The Sound and the Fury II

The Sound and the Fury II

Being an entirely random depository of evidence, findings, musings, observations, questions, & notes from my study of Vlaams Belang.

This is the ugly part of journalism – raw notes and research, cut and pasted here. I wanted you to see some of the process and effort that goes on in the background to research things, it ain’t pretty, but you can see that it’s thorough and also multi-sourced. In other words the analysis and conclusions come to here are not just on a whim, or after looking at one thing. I am not posting the VB site things I’ve dug up, because that is already out in other articles at other sites. Enjoy.

Let’s start at the beginning – when the debate over Vlaams Belang first came up, I was one of their initial defenders, saying they were less fascist than the Swedish Democrats, but after more research at their sites to validate what I was saying, I came across a few things, this was among the first and it prompted an article in the series at Little Green Footballs. This is the banner that VB cartoonist, Fre, uses for his column on cartoons in the VB youth magazine.

untitled-2.jpg

Another example of how they indoctrinate youth:

Jonger Acktief (JA)

kruit-copy.gif.

This site is now “independent” since the court ruling against Vlaams Blok, but it was the outlet for youth propaganda. Note however that they still have the latest Vlaams Belang stuff, and still sell Odin’s cross necklaces. The new VB stuff they have to get from somewhere and would assume they need permission to sell it.

If you dig around on the site you will see Voorpost flags and lebensrunes in some pics along with a flag. I”m still researching the flag. (White background, Black Cross, Red Dragon over all.)

[*Note that the grave marker on the left bar at the site above is from Ijzer, (Yser river) near Diksmuide, it commemorates World War 1 and the Flemish who died in the fields there, and is a historic marker important to all Flemish people. It’s in memory of the lost generation, the horrific trench warfare that disillusioned all towards war, and the battles commemorated by the poem “In Flanders Fields.” There’s not a darned thing wrong with it, please do not get it confused with the white power sign as it’s completely different. The difference is the shape of the arms, and the width of the base as it follows the traditional religious Celtic Cross cross use. In the banner above you can see the Odin cross variety typically used to designate white power or “Identity purists. This is the banner of stormfront. The cross in the banner is outlawed in nearby Germany, the stylized Celtic cross with widening arms as seen on graves clearly is not.]

Kaffir – Kuffar?

Just a reminder : Kaffir was used extensively in Apartheid South Africa, it dates far back and might be borrowed from the Muslim denigration for non-believers: “Kuffar.”

Vlaams Belang group is still linked into the Flemish and Dutch supremacist fronts via voorpost and Ijzerwake activities. There are usually solidarity speeches with White South Africa, or the Afrikaaners at every Zangerfeest and Ijzerwake, at Voorpost this poster is a permanent fixture of the wall, as you can see they’ve run electric conduit over the top:

voorpost-zuid-afrika.jpg

“Flemish Solidarity with White South Africa”

.

filip-de-man-at-voorpost.jpg

Here’s the full picture of Filip DeMan from VB speaking about his latest book at voorpost, click on it, pull it down, blow it up. You will see posters for a tribal nationalist group in Tibet (commendable,) a Mexican Neo Nazi group with Anti-semite publications (Tecos/ Replica,) a poster for the youth group JN, sponsored group of the German Neo-Nazi group NPD, A poster for Bobby ParksSands/IRA, as well as a poster showing their aim: a map of Flanders joined with the netherlands and part of France. Wonder what Sarkozy thinks of that? Voorpost and NSV have also displayed solidarity with most tribal nationalist groups in Europe (excepting the far-left anarchist skinheads) the separatists in Quebec, the American Indian Movement, Stormfront, Scottish Nationalist Party, Welsh separatists, ETA, Catalonian Separatists, well, the list goes on and on.

NSV Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVJDJ7aMh9E

In this video you see the NSV demonstrating, marching, demonstrating, marching. You see a Celtic cross tee-shirt, the meeting hosted at the Voorpost hall (same posters as above on wall behind them, with SNP added.) You see them carrying wreaths, probably for the Ijzerwake or other commemorations for collaborators.
Hitlergroet (Hitler Greeting)

maria-lichtert-vb-10-8-2007-swear-in.jpgHitlergroet is Dutch for the Nazi salute or “Hitler Greeting” – as given by this VB’er being sworn into office October 8th 2006. (Did the Jews of Antwerp vote for her?)

Brussells TV

Jette – In de Jetse gemeenteraad bracht Maria De Berlanger van het Vlaams Belang een Hitlergroet. Dat deed ze tijdens haar eedaflegging.

Zaterdag werd de gemeenteraad van Jette officieel ingezworen. Dat gebeurde met de eedaflegging door alle gemeenteraadsleden en schepenen.

De eed wordt afgelegd door de rechterhand op te steken en de traditionele woorden uit te spreken. Maar Maria De Berlanger van het Vlaams Belang verkoos om hulde te brengen aan Hitler, in plaats van trouw te zweren aan de grondwet, de wetten van het Belgische volk en de koning.

The Video Link in case you think it’s a case  of just catching her at an inoportune moment while stretching or something. You can clearly see the other members sworn into office with bent arm, palm forward at the side of their body. Maria choose to be sworn in October before last using the traditional “Heil Hitler Salute”. Maria is also the secretary for Vlaams Belang Jongeren, would you want your children in a group she was associated with?  

Forum discussion of the news item above.

dewinter-hitler-salute.jpgFilip Dewinter gave the same salute once while being sworn into parliament ’91 or ’92 I believe)  – unlike Maria, he didn’t face a potential 3 month sentence as Members of Parliament are immune to prosecution while in office. He explained it away as “just the old Roman salute.”

