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Europe
Athens: Muslim anger ignites violent response
2009-05-26
Standard MSM assumptions about the perpetrators and victims aside, an interesting follow-up to reports about the Muslim riot in Athens last week.
Greek Far-right-wing vigilantes burned a makeshift mosque in Athens over the weekend after Muslim immigrants in Athens attacked police with rocks and bottles over an incident in which a policeman was said to have reportedly defaced a Koran.
Resident foreigners go on a rampage, breaking things and hurting people, on the usual trumped up pretext. It's always desecrating a koran, isn't it? Seems like us infidels can't get close to a koran without desecrating it. And the resident foreigners are simply incapable of controlling their own actions -- there's nothing they can do but rampage, break things, and hurt people.
Although Greece has a history of political violence from radical leftists and anarchists, sectarian bloodletting represents an entirely modern phenomenon.
Unlike on the other side of the Bosporus, where breaking inifidels' stuff and hurting them is much more common.
The latest incident began with a policeman who made an identification spot check on an immigrant from Iraq. When baseless rumour word spread that the policeman had ripped and stomped on the suspect's Koran, things got ugly.
I have occasionally seen nasty cops. They exist. I have seen cops who should never have been allowed close to a badge, much less the public. I have never seen a cop rip and stomp on somebody's holy book. They have more important things to do, like konk people with their clubs.
Chanting "God is great" and waving leather-bound copies of Islam's holy book, about 1,000 Muslim immigrants demonstrated with a march on Parliament Friday. When the crowd dwindled to about 300, remaining protesters began throwing rocks and bottles at police and smashing windows at a luxury hotel in central Syntagma Square, according to an account by the Associated Press.
Unlike the coppers, whom -- good or bad -- we never seem to see actually desecrating holy books, we regularly see the turban and curly-toed slipper set rioting. They're not real good at holding jobs or starting businesses, but they're pretty good at setting cars on fire and tossing rocks.
Greek Far-right-wing vigilantes replied over the weekend by setting fire to a Muslim prayer hall. Taken together, the incidents represent some of the worst sectarian violence witnessed in modern Greece.
Only the far right ever responds to the riots and the misplaced arrogance of the Master Religion. I'm not sure what the middle right, the center, or the middle left does. The far left is for some reason one with them in heart and soul, if not in habit and behavior.
The far left were the ones who organized the march cum riot.
A spokesman for the Greek police said claimed that the policeman did not rip up a Koran, but a folded and glued sheet of paper containing unidentifiable writing in Arabic.

Unrest in Greece's community of Muslim immigrants is something new, analysts say. "For so many years, they've been scared and defensive," said Takis Geros, a lecturer of anthropology of the Middle East at Panteion University. "To suddenly come out in broad daylight with their faces exposed and trash 75 cars indicates a massive change in attitude."
Data generated by the generation-old Eurabia project indicates that when immigrant Muslim population reaches a certain density, attitudes change from desire for assimilation to increasingly violent insistence on accommodation to escalating demands. But perhaps one need be a full professor to know such things, not a mere lecturer. (Or a simple American housewife, but we won't go there just now.)
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Muslim Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia cross into Greece illegally every year from neighboring Turkey or by sea. Social tensions have risen in recent years as the racial and religious makeup of this formerly homogeneous Greek Orthodox Christian country shifted to a multiethnic, multireligious society.

"Sometimes the humiliation is such that were made to feel by Greeks as if were not human beings," said Ejazulhaq Syed, a representative of the Pakistani community in Athens who has lived in Greece for 35 years. "But the violence [against us] had nothing to do with religion but with the bad economic situation and having too many foreigners in Greece."
Are you legally resident in Greece, Mr. Syed? Is your wife? The members of the community you represent? The price to be paid for choosing an illegal existence is lack of protection from the law.
Today, an estimated 1 million of Greeces 11 million people are foreign, and second-generation immigrant children are exposed to exclusionary practices by the educational system and labor market.
Are they here legally? Whether yes or no, do they pay all taxes due and abide by all the laws of the land? This being Greece, I suspect the answer to both is in the negative... which tends to create a great deal of resentment in the citizenry being taken advantage of.
Attacks on foreigners by vigilante groups were on the rise before the Saturday incident, in which suspected rightists set the makeshift mosque on fire in the St. Panteleimon district of Athens, which is heavily populated by immigrants. Five Bangladeshi nationals were reportedly injured.

Though legislation has been passed through the Greek Parliament to allow for the building of a mosque for Athens estimated 400,000 Muslim residents, construction has yet to begin. Muslims worship in unofficial prayer spaces in rented apartments and stores.

More:
At least three people were hospitalized in Athens on Saturday morning after a firebomb attack on a shop used as a Muslim prayer center for immigrants. Police said unknown assailants smashed the shop's windows and poured gasoline inside before igniting it.

