Hey, Phos: why don't you go and get yourself a kebab or something, just for your own mental wellbeing, eh?

Wolli, it is extremely sad that in this day and age some people face these "humiliations"...you call them humilliation I call them harassment and plain stupid, evil mockery.
Yet, neither you nor other people in this situation blown people or buildings into pieces.
Most marginalised, unwanted, stigmatised, destitute people choose to wear their cross in dignity.

I prefer schawarma. But did I say something wrong?

An old jewish friend, an Auschwitz survivor, tell me they use to sew jewels into the hemming of their clothing, in case they have to take flight. A survival skill passed down through generation. They prepare to go at a moment's notice.

'Every single French Jew I know has left Paris'

So I wonder how the Parisians would feel if the 20th and 19th arrondisement demanded to be recognized as a state with its own military. I wonder how this event shifts perspective in regards tthe Israel/Palestine question.

Hmmmm.
Valid point.
But how many more thousands have to be slaughtered before the major players address this issue publically.
There are, reputedly, thousands of European Jihadists engaged in the butchery in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Maybe we should instigate an official campaign to recruit like-minded individuals and ensure they never return?
They will eventually slope back with their hearts burning bright with hatred.
Thanks to morons Bush and TB liar.

As the press and police are unfolding the story (in french) of the porte de Vincennes attack, there appears what I call the humble and discrete hero that makes us keep hope in humankind.
This time his name is Lassana Bathily a muslim malian employee of the kosher supermarket. He kept about 15 hostages (including a 2y old kid) hidden in the supermarkets fridge in the basement. He pushed the hostages in the fridge, turned it off and switched off the light. He told them to keep quiet as he is going upstairs. The phones of the hostages were used by police to communicate and locate them....and they knew they were safe in the basement. One of the hostage joked with Lassana and told him it was cold down there but that he is going to open some expensive wine bottles spotted there.

__________________
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They tried to bury us, they did not know that we are seeds (Mexican proverb)

The West needs to do its utmost to protect itself. This means draconian security measures. But all of this is only in the management of symptoms, and none of it will really address the core of the issue. The core of the issue is the hearts and minds of Muslims in the Islamic world. Only they can solve this for themselves.

As long as the west has a huge amount of people going there to fight, it will be the west'a problem. Fix the west and they won't go fight the jihad.

Amazing how many bad situations have a nugget of hope and gold in them.

They will fight their Jihad, but less against the West. They will be fighting amongst each other.

I do agree it would be better to step back than to engage militarily. But if there is a security threat against the West, it is perfectly legitimate to go in and take it out. I think this is what Obama is trying to do now.

Funny you should say that.

It's strange. We didn't need "draconian security measures" to deal with the much more effective IRA, ETA, RAF and so on. But now we have a - largely - rather useless group of terrorists of a different stripe, and all of a sudden we need "draconian security measures".

I don't recall 88 000 police officers in full military gear being mobilised to chase the Birmingham pub bombers, or the bastards who shot a couple of squaddies waiting for a train at our local station, or any of the other massacres and murders of the IRA. But then, there was no such thing as CNN, Youtube or Twitter in those days. A performance is only worth putting on if there's an audience to enjoy it.

I'm still not convinced that the rather meagre threat of islamists is justification for "draconian security measures", but then I'm an old fashioned conservative, with fuddy duddy ideas about the role of the state and personal freedom.

What socialists, militant securalists and other statist types think is an appropriate response may possibly differ somewhat from my preferences.

how can europe protect itself when the problems lies within...

we are talking about delusional fanatics which are just minor part contributing to somebody gaining power

and as long as the west interferes with the Islamic world, war-faring, killing innocents, draining it of its resources etc, what can you expect? Although this is used as an "excuse" for a much more complicated "game"

in the end this is not a matter of religion and as long as "we" are keep treating as such it will only get worse

To be fair, though, this is a two way street and has been for a millennium and a half now. Let's not pretend that Muslims are somehow uniquely wronged and that Christendom is always the aggressor, because that's just bollocks.

It is clearly for show, and politics is all about show. The truth is the government can't really protect the people. But if that were to become more evident, you will have people deciding to protect themselves. That show of force is to demonstrate to the population that their nanny is watching.



It does not have much of a choice. If the government does not protect its people, it will illegitimize itself, and some people will rightfully decide to protect themselves.



Some truth to this is that Islam has a political nature, and this is part of its political nature, as oppose to its personal religious nature. But at the center of this topic, that elephant in the middle of the room, you can't rationally ignore. I don't think chanting a mantra changes it.

What do all these terrorist attacks have in common? A lowered threshhold of inhibition to kill for a cause.


For me, the key is how to higher the threshhold forcing alternative solutions to be found.

It definitely is a value proposition, "Die for the cause, and you will be a hero to Allah for eternity."

This value proposition really needs to be rebutted by Muslims themselves.

I can't see that happening. We've had a couple of decades (more, if you count the hounding of people related to Salman Rushdie) of islamist bullshit now, and yet the reprisals on the ground have been pretty thin on the ground. Sure, there've been a couple of firebombed mosques, the occasional pig's head chucked in a doorway, a fair few physical and verbal attacks on women wearing hijabs, but where is the organised, orchestrated response that you'd expect to see during a proper civil conflict? It simply doesn't exist.

People aren't stupid. This isn't a real battle. It's a confection, very accurately predicted by Mr Orwell all the way back in 1948, and most people don't really give a bollocks one way or the other, comments on message boards and the Daily Mail comments section notwithstanding.

Sorry but BOTH countries have a rich history of terrorism and organised violence and of "Blutrache"

To be honest, this threshhold of inhibition (Hemmschwelle in German) can be applied to any cause, not just to Muslim extremists.

Another perspective from a UK cartoonist:

http://gu.com/p/44mga

I had forgotten about Siné (Sinet) being sacked by Charlier Hebdo for some antisemetic comments. So what is the difference- free speech against Islam and National Front, but not against Zionism?

Had somebody put a bomb into the hands of me and that Sicilian right then there would possibly now be a new building on that site at Bahnhofstrasse -- we were VERY angry, but much smaller than the others of same age.