Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

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Tennis players throw their matches when “they can’t play their best”

January 25, 2016

As new details emerge about strange betting patterns around a mixed doubles match in the ongoing  Australian Open, an Australian professional tennis player, Nick Lindahl (of Swedish birth) pleads guilty to corrupt betting and admits in court that he threw a match for gains to be made by betting for his opponent to win.

But some of what he revealed perhaps throws light on when top players throw matches – either directly for payment or for indirect gains from bets placed against their opponents.

First the report on the current match in the Australian Open. The statements attributed to David Marrero are more than a little weird and he has apparently been involved before with “suspicious matches”.

Yahoo Sports: How bold would a player have to be to fix a match in the middle of a match-fixing scandal? That’s the question buzzing around the Australian Open on Monday, where a suspicious mixed doubles match has reignited the match-fixing controversy that has surrounded the tournament since a joint Buzzfeed/BBC report was released last Sunday. 

The suspicion started when betting site Pinnacle Sports suspended betting on the match featuring Lara Arruabarrena and David Marrero against Andrea Hlavackova and Lukasz Kubot. Large amounts of money were being placed on Kubot and Klavackova in what would normally be an obscure match, the head of the site told the New York Times. 

“We saw a small number of people placing a large amount of money,” he said. “In context, these matches are rather small. That means that any aggressive betting behavior is very easy to detect on our side.”

This is the first Australian Open match that Pinnacle Sports has flagged this year. Hlavackoba and Kubot won in rapid fashion, closing out the match at 6-0, 6-3. 

Arruabarrena and Marrero are each ranked No. 33 and No. 32 among doubles players on the women’s and men’s tours, respectively. Marrero was part of the team that won the 2013 ATP World Tour championship. They denied any match-fixing, saying that the reason for their unexpected loss was that Marrero has a knee injury. Then Marrero, who has played nearly 30 mixed doubles matches, gave a more bizarre answer.

“Normally, when I play, I play full power, in doubles or singles,” he said. “But when I see the lady in front of me, I feel my hand wants to play, but my head says, ‘Be careful.’ This is not a good combination.”

Arruabarrena questioned if a spectator had noticed the injury during their Saturday practice session and subsequently tipped someone off. The Times noted that this is not the first time a Marrero doubles match has raised suspicions. 

In the meantime, the SMH reports on Nick Lindahl’s shenanigans:

A former Australian professional tennis player has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to a corrupt betting charge in a scheme to fix a match in Queensland. But Nick Lukas Lindahl will fight the allegation he tried to hide evidence related to match fixing.   

Lindahl, 27, was arrested by the NSW Organised Crime Squad at Liberty Grove, in Sydney’s inner west, in February last year.

His court appearance comes just days after allegations of widespread match fixing rocked the international tennis world on the eve of the Australian Open. …….

During this conversation, Lindahl was heard encouraging Mr Fox to get rid of computer data and a mobile phone app, police allege.

“Just get rid of everything … hide it,” he said.

He also spoke about how he had previously told police he had thrown matches “because that’s what tennis players do when they can’t play their best”.

Mr Fox and Mr Wolfenden have already had their matters heard before court.

Lindahl has pleaded guilty to using corrupt conduct /information to bet on an event but pleaded not guilty to concealing conduct that corrupts a betting outcome of events.

It makes a kind of sense. Players expected to win but who are either feeling out of sorts or don’t expect to progress sufficiently far to win any real prize money, have much money to win by losing unexpectedly. That of course will be one of the key criteria for a “suspicious” match. And from now on, I shall be automatically suspicious of any unexpected loss early on in a tournament.

Related: Why did Tennis Australia board members quit on eve of Australian Open?

 

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A Catholic Imam?

January 25, 2016

Idiots come in all shapes and all religions.

I suppose the only real long term solution is to ensure they don’t breed.

