Lampedusa, Italy. Part I: What Happened in 2011

During the "Arab Spring", the tiny island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily, due to its unfortunate vicinity to North Africa saw the arrival of around 50,000 migrants mostly from Tunisia and Libya in 2011.

We know that the use of words like "invasion" or "flooding" is considered racist by the liberal media, but how else is it possible to describe this situation?

Lampedusa has a total population of just over 6,000 people only when you also include the inhabitants of the nearby island of Linosa, with which it forms Italy's southernmost local council.

Invasion does not need to be military. Any violation of a sovereign country's borders is a crime and an aggression.

There was even an allegation that some women had been thrown overboard by the migrants during the sea crossing from Africa to prevent the overloaded boats from capsizing, according to an eye witness aboard the boats.

The many thousands of immigrants and refugees fleeing the chaos of the "revolution", among whom were suspected escaped prisoners, were then gradually transferred to mainland Italy and other EU countries, but there were repeated times when the number of newcomers was higher than that of locals.

On those occasions when natives were outnumbered, there were tales of local women having to be accompanied everywhere to protect them from immigrants' unwanted attentions, sacked shops, flats' doors forced open, people returning home to find Tunisians sitting at the dining table eating and, after their departures, some householders even discovering faeces inside saucepans.

The island just became what one newspaper called "a huge immigrant camp".

Maybe expecting to find a hotel reception and with scarcely a thought about the crisis they were creating in the small island, the illegal immigrants were complaining, as in the above video, describing what they found in Lampedusa as "shameful" and pontificating "the reception is zero" as if they had been giving a hotel review on TripAdvisor.

The attitude of the Tunisian refugee in the video is particularly enlightening, showing an entitlement mentality according to which Europe, the land of democracy, justice and human rights, was expected, as was its duty, to give all these things to him and his companions, and Italians should have "taken the time" to provide them with all they needed.

This video confirms what Lampedusa mayor Bernardino De Rubeis said: "We have here young Tunisians who arrogantly want everything immediately, just like criminals, ready to endanger our lives and theirs". He later added: "We're in a war, and the people will react. There are people here who want to go out into the streets armed with clubs".

The one expressed in the film is the typical mindset of many Muslim immigrants to Europe. These are the people usually portrayed as "victims" for whom everything else has to be sacrificed.

And when they don't get what they want, there is trouble. In April 2011 the illegals, unhappy about their accommodation conditions, set fire to a guest house where they were staying at the expense of a charity organization, and threw rocks at the police.

On 20 September 2011, similar story: the immigrants torched the reception centre where they were accommodated, destroying three buildings in the holding facility, and clashed with the police, while the media were blaming for the arson everyone, the Italian government, the provisional Tunisian government, the European Union, except the actual perpetrators. This was the second time that the reception centre had been burnt down by refugees, the first during an inmate riot destroying a large part of the complex on 19 February 2009.

The desperate Lampedusa natives, seeing their predicament not understood or helped by Italian or European authorities, in March 2011 even resorted to stopping for an hour the Italian Coast Guard patrol boat, loaded with still more North Africans, from docking at the harbour, and repeated this sort of "direct action" several times.

Lampedusa lives mainly on tourism, and the thousands of migrants, often behaving not exactly as gentlemen, were making the place inhospitable to visitors. In this financial crisis every job is precious. In 2011, the tourist season started in August, two months later than usual.

In addition, the island did not have the agricultural and water resources to deal with the refugee emergency.

And anyway, the crux of the matter is that people should not be forced into that situation through the moral blackmail accusation of not acting charitably.

Unfortunately these are, as Oriana Fallaci said, the enemies we welcome as friends, and their sob stories seem to have the desired effect on many people, in Italy as all over Europe.

Either Europe Will Become Christian Again or It Will Become Muslim

Only a few days ago one of the best known figures of the Italian counter-jihad, Egyptian-born journalist Magdi Cristiano Allam, a former Muslim who converted to Catholicism, announced that, although he remains Christian, he has left the Catholic Church.

In his column in the daily paper Il Giornale he gave several reasons, prominent among which is "Because this Church is weak vis-à-vis Islam":

What more than anything else drove me away from the Church is its religious relativism, in particular the legitimization of Islam as true religion, of Allah as true God, of Muhammad as true prophet, of the Koran as sacred text, of mosques as places of worship. It is genuine suicidal madness that John Paul II went so far as to kiss the Koran on May 14, 1999, Benedict XVI put his hand on the Koran praying toward Mecca in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on November 30, 2006, while Francis I began by extolling the Muslims "who worship one, living and merciful God." On the contrary I am convinced that, while respecting Muslims who, like all people, possess the inalienable rights to life, dignity and freedom, Islam is an inherently violent ideology, as it has historically been conflictual inside and belligerent outside. Even more I am increasingly convinced that Europe will eventually be submitted to Islam, as has already happened from the seventh century to the other two sides of the Mediterranean, if it does not have the vision and the courage to denounce the incompatibility of Islam with our civilization and the fundamental rights of the person, if it does not ban the Koran for apology of hatred, violence and death against non-Muslims, if it does not condemn Sharia law as a crime against humanity in that it preaches and practices the violation of the sanctity of everyone's life, the equal dignity of men and women, and religious freedom, and finally if it does not block the spread of mosques.

This news has attracted national and worldwide media attention, just as the announcement of his conversion from Islam to Catholicism on 22 March, Easter Eve night, 2008 did, when he "received Baptism, Confirmation and Communion in St Peter's Basilica from Pope Benedict XVI".

Allam's position has several Italian (and international) counter-jihad blogs sympathetic to it, carrying articles with titles like Islamic Fundamentalism and the Impossible Dialogue.

But his new decision to leave the Church has also attracted many criticisms in Italy. Journalist Filippo Savarese: "I do not know what could be worse than repudiating one's conversion for (alleged) issues which are in fact mostly 'political'." Politician Maurizio Lupi who was Allam's godfather: "I am sorry, but Christianity taught me to love the freedom of every man and to respect it even when I do not agree with his choices. In this case not even with the reasons (we are Christian for love of truth not for aversion to Islam), but I notice that, unfortunately, this is the attitude of many who say they accept Christ but not the Church".

Gabriele Satolli, candidate to the 2013 Italian general election for the party founded by Allam, Io Amo l'Italia, left the party, calling Magdi's motivations "raving, and therefore impossible to agree with".

Still, although we may dispute whether they are a good enough reason to leave the Catholic Church, Allam's arguments are grounded in reality.

"Having a dialogue" is by definition a reciprocal verb, as "being a sibling". They mean something only if what is true of the subject of the verb is also true of the object, be it a quality, relationship or activity. When a call for dialogue is not met with a response, it is a monologue.

As Raymond Ibrahim points out, the Muslim countries with some of the worst records on their treatment of Christians are also the most interested in interfaith initiatives in the West:

Few things offer surreal experiences as when Islam and the West interact—when 7th century primordialism encounters 21st century relativism. Consider the issue of “interfaith dialogue.” In principle, it is a decent thing: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others trying to reach a common ground and professing mutual respect. But what does one make of the gross contradictions that emerge when a human-rights violating nation calls for “dialogue,” even as it enforces religious intolerance on its own turf?

Enter Saudi Arabia. Birthplace of Islam, the Arabian kingdom is also the one Muslim nation that regularly sponsors interfaith initiatives in the West—even as its official policy back home is to demonize and persecute the very faiths it claims to want to have an interfaith dialogue with.

There are different positions within the Catholic Church with regard to Islam, with a minority of voices, some of which powerful, dissenting from the official stance.

The two positions at the extreme opposites are exemplified by the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was Archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Archbishop of Bologna.

The former is credited with having anticipated many bishops of Italy and Europe in stretching out an acquiescent hand towards Islam. As early as 1990 he dedicated his Saint Ambrose homely to "We and Islam". In 2001, after 9/11, his Saint Ambrose homely had a title that substituted a clear stance with a list of concepts: “Terrorism, retaliation, self-defence, war and peace”.

On Islam, the most difficult issue of the decade, as well as on many other questions, Martini's position has always been the search for a grey area, a balancing act: “We have to prevent the dramatic scenario of a clash of civilizations”, qualified by “We must not delegitimize the right to self-defence from terrorism and the need to extinguish its hotbeds”.

It is interesting how, replicating the ideological and political alliance between Islam and the Left in the Western lay world, Cardinal Martini, considered a progressive and constantly praised by the mainstream liberal media, was after his death eulogized by the leftist newspaper La Repubblica for having approved of policies ranging “from dialogue with Islam to yes to condoms” and because “he had never condemned euthanasia”.

Writer and blogger Antonio Socci thus sums him up rather unfavorably:

"Everything imposed by ideological fashions found Martini open to dialogue and to all possibilities: 'there is nothing wrong in two people, even homosexuals, having a stable relationship and in the State favouring them', he had said."

At the other end of the spectrum is Cardinal Giacomo Biffi. As early as 30 September 2000, before 9/11, when not many people in the West worried about Islam at all, he delivered a speech at the Fondazione Migrantes seminar, "On Immigration". The following is what he said on Muslim immigration to Italy and Islam:

The case of Muslims

If we do not want to evade or censor realistic attention, it is apparent that the case of Muslims should be treated separately. And it is hoped that political leaders will not be afraid to face it with open eyes and without illusions.

Muslims - in their vast majority and with few exceptions - come here determined to remain alien to our "humanity", individual and social, in its most essential, valuable, "secularly" non-renounceable aspects: more or less openly, they come here determined to remain substantially "different", waiting for us all to become substantially like them.

They have different eating habits (not in itself a big problem), a different holiday in the week, a family law incompatible with our own, a concept of women very far removed from ours (going as far as practicing polygamy). Above all, they have a strictly fundamentalist view of public life, so much so that the perfect identification between religion and politics is part of their unquestionable and inalienable faith, although they prudently wait to become predominant before imposing it. It is therefore not the Church, but modern Western states that must think carefully about this.

