What's Really Going On in France?

Marine Le Pen is the voice of the pro-nationalist,
conservative movement in France.

"I don't know what the world is coming to," lamented my elderly mom over lunch last week. And then she said something more chilling, motioning toward my dad, "I'm glad we're almost to the end of our lives."  Then she seemed to catch herself, glancing at me sheepishly, and adding some comment about my having many years ahead.

She's right. The Western world is shifting, and it's happening faster all the time. I often wonder if this is the way people felt as WWII approached... that terrible feeling that malevolent ideas are taking hold in too many quarters, that what was always safe and reliable is suddenly in jeopardy. Worse of all, the terrible feeling of foreboding that many of us feel now may have existed then as well; I'm convinced that many in the 1930's felt that something terrible was coming - they could not know its nature or how devastating it would prove to be.

I wonder how many people, as they blithely go about their daily lives, hear that the rise of the immigrant population in Europe and the reports of violence it brings, assume that the outcries come from a few of the ignorant or "racist" and there really isn't much to be alarmed about.  It occurs to me that it is exactly that attitude that your average German took as the Nazis built a regime under their noses. It may be the same assumption that the Austrians and French and Belgians took, a few years before they were invaded and conquered. A conquered population never sees it coming. 

The U.N. Migration Pact - a sort of contract put together by the U.N. with the help of the E.U. which not only calls for more immigration but dictates the way the media and the people will be expected to handle it - is meeting with some resistance - which is heartening, but not nearly enough resistance - which is horrifying. Countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, and the Czech Republic are refusing to sign the agreement, despite threats of financial and economic punishment from the tyrannical E.U.  One must admire the moxie of these former Soviet block nations - the memory of living oppressed under the mantle of communism and its sister socialism is fresh for them. Their freedom was hard-won and only a few decades old. They remember restrictions on their daily lives in terms of freedom of speech, in motility, in physical safety. They remember a media owned by the government and totally under its thumb. They remember a world where the only true information had to be delivered between parties in clandestine whispers. The E.U. would happily see that world return.

Last time the People of France had to riot against the government,
several thousand govt. elites lost their heads. Literally. The French
don't muck around. 

Countries like Sweden, Germany and France are not as wise: they have lived within the luxury of Freedom for far too long, and the people of these nations are standing idly by, watching waves of Muslim immigrants literally and figuratively trash their once-beautiful countries and the corresponding rise in violence and taxes, and just as they did in the 1930s they are pretending the monster isn't there.  Italy, having recently elected a hard-line nationalist leader, seems to be the only hold-out so far - they refused to sign.

In France, riots are portrayed by the French media and beyond as the result of some high taxes. The rest of the world then assumes the French are having some silly tantrum.  But the media is lying: the riots are about something else: tyrannical government control.  For decades, the French government has raised taxes to unsustainable limits, has force-fed the people Islamic immigration, and now means to force-feed them the quasi-myth of global warming and climate change.  When Macron proposed to raise gas taxes by some 30% and more, of the cost of a gallon, he really meant to tax the people out of driving gas-fueled vehicles. Reportedly, the proposal included a goal of taxing one gallon the U.S. equivalent of $49 within ten years. Yes, you are reading that correctly: $49 dollars tax per gallon. Why? Because no one can drive at that price but the very rich. And in keeping with Macron's and the EU's goals of taking power from the people and giving it to the EU, through various national puppet regimes, and forcing enormous overnight changes in energy use - forcing adherence to climate change theory that has not met with scientific scrutiny! - a tax hike like that would have ended life as the French know it. 

Macron backed off on the tax as of late yesterday. It's rather comical, because in doing so, he showed his weakness - he will only push so far before he will cave, and now the People know it.  It was a defeat for Macron far beyond these riots, and it was a defeat for the E.U.  The people were rioting against a government out of control; they are tired of immigration, they are tired of Islamist ideology-fueled murders and terrorist attacks. They are tired of forced compliance with energy change. They are tired of having no say in big issues affecting their lives. These things fueled the riots. And the riots will not end with Macron's capitulation. They will end when the French feel they are regaining control of their lives, and the E.U. will be fighting that every inch of the way.  The monster is not only real, but he is rising.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the nationalist conservative party that nearly took Macron's throne in the last election, has addressed the nation in the past few days (the French must be wishing they had elected her now...).  She spoke vehemently against the Immigration Pact. Interestingly, Le Pen - who is a lawyer by trade - recognized four main points the pact is selling:

1 - The future waves of mostly-Muslim immigration will be openly organized and promoted by the host countries (and the E.U. and U.N. behind the scenes).