Church and State:

Catholic Archbishop says domestic violence is caused by women ‘not obeying men’

An archbishop caused fury in Spain by saying domestic violence happens because “women do not obey men”. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toledo, Braulio Rodriguez, told his congregation that wives could avoid being hit by doing what they are told.

Women could also escape being physically abused by not asking their husbands for a divorce , Rodriguez said. He told churchgoers in his sermon: “The majority of cases of domestic violence happen because the woman’s partner does not accept them, or rejects them for not accepting their demands. … Or often the macho reaction comes about because she asked for a separation.”

He also said many relationship problems occurred because the couple were not in a ‘true marriage’, and he criticised the practice of ‘quickie divorces’. He said: “I don’t think our political leaders are worried about divorce figures when they have fought so hard to implement the so-called quick divorce.”

He made the comments during a mass held in Toledo Cathedral on December 27, and they were later published in the Our Father parish bulletin.

Perhaps the Archbishop could have expressed the obvious corollary that “all domestic violence would cease if only all men obeyed their women at all times”  but that would not have been quite macho enough.

 

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Increasing attacks from “establishment” media only feed support for Trump

January 23, 2016

The National Review, Weekly Standard, Red State are among the Republican, “establishment” media. They are supposed to be among the heavyweights in forming and reflecting Republican opinion. All of them have now come out against Donald Trump. Of course all the more liberal media (NYT, WaPo, LA Times, Boston Globe, Politico …) came out heavily against Trump some time ago. The left-wing media (HuffPo, New Yorker, Slate …) went so far as first dismissing Trump, then trying to laugh him off but are now all reporting him -albeit reluctantly – as the embodiment of all that is “bad”. (I discount the brainless part of the US media represented by CNN and NBC and Fox News).

When the left and liberal media attacked Trump, it seemed to energise his Republican supporters. No establishment figure has appeared to be the white knight for the Republicans. As Trump’s support has survived and thrived, the Republican “establishment” media have become increasingly agitated. Initially they were quite circumspect in their criticisms but have now started a concerted attack on Trump.

But the curious thing is that even the attacks from the Republican side of the “establishment” seem to feed Trump’s support.

Reuters rolling poll 22nd January

Reuters rolling poll 22nd January

Attacking Trump – from any direction – only seems to strengthen his support. That suggests that his support is coming from those who feel that their fears are completely unrepresented by any of the other candidates. The 2016 election is dominated, I think,  by the avoidance of worst fears and not by the meeting of aspirations.  It could well be that nobody will be able to take away from Trump’s support unless they can articulate the same disdain for establishment politics and political correctness that he does and address the worst fears that exist.

If no Republican is prepared to take away the ground he stands on, by occupying the same ground, then Trump could well be the Republican nominee. And if the Democratic candidate also ignores the ground he stands on, the result could be a very close run thing.

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Germany joins Switzerland and Denmark in seizing refugees’ wealth to pay for their stay

January 21, 2016

Denmark and Switzerland are already going down this path and now southern German states have also started confiscating the wealth of those refugees applying for asylum to finance their stays in the country. It is difficult to argue against the concept of those with wealth paying for their upkeep. The principle that is being applied is said to be that personal wealth must be exhausted first before state aid becomes available. And I cannot see anything wrong with that principle.

In Denmark, valuable (but not personal) items with a value of above about $150 would be subject to seizure, as would sums of currencies above about $1500. In Switzerland it is planned that assets over about $1,000 would be subject to search and seizure. The threshold above which confiscation applies might seem low at first,  but it seems that receipts are being issued, and any wealth over and above what is needed for their upkeep will be returned to them. It is not quite the callous and heartless robbery of poverty stricken refugees as is being portrayed by some of the media.

The southern German state of Bavaria is following the Swiss example and plans to set the threshold for seizure at about €750 for those who have “dues outstanding”.

The Local(de): Germany’s southern states are confiscating cash and valuables from refugees after they arrive, authorities in Bavaria confirmed on Thursday.

