The Stages of Jihate – Where are your Society Right now…

By Abul Kasem

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Islamists living in the infidel West are greatly alarmed and deeply perplexed after the September terrorist attack in
America.  After 9-11, many of them are doing overtime to search the ‘goodies’ from the Qur’an and are desperate to prove that Islam is a religion of unbound mercy to their host countries.  They repeatedly quote a handful of these ‘goldies‘ from the ‘Meccan Verses’ of the Qur’an, which are milder in tone than the ones descended on
Medina.  They carefully hide the unconscionable, intolerable, barbaric verses that litter the almost entire Qur’an by saying that ‘those verses are out of context’ and are not applicable to the infidels who have given them a chance for a better life and have accepted them as their own countrymen.  Nothing can be worse than this hide and seek game of the Islamists living in the West.  It is in the interest of all the non-Muslims (as well as the innocent Muslims who have very little knowledge about ‘real Islam’) that the truth must be told.

 

The message is very clear.  Those Islamists living in the West quote those ‘goodies’ from the Qur’an are actually showing the dead ‘Meccan Islam‘ to the vast majority of the ignorant non-Muslims (as well as half-informed Muslims) to camouflage the most up to date version of Islam; i.e. the living and breathing ‘
Medina Islam‘.  The strategies of these Islamists are also very clear:

 

·        When in the West or in the land of the infidels or when weak, then practice ‘Meccan Islam’.

·        When in Islamic paradises or when the number of Muslims becomes sizable in an infidels land, then practice ‘
Medina Islam’ or the ‘real Islam’.

 

The sooner the humanity discovers this double face of Islam (a la Roman god Janus) the quicker will it be saved from the further catastrophe of the like of 9-11.

 

So, how do we know about the ‘living and breathing Medina Islam‘?  Here is the answer.

 

In order to understand the ‘real Islam’ we must look at Qur’an in chronological order and not the way it is published. The chronological order shows which verses are canceled and which verses are replaced.  It is meaningless to study and to explain Qur’an without the knowledge of its currency. Many verses in the Qur’an have been replaced by other verses.

 

The Qur’an itself talks about this in the following verses:

 

God does not abrogate any verse but substitutes something similar or better…2:106

God removes (abrogates?) what He wills…13:39

God substitutes one revelation with another; God has the mother of the Book…16:101

 

These verses have created a lot of confusions among many.  However, one thing is certain.  It is this.  God does change His mind and that that change can be very dramatic. In many cases, the matter of abrogation may involve life and death situation.  So, it is extremely important (especially for the ignorant non-Muslims) to know which verses are applicable to them and which verses are not.  The most important among these verses are the ones containing the provisions of fighting the infidels.  There was a time when fighting was prohibited and there was (rather is) a time when fighting became compulsory.

 

Those verses revealed in
Mecca are considered to be the benign and non-violent type.  There are 87 Meccan verse and 27
Medina verses (this may vary slightly but we shall work with these numbers). Thus, there are total 114 suras (or chapters) in Qur’an.

 

Medina verses contain the provisions of fighting because it was in
Medina that Mohammad received the green light (read signal) from God to fight the infidels.  So, as a guide we can conclude that the verses with a chronology order of 87 or more are the replacement for the Meccan verses regarding the treatment of the unbelievers.

 

 In this short discourse, I shall try to elucidate how we can eliminate the confusion regarding the ‘goodies’ from the Islamists and the ‘bashings’ from the secularists/freethinkers/infidels.

 

Please note that the chronology order of the verses are indicated in bold (   ).

 

We can divide the propagation of Islam by Mohammad in four distinct phases. These phases are:

 

1.      Peaceful persuasion

2.      Fighting for defense

3.      Limited attack

4.      Open aggression

 

 

Phase 1: Peaceful persuasion stage.

Highlights

·        A policy of peaceful co-existence with the pagans of
Mecca.

·        Give and take strategy with the pagans and the hypocrites.

·        Jews and Christians (people of the Book) were considered as friends.

·        Mohammad was almost like the Buddha preaching love, forgiveness, non-violence, and peace.

·        Only the pagans of
Mecca were considered as enemies (i.e. enemy list contains only one group).

 

 

Important verses

 

(Note: To save time and space I have given the main messages of the verses omitting the complete verses. Click HERE if you want to read the complete verses)

 

1.      Be patient and bear with those who deny the truth; God will deal with them…73:10, 11 (3)

2.      ‘To you is your religion, to me is mine’…109:1- 6 (8)

3.      Be patient with the evil doers…38:15-17 (38)

4.      Show patience to the pagans…20:130 (42)

5.      Don’t be in a haste to fight…19:83, 84 (44)

6.      Be patient with the unbelievers (pagans); God’s way will prevail…20:134, 135 (45)

7.      Mohammad is not sent to dispose of people’s affairs…17:54 (50)

8.      God guides those whom He pleases; rewards will be in paradise…10:25, 26 (51)

9.      God will call into account the pagans who slander the Qur’an…15:91-93 (54)

10.  It is not God’s job to see if people believe the truth or not…6:104 (55)

11.  Turn away from those rejecting faith and proclaim peace on them…43:88, 89 (69)

12.  Invite the unbelievers (pagans) with beautiful preaching and gracious arguments; be patient and do not retaliate…16:125, 126 (70)

13.  Leave the unbelievers (pagans) alone…23:54 (74)

14.  Repeal evil with good deeds…23:96 (74)

15.  Leave the unbelievers alone and wait in patience for God to punish them…52:45, 47, 48 (76)

16.  Mohammad is only a warner and not an enforcer…67:26 (77)

 

 

Phase 2: Fighting for defense stage

Highlights

·        Mohammed along with his handful followers migrated to
Medina (622 AD). Some tribes of
Medina accepted him as their leader.

·        Mohammed and his gang started raids on passing caravans of the Meccans to acquire the wherewithal for survival.

·        Mohammad won the battle of Badr (same year of migration i.e.622 AD) which bolstered his morale for further raids on Meccan caravans.

·        After several years of stay in
Medina, God gave Mohammad permission to launch defensive war.

·        Enemies were the pagans of
Mecca and the hypocrites (note: the enemy list includes two groups now).

 

Important verses

1.      Permission to fight for self defense is granted…22:39-41 (105)

2.      Rewards for Jihad is announced…22:58 (105)

 

 

Phase 3: More defensively aggressive stage

 

Highlights

·        Mohammad expected the Jews of Medina to accept him as their new Moses.

·        The Jews rejected Mohammad as their new apostle.

·        Mohammad included the Jews as his enemy and started to raid their sanctuaries.

·        Enemies of Mohammad now were pagans, hypocrites, and the Jews (note: the enemy list now contains three).

·        Mohammad was a little bit forgiving to the defeated Jews. He gave them a chance to live in their lands provided they paid him fifty percent of their agricultural produce of land.

·        This way Mohammad acquired the means of a guaranteed livelihood for his horde of soldiers.

·        The battle of Uhud (623 AD) was fought. Muslims suffered a severe beating in the battle.

·        The battle of trench (625 AD) took place with huge loss of lives. Mohammad managed to win this battle.

·        Treaty of Hudaibiya (626 AD) was signed with the pagans of
Mecca ensuring ten years of peace. Mohammad was allowed to visit Kaba along with his followers during the pilgrimage season.

·        Battle of Khaibar (627 AD) took place.  The Jews lost the battle and surrendered unconditionally. Mohmmad ordered the beheading of around 700 adult male surrendered Jews and took 17 years old Jewess Safiya as a war booty and made her his wife.

 

Important verses

1.      Forgive and overlook the unbelieving Jews; God will take care of them…2:109 (87)

2.      Fight defensively the Meccan pagans but if they cease hostility then stop fighting except for the oppressors…2:190-194 (87)

3.      Fighting against the Meccan pagans is prescribed after the passing of the month of pilgrimage (Zulhaj)…2:216, 217 (87)

4.      ‘No compulsion in religion’; do not force the defeated enemy to embrace Islam; but they will be thrown in hell…2:256, 257 (87)

5.      Spoils of war belongs to God and Mohammad…8:1 (88)

6.      Strike terror in the hearts of the unbelievers; cut the necks and finger tips of those who oppose God and Mohammad…8:12, 13 (88)

7.      When you meet, the unbelievers in hostility attack them and never turn back from them.  If you retreat except for a strategic reason then God will punish you and will send you to hell…8:15-16 (88)

8.      Keep on fighting until the persecution stops and Islam is established; one-fifth of booty belongs to God and Mohammad…8:39-41 (88)

9.      Obey Mohammad, be united and persevere in fighting…8:45, 46 (88)

10.  If you defeat the enemy then teach them with treachery and terror; if they ask for peace then give them peace…8:57-61 (88)

11.  Rouse the believers to fight with perseverance, God will help by increasing your strength…8:65 (88)

12.  Continue killing and do not take prisoners until the land is subdued then enjoy the war booty…8:67-69 (88)

13.  Martyr’s sins are blotted out and they go to paradise…3:157, 169-171, 195 (89)

14.  Can take women captives as concubines in addition to wives…33:50 (90)

15.  There is a great reward for fighting against the friends of Satan…4:74-78 (92)

16.  Fight and rouse other believers to fight; God will restrain the fury of the unbelievers…4:84 (92)

17.  Kill the hypocrites if they turn renegades…4:89 (92)

18.  Higher grade for fighting for God…4:95, 96 (92)

19.  Guaranteed reward for fighting in the cause of God…4:100 (92)

20.  Whether a fighter kills or is killed, he is admitted in paradise to reside there permanently…22:58, 59 (103)

21.  Struggle for God’s cause…22:78 (103)

22.  Can’t lag behind in fighting for God…48:15-16 (111)

23.  Muslims are compassionate with each other but are strong to fight against the unbelievers…48:29 (111)

 

 

Phase 4: Offensive war or open declaration of attack to spread Islam

 

This phase is the stage of open offensive war against all the unbelievers. This phase started in 630 AD after Mohammad re-entered
Mecca and captured Kaba from the pagans. This is the phase, which is currently valid for all Muslims.

 

Highlights

·        Permission was granted by God to declare offensive war against all non-Muslims.

·        Kill the pagans and humble the Jews and the Christians through Jizya tax.

·        Tabuk expedition (late 630 AD) is the first war against the Christians.

·        The world is divided into two houses, viz. House of Islam (Darul Islam) and the House of war (Darul Harb).

·        All Muslims must fight to convert the Darul Harb into Darul Islam.

·        This is the final teaching of Qur’an and so it is valid today and for future (that is, for eternity).

·        Christians are included in the list of enemies (that is, the list now grows to four).

·        Verse 9:5 (also called the verse of the sword) replaces all verses showing mercy, love, tolerance and forgiveness to all non-Muslims.

 

Important verses

1.      Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable…3:85 (89)

2.      Kill (execute by beheading)/crucify/torture who opposes Mohammad…5:33 (112)

3.      Do not make friendship with the Jews and the Christians…5:51 (112)

4.      After giving four months notice break all treaties with the pagans that they did not keep; those treaties with the pagans that they kept are to be honored to their full term; in future make no more peace treaties with the pagans and kill all pagans who do not accept Islam…9:1-6 (113)

5.      Pagans who accept Islam are brothers of Muslims; those who break the agreement fight them…9:11, 12, 14, 15 (113)

6.      Do not make friend or seek protection from the unbelievers (includes pagans, hypocrites, Jews and the Christians)…9:16 (113)

7.      Unbelievers should not visit mosques or maintain the mosques of God; they will go to hell…9:17 (113)

8.      Those who do Jihad are the highest in rank; they will dwell in paradise…9:19-22 (113)

9.      The unbelievers are unclean, forbid them to enter Kaba…9:28 (113)

10.  Fight against the Jews and the Christians until they are subdued and pay the Jizya tax with submission; God’s curse is on them…9:29-31 (113)

11.  If you do not fight in the cause of God with whatever you have got then God will punish you with a serious punishment…9:38, 39, 41 (113)

12.  If you fight for God then expect either martyrdom or paradise. The unbelievers can expect only punishment from God…9:52 (113)

13.  Those who are able to fight for God but do not do so are rejected by God…9:90-96 (113)

14.  Whether you slay or slain in Jihad, God has promised paradise for giving all in the cause of God…9:111 (113)

15.  Fight the unbelievers surrounding you…9:122 (113)

 

So, what do we learn from the above list of Quranic verses?  Are you confused?  Of course you are.  When the Islamists in the west are drumming, “Islam is peace. Islam is tolerance.  Islam is merciful” who will not be confused by such contradictory statements!  Let me tell you something.  Actually there is no confusion whatsoever if we follow the simple rule on abrogation.

