The 4 Freedoms Library2024-03-29T10:22:35ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DDhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/66096223?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://4freedoms.com/group/french/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=3g0oedh53p9am&feed=yes&xn_auth=noMarine le Pen and the Rassemblement Nationaltag:4freedoms.com,2020-11-10:3766518:Topic:2255762020-11-10T12:29:26.406ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>This forum is for collecting articles about the French party led by Marine le Pen and formerly called the Front National. </p>
<p>This forum is for collecting articles about the French party led by Marine le Pen and formerly called the Front National. </p> Unearthed History: The War of The Vendéetag:4freedoms.com,2019-04-29:3766518:Topic:2031212019-04-29T15:30:12.227ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>Revolutionaries end up eating their own children.</p>
<p>The glorious French revolution included. That great turning of the tide in European affairs, the great turning on of the light/fire which saved Europe from the so called ‘Dark Ages.’</p>
<p>I too had taken a university course for a year on the French revolution and never was this counter-revolution of the Vendée citizens mentioned. The ‘countless deaths’ caused by the citizens of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité ’ and their…</p>
<p>Revolutionaries end up eating their own children.</p>
<p>The glorious French revolution included. That great turning of the tide in European affairs, the great turning on of the light/fire which saved Europe from the so called ‘Dark Ages.’</p>
<p>I too had taken a university course for a year on the French revolution and never was this counter-revolution of the Vendée citizens mentioned. The ‘countless deaths’ caused by the citizens of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité ’ and their revolutionary supporters down through history believed that silence was the better part of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Or perhaps they just thought that the victims just got what they deserved for not going along with the programme of these enlightened ones.</p>
<p>In less than a decade, the Revolution needed a charismatic and brutal dictator in the form of Napoleon to even hold them together and march forward into the rest of Europe to create a new and brighter way of doing things. </p>
<p>This new Utopia, was to be built, as all violent revolutions seem to do, on the blood of the innocent in their countless thousands and then millions. The initial fervent followers of the revolution were not spared the slaughter as they too perished in the snows of Russia.</p>
<p>Will we learn anything from history, especially the history from the Left and when the Left are in charge of the media and academia? Since it is not even taught in its fullness and ignored where it is embarrassing, I doubt it. Only on the margins, perhaps, can the truth be known.</p>
<p>--</p>
<div id="wrapper"><div class="fusion-row"><br/><div class="fusion-post-title-meta-wrap"><div class="fusion-meta-info"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper">By <span class="vcard"><span class="fn"><a title="Posts by Nayeli Riano" href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/nayeli-riano" rel="author">Nayeli Riano</a></span></span><span class="fusion-inline-sep">|</span><span class="updated rich-snippet-hidden">2019-04-23T23:44:18-05:00</span><span>April 23rd, 2019</span><span class="fusion-inline-sep">|</span>Categories: <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/christianity/catholicism" rel="category tag">Catholicism</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/europe" rel="category tag">Europe</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/history" rel="category tag">History</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/revolution" rel="category tag">Revolution</a><span class="fusion-inline-sep">|</span></div>
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<div class="post-content"><div class="pf-content"><blockquote><p>The series of battles that took place in the Vendée have been almost entirely excluded from <i>any </i>recounting of the Revolution. Why? The rising in the Vendée paints a darker picture of the evils that Revolutionists did to those citizens, most of them peasants, who would not adopt the principles of the Revolution.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Vend%C3%A9e-3-e1553284059623.jpg?ssl=1"><img width="300" height="266" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-113719 jetpack-lazy-image jetpack-lazy-image--handled" alt="" src="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Vend%C3%A9e-3-e1553284059623-300x266.jpg?zoom=1.6899999380111694&resize=300%2C266&ssl=1"/></a></p>
<p>Something about the French revolution makes it a timeless topic: It encapsulates the totality of our human condition. That condition is our inability to fully measure the unintended consequences of even the best of our intentions. Of course, this opinion only summarizes what political thinkers have said for years, but I can think of no brighter future for history than one where we echo Burke’s writings through our own paraphrases. For Burke actually did <em>something </em>with history, and he is just one thinker whose interpretation of history helps us to make the field something <em>applicable </em>from which we can learn. History, after all, is not supposed to be about memorizing and preserving the past for its own sake: It has a practical use. George Santayana said this, Henry Adams said this.</p>
<p>That which we call history is an abstract concept of our own creation, like time. But history is as real as any tangible object because our nature made it so that we perceive the world through memory. For whatever reason it may be, we derive our understanding of who we are through memory of where and who we come from. History doesn’t discriminate, moreover. It can speak to our personal experiences without being directly related to us. Such is the case with the French Revolution: One need not have French ancestry to feel compelled by the lessons it demonstrated.</p>
<p>The way that we understand ourselves and make decisions would be drastically and dramatically altered if everyone had a respectable amount of knowledge of their country’s national history <em>as well as </em>world history (again, because history is not supposed to be subjective). For reasons that are too long and complicated to explore, history has hardly ever been taught in such a way that we would recognize as useful. The invention of the field of history, academically defined, has probably done more damage to the concept of history than anything else. History in schools is taught as a collection of facts. It lacks a context that is connected to the human soul, despite the fact that history is something which we ourselves created to understand our world—therefore, <em>connected </em>to our soul and expressive of it. But of course, that context connected to the soul exists: Literature.</p>
<p>I don’t think I had ever heard a better interpretation of the French Revolution, nor did I ever obtain an understanding of its complexity and multi-sided appropriation by people from all political, religious, and philosophical leanings, until I read that timeless introduction:</p>
<blockquote><p>It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. (Charles Dickens, <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em>, Book I, Ch. 1)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No amount of dates and facts could summarize the Revolution like Dickens did, with the same emotion. History, before its conversion into an academic subject in the nineteenth century, was narrated and interpreted by thinkers in a literary way: Take Burke, or even Thucydides for that matter, as an example. Anyone who reads literature, traditionally understood, and original narrations of history (primary source texts) will find that the textbooks we were given throughout our primary and secondary education (maybe even our higher education) were one-sided, or, in the best of cases, incomplete. There might be those who object to this claim, for how is it possible that contemporary history textbooks, which <em>lack </em>narratives and just present facts, push one interpretation of history over another? But the absence of opinion in historical recounting is impossible for the reason that I’m about to mention: It is not what is included, but rather what is <em>omitted </em>from historical events, that is telling of the version of history we are given.</p>