“Cash holdings and valuables can be secured [by the authorities] if they are over €750 and if the person has an outstanding bill, or is expected to have one.” Authorities in Baden-Württemberg have a tougher regime, where police confiscate cash and valuables above €350.

The average amount per person confiscated by authorities in the southern states was “in the four figures,” Bild reported.

By confiscating valuables, the states are implementing federal laws, which require asylum seekers to use up their own resources before receiving state aid. “If you apply for asylum here, you must use up your income and wealth before receiving aid,” Aydan Özoguz, the federal government’s integration commissioner, told Bild.

“That includes, for example, family jewellery. Even if some prejudices persist – you don’t have it any better as an asylum seeker as someone on unemployment benefit,” Özoguz added.

In Germany even the Green party had no real objection to advance to this approach. The Left party had no arguments of any substance to put forward, but they objected anyway.

….. But there were few critics of the practice inside Germany.

Opposition Green party MP Volker Beck told Der Tagesspiegel that it was right for asylum applicants to pay for services to the extent they could. “Of course asylum seekers aren’t in a better position than those on unemployment benefits,” Beck said. “Asylum seekers must repay the costs of accommodation and care to the state.”

Only the Left party (Die Linke) criticized the confiscations, with MP Ulla Jelpke telling Der Tagesspiegel that “those who apply for asylum are exercising their basic rights [under the German Constititution].

“That must not – even if they are rejected – be tied up with costs,” she argued.

I cannot see that forcing those with wealth to pay for their own upkeep is any infringement of supposed Human Rights.

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Queen Rania’s response to Charlie Hebdo — a difference of class

January 16, 2016

This was Charlie Hebdo’s tasteless, vulgar, crude, attempt at satire using the Aylan picture

what would little Aylan have grown up to be? image Charlie Hebdo

what would little Aylan have grown up to be? image Charlie Hebdo

This was Queen Rania of Jordan’s response on Twitter – “a doctor, a teacher, a loving parent …….”

rania on twitter

Rania on Aylan by Osama Hajjaj

Rania on Aylan by Osama Hajjaj

A difference of class

Class:

Class is not appearance and it is not personality or charisma; it is a style and elegance of behaviour and a consistency of actions.

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The privileged life of fat-cats at a Swedish trade union

January 15, 2016

Kommunal, the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union, is Sweden’s largest trade union with 515,000 members. Their members tend to be among the lower wage-earners in the country, consist of many women members and their 17-strong managing group contains 12 women.

Kommunal members take care of the elderly, do lunches for school pupils, and take care of children in preschool. We drive buses, put out fires, sweep chimneys and drive ambulances. We who look after the animals kept in zoos, tend to the green on the golf course and drive combine harvesters in the country’s fields are also members of Kommunal.

Like many other trade-unions, they have strong rhetoric against elitism and privilege. The rich are bad because they are rich. But, also like in many other trade unions, their “fat-cats” when in power are easily corrupted by their own might and tend to disburse largesse and privilege, among themselves, with gay abandon.

Sweden is currently being entertained by another scandal at the top of a trade union (this happens regularly with big scandals usually appearing about every 5 years). This time it is Kommunal. The “scandal” has been revealed by fearless, intrepid, investigative journalism at Aftonbladet – which is a Social Democrat leaning newspaper – and is generally very sympathetic to the trade unions (except if they have a scoop).

Kommunal union's hot spot - metropol palais image aftonbladet

Kommunal union’s hot spot – The Metropol Palais image aftonbladet

Aftonbladet has revealed that

  1. Kommunal owns and operates a luxury restaurant/night club, The Metropol Palais, which has lost some 320 million kronor (just an investment), and which has arranged porn and strip shows. Male strippers, it seems, are quite regular (which, of course, is not sexist).
  2. They own and operate a fancy conference centre, comprising a number of villas , on an island in the Stockholm archipelago. These villas have been used regularly by the union leadership and their families for free, holidays.
  3. Kommunal own a number of apartment buildings in central Stockholm which are used by leading and privileged union members. They do not, as is general practice even with private apartment block owners, provide half of their apartments to the general housing pool. That practice has built up because of the long waiting lists in Stockholm.
  4. One apartment has even been provided – with a little bit of queue jumping – to the Swedish, Social Democratic, Foreign Minister Margot Wallström. It is all above board since she pays 12,432 kronor per month in rent. However, she recovers 12,400 kronor of that from Parliament. (A net rental of 32 kronor per month for an apartment in in central Stockholm is a pretty good deal).