 

This simple doctrine of abrogation says that when there are confusions (i.e. contradictory statements in Qur’an), the later verses abrogate the former contradictory verses. The result is that only the latest category of verses remains valid without any doubt.  That is why it is so important to know the chronological order of verses in Qur’an.

 

 Let us hear from a modern translator (Yusuf Ali is too old) of the Qur’an and Hadith.

 

“So at first ‘the fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory against those who start ‘the fighting’ against you (Muslims) and against all those who worship others along with Allah”.

 

 (Ref.  Introduction section of the English translation of Sahih Bukhari by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Medina Islamic University).

 

In the same section Dr M. Muhsin Khan writes further

 

, “Then Allah revealed in Sura Bara’at (9) the order to discard (all) the obligations (covenants, etc.) and commanded the Muslims to fight against all the pagans as well as against the people of the scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizya (a tax levied on the Jews and Christians who do not embrace Islam and are under the protection of an Islamic government) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (9:29). So they (Muslims) were not permitted to abandon ‘the fighting’ against them (Pagans, Jews and Christians) and to reconcile with them and to suspend hostilities against them for an unlimited period while they are strong and have the possibility of fighting against them.”

 

Jalaluddin Suyuti wrote Itqan fi ‘ulum-il-Qur’an in 1497 AD. This book is the Tafsir (explanation) of Qur’an and is highly regarded.  It is a compulsory reading for any one who wants to study Qur’an for its ‘real meanings’.  His another famous book is Istenbat al-Tanzeel.  In this book

 

Suyuti wrote,”everything in the Qur’an about forgiveness is abrogated by verse 9:5“.

 

Please read that above quote again if you are really serious about Islam. Remember that this verse has a chronology order of 113 (Remember?  There are 114 suras in Qur’an).

 

Islamic apologists often quote the following verses to portray the mercy and forgiveness in Islam.

 

To you is your religion and to me is mine…109:6

No compulsion in religion…2:256

Turn away from those who join false gods with Allah…15:94

 

Unfortunately, all those ‘goodies’ of Qur’an are canceled if we follow the Tafsir (explanation) of Suyuti and the doctrine of abrogation) regarding the verse of the sword (9:5).

 

Islamists love Ms. Karen Armstrong for her siding with them.  Ms. Karen Armstrong writes to fool the non-Muslims in believing what George Bush is drumming, ‘Islam is a peaceful religion’. Any one who has a workable knowledge on Islamic matters knows for sure that her writings are very misleading and does not tell the truth at all.  When Ms. Karen Armstrong writes by quoting verse 2:190

 

“the only permissible war (in the Qur’an is one of self defense. Muslims must not begin hostilities”, (Time magazine October 1, 2001)

 

she is clearly being dishonest in telling the truth about the phase four of Islamic war which calls all Muslims to declare a total war on the house of Harb (i.e. the infidels abodes). Phase four of Jihad is valid until all the people of the world are converted to Islam. Thus, today’s Muslims are in perpetual war with the infidels whether they (the Muslims) are in an Islamic paradise like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh (recently included, previously not), Iran …or in infidel lands like USA, UK, Canada, France…etc.

 

Here is another quote from Alsaylu Jarar (4:518-519) by Al-Shawkani.  Shawkani is a famous writer on Islamic matters.  His writings are authoritative and are used by the Jihadis to justify their merciless actions.

“Islam is unanimous about fighting the unbelievers and forcing them to Islam or submitting and paying Jizya tax (protection money for the Jews and the Christians only) or being killed. The verse about forgiving them are abrogated unanimously by the obligation of fighting in any case”.

 

Can Ms. Karen Armstrong and other Islamists living in the comfort of non-Muslim freethinking society refute the above assertion by an eminent Alim (Islamic scholar)?

 

Please note that verse 9:5 is a very important verse of Qur’an.  This verse marks the transition from the phase of showing mercy (phase 1) and forgiveness to the unbelievers to the phase of open aggression on them (phase 4). As told before, this verse is known as the verse of the sword.  This verse cancels all the verses containing mercy, tolerance, and forgiveness to the non-Muslims (as many as 111 to 124 verses; you got to scan the entire Qur’an; anything forgiving, merciful, friendship is out).

 

Also, note carefully how the chronology order increases as Mohammad turns from a non-violent (like Buddha) person to a fascist nazi like Hitler/Mussolini/Osama/Ayatollah. In fact, we can safely conclude that Mohammad was a saint before the chronology order of the Qur’an was below 87 but he became a fascist dictator after this.

 

Again note that the chronology order in the final phase of open aggression against all non-Muslims of the world (phase 4) is almost the end (113) chapter (sura) of Qur’an (Remember? There are 114 suras in Qur’an).

 

Is lying allowed in Islam?  I must be a nut to ask such a question!  Of course, not, you say.  Lying is a great sin in Islam; at least the Islamists will let us believe this.  This is a complete delusion.  Muslims are allowed to tell lies in order to make the religion of Islam rule the world. Would you not believe me?  See for yourself what Imam Ghazali (another supreme Islamic scholar) says:

 

“Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praise worthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it. When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible “ (Ref: Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri, The Reliance of the Traveller, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller , Amana publications, 1997, section r8.2, page 745).

 

And what could be the noblest goal of a Muslim than to make Islam rule world? This is the secret why the Islamists constantly lie about their religion when they are in West.  Because, if they tell the truth, no one will be attracted to Islam.

 

Islamists often attack the secularists and freethinkers whenever they (secularists/freethinkers) quote the offensive verses of the Qur’an by ‘out of context’ arguments.

