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From Molenbeek To Merkelbeek

Secular, progressive Europe cannot deal with homegrown Islamic radicalism
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The Belgian capital celebrates diversity and multiculturalism for a third day:

BRUSSELS — On what normally would be a bustling Monday, empty streets and an eerie silence attested to the reality that this capital city, the heart of the European Union, had been paralyzed by a terrorist cell answering to the leaders of the Islamic State.

As universities, shopping malls, museums, food markets, the subway system and even a nursery school shut their doors, the city remained jittery after a number of false alarms involving hotels and even City Hall, which was closed on Monday.

The central square, known as the Grand Place or Grote Markt, was all but deserted, except for a few tourists ambling around a giant Christmas tree. Soldiers patrolled an area normally thronged with shoppers, and armored personnel carriers rolled over cobblestone streets usually choked with cars.

The level of anxiety was so high that the authorities felt compelled to remind people that they were free to leave their houses, even in Brussels, although they still were recommending that they “avoid unnecessary travel to busy places and comply with any potential security check.”

Isn’t that lovely? Via Steve Sailer, I discovered a Politico essay by photographer Teun Voeten, a Belgian who used to live in Molenbeek, the Brussels neighborhood that is jihadi central. Excerpts:

I called Molenbeek my home for nine years. In 2005, it was the city’s last affordable neighborhood — in large part because of its bad reputation. My apartment, just across the canal from the city center, is close to the home where two suspects in the Paris attacks were based, and around the corner from where the shooter from the foiled Thalys attack in August had been staying.

I was part of a new wave of young urban professionals, mostly white and college-educated — what the Belgians called bobo, (“bourgeois bohémiens”) — who settled in the area out of pragmatism. We had good intentions. Our contractor’s name was Hassan. He was Moroccan, and we thought that was very cool. We imagined that our kids would one day play happily with his on the street. We hoped for less garbage on the streets, less petty crime. We were confident our block would slowly improve, and that our lofts would increase in value. (We even dared to hope for a hip art gallery or a trendy bar.) We felt like pioneers of the Far West, like we were living in the trenches of the fight for a multicultural society.

More:

Slowly, we woke up to reality. Hassan turned out to be a crook and disappeared with €95,000, the entire budget the tenants had pooled together for our building’s renovation. The neighborhood was hardly multicultural. Rather, with roughly 80 percent of the population of Moroccan origin, it was tragically conformist and homogenous. There may be a vibrant alternative culture in Casablanca and Marrakech, but certainly not in Molenbeek.

Over nine years, I witnessed the neighborhood become increasingly intolerant. Alcohol became unavailable in most shops and supermarkets; I heard stories of fanatics at the Comte des Flandres metro station who pressured women to wear the veil; Islamic bookshops proliferated, and it became impossible to buy a decent newspaper. With an unemployment rate of 30 percent, the streets were eerily empty until late in the morning. Nowhere was there a bar or café where white, black and brown people would mingle. Instead, I witnessed petty crime, aggression, and frustrated youths who spat at our girlfriends and called them “filthy whores.” If you made a remark, you were inevitably scolded and called a racist. There used to be Jewish shops on Chaussée de Gand, but these were terrorized by gangs of young kids and most closed their doors around 2008. Openly gay people were routinely intimidated, and also packed up their bags.

I finally left Molenbeek in 2014. It was not out of fear. The tipping point, I remember, was an encounter with a Salafist, who tried to convert me on my street. It boiled down to this: I could no longer stand to live in this despondent, destitute, fatalistic neighborhood.

Voeten, a war photographer and cultural anthropologist, goes on to explain why Belgium is such a rich place for jihadism to thrive. The biggest reason?:

The country’s political debate has been dominated by a complacent progressive elite who firmly believes society can be designed and planned. Observers who point to unpleasant truths such as the high incidence of crime among Moroccan youth and violent tendencies in radical Islam are accused of being propagandists of the extreme-right, and are subsequently ignored and ostracized.

The debate is paralyzed by a paternalistic discourse in which radical Muslim youths are seen, above all, as victims of social and economic exclusion. They in turn internalize this frame of reference, of course, because it arouses sympathy and frees them from taking responsibility for their actions.

Read the whole thing. It’s important.

This is why the overwhelming deluge of Islamic refugees into Europe right now is so dangerous. Europe is governed by elites like Angela Merkel that don’t have any capacity to deal with this kind of thing. There can be no doubt that Europe (and America) have a moral responsibility to help the refugees. But they cannot be allowed to settle en masse in Europe — or they will create many more Molenbeeks. Then what?

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