.

vb-newsletter-1992.jpgAfterwards the picture appeared on the cover of the party publication. Other members have also recently given the “Hitlergroet” while being sworn in, and one I believe served the sentence.

.

.

Bjorn Roose

De Vlaams Belang controverse!

I am Vlaams-nationalist and heel-Nederlander, because I do not consider the vlamingen as a people in itself, but as a component of the Dutch people. I am paleoconservatief and I consider it homohuwelijk (“gay-marriage”), total banishing religion from “practical” life, failure and euthanasia niét as a “realisation” of our Western society.

I consider Islam as a serious threat, but I consider liberalism, as an alternative on socialism, such as the most serious threat. I consider people as Charles Johnson as more dangerously for the west then people such as Osama Bin Laden. I consider nationaal-socialisten just like Communists just like left and wish with make both nothing to have. I have Christians as a heiden respect for reality. I do not see myself living as a beginning and end of everything, as individual therefore, but as component of the circle. I find that a honourable position. And I am gladly this text for you to have written.

Bjorn Roose is with Vlaams Belang, and considers Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs more dangerous to the western world than Osama Bin Laden. Of course in Bjorn’s world there’s not room for Black schools. He also served up linked to Prussian Blue videos from his site at one point until the newspaper De Morgen noted it – then this and many other things that subsequently got edited out of his blog.

Bjorn is not just anyone in the party, he is a member colleague of the Association of Vlaams Belang Mandatarissen (VVBM,) the group responsible for the party’s written platform, propaganda, and ideals. [Editor: I had read this a couple of places — this could be a machine translation issue, or it could just require more research, looking into it for clarification, right now I will strike it until I have it verified.]

From the VVBM site, I went to the source:

The Association of Flemish-Belangmandatarissen the service of the Vlaams Belang, which specifically deals with the assistance of representatives of the Flemish Interest in the exercise of their mandate.
Through a steady evolution in the needs of our representatives, not least by the huge increase in their numbers since the last municipal and provincieraadsverkiezingen, winning contracts such as the organization of training, answering inquiries and the development of permanent access to databases interest. The creation of this website is part therein. We hope that our representatives also along this road can be of service.

So from this I get the idea that VVBM are like staffers to elected officials. Someone correct me here if I am wrong, one of the articles I read talked about something one of the VVBM had written, which staffers or secretaries sometimes do. So Bjorn is a secretary?

Past Publications and Propaganda from St Maartensfonds and VMO:

berkenkruisjuni2006-250.jpg …………. alarm.jpg 

Berkenkruis (St. M)        Alarm (VMO)

Alarm stopped publishing long ago, Berkenkruis last year.

There are hints at this past in current publications of VB, such as the Odin’s cross armband on the rat, other Fre cartoons such as the ones below, and the magazines covered already in LGF articles.

Fre cartoon of Serena Williams next to an anti-immigrant cartoon captioned “all cleared as a private militia” probably to contrast the trials of 109 VMO members:

fre-cartoon.jpg……..serena-williams-portrayed-by-fre.jpg.

Jews of Antwwerp as Allies: (there’s even a famous picture of Dewinter shaking a Jew’s hand, need to find that link again. Update: A commenter dropped off the link for this, so thanks.)

dewinter-hassidim.jpg

de winter, 2005 in an interview with jewish week:

“In our view, Judaism and Islam are absolutely not two of the same kind. On the contrary, they are foes. One has to choose sides. Which side are you on in the war on terror? The side of Western democracy and Western civilization, with its Judeo-Christian roots, or the side of radical Islam? The side of Great Britain, America and Israel, or the side of Iran, Sudan and the Taliban?”

[Link: www.filipdewinter.be…]

Asked about those who say that Jews should not vote for a party that espouses xenophobia, Dewinter replied: “Xenophobia is not the word I would use. If it absolutely must be a ‘phobia,’ let it be ‘Islamophobia.’

“Yes, we’re afraid of Islam. The Islamization of Europe is a frightening thing. Even distinguished Jewish scholars as Bat Ye’or and Bernard Lewis warned of this. If this historical process continues, the Jews will be the first victims. Europe will become as dangerous for them as Egypt or Algeria. So, I return your question. Should Jews vote for a party that wants to stop the spread of Islam in Europe?”

Dewinter’s claim that he is Islamophobic prompted a multicultural youth organization and an anti-racism group in Belgium to lodge a criminal complaint against him late last month for inciting racial hatred. And the Council of State was asked to investigate whether Vlaams Belang should be deprived of public funding.

Marinower insisted that Jews who vote for Vlaams Belang are comparable to those who would vote for the Ku Klux Klan in America if it pledged to protect Jews. But Dewinter said that analogy doesn’t work because his party does not have a criminal record and has never written anti-Semitic texts.

“You may examine all our publications since the day our party was founded,” Dewinter said. “You won’t find any attacks against Jews or Judaism. On the contrary, very often we were the only political group defending Israel, both in publications and in parliament.”

 [Editor: This is contestable – the NjSV used to print anti-semitic articles while he was president, the colors of the magazine were red, black, and white, and it also carried the standard Nazi symbols. Also where did all those “Don’t buy from Jewish Shops” stickers in Dutch come from prior to 2000?]

Marinower said the discussion about the views of Dewinter and his party is healthy because “if, God forbid, he would get a majority next year and be the next mayor, no one in the Jewish community or others would ever be able to say you didn’t warn us.”