 

What could be more clear and forceful evidences / proofs than what has been told above that ‘out of context’ argument by the Islamic apologists is a total hoax?

————————–

*A double-faced head represented Janus, a Roman god.  

Kasem writes from
Sydney, Australia.  Comments could be made by writing to –  abul88@hotmail.com

 

 

Note: The author relied on the English Translation of Qur’an by A. Yusufali and the English Translation of Sahih Bukhari by Dr. M. Muhsin Khan.  All references given are believed to be correct.  However, the author is not responsible for any misconception that a reader may have due to his consultation of other sources.

 

Jihate in Sweden

Earlier this month immigrant youths in Gothenburg staged “Ramadan riots“, a celebration of vandalism and violence which has become an annual ritual in some of the larger cities of Western Europe. The “youths” get to burn cars, break windows, and loot, and the European press, in full PC denial, gets to ignore them.

More on:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/10/news-from-gothenburg.html

Sweden’s blind eye and Kofi’s bald-faced lie

The New York Sun reported yesterday on the developing scandal in Sweden over that nation’s knowledge of the bribes being paid in the UN Oil-for Food scandal.

The Swedish government knew in 2000 that Saddam Hussein’s government demanded kickbacks from companies participating in the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, officials and news reports said Tuesday.

An unidentified Swedish company informed the country’s embassy in Amman, Jordan, in 2000 that Iraq was demanding 10 percent “fees” on all deals as a way to circumvent U.N. sanctions on Saddam’s regime, according to a Swedish Foreign Ministry document published on the Web site of Swedish Radio.

The document was sent from the embassy in Amman to the Foreign Ministry and Swedish delegation at the United Nations in December 2000, Swedish Radio said.

The document stated clearly that the extra fees violated U.N. sanctions. But it was “clear that an open Swedish engagement in this issue would negatively affect other Swedish business opportunities” in Iraq, it said. [emphasis added]

This is startlingly reminiscent of Swedish behavior in World War II, turning a blind eye to Nazi atrocities, and profiting handsomely from the sale of raw materials and armaments.

Ed Morrisey of Captain’s Qaurters picked up on the implication: that Kofi Annan has been caught in a bald-faced lie.

Turtle Bay has long claimed ignorance of the problem until the 2003 invasion of Iraq produced reams of evidence of kickbacks and payoffs. Kofi Annan claimed that the UN didn’t audit the OFF program thoroughly enough and never had any awareness of the vast monies being kicked back to Saddam Hussein. This announcement by Sweden makes clear that the UN had both knowledge and evidence of the corruption and a pretty good idea of its scope, but declined to enforce its own sanctions against the dictator.

Ed Lasky 7 26 06

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=5656

Muslim pundits clash over future of Islam in Europe

By John Lloyd in Engelsberg, Sweden

Published: June 17 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 17 2006 03:00

Two of the leaders of European Muslim opinion clashed dramatically yesterday on the position and future of the Muslim communities in European states.

Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born intellectual and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian-born Dutch MP who was stripped of her Dutch citizenship over allegations of a falsified application for citizenship, displayed in personal form the bitterness of a debate which both agreed convulses their co-religionists.

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Ms Hirsi Ali, who has taken an atheist position and lives under secret service protection becauseof threats to her life, toldthe annual conference organised by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation that leadersof Muslim opinion "mustdiscriminate between Islam as it is and Islam as itcould be" – and said thatMr Ramadan, whom she described as a "handsome and articulate leader ofopinion", had failed to do so.

"You must start from Islam as it is today. The great number of Muslims believe that the Koran is the absolute word of God; few believe it is a historic document. The number of people who believe the Prophet literally are much more numerous than those who see him as a historical figure.

"Why are large groups of Muslims leaving their countries? Nearly all Muslim countries are tyrannies, authoritarian, or failed states. Islamic states are in a terrible crisis. There is a lack of freedom; a lack of knowledge; and there is a subjugation of women. No wonder people leave," she said.

She agreed with previous speakers from Britain and Denmark that there was an over-representation of young Muslim men in prison, and that there was "a micro-climate of fear for women".

Mr Ramadan said it was wrong to suggest that Muslims were in Europe to proselytise, and wrong to say that Europe had a Judaeo-Christian past.

"Islam is a European religion. The Muslims came here after the first and second world wars to rebuild Europe, not to colonise. It is a mistake to deny complexity. When we speak about Islam we speak about terrorism; you are focusing on the few who are destroying and not the millions who are building. Muslims are in great majority law-abiding," he said.

He argued against some who said that there would be a clash between native Europeans and European Muslims and that no integration was now possible. "Integration is done: you can't go back. Social problems can't be Islamised," he said.

In a direct and sometimes heated argument, Mr Ramadan said: "My problem with you [Hirsi Ali] is that you are saying it is a problem with Muslims. Are you working to change a mentality – or to please the western audience?"

Ms Hirsi Ali said Mr Ramadan was guilty of ambiguity, and that if he believed in reconciliation, he should found a "Ramadanist" movement and fight for it.

Via:http://dansk-svensk.blogspot.com/

How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden

by Per Bylund

[Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006]
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Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago.

My late grandmother used to say something had gone wrong with the world. She was proud to never have asked for help, to have always been able to rely on herself and her husband, proud that they could throughout their lives care for their family. I'm happy that when she passed away at the respectable age of 85, she did so with that dignity still intact. She was never a burden.

My grandmother, born in 1920, was of the last generation to have that special personal pride, of having a firm and deeply rooted morality, of being a sovereign in life no matter what — to be the sole master of one's fate. The people of her generation experienced and endured one or two world wars (though Sweden never took part) and were raised by poor Swedish farmers and industrial workers. They witnessed and were the driving force behind the Swedish "wonder."

Their morality assured they could survive any condition. If they found themselves not being able to live off their wages, they would only work harder and longer. They were the architects and construction workers in building their own lives, even though it often meant hard work and enduring seemingly hopeless situations.

They would gladly offer to help those in need even if they only had little, but were not likely to accept anyone's help if offered. They felt pride in being competent to take care of themselves; they cherished independence of others, of never having to ask for help. They figured, if they couldn't make it themselves, they had no right to ask for help.