2 - Through release of welfare benefits, tax-fueled monies, and even displacing the native population from their homes in favor of incoming immigrants, the host countries will submit to being "pillaged".

3 - The establishment and institutionalization of "parallel communites" in the form of diasporas. Let me translate: Muslim neighborhoods and no-go zones will be established using government resources, in which Shariah Law will replace French law. They will use their own courts and own schools, if they choose. They will speak their own languages. They will live on welfare at the governments invitation and they will never be encouraged or expected to assimilate.  Yeah - that's a great idea.

4 - Pro-immigrant propaganda will not only continue but will increase, and any media or person in public speech openly criticizing immigration, the activities of immigrants, or the government's policy on immigrants, will be criminally punished. In other words the news media will damn well report only what the government wants it to.  Anyone remember Pravda?

One has to wonder how soon it will come to pass that even private speech that disagrees with immigration - or the other EU policies - will be illegal. The Nazis did that; they encouraged school children to report their own parents for unacceptable speech.  Our public schools and those of Europe have been indoctrinating children for a while now; such encouragement to the children would be successful.

The Eastern European countries, Italy, and voices like Le Pen's are struggling to stop the coming tide.  The E.U. is hell-bent - by its own public statements - on creating a globalist one-government European society. The E.U. is made up of socialist globalist millionaires, who frankly want what dictators always want - to control everyone. The U.N., largely due to laziness and stupidity on the part of Western countries (they are too busy becoming socialist globalists after all), has evolved to be Muslim controlled. Even its human rights committee is almost entirely made up of Muslim nations that routinely do things like deny women equal rights or even safety and mobility, throw gay off buildings or lynch them publicly, turn a blind eye to beheadings and terrorist activities, and finance the genocides of Christians and Jews.

My mom is right. Something terrible is taking shape. Not enough people have their eyes open. Coming years will test our courage as individuals, our commitment to what is morally right, and our resolve to defeat what is truly evil.

The Former Life of a Writer, or Thoughts on Courage

Some have asked recently about my interest in politics - specifically the politics of international relations and radical Islam. I have tried for the three years I have been on Twitter to keep that part of my writing out of "Lichen Craig".  But...I find that passion takes me where it will, and more and more my interest in politics creeps into what began as a pro-LGBT account to promote my fiction. Judging by the inquiries, many would like to hear the story, so here it is.

In 1983 I made my first trip to France with the man who would become my husband for near twenty years. I was 21 years old, wide-eyed and curious about other cultures. I had lived in Denmark for a time, so wasn't entirely ignorant of Europe, but I had never had any interest in France in particular. I was pleasantly surprised; it was Christmas, and lights, French carols, family, people off work, holiday shopping, chocolate and great food, were everywhere. I fell in love with my adopted culture. My fiance's family was in many ways a traditional one: generations of French blood back to medieval times and probably beyond. My father-in-law had spent years in the French army fighting in Algeria - my fiance had spent time there as a child, playing with donkeys in the streets with his Muslim companions, and picking up Arabic.

One night Dominique and I decided to go to a local Middle-Eastern restaurant for couscous, and we invited his dad and stepmom along. His father flatly and unapologetically refused. He would not enter an Arab business. My fiance grumbled to me about how racist/ethnocentric his dad was, how hopelessly old-school, how stupid. We laughed and went to dinner and had a great time. Through the years his father would make many anti-Arab, anti-Muslim comments, causing us to roll our eyes. We were young - we knew it all.

I suppose it was about 1993 when I stumbled upon a book that changed my life. Journalist Jean Sasson teamed with a member of the Saudi royal family to write Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia. The book has since been reissued (2010) and has become a sort of classic of the study of Islamic popular culture. For me it was an eye-opener; I had no idea that women were treated thus in the Middle East. Stoned? Walled up in rooms to starve and die? I was horrified and sickened by the book - and permanently fascinated by a culture that allowed such things.

I began to read everything I could get my hands on, first about women living in Islam, then about Islam itself, about the histories of Islam in various countries, in Europe. During one trip to France we visited the lovely city of Clermont-Ferrand in the French mountains (Massif Central), where we saw the cathedral where the First Crusade began. For the first time I understood that it began - three hundred plus years of warfare - as a result of Moorish Muslim invasions of the Holy Land and of mainstream Europe. Islam had been overrunning Europe by sword, since the seventh century when its founder prophet taught his followers that his faith was the only answer, that the rest of the world must bow to it ("Islam" means literally "submission"), and those who refused to do it had to be forced by violence.  I later visited Poitiers, where Charles Martel stopped the Moors, two thirds of their way into the north of France in the eighth century.