I shall say more than that: if our state seriously believes in the importance of civil liberties (including religious) and democratic principles, it should work to make them more widespread, accepted and practiced at all latitudes. A small tool to achieve this goal is the request of being given a not purely verbal "reciprocity" by the immigrants' countries of origin.

In this respect the Italian Bishops Conference wrote in 1993: "In many Islamic countries it is almost impossible to adhere to and freely practice Christianity. There are no places of worship, non-Islamic religious events are not allowed, not even minimal ecclesiastical organizations exist. That raises the difficult problem of reciprocity. And this is a problem that affects not only the Church, but also civil society and politics, the world of culture and even international relations. For his part, the Pope is tireless in asking everyone to respect the fundamental right to religious freedom" (n. 34). But - we say - asking does not help very much, even if the pope cannot do any more.

Although it may seem alien to our mentality and even paradoxical, the only effective and not unrealistic way to promote the "principle of reciprocity" by a really "secular" state, truly interested in propagating human freedoms, would be to allow for Muslims in Italy only the authorization of institutions which Muslim countries actually allow for others.
…

Conclusion

In an interview ten years ago, I was asked with great candor and with enviable optimism: "Are You among those who believe that Europe will either be Christian or cease to exist?". I think my answer then may well serve to conclude my speech today.

I think - I said - that either Europe will become Christian again or it will become Muslim. What I see without future is the "culture of nothing", of freedom without limits and without content, of skepticism boasted as intellectual achievement, which seems to be the attitude largely dominant among European peoples, all more or less rich of means and poor of truths. This "culture of nothingness" (sustained by hedonism and libertarian insatiability) will not be able to withstand the ideological onslaught of Islam, which will not be missing: only the rediscovery of the Christian event as the only salvation for man - and therefore only a strong resurrection of the ancient soul of Europe - will offer a different outcome to this inevitable confrontation.

Unfortunately, neither "secularists" nor "Catholics" seem to have so far realized the tragedy that is looming. "Secularists", opposing the Church in every way, do not realize that they are fighting against the strongest inspiration and the most effective defence of Western civilization and its values of rationality and freedom: they might realize it too late. "Catholics", letting the knowledge of the truth they possessed fade in themselves and replacing apostolic anxiety with pure and simple dialogue at all costs, unconsciously pave the way (humanly speaking) to their own extinction. The only hope is that the seriousness of the situation may at some point lead to an effective awakening both of reason and of the ancient faith.

It is our hope, our commitment, our prayer.

Written in 2000. All predictions confirmed. Truer, if possible, now than it was even then.

Immigrants Commit Ten Times More Rapes than Italians

Ah, the joys of mass immigration and multiculturalism! From La Repubblica, latest news from Rome:

Rome police have intensified their controls to stop pickpocketing in the areas surrounding the Vatican and the historic centre, that in the last several days have been frequented by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.

The carabinieri in a few hours arrested 14 pickpockets involved in stealing from the pockets and backpacks of tourists who have arrived in the capital from all over the world.

The plainclothes police are still used on buses, metro trains, near crowded squares and monuments, to ensure the safety of visitors.

The thieves, aged between 15 and 46 years, are all foreigners, mostly nomads.

All the stolen goods, cameras, smart phones, wallets containing cash and credit cards, were returned to the victims. Those arrested, charged with aggravated theft, will be tried straight away.

Only a month ago a 46-year-old Chinese man was caught thanks to a CCTV camera and arrested for stealing the faithful's offerings from a church's collection boxes near Verona on at least three separate occasions.

Official statistics released in 2009 by the Italian Interior Ministry show that 60 percent of all rapes in Italy are committed by immigrants, who therefore, being only 6-7 percent of the country's population, commit rape 10 times more than Italians.

Among immigrant groups, the nationalities committing most rapes are, in order, Romanians, Moroccans, Albanians.

In Italy immigrants commit such a disproportionate number of crimes, ranging from petty thieving to assault, rape and murder, that an Italian website entirely devoted to this issue has been created, Tutti i Crimini degli Immigrati (All the Immigrants' Crimes). Its tagline is "The others talk about integration, we are just showing it to you".

The site is a catalogue of daily horrors, from filthy Chinese restaurants that seriously jeopardize the health of their customers to a drunk Moroccan, unemployed and without fixed abode, who Thursday evening smashed the window of a crowded Milanese restaurant shouting: "I want to eat for free".

One crime that I found particularly cowardly, cruel and repulsive is that reported by the Italian news agency ANSA about the arrest yesterday of 75 South American immigrants who used large-size breeds of dogs, like St. Bernard, Great Dane, Dog de ​​Bordeaux, Neapolitan Mastiff and Labrador, as drug carriers.

The animals were subjected to surgery and their entrails were filled with pure cocaine to be exported. The drug was wrapped in layers of different substances impenetrable to X-rays. Upon arrival at the destination the dogs were killed and cut up to retrieve the cocaine.