Yet somehow they fell for the promises of politicians to supply for "the weak," a category of people non-existent back then: Who would admit they were unable to take care of themselves? They were good-hearted, hard-working people and probably thought a small contribution to supply for those much worse off would be a Good Samaritan-style deed.

Theoretically, it is perhaps understandable and even enviable. They and their parents were already voluntarily partaking in local private networks arranging financial support for those in need of health care or who had just lost their jobs. In bad times such as recessions or rapid social change this was a burden, however voluntary and in their own interest. A large-scale version of the same kind of mutual help arrangements probably sounded like a good idea, even though it was to be financed coercively through taxation.

The problem is that the welfare state was created and it would dramatically change people's lives and affect their morality in a fundamental way. The welfare state might have been a successful project if people had continued to have the pride and morality to supply for themselves and only seek support if really in need. That is, adding a welfare state could possibly work in a ceteris paribus world, which is what the welfare state really presumes. But the world is ever-changing, and the welfare state therefore requires people to be stronger and morally superior to people in societies lacking a welfare state.

This knowledge, however, was not yet acquired — and still isn't. Instead, they took the state of things, such as their personal pride in work and family, as natural; from that perspective it must have looked like a good deal. All they had to do, they were told, was leave the politics (and a little power) to the politicians. This argument, I'm sorry to report, still seems valid to the Swedish populace; Swedes generally welcome proposals to hand over more power to politicians and they even tend to ask for higher taxes.

Decent morality is long gone. It was completely destroyed in little more than two generations — through public welfare benefits and the concept of welfare rights.

The Children of the Welfare State

The children of my grandparents' generation, my parents among them, quickly learned and embraced a new morality based on the welfare "rights" offered by the social security system. While the older generation would not accept dependence on others (including state welfare benefits) they did not object to sending the younger generation to public schools to get educated. I am certain they never thought in terms of having a "right" to have their children educated. Rather, they accepted and appreciated the opportunity for their children to have a chance they themselves had never had — through "free" education.

So my parents' generation went to public schools where they were taught mathematics and languages as well as the superiority of welfare and the morality of the state. They learned the workings of the machinery of the welfare state and gained a totally new (mis)conception of rights: all citizens enjoy a right — only through being citizens — to education, health care, unemployment, and social security.

Being an individual, they were taught, means having a right to support for your individual needs. Everybody has a right to all the resources necessary to pursue one's own and society's happiness, they were told. And everybody should enjoy the right to put their children in state daycare centers while working, making it possible for every family to earn two salaries (but not enough time to raise their children). The opportunities for "the good life," at least financially, must have seemed enormous to the older generations.

This new morality permeated the populace and became the "natural" state of things, at least in their minds. This generation, born during the two or three decades following World War II, became considerably different from their parents' generation morally and philosophically. They got used to the enormous post-war economic growth (thanks to Sweden never entering the war) and the ever-increasing welfare rights of the rapidly growing state. (To sustain the growth of the welfare state and satisfy the popular demand for benefits, the Swedish government devaluated the currency a number of times during the 1970s and 1980s.)

The effects upon society of this generation growing up and entering the labor market were principally two: increased public pressure for more progressive politics; and large-scale, society-wide failure to raise independent and moral children able to be their own masters in life.

At this time, the moral and philosophical change in society became apparent. While in the early 20th century the Social Democrats, a hegemonic power in Swedish politics throughout that century (and beyond), had demanded tax cuts to liberate workers from unnecessary burden, it now swiftly changed into a tax-raising, welfare-embracing party calling for more "liberating" social reform. The voting masses, children of the welfare state dependent on its system of logic, supported the tax hikes, which quickly climbed to 50% and higher. And they demanded social benefits at taxpayers' expense to cover for and exceed these higher taxes.

The political change as the children of the welfare state grew up and started taking part in politics was massive. The rather communist student revolts of 1968 were probably the peak of this radical generation demanding more for themselves through state redistribution; they claimed no personal responsibility for their lives, nor ever thought of having to pitch in themselves. "I'm in need," they argued, and from that claim they directly inferred a right to satisfy that need — be it food, shelter, or a new car.

Whereas my parents mysteriously seem to have inherited much of the "older" form of morality, most people of their age, and especially those younger, are paradigmatically different from their parents' generation. They are children of the welfare state and are fully aware of the social security benefits to which they have a "right." They don't reflect on where these benefits come from, but are skeptical towards politicians whom they believe might take them away. "Change" quickly became a bad word, since it necessarily implies a change to the system on which people are parasitically dependent.

With this generation, the formerly held truth that production precedes consumption is replaced by a belief in having an inviolate and natural "human right" to welfare services supplied by the state. Through the powerful labor unions, wage-earning Swedes were awarded raises every year regardless of real productivity, and in time annual raises of salaries became normality. People who didn't get a raise started considering themselves "punished" by their evil employer, and there were increasing demands for legal help in the struggle against employers. One has a "right" to a better salary next year just as the current salary must be better than last year's; so the thinking goes.

This change in perception was, as we have seen, preceded by a change in values. The societal change also changed the conditions for philosophy, and new strange and destructive theories emerged. The children of this generation, born in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s commonly had a "free" upbringing (based on the ideals of 1968), essentially meaning a childhood "free from rules" and "free of responsibility." For this generation there is no causality whatsoever in social life; whatever you do is not your responsibility — even having children. These are the current younger adults in Swedish society.

The Grandchildren of the Welfare State

I am myself part of this second generation of people raised with and by the welfare state. A significant difference between my generation and the preceding one is that most of us were not raised by our parents at all. We were raised by the authorities in state daycare centers from the time of infancy; then pushed on to public schools, public high schools, and public universities; and later to employment in the public sector and more education via the powerful labor unions and their educational associations. The state is ever-present and is to many the only means of survival — and its welfare benefits the only possible way to gain independence.

The difference to the older generations is obvious. My grandparents lived in a totally different world philosophically and morally, and my parents still wear remnants of their parents' "old" sense of justice and their perception of right and wrong. While my generations' parents are only "partly tainted" (which is bad enough), my generation is totally screwed up. Not having grown up with the sound values of our grandparents, but instead with those propagandized by the nanny state, the grandchildren of the welfare state have no understanding whatsoever of economics.