<p>Here the subject of this paper will stand as testimony for the previous claim. The series of battles that took place in the Vendée have been almost entirely excluded from <em>any </em>recounting of the Revolution. Why? One can only assume that it’s because what took place in the Vendée disrupts any narrative that we’ve been taught about the Revolution as a war that was fought by the oppressed, starving peasants against their cruel aristocracy and monarchy. The Revolution is introduced to us as a symbol of the triumph of the common man; the recognition of “human rights,” the intellectual climax of “reason” etc. “Enlightenment” etc. “<em>Liberté, égalité, fraternité</em>” etc. “<em>Les Mis</em>” etc. “<em>Allons énfants de la patrie!</em>” We know the story.</p>
<p>The rising in the Vendée paints a darker picture of the evils that Revolutionists did to those citizens, most of them peasants, who would not adopt the principles of the Revolution. The biggest principle of the French Revolution—which we are also not told—is that it was actively anti-Christian, persecuting both laymen, laywomen, and clergy mercilessly. The British historian Michael Davies wrote an eye-opening book about this event; “eye-opening” in the most metaphorical <em>and </em>literal sense. <em>For Altar and Throne: The Rising in the Vendée </em>is the kind of history story that students are not told about within the topic of the French Revolution. The rest of this essay will summarize the book, because the story deserves to be told time and time again.</p>
<p>There is a lecture online[1] that Davies delivered on the French revolution where he states the following: “Last year, I talked to you about the Reformation, which was really a war against the Church. This year, I’m talking about the French Revolution. One can only describe it as a war against God.” He called the promulgation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789 “an explicit repudiation of the kingship of Christ.”[2] His summary might sound strange to anyone who has heard the anti-monarchy version of the Revolution, but Davies makes it a point to mention how the majority of Enlightenment <em>philosophes </em>and <em>Encyclopédistes </em>were liberal, Masonic, and <em>anti-Catholic</em>. This fact is important to remember in order to understand the reasons why men and women in the Vendée decided to rebel against France.</p>
<p>The “enlightenment” wave that took over Europe made it so that, by the start of the eighteenth century, all the main European powers had masonic first ministers (France, Portugal, Spain, even the Roman Empire). Davies argues that suppressing the Jesuit orders in these countries was “symptomatic of the control the masons and <em>philosophes </em>had over the governments of Europe.[3] This control, in turn, allowed them to promote the principles that triumphed at the revolution in France.</p>
<p>Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s influence on the Revolution is well-known. <em>The Social Contract </em>was the battle-cry of many Revolutionists because it revealed to them the “truths” about their condition: Men are born free, it is our artificial civilization which enslaves them; men are born good, it is our corrupt institutions and unjust laws which corrupt us. His solution was to establish the sovereignty of the people. But, as Davies noted, sovereignty in the people still required the establishment of a state to protect them. So, they owe the state their obedience in order for it to keep them safe. Davies writes that it was upon this “obedience” that those in charge of the Revolution exercised their power in the name of the sovereign people.[4] Davies quotes the two famed historians who wrote the series, <em>The Story of Civilization</em>, Will and Ariel Durant: “Rousseau’s sovereignty of the people became the sovereignty of the state, then of the Committee of Public Safety, then of one man.”[5]</p>
<p>Before 1789, the Vendée was just an obscure river in the western part of France. Today, people who know about this important uprising in history know it as a counterrevolutionary attack against the anti-Christian principles that the Revolution imposed on its citizens. The Vendée region was comprised of some of the most ancient provinces in France: Anjou, Britany, and Poitou.[6] Davies called the region the most devoutly Catholic in the country.[7] The Vendée had an unusual balance between the nobility and peasants; “complaints of unjust or absentee landlords” in the region was “virtually unknown,” as they had not exercised their feudal privileges since the seventeenth century.[8] There was also “little crime in the region, few lawsuits, and even an exceptionally high rate of literacy for rural France at this time” which Davies attributes almost entirely “to the zeal of the clergy.”[9]</p>
<p>What brought chaos to this peaceful and pious part of the world? King Louis XVI, <em>Le Bon Roi</em>, was executed in 1793. The year following Louis’ execution, the National Convention ordered the conscription of 300,000 men, which set off the uprising since many people in the Vendée region “refused to surrender their bodies and souls to those who for three years had shown contempt for their hopes and for their faith and had finally denied them freedom of conscience.”[10] Prior to the conscription problem, there had already been a series of abuses done by the Revolutionists against the Church. One of these abuses was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, imposed in 1790. This bill featured measures that were meant to strip the Catholic Church in France of its independence, as it demanded that priests take an oath of fidelity to the state.[11] This bill shocked many lay Catholics, since it essentially reduced clergy to the status of civil servants.[12]</p>
<p>Another origin for the uprising in the Vendée is attributed to the nationalization of church property, partly to alleviate France from bankruptcy.[13] More importantly, Davies writes, “along with the <em>philosophes </em>and liberal intellectuals, Freemasons were particularly active in denouncing monasticism as a way of life.”[14] And so, municipal officers travelled to all regions of France where there were religious orders of men and women, and gave them the option to leave with a guarantee of receiving a national pension on which to live. Those who rejected this offer were re- housed with other religious brothers and sisters “with disregard to their order.”[15] As many Catholic religious orders differed greatly in their ways of life, most men decided to leave.</p>
<p>Then came the September massacres in 1792. Members of the National Guard took three priests (on their way to jail for refusing to pledge an oath to the state) and “hacked them to pieces,” setting of a 48-hour killing spree in Paris prisons, murdering a total of about 1,100 prisoners who refused to take the oath, including women and children, 250 priests, and three bishops.[16] For many in the Vendée region, the last straw before their revolt was being demanded to take the oath of loyalty to the Revolutionary Constitution.[17] Most of the clergy and priests in other regions of France took this oath; in the Vendée, only one in six of clergy members took the oath (most later recanting), and, amazingly, five of every six priests <em>refused </em>the oath despite the fact that it would immediately eliminate their income.[18] Those who pledged the oath to the state were called jurors, those who did not were called non-jurors and were imprisoned in the nearby city of Angers. Since a vast majority of the region clergy refused this oath, many jurors were brought in from the larger cities. Vendéan citizens harshly criticized those who did take the oath, rejected them, calling them <em>intrus </em>(intruders), or <em>truts </em>and <em>trutons </em>in slang.</p>
