EUROPE IN THE FALL (and Jihaddic tourism)


Somewhat reluctantly, I recently returned to the US after enjoying several weeks viewing the beautiful fall colors to be seen in Austria, the Czech & Slovak Republics, and Hungary. As luck and the global weather patterns would have it, the conditions were perfect for indulging in some vicarious appreciation of nature’s more spectacular Autumnal delights.

The well preserved edificial nature of Prague in particular heightened that enjoyment for me, as there are fewer splendid reminders of how Imperial Habsburg Europe must have appeared, back in the last days of that monarchy’s glory, than to wander the grounds of the Charles University and similarly bedecked venues as Autumn works its many wonders on the wide variety of deciduous trees to be found there.

Part of the time we drifted leisurely down the equally impressive Donau (AKA Danube) on one of the flat bottomed, shallow drafted, narrow beamed and multi-decked craft built specifically for this purpose. Our craft in particular, built and owned by the Amadeus Line (the vessel is named the Amadeus/Elegant) drafted only 4 or so feet, despite being several hundred feet long, and possesses an advantage during the dryer years when deeper-drafted vessels sometimes must pull ashore and dock due to lowered water levels in certain parts of the river.

But I won’t bore you with the usual observations about the cuisine being too abundant on our trip, the service too perfect, the accommodations too comfortable, or the company most convivial. Suffice it to say the overall experience of leisurely travel on Europe’s only west-to-east major river was excellent. I highly commend it to anyone who is contemplating a delightfully ‘different’ European experience.

Having been largely absent from Europe for over 10 years, I was keen to take note of how things have changed in this part of the continent and consequently kept one eye always focused on the changing expression of regional cultural values on display, in streets, on avenues, in parks and shops, cafes and tourist gathering points. In the back of my mind, also lurking somewhat unbidden, was awareness of whether or not the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis within the Czech, Slovak & Hungarian national borders was having any observable effect.

Recalling my many wonderful experiences in German-speaking Europe back in the 80s & 90s (by ‘German-speaking’ I mean and include those nations formerly either conquered by or adjoined to the German Reich, which would be Slovakia, the Czech homeland, and Hungary, all of which were forced to adopt German fluency, owing to their status as subjugated German conquests), it quickly became apparent exactly how wide-spread so-called ‘multiculturalism’ has become, with discernible evidence of change that in prior decades would have been largely inconceivable. Wien, as one of the historically most ethnically varied capitols of Europe, certainly has always had a particular fascination with cultural ways not indigenous to Austria's national borders, but even in that richly striated demographic region of Austria there were sights to be seen that had been entirely missing since the 17th Century’s Battle of Vienna. I refer here to a notable evidence of people of obvious Islamic faith, on the streets and in most public venues. Women in Hejab, heavy beards (some hennaed, even!), and wives walking dutifully behind their husbands.

As a person of Northern European heritage, one of the great pleasures afforded me in my many past travels through Europe has been the opportunity to reconnect with the charming cultural heritage that instantly links me to my European forebears. Be it in a Viennese coffee house (‘café’), in a Stadtskunstmuseum or simply in rural travels through the countryside, the ties to my own heritage are both palpable and immensely, personally pleasurable. Few things, for instance, recall the glory of fin de siècle Germanic Europe than a stroll in the rain along the fabulously mood-evocative Ringstrasse, late at night, perhaps with a loved one after a concert of Mozart or some other famed Baroque composer’s music. Ah!

The thought, therefore, that the previous rejection of Islam that the battles between the Islamic Caliphate and the European nobles administered may now yet be overturned, ironically enough, as Islam gains a new foothold in Europe (through the present crisis) albeit by less directly violent means, is unsettling to say the least. The idea of excessively austere Islamic morals and ethics impacting and challenging age-old established European standards of custom and practice is even more disturbing.