A common perception of justice among the "grandchildren" is that individuals have an everlasting claim on society to supply one with whatever one finds necessary (or enjoyable). In a recently televised discussion on state television, the children and grandchildren of the welfare state met to discuss unemployment and the common problems facing young people growing up and entering the labor market. The demand of the "grandchildren" was literally that the "old people" (born in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s) should step aside (i.e., stop working) because their working "steals" jobs from the young!

The "welfare logic" vindicating such preposterous demands goes something like this. The premise is that every individual has a right to a good life. It can be concluded that a good life is made through not having to worry about material wealth, and thus having welfare benefits and gaining financial "independence" is essential. Financial independence, in turn, requires a high-status, high-salary, and not-too-demanding job; a good job is thus an inferred human right. The people who currently have the jobs literally occupy the positions and are therefore in the way — each and every one of them violates my right to that job. This makes anyone who has a good job a rights-violator and therefore criminal.

We all know what to think of criminals: they should be locked up. Such a sentence is also what a still very limited but rapidly growing number of young people in Sweden demand — for owners of businesses who do not wish to hire them, or for older people occupying positions they themselves desire. There is a "need" for more progressive law-making.

But this is not an idea supported only by ignorant youth. On May 14, the national trade workers' union demanded the state "redistribute" jobs through offering people in their 60s state pensions if they step down and their employers employ young, unemployed people in their stead. In the labor union's calculations, such a stunt would "create" 55,000 jobs.

What this shows is that the only perceivable way of finding jobs for the young seems to be to "relieve" older people of theirs; job positions are scarce and unemployment is increasing even as demand for goods and services is going up – thanks to heavy state regulation in the marketplace. The welfare state creates problems and conflicts on many levels, forcing people to compete for shares of continuously decreasing wealth. The solution: more regulation and even less prosperity. This is what happens when need and want replaces merit and experience in both public and personal morality.

Demanding Social Responsibility

This degenerated morality and lack of understanding for the real and natural order of things is also evident in areas requiring personal responsibility and respect for fellow men and women. The elderly are now treated as ballast rather than human beings and relatives. The younger generations feel they have a "right" to not take responsibility for their parents and grandparents, and therefore demand the state relieve them of this burden.

Consequently, most elderly in Sweden either live depressed and alone in their homes, waiting for death to come their way, or they have been institutionalized in public elderly collective living facilities with 24/7 surveillance so as to alleviate the burden on the younger working generations. Some of them get to see their grandchildren and relatives only for an hour or two at Christmas, when the families make an effort to visit their "problems."

But the elderly aren't the only one's finding themselves in the periphery of welfare society while the state is looking after its working population. The same goes for the youngest who are also delivered to the state for public care rather than being brought up and educated by their parents.

My mother, a middle school teacher, has had to face her pupils' parents demanding she do "something" about their stressful family situation. They demand "society" take responsibility for their children's upbringing since they have already spent "too many years" caring for them. ("Caring" usually means dropping them off at the public daycare center at 7 am and picking them up again at 6 pm.)

They loudly stress their "right" to be relieved from this burden. The problems caused at home by disobedient, out-of-control children are to be solved in the classrooms by school personnel and at daycare centers by kindergarten staff. Children should be seen but not heard, and they should absolutely not intrude on their parents' right to a career, long holidays abroad, and attending social events.

In order to have the adult generation working and creating wealth that can be taxed (current tax rates for low income earners are at approximately 65% of earnings), the Swedish welfare state continuously launches progressive programs to protect them from incidents and problems. Welfarist freedom is a trouble-free, responsibility-free, and benefits-rich existence created by the welfare state.

What we are now seeing in Sweden is the perfectly logical consequence of the welfare state: when handing out benefits and thereby taking away the individual's responsibility for his or her own life, a new kind of individual is created — the immature, irresponsible, and dependent. In effect, what the welfare state has created is a population of psychological and moral children — just as parents who never let their children face problems, take responsibility, and come up with solutions themselves, make their offspring needy, spoiled, and utterly demanding.

The spoiled-children analogy is proving true in the everyday lives of people working in the public sector, facing the populations' demands. I've learned it is not uncommon for young parents to reprimand teachers because homework is an "unnecessary" pressure on the young. The children have a right to knowledge, but apparently they should not be exposed to education since it requires study and effort. The role of teachers is obviously to supply children with knowledge they can consume without having to reflect on it or think about it (or even study). Having to do something yourself is "oppressive." A "must," even if an effect of the laws of nature, is utterly unfair and a violation to one's right to a trouble-free life. Nature itself, along with its laws, becomes a "burden."

Dependence Economics

Perhaps this mentality explains the increasing popularity of anti-reality theories such as skepticism and post-modernism, where nothing can be taken for granted. Logic, it is claimed, is only a social construction which has no relation whatsoever with reality or the world (if it exists at all). These theories are magnificent in that they can never be proved — or disproved. Whatever you say, you never need to take responsibility for your statement — no one can verify your thesis, no one can criticize it, or even use it. It is yours and exists only for you — and it is true only for you.

The uselessness of such a theory should be obvious. It should also be obvious that these theories' proponents take certain things, such as existence, for granted — they never live their lives based only on doubt and the "knowledge" that there is nothing one can know, that nothing is what it seems. But that, it seems, must be the beauty of it.

In a way, the Austrian premise that "values are subjective" has been taken too literally. In these "modern" theories, subjectivity is the principle underlying reality, not the way reality is assessed or perceived. This "understanding" is inferred directly from the relative morality and relative logic of the welfare state's children and grandchildren. There is no need for someone to produce in order for another to consume — and there is not necessarily a burden on someone else to supply the benefits I need in order to live the "good" life. After all, living a good life is a human right; the right being the only fixed point in an ever-changing and subjectively founded universe.

From the perspective of a bystander (as I consider myself) this madness all makes sense — teaching people they do not need to worry about the consequences of their actions makes willingly dependent subjects. The welfare state has created the egotistical monsters it claims to save us from — through handing out privileges and benefits to everybody at "nobody's" expense.