The estimate is that 50 dogs have been used this way, and only one was saved.

The so-called pandillas, organized violent gangs of Latinos who are involved not only in common crimes but also in international drug trafficking in northern Italy, have in recent years become an increasingly worrying phenomenon in Italy.

This new police investigation has for the first time demonstrated the existence of a link between the pandillas and the emissaries of the South American cartels with whom the pandillas were in direct contact to procure large quantities of cocaine.

Why we leave our borders open to this scum is beyond comprehension.

Pope Canonizes Otranto Christian Martyrs Murdered by Muslim Turks

Pope Benedetto XVI announced that he will leave his ministry at 8pm on February 28.

He made this announcement during a consistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto beheaded one by one by the Ottoman Turks.

Antonio Primaldo and his companions, 800 Christians, were murdered for hatred of their faith by Muslims during the Turkish siege of the town of Otranto, in South-East Italy, on August 13, 1480.

As the Qur'an commands, these infidels were offered the choice to convert to Islam or be killed. When they refused to convert, the martyrs of Otranto were massacred.

The Qur'an is obeyed and applied in the same way now as it was in 1480. The only difference between now and then is in the power and military force Muslim armies had then but now now. Let's make sure that it remains this way in the West.

In other parts of the world, Christians are still massacred by Muslims for their faith. Nothing has changed in Islamic doctrine, only the relationship of strength can be a defence for whomever Muslims consider their enemies.

An observation about the different use of the word "martyr": in Christianity, unlike in Islam, martyrs do not kill.

Muslim Illegal Immigrant Arrested for Raping Dog in Italy

Another case of a Muslim raping animals.

In Spain a few months ago a Muslim had killed a horse by anally raping him, and now in Italy an illegal immigrant, an unemployed Moroccan has been arrested for repeatedly raping a dog on a farm in Sicily.

The 32-year-old-man was caught in the act by CCTV cameras.

He had previously spread panic in the countryside near the town of Ragusa by committing two arsons, the second of which on Boxing Day, causing damage for tens of thousands of euros to two local farms, by the use of a lighter.

But that's not enough. He was responsible for the theft of electrical appliances, farm equipment, clothes and food.

In Muslim countries the practice of having sex with and raping animals is much more common than we think.

In Pakistan, a donkey was honour killed after being raped, a treatment ususally reserved to Muslim women. From Wikipedia:

Karo-kari is part of cultural tradition in Pakistan and is a compound word literally meaning “black male” (Karo) and “black female (Kari), in metaphoric terms for adulterer and adulteress. Once labeled as a Kari, male family members get the self-authorized justification to kill her and the co-accused Karo to restore family honor, although in the majority of cases the victim is female, while the murderers are male.

Italian Priest Offers Reward for Weddings

In the small village of Volania, in Northern Italy, home to about 300 families and 1,000 people, the local priest Father Giancarlo Pirini has decided to offer a "bounty" of 500 euros, in cash, of his own money to every couple who will get married.

The Father is worried about the crisis of marriage.

"Some time ago, leafing through the marriage register of the parish - says Fr Pirini - I noticed that it was still at the first volume, which began in 1955." Scanning it, the parish priest ended in despair: in 1960 only 17 weddings were celebrated, in 2006 and 2012 none.

Europeans, if the current rates of marriage and reproduction continue, are going to die out.

In Naples Illegal Immigrants Beat Up Police

In Naples, Southern Italy, over 30 North-African illegal immigrants have broken into a police station, assaulting and injuring the officers, 10 of whom had to be taken to the hospital.

This was in response to the rejection of their application for refugee status, for which they are also appealing.

The immigrants belong to a large group of about 1,200 North-Africans who have arrived in Italy as part of the so-called 'Emergency North Africa' program, and are housed in reception centres and hotels in Melito, north of Naples.

During the clashes a police car has also been set on fire. The illegals themselves asked the police to arrest them so that they could remain in Italy. This has given rise to the hypothesis that the illegals committed all these crimes in order to be arrested and avoid being returned to their countries.

Five of them have been arrested.

Once you commit the crime of violating the national borders of a country by entering it illegally, successive crimes must become easier.

Senegalese Immigrants in Italy Want Protection Money for Parking

The above video from a local Sardinian newspaper, translated by me, is about a crime of intimidation by a group of Senegalese immigrants in the capital of Sardinia, Cagliari.

A couple refused to pay the "parking fee" to one of them, an extortion since the Senegalese man has no right on the par cark, a sort of protection money. After their refusal, he then tried to sell them his merchandise.

When they refused again, he became menacing and called a group of his countrymen and mates who surrounded the car, not letting the Italian couple get out of it and threatening them, until they eventually called the police. The Senegalese man was also abusive to the police and got arrested for that as well.

This is a common phenomenon in Italy now. For a few decades there have been what Italians call "vu' cumpra'" (the Italian phrase "want to buy?" distorted by the vendors' poor Italian language skills). These pedlars are usually black African immigrants selling their merchandise on beaches, in restaurants, streets, car parks and so on.