We know that in 1999- 2003 timeframe that Blok started making nice with the Jewish population. We know that the “don’t buy Jewish” stickers mostly dissappeared off Jewish shops in that timeframe. We know that Ijerbedevaart stopped letting the foreign vistors bring their white power and nazi flags in that timeframe, and we know that in the past couple years they won’t allow any flags but Flemish lions there. However the nazis still go to Diksmuide every year for the Iron Pilgrimage from most European countries, and some hold separate observances in slightly different locations (behind the Izertoren.) You can gild a turd, it smells the same.

Ijzerwake

Here’s Ijzerwake 2004, three short years ago. You can tell the voorpost guys providing security by their blue shirts and black armbands.

You can also see VanHecke & Dewinter standing by as VNJ lays flowers to commemorate Nazi collaborators like LeClerq and Irma La Plasse. (She turned in resistance movement members to the nazis after they captured her son, later her sentence was reduced to life, little effect since the sentence was death and carried out, LeClerq rounded up Flemish youth to fight with the Nazis on the Eastern front.)

So they have “national heroes” whom they cannot openly proclaim as such because they were tainted in the world’s eye by the evil outcomes of that ideology and strategy in the second world war. They have a catlogue of martyrs who are persecuted. So whether the slogan is “Eigen volk veerst!” (Our people first!!,) or the newer softer version; “Vlaams Kracht!”  (“Flemish Power!”), the values, the goals, and the strategies remain the same for the hard-core leaders of the Vlaams Beweging (“Flemish Movement.”)

 BBET split

Interesting note on BBET, one of the more extreme Flemish splinters, they didn’t agree with the program in 2004 and split from the rest of the Voorpost aligned groups:

[Link: kafka.antifa.net…]

Machine translation, it missed translating “Jodenhaat” as “Jew-hate”:

Last week, the Belgian police raided dozens of houses and military barracks, it was the organization “Blood, Soil, Honor and Loyalty” (BBET) — and a large quantity of weapons were seized.  The reason for the raids was the expectation that the group would create a suicide attack. BBET was originally the name of the sheet of Blood & Honor Flanders, but has doorgegroeid to an independent organization; one of the Flemish branches of the international Nazi movement Blood & Honor.  There are also participants in the most extreme and the Jew-Hate fight of the group.
According BBET is “racism without jew-hate is similar to the face-painting of an AIDS patient. It seems all nice, but it solves nothing. ” ‘Jew’ would BBET equate to ‘a disease’. ‘ “The only healthy mental attitude to a jew is like a tapeworm – flush him down the toilet.”

So shortly after Vlaams Blok got changed to Vlaams Blok due to the court case, the word went out to the extreme groups in Flanders that it was ok to hate, just not to Jew-hate – some did not like that and split off. I find this interesting, and in need of research.

 The lead in to the Brussells demonstration:

Link to Politics.be forum where they were organizing and publicizing the Brussells 9/11 demonstration. If you follow the discussion you can see that Nazi groups were bussing in from across Europe until it got canceled, and in the discussion you don’t see much sympathy for 9/11 – rather a discussion on how best to milk the demonstration, and what form of nationalism is best, illustrated with historic footage of hitler speeches and discussion of the turn Horst Mahler’s taken.

Random News analysis article:

Obviously, there’s a long way from fringe lunatic Horst Mahler to Filip Dewinter, one of the front figures of Vlaams Belang and a man who has solidly placed himself in Flemish politics. Dewinter does not talk of Mammonism or the «secular Yahweh cult», he does not spout anti-Semitism, and he definitely did not express any joy over the 11th September. But yet, when Adi Schwartz of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz interviewed Dewinter last year, he found a large poster from the 1960s hanging in the office of the politician. The poster read «Europe, free yourself», and was signed by a number of nationalist parties in Europe, including the NPD and the neo-fascist Italian Socialist Movement. What could these parties possibly have in common?
The answer is that they’re all inflicted by a touch of madness. Sometimes it’s just a light touch, a cold breeze bringing its poisonous ideas with it. Sometimes it’s more. But regardless of how strong it is, it’s a touch of madness that goes right back to the anti-Semitic magazines a young man named Adolf Hitler probably read when he stayed in Vienna. That might sound like a cheap political trick; it isn’t. The roots of the far right are sometimes just to easy to track. Here’s from the 1997 annual report on racism and anti-semitism from the Stephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University:”Flemish nationalism of the 1930s, Flemish collaboration with Nazi Germany, and glorification of the Vlaanderen Division of the Waffen SS, are legacies embraced by the party [Vlaams belang]. One of the most fanatical defenders of these values is VB vice-president Roland Raes. Although in 1995 VB voted for the law prohibiting denial or minimization of the Holocaust, members of the VB are known as Holocaust deniers. The party’s theory of nationalism is based on the German volkisch conception. The term race flamande (Flemish race) is frequently used by VB ideologists.”Here’s the 2004 report:
“Since its success in the 1991 legislative elections, the Vlaams Blok (VB; now Vlaams Belang – see below), which has been part of the far right surge in Europe in recent years, along with France’s NF and Austria’s FPÖ, has moderated its tone considerably on matters related to the Jews and the Holocaust; nevertheless, it still retains ties with small neo-fascist and antisemitic groups, such as Voorpost and Were Di.”
Voorpost. Were Di. The paramilitary group Vlaamse Militanten Orde. The Francophone Belgian journalist Jean-Claude Defossé exposes them all in his TV documentary ‘La face cachée du Vlaams Blok’. Amongst the video footage he has dug up from archives is a scene from the German military graveyard in Lommel, where a group of Flemish nationalists have gathered, wanting to put down flowers on the graves of Flemish SS Soldiers. It’s 1988, and in the gathered group there are members of Voorpost and of the VMO, by then long-outlawed for being a «private militia», as well as Filip Dewinter, and Bert Eriksson, the leader of the VMO from 1971 on. To see the two of them together should not be a surprise, the connections between Eriksson and the Vlaams Blok (now Belang) are many. When Eriksson was convicted to a year of jail sentence because of his involvement with the VMO, Karel Dillen greeted him as «the great Flemish leader, who has been put in a Belgian jail for his Flemish national ideal» at the shortly following Vlaams Blok congress.

