Majorityrights News > Category: Law & Order

Brescia

Council of Canadian Citizens, “Brescia, Italy: Suicide of the Lioness?”, 15 May 2017

Known as the Lioness of Italy for its resistance to the Austrian army in 1849 during the First War of Italian Independence, is the city of Brescia blindly building its own funeral pyre as it takes in thousands of African migrants on a daily basis? It has been argued by liberals and many Catholics that the city is a model of integration and that Italian “conviviality” can succeed where Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism and French assimilationism have failed.1 Indeed, Brescia supposedly offers a third way: “interculturality” involving face-to-face “dialogue” between different cultures.2 What this actually means in practice is difficult to decipher. In any case, such claims are dangerously optimistic and utopian, to say the least.

History

Before considering the current wave of (state aided) migration let us take a very brief look at the origins of the city and its experience during another period of large scale of migration: the Völkerwanderung. We will see that during and after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Germanic tribes settled in and around Brescia, as they did in many other parts of Italy, but that these warriors and their families were ultimately assimilated into the Roman population. It could be said that Brescia conquered its conquerors. But what of the current migrants? As one former mayor put it, Brescia is in effect a “frontier city.” Can Africans and other non-Europeans arriving in such huge numbers also be assimilated? And, assuming for the sake of argument that they can be, how long will the process take and at what cost?

         

The Roman historian Livy wrote that Brescia, or Brixia as it was then called in Latin, had been the chief settlement of the Cenomanian Gauls who crossed the Alps and established themselves in Italy north of the River Po,3 which is thought to have been inhabited by the Ligurians, possibly a pre-Indo European population. In the period before and after the Second Punic War (218/201 BC), the Roman Republic defeated the Celtic tribes south of the River Po and founded colonies in the area. The Cenomanian Gauls north of the Po for their part were defeated in 197 BC and Romanisation gradually ensued. In 27 BC, Octavian Augustus granted Brixia, now a significant urban centre, the status of colonia civica augusta.

As the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century and in the centuries that followed, Brescia frequently found itself centre stage of the Völkerwanderung. In 402 AD the city was ravaged by the Ostrogoths under Alaric and in 451 it was besieged and sacked by Attila the Hun. In 496 Odoacer, the general who had deposed the last Roman Emperor in the West, Romulus August, was defeated and killed by the Ostrogoths under Theoderic who styled himself “King of the Goths and Romans.” The Ostrogoths finally succumbed to a resurgent Byzantine Empire and Brescia fell in 562. But Brescia remained in Byzantine hands for just six years when another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded Italy almost unopposed and established a Kingdom that lasted until the Frankish conquest of 774. As least as far as Brescia was concerned the barbarian incursions and migrations had now largely come to an end. What is striking about these arrivals is the ultimate assimilation of these conquering Germanic populations into the Roman population. The Lombards gradually abandoned their social customs and clothing and the use of their Germanic tongue was replaced by the neo-Latin vernacular of the local population.

African and Asian Invaders

National Geography and Academics call them the “New Italians”

It is estimated that less than 3% of those who cross the Mediterranean are actually fully-fledged refugees. In Brescia the situation is even worse with around 72% of the arrivals classified as illegals. And these figures refer to 2016 only. Few clandestini are ever deported and most drift into the black economy, try to reach northern Europe or end up in the criminal underworld. A truly monstrous situation has arisen which amounts to failure by the state to fulfill its fundamental duty of upholding the rule of law and defend its citizens. A whole industry has now grown up around migrants: lawyers, think tanks, hotel owners, landlords and liberal/catholic cooperatives providing accommodation for them. The costs are enormous. According to one report, in 2016 the system of “accoglienza” (welcoming) was costing the province of Brescia around 2 million Euro a month!

The phenomenon of migration from Africa began in the late 1980’s but, to be fair, the much-maligned Berlusconi actually managed to get the situation under a degree of control thanks to his relations with Libya. Then came the chaos caused by the overthrow of Gaddafi and the civil war, the ousting of Berlusconi and a series of “technocrat” and liberal governments appointed by President Napolitano, a former communist who in 1956 backed the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Key figures in government circles are known globalists with connections to refugee organisations. Laura Boldrini, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, is a former spokesperson for the UNHCR in Rome and was editor of its magazine Rifiugiati (Refugees).