Given the possibilities implicit, if Europe takes in countless thousands of Syrian refugees under the present chaotic and unorganized conditions, it doesn’t take much clarity of insight to perceive that the classical Europe so many of us love and revere will be permanently distorted, radically changed and/or irreparably altered for the worse.

All of these thoughts have recently come together owing to a catalytic incident that occurred today in a local internet setting titled ‘NEXTDOOR’. Ostensibly a social media site set up on a ‘local’ or ‘neighborhood’ basis to allow discussion and consideration of local community concerns & issues, it is prone to the usual pitfalls and liabilities that all social media site suffer from…namely the expression of ignorant, uninformed and/or highly inflammatory comments by equally ignorant and uninformed individuals.

In order to prevent egregiously reactive responses by the more obvious yahoos and cretins, the site designates so-called ‘lead’ members of the NEXTDOOR forum to serve as censors and proctors in the various discussions. And certainly, there have been a number of outrageously rude, scatological and ignorant opinions eradicated by these ‘lead members’ in the past year or two that rather richly deserved to be deleted (typically due to the outrageous and disrespectful language characteristically used by many, in both expressions of opinion and in personal attacks against certain individuals these people may disagree with).

While this sort of control and moderation is in theory carried out to everyone’s greater benefit (sparing us from the sort of insulting, often capricious and highly puerile ‘flaming’ thoughtlessly engaged in by many younger people on social media sites), occasionally the practice verges on short-sighted partisan censorship of otherwise cogently expressed & socially valuable commentary (as it did to me today).

The issue of homelessness in Sacramento (CA) came up on the forum, prompted by one member stating that homeless people were setting up cardboard shacks here and there in various public areas and urging others on the forum to report this to city LEOs, so that they could be taken down (and the homeless occupants dispersed). As an interested party to this discussion, I responded affirming the need to bring the LEOs into the matter (as suggested by the original poster), but as I am wont to do, I expanded my response to highlight the misconceived concerns we have in America (namely that it is OK to bring several thousand Syrian refugees into the country under the blanket of political amnesty while simultaneously declining to directly deal with an even more pressing domestic matter: the development of an alarming underclass of homeless people through an unspecified but nonetheless apparent policy of embarrassed disregard, abetted by lenient entitlement programs).

My point being made was that rather than reflexively and mindlessly embracing thousands of immigrants whose actual political status is still unclear (many are actually ECONOMIC refugees, rather than victims of Syrian governmental brutality, and we’ve already seen evidence of ISIS/ISIL Jihaddists covertly slipping into Europe among those immigrants), what we need to do is take an intensive look at the vast problems that thousands of homeless Americans are creating in our cities and communities everywhere across the country and tackle the underlying causes head-on. That we reluctantly admit that the homeless pose a major problem (both for their welfare, as well as for ours, the economically enfranchised) is painfully obvious, but few among us dare even openly discuss the need for permanent solutions, let along take active steps to formulate national, state & local policies to deal with the very real and pressing homeless problem.

For my impertinence, my comment was prejudicially deleted by a young woman (who appears to be in her early 30s) that has been arbitrarily designated as a forum ‘lead’ (despite having no special qualifications, experience and/or mitigating assets, academic, professional or otherwise, that would qualify her for that role).

Her justification for summarily deleting my comment was given as my post being ‘political’ and not having immediate ‘…bearing on the subject, which is the homeless; poster talked about a subject not related to the homeless, that of the refugee crisis’, etc.). Huh?

Well, to say I was frosted by the short-sighted ignorance and the arrogant condescension of that action is understating things, since the purpose of my observations, as always, is to engender a state of thoughtful reflectivity among those I communicate with, and in that sense there is a very direct link between the subject discussed and my remarks.