Of course this guy’s probably a commie or leftist, so nothing he says could remotely resemble truth according to the VB apologists.

Other things I am Still researching:

 Newsarticle on St Maartensfonds – covers the outing of Johan Sauwens, also covers the transfer of St Maartensfonds activities to VNJ (Vlaams Nationaal Jeugdverbond — the kids in Lederhosen who march in the wreaths and play the anthems at Ijzerwake.)

Site with pictures of VB, note this is a leftist site, but pictures are pictures. They even have a good picture of VB supporting GWB and the war on terror.

1999 BBC article on Breendonk and collaborators

More on Breendonk [Editor: Pacifica is about as communist as you get in America — distrust the analysis and opinion here, some of the facts are just that, facts.]

More to come in Part III, as well as a summary. There’s a lot here to really wrap your mind around, so please visit , take your time, follow the links and seek other evidence and contrary sources as well. In the end if you research well I suspect you will end up where I have.

UPDATE: There are signs that the apologist camp has declared unilateral truce, with that in mind I will hold on Part III of this series.
UPDATE II: Now working on the next installment, thanks for the inspiration Bjorn, you do good work for the party.

UPDATE III:

Gambini’s Translation of this Documentary will help tie this together for you:

As stated in the previous essay, there are many good people who are in VB, and I certainly don’t wish them harm — I just disagree heartily with their leadership.

48 thoughts on “The Sound and the Fury II”

  1. I just noticed the third image in the first photo you have up there. What do the Americans who kiss their ass think of THAT?

  2. OMG! *lol*

    When I was a Christian I often did the “Hitler greeting” when I prayd at the meetings. Nowadays I do it only when I cheer at people, or maybe if I swear an oat “on the bible” I have to do it…

  3. Thanos: “… posters for a tribal nationalist group in Tibet (commendable)”

    If displaying Tibetan nationalist posters is commendable, is it also commendable to display other nationalist posters? If not, why not? Are Tibetan nationalists more equal than European nationalists?

  4. Yes, they are more equal, they have that Dalai Lama guy who wears the cool robes!

    Getting serious: has anyone been shot trying to flee Flanders lately? No? How about Mexico? No? How about Wales? No? How about the Alsace? No? How about Tyrol? Germany? France? England?

    http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?news=15172

    Go do some more reading then we can have this discussion on moral equivalence, something Islamofascist apologists are good at as well.

  5. Former Belgian, thanks for those links, I see H. Guderian in the politics.be forums sometimes, like where he posted the eulogy for the dead Langermarck SS guy. Thanks for the pointer, that ties to a theory I have that VB stuffs their “unpolished” members into VJW, you see a few “Blood and Honor” types there.

  6. Great posts. I hate to nitpick, but since there is so much solid evidence, and there is no need to give your opponents and footholds.

    1) The picture of Serena Williams is appalling. However, the unfortunate fact is that in Europe “humorous” cartoons with exaggerated racial features are much more common and accepted than here and are not necessarily perceived as racist. I think more context would be needed to use this evidence it against VB.

    2) What is wrong with the Nordic gull? Since it appears on the Ijzer memorial, it seems that VB apologists would have some grounds for saying that any extremists that use it are “hijacking” a Flemish national symbol–even if every group that uses it other than VB-related groups is racist. Same for the berkenkruis.

    3) Perhaps the evidence for DeWinter’s Hitlergroet could be stronger. The preposterous claim attributed to DeWinter about it being a Roman salute is obviously not meant to be taken seriously–and yet it directly parallels some of the preposterous arguments marshaled at GoV in defense of the celtic cross. Even though I tend to believe that DeWinter said that stupid thing, it does not seem that Blokwatch offers any source for the that quote of DeWinter’s. Without such solid evidence, perhaps it might still be maintained that he was caught at a bad moment. The fact that the salute seems to be a habit among VBers is pretty damning, but perhaps it is still possible to think that they are making fun of the slack that DeWinter got for that photo. (It is also worth pointing out that giving a Hitler salute in parliament is especially offensive since Hitler burned down his own parliament.)

    4) I had a frustrating and fruitless debate with the GoVers about the celtic cross. Of course they feigned ignorance of any difference between the white power celtic cross and traditional celtic crosses found in graveyards. They never responded to the point that Paul Belien’s original apology for VB assumed throughout that the stylized celtic cross is a white power symbol. His strategy was just to dissociate the symbol from VB not to minimize its significance. There is also the following quote from Rob Verreycken, Vlaams Belang representative in the Flemish parliament from 2004-2006: “Ik ken die vlaggen met het Keltisch kruis echt wel en ik heb geen probleem met White Power. Het betekent simpelweg ‘witte kracht’ en het is gewoon de tegenhanger van Black Power. Ik sta liever voor de Vlaamse Leeuw, maar als de gelegenheid zich zou voordoen, dan zou ik er geen problemen mee hebben om voor de White Power-vlag te poseren” (” White Power eerst,” De Morgen June 27, 2005) Note well the use of the English term “white power.” Translating (with help from google): “I know those flags with the Celtic cross, and I really have no problem with White Power. It means simply ‘White Power’ and it’s just the counterpart of Black Power. I prefer the Flemish Lion, but if the opportunity should arise, then I would not have a problem posing in front of the White Power flag.”