<p>One of the themes that emerged during this time was the rural versus cosmopolitan divide that exists in all nations. Most of the countryside during the Revolution remained Catholic, while larger towns were pro-republican.[19] Vendéans were suspicious and hostile towards city-folk from their own country, for large cities had become as foreign to them as any other country. The government in Paris alienated and antagonized the entire peasant populations in the Vendée, deciding to persecute the non-juring clergy and imposing despised juring clergy in the parishes that did not want them. But the Vendéan public simply protested by not attending the clergy’s masses (they did not even deem them valid services, anyway). The battles that ensued in the region are long, multiple, and gruesome. <em>For Altar and Throne </em>mentions many of the atrocious ways in which the Revolutionists murdered Catholics in cold blood, with some atrocious anecdotes. It is not my purpose in this essay to enumerate and re-tell them all, although they are well worth reading for anyone who wants to uncover an untold story about the horrors of the Revolution.</p>
<p>What is worth highlighting for the purposes of this essay is the underlying message that the exclusion of this historical anecdote demonstrates: History is not a one-sided story. No matter what version of the French Revolution we are told, it is a non-negotiable fact that the Terror wanted and worked towards the de-Christianization of France. But, of all the tenets of the Revolution that it sought to accomplish, the de-Christianization of France was the greatest failure of them all. This act, Davies attributes entirely to the religious conviction and fighting spirit of the men and women of the Vendée. By March 21st in 1793, the Vendéan Catholic and Royal Armies won a series of victories and had taken a good number of towns, over forty. Davies mentions that they could have captured all the great cities of the region without difficulty; Napoleon himself recognized that the Vendéans could have “marched unopposed to Paris, taken it, and overthrown the Revolution.”[20] But there was no greater testimony of their humility and honest faith than their decision to not take Paris: After their victory (as with all their victories), the Vendéans’ pride or greed did not increase. Instead, the peasants disbanded and returned to their families and farms. The special occasion for their return home in March 1793? To prepare for Easter.</p>
<p>As we approach this same time of year, it is good to remember their acts of bravery.</p>
<p>Despite the claims of republican propagandists, the peasants of the Vendée were not ignorant men who were manipulated by the clergy and the aristocracy. Davies cites an example of an historian who argued that priests and the gentry “stirred up” the peasants to fight on their behalf.[21] But this was not the case. Working classes are often used to push the narrative of one intellectual’s ideology over the other, but they are people with a common sense of their own, perhaps even more reasonable and intuitive than that of any <em>philosophe</em>. As the introduction to Davies’ book explains, those who did the fighting “were not saints from stained glass windows, but creatures of flesh and blood…”[22] They were untrained soldiers who fought for their faith, often barefooted, and their leaders carried rosaries.[23] Their badge was the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the pledge “Dieu, Le Roi”—for God and King. It was thanks to their fighting in the Vendée that France remained the main Catholic power in Europe. Their acts even won the admiration and respect of Napoleon, who, after seeing their bravery and dedication, later declared that nothing would be done against the establishment of the Catholic Church in France.[24]</p>
<p>A lesson to be learned from the rising in the Vendée pertains to the liberal notion of human perfectibility and progress, which adamantly refuses, of all things, a natural <em>progression </em>towards change. The narrative we’ve been taught about the Revolution as progress versus stagnation is not true: It is about the <em>pace </em>in which dissatisfied men demand change. The social order of the Vendée rising was ahead of its time. It was a peasant’s revolt <em>for </em>peasants who valued their faith and who wanted to maintain their way of life. More admirably, peasants and aristocrats from the region fought side by side; aristocratic men were willing to take orders from peasant captains. One of the leaders of the Vendéan insurrection, Jacques Cathelineau, “the Saint of Anjou,” was a mere peddler before the battles. But this form of cooperation was not that which the Enlightenment thinkers wanted, because it did not fit in with their ideology. Progress is certainly valuable, but it can also be achieved through conscience and faith. The only problem with this method is that it takes much longer. It is easy to implement change by cutting off someone’s head; it is harder to inculcate decency, morality, and toleration and to <em>live </em>by those principles.</p>
<p>The progressive spirit is a paradox. Even as Thomas Jefferson, who was the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States in Paris in the 1780s, played a part in drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man, he still maintained that people should be “forced to be free,” echoing what Rousseau wrote in his <em>Social Contract</em>.[25] Never mind that this radical claim was merely utopic (or dystopic, depending on who you ask), for Jefferson never applied this concept to the slaves that he owned on his estate. His views reveal a chilling truth about how far Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers were willing to go when he justified and defended the murder of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and thousands of aristocrats under the following quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”[26]</p>
<p>The greatest lesson from this story: The desire for radical change under the masquerade of progress has a destructive nature that envelops man in hatred of himself, of his culture, and of his past—of his history. The amount of permanent damage at the hands of the Revolution is difficult to convey. Apart from the countless deaths, Davies writes about the Monastery at Cluny, the greatest and most famous monastery in the world at that time: It only had fifty Benedictine monks living there during the Revolution, in contrast with the three-hundred that lived there in the thirteenth century.[27] As the Revolution progressed, the monastery was sold to the town. The abbey church, which had been an architectural and artistic wonder of the middle ages, was almost completely destroyed; the manuscript treasures in its library burned by revolutionary mobs. Davies put it best when he said that the abbey’s destruction was “a monstrous crime against the cultural patrimony of Europe.”[28]</p>
<p>One of the statesmen of the Revolution, Philippe Rühl, personally supervised the smashing of the phial that held the sacred oil with which King Clovis had been anointed, and all the French kings thereafter. Perhaps the destruction of the past that came with the Revolution sealed and portended France’s fate for the later centuries. Its contemporary dismal state proves that Louis XVI’s final words before his execution in 1793 were an omen that came true: “I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I pardon the authors of my death and pray to God that the blood you are about to shed will never fall upon France.” But the legacy of the Vendée has not eluded everyone. In 1996, Pope John Paul II traveled to France to commemorate 1,500 years of Catholicism in France, initiated by the baptism of King Clovis into the Catholic Church at the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims, coming full circle. As the circle starts again, so it should be our task to promote and maintain stories like the rising in the Vendée that help preserve the cultural patrimony of the West. Not because we will save it, but because it will help us know how to <em>act </em>in the future: Let us strive to be Vendéans in a world of Revolutionists.</p>