The social engineers of the welfare state obviously never considered a possible change in morality and perception — they simply wanted a system guaranteeing security for everybody; a system where the able could and should work to support themselves, but where the unable too could live dignified lives. Who would have thought the progressive reforms to secure workers' rights and prosperity for all in the early 20th century would backfire philosophically and morally?

It should be obvious that nothing came to be as expected — society simply wasn't as predictable as was predicted.

It can't work. $25

This new morality is the obvious opposite of that of my grandparents' generation. It is a morality claiming independence can only be achieved through handing over responsibility to others, and that freedom can only be attained through enslaving others (and oneself). The result of this degenerated morality on a social or societal level is a disaster economically, socially, psychologically, and philosophically.

But this is also a personal tragedy for many thousands of Swedes. People seem unable to enjoy life without responsibility for one's actions and choices, and it is impossible to feel pride and independence without having the means to control one's life. The welfare state has created a dependent people utterly incapable of finding value in life; instead, they find themselves incapable of typical human feelings such as pride, honor, and empathy. These feelings, along with the means to create meaning to life, have been taken over by the welfare state.

Perhaps this explains why such a large part of the young population now consumes antidepressant medication, without which they are unable to function normally in social situations. And presumably it explains why the number of suicides among very young people who never really knew their parents is increasing dramatically (the total number of suicides remaining about the same). Still people are totally unable to see the problem or find a solution. Like spoiled children, they call for "help" through the state.

This, my grandmother could never understand. May she rest in peace.

---

Per Bylund works as a business consultant in Sweden, in preparation for PhD studies. He is the founder of Anarchism.net. Send him mail. Visit his website. Comment on the blog.

The Elites War on its Populace: Is Swedish Democracy Collapsing?

http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/Fjordman50506.htm

Read it all.

News from Swedanastan

 http://support.adl.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Connections_05_06_2&JServSessionIdr012=2thge2nt41.app8b

Sweden helped many Jews escape the Holocaust during World War II through heroic and risky efforts. It offered asylum for almost 9,000 victims from Norway and Denmark alone.

After the war, many Holocaust survivors were brought to Sweden for medical care and rehabilitation. By the 1950’s Sweden had accepted hundreds of Jews from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland who were victims of Communist-led witch hunts. Soon, a law was passed prohibiting the incitement against ethnic groups. Today, anyone wearing Nazi symbols or producing White power music could do jail time.

However, Muslim extremists who have filtered into Swedish society in the past few decades are unaffected by the country’s hate crime law. The hate website Radio Islam continuously spews anti-Semitic commentary without consequence. The site divulges names of Jews (authentic or bogus) and fosters anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Swedish authorities demonstrated the utmost hypocrisy when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shut down a website by the radical right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats, because it had posted one of the controversial Muhammad cartoons. Meanwhile, Radio Islam was free to continue its vitriolic rampage.

A mosque in Stockholm was recently under investigation after cassette tapes were sold in its bookshop containing anti-Semitic lectures that were “strongly degrading to Jews,” according to Chancellor of Justice L. Goran Lambertz. He mentioned that the speaker called for a Jihad to kill Jews by suicide bombers and that the lecturer refers to Jews as “brothers of apes and pigs.” He eventually dropped the investigation because this hate speech against Jews could be considered to originate from the Middle East conflict. Therefore, it is acceptable to call for the massacre of Jews as long as the Palestinian conflict is mentioned.

Further surrendering to Islamic wishes, Sweden cancelled its participation in international air force exercises to take place in Italy this month to protest the involvement of the Israeli Air Force in the drills. This announcement arrived just one day after Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Swedish Jews live in constant fear and Jewish communities spend roughly 25 percent of their budgets on security.

Hate crime in Sweden pales in comparison to other European nations. But the growing tension is a ticking time bomb that needs to be defused immediately. ADL’s reports on global anti-Semitism is available through our website.

Perpetual Ethnic and Cultural Cleansing Comes to Swedanastan

Three men 'planned terror attack

on church'

Three men have been charged with planning a terror attack against preacher Ulf Ekman's Word of Life (Livets Ord) evangelical church in Uppsala. The case is the first ever prosecution for terrorist offences planned to take place on Swedish soil, and only the second case ever under Swedish terror laws.

The alleged plot was unveiled during the investigation into last year's failed firebomb attack against an Iraqi polling place in Stockholm. Police found references to plans to attack the church in a computer belonging to a 22-year old man of Iranian origin referred to as Mehdi.

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3709&date=20060503

While Europe Slept

 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=22284While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
By Bruce Bawer
(Doubleday, $23.95, 247 pp.)

Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too
By Claire Berlinski
(Crown Forum, $25.95, 271 pp.)

In some of the most decadent liberal areas of
Western Europe, where tolerance is considered the greatest (and often, alas, the only) virtue, non-Muslim women wear a hijab when they go out to avoid harassment by aggressive young Muslim men. In the suburbs of major cities of Old Europe that have large and expanding Muslim populations, such as Amsterdam and Paris, honor killings, forced marriages and spousal abuse are on the rise.

Such trends are at least a decade old. But for the European media and political elites, the symbol of dangerous cultural changes is not a crescent but Golden Arches. That's right — McDonald's, although anything else that's quintessentially American will do. In
Europe's supremely politically correct climate, Christianity has all but disappeared, but it is still fashionable to bash practitioners, particularly fundamentalists. On the other hand, it is considered racist and culturally oppressive to negatively talk about anything that is even peripherally related toMuslim immigration. Some countries, including the
Netherlands and
Norway, are even passing laws to restrict such speech. 

Interestingly, two writers from vastly different backgrounds – Bruce Bawer, a conservative homosexual who moved to Europe to escape what he considered the stifling influence of fundamentalist Christianity in America, and Claire Berlinski, a secular Jewish female academic – come to the same conclusion in their strikingly similar books about Europe's decadence and failure to stand up for its historical culture. In the introduction to The Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too, Berlinski baldly asserts that even though she is "a secular Jew who is delighted never to have faced The Inquisition," she believes the primary reason for Europe's "hopelessness and the void" is "the death of Christianity" on the western half of the continent. This, she states, is why
Europe has been susceptible to the dark appeals of everything from fascism and communism to anarchism and radical Islam in recent decades. This loss of faith, accelerated by World War I, was also one of the factors that made the slaughter of World War II possible, she writes. 