Now, in addition to this onslaught from Africa, Brescia already has a non-European population that makes up around 13% of its roughly 200,000 inhabitants, the biggest groups being North Africans, West Africans and South Asians.5 This is the one of highest in percentage terms in Italy and the real figure is without doubt higher because of illegal immigration and the figures do not include foreigners naturalised as Italian citizens. The vast majority are unskilled workers and their dependents. Foreigners suffer a disproportionately high rate of unemployment and it goes without saying that they make up the bulk of the prison population. The member of the Lombard Regional Council in charge of Security, Civil Protection and Immigration called Brescia “the capital of foreign crime” in Northern Italy.6 Brescia too has had its fair share of terror plots, foreign fighters and Islamists.

Political Climate

Italian opinion now reflects the divisions we see over much of the Western World between the globalist metropolitan establishment on the one side and “provincials” and defenders of the nation state on the other. Much of the media, academia, big business, the professions, the church, the school system and polite society generally are politically correct and anti-populist. The courts too have taken controversial decisions. In a town near Brescia recently, a member of Lega Nord, the northern separatist party critical of mass immigration, was fined for writing that certain cooperatives “profit from the traffic in illegal immigrants.” The judge held that the statement was “discriminatory” as asylum seekers are given temporary leave to stay in the country and technically are not in Italy illegally!8 As public anger over the situation rises (see below) such cases are likely to mushroom in future. Comparisons have been drawn with medieval heresy trials as a nervous establishment seeks to criminalise beliefs contrary to prevailing liberal orthodoxy.

Africans demanding that Italians live up to the ideals of Freedom and Democracy first nurtured in Africa

However, when pressed on the issue one finds that even people within these milieus will privately express deep concern, especially about Islam. There may be self-censorship as well because opposition to mass immigration is considered provincial and low status. A survey of ten European countries conducted by Chatham House (hardly an evil populist hotbed) suggested that over half the population of those countries wanted a ban on Muslim immigration. The survey suggested that 69% of Italians have an unfavourable view of Muslims. Fortunately, two national newspapers Il Giornale and Libero Quotidiano and websites such as Tutti i Crimini degli Immigrati (All the Crimes of the Immigrants) do not hesitate to cover immigration related issues.

The liberal and liberal elements in the Catholic church in Italy have a curious belief they can succeed where so many others have failed. In autumn 2015 the liberal newspaper La Repubblica ran an article claiming that a school in downtown Brescia where the children are entirely foreign is an example of how Brescia is a “model” and that integration “works here.”

Yet the journalist goes on to say that one reason that the school population is almost entirely non-Italian, and indeed largely non-European, is that Italian parents no longer send their children there because of the concentration of foreigners. Indeed, at times the teachers have to “educate” not only the kids but also the parents who hold regressive social attitudes in relation to activities such as mixed swimming classes. Even the journalist admits that sometimes it is “they,” i.e. the foreigners, who create problems, citing a Nigerian parent who said that boys must be served by girls.

Liberals and immigrants protest against Italian “racists” in Brescia, 2010

We are told that time, patience and resources are required. But here we are speaking about relatively new arrivals. Other countries now face the failed integration of many adult second and third generation Muslims turning to traditionalism, fundamentalism and even terrorism. It is surely complacent to argue that such problems can be avoided by time, patience and resources. Is it not more realistic to admit a basic incompatibility of cultures? Italian progressives who pride themselves on their cosmopolitanism and openness actually seem to live in a national, or in the case of Brescia, provincial bubble, complacent in their belief that when it comes to integrating immigrants Italians do it better. They seem to have learned little or nothing from the experiences of other countries.

So far the Italian state so far has had no official policy of multiculturalism and does not engage in practices such as affirmative action. It is rare to find members of ethnic minorities working for the state as mass immigration is, compared to most other countries, a relatively recent phenomenon. Further, the country also enjoys relatively restrictive citizenship laws which also tends to exclude individuals of foreign origin from working for the state and voting in elections. The country has therefore also escaped the sort of scandals seen for example in UK where there have been cases of electoral fraud in South Asian communities in London10 and reports of a disproportionate number of misconduct proceedings against ethnic minority police officers.

That said, the Italian education system in particular suffers from liberal bias. History textbooks, for example, are heavily influenced by multiculturalist thinking, provide a vulgar Marxist interpretation of colonialism, push cultural relativism and fail to conduct any analysis of crimes committed by communist regimes. Classroom tasks and activities with a pro-immigration bias are commonplace.