<p>The Imaginative Conservative<em> applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5XB3QPV5AHZ98" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">donating now</a>.</em></p>
<p>1 Davies’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsEJtJEwEk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lecture on the French Revolution</a>; I recommend all of his other lectures online.</p>
<p>2 Michael Davies, <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Altar-Throne-Rising-Vendee-ebook/dp/B06XCH4QCS/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=For+Altar+and+Throne%3A+The+Rising+in+the+Vend%C3%A9e&qid=1553282374&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>For Altar and Throne: The Rising in the Vendée</em></a>, (St. Paul, 1997), p. 9.</p>
<p>3 Ibid., p. 3.</p>
<p>4 Ibid., p. 57.</p>
<p>5 W. & A. Durant, <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Age-Napoleon-History-European-Civilization/dp/B001WBIQP2/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=The+Age+of+Napoleon+Will+and+Ariel+Durant&qid=1553282479&s=gateway&sr=8-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Age of Napoleon</em></a>, (New York, 1975), p. 7.</p>
<p>6 Davies, <em>For Altar and Throne</em>, p. 20.</p>
<p>7 Davies, <em>For Altar and Throne</em>, p. 21.</p>
<p>8 Ibid., p. 22.</p>
<p>9 Ibid.</p>
<p>10 Ibid., p. xvi.</p>
<p>11 Ibid., p. 13.</p>
<p>12 Ibid. p. 13.</p>
<p>13 Ibid., p. 11.</p>
<p>14 Ibid., p. 12.</p>
<p>15 Ibid., p. 12.</p>
<p>16 Ibid., p. 15.</p>
<p>17 Ibid., p. 23.</p>
<p>18 Ibid.</p>
<p>19 Ibid., p. 27</p>
<p>20 Ibid., p. 40</p>
<p>21 Ibid., p. 34.</p>
<p>22 Ibid., p. xvi.</p>
<p>23 Ibid., p. 31.</p>
<p>24 Ibid., p. 28.</p>
<p>25 Ibid., pp. 19-20. Rousseau writes this in the last paragraph of Chapter 7, in Book I of <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Social-Contract-Penguin-Books-Philosophy/dp/0140442014/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=The+Social+Contract&qid=1553282526&s=gateway&sr=8-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Social Contract</em></a>.</p>
<p>26 Ibid., p. 20. Davies cites C. C. O’Brien, <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Long-Affair-Jefferson-Revolution-1785-1800/dp/0226616568/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=The+Long+Affair%3A+Thomas+Jefferson+and+the+French+Revolution%2C+1785-1800&qid=1553282549&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800</em></a>, (London, 1996), p. 309.</p>
<p>27 Ibid., p. 12.</p>
<p>28 Ibid.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s Note: The featured image is a detail from “Henri de La Rochejacquelein au combat de Cholet en 1793” by Paul-Émile Boutigny (1853-1929), courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GuerreVend%C3%A9e_1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</em></p>
<p>About the Author: Nayeli Riano</p>
<p>Nayeli Riano</p>
<p>Nayeli Riano is a freelance writer of politics, theology, and arts. She holds degrees from the University of St. Andrews, where she completed her Masters degree in Intellectual History, and from the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her BA in English and French Studies. Apart from The Imaginative Conservative, her work has been featured on National Review Online, The American Conservative, The American Interest, and the UK online journal Transpositions. Follow her on twitter@NayeliLRiano.</p>
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<a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/04/unearthed-history-war-vendee-nayeli-riano.html">https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/04/unearthed-history-war-vendee-nayeli-riano.html</a></div>
</div> Notre Dame Cathedral and other Churches Desecrated and Damagedtag:4freedoms.com,2019-04-17:3766518:Topic:2028522019-04-17T13:00:32.107ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>Like the destruction and terrorism of churches and Christian communities in Egypt, the same is happening in France and elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p><a href="http://4freedoms.com/group/egypt/forum/topics/churches-burning-across-egypt">http://4freedoms.com/group/egypt/forum/topics/churches-burning-across-egypt</a></p>
<p>Like a plaque that periodically erupts in Egypt whenever the Christians get too uppity or the Egyptian authorities and the Muslim majority need someone to blame for something,…</p>
<p>Like the destruction and terrorism of churches and Christian communities in Egypt, the same is happening in France and elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p><a href="http://4freedoms.com/group/egypt/forum/topics/churches-burning-across-egypt">http://4freedoms.com/group/egypt/forum/topics/churches-burning-across-egypt</a></p>
<p>Like a plaque that periodically erupts in Egypt whenever the Christians get too uppity or the Egyptian authorities and the Muslim majority need someone to blame for something, so too will the Muslims in France and the rest of Europe attack the soft targets of innocent civilians and Christian people and places.</p>
<p>This is all in accord, of course, with their religion. </p>
<p><a href="http://4freedoms.com/group/tiles">http://4freedoms.com/group/tiles</a></p>
<p>Non-Muslims must be made to feel subdued (Quran 9:29) and be made to understand that Muslims are the best of peoples (Quran 3:110).</p>
<p>It does not matter, in one sense, if the blaze at the Notre Dame Cathedral was purely an accident, Muslims there rejoiced (see article below in the comments section). What better illustrates the disconnect between their cultural values and those of the native populations, religious or not?</p>
<p>Are all these crimes connected to the massive increase of Muslims into Europe?</p>
<p>The logic, theology and history of the clash between Islam and non-Islamic cultures point to exactly that conclusion.</p>
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<div id="print_content"><h1>European Churches: Vandalized, Defecated On, and Torched "Every Day"</h1>
<div class="byline"><p class="sans-serif"><b>by<span> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Raymond+Ibrahim"><span>Raymond Ibrahim</span></a><br/>April 14, 2019 at 5:00 am</b></p>
<p class="nocontent no_mobile"><b><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14044/europe-churches-vandalized">https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14044/europe-churches-vandalized</a></b></p>
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<li><span>In Germany, four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. "In this country," PI-News, a German news site, explained, "there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses, on sacred statues by the wayside, on churches... and recently also on cemeteries.</span></li>
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<li><p>In virtually every instance of church attacks, authorities and media obfuscate the identity of the vandals. In those rare instances when the Muslim (or "migrant") identity of the destroyers is leaked, the desecraters are then presented as suffering from mental health issues.</p>
</li>
<li><p>"Hardly anyone writes and speaks about the increasing attacks on Christian symbols. There is an eloquent silence in both France and Germany about the scandal of the desecrations and the origin of the perpetrators.... Not a word, not even the slightest hint that could in anyway lead to the suspicion of migrants... It is not the perpetrators who are in danger of being ostracized, but those who dare to associate the desecration of Christian symbols with immigrant imports. They are accused of hatred, hate speech and racism." -- PI News, March 24, 2019</p>