Italian blogger Pietro Melis says in his post titled "Here are the fruits of the do-gooders philosophy":

It is not clear why there is no law preventing from staying in Italy those who do not have a legally paid employed position which, in addition, has not been taken away from unemployed Italians willing to do the same job. The others out, return them to their country. For them there is no place.

The do-gooders philosophy, which kills justice, in the confusion between morality and law, has led to the expansion of what Marx called a "reserve army" of the unemployed which has the effect of keeping wages low with the blackmail of dismissal and replacement with a lower-cost unemployed.

The reported episode [described above] highlights an intolerable situation.

These "vu' cumprà'" must get out of the way. Must be driven back to their countries because they are illegal.

They sell ​​merchandise produced outside the law, squat on public land, do not pay taxes and create unfair and illegal competition. And continually bother you on the beach.

But nobody intervenes because of the do-gooders philosophy, lest you get accused of racism. And with this excuse they do what they want, even becoming violent.

They have also for a long time now formed a gang that claims the payment of protection money in addition to the ordinary parking fee, so you have to pay twice. And you have to pay protection money even for parking where there is no fee. Otherwise you may find that your car has been damaged, at least with a mark on the body. And no-one intervenes and throws them out of car parks.

And they are mostly Islamic. We are victims of a policy that has bred a culture of the multiracial and multicultural society, with all the consequences that we can see.

Indigenous crime was not enough. It was necessary to import other crime. Prisons are overcrowded because half the prison population is made up of foreigners. This is the beautiful result of a crazy policy.

Notice how, at the end of the video above, another African immigrant says to the newspaper reporter that he heard the Italian woman use expletives against the Senegalese. The police had no evidence for that and, given the limited command of the Italian language shown by the "witness", it's hard to know what he actually did or did not hear.

Thank God Italy does not have, like the UK, a Macpherson Report dictating: "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".

But it's only a question of time.

Italian Reactions to Muhammad Film Protests

Jihad Watch has my article Italian Reactions to Muhammad Film Protests:

The violent attacks on people and symbols representing the USA and the West in the Islamic world are one of those situations in which it becomes clear where people stand.

People are forced to make a choice here: they either point the finger at those whom they consider responsible for having provoked Muslim outrage, in other words guilty of exercising freedom of expression, or recognize that peaceful coexistence cannot be achieved by sacrificing the basic principles of our civilization, and that appeasement only leads to more and more aggressive demands.

It's similar to kidnapping and making ransom demands: governments are reluctant to give in to those requests, because they know that capitulation would encourage further kidnappings. But in dealing with the Muslim world, this logic - in fact any logic - is hardly ever applied.

Appeasement cannot work for the following reasons. Islam and European civilization are incompatible, not just because Islam is bent on destroying anything which is not Islam - what you may call the "supremacist reason" - but also because our fundamental principles and Islam's are in direct, logical contradiction, and trying to reconcile them is like squaring a circle. A conflict of interests can be solved with negotiations and compromises, but a logical contradiction, like that between a square and a circle, cannot be solved at all. We may call this the "cardinal reason".

It's interesting to note that Western authorities recognize the link between the religion of peace, specifically Friday prayers, and violence:

"Meanwhile, police said that German embassies and consulates in Arabic countries would be on high alert after Friday, a religious holiday, as some experts fear that violence could again escalate." (Islam versus Europe)

"France confirmed on Friday it would allow no street protests against cartoons denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad that were published by a French magazine this week." (Jihad Watch)

Why is it that when Muslims are closest to their religion, through mosques, Friday prayers, Ramadan, they get more enraged and aggressive?

Another criterion to separate people's positions is by looking at what they think of the "Arab Spring".

The Italian missionary-blogger-journalist Piero Gheddo in an article called "Where has the Arab Spring Gone?", after having praised both the revolts that brought democratically-elected governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia ("We cannot think that democracy, freedom of press and speech are positive only for us Christians") and Islam's glorious history ("Muhammad's religion spread by the sword but also gave rise to a civilization of great splendour, admired even by Christian sages and travellers"), writes:

"We live in 2000 AD, Islam still lives, as a culture, religion and worship of its past, in 1400 after Muhammad. It has not yet adapted to modernity. Muslim peoples are attracted to it, while the political and religious authorities try in every way to exploit Islam to save their power.
"Not only that, but there are objective difficulties in saving in the modern world the many good things that exist in Islam: the historical-critical reading of the Quran that would make it contemporary is not allowed because it is the word of God in the literal sense; in Islam there is no comparable authority to the Pope and the Bishops, every mosque or madrassa follows its own way; in Islamic law there is no notion of absolute dignity of every man and woman, which makes all creatures equal in their rights; and finally there is no distinction between religion and politics."

I said that people are forced to make a choice, but it seems that some, like Father Gheddo, are very skilled at avoiding it.

An on-the-fence position has been that of Pope Benedict XVI who, in his trip to Lebanon, invited to peace and dialogue among followers of the various religions. His situation is obviously complicated by his role of head of state and the fear that his words might be the trigger for new attacks on the Christian minorities who are like hostages in Muslim-majority countries.