As a consequence of the revelations Anders Bergström, the kommunal union treasurer has resigned. (He was stupid enough to actually be caught in a lie on TV). I note that the only resignation so far is of a male. Other transgressors including the leader of the union, Annelie Nordström, are female – and they are a protected species in Sweden. For his resignation he gets 78% of his salary for 34 months which works out to be about 2 million kronor — which is also a pretty good deal. All the other union leaders are however toughing it out and have no intention of giving up their privileges so easily.

1,400 members have left the union in disgust – so far.

 

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Obama’s goodbye elevates Trump

January 13, 2016

I didn’t stay up to watch Obama’s final State of the Union address live, but have just read the transcript and a few reports.

It was a goodbye speech. He came in hope and leaves still counselling hope. Though the country’s economic position is inevitably better now than it was in 2009 in the valley of the financial crash, he leaves, as I perceive, a country with a much higher level of fears than of hope.

I was a little surprised that he attacked Trump (though not by name) as much as he did. I suspect that being elevated to the level of being the subject of a State of the Union address, by a sitting President, can only benefit Trump. Especially as Trump was being written off as not worthy of any consideration, of any kind, just a few months ago. His playing down of the monsters of Al Qaida and ISIS, born of twisted interpretations of Islam, but nurtured largely by US policy (including Obama’s), also fuels Trump’s narrative.

Obama has not lived up to the expectations that his own rhetoric had engendered. “Yes, we can” has morphed to “Well, we could have”.

History may remember Obama, vaguely, for his Syrian misadventures. He may even be remembered as having attempted to introduce universal health care. History may also record that his tenure was characterised by an aversion to risk and some paralysis-by-analysis. But he will primarily be remembered as having been the first half-black President of the US and of having served for 8 years, but without special distinction.

A passing grade then for the speech, a C+ and maybe even a B-, but not much more.

 

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The Cologne syndrome in Stockholm as police and media cover-up sexual harassment by “asylum seeker”, youth gangs

January 11, 2016

It is a “breaking news” in Dagens Nyheter today that it is commonplace for gangs of youths to sexually harass and molest young girls at the annual “We are Stockholm” festival. It showed up clearly in 2014 and again last year. The “scoop” in DN is that the police have knowingly, and regularly, played such matters down. But what DN does not spend too much time on is that journalists (including DN journalists) were generally informed that sexual harassment by “asylum seekers” was taking place, but they and their editors chose also to play it down. What DN does not reveal is the depth to which Swedish media are blind, devout followers of the religion of “political correctness”. Normally they play up even the most tenuous cases of purported or alleged sexism. But they have also been the most ardent supporters of multicultural (as opposed to multiethnic) societies.

Thus, they automatically play up anything that follows a “feminist” line except when the perpetrators are immigrants or immigrant gangs of, usually, supposedly Muslim youth. Even in today’s stories in all the newspapers about DN’s “scoop”, none of the mainstream media refers to the ethnicity or the religion of the youth gangs. From social media, even after discounting all the idiotic blather from the usual suspects (mainly right-wing, white-supremacist, often Sweden Democrat rabble), it is fairly clear that most – if not all – of the harassment in Stockholm was by gangs of young, male, “asylum seekers”, mainly from Afghanistan. There are those who claim it is not relevant and should not be reported, but I think that it is highly relevant that the perpetrators were nearly all culturally Muslim (and culture and religion are inextricably intertwined here). Their ethnicity is, I suspect, of less importance than their culture.

