Well this is a shame. Don’t “labor migrants” deserve a place to pray as well? Would he be saying the same thing about Orthodox Christian “laborers?”

Moscow mayor says no to more mosques in the city

The Mayor of Moscow says there are no plans to build a new mosque in the city, and says the “excessive” number of economic migrants was a “harmful thing”.

“It has turned out that the praying Muslims are not at all Russian citizens and they are not Moscow residents. They are labor migrants. There are only 10 percent of Moscow residents among them and building mosques for everyone who wants it – I think this will be over the top,” Sergey Sobyanin said in an interview with Moscow’s Echo radio.

The top city official went on to say that “Muscovites now get irritated by people who speak a different language, have different manners, with aggressive behavior. This is not purely ethnic, but this is connected with some ethnic traits,” Sobyanin said.

At the same time, the Moscow Mayor explained that there are no ethnic enclaves in the city and expressed the hope that such enclaves would never appear as closed districts like that usually have a very high crime rate.

RT, 1 March 2013

Eric Allen Bell’s “expel them” rhetoric in practice.:

Greek fascists target Muslims and other ’immigrants’

Dressed in black shirts with faces hidden by helmets, ten men on motorbikes came to find him on a Saturday, after darkness fell.

Finding the door bolted at his home in a pot-holed Athens side street, they smashed the windows, broke in and trashed the place. Then, their dirty work done, the neo-Nazi gang roared away into the hot evening. It had taken less than a minute for them to sound an ugly warning that foreigners were not welcome in Greece.

Their target was Imam Shahbaz Siddiqi, a 42-year-old spiritual leader of the Greek capital’s 500,000 Muslims. “I was at the mosque praying when they searched for me the other night,” he told me yesterday. “I thank God for that, or else I might now be dead.

“During the night I went three times to the police station to report the break-in. At the desk I was told that the officers did not have time to investigate my complaint. They were too busy. There is one law for the Greek people and another for us immigrants.”

The attack on Imam Siddiqi is the latest racist outrage by neo-Nazis in a country riddled with xenophobia. In an era of crushing debt and poverty, the immigrant is blamed for almost every Greek ill.

On the same weekend, a young Pakistani immigrant, Hussein Abbas, was viciously attacked outside his home in Elefsina on the outskirts of Athens by the men in dark shirts. He ended up in hospital, his face smashed to a bloody pulp.

So dangerous are the streets for foreigners that the U.S. State Department has sent out a warning to dark-skinned American visitors that they must be careful of their safety when they leave their hotels.

A shocking internet video shows leaders of the anti-immigrant Far-Right Golden Dawn party – which has 18 MPs – marching into an ethnic street market at Rafina, an hour’s drive from Athens, destroying the stalls with wooden clubs and scattering the merchandise to the ground.

“We found a few illegal immigrants selling their wares without permits,” says Giorgos Germenis, one of the party’s MPs. “We did what our party has to do and then went to church to pay respects to the Madonna.”

Daily Mail, 18 October 2012

Postscript:  Golden Dawn are not without their admirers on the far right in the UK.

There have been clashes in the Indian state of Assam in which Muslims have had their houses burned down and some have been hacked to death. Many reports state that the violence began when 4 Bodos were allegedly killed by Muslims on July, 20 (h/t: Hassan). In actuality the issue is far more complex, the recent violence began in May,

Trouble started on May 29 with the Muslim youth group, the All Bodoland Minority Students’ Union, protesting against the removal of a signboard from a mosque, allegedly illegally built on a forest area. The local Bodoland Territorial Council administration prevented the protesters from forcing shops and offices to close, which resulted in a fracas and injuries to some people. On July 6, two Muslim youths were killed by unidentified gunmen in Kokrajhar district.

Thirteen days later, on July 19, two more Muslim youths, leaders of the ABMSU, were killed in the same district. On July 20, four former Bodo Liberation Tigers cadres were killed by a Muslim mob. The incident sparked off a series of attacks and counter-attacks the same night and later, blew up into full-scale conflict. Rioters indulged in both pre-planned as well as opportunistic violence- killing, burning and ransacking. Factors rooted in politics and demography provide explanations for the recent flare up.