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<tbody><tr><td><img src="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/3844.jpg" border="0"/><p>In February, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, France, and mangled the arms of a statue of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner. In addition, an altar cloth was burned. (Image source: Eutrope/Wikimedia Commons)</p>
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<p>Countless churches throughout Western Europe are being vandalized, defecated on, and torched.</p>
<p>In France, two churches are desecrated every day on average. According to<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PI-News</a>, a German news site, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018. This represents a 17% increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">registered</a>— meaning that such attacks are only going from bad to worse.</p>
<p>Among some of the recent desecrations in France, the following took place in just February and March:</p>
<ul>
<li>Vandals plundered Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nîmes and used<span> </span><a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/gard/nimes/nimes-eglise-notre-dame-enfants-vandalisee-1620461.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">human excrement to draw a cross</a><span> </span>there; consecrated bread was found thrown outside among garbage.</li>
<li>The Saint-Nicolas Church in Houilles was<span> </span><a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/yvelines-78/houilles-profanations-a-l-eglise-saint-nicolas-06-02-2019-8005671.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vandalized</a><span> </span>on three separate occasions in February; a 19th century statue of the Virgin Mary, regarded as "<a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/yvelines-78/houilles-profanations-a-l-eglise-saint-nicolas-06-02-2019-8005671.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">irreparable</a>," was "<a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/yvelines-78/houilles-profanations-a-l-eglise-saint-nicolas-06-02-2019-8005671.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">completely pulverized</a>," said a clergyman; and a hanging cross was thrown to the floor.</li>
<li>Vandals<span> </span><a href="https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/02/09/profanation-de-la-cathedrale-de-lavaur-deux-lyceens-convoques-par-le-juge-des-enfants,8005054.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">desecrated and smashed crosses</a><span> </span>and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, and mangled the arms of a statue of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner. In addition, an altar cloth was burned.</li>
<li>Arsonists<span> </span><a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-l-incendie-a-l-eglise-saint-sulpice-n-etait-pas-accidentel-18-03-2019-8034678.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">torched</a><span> </span>the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass on Sunday, March 17.</li>
</ul>
<p>Similar reports are coming out of Germany.<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four separate churches</a><span> </span>were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. "In this country," PI-News<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a>, "there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses,<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2018/05/bamberg-heiligenfiguren-zerstoert-kreuze-bespuckt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on sacred statues by the wayside</a>, on churches... and recently also on cemeteries."</p>
<p>Who is primarily behind these ongoing and increasing attacks on churches in Europe? The same German<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a><span> </span>offers a hint: "Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like 'Allahu Akbar.'"</p>
<p>Another German<span> </span><a href="https://dieunbestechlichen.com/2017/11/wieder-attacken-auf-gipfelkreuze-und-jaehrlich-200-faelle-von-kirchenschaedigungen-allein-in-bayern/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a><span> </span>from November 11, 2017 noted that in the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken: "Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background." Elsewhere they are described as "<a href="https://dieunbestechlichen.com/2017/11/wieder-attacken-auf-gipfelkreuze-und-jaehrlich-200-faelle-von-kirchenschaedigungen-allein-in-bayern/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">young Islamists</a>."</p>
<p>Sometimes, sadly, in European regions with large Muslim populations, there seems to be a concomitant rise in attacks on churches and Christian symbols. Before Christmas 2016, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, where<span> </span><a href="http://www.deutsche-islam-konferenz.de/DIK/EN/Magazin/Lebenswelten/ZahlenDatenFakten/ZahlMLD/zahl-mld-node.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than a million Muslims reside</a>, some<span> </span><a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/744379/German-Christian-statues-destroys-religious-motivated-attack-revenge-police" target="_blank" rel="noopener">50 public Christian statues</a><span> </span>(including those of Jesus) were beheaded and crucifixes broken.</p>
<p>In 2016, following the arrival in Germany of another million mostly Muslim migrants, a local newspaper<span> </span><a href="https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2016/11/08/christian-statues-destroyed-town/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a><span> </span>that in the town of Dülmen, "'not a day goes by' without attacks on religious statues in the town of less than 50,000 people, and the immediate surrounding area."</p>
<p>In France it also seems that where the number of Muslim migrants increases, so do attacks on churches. A January 2017 study<span> </span><a href="https://www.christiantoday.com/article/christianophobic-attacks-in-france-have-risen-to-38-percent-in-2016-group-reveals/104141.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a><span> </span>that, "Islamist extremist attacks on Christians" in France rose by 38 percent, going from 273 attacks in 2015 to 376 in 2016; the majority occurred during Christmas season and "many of the attacks took place in churches and other places of worship."</p>
<p>As a typical example, in 2014, a Muslim man committed "<a href="http://diversitymachtfrei.blogspot.com/2014/08/france-muslim-smashes-up-historic.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">major acts of vandalism</a>" inside a historic Catholic church in Thonon-les-Bains. According to a<span> </span><a href="http://diversitymachtfrei.blogspot.com/2014/08/france-muslim-smashes-up-historic.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a><span> </span>(with pictures) he "overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows." He also "trampled on" the Eucharist.</p>
<p>For similar examples in other European countries, please see<span> </span><a href="http://voxnews.info/2017/05/10/immigrato-lapida-e-devasta-crocifisso-a-sprangate-video-choc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>,<span> </span><a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/immigrant-arrested-rome-vandalizing-churches-ripping-crucifix-off-wall-170394/#pJH6vkT4dFh8RmqU.99" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>,<span> </span><a href="https://www.secoloditalia.it/2015/01/inneggiando-in-arabo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>,<span> </span><a href="https://navarra.elespanol.com/articulo/tribunales/ataque-islamista-fontellas-iglesia-magrebi-marruecos-faccion-islamica/20160910170931065776.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, and<span> </span><a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/616830/Virgin-Mary-Andalucia-Malaga-Agustin-Carrasco" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p>