That Bawer comes to essentially the same conclusion is even more startling, and his path to writing While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, is nearly as interesting as his reporting.

 Bawer had spent a decade decrying what he saw as the dominance of Christian fundamentalism in public discourse and wrote two books on the subject. He eventually moved to
Amsterdam to "marry" his Norwegian partner. Soon, however, Bawer found out that the famed Dutch "tolerance" (which Berlinski cleverly labels "Self-Extinguishing Tolerance") really means they tolerate anything — including radical Islamism — except Americans and capitalism. In fact, Dutch toleration includes the funding of radical mosques, forcing citizens to accept Islamic customs and condemning anyone who objects to the huge numbers of immigrants or dares to mention the Muslims' own intolerances. As Bawer points out dryly, there is no comparison between Jerry Falwell "not wanting me to marry" and the fastest-growing – though increasingly politically favored – part of the population of a continent that thinks he should suffer death by stoning. 

Bawer's experiences reminded me of Keith Richburg, a black American reporter who thought that when he was assigned to
Africa it would be a spiritual reawakening of his roots but returned to write Out of America after finding out that he was not a hyphenated American after all. Richburg decided he was glad to be an American – no matter how it came to be. Similarly, jazz great Wynton Marsallis tells black jazz musicians that if they think there is a better place to be a person of any color than
America, they haven't been out much. 

Bawer and Berlinski's books have a similarly personal writing style. Each is not merely an observer or a chronicler, but a participant who voices not only opinions but also feelings and experiences. Despite the fact that the books are stylistically and philosophically akin to one another, however, the authors attack the subject matter in very different ways. 

While Berlinski travels the continent and writes in almost free form about things that interest her, Bawer takes a systematic look at Old Europe and radical Islam, breaking his book into three main sections: 1, "Before 9-11:
Europe in Denial," 2, "9-11 and After: Blaming Americans and Jews, and 3, "
Europe's Weimar Moment: Liberal Resistance and Its Prospects." Of the two books, Bawer's is by far the most complete.

 Bawer's subtitle may summarize what readers can expect from the book, but his thesis actually goes deeper. In many ways, Old Europe is already culturally destroyed. After the trauma of two world wars,
Western Europe decided that its culture is not worth saving, Bawer writes. Anti-Americanism is not a philosophy that fills the void. Islam fills the vacuum more completely.  

The ways in which family unification rights are exploited in much of the European Union to bring whole clans of people from Muslim countries are detailed by Bawer, who also points out that the authorities, by allowing such a rule even in case of forced marriage, are in the name of "toleration" participating in the enslavement of another generation of Muslim women. Berlinski, on the other hand, is less concerned about how the Continent's crisis came to be and far more interested in the cultural results. Readers of White Teeth, Zadie Smith's bestseller about life and love among immigrants in London, will be fascinated by the way in which Berlinsky compares the frothy novel to the darker truth of the characters it was based on (one of whom she was in love with). But the reaction of the uninitiated may be, "That's interesting, but is it really worth 50 pages?" 

Similarly, Berlinski's point that anti-globalist activist Jose Bove is merely the latest in a long line of nihilistic anarchist cult figures who have enthralled large crowds of Europeans going back to a mad hermit who appeared in 560 A.D. is a provocative one, but she stretches her analogy over 36 pages and falls a little too in love with her thesis. 

However, her examination of why the French

port of
Marseille works and how the police department and city administration have avoided the unrest and segregation that have plagued Paris and much of the rest of Old
Europe is brilliant reporting and should be required reading for mayors and police chiefs throughout
Europe.  

Similarly, Berlinsky does a remarkable job of getting young people to open up to her about the secret negative reaction among white European youth to overwhelming Muslim immigration, and a music culture, particularly in Germany, that contains an all too familiar mix of nationalism and socialism. 

There are certainly warnings for
America in these books, but their net effect is to make one grateful that we have problems that are less poisonous than those that plague
Europe. Illegals primarily from
Mexico may not speak English but at least they speak the same cultural language that we do.  Not so with the Muslims of
Europe.  And as Bawer points out, there are important differences between the Muslims who immigrate to
America and those who immigrate to
Europe. Because of proximity and right to enter laws, he says,
Europe tends to get the type of immigrant who can't afford to come to
America, while Muslims who enter the
U.S. tend to be technologically astute and far more able to cope with modernity. 

Furthermore,
America's dynamic social structure is far more likely to encourage assimilation despite group attempts to discourage it and a group rights mentality among the left that rewards segregation. Despite all this, as Bawer points out, immigrants to the
U.S. are encouraged to think of themselves as Americans, while few in the
Netherlands or
France would blanch at the idea of calling their recently arrived neighbors from North Africa Dutchmen or Frenchmen–even after several generations. 

After painting a dark picture of inexorable cultural change and decay, and surrender in the face of the Madrid bombings – not to mention the assassination andextreme marginalization of public figures who dare to speak out such as Pim Fortuyn, Theo Van Gogh, and Oriana Fallici – both authors plead with Americans not to say, as Berlinsky puts it, "To Hell with Europe." The authors point to small indications that there may be a silent majority in
Europe who can be appealed to – Fortuyn, after all, probably would have been the Prime Minister of the Netherlands had he not been shot – but Bawer also shows the rigid class structures in Europe and the stranglehold the elites have on government. 

In the end, both authors say the stakes are too high for Americans to say that
Europe deserves whatever it gets and just let it happen. However, attempts to find rays of hope are the most tentative and least convincing pages in both books.

 

Swedanastan: An open letter to all Swedish political parties that are participating in this years election.

Summarizing links for the European disgrace called Sweden. Please mark the day 1st May 2006.

http://www.divine-salamis.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1447

The text of islamic demands to the political participating in the upcoming Swedish elections.

 http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2006/04/sweden_is_sick_.html

 http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1039

Background.