AlJazeera English:

Over 200,000 mostly Muslims have fled their homes. Is it curious that the religion of the Muslims is the main identifier of who they are? Isn’t it also curious that reports are stating that the violence was sparked off the by killing of the four Bodo militiamen? It is unfortunate that a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of this complex issue, involving factors of demography, ethnicity and immigration have been reduced to a battle between the Bodos and “Muslims.” It feeds many false Islamophobic narratives, as most of the comment sections of these reports, such as the one on the Huffington Post have been reduced to blaming “Islam” for the violence.

by Anupam Nath and Wasbir Hussain

BIJNI, India — Indian authorities on Thursday rushed more troops to quell ethnic violence in a remote northeastern state where dozens of people have been killed over the past week and villagers are frightened to return to their burned-out homes.

Clashes between members of the ethnic Bodo community and Muslim settlers in Assam state have left 42 people dead and 13 others missing, state officials said. Six of the 42 were killed by security forces, who were given a mandate Tuesday to shoot rioters on sight.

The killing of four Bodo men last week sparked off violent attacks by Bodo tribespeople on Muslim villages.

Hundreds of homes were torched and more than 200,000 people fled their homes for relief camps set up in schools and government buildings.

On Thursday, Assam’s Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi met with Bodo and Muslim leaders in an effort to defuse tensions and restore peace, while the federal government ordered more troops to be sent to the three worst-hit districts, Kokrajhar, Dibrugarh and Chirang.

A curfew has helped curtail the violence, but local officials said the situation remains tense. Police reported sporadic violence in Chirang as armed bands of Bodo youth roamed the deserted villages.

Soldiers have orders to shoot to kill arsonists and a 24-hour curfew is in place, said G. D. Tripathi, Assam’s home secretary.

There are already 6,000 army and paramilitary soldiers on the ground. They have marched through towns and villages in a show of force to give residents confidence to return to their homes.

Thousands of frightened villagers are crammed into about 125 relief camps hastily set up by local administrators.

Each day there is a scramble for limited water and food. Harried officials are trying to provide food, clothes and mattresses for the streams of people who have lost all their possessions.

Among them is a dazed-looking Laily Begum, a mother of three small children. On Sunday, Begum’s Muslim husband was hacked to death by sword-wielding attackers near the town of Bijni in Chirang.

“I don’t know if I should be mourning my husband or fighting for food for my children,” she cries, tears snaking down her face.

Begum fled with her children and from a distance saw the attackers repeatedly stabbing her husband, Mohammad Hasen Ali. Her neighbors told her his body had been thrown into a river.

On Thursday, the Assam government announced that 600,000 rupees ($11,000) would be paid as compensation to the families of those killed.

[Edit and Update: It must be pointed out that Muslims have lived in Assam for many centuries, going back to the 13th century (h/t: Indian Muslim).

Muslims have been part of Assam since early thirteenth century. The migration of Bengali-speakers, both Hindus and Muslims, into Assam started in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century as a British policy to find people for filling government jobs and a majority of them came as labourers for tea plantation and jute cultivation.

Overlooking these historical migrations, these “insider experts” want to put all Bangla-speaking Muslim in the category of Illegal migrations or simply Bangladeshis. Even if we take the recent census data, the numbers do not show any signs of huge influx of Muslims into Assam. In 1951, Muslims were 26.60% of the state population while in 2001 their population share was 30.90%. The rate of growth is slower than Muslims growth in the rest of India, which will suggest that Muslims are leaving the state.]

Golden Dawn

The Greek neo-Nazi party, The Golden Dawn has won 7% of the vote in Greece. According to Neni Panourgia, members of the Golden Dawn were also a part of the massacres in Srebrenica, Bosnia (h.t: HSMoghul),

Golden Dawn gained notoriety after 1991, when it started attacking the first Albanian immigrants and after some of its members participated in the Srebrenica massacre. The organisation registered as a political party in 1993 and first won political representation in 2010, when Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens City Council.

Neni describes the Golden Dawn as a “European problem”:

Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn is a European problem

by Neni Panourgia (AlJazeera English)

New York, New York - By now, nearly everybody has been exposed to the phenomenon of Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi in Greek), the neo-Nazi organisation that received almost 7 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections of May 6.

After the initial shock, the question “How is this possible?” was followed by the legitimate worry: “Are Greeks becoming fascists?” Some commentators on various blogs (many of them from northern and western Europe) even left messages urging the Greek electorate to feel shame, the deeper the better, for this unsightly and frightening development.

But let’s set a few things straight. First of all, Golden Dawn, despite its recent claims, is indeed a neo-Nazi party. Their ideology, which they describe on their website as “Popular and Social Nationalism”, gives their precise coordinates within Nazi ideology.

So do the origins of their party, which was founded by Nikolaos Michaloliakos in 1985 under a direct order from the imprisoned leader of the Greek junta, George Papadopoulos. And so do their self-representation, language and tactics. The official publication of Golden Dawn runs articles praising the Nazis and often places photographs of Hitler, Himmler, and Nazi gatherings on its front cover. The members of the organisation have the same uneducated, invented, and highly idiosyncratic understanding of ancient Greece as the Nazis did.

And their tactics are virtually indistinguishable from Nazi terrorist tactics: they terrorise immigrants, leftists, and journalists; they beat and maul teachers and students; they have infiltrated athletic clubs and have introduced hooliganism to the Greek landscape; and they have assumed the role of vigilantes and protectors of the general public. Some of those attacks have been documented, and the Golden Dawn-affiliated perpetrators have gone on trial and been imprisoned.

The history of the organisation is inextricably connected to the history of Michaloliakos, whose first public intervention in 1976 was an attack on journalists who were covering the funeral of the junta torturer Evangelos Mallios, who had been executed by the urban guerrilla organisation 17 November. Arrested and briefly detained, Michaloliakos met the leaders of the military junta in jail. Two years after his release he engaged in a series of bombings of public places in Athens, for which he was indicted. Golden Dawn gained notoriety after 1991, when it started attacking the first Albanian immigrants and after some of its members participated in the Srebrenica massacre. The organisation registered as a political party in 1993 and first won political representation in 2010, when Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens City Council.

It is doubtful, however, whether the 21 Golden Dawn deputies will ever enter the Greek parliament (legally, that is). We now know that no coalition government can be formed (without a gross violation of the Constitution), which means that new elections will be held, probably on June 17. Yesterday’s polls showed that 76 per cent of the Greek electorate expects Golden Dawn to lose most of its vote, with a large number of those polled expressing doubts that it would even win the 3 per cent needed to enter parliament.

Two questions remain, however, regardless of whether Golden Dawn ever enters parliament. The first one is a question of democracy: namely, what sorts of legitimate steps are available to democratic polities when they face the development of a totalitarian, racist, exclusionary formulation that actively engages in violent acts that severely restrict the civil and human rights of others? I argue that when a state is faced not simply with ideas but with themateriality of actions, then the state is obligated to outlaw them and the media are obligated to report on them. In Greece this is a multiply complex issue, since what I suggest was used from the beginning of the 20th century as the groundwork upon which the elimination of the left took place, based on fabricated accusations.

A second question remains: Why would Greeks, who fought against totalitarianism in massive numbers and paid one of the heaviest tolls in Europe for their participation in the resistance against Nazi Germany, vote for this despicable, emetic, and deeply anti-political formation, even as a protest?

What we need to keep in mind is that this tolerance of violence in the public sphere, especially violence that is directed towards the unarmed and the unprotected, is the result of the state’s long-term suppression of dissent and the collaboration of the police forces with right-wing extremists whose violent tactics the police have used. This tolerance is evident even in mundane instances, such as when, in 1999, the ludicrous Gerasimos Yakoumatos, a deputy and member of the centre-right New Democracy party, wanting to show the Minister of Public Order that he “meant business”, walked into Parliament brandishing his (legally obtained) revolver as protest for his house having been burglarised by immigrants the previous evening. Not only was this tolerated, but he was not arrested and was not in any way reprimanded.

The Greek polity has always found itself in a tug-of-war. On one end, there is a wide, democratic, proceduralist, but largely powerless (and ultimately apathetic) body politic. On the other end, there is a small but powerful authoritarian class that constitutes the core of state structures. Decades of brutal suppression of dissent has relied upon various para-state and paramilitary organisations. Police brutality, hooliganism, and the deep-seated intimacy between fragments of the police force and Golden Dawn have made the organisation’s temporary surge possible.

