Islam versus Europe

More and more stories confirm that Brussels is emerging as the Muslim capital of Europe.

Moelenbeek seems to be the area worst affected by the Mohammedan presence. One prominent advertising agency, Mortierbrigade, recently announced that it was moving out of the area owing to high crime levels. Ironically, this agency was previously responsible for a campaign called "Streets Without Hate" that was directed against the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party. Another advertising agency, BBDO, also declared that its staff faced an atmosphere of constant threat. It had put up barbed wire around its car park and reserved the parking spaces inside for female members of staff who were the most threatened outside.

The Socialist burgomeister, Philippe Moureaux, made light of these claims, insisting that "all of this debate is based on lies" and that "Moelenbeek isn't the Bronx". Ten members of the BBDO staff then wrote to him, insisting that every one of them had been the victim of crimes, ranging from having their handbags stolen at knifepoint to having windows broken or guns pointed at them.

Also in Moelenbeek, some police officers have complained to their trade unions that they are being told they have to "participate" in Ramadan by not eating, drinking or booking people during the day to avoid "provocations". The trade union spokesmen admit that their members have been told this informally and that there is no paper and no proof. The local government denies that these instructions have been issued.

As Brussels adapts to its new Muslim owners, many of the city's old monuments are no longer considered appropriate. One was recently defaced by order of the council. A number of "anti-racist" organisations, as well as the states of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, had complained about it. The monument celebrated the triumph of Leopold II over the Arab slavers in the Congo, who had exploited and enslaved the indigenous blacks before Belgium stamped out the slave trade there. An inscription read "Belgian military heroism annihilates the Arab slaver". The word "Arab" has now been effaced from the inscription in both French and Dutch! Other Brussels monuments are also now considered suspect. Some Islam-friendly politicians are now demanding the removal of a monument to the Armenian genocide and talking about replacing a statue of the Crusader king Godfrey of Bouillon with a "symbol of religious harmony" as a "gesture of friendship to the Muslim world".

A couple of years ago, the Green MP Luckas Vander Taelen wrote an article about his experience of living in a Muslim-colonised area of Brussels and his consequent disillusionment with the multicult.

I live near a neighborhood in Brussels-Vorst, from the Mérodestraat to the train station Brussels South, which even with your utmost multicultural bias can not be defined as anything but a ghetto.

My daughter has since long given up going into that district. She simply has been abused too often with many not very nice things shouted at her. I cycle every day through it and time and again experience a new adventure. Double parked cars in the way, drivers who block an intersection just to have a chat with each other, youngsters hanging around staring at you as if you have invaded their private property.

Above all, try not to respond when you have nearly been knocked off your bike again: the last time I did it, I was abused by a bystander of barely sixteen years old, who ended his abusive tirade with a message I will not translate here: “Nique ta mère.” [go f*** your mum —translator]. This was a little less serious than last time, when another young Maghreb driver was offended by my behavior: I had the courage to take my right of way. this violated his honor in such way that he apparently could only correct this by spitting straight into my face…

Therefore above all: keep your mouth shut. Because if you try to explain that 70 km/h is a little too fast in a 30 km/h zone, you are immediately subjected to a confrontation with the honor of a young New Belgian who cannot stand anyone prohibiting him anything and is willing to run you down over it.

Twenty years ago I was convinced that the young New Belgians would be quickly assimilated. But now there is a generation in Brussels that has grown up like rebels without a cause, who always feels wronged. Never being responsible for anything, it is always the fault of someone else: the government, those racist Belgians. And even within their own families, those young men from the Maghreb remain untouchable. When the police picked up a boy in Brussels-Molenbeek, the father immediately organized a demonstration because his son “would never even steal an apple.”