  7. My dear Thanos, if you use as a title for your blog “noblesse oblige” you should maybe try to put that into practice. One of the ways to do that is not writing complete nonsense.

    First: if you want to translate one of my texts try not to run it through one of those stupid translator things. They don’t work, you see.

    Second: I’m not Thong Ben, so the article on Black Schools is not mine. Thong Ben was the person who put up on Het Vrije Volk one of my articles.

    Third: I never “served up Prussian Blue videos from (…) [my] site”. I wrote an article on politically correct hysteria in the Flemish newspapers concerning Prussian Blue. I said it was none of our business which values some mother in the United States passed on to her children. I said too that nobody ever went freaky over communists passing their values on to their children. And I even said that the girls of Prussian Blue weren’t very good at singing.

    Fourth: I removed a number of articles from my blog for the sake of the party. I shouldn’t have done that and since that day I never did it again. “Worse”, I discussed everything in those articles again and again on my blog and De Morgen never found it necessary to attack me again. Have I gone leftist or has De Morgen gone rightist, you tell me.

    Fifth: I am NOT a member of the Association of Vlaams-Belangmandatarissen for the plain and simple reason that I do not have a mandate. I WORK for the Association.

    Sixth: the VVBM is nor responsible for the “written platform”, the propaganda or the ideals of the party. It supports local politicians of the Vlaams Belang in fulfilling their mandate. We don’t make up the programme, we don’t write the magazine or the website, we don’t deal with propaganda.

  8. Hrmm – this was the interpretation I got from the news article in De Morgen..

    “While VB leader Philip Dewinter the past weekend in the Dutch Vara program The black sheep of the distance, the extreme right-wing harness around his party circling remains Björn Roose, a representative for the district Veurne – Diksmuide – Ieper – Oostende within the board of the Association of Vlaams Belang Mandatarissen (VVBM) consistently aangebrande opinions spuien through his weblog. breaks He inter alia a lance for the American neonaziduo Prussian Blue and expresses its unconditional support for Holocaustontkenner Siegfried Verbeke.

    … and it goes on .. This comes from the newspaper De Morgen, so perhaps your complaint should be lodged with them.

    Yes I know, you are going to say they were lieing too, and there were never any links to the VMO, just Bert Erikson at your site either. I get it — you don’t own the server so you weren’t serving the videos, they were just linked.

  9. You do understand that Izjerwake predates Nazi Germany, don’t you? You do understand that it is a cultural honoring of their dead, don’t you? Would you have them ignore their grandfathers or great-uncles sacrifices?

    This is silliness. A monkey with a search engine unable to understand the language or political slant where being conservative (in the traditional American sense) is almost illegal pronouncing guilt or innocence.

    As put forth, I agree with the political policies as stated in Wikipedia of the VB, and as explained to me by Paul Belien, who I incidentally hold in higher regard than the aggregate of the bloggers leading this witch hunt.

    Prove Nazism and I’m out. Prove conservatism (by American standards, not European) and I’m in.

    – Sodra

  10. Sodra, obviously you did not read the article fully. In it I mention the cross created originally for Ijzerbedevaart. It was a memorial for WWI – the article states that above had you read. (The very first section where I talk about JA.)

    I’ll cover the history of Ijzerbedevaart, how it transformed to Ijzerwake, and the modern connotations in Part III, but to simplify suffice it to say that VB took over Ijzerbedevaart and transformed it to Ijzerwake just as the committee was about to break the ties to the WWII collaborators, and just as they were taking it back to being about the true Flemish patriots. VB didn’t want to allow the collaborators to be taken out of the ceremonies.

    Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify.

  11. For the record, here’s the historic sidebar from Bjorn’s site:

    Delta Foundation
    Krijgsgevangenenkamp Zedelgem Krijgsgevangenenkamp Zedelgem
    NSV!
    NSV!-Brussel NSV!-Brussels
    NJSV
    Orde van de Single Malt Order of the Single Malt
    ‘t Pallieterke ‘T Pallieterke ( a satire magazine from the right, Belien used to write or edit for them if I remember correctly.)
    Vlaanderen Vrij ! Flanders Friday!
    VMO
    Voorpost
    VVB FVO
    Werkgroep Hagal (Working Hagal)
    Werkgroep Hagal (Forum Working Hagal Forum)

  12. Great posts.

    With regard to the celtic cross, it is perhaps worth adding that in Paul Belien in his original apology for VB was happy to talk about a flag being a “white supremacist flag” for the sole reason that it has a stylized celtic cross on it. Then there is the remark Rob Verreycken, Vlaams Belang representative in the Flemish parliament from 2004-2006: “Ik ken die vlaggen met het Keltisch kruis echt wel en ik heb geen probleem met White Power. Het betekent simpelweg ‘witte kracht’ en het is gewoon de tegenhanger van Black Power. Ik sta liever voor de Vlaamse Leeuw, maar als de gelegenheid zich zou voordoen, dan zou ik er geen problemen mee hebben om voor de White Power-vlag te poseren” (” White Power eerst,” De Morgen June 27, 2005) Note well the use of the English term “white power.” Translating with the assistance of google: “I know those flags with the Celtic cross, and I really have no problem with White Power. It means simply ‘White Power’ and it’s just the counterpart of Black Power. I prefer the Flemish Lion, but if the opportunity should arise, then I would not have a problem posing in front of the White Power flag.” Since VB supporters see no trouble with “loving our own white race” I actually don’t see why they object to a symbol for white power.