<p>In virtually every instance of church attacks, authorities and media obfuscate the identity of the vandals. In those rare instances when the Muslim (or "migrant") identity of the destroyers is leaked, the perpetrators are then presented as suffering from<span> </span><a href="http://diversitymachtfrei.blogspot.com/2014/08/france-muslim-smashes-up-historic.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mental health issues</a>. As the recent PI-News<span> </span><a href="http://www.pi-news.net/2019/03/wams-jeden-tag-zwei-kirchenschaendungen-in-frankreich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a><span> </span>says:</p>
<blockquote><p>"Hardly anyone writes and speaks about the increasing attacks on Christian symbols. There is an eloquent silence in both France and Germany about the scandal of the desecrations and the origin of the perpetrators.... Not a word, not even the slightest hint that could in anyway lead to the suspicion of migrants... It is not the perpetrators who are in danger of being ostracized, but those who dare to associate the desecration of Christian symbols with immigrant imports. They are accused of hatred, hate speech and racism."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><i><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, author of the new book,</i><span> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306825554/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0306825554&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=0f925201768b161ae319879bb3fdf1d7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West</a><i>, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.</i></p>
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<ul>
<li>Follow Raymond Ibrahim on<span> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RaymondIbrahim5">Twitter</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/raymond.ibrahim.5">Facebook</a></li>
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</div> French intelligence 'doctored files' to cover up failings over Islamic murder of priesttag:4freedoms.com,2018-01-09:3766518:Topic:1931412018-01-09T14:05:58.965ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>I honestly thought I was beyond being shocked at the unfettered Islamization of the West. But this marks a new low. Remember that elderly priest beheaded in his own church? Not only were the killers known to France's security services, but the French secret service had advance warning it was going to happen. They IGNORED the warning. When it did happen they COVERED UP THE WARNING (incompetently at that).</p>
<p>Just like MI5 describe "Islamic Terrorism" as "International Terrorism"…</p>
<p>I honestly thought I was beyond being shocked at the unfettered Islamization of the West. But this marks a new low. Remember that elderly priest beheaded in his own church? Not only were the killers known to France's security services, but the French secret service had advance warning it was going to happen. They IGNORED the warning. When it did happen they COVERED UP THE WARNING (incompetently at that).</p>
<p>Just like MI5 describe "Islamic Terrorism" as "International Terrorism" (when the cause is Islam, when all the perps are Muslims, and when 80% of the perps have got British passports, and 100% of them live in Britain), and MI5 used to move around the webpage holding the list of attacks (to break links and stop citizens discussing the lies of MI5), so the French equivalent of MI5 retroactively doctor records (on command from above) to conceal that they knew about a forthcoming beheading threat to priests.</p>
<p>If the secret service are not going to protect priests, we can be damn sure they wouldn't protect the likes of you and me.</p>
<hr/><p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/05/french-intelligence-doctored-files-cover-failings-islamist-murder/">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/05/french-intelligence-doctored-files-cover-failings-islamist-murder/</a></p>
<p></p>
<h1 class="headline__heading">French intelligence 'doctored files' to cover up failings over Islamist murder of priest</h1>
<p><span class="m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged">F</span>rench spies doctored files to cover up failings that resulted in jihadists murdering a priest in his church, according to<span> </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/france/">French</a> reports.</p>
<p>Claims that agents post-dated documents to cover their blunders have cast a fresh spotlight on counterterrorism agencies in the wake of over a string of terror attacks that have left <strong>239 people dead in France since 2015.</strong></p>
<p>Red tape and a battle of egos between intelligence managers are costing lives, according to the report published by Mediapart, the investigative news website, which conducted a six-month investigation into the blunders.</p>
<p>On July 26, 2016, Islamists Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean<span> </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/26/murder-of-a-priest-how-the-horror-unfolded-as-two-islamic-state/">burst into a church in the small town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy and slit the throat of Jacques Hamel</a>, the 85-year-old priest, in front of four parishioners. Police shot dead the pair as they left the church.</p>
<div class="articleBodyText section"><div class="article-body-text component"><div class="component-content"><p><span class="m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged">H</span>owever, it now appears that five days previously an agent at the Paris Police Prefecture Intelligence Unit had come across an encrypted channel on Telegram, a favoured messaging service with terrorists, containing a message from a certain @Jayyed boasting that “I haven’t been uncovered”.</p>
<p>@Jayyed was in fact Kermiche, who then posted a video on the channel claiming that he gave lessons in a mosque in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.</p>
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<div class="articleBodyText section"><div class="article-body-text component"><div class="component-content"><p><span class="m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged">I</span>n one message he urged attacks on churches and said that with a knife one could<span> </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/28/france-priest-killer-boasted-of-plans-to-cause-carnage-at-a-chur/">“cut off two or three heads” and create “carnage”.</a></p>
<p>A subsequent police report noted that the comments “clearly pointed towards a jihadist profile turned in an explicit manner towards the Islamic State organisation".</p>
<p>The agent who uncovered the worrying message informed his superiors of what he considered an imminent threat and advised them to inform the General Direction of Interior Security, the French equivalent of MI5.</p>
<p><span class="m_first-letter m_first-letter--flagged">H</span>owever, his written warnings went unanswered and senior officers at the Paris Police Prefecture Intelligence Unit were away at the time.</p>
<p>Officers cited by Mediapart said that after the murder, the agent was asked to post-date his notes and erase his computer's browser history to ensure that the blunder went unnoticed. But he omitted to erase the original date of the document from one of the computer files.</p>
<p>Intelligence agents told the website that red tape was hampering the fight against Islamist terrorism and that bosses "sit on notes because there is a comma in the wrong place".</p>
<p>Even if senior officers hadn't been away, “there were several layers of people who had to validate it," said another. The bureaucratic weight is such that the information would never have got through in time to save the priest.”</p>
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</div> France: embracing multi-culturalism via Carbequestag:4freedoms.com,2017-01-03:3766518:Topic:1851132017-01-03T20:12:37.737ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<h1><strong>France Claims ‘No Incident’ After 1,000 Cars Torched on New Year’s Eve</strong></h1>