A more robust answer came from a 2-day international conference on 15-16 September in Florence, organized by the association Una via per Oriana Fallaci on the problem and dangers of Islam, which was also a commemoration of the late Florentine journalist and thinker.

The focus of the conference was on the persecution of Christians inside and outside the Islamic world, Europe's progressive repudiation of its classical liberal values, and the sources of what the participants called "Christianophobia".

Christianophobia derives, according to expert on geopolitics Alexandre del Valle, from four myths, one of which is

"The myth that Islam is compatible with freedom and that Islamic violence against Christians is only a reaction to wicked behaviours on the part of Christians in the past as well as today. The current violence is excused as indignation provoked by the film The Innocence of Muslims, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, even if its contents have the sacred texts of Islam as their sources."

I must admit that I don't particularly like the neologism "Christianophobia", simply because unintentionally it seems to legitimize its counterpart "Islamophobia" from which it is probably derived, and in so doing it establishes a prima facie, superficial equivalence between the two religions.

Nevertheless, it seems to be in fashion in the current Italian debate, partly because of the recent Venice Film Festival's screening of Paradise: Faith by Ulrich Seidl, a movie that has as its highest point a sequence in which the protagonist, actress Maria Hoffstatter, engages in autoeroticism using a crucifix.

The double standards between the treatment of Muslim and Christian sensitivities, in this case as in that of the "Piss Christ" "artwork", are so blatant to provoke nausea.

"Violence explodes in the Muslim world. Western politicians compete in apologizing for the blasphemous Islam film. Do we need to burn down embassies and kill for someone to apologize for the blasphemous movie about Christianity which received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival?" asks the blog Basta Bugie (Enough of Lies).

The question of free speech and where, if anywhere, the line should be drawn is worth exploring, maybe in another article. But that double standards should not be tolerated is so simple that does not require further analysis.

Continue reading.

Saudi Arabian Man Sexually Molests British Boy

A 23-year-old Saudi Arabian man has been arrested in Milan for sexually molesting an English 13-year-old boy in a hotel in the Italian city.

The boy, who was staying in the hotel while in vacation with his parents, went into the hotel's sauna, where he found the man who touched him all over his body.

Italy. Immigrants Fight in Reception Centre

A fight broke among immigrants in a reception centre in Caltanissetta, Sicily.

The row started for futile reasons and ended with nine immigrants of various nationalities being injured and taken to hospital. They could be separated only by the intervention of the police.

Record Numbers of Immigrant Children in Italian Schools

As schools open in Italy, the number of pupils born to immigrant parents is higher than ever.

The record goes to a school in Milan's multi ethnic San Siro suburb, where 17 out of 19 pupils are children of immigrants and don't have Italian citizenship.

In other parts of Northern Italy the percentages are also high. In Emilia Romagna, the region with Bologna, non-Italian pupils form about 16 percent of the total, in Liguria, the region of Genoa, 12 percent, and in Friuli Venezia Giulia 10 percent.

Politics and Islam in Dhimmi Europe

Jihad Watch has published my article Politics and Islam in Dhimmi Europe:

Is Italy going to follow Britain in its path to advanced multiculturalism?

That is what part of the political leadership is trying to do, from Italy's President
Giorgio Napolitano, who said that "it is insane that Italian-born children of immigrants are not citizens" to the leader of the left-wing party Partito Democratico (PD), Pierluigi Bersani, who declared that one of his first moves, if voted into government at the next general election of 2013, will be to grant the right of citizenship to second-generation immigrants.

Some of Bersani's other priorities, as he announced addressing the organizers of Bologna's national 2012 Gay Pride, will be a law to give legal status to homosexual civil unions, a law against homophobia and transphobia, and another to speed up divorce cases. In sum, a real recipe to boost the family and with it the reproductive capacity of native Italians, who at the current birth rate will be reduced from today's 60 million to 37 million in 2050 and 15 million in 2100, when sharia will be definitely easier to implement.

Many comments to the post of this news item, predictably, highlight how the Italian people have very different priorities from Bersani's, like the economic crisis, unemployment, rising taxes and diminishing public services.

The country's current debate about whether to give Italian citizenship to the so-called "new Italians" is important for the problem of Islamization, because about one third of Italy's immigrants are Muslim.

Although Italy is not one of the European countries with the largest Muslim populations, the number of Muslims in Italy, like in the rest of Western Europe, has steadily increased: they were 600,000 in the year 2000, over 1,300,000 in 2009 (35 million in Europe), over 1.5 million (about 2.7% of the population) today, and they are expected to get to 2.8 million by 2030.

France, with 4.7 million Muslims in 2009, remains the continent's most Islamic country, but nevertheless in Italy a new Islamic place of worship is established on average every 4 days. And there are now jihadists with Italian citizenship.

