Meanwhile, Back in Brussels …

Here, via Gates of Vienna, and with subtitles by Vlad Tepes, is video of Filip Dewinter speaking against the GZ mosque on September 11, 2010 in Brussels.

As usual, the socialist mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, prohibited the anti-GZ mosque 9/11 demonstration by Vlaams Belang and Cities against Islamization. As usual, the mayor cited the threat of violence — not violence on Filip Dewinter’s part or that of any of his supporters, but violence that would or just might be the response of that which now controls political discourse in Brussels and much of the wider West — Islamic mob rule. Indeed, Thielemans wrote as much in a letter to Filip Dewinter, describing the impossibility of keeping “the predictable violent outburst under control.” (Thielemans’ letter — a dhimmi capitulation to a specifically Islamic blackmail through the flaccidly totalitarian powers of his office — is also translated at GoV.) As usual, VB demonstrated anyway in a valiant showing of civilized opposition to this sanctioned assault on freedom of expression.

All in all, Dewinter’s is a vastly underappreciated, effort. I deeply appreciate it. Indeed, this website has long had its hat off to Dewinter’s steadfast and courageous life’s work to stem the Islamization of the Western world, which manifests itself in, among other things, the erosion of freedom of speech.

In years past, violence has marred VB 9/11 demos — not jihadist and illegal violence, but Socialist and official. Repeatedly, we have seen VB-led memorials on 9/11 met by the force of the Belgian state, sometimes with crushing savagery. Seeing is believing, so here is a picture of Filip Dewinter on 9/11/07:

Here is Frank Vanhecke, then Vlaams Belang chairman and a member of European Parliament at the same 2007 event.

This year’s event was a small affair, and from what I can tell, went off without State incident. Why? There has been no return to reason by the State (see the Brussels mayor’s pusilanimous letter described above), but I think the State has arrived at a status quo that uneasily brooks a smallish amount of outspoken dissent because the larger population has learned something from rebel Vlaams Belang’s punishing experience: not to take back its freedoms, but to behave itself in the name of “peace.”