The march on Friday was organized by leftist, immigrant and anti-racism groups. Violence broke out after the rally when a group of protesters began throwing projectiles at police. Immigrant groups allege that an Athens police officer tore apart and stepped on the Koran of a coffee shop customer during a police check in central Athens on Thursday
Later learned to be the customary, um, lie.
Some 46 protesters were arrested Friday during the clashes, while seven Muslim immigrants and seven policemen were hospitalized for treatment. More than 70 cars and around a dozen businesses were damaged in the clashes, which sent tourists running for cover in nearby hotels.

A day earlier an even larger crowd of around 1,500 Muslim immigrants rallied before the march degenerated into violence. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.
It's not clear to me whether the journalist is still talking about the Friday march and violence, or whether there was another violent march on Thursday immediately following the incident.
Posted by:trailing wife

#13  Better yet Bugs - how about we enforce our existing immigration laws and don't let them in? (but then this is happening in Greece and not the U.S. - yet!)
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-05-26 19:21  

#12  Duh. How about we boot out aliens with hair-trigger personalities?
Posted by: Bugs Gremble3850   2009-05-26 18:38  

#11  When some blacks commit acts of violence they will claim that somebody called them a bad word. When Muslims commit acts of violence they will claim that an infidel desecrated a koran. This tells me that some people are too emotionally unstable to be allowed into western society. If a word or rumor can cause you to riot and attempt to hurt people, maybe you should be premptively locked up.
Posted by: Formerly Dan   2009-05-26 18:16  

#10  Interesting link Anon. Funny how when Islamics riot its called 'youth anger' while if natives protest (rather wildly) its called a 'Lynch mob'.

According to the Västerbotten-Kuriren newspaper, the dispute began when a group of local youths confronted a refugee boy about the assault of a local girl which took place Tuesday night.

The initial school yard confrontation, during which the refugee boy was pressed for information rather than accused of involvement in the assault, but was also allegedly pushed to the ground, escalated during the course of the week through subsequent run ins, culminating in the weekend's disturbances.

Sounds like the locals may be getting tired of the local girls getting assulted in the streets.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-05-26 15:57  

#9  Remember that Greece was a Turkish (Ottoman) suzeranity until 1840, and it wasn't until after World War II that Greece reached its current boundaries. There is no love of Islam in Greece. There's a semi-open war along the northern border with Albania, with constant smuggling and other crimes. The fact that the United States managed to keep these two lifelong enemies from each other's throats through almost 50 years of NATO's existence is a modern miracle. Now that the old "Soviet Union" has collapsed, old annimosities are coming to the surface. Nor is it a one-sided solution - the behavior of Greece in the Cypriot partition, and the constant rub of the Aegean Islands' domination by Greece are constant, unhealed wounds.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2009-05-26 15:53  

#8  'Lynch mob' prompts refugees to flee town in northern Sweden
Posted by: anonymous5089   2009-05-26 15:12  

#7  sectarian bloodletting represents an entirely modern phenomenon.

I guess it depends on your definition of modern. There was wholesale slaughter of minorities in post WW1 Greece as well as mass deportations.

Arguably Israel would have never happened without the Jews expelled from Greece.
Posted by: phil_b   2009-05-26 13:47  

#6  Kinda skips right over the post-WWII Greek Civil War, also. Guess that doesn't count as "modern".
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2009-05-26 11:49  

#5  The MSM's concept of history only incorporates events since they graduated from journalism school.
6 or 7 years at most.
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2009-05-26 10:05  

#4  Although Greece has a history of political violence from radical leftists and anarchists, sectarian bloodletting represents an entirely modern phenomenon.

Sorta skips over the whole mess of Cyprus doesn't it. Then again why should anyone in the MSM have a concept of 'history' that's more than a couple years old [and becoming shorter with each new day of Obama's reign].
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-05-26 09:28  

#3  Until a Muslim immigrant community reaches a certain point of organization, they are humble. At some point they start demanding workplace accomodation of prayers and Halal food needs, Muslim Personal Law, then Sharia Courts. Then when they get everything, they are powerful enough to launch jihad terror.

As for the Greeks, they once held every inch of land occupied by European-Turkey. I wonder what happened there?
Posted by: Uloluns Scourge of the Bunions1692   2009-05-26 08:45  

#2  No, I don't think we have - if anything, the Greeks can be powerful haters, and there exists that long, long memory of being oppressed by the Ottoman Turks for centuries, during which Muslims rode rough-shod over the Orthodox Greeks. So, I don't see the Greeks rolling over and playing good dhimmi for anyone.

And currently, IIRC various letters from friends there, a lot of resentments about illegal aliens, who are presumed to be responsible for a lot of petty crime.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2009-05-26 08:39  

#1  At least three people were hospitalized in Athens on Saturday morning after a firebomb attack on a shop used as a Muslim prayer center for immigrants.

You ain't seen the last of this.
Posted by: Parabellum   2009-05-26 08:13  

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