For many years, I worked in various jobs and wrote/edited for extra pay on the side. I never wrote politics - I dabbled at wildlife and ecology, education, social issues, edited a local newspaper. Nothing terribly controversial. Then came 9/11.

Those of us born before say . . . 1985 or so all remember that morning well. For me, a phone call came from a friend. None of the usual cheery hello, but just, "Turn on the TV. NOW."  I turned on NBC - I remember Tom Brokaw's voice. The first plane had just hit a tower. At that point, everyone was horrified but assuming an accident, an unfortunate, tragic accident. Then about five minutes in, the second plane . . . like many others I watched it aim for the tower and plow into it; my jaw dropped. I still remember my brain scrambling, desperate . . . trying hard to connect dots. The slow and horrible realization that this was no accident.  I remember Tom Brokaw going silent for what seemed like forever but was probably a full half-minute or more, while his brain - and that of his producers no doubt - did the same gymnastics mine did. After that I remember little, save spending the morning curled on the corner of the sofa with a Kleenex box and my heart heavy with indescribable grief, staring at the TV screen, my day's work neglected.

Most of us were changed forever on that day. I know I was. I started to reread the books that had interested me. And I read more. I began to talk to people . . .to Muslims I knew, to those who had left the religion. Life went on and years passed, and I continued to obsess and gather knowledge. I read the Koran, I read books discussing and interpreting it. I read others on Christianity and Judaism, trying to understand why this level of violence occurred in this one of the three faiths of Abraham.

Back in about 1998 I had made a visit to Paris, and during the course had to visit a magazine in the Muslim section of the city. I had visited there before, and had enjoyed the friendly street vendors and exotic products from the Middle East, spices in the air, colors and sights. I had loved the restaurants. I was looking forward to revisiting that neighborhood of the city. As I stepped out of the subway into the light, I was hit in the face by the unexpected sight of a sea of burkas - for blocks and blocks as far as I could see. I strained my ears to hear a word of French, but could detect only Arabic around me. Men stared as I stepped carefully around people on the sidewalk. I was petite, young, blond, white, dressed modernly - and feeling very vulnerable. I had heard that Paris had changed and that the Muslim population had established closed enclaves unfriendly to non-Muslims, but hadn't quite understood fully until I witnessed this. It saddened me. Not because it was a piece of multiculturalism but because it was NOT. It seemed to be intent on erasing Paris itself... in these streets there was no trace of the Paris I loved. I remember thinking to myself that Tehran was in the middle of Paris now. This was not multiculturalism, it was the denial of the host culture altogether. I took a cab out to avoid walking the sidewalk again.

By 2006 I was divorced. My ex let me know that my father-in-law, to whom I'd been close and who had been suffering from cancer for a time, had passed away in France. I thought back to his words, all his words, warning of the coming of Islamic extremism. The advent of the internet had allowed information to reach me and others in ways it never had before (my dad always calls it a library in the living room).  My knowledge of the subject through years had grown and ate at me. I felt a tinge of guilt at the times we had laughed at my father-in-law and assumed him outdated and ethnocentric. On the contrary, he'd obviously come to understand a few things from his years in a Muslim country. My brother-in-law had gone to live and teach in Algeria after about 1998, and after 2001 violence had risen in the streets there against all Europeans/non-Muslims. In the end, he barely got out by the skin of his teeth in the middle of the night. His lover, a young man who was Muslim but associated with Europeans and dressed and acted Western, had suddenly disappeared.

Denmark, which I had known well as a teenager, was under attack for publishing cartoons. This pained me not only because it was Denmark but because back in 1986 I'd earned a journalism degree and had the idea of freedom of expression pounded into me. The notion that anyone could be killed for expressing an idea was astounding for me. And now...Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh had been butchered on an Amsterdam street by Muslims for making a film about Islam's treatment of women. The extremist menace was growing. My ire had grown, and like any writer, I was driven to channel it into writing. The first article - and I used a pseudonym, a bit frightened of writing frankly about Islam - was about Denmark: http://europenews.dk/en/node/6517.  I felt out of my element; I had no formal education at university in politics, but I did have a brain. I saw so many around me so much smarter and more articulate. I worked daily and hard to learn from them. My article was quickly picked up all over the internet, I was paid, and best of all . . . a gentleman scholar from Denmark wrote to tell me how much he liked it and thought it was accurate.

