Belgian municipal elections on Sunday
More interesting than they sound, honest. The ex Vlaams Blok has morphed into the Vlaams Belang, and is poised to do very well in Antwerp, according to Liberation, maybe taking 38% of the vote . The 'establishment' parties in Belgium have agreed a 'cordon sanitaire' not to co-operate with the VB, whatever comes to pass. The VB's platform centres on breaking Belgium, or if one prefers, independence for Flanders, cosying up to their northern neighbours (if not seeking a new union), no more funding etc for the French language etc in Flanders, a lot of silent dog whistle stuff about immigrants, unconditional amnesties for WW2 collaborators and allowing abortion only in the case of rape or medical reasons.
Anyway, expect it to be in the news tomorrow and Monday, come what may.
Anyway, expect it to be in the news tomorrow and Monday, come what may.
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on Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 9:43 am.
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Croydonian - Your email address has disappeared off the page. Also, the page cuts off on the second para of the Jack Straw update. Cannot scroll down further.
Sorry to post this, but there's no email address any more.
Groan. Thethreeforks@gmail.com.
I'll see if I can get some help from my technical adviser.....
Interestingly enough, the VB is making a concerted effort to pick up the substantial Jewish vote in Antwerp. They claim that approximately a third of the Jewish community has supported them in previous elections. Obviously, relations between the Muslims and Jews of Antwerp are (surprise, surprise) far from ideal.
By the way, Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton made a rather good (but naturally enough) widely-criticised speech to a gathering of the VB in June 2006. Inter alia he observed:
"... The loyalty that people need in their daily lives, and which they affirm in their unconsidered and spontaneous social actions, is now habitually ridiculed or even demonized by the dominant media and the education system. National history is taught as a tale of shame and degradation. The art, literature and religion of our nation have been more or less excised from the curriculum, and folkways, local traditions and national ceremonies are routinely rubbished.
"This repudiation of the national idea is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the Second World War, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political elites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognized: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ‘ours’. I call the attitude oikophobia - the aversion to home - by way of emphasizing its deep relation to xenophobia, of which it is the mirror image. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which intellectuals tend to become arrested..."
I think scrutton has made an important intervention there. The whole speech is here: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1126
Interesting stuff GC - appreciated.
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