic groups could assimilate into a "common identity" in towns and cities were dismissed by Dr Sullivan as "utopian in quite a dangerous way" and "completely unrealistic".
He added that the suburbs, rather than town and city centres were the "sites of real tension".
"Lack of affordable housing, poor environments and anti-social behaviour are the issues, not ethnic composition nor segregation itself," he said.
Nissa Finney, also from Manchester University, told the Royal Geographical Society's annual conference that 35 towns and cities in Britain had at least one ward which was "minority white". These included Birmingham, Burnley, Slough, Peterborough, Bolton and Derby, as well as Brent, Tower Hamlets, Ealing and Newham within London.
Miss Finney said the increasing proportion of non-whites in these wards was more linked with "natural population dynamics" like moving areas to be nearer family or friends, than with immigration.
She told the conference: "Clustering is the result of benign and natural population dynamics. There is no evidence of self-segregation or exceptional 'white flight'."
Last year, Trevor Phillips, the-then chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said that "tough decisions" will have to be made as some more areas become "plural cities" where no one race holds a majority.
Mr Phillips said: "Events across Europe have shown how segregation breeds mistrust and fracture.
"The benefits of plural cities can be great, but we need to look at the future and act responsibly."
The news came as it emerged that 35 towns and cities in Britain have at least one ward which is "minority white".
And experts have already forecast that Leicester could become the first city in which white people are a minority in four years' time.
Ludi Simpson, a social statistician at Manchester University, said the Pakistani population in Birmingham was likely to double by 2026, but with two-thirds of this increase due to the relatively younger age profile of Pakistanis, rather than increased immigration.
Dr Simpson said: "The overall picture is one of rapid natural growth plus some immigration, mainly of young spouses.
"Birmingham is likely to become a minority white city in 2027, but a diverse one in which the white population remains more than twice the size of the Pakistani population which is predicted to become one fifth of the district's population by then."
But hopes that different ethnic groups could assimilate into a "common identity" in towns and cities were dismissed by Dr Sullivan as "utopian in quite a dangerous way" and "completely unrealistic".
He added that the suburbs, rather than town and city centres were the "sites of real tension".
"Lack of affordable housing, poor environments and anti-social behaviour are the issues, not ethnic composition nor segregation itself," he said.
Nissa Finney, also from Manchester University, told the Royal Geographical Society's annual conference that 35 towns and cities in Britain had at least one ward which was "minority white". These included Birmingham, Burnley, Slough, Peterborough, Bolton and Derby, as well as Brent, Tower Hamlets, Ealing and Newham within London.
Miss Finney said the increasing proportion of non-whites in these wards was more linked with "natural population dynamics" like moving areas to be nearer family or friends, than with immigration.
She told the conference: "Clustering is the result of benign and natural population dynamics. There is no evidence of self-segregation or exceptional 'white flight'."
Last year, Trevor Phillips, the-then chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said that "tough decisions" will have to be made as some more areas become "plural cities" where no one race holds a majority.
Mr Phillips said: "Events across Europe have shown how segregation breeds mistrust and fracture.
"The benefits of plural cities can be great, but we need to look at the future and act responsibly."
immigration
The problem isn't racism, it's the tidal wave of immigrants
By Kevin Myers
Wednesday September 05 2007
All right, you know about the Government's latest move to outlaw beggars? Do you really think it's really about beggars? It isn't. It's about immigrant-beggars, who now throng our streets.
We could, of course, deal with the substantive matter, that of immigration itself, but instead we prefer to deal with its symptoms -- and in the usual cowardly way in which we address anything which is a little difficult or embarrassing.
Now look: I'm not a complete fool. People don't turn columnists to read the same stuff, day after day after day. Yet that's what I've been doing, endlessly writing on this same subject.
No doubt by this time, the one reader left is some old wino sitting in a doorway in his own personal pool of warmth, scanning these few column inches in the belief that these are the greyhound results. No matter. Here I go again.
Immigration is now not merely the dominant feature of Irish life, it is the greatest threat to the existence of the Irish nation as a coherent, and cohesive whole.
