Since February 2009 , this blog and Huib's 3 other Euroblogs are together at:

AT HOME IN EUROPE [EU] (at EURACTIV)
- In Europa Zu Hause [DE]
- L'Europe Chez Soi [FR]
- At Home in Europe [EN]
- In Europa Thuis [NL]

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Wilders' Money to remain hidden to you and me, but open to CIA?

The European Parliament will have to decide, this week, if it allows American authorities to data-mine your and mine international euro-transfers by way of copying the SWIFT data.
Swift services banks in Europe and elsewhere. For instance, when I send some of my Dutch retirement money to my Belgian account, the ING bank warns me, that this may be monitored by American authorities.
I have no problem with that. If the CIA wants to know, that I live in Brussels and that I buy my shrimps there at Delhaize, good riddance, OK with me.
But the EP has a point, when it says, that American authorities have to have a reason, when they ask for Swift data. Any European nation allows prosecution to scrutinize my financial data, or listen to my private communications, only, when there is a probable link to crime or terrorism. If there is no one, I can trust my bank, that it protects my privacy.
So, why does the CIA not trust my national European secret services?
That is a long, difficult and complicated story.
I will tell you another time. For a considerable part, they may be right. For who believes, for instance, our Italian secret service Mafiosos?
So, please, CIA, NSA, search for bank transfers linked to Al-Qaeda! I couldn't agree more.
And, do not forget to tell us about Mr. Wilders, from Holland, who gets millions of dollars from US accounts for destabilization of European nations.
Pardon me, if I watch the Dutch representatives from he PVV "party" in the EP.
What are they up to?
Will they vote for a going Dutch alone, as their program states? Or will they vote for transparency to the CIA, while Dutch public opinion remains left in the dark?
Hey, Mr. Wilders, your credibility is at stake!

Friday, February 05, 2010

Geert Wilders' difficult choice: Being Immigrant or Exigrant?

Geert Wilders' international actions are made of European-Union bashing, advocating the most right-wing Israeli views and collecting money from rich, but scared, American Jewish elder people in Florida. 

Not counting the -officially- unsolicited money that may be got from "allies" like:
  • the post-fascist Belgian Vlaams Belang movement,
  • the racist German "Politically Incorrect" Website
  • the so-called European, but in reality American, website "Gates Of Vienna"
  • and Daniel PIPES' blog of hatred against Islam, a real Wilders' fan,
  • etc.
I do not like it, when the Judges intrude into freedom of speech. I accept limits to that freedom, but I think that a fair and open discussion between responsible people will be able to solve any misunderstanding that might occur. Not so with Mr. Wilders. He avoids any confrontation with Muslims or with people who favor an open mind to culture. That is, why I have, reluctantly, to admit that the only solution to the Wilders' hate agitation lies in a condemnation in Court of Geert Wilders.
In 1917, my grandfather-in-law, Henk Sneevliet, was condemned in a Dutch-Indonesian Court for "hate-mongering". He was banned to go to Holland, leaving alone his friends from the Indonesian Nationalist Movement, who were inspired by the Russian February Revolution.
In 1933, again, he was in Court in Amsterdam, for having greeted the "Seven Provinces" rebellion of seamen, who were despatched at suppressing an Atjeh rebellion against the Dutch. After some months in jail, he was elected to Parliament under the slogan: "Sneevliet, from jail to Parliament"!
You'll see, why I think that Geert Wilders will be able to profit from his indictment before a Court, as a "victim" of Justice. But I have no choice. As an elected member of Parliament, only the other elected members of Parliament could have stopped him. They did not. Out of fear, out of calculation, they let him do.
Wilders is of mixed Dutch/German-Indonesian descent. One of his grandparents was Jewish. Out of that multicultural mix, he choose to be Jewish. I repect that. But I do not allow somebody to negate altogether his/her roots. The "Indos", of mixed Dutch-Indonesian descent, choose in 1948/9, when it became clear that the Indonesian nationalists under Sukarno would get the upper hand in Djakarta, in majorty to go to Holland. They "integrated" successfully. Only, when during the eighties a virtual ban was proclaimed on foreign immigrants, their brown skin and their black hair got them unawares as "foreigners". Most assumed. Few, like Wilders, hid under, for example, a blond wig.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

How the Wilders Hysteria is Linked to Holland. Who exploits it. And how it can be ended. (4, Solutions)

How will it be overcome, the Wilders agitation and its sisters in many European countries?
My friends say: By understanding the fears of men and women who live in marginalized urban neighborhoods. Elder people, who lost their references, when their children and the local baker left their street. And were replaced by, mostly gentle, Turkish families and their daily providers of vegetables and fruit. For you and me, they say, it is easy and even thrilling, when the local snackbar is replaced by a Japanese Sushi Bar. But imagine, you are old, you have a small pension and little money to spend...
Well, that is how people get scared. The new shop-owners are friendly, no problem. Their vegetables are good. Bur the street becomes a foreign country, with young men claiming their space. As young men have always done. In the fifties, when we were young, we claimed our room as 'rockers', we did so ourselves. In the sixties, we could live with the 'provos' and the 'hippies', for we could understand them, while we did not agree.
But now, our home is enveloped in foreign country. We never asked for being 'integrated' with people who speak Arabic and Turkish. If you like that, take those people with you, in your neighborhoods.
"We want our country back!"
In Holland, from the seventies on, conservative governments left them alone, those people. I know for myself, as I were a Government agent for "urban neighborhood redevelopment". As long as there was no urgent problem, money for integration solutions, was held back. Only when security problems came up, the State got itself involved.
No wonder, that (semi-) criminal groups learnt to profit from that. No wonder, that fundamentalists exploited that situation. Mohammed Boujeri, Van Gogh's murderer, was a product of that dealing and wheeling among authorities and maffiosos.
Restoring the dignity of original habitants as well of that of the newly arrived immigrants, it seems impossible. But it is not!
Mixing the traditions of old immigrants and the richness of the traditions of new immigrants, it is possible! I refer to my experiences in France. In the community of Chatenay-Malabry, in the Île de France region of Paris, an intervention of a theater-group solved the alienation-problem. In the North of France, in the Roubaix-Tourcoing region, a flemish-moroccan jardinage project opened many roads to live together, sing together and ask successfully help from regional authorities.
It is all about understanding people who are on the edge. Make people understand that the Turkish vegetable shop is not something that tramples upon you, but the only solution to have a shop near you.
Have young Moroccans understand, that their fathers' knowledge about trees is essential to the neighborhood. It will show on the central square!
Well, this is how I worked in many parts of Europe. And every time, when we were near to our goal, the project was called off. For there were no more threats to security, for instance.
That is why I like so much my friend Ewoud Butter's posting about the "better party" Wilders' followers should get: A political party that cares as well for the old who suffer under small pensions and isolation within urban relegation. They are left alone. Is that the immigrants' fault? NO! The immigrants are being left alone as well!
That is why I believe, that a better future is possible. Not by giving in to fundamentalism. Not by letting go. But by respecting the practical contribution anyone can give to a common project.
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