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<p class="byline"><span class="by-author"><span class="by">by</span> <a class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/liam-deacon/">Liam Deacon</a></span><span class="bydate">3 Jan 2017…</span></p>
<h1><strong>France Claims ‘No Incident’ After 1,000 Cars Torched on New Year’s Eve</strong></h1>
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<p class="byline"><span class="by-author"><span class="by">by</span> <a class="byauthor" href="http://www.breitbart.com/author/liam-deacon/">Liam Deacon</a></span><span class="bydate">3 Jan 2017</span><a class="bycount" href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/01/03/france-claims-no-incident-after-1000-cars-torched-new-years-eve/#disqus_thread" rel="nofollow">410</a></p>
<p>3 Jan, 2017 3 Jan, 2017</p>
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<h2>French authorities have been accused of a cover-up after claiming New Year’s Eve “went off without any major incident” despite more than 1,000 cars being torched in arson attacks.</h2>
<p>Police also arrested 454 people during the night, 301 of whom were taken into custody.</p>
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<p>The phenomenon of torching cars at the end of the year is a “tradition” in France, with different departments and suburbs of the capital, Paris, competing to cause the most destruction.</p>
<p>The practice is thought to have begun in the 1990s in Strasbourg’s deprived, high-immigrant districts, which quickly spread to other poor areas.</p>
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<p>According to the French interior ministry, a total of 945 cars were either “totally destroyed” or “more lightly affected” by the attacks, amounting to a 17 per cent rise on last year.</p>
<p>However, for the first time, the ministry initially chose to release only the number of cars (650) “set on fire”, rather than those destroyed by fire, allowing them to claim there had been a fall.</p>
<p>This led the national newspaper <em>Le Monde</em> <a class=" x5l" href="http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2017/01/02/nouvel-an-comment-bruno-le-roux-a-minimise-la-forte-hausse-du-nombre-de-voitures-brulees_5056261_4355770.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to accuse</a> authorities of deliberately being unclear. The populist Front National (FN) party implied dishonesty and slammed the state’s “unbearable laxity”.</p>
<p>In an official <a class=" x5l" href="http://www.frontnational.com/2017/01/quel-est-le-bilan-securitaire-reel-de-la-nuit-du-31/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>, the FN stated: “The new interior minister Bruno Le Roux… [initially] didn’t communicate the number of vehicles burned and considers that the number of cars directly set on fire to be ‘contained’ while even this constitutes a significant rise of 8 per cent.”</p>
<p>Responding to the claims, ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said: “There is no desire to conceal… The number of direct firings is the most relevant indicator because it corresponds to the unlawful act.</p>
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<p>“Not all vehicles were destroyed, some were only slightly affected.”</p>
<p>He added: “Whatever the increase, this is not tolerable. But the trends are seen over several years and what is significant is a significant reduction over five years.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/01/03/france-claims-no-incident-after-1000-cars-torched-new-years-eve">http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/01/03/france-claims-no-incident-after-1000-cars-torched-new-years-eve</a></p>
</div> Hollande: ‘Our response will be without mercy.’tag:4freedoms.com,2015-11-15:3766518:Topic:1725842015-11-15T22:15:52.052ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>Terror has again struck Paris, France, Friday, 13 November 2015. The latest count is 129 dead and many more injured.</p>
<p>After the three days of mourning the State of France will kick into gear and respond to, as François Hollande, the President of France, has said: ‘the war that has been declared on the nation.’</p>
<p>What form should that response take?</p>
<p>We suggest here a few starter points.</p>
<p>First of all, there needs to be a recognition that Islam inspires…</p>
<p>Terror has again struck Paris, France, Friday, 13 November 2015. The latest count is 129 dead and many more injured.</p>
<p>After the three days of mourning the State of France will kick into gear and respond to, as François Hollande, the President of France, has said: ‘the war that has been declared on the nation.’</p>
<p>What form should that response take?</p>
<p>We suggest here a few starter points.</p>
<p>First of all, there needs to be a recognition that Islam inspires terrorism.</p>
<p>There is much talk about ISIS being the source of terrorism. But it needs to be recognised that ISIS is just the latest manifestation of Islamic-inspired terrorism. Since the torture and beheading of Jews and other non-Muslims during the life of Mohammed, terrorism has always accompanied Islam’s march out of the Arab peninsula and into the rest of the world.</p>
<p>‘Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.’ Geert Wilders</p>
<p>Trying to protect every restaurant, theatre, sports facility etc. from terrorist attacks is like looking through a telescope backwards. We need look at and deal with the source of terrorism as a first step.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there needs to be a recognition that:</p>
<p>1. All Muslims uphold the perfection of Mohammed as a model of behaviour for all people throughout all time. All Muslims point to Mohammed as the ideal man.</p>
<p>2. The enemy is not just at the gate but is within the walls of the castle. The terrorists and their supporters are not just on their way to Europe they are here and have been here for generations.</p>
<p>3. It must be within the capabilities of any robust nation state to defend its citizens from terrorism. For sure, the France of old, that is the France that resisted and survived Nazism, could do it. We must believe that that same spirit and the strength is still there within countless souls and communities of France to do it again.</p>
<p>4. The influence of Islam to inspire terror, of course, finds its most ready acolytes in Muslims. Can France, indeed can any nation-State, work to reduce the influence of Islam on its citizens in general and on Muslims in particular?</p>
<p>The answer must be ‘Yes.’ The terrorists killed their victims in order to traumatise and bully the survivors, including the leaders; the purpose of which is to make France more sharia compliant. So far the political process in France has failed its people. ‘Standing firm and refusing to change’ is obviously not working.</p>
<p>The present and future victims of terrorism (and their families and the nation) deserve not only a response without mercy but a response that is long lasting and destructive of the roots of terrorism itself.</p>
<p>May the 129 rest in peace, and may the 2.2 million still alive in Paris live in peace.</p>
<p>EDL Writing Team</p>
<p><a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/?p=1815">http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/?p=1815</a></p> Charlie Hebdo: Islamic Fascists execute 12 Journalists for blasphemytag:4freedoms.com,2015-01-07:3766518:Topic:1594242015-01-07T14:29:07.370ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 2em;">Innocent Blood Flows on the Streets of Paris</span></strong></p>
<p class="meta post-meta"><strong>Posted on <span class="updated">January 7, 2015</span> by <span class="vcard author"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/author/simonxml/" rel="author" title="Posts by EDL Writing Team">EDL Writing Team</a></span></span> in <a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/category/edl-news/" rel="category tag">EDL News</a> // 0…</strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 2em;">Innocent Blood Flows on the Streets of Paris</span></strong></p>