No country has ever accepted, never mind assimilated, the volumes of foreigners now present in this state. We have some 400,000 legal immigrants; but everyone knows that the army of illegals, especially Africans and Chinese, is vast, and probably tops 200,000. In all, Ireland has received at least 600,000 immigrants, most of them within the past five years. It could be many more. No one has the least idea.
In the US, such immigration would translate into an inward population movement of 45 million. In the UK, the figure would be nine million. Needless to say, neither state would be so idiotic or feckless as allow such vast numbers to enter.
Only Ireland would be so idiotic and so morally lethargic as to allow such massive inward population movements.
And of course, we haven't got the resources to cope with the consequences of such an influx. But worse than our lack of resources, is our lack of courage in confronting the issue.
We do not have policies, but inept evasiveness: and perhaps worst of all, we have a posturing gallery of home-grown jackanapes ready to shriek "racism" wherever and whenever they see that things are not going quite the way that immigrants want.
Thus, on any discussion on RTE, especially from its newsroom, immigrants are never held responsible for choosing to come here. Instead, we hear endless complaints that Irish institutions had not prepared themselves properly for their arrival.
On the News at One on Monday, African after African in Balbriggan complained there were no places for their children in the existing local schools.
Not once was the question posed: what was the real reason for the Africans not having places in schools? Answer: they'd only just come here.
Instead, Africans who were just off the boat were allowed to accuse us of racism for not having school places awaiting their children.
There's also the Paddy- factor in all this. It's impossible for any outsider to understand that this state is almost pathologically incapable of planning anything.
This is the land of the Red Cow Roundabout and motorways without service stations, rest-stops or toilets. So how could we be expected seven years ago to have planned school-building projects in north county Dublin for Africans as yet unborn?
If blaming ourselves for our failure to plan for Africa's educational needs were not fatuous enough, some poor spokeswoman from the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin had to defend the Catholic Church against an RTE journalist's accusations of bigotry.
Naturally, in this unprincipled liberal Ireland, for the Catholic Church to insist that Catholic schools have a primary duty to educate Catholics is nowadays both racist and sectarian.
But of course, no one on RTE would ever dream of proposing that Islamic madrasahs should take in Jewish, Catholic or Hindu pupils: in the new Ireland, the only people who are expected to bend their own rules are the Irish Catholic majority.
Accompanying this presumption is the pious and all-prevalent dogma that immigrants will on arrival abandon ancient loyalties, and will promptly don a Hibernian mantle: hence the brainless cliche, wittered endlessly by journalists and politicians alike, "the New Irish".
Sorry. This is conceited gibberish. Why would a Pole surrender something which the Polish people have fought for a thousand years to retain?
Why the presumption that an Asian Muslim who lives in Ireland is in any way Irish?
My mother lived most of her life in England, but never for a second thought of herself as English.
The media should be asking the big question, 'Why are we still admitting hundreds of thousands of immigrants?'
Instead, we are obsessing with the relatively trivial question of: Are the Irish people, who after all have admitted vast armies of strangers to their national home, racist?
This is self-hatred at its most pathetic, and its most self-defeating.
Whether Irish people are "racist" is irrelevant. We have created a society whose apparent cohesiveness is totally dependent on immigration-fuelled economic growth. That growth must one day come to an end.
Then what, in Darndale, Coolock, or even Balbriggan?
By Kevin Myers
Wednesday September 05 2007
All right, you know about the Government's latest move to outlaw beggars? Do you really think it's really about beggars? It isn't. It's about immigrant-beggars, who now throng our streets.
We could, of course, deal with the substantive matter, that of immigration itself, but instead we prefer to deal with its symptoms -- and in the usual cowardly way in which we address anything which is a little difficult or embarrassing.
Now look: I'm not a complete fool. People don't turn columnists to read the same stuff, day after day after day. Yet that's what I've been doing, endlessly writing on this same subject.
No doubt by this time, the one reader left is some old wino sitting in a doorway in his own personal pool of warmth, scanning these few column inches in the belief that these are the greyhound results. No matter. Here I go again.