I kept writing. I wrote on the growing enclaves in Paris. I wrote about Theo Van Gogh, about freedom of speech, about Islam and real history and the revision of history by apologists and liberals. I wrote it all - all that had eaten at me for years. Haters - yep, I heard from them. I got some death threats. I was careful never to mention where I lived. But I made friendships too . . . with people I never would have imagined. Like the young people who ran a website devoted to telling the stories of those who had left Islam at great peril to their lives and welfare. Or the scholar who worked to educate people about what Iran was pre-Islam (Iran, "Persia", was one of the last Middle Eastern areas to be conquered
by Islam). Once, he warned me about being lured to a meeting in Paris with a source who turned out to be a former soldier of Sadaam Hussein's inner guard; that man meant me harm. I talked with people who grew up in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and had left the religion. They passed information on to me for stories. I did a guest stint on a national radio show a few times to talk about the rise of radical Islam in the U.S. I felt safe doing it because no one could see my face. I manned a blog called ASKEW, focusing on the plight of victims of Islamic ideology - Muslim and non. I got thousands of hits a week. (I took it down two years ago, when the host went out of business.) I got letters in response to my articles that I will never forget - like the one from a physician in London, a Muslim, who said my articles often made him angry but that he could find no flaw in my arguments or research, to his frustration. In the end, after writing for a few years, I was asked to speak at a large conference in Florida, side-by-side with people I so admired. I was flattered and astounded that they considered me one of their own, an "expert" on radical Islam.

But I had to admit to myself - and it was hard - that I hadn't the courage my associates had. These people lived daily looking over their shoulders, lived daily with death threats from Islamists. Some lived under guard, behind electric fences that made a sort of prison around their properties, in Western countries far from their places of birth. Many had been rejected from their Muslim families for their truth-telling. I hadn't the courage to show my face in Florida and risk my safety.  And truth be told, it was all taking a toll on me, mentally and emotionally. It wasn't interesting anymore; it was damned depressing.

You see, the more you learn, the more you really look into the truth of radical Islam, the more you realize what it is. You hear the comments of people bent on being politically correct and you stifle laughter: if they only knew how out of touch they are, how astoundingly dark the truth is. How insidious the danger is as it silently creeps further into cracks in Western culture - cracks made up of naivete and of the political double-speak of politicians who have no idea what kind of threat they pave the way for. I became more depressed the more I realized and understood; I hadn't the spirit for it.  I am tough - I've lived a tough life and well - and it was the first time I saw a lack in my character, the first time I saw a limitation to my own courage. It was humbling.

I had to quit. I had to find my sanity again. I had to find light in the world, to balance the darkness I'd wallowed in for those few years. And so I turned to writing about animal training and animal husbandry, editing nursing journals, and finally, writing a novel. That was 2012.

Now...I see what is happening in the world, and in Europe, and I find my own lion awakening again. Once again, I am inspired by the courage of those working to disseminate the truth about Islam's most radical followers - radicals are actually the Muslims who follow Islam as it is really written. (While "moderates either delude themselves or struggle within themselves to find an alternate "interpretation" of a faith built upon the musings of a cold killer and his god.)

This time I have balance - I write on other things; I hold onto my emotional well-being jealously. I'm older, wiser, and I know the toll writing can take. But I find myself pulled back into that world I left - where top leaders of nations lack basic education on something so terribly important to our futures and consequently say the most idiotic things in public interviews. Where Shariah Law continues to creep into Western cities. Where most people blithely go about their lives talking about their latest job and love interest and post selfies on Twitter and never give a thought to the coming threat. Except in a week, perhaps, when 17 innocents are mowed down by Islamic fundamentalists in Paris. And then. . . like the masses do so many times, they pause, say "what a shame", then forget about it in a week and go back to their lives. But the Islamists . . . they aren't forgetting.  And increasingly, I find that I can't forget either, and more frequently I rejoin the conversation of those brave ones who refuse to forget it even for a day.

It's a struggle that goes to the heart of who I am. The written word has defined me since I was 12 years old, when I found my voice as a writer. To me, it represents freedom, the singing of a soul. The thought of it being silenced fills me with a dread and fury that I cannot adequately describe to you all. And so, I have to continue to pick up the pen, like those braver souls around me, and light my one small candle - and tell the unpleasant truth about an unpleasant subject. For indeed, JE SUIS CHARLIE.