There is no right, centre, or left distinction in this, if by left one means the nominally socialist PASOK party. All post-junta Greek governments have availed themselves of this intimate relationship, as all Greek governments, at least from the early years of the 20th century, have invested more energy and resources into producing a polity that relies on snitches and turncoats than in producing responsible, accountable, and democratically minded citizens. For example, in the summer of 2002, as the dismantling of 17 November was taking place, the Greek prime minister – clearly at the behest of the British and the American antiterrorist secret services – asked the citizens to report anyone who appeared to be suspicious and dangerous.

A month ago I wrote in the Anthropology Newsletter about the claim that under the current circumstances in Europe, in which the social welfare state is being eviscerated and the destitute are pitted against the poor, the distinction between right and left is no longer useful. I argue, however, that it is precisely now that the elision of such a distinction is pregnant with dangers that the world has faced before.

The neo-cons, the neo-fascists, and the neo-Nazis have been selectively appropriating leftist discourses and practices in order to obscure and obfuscate the distinctions between left and right. Michaloliakos, the coddled child of the junta, uses the term “junta” pejoratively (to indicate the totally inept but democratically elected Greek government, the press, and the memorandum), calls the actions of Golden Dawn “national resistance” when he instigates violence against immigrants and politicians, and has warned about an “uprising of the masses”.

Europe stands on the head of a needle, steeped in a crisis that threatens the foundational premises of democracy, self-determination, and autonomy. Golden Dawn is a European problem, not a limited and containable Greek one. It is a European problem because its ideology developed and flourished in Germany and Italy of the early 20th century. It is not a “natural”, essential, ontological property of Greece, and it is intractably connected to the moralistic and punitive positions that have organised the actions of the troika that put the bailout packages together.

When people are pushed to the brink, ugly things happen, and the troika (and particularly Merkel) ought never to forget the warning of George Santayana: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”.

Still my favorite picture of Geert Wilders

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders is notorious for his hatred of Islam.

He has compared the Qur’an to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kamf, referred to the Prophet Muhammad as “the devil,” and warned of a “tsunami of Islamization” in Europe. His Party for Freedom (PVV) rose to third-place status by capitalizing on economic crisis and social anxiety by scapegoating Muslim immigrants, who he has likened to Nazis.

The shock value has worn off, and support for his political party is waning.

So what’s a hatemonger to do?

Wilders has declared a new enemy: Central and Eastern Europeans.  His far-right Freedom Party has captured headlines by launching a website where visitors can lodge complaints about fellow Europeans working in the Netherlands:

Reporting Central and Eastern Europeans

Since May 1, 2007 there is free movement of workers between the Netherlands and eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. At present the estimates to the number of people from these countries, which resides in the Netherlands, apart from 200,000 to 350,000 people. As one of the few parties, the Freedom Party from the beginning against the opening of the labor market to Poland and other CEE nationals. Given all the problems associated with the massive arrival of especially Poland, is that attitude materialized. Recently, the PVV whatsoever against further opening of the labor market for Romanians and Bulgarians voted.

This massive labor migration leads to many problems, nuisance, pollution, displacement and integration in the labor and housing problems. For many people, these things a serious problem. Complaints are often not reported, because the idea that nothing is done.

Do you have trouble of CEE nationals? Or have you lost your job on a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other Central or Eastern European? We would like to hear. The Freedom Party has a platform on this website to your symptoms to report. These complaints, we will identify and offer the results to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment.

What’s this got to do with Muslims?

The move clearly demonstrates what we’ve always known.  Wilders is an opportunist and a hardcore bigot.

In the current climate, Islamophobia has been normalized to some degree, but the more hatemongers expose their ties to racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism, the more likely they are to  be relegated to the fringe by mainstream society.

Wilders’ antics have already sparked a firestorm of protest, and ambassadors from ten central and east European countries have complained. In response, the European Parliament has scheduled a debate on the topic next month.

