Nobel chairman warns Europe's leaders over 'inflaming far-right sentiment'

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Thorbjørn Jagland says Europe's leaders are 'playing with fire' if they use right-wing rhetoric when discussing multiculturalism

Mark Townsend, home affairs editor

Europe's leaders, including David Cameron, have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists.

Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line.

Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utøya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/30/david-cameron-far-right-nobel-warning

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Good, inflame them, they are pussies.

They are terrified of Habeeb, but if you take the time to have some mint tea and philosophical conversation with Habeeb, you will find the Muslim to be enjoyable company. They are just people, you don't have to be afraid.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I don't think you understand

"Inflaming far-right sentiment" means "making them think people agree with them and thus encouraging their violent tactics". At worst, it encourages murderers like Breivik, but even if it doesn't get that far, it means the EDL and other violent movements stage more riots. The 'pussies' assault people.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[napoleon_in_rags]

8. That's culture, cultures change.

When Habeeb gets invited to the BBQ, and you have enough respect to get the all beef hot dogs, and you talk to him, that's when he starts looking at the world outside the view he was raised in. That's assimilation. I mean damn, I just saw this documentary on the dark ages, it said Europe came out of them BECAUSE of the crusades, because they saw all this stuff in the east that they brought back home. Interaction with middle east people will do the same in the other direction, the benefits of secular culture will seep in, and the fundamentalism will fade.

[No Elephants]

3. The far right in the U.S. has no respect for anything to do with Nobel. I assume

the European far right is the same.

These leaders do not merely inflame the far right. They are stealth members of the far right, or the next closest thing. I'm guessing Blair felt even more dwon home with Dummya than he did with Bubba.


I've always heard that the European right is more like the American left than it is like the American right. That seems to be changing?

[pampango]

4. "Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to

defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it.

"We should be very cautious now, we should not play with fire. Therefore I think the words we are using are very important because it can lead to much more."'

'Breivik saw David Miliband, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair as worthy of assassination because, according to his 1,500-page manifesto, they had a "friendly attitude" to immigrants.

Jagland, who last year gave the Nobel peace prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was represented by an empty chair at the ceremony in Oslo, added that the immigration debate also needed to be less negative.'

The European leaders who have attacked multiculturalism in the last year or so are all conservatives, i.e. Sarkozy, Merkel, and Cameron. It's hard to imagine the right toning down their rhetoric in the immigration debate since the "us vs them" fear-based narrative is about all they have to go on.

[Mosaic]

5. Europeans, Americans, and others

Need to forget about their "pure" societies and adapt to a multicultural world.

[tpsbmam]

6. Give me a damn break. How 'bout Europe & the US stop fucking pandering to these assholes!

Are we as societies so frightened by these lunatics that we're going to coddle them and give them the degree of sway that the LITTLE tea party has gotten in this country? Yeah, it's been successful here -- this is exactly what the PTB do and look where that's fucking gotten us.

It's the fucking right-wingers who need to learn to live in all of our multicultural societies, not the societies that need to rein in to appease these assholes.


ETA: what the hell would (formerly) free societies look like if they'd constantly pandered to the insane right-wing? Oooooo, can't integrate because we'll piss off the KKK and their ilk!! No, absolutely no, interracial marriages for the same reason!! And please, what about the neanderthal men who won't like women voting and wanting equal rights? Can't piss them off, ya know.

What a load of bullshit!!!


:rant: :puke: