[lit-ideas] Looking for Moderates in Belgium

As Steyn moves from France to Belgium, I think I'll follow and perchance
encounter a moderate or two:

 

"In June 2006, a fifty-four-year-old Flemish train conductor called Guido
Demoor got on the number 23 bus in Antwerp to go to work.  Six - what's the
word again? - 'youths' boarded the bus and commenced intimidating the other
riders.  There were some forty passengers aboard.  But the 'youths' were
youthful and the other passengers less so.  Nonetheless, Mr. Demoor asked
the lads to cut it out and so they turned on him, thumping and kicking him.
Of those forty other passengers, none intervened to help the man under
attack.  Instead, at the next stop, thirty of the forty scrammed, leaving,
Mr. Demoor to be beaten to death.  Three 'youths' were arrested, and proved
to be - quelle surprise! - of Moroccan origin.  The ringleader escaped, and
despite police assurances of complete confidentiality, of those forty
passengers only four came forward to speak to investigators.  'You see what
happens if you intervene,' a fellow rail worker told the Belgian newspaper
De Morgen.  'If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive.'

 

"No, he wouldn't. He would be as dead as those forty passengers are, as the
Belgian state is, keeping his head down, trying not to make eye contact,
cowering behind his newspaper in the corner seat and hoping to just be left
alone.  What future in 'their' country do Mr. Demoor's two children have? .
. ."

 

"Of the ethnic Belgian population, some 17 percent are under eighteen years
old.  Of the country's Turkish and Moroccan population, 35 percent are under
eighteen years old.  The 'youths' get ever more numerous, the non-youths get
older.  To avoid the ruthless arithmetic  . . .  it is necessary for those
'youths' to feel more Belgian.  Is that likely?  Colonel Gaddafi doesn't
think so: 'There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -
without swords, without guns, without conquests.  The fifty million Muslims
of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

 

 

Well, fine, but will there be any Moderates in that Muslim continent?
Colonel Gaddafi apparently doesn't say.

 

Lawrence

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