Obamania in Germany

The Germans love, love, love Obama. Seventy-five percent of them want him to be the next president of the United States. See this BBC film on Obamania in Germany, which includes footage from Deustchland's finest country and western fans enthusing wildly.

Even the BBC (generally in the tank for Barack) point out that a love this great could lead to disappointment later on.

I'd also point out that Germans don't, in fact, have a vote, which is just as well given their historical record on choosing charismatic leaders who know how to whip up a crowd.

Euro-fantastic

We did watch the Eurovision song contest last night. The Serbian lesbian pop ballad won. And I'm a winner, too. Who knew my semi-finals results post would get hundreds of hits off the search string "Serbian Lesbian Eurovision"

It was one of the better songs, definitely. And the staging was really brilliant. Somebody somewhere said "How can we turn a short, ugly obviously dyke singer to our advantage? I know, let's have lots of lipstick lesbian Amazonian types stiffly writhing in the background, implying that while she might not be a looker to you or me - at least she appeals to a certain type - in Serbia" Whoever came up with that is a pop genius. It really worked. It was compulsive viewing. It handily beat even the most favored entry - the Ukranian transvestite with the nonsense song and the mirrored outfit (that was fab, by the way).

The Texan came over to watch the Eurovision. In her five years here, she had never actually sat down to watch the Eurovision all the way through (I have to admit I don't always manage it). She was amazed by the cheesy, cheese-cheese of the songs and the strange Eastern-European stylings. Even though she still has family in the Czech Republic - growing up in America you can't really get your head inside those particular tastes and preferences.

There were some good examples of ethno-pop - and I do like me some ethno-pop (Moldova, Bulgaria, Georgia and Ireland and Greece entrants all fall in this category more or less). You can hear all the songs here and check out videos here for every single entrant.

What's even more interesting than the performances are the voting patterns and system. It used to be that winners were chosen by a panel who, although internationally representative, were just as on the up-and-up as a Russian Olympic skating judge. But in recent years, the tv companies have figured out there's a lot of revenue in phone-in, so now each country runs its own phone-in sytem - and the votes are tabulated in a kind of particularly unbalanced electoral college system. That is - the UK can vote for any of the entrants but the British one. The votes are counted and the top 10 entrants are allocated points between 1 and 7 and then 8, 10 or 12 points for the favored contestants. All other entrants receive 0 points (or nil points en Francais) from the UK. Alright, it's fair enough that Britons can't vote for the UK entrant (I guess), but why should the smattering of votes of each of the itty-bitty countries count exactly the same as the millions of votes from the UK, France or Germany.

And then what's worse all the little countries vote in blocks. (See an analysis here) All the Scandinavian countries vote for each other. All the Baltic countries vote for each other. Now all the former Soviet Republics are in the contest and they vote for each other - as do the Balkan nations - united once again in the name of music - which has a bit of a distorting influence. The dire Russian entry - which was all about whoring (I'm not kidding - check out the lyrics ) appears to have won because every surrounding country feared having their gas supply cut off if they didn't vote for Russia. On the other hand, Turkey with the stupid "Shake it up" seems to have done quite well because Turkish emigrants in a number of Western European countries (e.g. Germany, Austria) voted for their home nation.

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Anyway, congratulations Serbia. Next year, Belgrade.

Submission, tolerance and death: A review of Murder in Amsterdam

For Christmas, VolMom bought us a copy of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance.

Theo Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a radical Islamist. Van Gogh, a controversial Dutch filmmaker, was shot then stabbed when he cycling home one day. Mr Bouyeri then had a shoot out with Dutch police, was captured alive and later convicted of murder. Mr Bouyeri was not particularly poor and had received a good education. He had turned to radical Islam and then to murder.

But how could this happen? The Dutch pride themselves on their tolerance. A tolerance bred in native Dutch and inculcated in the immigrant populations.

Ostensibly, Van Gogh was killed over this film - Submission: Part I. A film he directed and which was written by Ayan Hirsi Ali - a Somali born asylum seeker - who eventually became a Dutch citizen and member of parliament. Go and look at the film and see if it was worth all that trouble - Van Gogh's death and Hirsi Ali's life spent on the run, the threatened removal of her Dutch citizenship, the end of her political career in Holland. Go and have a look at this deliberately provocative film, written by a Muslim woman. Bear with it - it's only 10 minutes long - and don't be put off because it starts in Arabic with Dutch subtitles; it quickly switches to English.

Ian Buruma, the author of Murder in Amsterdam is a journalist and academic living in the US, born and raised in Holland, and with a similar privileged background in the same area the Theo Van Gogh was raised. He went back to Holland after the murder to find out what had happened to the tranquil Dutch sense of tolerance - first abruptly ended by both the success of anti-immigration, anti-Muslim politician Pim Fortuyn and then by his assassination by a radical vegan. (Yes, that's right - fur is murder.)

Although Mr Buruma explores questions of identity, faith, politics, and tolerance in Holland - those living in Europe - particularly those in moderate, cool Northern Europe will see reflections of what is happening in their own countries. Perhaps in Holland, the situation is magnified, because of the peculiarities of Dutch culture and history, in particular the dichotomy between the bravery of some individual Dutch during WW2 in protecting the Jewish population but the stark reality that most Dutch said nothing and most Dutch Jews were exterminated.