This propensity of those on the liberal progressive left to sit in immediate judgement of anyone daring to resist their dogmatic leftist doctrines is a well-established fact of present day America. A number of authors such as Kirstin Powers have repeatedly pointed out the fact that the progressive left now has such a high opinion of its moral rectitude that they automatically assume that any dissenting views or opinions are completely untenable, reactively denouncing any discussions or colloquys as racist, bigoted, biased and/or whatever accusative injective they can come up with, to bring any possibility of rational discussion to a complete and abject halt. In particular, Kirstin Powers’ book ‘The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech’ perfectly addresses that highly infuriating tactic, in which the left’s heavy-handedness verges on the most fascistic absolutism imaginable.

Thus with the above incident. Not only was my commentary determined to not be permissible, it was actually ‘disappeared’ by the snippy little personage referenced above with a justification totally unsustainable and/or completely unreasoned (capricious is the most appropriate term that fits here).

Unfortunately, when the so-called ‘lead forum members’ are so highly reactive, based on their own narrowly perceived and highly biased awarenesses, the end result is an abrupt end to what would otherwise have been a thoughtful consideration of useful possibilities; granted there would be those who took umbrage with my thoughts, as there always will be, but at least free speech would best be served by sustaining & promoting openness, rather than by enforcing narrow and ethically questionable censorship (wielded by an obviously inexperienced and rather uninformed individual).

At any rate, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest (thank you very much), I am reminded of a recent media (national broadcast media, that is, not…groan…’social’ media) panel in which the ISIS/ISIL outrages occurring recently in Paris were discussed, in so far as the question was raised: “What attracts the young foreign fighters who flock to Syria to fight for the popular Jihaddist cause?”

I recall hearing that question and being absolutely stunned to think that a supposedly well-educated and well-read media person of some repute would actually NOT know the answer to this (and surely the question was NOT merely rhetorical), unless it were a typical news media ‘leading question’ gambit to spark further discussion.

The answer, as I see it, ties in very closely with the recent work of author Jon Savage titled ‘Teenage: The Creation of a Youth Culture’ (a work I have written about in one or several of my previous posts here) in that it is simple youthful rebelliousness that lies behind what otherwise seems an impossible-to-understand motivation spurring so many youths to rally behind the radically extreme Islamic Jihaddist cause.

For your consideration in this context we have a typical pattern of adolescent development that has been in existence since the dawn of recorded human history: youthful unrest & dissatisfaction with the established status quo of the older (read: empowered, wealthy, entitled and influential) members of the socio-economic establishment. Savage draws upon this simple fact of human life (youthful rebelliousness) to develop his fascinating book, marshalling thousands of supporting facts and circumstances (so don’t take my word for it…take his!) to make his case. In fact, I’d strongly suggest to all of you an immediate re-screening of that classic James Dean early 50s film titled ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ for some basic backstory on this powerful dynamic of adolescence.

Viewed from my own perspective, it makes all the sense in the world that youths WILL be unhappy and perhaps totally opposed to ANYTHING having to do with ‘older people’, regardless of any cogent reasoning aimed at them. If those same ‘older people’ are fanning the flames of a war, it stands to reason that there will be an immediate and powerful resistive backlash on the part of youths to protest it. In fact the only reason why wars CAN be fought at all is that part of the ‘youth paradigm’ involves a need for self-achievement, self aggrandisement, and self-promotion (read: a need for ‘heroism’, medals, acclaim, adventure and a chance to explore that vaguely intoxicating concept called ‘death’ that to immortal youths just starting out in life is so utterly alien as to be totally incomprehensible).

Certainly part of the problem with youths getting caught up in the grand excitement of death, danger, riskiness and hazard (all aspects of war) is that these rituals are all part of the rites of passage for all male youths. Thus, whether the American war in Vietnam or the extremist radical Jihad of ISIS/ISIL, war is a chance (for youths) to overthrow the dominant paradigm (that is ‘adult’ control of society and the economy that they find so oppressive and ‘ageist’).