Immigration is now not merely the dominant feature of Irish life, it is the greatest threat to the existence of the Irish nation as a coherent, and cohesive whole.
No country has ever accepted, never mind assimilated, the volumes of foreigners now present in this state. We have some 400,000 legal immigrants; but everyone knows that the army of illegals, especially Africans and Chinese, is vast, and probably tops 200,000. In all, Ireland has received at least 600,000 immigrants, most of them within the past five years. It could be many more. No one has the least idea.
In the US, such immigration would translate into an inward population movement of 45 million. In the UK, the figure would be nine million. Needless to say, neither state would be so idiotic or feckless as allow such vast numbers to enter.
Only Ireland would be so idiotic and so morally lethargic as to allow such massive inward population movements.
And of course, we haven't got the resources to cope with the consequences of such an influx. But worse than our lack of resources, is our lack of courage in confronting the issue.
We do not have policies, but inept evasiveness: and perhaps worst of all, we have a posturing gallery of home-grown jackanapes ready to shriek "racism" wherever and whenever they see that things are not going quite the way that immigrants want.
Thus, on any discussion on RTE, especially from its newsroom, immigrants are never held responsible for choosing to come here. Instead, we hear endless complaints that Irish institutions had not prepared themselves properly for their arrival.
On the News at One on Monday, African after African in Balbriggan complained there were no places for their children in the existing local schools.
Not once was the question posed: what was the real reason for the Africans not having places in schools? Answer: they'd only just come here.
Instead, Africans who were just off the boat were allowed to accuse us of racism for not having school places awaiting their children.
There's also the Paddy- factor in all this. It's impossible for any outsider to understand that this state is almost pathologically incapable of planning anything.
This is the land of the Red Cow Roundabout and motorways without service stations, rest-stops or toilets. So how could we be expected seven years ago to have planned school-building projects in north county Dublin for Africans as yet unborn?
If blaming ourselves for our failure to plan for Africa's educational needs were not fatuous enough, some poor spokeswoman from the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin had to defend the Catholic Church against an RTE journalist's accusations of bigotry.
Naturally, in this unprincipled liberal Ireland, for the Catholic Church to insist that Catholic schools have a primary duty to educate Catholics is nowadays both racist and sectarian.
But of course, no one on RTE would ever dream of proposing that Islamic madrasahs should take in Jewish, Catholic or Hindu pupils: in the new Ireland, the only people who are expected to bend their own rules are the Irish Catholic majority.
Accompanying this presumption is the pious and all-prevalent dogma that immigrants will on arrival abandon ancient loyalties, and will promptly don a Hibernian mantle: hence the brainless cliche, wittered endlessly by journalists and politicians alike, "the New Irish".
Sorry. This is conceited gibberish. Why would a Pole surrender something which the Polish people have fought for a thousand years to retain?
Why the presumption that an Asian Muslim who lives in Ireland is in any way Irish?
My mother lived most of her life in England, but never for a second thought of herself as English.
The media should be asking the big question, 'Why are we still admitting hundreds of thousands of immigrants?'
Instead, we are obsessing with the relatively trivial question of: Are the Irish people, who after all have admitted vast armies of strangers to their national home, racist?
This is self-hatred at its most pathetic, and its most self-defeating.
Whether Irish people are "racist" is irrelevant. We have created a society whose apparent cohesiveness is totally dependent on immigration-fuelled economic growth. That growth must one day come to an end.
Then what, in Darndale, Coolock, or even Balbriggan?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Airline sacrifices goats to appease sky god
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.
Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said.
"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," said Raju K.C., a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been.
Local media last week blamed the company's woes on an electrical fault. The carrier runs international flights to five cities in Asia.
It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals like goats and buffaloes to appease different Hindu deities.
Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said.
"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," said Raju K.C., a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been.
Local media last week blamed the company's woes on an electrical fault. The carrier runs international flights to five cities in Asia.
It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals like goats and buffaloes to appease different Hindu deities.
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