It is Cologne all over again. First the police play down such events. The media acquiesce in keeping things quiet since they don’t want to disturb the multicultural narrative. Then social media pressure leads to the news “breaking” in the msm – even though they are themselves heavily complicit in the cover-up in the first place.

We are Sthlm-festivalen i Kungsträdgården 2015.

We are Sthlm-festival in Kungsträdgården 2015. Photo: Alexander Tillheden/Stockholms stad (via DN)

Dagens Nyheter: For two years, youth gangs have been molesting girls at Europe’s largest youth festival “We Are Stockholm”. The official police version is that conduct at the festival was “quiet” – but the DN’s investigation shows that the internal alarm reports were silenced.

The National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson promised to investigate the cover-up.

DN has seen the daily internal memo during “We are Sthlm” that was sent to police chiefs and the Stockholm police media center. The first reports of sex crimes against female visitors came early on. “The problem with young men rubbing themselves up against young girls in the audience returned as in previous years,” it says in a memo from the first day of August last year. The problems arose as soon as the concert started.

But what DN does not mention is that they too knew about the harassment in August last year.

Expressen: Dagens Nyheter’s article about the police cover-up of sexual molestation during the music festival “We are Sthlm” has also led to a media debate.
The site, Nyheter Idag, which has connections to the Sweden Democrats has accused the newspaper of itself trying to cover-up the news. …… They claimed in an article published on Sunday that DN engaged in a cover-up and that the newspaper should have known about the molestation at the festival last summer. Information about the abuse had been received by one of DN’s journalists.

On Swedish television this morning, the journalists all pretend they knew nothing at the time and are happy to let the police take the blame. They still will not say that the gangs were mainly “asylum seekers”.

Nyheter Idag writes:

During a single night police and security guards had to intervene against around 90 younger males, but even adult men took part in the abuse, says an eye witness to Nyheter Idag. The eye witness has professional experience from working at the Stockholm Police Department as a psychologist. 

The psychologist who knew of what had happened in Kungsträdgården contacted journalist Hanne Kjöller at Dagens Nyheter, by, among other things, e-mail on August 17. The psychologist says he specifically turned to Kjöller because he knew that she had previously written about controversial topics.

“She was very interested and listened until I told her that all the boys and men that were apprehended were young asylum seekers (“unaccompanied” is the terminology used by Swedish authorities) from Afghanistan and Syria. I sensed that she changed the tone (of her voice). But she also said that she would contact the police”, he tells Nyheter Idag.

Kjöller got the phone number to one of the police officers who were on duty during the event in Kungsträdgården and could provide a recollection of the events. Nyheter Idag has talked with the police officer who Kjöller talked to in August, and he was eager to tell Dagens Nyheter about the massive cases of sexual assault against young girls in central Stockholm.

“She sent a text message to me once, early on, where she wrote that she was looking for me, she wanted to talk. After that, I tried to get in touch with her, but that was when things started to get awry. She answered sometimes, said she would get back to me. But it never amounted to anything. She was interested in it for half day or a day, then she wasn’t anymore”.

The officer explains that he worked for several evenings during this week in Kungsträdgården square. He tells of how he and his colleagues had to apprehend a large number of young men who sexually assaulted girls, in large part unaccompanied refugees from Afghanistan.

The fear of being labelled “racist” has led to the ridiculous consequence that “race” and “culture” have been equated. Multiculturalism has been made into a religion. Unacceptable cultural mores have been overlooked and excused – and even encouraged – just so as to avoid being called “racist”. I am more than ever convinced of my thesis that Europe’s future is inevitably multiethnic – but it is not multicultural. The integration of newcomers has to start with cultural integration not with cultural separation. And that starts with language.