Youthfulness as a state of being presupposes a fragile state of romantic idealism, a powerfully basic need to stand out as something unique in the midst of what is perceived as a rather bewildering herd of uniformly similar individuals (youths). War offers young men that opportunity to test the waters of adulthood, to spread uncertain wings, flex their muscles and perhaps even to compete (subconsciously) for the privilege to mate (an instinctual, almost subconscious concern, undoubtedly not at all understood by youths experiencing it, that relates directly to the rampant effects of male testosterone hormone in developing young males).

Thus, in the Islamic extremist Jihad of ISIS/ISIL there exist all the classic elements that draw youths to a cause or an ideal like flame to a moth. In the USA this fatal attraction is doubtless greatly fanned by the disenfranchisement and socio-economic dissatisfaction of black youths who see a ‘way out’ of their self-perceived 'oppression' in adopting a Muslim name, embracing radical Islamic dogma and rushing off, eager to get their hands on Serious Weapons to make a heroic name for themselves.

Their dissatisfaction can be so extreme and so ardent (all characteristics of youthfulness) that they quickly declare themselves willing to die for the cause, either in battle or by self-sacrifice (and we all know where that perverse idea leads: hello suicide vests!). But they are, after all, youths, aren’t they? Madly romantic captives of unknown hormonal forces that they can hardly understand or control, conveniently offered a means of both standing apart from the crowd and achieving some uniquely personal notoriety. It’s a very, very hard attraction to resist. In previous ages it might have been archetypal anarchism, or perhaps resistance to the First World War (et al).

Immensely complicating this is the fact that these erstwhile radical Jihaddists have absolutely no regard whatsoever for human life of any kind, even drawing the smallest children into their web and conditioning them from the cradle to accept the severely dehumanised Jihaddist agenda to the point where by the time they are pubescent, they are either hardcore Jihaddists or…dead (by suicide, in its variously approved radical Islamic forms). After all, despite the fact that ISIS/ISIL at its innermost doctrinal center has about as much to do with REAL Islam as oil has to water, these children have been sold a bill of goods that they are absolutely incapable of effectively resisting. If they meanwhile survive to a slight older, slightly more mature state, they have been mind-numbingly led to believe that self-sacrifice for the cause is a one-way ticket to heaven and all the (fantastic) rewards supposedly offered in that mythical place to the radical Jihaddist.

I am of the opinion that all of the above is fairly obvious to anyone who understands anything about the overall totality of the human life experience and its phasic passage of immaturity into maturity.

What has always struck me profoundly in the above context are how the central figures behind the Jihad, the so-called ‘masterminds’ (like Osama...Rest In Pieces... & all the others at the top of the terrorist power pyramid) who conceive the strategies and orchestrate the Jihaddist agenda of killing, hatred and extreme violence, manage to remain alive, despite their violent self-destructive rhetoric. They usually manage to keep themselves safe & sound, cordoned off from harm themselves while directing the thousands constituting their unquestioning cohort to destroy themselves and everyone else for the holy ‘cause’. How nice for them…and how utterly hypocritical!

The truly sad thing about such causes as is ISOS/ISIL is that were these youthful rebels somehow able to survive the depredations of youthfulness and grow into mature manhood, most would likely realise (with some chagrin) the practical foolishness of their ardently sophomoric passions (as most mature individuals do, after gaining a bit of experience & age).

This fact of the human growth & maturity process (as applicable to males, since females seem to be blessedly bereft of the need to fight & die violently) is the only reason why we have incessant, unrelenting warfare throughout history, naturally enough. All one needs for proof is to ask any ‘old man’ who no longer cares to pick a fight on a whim and who in many cases probably looks wistfully forward to an eternity of unconscious sleep in a six foot deep plot somewhere.