Wilders boasted the site already had 40,000 responses and  dismissed the controversy telling reporters:

My reaction to the ambassadors is: Mind your own business. This has nothing to do with your country. We are a sovereign country, we are a democratic political party and we voice the concerns of many Dutchmen.

Opening a new front will undoubtedly dilute Wilders’ campaign to vilify Islam as a “unique threat” to Europe, and may further tarnish the country’s international reputation.  Whether the stunt will ultimately boost his popularity or exhaust Dutch tolerance for his peculiar brand far-right fear mongering remains to be seen.

Athens at this point sounds like Geert Wilders idea of heaven. (hat tip: Elizrael)

by Sara (via. her website: Neocolonialism and its Discontents)

I just got back from a study trip to Athens, Greece, and it was definitely an interesting experience. Although my specialization is gender, the trip ended up being more about migration and race-relations in Greece.

Before we went there, we had no idea that Greece is having a huge immigration problem. Some things we found out while we were there:

–Mosques are not allowed to be built in Athens, which means that there are only informal mosques in basements.
–Over the past few years, right-wing Greek people have trapped Muslims inside these informal mosques and then thrown petrol bombs inside, killing everyone.
–The second day we were there, a Greek man was robbed and then killed by 3 “dark-looking people” who were assumed to be immigrants. Later that night, neo-Nazi TV channels (yes) and blogs called for Greek people to go out and attack and beat immigrants.
–The next day over 17 immigrants ended up in the hospital after being stabbed.
–There was also a clash between the left-wing and the police, who are overwhelmingly right-wing (surprise, surprise).
–There is a huge back-log in terms of applications for legal status as a migrant, and some have to wait up to 20 years. Thus they can be arrested at any time, and they are kept in 2-by-2 cells with no toilets, little food, and no dignity.
–There are reportedly 2 million undocumented migrants in Athens, who are now at risk of being attacked.

While Athens is certainly extreme, these discourses can be found all over Europe now, including the Netherlands. Anti-Islam rhetoric has become so widespread and acceptable, it is no surprise that in some countries, like Greece, it has led to violence.

Some feminists criticize porn because they say it leads to violence against women, since it objectifies and dehumanizes them. The same can be said about discourses on Islam in Europe today. By dehumanizing, stigmatizing, and insulting Muslims, violence is only a few steps away.

And why exactly is Greece allowed to have a neo-Nazi channel if it is a member of the EU? Honestly, the EU needs to stop criticizing other countries when it has members who 1) have neo-Nazi media outlets, and 2) do not allow Muslims to build places of worship.
Uffff.

On a positive note, Greek men are very good-looking!

This is an awesome satirical song brought to us by Lucien Van Rooy that will be the new anthem for those opposing the Euro-supremacism of Geert Wilders and his buddies.

Enjoy! (For some of our sensitive viewers be aware that there are some raunchy pictures)

Translation:

Our Geert

I know exactly how things stand,

Don’t bore me with the facts.

Give me one of those lefty newspapers,

So that I can sh*t on it.

The Dutch broadcasting corporations,

Pretend to be journalists,

They don’t do anything but lie,

Those dirty socialists.

They hate our Geert,

We hate the government,

That is secretly heading

For islamization.

We were born stupid,

Never had any education,

But we don’t give a damn,

We’ll vote for Geert anyway.

The government doesn’t do anything

About all those Moroccans

Who are on the dole

And stealing our jobs.

They also have a god,

But ours is better.

Their women are all ugly,

Ours are much hotter.

They don’t have any respect

For rules and legislation,

But Geert is not at all afraid,

He’ll throw them out of the country.

We were born stupid,

Never had any education,

But we don’t give a damn,

We’ll vote for Geert anyway.

As soon as Geert is Prime Minister,

As he’s told us oftentimes,

He’ll ban the Koran,

Allah and His prophets.

But that’s not all,

Geert is not easily satisfied,

The Imams will have to go

He’ll close down all their mosques.

And if the Muslims

Start protesting

Geert will shoot them through the knee

And we’ll all chant:

We were born stupid,

Never had any education,

But we don’t give a damn,

We’ll vote for Geert anyway.

© Lyrics: Lucien Van Rooy

For more on the exposition of Geert Wilders please visit: Krapuul.nl (Use Google Translator)