Related:

A “society” – to be a society – can be multi-ethnic but not multicultural

The future of Europe is multiethnic but not multicultural

 

 

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“Democrats for Trump” is not just fantasy

January 10, 2016

The conventional wisdom is that if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, Hillary Clinton will wipe the floor with him. But a few weeks ago I thought that, like the Democrats for Reagan, we might see a similar phenomenon of Democrats for Trump.   I saw immigration in the US and the consequent fears of many white Democrats together with the dynamics between different minority groups as being the possible driver for generating these cross-over voters. I wrote then:

Latinos are incensed at Trump’s comments about immigration, but quite like his hard line about Islamic terrorists. East European immigrants are also attracted to this hard line about both Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslim terrorists. Asian immigrants can be split generally into two groups; Muslims mainly from Islamic countries and non-Muslims. Many of the non-Muslims feel threatened by the Islamisation of their communities and the insidious, creeping encroachment of – and perceived silent surrender to – Sharia Law. A large portion of the Asian communities are not comfortable with the influx of illegal, Latino immigrants. ………. Even the black Muslims feel under threat from all the “new Muslims”, since they come quite low down in the hierarchy of “true Muslims”. Normally the bulk of the immigrant population in the US would be Democratic supporters, but Trump is tapping into some of their greatest fears of other immigrant groups. There is also – I think – a large section of the white, middle-class Democratic support which is inhibited from expressing its fears of immigration and Islamisation and are suddenly quite glad that these fears are being expressed by somebody – even if it is only a Trump.

A new survey suggests that such a scenario is not entirely fantasy and there may well be substance to the existence of a “Democrats for Trump”. The poll indicates that 20% of Democratic voters could cross-over to Trump. If my memory serves many of the Democrats for Reagan were “secret” and never actually admitted that they would vote for Reagan. I suspect that the “secret” Democrats for Trump could be a larger proportion even than for Reagan. And I suspect that Trump is not as unacceptable for well-established minority groups as the media assume.

US News:

So if Donald Trump proved the political universe wrong and won the Republican presidential nomination, he would be creamed by Hillary Clinton, correct? A new survey of likely voters might at least raise momentary dyspepsia for Democrats since it suggests why it wouldn’t be a cakewalk.

The survey by Washington-based Mercury Analytics is a combination online questionnaire and “dial-test” of Trump’s first big campaign ad among 916 self-proclaimed “likely voters” ……. Nearly 20 percent of likely Democratic voters say they’d cross sides and vote for Trump, while a small number, or 14 percent, of Republicans claim they’d vote for Clinton. When those groups were further broken down, a far higher percentage of the crossover Democrats contend they are “100 percent sure” of switching than the Republicans.

Tied in a statistical dead heat: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. REUTERS combo

That Trump is not quite the pariah with Democratic voters as the media seek to portray is also shown by this Reuters/IPSOS poll which has Trump matching Clinton if they were to be pitted against each other

Reuters: In a hypothetical head-to-head race, the real-estate tycoon and TV personality would be supported by 39 percent of likely general election voters, compared with 40 percent for Clinton, according to the latest 5-day average from Friday’s Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll.

The driving issue is likely to be immigration all through 2016. The recent New Years eve rampage of male, “refugee”, Muslim youths in Germany, the politically correct silence by the media about it until forced, and similar behaviour in Finland and the UK and in Scandinavia, only play into Trump’s narrative. Every atrocity committed by ISIS begs the question as to why the male, unaccompanied youths who are seeking refugee status in Europe or North America, are not fighting against ISIS in their own countries?

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Mass sexual harassment in Germany – not race but surely due to culture or religion or both?

January 7, 2016

Keeping silent about differences due to culture or religion does not help. Pretending that the differences don’t exist won’t make them go away.