    Although these are two excellent posts, perhaps it would be better to be a bit more restrained in some of your remarks. There is certainly enough solid evidence here, and any weak evidence is going to be siezed upon to discredit the rest of the airtight evidence. Here are a couple examples:

    1) The picture of Serena Williams is offensive, but it is actually pretty common in Europe for racial minorities to be depicted in this cartoon way, without any realization that it is racist. More context to the photo I think is called for.

    2) You attruibute to DeWinter the remark that he was only doing a Roman salute in parliament. Do you have a verifiable source for this, i.e., other than Blokwatch? They did not give a source and it could be claimed that they are making it up. Without that source it could be claimed he was simply caught at a moment of a wave or something. Of course the habit of other VBers of doing the same thing is pretty damning., but still. (It is also worth pointing out that the Hitler salute in parliament is particularly offensive since Hitler burned down his own parliament in order to extinguish any freedom of dissent in his country. A pretty funny joke, no?)

    3) What’s wrong with the Nordic gull? Even if it is only used by extremists in a contemporary context, apologists are always free to say that since it is traditional Flemish symbol, that there is nothing wrong with using it. Perhaps the same can be said about the weapon you are talking about. Could it be the Goedendag? Here are other flemish national symbols. (Notice the absence of the celtic cross.)

  13. “For the record, here’s the historic sidebar from Bjorn’s site

    [A childish list lots of things which Thanos might think will give a bad impression of Bjorn, and so Thanos thinks he will achieve an ad hominem reply, which reagarding noblesse oblige is a completely empty phenomenon]”

    Bjorn’s actually right. You can’t do more to prove you are in complete lack of noblesse oblige.

    Still I’m myself raise my hand as those who you suggests on the pictures here say “seig heil” when I swear an oat or when i pray to God among other people. I think ppl can judge what is seen on these pictures.

  14. Yes they can judge, and they will.

    I love how evidence and questions becomes “ad hominem and attacks” with you folks. If you have something to refute please do. I am not beyond making corrections when I get facts wrong.

    My opinion of Vlaams Belang’s leadership you will find hard to change however, since I have researched long on them.

  15. Oh really Thanos, you are looking for a photo of Dewinter shaking hands with a jew? Here it is.

    On the other hand, when you check out this site, you see a photo of Dewinter together with a notorious white supremacist annex Obergruppenfuehrer from, uh, Indonesia or something.

    Funny how one never finds photos like these back on LGF, BabbaZee’s site, or here. Now why would that be???? I thought, if you do all that research, you must have stumbled on them, right?

  16. Studying the varying topology of evil has always fascinated me. You might as well ask why I read papers in Pakistan almost nightly.

  17. David, apologies but your comment got caught in the spam trapper as well. Let me answer the questions if I might.

    While it is common in Europe to exagerate racial features, it is American allies that the VB anti-Islamofascist movements are seeking – cartoons like that in their magazines would be thrown in our faces here. Remember the main question: Is it politically sane and effective to ally with VB? Whether it’s political correctness or not, it would still be a bad blow to see that associated with the anti-jihadi movement here.

    The Blauwvoet is a symbol from Ijzerbedevaart, but now it’s also a symbol of VNJ. There is a saying about the Blauwvoet something like “It flies when the STORM is coming.” You will note that it’s not an uncommon nickname in white nationalist forums either, and I suspect it has a link to the Nordic divisions, haven’t had time yet to look into that. If I am way off base I will correct that. Do the recommended search first, ignore the blokwatch etc links and look for forums. Look at this for instance, it’s our friend Bjorn again: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=http://www.politicsinfo.net/forum/archive/o_f__f_17__events-and-sites.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dblauwvoet%2Bvlaams%2B%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us (scroll down)
    Vliegt den Blauwvoet, storms at sea was also a song the Flemish Nationalists sang in the ’80s when they faced off against the left-fascists in bloody rumbles in the streets of Antwerp. There are good things about the Blauwvoet, there are bad. It’s mixed – like many things good borrowed by evil.

    Unfortunately those newspaper articles are long gone in the archives, and I can’t get them for the quote from Dewinter, but it’s referenced a few places so I have to suspect the news article is there.

    .

  18. On the Celtic Cross v Odin’s cross debate, that’s been done to death, so I don’t need to say more except to extend the challenge to those who say it means nothing: put the Odin’s cross flag on your car, wear an Odin’s cross tee shirt to church next Sunday if it means nothing. Of course none have taken that challenge because they know better.

    Besides that – it’s not the Odin’s cross alone, it’s the Odin’s cross with the berkenkruis, with the Ares rune, with the Lebensrune, with the Identity politics, one thing by itself is nothing, all together it is damning.

  19. “If you have something to refute please do.”

    First, You got no proof what so ever that this is Hitler greetings. Then others has already mentioned the woman isn’t even Flemish end then whe don’t have anything to do with the Flemish cross. Also the Flemish cross is not just a racist or exterme political symbol, but the symbol for the Flemish nation. But you don’t take that in or reply on that, but only continuing thinking your conspiracy theory is right and writes the kind of assults averyone can see here above.

