"German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said: "Salafism, as represented in the associations that were banned today, is incompatible with our free democratic order. The groups aim to change our society in an aggressive, belligerent way so that democracy would be replaced by a Salafist system, and the rule of law replaced by Sharia law."
How refreshing to hear a European interior minister call it like it is when referring to homegrown extremist threats from radical Salafists who are wreaking havoc all over the country. Soeren Kern, writing for the Gatestone Institute, has a report on recent events in Germany.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3625/germany-radical-islamists
Germany places heavy importance on it constitution and its democratic system. Trying to undermine them is a serious criminal offense in Germany.
Too bad we don't have more politicians in Washington who are not afraid to speak out about Islamic radicalization in the US. We do have a few, like Peter King of New York and Sue Myrick of North Carolina, but not nearly enough. They pay a heavy price, however, in terms of the vitriol they get from organizations like CAIR, and Rep. Keith Ellison aided by their stooges like LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, and politicians like Maxine Waters and Judy Chu.
I suppose a country that finds it necessary and proper to ban Nazi and neo-Nazi organizations could do no less to Salafists. In the USA, we allow Nazis the same rights to free speech and free association as anyone else, because our constitution does not allow for sorting out who is approved to have civil rights and who is not, based on their viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteBut, then, we haven't endured twelve years of Nazi rule, so I won't condemn Germany for arranging its constitution as it sees necessary.
In the American framework, we don't ban Salafist organizations -- partly because Gary Fouse and those he lauds on this site would use that to terrorize quite a few who are no threat to our constitution at all. After all, the reason we allow free speech for Nazis is we don't trust Eric Holder to decide who is and is not a Nazi.
What we can do, and should always do, is arrest Salafists who commit actual crimes, acts of terror, violence, intimidation, for those acts, and plainly respond to any whining about violation of their freedom of religion, that no religion is a cover for plain violations of viewpoint neutral criminal laws.
If you landed aliens from outer space in a democracy, they would approximate the Salafists in many ways. They look, more or less, like the people in the democracy, but their orientation, world-view, predispositions, and mentality are completely foreign to the Western democracies.
ReplyDeleteSiarlys,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, our concept of free speech is much wider that in Europe. In the case of Germany, the salafists have engaged in violent confrontations with police. They would take Germany directly back to the dark days of the 3rd Reich in a different form.
Hardly the Third Reich, Gary. That was based on German nationalism. Salafists are a minority, ethnically, racially, religiously, a counter-culture, not a call to racial pride of the centuries-established majority.
ReplyDeleteYes we do have a much wider concept of free speech than Europe. That's why we had a revolution. If the Salafists have engaged in violent confrontation with the police, arrest and intern them for it.
There is no need, in America, to ban an organization outright, and we still manage to keep a lid on the more violent forms of "expression."