The critics of Bersani's proposals point out that immigrants' children born in Italy, or even immigrants born abroad after 10 years' residence, can already apply for citizenship, the only requisite being that they live permanently in Italy to prevent exploitative behaviour of the welfare system on their part. So what's the need for a new law?

The PD also aims to abolish the crime of illegal immigration, which the party says has been practically made meaningless by the verdicts of the European Court, but still exists as an "abomination" in the Italian legal system.

The blog Qelsi writes: "They [left-wing parties] don't care about Italy and Italians: what matters is gaining power and everything is acceptable to get to Palazzo Chigi, even the Islamization of the cradle of Christianity and the humiliation of the ideals and aspirations of real Italians. Bersani talks about his proposed 'reform', which is in fact our de-Christianization."

The PD and other parties of the left have been accused of being after the immigrants' votes which, in a divided country as Italy is now, may have a big influence. After all, the socialist Hollande in neighboring France was put in office by the Muslim vote, which made the crucial difference. The numerical analysis of the various groups' votes showed that, without Muslims in France, Sarkozy would have won the election.

And the UK has led by example in a big way in this. As unintentionally whistle-blowing speech writer for the Labour Party Andrew Neather was later to reveal in a London Evening Standard newspaper's 2009 article paradoxically in favour of unrestricted immigration:

"What's missing is not only a sense of the benefits of immigration but also of where it came from. It didn't just happen: the deliberate policy of [Labour] ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year, when the Government introduced a points-based system, was to open up the UK to mass migration." [Emphasis added]

He then explains how the "major shift from the policy of previous governments" regarding immigration came after "I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls", which was largely based on drafts of a report by a Blair's Cabinet Office think-tank.

The final published version of the report supported immigration only because of the benefits it brings to Britain in terms of labour market; but previous, unpublished versions contained other reasons, he writes:

"Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.

"... Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche's keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean…

"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. [Emphasis added]

In short, it was an experiment in demographic engineering for political and electoral purposes. Muslims tend to vote for the left partly to get the welfare state money, and partly because socialists suffer from a guilt complex associated with European past colonialism, in their view a moral debt for which native Europeans are supposed to pay back the Third World immigrants beneficiaries.

The chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank Sir Andrew Green said just after the Labour policies revelations: "Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite. Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right. This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, Member of Parliament Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, added: "It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain."

A glaring example of ethnic-oriented electioneering is the maverick ex-Labour politician George Galloway, founder of the Respect party and of the Viva Palestina convoys, who won a by-election campaign in Bradford West, northern England, unashamedly pandering to Muslims.

The Muslim vote in many parts of Europe is already changing the political landscape and creating a new one in its own image.

I'll conclude with an item that may potentially make you laugh or cry. The devout and practicing Muslim Demba Traoré, from Mali, has become in December 2011 the leader of the Italian far-left Radical Party, not new to maverick choices, like that of having the porn star Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) among its candidates elected to Parliament in 1987, coming second in number of votes only to the then party leader Marco Pannella.

The absurdity of having as its new leader - voted almost unanimously - a follower of the theocratic religion par excellence can be seen when one knows that the Radical Party is and has always been ferociously anti-clerical (but evidently only if the clerics are Christian).

The historical head of the party Pannella said it's important that "the Radical Party, non violent, transnational and cross-party, has elected as its secretary a faithful and practicing Muslim - in Rome, in the heart of Christianity, there is a party secretary who is a firm Muslim believer."

Increasing Attacks on Christianity in Europe

I'm afraid that Raymond Ibrahim might in the not-so-distant future have more work to do when compiling his monthly statistics of persecution of Christians.

European countries may have to be added to his list.

Persecution of Christians in Europe takes mainly two forms. The first is the age-old type that we already know from what happens in Asia and Africa as Muslim (mostly illegal) immigrants spread across the globe.

The second is the brand-new, "liberal" kind, deriving from European elites' efforts to marginalize Christianity in its own historical home.

I'll focus in this post on a few examples of the increasing number of physical attacks on churches, Christian festivals, other symbols of Christianity and even Christian people throughout Europe. It must be noted that destroying crosses is a well-documented Islam's tradition.

In a cemetery in Pausa, Saxony, Germany, a 2-meter-tall statue of Jesus Christ was beheaded and the head smashed to pieces. Pastor Frank Pierel reported that such attacks take place rather frequently in his area.

In Strunjan, Slovenia, the "artist" Dean Verzel and others set fire to a votive cross erected by local seamen in the year 1600, replicating the gesture he had performed 10 years before in 2002 and for which he had been acquitted. Repeating an often-heard justification for all sorts of anti-Christian garbage, "it's nothing against Christianity", he said, "it's a 'work of art'".

In the cemetery of Canohès, France, four Christian graves were vandalized and covered with anti-Christian slogans.

In Bologna, Italy, a Moroccan student approached the faithful attending the procession of Corpus Domini and shouted "You're all a flock of sheep, you'll go to hell!" He was charged with offending people and a religious faith.