    This is actually a very comical post, and you have already shown that you are beyond ro realize that, even if you got these facts. So it’s just ridicolous to comment here anymore. Just the same with LGF, btw. Noblesse oblige include both good research and the ability to correct oneself. Do you ot any of these two abilities, do you think? But go on write that I was the first that used the ad hominem technique. It’s not true. You avoid the fact above and reply the rubbish sh*t I just mention and I’m sure you are beyond correction, so goodbye and now celebrate that you think won this discussion. It’s sad there are people deaf and arrogant to fact like you are. Espeacially since you got nothing right in the star with pure conspiracy sh*t (which is – yes – quite funny in itself!). That something that’s make me sad.

    Another heil Hitler:
    http://sanityisland.us/v-web/gallery/albums/album178/capt_cab73e889dba4663bc474cd55339a18f_bush_whre103_1.jpg

  20. David, the link you have with Flemish national symbols is on a site were Vlaams Balang is criticized. But despite this there are at least three pages with the Flemish cross on the site (it took me 2 minutes to find them and read a lot too), and these are find on these three links.

    First link here has the white Flemish cross:
    http://members.lycos.nl/vlaamssiteje/nationalisme.htm
    http://members.lycos.nl/vlaamssiteje/pacifisme.htm
    http://members.lycos.nl/vlaamssiteje/ijzertoren.htm

    The sign AVV-VVK stands for “Alles Voor Vlaanderen-Vlaanderen voor Kristus”.

    Why do you keep your eyes blind?

  21. David: Since you explicitly write “Notice the absence of the celtic cross” about the site which has seveal **white** (even that!) Flemish crosses (linked in the message above) you are debunked. (And tha blogger ironicallly named Noblesse Oblige, the most non suitable name I’ve ever seen on the Internet, is also debunked of course … graasp… )

  22. David. Correction. Your linked site which you wrote have an “abcense of the Celtic cross”, but in fact has many celtic crosess, is probaably pro-VB, not anti-VB as I wrote. Here is a free version of Systran Soft-translation of a Dutch paragraph on the page. Please try to read it and also watch the picture of an affich on that page.
    http://members.lycos.nl/vlaamssiteje/democratie.htm

    “After the Flemish block-system in 1991, had been broken through for the first time really, the ultra-left-wing party considered Agalev a manner to love its antagonist the power: she succeeded in the other traditional parties of it persuading that it VB was an undemocratic and racist party, and she got those parties this way far that they closed a pact in which promised them at absolutely no policy level cooperate with the Flemish block-system. The so-called cordon sanitary – the political schutkring were born. The best proof for that is that also after the Flemish block-system its programme has entirely opgekuist the past years to normal rechts-conservatief a programme which can be even labelled by most malicious progressively no longer as racist and that in certain EU countries (the Netherlands, Denmark…) even by the government in practice it is converted, the traditional parties want maintain the cordon. government power works addictive…”

    BR. Mange

  23. The links above is just a totally arbitrary example, which I just happen to pick up in Davids comment (which happened to be a not so successful argument by David) and shows that the Flemish cross has nothing what so ever to do with Nazism, but is about a cultural and nationalistic independent movement in a European country. In US states there has been independence fights too.

  24. I’m not pro-racism, but I’m also absolute against mass immigration without assimilation, which is a lot of the Muslim immigration of Europe today. The racism is not an easy question. We may all have grand fathers and grand grand fathers we think has an old fasioned view on forigners. Later in life we may see that national units as a bas for culture is something very important for people, an we may realizze we have been duped by modernism and the progressive left. That’s just me!

    In 1890 president Theodor Roosevelt said that the phrase “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” was exaggerated, but he added: “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians; but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

    VB is certainly no Nazi party, but I guess Vlaams Blok had anti-Semitic people in its oorganization before, just as SD had almost a decade after the party was founded. Now SD and VB are pro-Semitic. And the racism issue: Does anyone think that VB politicians of today come even close to the statement from Theodor Roosevelt above?

  25. Gosh Mange, if it’s ridiculous to post here, why do you keep coming back then?

    Go to the video link, you can clearly see that it’s the Hitlergroet, watch the whole thing, listen to the audience, a complaint was filed against her, I don’t know the outcome, do you?

    The Filip Dewinter salute is well known, he wasn’t waving at someone, it again appeared on the cover of the party newletter for a purpose, n’est ce pas?

    Celtic cross done to death. Here’s the Celtic Cross
    http://www.google.com/search?q=celtic+cross&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

    Here’s the Odin’s Cross
    http://babbazeesbrain.blogspot.com/

    Now again – if it were just one Odin’s cross on Filip’s bookshelve there would be nothing to write about. It’s hitler salutes, 70 point plans, odin’s crosses, Identity politics, nazi runes, nazi commemorations, nazi songs, etc. etc. etc.

    It all adds up to De Ondergangen

  26. “Another heil Hitler:” (link to Bush smiling and waving)

    Wrong. Hitlergroet is always right-handed, but then you know that don’t you?

  27. Thanos: I know the celtic cross is uoed by Nazis. Every time you post a link about that (and get happy sheers by other comments here) you don’t prove anything, and that you have to admit.

    What is also proved, and what is the content of Davids link with “abcense of the Celtic cross” — a link with a lot of white Celtic crosses; see my links above — is that this Cross also is used by completely non-Nazi Flemish nationalists.

