Finding Europe's Hidden Conservatives

In this mailing: - Daniel Pipes: Finding Europe's Hidden Conservatives - Judith Bergman: London Police Ask Citizens to Report COVID-19 Hate Crimes [] [Finding Europe's Hidden Conservatives]( by Daniel Pipes • April 21, 2020 at 5:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - Civilizationists' top concern is not battling climate change, building the European Union, or staving off Russian and Chinese aggression; rather, they focus on preserving Europe's historic civilization of the past two millennia. They worry about Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa. - That anxiety contains four elements: demography, immigration, multiculturalism, and Islamization (or DIMI, recalling the Arabic word dhimmi, the status of Jews and Christians who submit to the rule of Muslims). - Civilizationists... are already a powerful force, having advanced from a marginal position twenty years ago to a central role in many countries. They are the key opposition force in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. They have been or are part of the government in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. They govern in a coalition in Poland and on their own in Hungary. On issues such as demography, immigration, multiculturalism and Islamization, the former Warsaw Pact countries, including the Visegrád Four (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary), have watched the mistakes of western Europe and resolved not to repeat them. Pictured: (From left) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Czech Prime Minister Andrej BabiÅ¡, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini before the meeting the Visegrád Group + Austria summit on January 16, 2020 in Prague, Czech Republic. (Photo by Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images) Does Europe have any conservatives? That is, believers in individual responsibility, national independence, free markets, a single law for all, the traditional family, and maximum freedom of speech and religion. Seemingly not. Politicians called conservative -- such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacques Chirac of France, and Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden -- are often in reality mild leftists, as are their parties. One might conclude that conservatism is defunct in its homeland. One would be wrong. A substantial conservative movement exists and is growing in Europe. It is hiding in plain sight, obscured by being tarred as populists, nationalists, extreme-right, or even neo-Nazis. I call this group by another name: civilizationists, acknowledging that (1) they focus on preserving Western civilization and (2) they forward some distinctly un-conservative policies (such as increased welfare and pension payments). [Continue Reading Article]( [] [London Police Ask Citizens to Report COVID-19 Hate Crimes]( by Judith Bergman • April 21, 2020 at 4:00 am [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [WhatsApp]( [Telegram]( [Send]( [Print]( - Asking the public for more complaints -- specifically on hate crime -- especially regarding incidents that are not even obviously criminal, seems a bizarre priority, to say the least. - In 2014, the UK introduced the Hate Crime Operational Guidelines, which state that any non-crime incident that is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person's race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity must be recorded, even if there is no evidence of the hate element... - Since the introduction of the Hate Crime Operational Guidelines, police in the UK have recorded nearly 120,000 "non-crime hate incidents".... The non-crime incidents are logged in a system and can even show up in a so-called DBS check, when employers ask for a copy of a prospective employee's criminal record. - The Hate Crime Operational Guidelines came under scrutiny in February... The police showed up at [Miller's] place of work. They told him that his tweet was not a crime, but that it was nevertheless being recorded as a hate incident. In police reports, Miller was described as a "suspect". - The Hate Crime Operational Guidelines... are still in use. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) The Metropolitan Police (the Met, London's police force) recently asked the public to report, "hate crime related to the Covid-19 pandemic". "Are you a victim or witness of hate crime related to the COVID-19 pandemic? We do not tolerate hatred or abuse directed at communities because of their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. If you experience hate crime, please tell us & we will act" the Met tweeted on March 28. "Someone using offensive language towards you or harassing you because of who you are or who they think you are is also a crime," a constable told followers of the force's Twitter account. [Continue Reading Article]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [RSS]( [Donate]( Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved. You are subscribed to this list as {EMAIL} You can change how you receive these emails: [Update your subscription preferences]( or [Unsubscribe from this list]( [Gatestone Institute]( 14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022