In Clouzeaux, France, the Church of the Bon Pasteur was set fire to in broad daylight. The fire was lit in three different places and caused immense damage. The altar was totally destroyed, electrical wires pulled out of the wall, crucifixes, pews, chairs, panels, chandeliers toppled and broken, holy water fonts, extremely precious vestments, and many other religious objects completely ruined. Apparently it was three local children, aged 14, 13 and 12, who caused damage of 50,000-70,000 euros.

Still in France, three men entered the Church of Cruseilles on Holy Saturday and set fire to leaflets, prayer and hymn books. The cloth covering an altar was also burned and the main altar damaged.

More cemetery vandalism in France, in Sussargues, where graves were covered with anti-Christian writings and crucifixes were turned upside down, and church vandalism in Paris.

In Duisburg, Germany, churches were attacked over the New Year with stones, firecrackers, rockets, causing tens of thousands of euros' worth of damage. The congregants said that this was not the first time.

The main server of the Catholic Church in France was hijacked by a Muslim Algerian hacker who took control of a total of 475 French websites, many Catholic, the content of which he replaced with the message "No God But Allah and Mohammed is Messenger Of Allah".

This tops it all. In Nimes, France, people who had attended a Catholic festival were leaving in cars and buses when young Arab-Muslims from the neighboring estate started to throw stones at their vehicles coming from the sanctuary. The event organisers were forced to arrange a diversion to a different route to protect the occupants of the vehicles from the savage attacks, which continued.

In Nice, France, the traditional, annual Catholic procession for the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, celebrated throughout the Catholic world on August 15 but by the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption in Nice on August 14 evening, is now under police protection. During the last procession the entire route, 400 meters long, was lined by police. Who the faithful need protection from can be guessed when we know that Nice has a large Muslim population, who has been holding its prayers every Friday for years, illegally occupying public streets with impunity.

To remain in Nice, one of its churches received the dubious honor of being adorned with a huge Algerian flag on the front, covering the words "Saint Peter".

Watch this video translated by Islam versus Europe (IVE) about the many attacks committed against churches and cemeteries all over France in the first half of 2011 but prepare to be upset.

In Milbertshofen, Munich, Germany, a Catholic church has been the object of a continuous aggressive campaign for more than a year, with services disrupted, walls smeared, holy water receptacles filled with urine. Things have been set on fire, and tiles torn down from the roof; consequently it rained inside, with risk of damage to the almost 500-year-old tableau. The culprits are the neighborhood's youths and even children, almost entirely from a migrant background. A local social worker says that the youths are becoming more radical and the attacks are increasingly religiously motivated. (This video was also translated by IVE)

Another video shows St Calogero Church in Agrigento, Sicily, Italy, after Ales Halid, a drunken immigrant from Ghana already known to the police for other crimes, entered the church shouting in Arabic and smashed a small black statue of the saint against a wall. The man was so agitated that it took four police officers to restrain him before arrest. Two officers got injured and Halid also damaged the police car.

"Now we have to understand what drove this man to act in such an ugly manner" the video says, but it inadvertently hints at an answer when it adds that the attack took place "during the festivities dedicated to the Monaco Turco [Turkish Monk, a reference to St Calogero] worshipped by the people of Agrigento, saint who has been acclaimed by Bishop Montenegro as a model of integration among peoples." Maybe Halid did not want "integration", and particularly objected to a Turkish Christian monk called "the black saint".

Notice that none of the Italian media reporting this called the man "Muslim". This is the usual media line, which the president of France's National Council of Muslim Faith for some reason thought in need of being reinforced when last week he asked journalists that, in case of aggressions, the religion of neither victim nor aggressor should be mentioned.

In the cemetery of Belleville-sur-Meuse, France, the bronze statue of Christ carrying the cross was broken and fifteen graves were desecrated.

In Burgos, Spain, the two statues of St Peter and St Lawrence of the 13th-century Gothic church of San Esteban were beheaded. Police were puzzled by this attack against a place of worship, which is also an architecture jewel and an important cultural and historical heritage. The main hypothesis was that it was an act of vandalism because, if it had been a robbery, the thieves would not have damaged the statues. The church's parish priest said this was "the first time" an attack on San Esteban had ever occurred in its 8 centuries of existence.

A few years ago, 57-year-old Canon Michael Ainsworth was beaten up in his own east London churchyard by three Muslim youths who caused him serious injuries. The attacks on vicars or churches were so frequent in that parish with a large Bangladeshi Muslim population that they prompted Melanie Phillips to write: "Indeed, there appear to have been many attacks by Muslims who are clearly intent on turning east London into a no-go area for Christians".

The Telegraph wrote: "A survey of London clergy by National Churchwatch, which provides personal safety advice, found that nearly half said they had been attacked in the previous 12 months. The organisation suggested that vicars should consider taking off their dog collars when they are on their own."

The two facts that France has the lion's share of these less than edifying episodes and that, with 7.5 per cent of its population being Muslim, has the highest percentage of Muslims among Western European countries seem to go hand in hand rather well.

I could go on but you've got the idea of the current trend. This is only the tip of the iceberg.