    You are doing a bully not at all intelligent campaign which — everyone with some intelligence easily got — don’t prove anything, no matter how many links you cut and paste.

    The bottom line is that you need knowledge to understand something. The only thing you do is to try to give an impression which isn’t fair and correct. For example you, and other bloggers, are wrong about that the raise of ones hand talking in the movie with the red dressed woman is Hitler greetings. You are so uterly wrong and obviously don’t give a damn that you are. That’s really stupid.

  28. Thanos: “Another heil Hitler:” (link to Bush smiling and waving)
    Wrong. Hitlergroet is always right-handed, but then you know that don’t you?”

    Don’t be ignorant now! I consequently raised my right hand when I some years ago prayed in gatherings with lots of other people also rasing their right hands!

    (Btw, the photo can easily be mirrored. You can do that with the simpliest photo editors.)

  29. I’ve seen your links above those are from VB’er sites, they are no more objective in this than Blokwatch is. I do know that particular sign is outlawed in Germany. Write to the Ijzerwake committee or Zangerfeest and ask if they will allow you to bring a large white one on a black flag without the lettering. Tell me their response. Wear one on a tee-shirt next Sunday to church. Put the flag on you car, drive to Germany.

    Tell me how that all works out please.

  30. Come to think of it, you have a blog, if it’s just an innocent sign of nationalism, why don’t you put one in your Blog banner?

  31. So after all this associating symbols with Nazism, all this looking for Nazis behind every door. What was it about the Vlaams Belang’s platform/manifesto that you have a problem with?

  32. So, one leftist newspaper prints bullshit, no other newspaper even bothers printing the same nonsense, and you just reprint that, without even doublechecking your “facts” ? And where in the mechanically “translated” part of De Morgen do you find anything about “videos” ?

    Concerning the “historic sidebar” on my blog: it’s not “historic”, since it is still there and there’s nothing wrong with it. The Delta Foundation (Deltastichting) is the editor of TeKoS, a magazine belonging to the New Right (best known from Alain de Benoist); the “Krijgsgevangenenkamp Zedelgem”-site is the site of a friend about the war prisoner camp Zedelgem a few kilometers from my town; NSV! is a students organisation, NJSV too; the Order of the Single Malt is a site about – how dare they – whisky; ‘t Pallieterke is a Flemish-nationalist paper; “Vlaanderen Vrij” doesn’t mean “Flanders Friday”, but Flanders Free; the link “VMO” is one to a site which tells all about the history of the late VMO; the VVB is the Flemish Popular Movement, an association of about 5000 people … officialy sponsored by the government; and the “Werkgroep Hagal” is a pagan working group. So allow me to say this: SO WHAT ?

  33. Comprehension? What does that mean, you’re so much smarter than I? Yet it wasn’t me that spent two months Nazi hunting on the internet dismissing the very people closest to Belgium politics just to support Johnson’s initial assessment that the VB and SD was overrun with White supremacists. I’m not the one that spent hours upon hours rounding up useless information just to reinforce the mistaken believe of one blog owner and commenter’s that just associating with Vlaams Belang will weaken the anti-jihadist movement. The irony of that is anti-jihadist movement now is disassociating itself from the whacked out positions of LGF. It already cost Johnson his Pajama Media position, after only one post about it on Hot Air, Malkin put the hammer down to ignore Johnson, Spencer made one neutral remark that Johnson mistakenly took as some huge endorsement. Other than that, complete silence from everyone else. Most are wise enough to see that LGF has jumped the shark and would just as soon keep some distance between Johnson and themselves..
    So congratulations to Johnson and his lizards on sabotaging his own outlet and voice, LGF is now the laughing stock of blogs. Pretty sad actually but was brought on by himself.

  34. So you can’t refute what they are can you? No, I didn’t think so. Time will tell, did you notice that Atlas doesn’t have a GoV link on her page anymore? Did you notice in the right wing news that the top positions were taken by :
    Hot Air
    Little Green Footballs
    Michelle Malkin?

    Did you notice GoV wasnt’ even considered?
    Did you notice that LGF is the top of google search page for LGF, ahead of Lion’s gate Films?

    Sorry but I also don’t buy the package deal that the guys in Voorpost are the only ones in Europe who are anti-jihadi.

    Keep deluding yourself, you seem good at it. Next article coming soon, you aren’t going to like it either.

  35. Bjorn, if you go to the Beligian TV video link you can watch the video from the page. Whenever there are facts you don’t like it’s always from a “leftist” site. Doesn’t negate the facts, nice try.
    Do you think conservative papers print things that make conservatives look bad across the board? No they don’t … when they do they dissappear them pretty fast. It’s not news that the news is slanted, you will see many articles here about the nature of news.
    You will also see it’s not just one paper as you state, you can see the photo on the cover of the VB newsletter. There is also a forum discussion of the event. I guess you didn’t see that either.

  36. What’s interesting about Bjorn Roose’s comment is that the Akismet spam trapper held it. There weren’t any links. This means that a lot of people are reporting Bjorn comments to Akismet as spam…. (I have not done so.)

  37. Time will tell, did you notice that Atlas doesn’t have a GoV link on her page anymore?
    Is that the quality of all your research? Thought I’d look and sure enough there was GoV, right between Fu2rman and Gathering of Eagles.

  38. You know I did a find on page for “Vienna” and it didn’t come up last night. Hrmm. 910 is back now as well, so it was an accident or her sidebar was just messed up then. Ah well it doesn’t matter, the blog spat isn’t the point.
    Got anything else to whine about now?

Comments are closed.