I don’t think Cologne  was an issue of race (ethnicity) but it certainly was not just due to “bad boys being bad”. Poverty and unemployment cannot be used as an excuse. The root cause was either culture or religion or – more likely – both.  I suspect it is both because the religion is Islam and here culture and religion are as intertwined as they are. Many of the religious leaders of Islam still have a world view of women and their place in it, which is a few hundred years out of date. In Germany it was thousands of young males of North African and Middle East origin behaving obnoxiously – but in a coordinated manner – across many cities. I am pretty sure that an overwhelming majority would have been Muslim. Yet the authorities kept silent until they had no choice but to respond to the anger and indignation on social media.

The Local (de): Germany’s authorities and media have been tiptoeing around the issue of sexual violence committed by immigrants and refugees for too long – giving the far right ammunition in their battle against the mainstream, argues Jörg Luyken.

The shocking sexual assaults that happened in Cologne during the New Year festivities – in which dozens of women were sexually abused and in one case raped by groups of young men – have an obvious parallel in events which took place in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during mass protests of the Arab Spring. …..

While there are differences between Tahrir Square and Cologne Cathedral – the Cologne attacks appear partly to have been diversions to enable theft – that men apparently of north African descent entered large crowds to sexually assault and even rape women – should set alarm bells ringing.

But no sober analysis of the influx of millions of people from the Middle East – the majority of whom are young men –  could fail to realize that certain behaviours prevalent there would be repeated here. ……

In the last few months, it has seemed that the authorities and the national media would rather sacrifice transparency for the sake of stability.

It was days before police gave full descriptions of the offenders in Cologne, despite a call for eyewitnesses. The national media also ignored the story until a wave of anger on social media made covering it unavoidable. …..

But there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence of sexual crimes committed by new arrivals bubbling up from Germany’s regional media.

In November a club in Bavaria started turning refugees away after a string of complaints of sexual harassment from female clients.

In Baden-Württemberg at least one hospital has hired guards to protect nurses who feel intimidated by the refugees they treat.

The Woman’s Council in Hesse claimed in an open letter to the state parliament in September that they have substantial evidence of sexual abuse, including forced prostitution, in refugee shelters.

In August a regional paper in North Rhine-Westphalia also reported police covering up a serious sexual crime. After hearing about the rape of a 13-year-old girl by a refugee, the paper enquired with police as to what crimes they knew of in the refugee shelters.

There are plenty of anecdotes about similar occurrences in Norway and Sweden. But authorities and media in Scandinavia are also in denial, and just as reluctant to openly confront the reality that Muslim youth (mainly newcomers) are more likely to sexually harass and commit sexual crimes. The reluctance is partly to protect the dead doctrine of multiculturalism, and partly out of the fear of being politically incorrect by seeming to refer disparagingly about race or religion or cultural differences.

It is the same toxic mix of religion and culture which can also be seen in the UK. It shows up in the grooming of young vulnerable girls, in”honour killings” and the treatment of women (especially vulnerable women) as “objects”, which are all not uncommon, even today, in many – supposedly devout – Muslim societies. In the UK it is more often Muslims of Asian rather than Middle East origin. But it is a similar behaviour as exhibited by the spoilt young oil-brats (male of course) who prey on women outside their own countries. Of course the treatment of women as objects happens with other religions and cults as well but usually only in fairly backward societies. For example it still happens in some parts of rural India where casteist racism, mixes with culture and Hinduism to create a most poisonous mix. (Casteism in India can be more virulently racist than any white supremacist movement). It happens even with the polygamous cults – ostensibly Christian – when they pop up from time to time. The common factor is a religion which views women as objects under the authority of a man, and a culture built on that foundation. But it is particularly Muslim cultures which seem to permit and legitimise violence by men against women.

It is my thesis that Europe has to have multiethnic, single culture societies, though the resulting culture prevailing will be dynamic and will change as newcomers are absorbed. Demographics require the influx of new ethnicities into Europe, but it is a fatally flawed concept to imagine that a society without a single overriding culture can avoid being a fractured and splintered society. Playing down the differences due to culture and religion contributes nothing to the creation of new viable societies.

What cannot (or will not) be seen, cannot be addressed.

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