Monday, May 15, 2006

The Belgian Debate

And so the debate begins here in Belgium ... can the extreme right parties be held accountable for creating a climate of racism that led to the brutal shooting of 3 people last week.

Ask the immigrants...

I'm an immigrant and my blood pressure goes through the ceiling whenever another of their 'newspapers' appear uninvited in the letterbox.

Pam illustrates with her American self experiencing Austria's extreme right politics in the local newspaper ....

In a brief history, the other Belgian political parties had placed a cordon sanitaire around the extreme right party operating here, refusing to work with or support their extreme right politics in any way ... but the extreme right won 30% of the vote here in Antwerp in the last elections.

Freedom of speech is highly valued here in Belgium and when vlaams belang cross the line of law, they change their name and re-form.

The family of the young girl killed were shocked by the message of sympathy offered by the extreme-right Flemish Interest. The grandmother wrote a letter to regional Antwerp TV broadcaster ATV stressing the family does not want any condolences from the Flemish Interest party.

And so it goes on.

4 comments:

christina said...

It is absolutely horrifying. You may have heard that Germany has has its share of racially motivated attacks on foreigners (or people who *look* like foreigners) lately and it disgusts me that things like this can actually happen in a supposedly civilized country.

Lever said...

I was saying to a friend the other day that our local extreme right, the BNP, are like ghosts... as soon as the leaflets come through my door I instantly go to see who delivered it... and there's never anybody in sight... it's very bizarre; It's like they don't want to be seen or recognised!

Unknown said...

THat's horrible. Extreme anything is bad, especially religion or politics-wise.

I've never gotten those leaflets, but when I used to shave my head skinheads used to "greet/salute" me and I was kind enough to tell them to suck my balls when this happened. It really must've puzzled the poor bastards. I mean, how many skinheads have messy heard?! I never was concerned that one would really take action and go for my pouches so it fitted well.

Right wing people say I'm liberal, left swing and liberal people say I'm leaning right.. I don't know, maybe I'm sick and twisted mixture of both?

When I want to piss off people I tell I want everyone to be equal (in every way) and happy plus I want to be filthy rich and get drunk with the power of money. :) I know, I'm naughty and stupid, but it's tons of fun..

Unknown said...

Oh, and I think that even though there's no way the extreme right can justify their actions and ideas, they're also surprisingly bad at trying to convince people. To me their gain of popularity tells a lot about people and maybe even something about the state of our siciety..