Why the European Union will never be loved

It is on the day the Dutch ambassador's wife to Indonesia announces she will no longer serve pork sausages, I discover a blog entirely devoted to the early destruction of the Restoration, that the shameless Anti-Holocaust conference opens in Tehran. Not a good start, so to speak.

But there's no day so bad that there's no good news at all, albeit minor. A Dutch-Moroccan organisation in one go proves quite a bit, namely that,
1. faith has nothing to do with brain-cell count (contrary to what some believe),
2. there are other means of pressing a point than blowing people to smithereens (but most of us knew that already, so no news there) and
3. it pays not to give in to blackmail and threats (ask Geert Wilders: try the search button or the tag list).
In the recent past I already commented that the Iraqis are hugging each other to death; now this Dutch-Moroccan organisation is going to try to do the same with Geert! I don't think it will last long though, as they really hate his guts for taking a stand, contrary to their own!

Contrary to my activist colleague at One Cosmos Blog (this is the last time I am linking to him) I believe in The Truth. You see, I don't place myself in "one camp" which is hence pronounced infallible and devote myself to publicly saying the "other camp" consists entirely of brainless morons who are wrong ... even if what they say is actually true and/or of some value (so much for modern tribal warfare, of which I want no part). What relativists don't get is, that for too long we have let people like them tell us we are the bad guys and should therefore get deconstructed by a philosophical parlor trick. Their logic is also badly flawed: "us" being bad, doesn't make "them" (whoever they are) good, and vice versa. In other words, if we are proud of our culture, it doesn't mean automatically that "theirs" should be confined to the cultural scrap heap!

So, knowing there is such a thing as The Truth I have been pondering a bit about something I have written about the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende (JPB) in relation to a remark he made in the press about his personal relationship with God. Here's the link to that post for easy reference.

The point is the following: France, the country of the The Revolution and laicite (can anybody tell me where those @#!* accent keys are hiding?), is a neutral state: it is faithless, it is secular (about which the Pope today had a few words to say, by the way). I haven't read the now brain-dead draft E.U. Constitution on this point (although we do know that the preamble in respect of Europe's Judaeo-Christian roots, hotly advocated by the late Pope John Paul II, was regretfully rejected by the Europarls), but what it does look like is that the French concept has been given unofficial E.U. policy status.

It is not a minor point we are discussing; it is on the contrary a basic issue of utmost importance, which nobody is asked about, citizen nor member-state is democratically consulted: it just becomes a point of policy, secretly pushed through. Where the members of Parliament are on this point, or what it is exactly that they are doing, is unknown. Because it is debatable if the French concept of the neutral state is the one we need or indeed want for the E.U. as a whole, let alone if it isn't a subsidiary matter (for the individual states).

Why it struck me that JPB was making the comment that he did, was not because in his Calvinist tradition the relationship one has with his God is a personal one, but because this is not per se true for Holland is a whole. The Dutch state guarantees its citizens freedom of faith (among other relevant rights, about which more later in a post dedicated to the separation of Church and State), but is not in itself "neutral". For example the rim of the Guilder bore the text "God zij met Ons" (God be with us). Under the influence of relativism in the guise of multiculturalism this was abolished with the introduction of the ... Euro.

I say the guise of multiculturalism, because this abolition ostensibly took place in order not to upset the Muslim emigrant population (who aren't dominant at all and wouldn't have let this happen in the first place). You see, they call their God Allah, which is of an entirely different concept ... sounds a bit lame and construed, doesn't it? That is perhaps because it is and the whole issue was done under E.U. policy pressure. This would be vintage E.U., typical of its secretive modus operandi. When nobody happens to be watching, or those who should aren't alert enough, a major policy decision is taken en commission and suddenly implemented.

While the Iraq Study Group's Report was officially presented "to the American people", Europeans are treated like mere subjects, if as much! Which is why the E.U. will never be loved.