Another aspect of youthful causes (such as ISIS/ISIL) is the fact that one of the principal needs of (male) youths, on the path towards gaining some sense of personal identity, is a sense of belonging. Without going into the complexities that mark parent/child interactions, ostensibly formulating deep psychological patterns of love, dependency, reliance and association, causes such as ISIS/ISIL constitute a sort of ‘gang’. In communities this same dynamic may end up as a youth gang…a group that offers fraternal comfort and support in the absence of more basic familial substitutes. In its most disruptive expression (drug gangs, such as those predominating in Mexico today), this state of puerile fraternal need evolves (devolves?) into a circumstance that involves the association of older, theoretically more mature (physically perhaps, emotionally & mentally not) individuals. While I’ll leave it to the psychologists to more fully plumb this subject (of drug gangs), the fact is that youths are frequently drawn to gang associations in their quest for love, understanding, acceptance and personal vindication. When you have a situation that draws in religious mysticisms, symbols and related esoterica, what a perfect attraction for youthful rebels who not only find peer acceptance and fraternal association in such a group, but highly attractive potential rewards (i.e. in the case of ISIS/ISIL, favored special holy status in heaven or Islamic paradise)!

I suppose what I am saying is that our present crisis, regardless of the causative motivations that catalyzed the current ISIS/ISIL crisis (such as the destabilization of the Southwest Asian region that occurred after the US ‘removed’ Saddam Hussein, and the long-lasting and pre-existing Sunni/Shia Islamic religious schism to name just two) is really no different from any other era’s principal casus belli. Name any major conflict throughout history and you will find in it a brightly burning flame that is as attractive to adolescent youth’s eternal search for self-justification and identity as candy is to a child.

It should therefore not be surprising to find that in the present ISIS/ISIL conflict the vast majority of fighters are passionate, youthful idealists that have found…predictably…what they perceive as a ‘just cause, or perhaps simply as an acceptable alternative to their being excluded from a society that still conducts its affairs on a racial basis (i.e. black/white, as in the USA), whether openly admitted or covertly denied.

One could certainly observe, in furtherance of this theory, that older people like me are chiefly interested in preserving the status quo of the socio-economic stability they have become accustomed to (whether still imperfect or not so), whereas younger people just starting out in life eat, sleep and breathe the dynamics of change. That’s merely a factual result of the fact that human beings live finite lives with a distinct beginning and end. In old age, all most of want is to be allowed to expire as effortlessly, as painlessly and as peacefully as possible. In youth, the opposite effect obtains, which results in the constant pushing of personal limits that constitutes the measurement of one’s collective assets, abilities and personal character in an attempt to get as close to death as possible without actually stepping over that hard, sharp edge.

All perfectly understandable, predictable and normal, given the nature of the human life experience.

Ah well! With the radical influx of Syrian refugees into Europe, I personally have little doubt that that wonderfully evocative reminder of a glorious cultural past that I experience when I revisit Europe is doomed to largely be swallowed up in a new form of forced multi-culturalism that will clearly be difficult in birthing. The good news is that it really doesn’t matter to me, since in a few years I’ll be dead anyway.

Change is inevitable, as we all know (wasn’t it Socrates who opined that ‘The only thing in life that doesn’t change is change itself’?), but for the sake of making life a little less violent for those of us who are now FAR along on the trail of life, I hope that Europe wakes up soon to the fact that a well-organised and carefully conceived process MUST be devised to control the present flood of Syrian refugees into Europe, if not for assuring public safety (from terrorist actions like those in Paris) then for the sake of economically helping stabilize Europe as these migrations continue with no sign of slowing.

On a related plane and in particular to the Obama Administration’s fug-headed insistence on taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees, my own personal feeling is that this is not just idiotic but hazardous to an extreme, given the vituperative animosity that underlies ISIS/ISIL’s determination to pursue its path of nihilistically destructive violence against the West (read: Western civilisation). I will reassert my own personal feeling without the slightest reluctance that Islam as a cultural religion is not compatible with a western society originally founded upon Judeo-Christian principles of love, charity, acceptance and altruism. Not in any way and not at all. I’m sorry if that stance fails to acknowledge all those deluded Muslim individuals who believe that their religion is at its core a peaceful, peace-loving one, but as we have all seen, all it takes is one nutty fanatic who claims he is God’s (Allah’s) personal spokes-person for the entire paradigm to shift the whole scene into a state of chaotic violence and disorder.