But will Italy go down the same path as some other Western countries and loosen its nationality laws, introduce diversity quotas in the state and, in effect, discriminate against its indigenous population? Will its liberals also play the identity politics card and seek to buy support from enfranchised Africans and Asians? Or will Italy learn from mistakes of other countries now enjoying the bloody harvest of mass immigration that went too fast and too deep? Some of the things we see do not augur well as liberalism in Italy is slavishly enamoured with what it sees as more “advanced” multicultural societies.

There are, however, signs of resistance at a popular level. In August 2015 villagers in Collio near Brescia protested the arrival of migrants and in November 2016 200 residents of the town of Montichiari also near Brescia staged a week long protested outside a former barracks that was being transformed into a refuge centre for hundreds of asylum seekers. The rejection of the left’s referendum proposals and the downfall of Matteo Renzi in December 2016 was arguably in part due the government’s open door migrant policy.

One Sicilian Public Prosecutor has raised questions about possible connections between people traffickers and NGOs operating in the Mediterranean and even went so far as to say that some NGOs might have “interests in the manoeuvres of international speculation.” But without evidence and without the resources to conduct further enquiries the Prosecutor has said that the investigation has suffered a setback. It was reported in the Italian press that on 3 May 2017 Prime Minister Gentiloni held a meeting with wealthy liberal philanthropist George Soros, a man who reportedly funds NGOs operating off the Libyan coast, to discuss “investments in Italy.”

We shall see whether the prosecutor gets his resources. Until the next general election, expected to be held in 2018, and until perhaps we see a thorough going transformation of the political culture and collapse of liberal consensus, we can expect migrant numbers to swell still further as Brescia, like the West generally, continues to build its own funeral pyre.

The impending failure of the Iran deal is being disingenuously blamed on the very moderate Iranians that ethno-nationalists would hope to empower in and of the deal - that failure being blamed on them, as opposed to who actually deserves the blame: primarily the Trump administration and its friends.

Daily Telegraph, “Iran presidential candidates lay blame for ‘failed’ nuclear deal on reformer Rouhani”, 13 May 2017:

President Hassan Rouhani faced accusations of a failed nuclear deal which has not benefitted the Iranian people, during the final televised debate with his rivals before the country’s presidential election next week.

The vote is being seen as largely a referendum on reformer Mr Rouhani’s outreach to the rest of the world following a landmark accord with global powers, which ended sanctions but bitterly divided the country.

The president is believed to be the frontrunner in the May 19 election but the failure of the 2015 accord to bring economic gains for the public has brought an opening that his main competitors, powerful conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi and hardline Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, have sought to exploit.

READ MORE...

Vice, “Jared Kushner’s sister courted Chinese investors with a controversial visa program Trump just extended”, 8 May 2017:

Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, right

The $1.2 trillion spending bill President Donald Trump signed Friday extended the controversial EB-5 program, which grants U.S. visas to foreigners, mostly from China, who invest at least $500,000 in a domestic development project.

A day later, Jared Kushner’s sister stood at the Beijing Ritz-Carlton pitching the program to a ballroom-full of at least 100 wealthy Chinese investors. “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States,” a brochure for the event read, according to the Washington Post. The family business, Kushner Cos. LLC, needed $150 million in financing for a housing development in Jersey City, New Jersey, the New York Times reported.

While Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser at the White House, promised to fully divest from his family’s multibillion-dollar real estate empire, the presentation Saturday highlighted clear conflicts between his lingering business interests and policy decisions. Kushner has become a key diplomat in increasingly tense U.S.-China relations, among his many roles with the administration.

During the presentation, Nicole Kushner Meyer didn’t hold back linking Kushner Cos. to the current U.S. administration. She:

- mentioned that her brother left the company to work for Trump, according to the Post

- showed a slide that pictured Trump as the “key decision-maker” on the fate of the EB-5 visa, according to the Times

- encouraged attendees to invest early before the Trump administration decides to roll back the program — as Congress is pushing for, according to the Post.

Footage of U.S. President Donald Trump is shown on a video screen as workers wait for investors at a reception desk for a presentation at a Shanghai hotel. The event promoted EB-5 investment in a Kushner Companies development in the U.S., Sunday, May 7, 2017.