The Dutch are proud of their role in the Enlightenment, their tolerance, their progressiveness. In many ways, rightly so. And this book explores how many on the left as well as the "Enlightenment right" (where I am increasingly placing myself) have begun to have deep suspicisions of not just political Islamism, but also Islam itself - and how it may roll back the hard-won advances in universal civil liberties.

Questioned about his hostility to Islam, [Pim] Fortuyn said "I have no desire to have to go through the emancipation of women and homosexuals all over again."

But the book also explores how second generation, Dutch-born Muslims can turn against the nominal, moderate or "village traditional" Islam. The problem of Islamism in Europe is not just a problem of immigrants and zealous converts, but a problem with a source in the host culture as well. What is it about European culture that prevents it from assimilating immigrants and bringing them into the host culture - at least bringing them in enough.

I am an immigrant to the UK myself - and though white, well-educated, Protestant and partly English by heritage, I can never become English. I could never become English the way my British husband could become American if he chose to embrace it. English people are shocked (but pleased) when I tell them I'm an ardent England football fan. Ethnicity and race and nationality and culture are too intertwined in Europe. So how much harder must it be for the brown, the truly foreign (at least the English don't consider me truly foreign), and the differently faithed to really integrate? Not that immigrants don't have a responsibility themselves to respect and interact with the host culture.

Buruma asks these questions, but he doesn't provide any answers. For a book of reportage, it curiously suspenseful.


What others have said:


Kevin Breathnach at Disillusioned Lefty leaves the book off his essential reading list because it doesn't cover the tenents of radical Islam:

...Buruma delves not into the world of radical and political Islam (that is ‘Islamism’) as explicated by Paul Berman. Not once do we read of Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zarahiri, Hassan al-Banna, Abu al-Mawdudi or even Osama Bin Laden. These are the key figures in the history of fundamentalist Islam; to know them is to at least begin to understand the threat the West faces.

Well, yes. But almost as much of the book deals with the Dutch reaction to National Socialism and it doesn't expose the basics of Nazism either. Radical and political Islam isn't treated as a "well, maybe it's ok" - Buruma clearly does not approve of it. Radical Islam is not the topic of the book, the book is about how we in the West accomodate, tolerate, ignore or battle against Islamism.

Piers Dorsman at Peaktalk, understands that Buruma's, but rightly calls him on his failure to make the link between the fundamental teachings of faith (or philosophy) and the eventual extremes a faith or belief may take.

There has been a fair bit of criticism for Buruma, most notably that he failed to take a clear moral stance and was not sufficiently judgmental in taking sides in the conflict between free societies and nascent Islamism. To be frank, I was relieved to for once have a book in my hands that did not do that. Buruma is clear enough in what he thinks about jihadism, and instead gives us equal access to the Dutch and Moroccan cultures, and more specifically to Theo van Gogh’s life and Mohammed Bouyeri’s life.

...snip...

In the end of the book Buruma tries to explore ways where tolerance could neutralize the perils of radical Islam and hopes that religion can ultimately become the subject of reasoned debate, even for Muslims. This quote from the writer makes it clear where the boundaries between the Koran and fundamentalism are:

“Revolutionary Islam is linked to the Koran, to be sure, just as Stalinism and Maoism were linked to Das Kapital, but to explain the horrors of China’s man made famines or the Soviet Gulag solely by inviting the writings of Karl Marx would be to miss the main point”

Yes, correct, but this conclusion can also be explained in another direction by arguing that however well-meaning the basic tenets of Islam are, they have the potential to be turned around into a deadly totalitarian ideology. Theo van Gogh in his own distinctive way was not given to this type of socio-political analysis, but instinctively understood the dangers of history in the making. Yet at the heart he remained a Dutchman, a little too complacent and somewhat oblivious of the immediate perils. One can only imagine the panic he must have felt when he was butchered to death on an Amsterdam street.

And Richard at The Peking Duck said:

Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance is a slender volume with big type and lots of white space that nevertheless forced me to challenge some of my most cherished liberal principles. I loved this book because it made me think. It showed me a side of life in contemporary Europe that I didn't know much about. Yes, I had an idea of the Muslim 'ghettoes' that have become a standard feature of many great European cities, but I must admit, I hadn't realized how serious a threat they now pose.

...snip...

But Buruma goes on to describe the unique feature of many Islam immigrants in Europe that does indeed place them in a special category - a disrespect for the laws and values of their host nations. Living in Amsterdam's 'dish city' is one thing, but when young Muslims start to throw bricks through the window of a gay bar on the fringe of the nieghborhood and threaten their patrons, a great big red flag is raised. It's one thing to bring your culture with you. It is quite another to disrespect the culture and laws of your host. In the eyes of the radical Muslims Buruma describes (and he describes many types of Muslims, from the most tolerant and liberal to the most obsessively deranged), homosexuality is expressly denounced in the Quran and it cannot be tolerated. Do we welcome into our borders those who can rationalize the murder of gays?

I think this final point from Richard is important. The left must start to recognise that acceptance and tolerance do have their limits. And we risk throwing away the important social progress that has been made in the 20th century if we allow a radical political Islam to flourish by turning a blind eye to what it means. (And if you have any doubts, read this draft constitution for the caliphate).