If that seems short-sighted and myopic on the surface of it, I’m sorry, but I’ve spent many years in Southwest Asia, living and working among the Arab peoples, and I feel I have a far more substantial degree of clarity into this issue than most dewy-eyed leftist liberal American progressives, who think in their simple naïveté we can all just hold hands and get along together without much fuss.

To that end I am reminded of that famous chestnut attributed to Rodney King, back during the 1992 race riots: ‘Can’t we all just get along?’

No, Rodney (who ultimately ended up drowning in a swimming pool from an overdose of drugs), we cannot…

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PS: Among the many striking observations I made, whilst waltzing along the streets of Prague, was the fact that Prague must have more perfectly slender, admirably shaped, statuesque brunettes than just about any major city in Europe. Attired in chic leggings, complemented by expensive calf-high boots, there didn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever of that American health plague known as obesity (due to sheer over-indulgeance). The one or two fatties that I did spot were American tourists!

One of the reasons for that is clearly a subscription to French standards of cuisine in that one eats only small, but artfully prepared portions of food...not the monstrously heaping trencherman portions that so frequently characterise US eating proclivities. It was gratifying to find myself 'falling' in love just about every other step down those Prague boulevards and it made me sorely wish I were in my 3rd decade once again, when I would have stood a reasonable chance of attracting such lovelies! On the downside, of course, is a notably modern Prague plague in the form of the ubiquitous cellphone, as might be expected in our modern American culture influenced world.

Ah well, no one is perfect...not even a lithe, svelte & foxy brunette Czech female sauntering along under the Lindens and across the Charles Bridge...and Prague, a city that suffered disproportionately in the Great Bubonic Plagues of the Middle Ages is no stranger to them.  Sigh...again.  :)))

PSS: One of the 'must see' sights in Prague is the historic Jewish Quarter, with its amazingly preserved synagogues, Jewish Memorial and the adjacent ancient Jewish cemetery (one of the oldest in the entire world). It is indeed ironic that this area constitutes one of the finest collections of Jewish artifacts in the entire world, thanks to the work of Nazis (ironically enough), who assembled a great number of them there as part of an intended 'Museum of  a Vanished Race'. The irony is implicit, in that while the Nazis vanished, the Jews themselves were the survivors! Do not miss this part of old Prague. A final irony lies in the fact that today only about 8,000 Jews remain in the Czech Republic and the Czech Republic itself is estimated to be about 80% atheist (religion of any kind having been nearly exterminated by the Nazis during the war).

PSSS: Regarding the recent Paris ISIS/ISIL terrorist attack on the 'Bataclan', a popular Paris concert venue, it strikes me as highly ironic that the band that was to appear there when the attack occurred was a Canadian group called 'The Eagles of Death Metal'. Now I sincerely hope that their name is not also intended as irony, since it otherwise tells me that they were certainly NOT expecting an actual visit from Death Itself! Human beings are endless fascinated with the concept of 'death', due to our ever fragile mortality; this is expecially true of younger people, who are so far away from their normal end of life that they are absolutely mystified, enthralled, bemused and fascinated by the whole, weird 'death' concept. Unfortunately, it is impossible to convey the message to them that 'death' will come to them soon enough, regardless of their self-perceived youthful immortality, so enough with all this mystical glorification of 'death'! Enjoy 'life' while it lasts and fuget death! In this instance, 'death' did indeed attend the concert, very much to everyone's dismay and confused shock. The lesson is, regrettably, lost on the 'Eagles of Death Metal', who will likely use more symbolism of 'death' in future, to titillate their puerile fans and followers ("Whoa! Dude! These terrorists killed all these people and all we wanted to do is glorify death and dying symbolically with our music. Man! REAL death! Awesome!"). Sic semper gloria mundi.