“It’s incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate,” Richard Painter, former White House ethics counsel for President George W. Bush, told the Post. “They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They’re [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they’re going to want to invest.”

This isn’t the first family’s first ethically questionable brush with Chinese investors and the EB-5 program. Kushner Cos. could earn as much as $500 million in a planned real estate deal, which relies on the EB-5 program for funding, with a Chinese company that has close connections to the Chinese government. And loans obtained through the EB-5 program funded about one-quarter of a Trump Tower in New Jersey.

Kusher Cos. apologized “if that mention of [Meyer’s] brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors,” in a statement emailed to NPR.

Interlopers celebrate Macron victory

Visigrad Post, “French-Polish relations undermined by Macron’s presidential campaign”

Poland – “You know the friends of Madame Le Pen, her allies: these are the regimes of misters Orbán, Kaczyński, Putin. These are not open and free democracies. Many freedoms are violated every day and, by this, so are our principles.” (Extract from Emmanuel Macron’s speech of May 1). Which freedoms exactly? We do not know, but this phrase made the headlines throughout Polish media this week.

The candidate has already been widely talked about on the banks of the Vistula the previous week with his promise to introduce sanctions against Poland within the first three months of his investiture. The sanctions are based on the relocation of Whirlpool – Ed. in Poland - but would relate to alleged non-compliance by Poland with the EU’s “principles”: “Regarding the Whirlpool case, within three months after election, a decision will be taken on Poland. I put my responsibility on the table on this subject,” declared the replacement candidate of Voix du Nord –  on April 27 by mentioning the use of Article 7 of the EU Treaty which provides for the suspension of a country’s rights as a Member State.

Even before being elected, the candidate Emmanuel Macron [...] managed to quarrel with Poland and Hungary, the two leading countries in Central and Eastern Europe. His [...] election to the presidency of the French Republic promises therefore complicated relations with the former Eastern Europe.

[...]

Polish President Andrzej Duda made it very clear on May 3 in an interview with Polish television TVP: “He will have to start work on getting Poland back to trust him and France”. The Polish Foreign Ministry reacted to Emmanuel Macron’s speech on May 1 in an official statement: “We are following with interest the election campaign in France because of the importance of this country for the future of the EU. In this context, we regret to note that once again during this presidential campaign in France, an Allied country that belongs like Poland to NATO and the European Union, a candidate for the highest office uses unacceptable comparisons and intellectual shortcuts that mislead public opinion. […] The values ​​and principles of free democracy are respected in Poland. Among the fundamental values ​​that have been present in the Polish culture and tradition for several hundred years, there is respect and tolerance for those with different political views […]. We expect the French President [...] to carry out an in-depth analysis before making judgments on the policies of other States and to clarify any doubts in the context of bilateral contacts”.

Photographer Zakaria Abdelkafi’s shocking photograph of a French anti-riot policeman set ablaze by a molotov cocktail has quickly spread to every corner of the world. And yesterday, only one day after Abdelkafi captured the photograph, he shared the story behind it.

PetaPixel, “The Story Behind this Viral Photo of a French Policeman on Fire”, 3 May 2017:

The photograph was taken during a march for the annual May Day workers’ rally in Paris, and has since appeared on the covers of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and countless online publications and European newspapers. In an article for his employer, Agence France-Presse, Abdelkafi said he had no idea what was about to happen.

“I always follow [a group who hide their faces behind bandanas and hoodies] because, from past experience, I know they always cause trouble,” he said. “They’re very violent.”

His dedication to following this group around occasionally gets him pushed down and beaten by the very people he’s trying to photograph. This time, he placed himself between them and CRS (Republican Security Companies) police, taking photographs as the protesters began throwing rocks, bottles, “anything that they could get their hands on” at the riot police.

That’s when a molotov cocktail went flying.

“When they threw the Molotov cocktail, I didn’t actually see it. I just saw the guy engulfed in flames and I just snapped away,” he says. “I kept on following the policeman who was burning.” He was screaming, the officers around him were screaming, the scene was as horrific as you imagine it. “He was a human being being burned alive in front of me,” says Abdelkafi. “And the demonstrators, they didn’t care. They kept throwing things at the police.”

Abdelkafi is no stranger to horrific sights—a Syrian refugee, he was forced to flee his country in 2015, ultimately receiving asylum in France and a job with AFP. He has witnessed truly horrific sights; this moment hit close to home.