<p class="meta post-meta"><strong>Posted on <span class="updated">January 7, 2015</span> by <span class="vcard author"><span class="fn"><a title="Posts by EDL Writing Team" href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/author/simonxml/" rel="author">EDL Writing Team</a></span></span> in <a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/category/edl-news/" rel="category tag">EDL News</a> // 0 Comments</strong></p>
<div class="entry clearfix"><div class="post-thumbnail"><a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-naked-mohamed-e1420640137925.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-naked-mohamed-412x264.jpg"/></a></div>
<div class="post-thumbnail">The EDL extends its heartfelt condolences to the families, colleagues and friends of the butchered journalists who have just paid the ultimate price for freedom of speech.</div>
<p>The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was no stranger to attacks from Muslim radicals. At the beginning of November 2011, it survived having its Paris offices destroyed by a petrol bomb, a day after it named the Prophet Mohammed as its “editor-in-chief” for that week’s edition.</p>
<p>This time it’s the staff that have paid a heavy price for their bravery in speaking out against Islam. 12 people are now reported dead, with at least another 4 critically injured and the death toll is expected to rise.</p>
<p>The two attackers, apparently well trained in the use of the AK47 assault weapons they used in the attack, are reported to have shouted that their acts “restored the honour” of their prophet before escaping through the streets of Paris.</p>
<p>While French President Francois Hollande called the shooting a “terrorist attack without a doubt”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the attack as “abominable”, European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker called it a “brutal and inhuman attack” and our own Prime Minister David Cameron called the attack “sickening”, the media are continuing their efforts to avoid admitting that this attack was inspired by Islam.</p>
<p>How many signs saying ‘Behead those who insult Mohammed’ have to be paraded on our streets before our politicians take notice? How many lone wolf attacks have to take place before the authorities admit that wolves attack in packs?</p>
<p>In the words of French politician Philip Cordery: “<em>Not only France, the whole of Europe is in shock today because by doing this horrendous act, the terrorists are once again attacking one of the important symbols of freedom, which is freedom of the press..</em>.”.</p>
<p>Like a join-the-dots puzzle, with attacks in Australia, Mumbai, Baghdad, London, New York, Boston and now Paris, how many more need to take place before someone calls attention to the drawing – not of a cartoon – but the hideous face of Islam?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/innocent-blood-flows-on-the-streets-of-paris/">http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/innocent-blood-flows-on-the-streets-of-paris/</a></p>
</div> Impérialisme par le Comédien Dieudonné [en Français]tag:4freedoms.com,2014-05-13:3766518:Topic:1474922014-05-13T17:33:39.432ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>Impérialisme, par Dieudonné <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXyhblL2t8E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXyhblL2t8E</a></p>
<p>Impérialisme, par Dieudonné <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXyhblL2t8E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXyhblL2t8E</a></p> Comédien Dieudonné [English Subtitles] about Imperialism [...]tag:4freedoms.com,2014-05-13:3766518:Topic:1474902014-05-13T17:32:25.377ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>The Case Dieudonné <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IyZs9kGwAA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IyZs9kGwAA</a></p>
<p>Dieudonné about September 11th: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMthCGhByWE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMthCGhByWE</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>The Case Dieudonné <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IyZs9kGwAA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IyZs9kGwAA</a></p>
<p>Dieudonné about September 11th: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMthCGhByWE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMthCGhByWE</a></p>
<p></p> La Diffamation du sang (Blood Libel)tag:4freedoms.com,2013-06-27:3766518:Topic:1278982013-06-27T12:37:31.159ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>French Media Analyst Philippe Karsenty Found Guilty of Defamation in Al-Dura Hoax Case</strong></p>
<p>JUNE 26, 2013 11:42 AM </p>
<p><br></br> French media analyst Philippe Karsenty was found guilty Wednesday by a French court of defamation for accusing a state television network of falsely depicting the death of a young Palestinian boy in a firefight between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers, the Times of Israel reports.</p>
<p>The footage of the boy,…</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>French Media Analyst Philippe Karsenty Found Guilty of Defamation in Al-Dura Hoax Case</strong></p>
<p>JUNE 26, 2013 11:42 AM </p>
<p><br/> French media analyst Philippe Karsenty was found guilty Wednesday by a French court of defamation for accusing a state television network of falsely depicting the death of a young Palestinian boy in a firefight between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers, the Times of Israel reports.</p>
<p>The footage of the boy, Mohammed al-Dura, was aired by the France 2 network. The start of the Second Intifada in which over 1000 Israelis were killed, was largely attributed to the video, which was circulated throughout the world.</p>
<p>A Paris court fined Karsenty 7,000 euros claiming that he falsely accused the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Charles Enderlin, of fabricating parts of the segment.</p>
<p>In an interview with The Algemeiner Karsenty expressed his disappointment. “I think it is a dark day for French democracy and I think it is a dark day for the truth,” he said.</p>
<p>French-Jewish artist and activist Ron Agam told The Algemeiner that the whole case was a set up.</p>
<p>“Karsenty never had a chance here. The television station is a government outfit and the unions are anti-Israeli. This entire judgement is not about justice, but about defending the indefensible,” he said.</p>
<p>“It is comparable to one of the biggest lies of the republic, it is a shame that the French justice system cant see the truth and they are hiding behind lies,” he added.</p>
<p>The report, broadcast September 30, 2000, showed al -Dura and his father caught between the gunfire of Israeli troops and Palestinian terror operatives in the Gaza Strip. It then cut to the boy slumped in his father’s lap. The report blamed Israeli forces for the alleged death.</p>
<p>Karsenty was convicted of libel in 2006, but the judgment was overturned on appeal in 2008. France 2 appealed that appeal at the “Cour de cassation,” France’s highest court, and last year the court annulled the 2008 acquittal.</p>
<p>“In September 2007, a French court instructed the TV channel to hand over the entire, unedited footage shot that day, thus reopening the case. In the full video, Muhammad al-Dura can be seen waving his hand, moving his leg and without any visible bloodstains, despite claims made during the news report that the boy had died,” reported Ynet news.</p>
<p>Last month, the Israeli government concluded that al-Dura was not harmed by Israeli forces and did not die in the exchange of fire.</p>
<p>At the time Karsenty welcomed news of the report, telling The Algemeiner: “Now that this scientific report will be released it is very good news. The next step will be for the French public TV, owned and financed by the French state, to admit responsibility for their role in producing the worst blood libel of our times.”</p>