“I kept thinking about his face and whether he would be scarred. I kept thinking of his family. I’ve had lots of friends who have become disfigured because they have been burned by bombs in Syria. So I know what it’s like. I wonder if they do.” he said in his AFP article. “I have seen many people die in front of me. I have seen many people wounded. But this policeman really got to me.”

According to TIME, the unidentified 41-year-old police man suffered third-degree burns on his hands and neck, and second-degree burns on his face. As for Abdelkafi, he hopes to meet the man he photographed. “I would like to go see him in the hospital and bring him flowers.”

NPR,“A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America”, 3 May 2017:

Federal housing policies created after the Depression ensured that African-Americans and other people of color were left out of new suburban communities - and pushed instead into urban housing projects, such as Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass towers. Paul Sancya/AP

In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America’s housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a “state-sponsored system of segregation.”

Race: Historian Says Don’t ‘Sanitize’ How Our Government Created Ghettos

Code Switch: Everyone Pays A Hefty Price For Segregation, Study Says

The government’s efforts were “primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families,” he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects.

Rothstein’s new book, The Color of Law, examines the local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation. He notes that the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods — a policy known as “redlining.” At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites — with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans.

Rothstein says these decades-old housing policies have had a lasting effect on American society. “The segregation of our metropolitan areas today leads ... to stagnant inequality, because families are much less able to be upwardly mobile when they’re living in segregated neighborhoods where opportunity is absent,” he says. “If we want greater equality in this society, if we want lowering of hostility between police and young African-American men, we need to take steps to desegregate.”

Interview Highlights

On how the Federal Housing Administration justified discrimination

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America - by Richard Rothstein

The Federal Housing Administration’s justification was that if African-Americans bought homes in these suburbs, or even if they bought homes near these suburbs, the property values of the homes they were insuring, the white homes they were insuring, would decline. And therefore their loans would be at risk.

There was no basis for this claim on the part of the Federal Housing Administration. In fact, when African-Americans tried to buy homes in all-white neighborhoods or in mostly white neighborhoods, property values rose because African-Americans were more willing to pay more for properties than whites were, simply because their housing supply was so restricted and they had so many fewer choices. So the rationale that the Federal Housing Administration used was never based on any kind of study. It was never based on any reality.

On how federal agencies used redlining to segregate African-Americans

The term “redlining” comes from a development by the New Deal, by the federal government of maps of every metropolitan area in the country. And those maps were color-coded by first the Home Owners Loan Corp. and then the Federal Housing Administration and then adopted by the Veterans Administration, and these color codes were designed to indicate where it was safe to insure mortgages. And anywhere where African-Americans lived, anywhere where African-Americans lived nearby were colored red to indicate to appraisers that these neighborhoods were too risky to insure mortgages.

On the FHA manual that explicitly laid out segregationist policies

The Two-Way: Interactive Redlining Map Zooms In On America’s History Of Discrimination

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Visigrad Post, “Poland: French presidential candidate Macron wants quick sanctions”, 28 April 2017:

France, Paris – The Liberal-Libertarian candidate for the French presidency assured that he would take, once elected, measures against Poland. According to him, Poland violated “all the principles of the European Union”.

“In the three months following my election, there will be a decision on Poland. I put my responsibility on the table on this subject,” Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on Thursday, April 27th.

“One cannot have a country that plays social tax differentials within the European Union and which is in breach of all the principles of the Union,” he warned.

But for the candidate who faces Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential elections, the question also concerned the “values” of the European Union.

“I want sanctions on those who disrespect the rights and values ​​of the European Union,” he said. “We cannot have a Europe that debates to the decimal each of the budgetary subjects on each country when there’s a European Union member state that behaves like Poland or Hungary on such topics as University and knowledge, refugees, fundamental values, and decides not to do anything.

“According to his adviser for European affairs, Clément Beaune, this issue is close to the 39-year-old banker and former minister of the socialist government under François Hollande’s presidency.

“He assumes to be pro-European but we cannot be European without respecting fundamental principles,” his adviser told Reuters. “It is also a signal of strength and general credibility vis-à-vis Russia, vis-à-vis the United States and, internally, vis-à-vis Europeans.”

Emmanuel Macron is the favorite to win the French presidential elections which will end on May 7th.