As reported last week on the Alliance on GoV, the fifth annual Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations met in Vienna on February 27th and 28th. The official goals of 
the AoC consist of vague feel-good bromides, but practically speaking, its primary purpose is to implement the program of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In particular, the AoC is keen to crack down on “defamation of religions”.
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff attended last week’s events in Vienna. She has filed a account on what she observed, and discusses the larger ramifications of the AoC in the ongoing Islamization of the West.
One of the major tasks of our generation is to build a global community, where people of all persuasions can live together in harmony and mutual respect. — Karen Armstrong, AoC goodwill ambassador
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. — George Orwell
Dialogue means persuasion through threats, ‘cross-cultural understanding’ is translated as submission. — Bat Ye’or, in Europe, Globalization and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate
In past decades, there has been a more or less covert movement to deliberately dissolve the sovereignty of nation-states, particularly in Europe. Decisions regarding politics, culture and information which should be taken on a national or even a local level have been relegated to a great extent to an international level represented by organizations such as the Anna Lindh Foundation or the Alliance of Civilizations, both of which are, putting it mildly, obscure and unknown to the public. The sinister instruments used in these organizations are called “dialogue”, “peace and harmony”, “partnerships”, and “multiculturalism”.
According to eminent scholar Bat Ye’or:
Europeans are hemmed by a game of multiple mirrors, which radiate at every level and into infinity, prefabricated opinions in accordance with political and cultural agendas, of which they know nothing and often disapprove, but which they finance with their taxes. […] This opaque, elitist system undermines democracy. It also lacks visibility, doubling and multiplying itself like a hydra into networks and sub-networks. (Bat Ye’or, Europe, Globalization and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate, p. 125-6)
The setting could not have been more bizarre: the Vienna Hofburg, the hub of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, all glitzed up and shiny, hosted the most undemocratic event imaginable outside North Korea’s borders. The Austrian monarchy can be hailed a beacon of democracy compared to the Alliance of Civilizations, which celebrated its 5th Global Forum in Vienna, sucking up financial and other precious resources and taxes along the way and producing — unsurprisingly — no tangible results.
More than 1,000 men and women attended this forum, young and old, clergy and imams, from near and far, all in perpetual smiles, chatting with each other in the imperial hallways about how to make the world a better place, all the while ignoring the usual elephant in the (Hofburg) castle. Peace and harmony for 72 hours, then it was a collective exodus to the airport to return to reality. In fact, for these 72 hours, the Forum completely negated the outside world, as if the inter-religious tensions existed only in the minds of a few loonies, and if there were only more talk about peace and harmony, these loonies would acknowledge their idiocies and disappear in history’s dustbins. Irksomely, these men and women constituted a non-elected body, for not one spoke for himself, but rather identified with a group, most likely with a Muslim group.
In light of the Alliance’s evil machinations, and before we delve into the actual meeting, it is well worth the effort to examine its origins and aims. The 2004 attacks in Madrid perpetrated by “Muslim extremists” shocked Spain, toppled its (conservative) government, and gave birth to the creation of the Alliance of Civilizations, which — in the words of the inimitable Bat Ye’or —
would operate in the political and cultural spheres of the rapprochement of Islam and the West, thereby fulfilling the wishes of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation). […] This fell to a UN strategy on a world-wide scale. […] This project was not [Spanish prime minister] Zapatero’s but the OIC’s — Zapatero merely became their European representative. (p. 93)
The Spanish university professor Isaias Barrenada argues that the name of the Alliance itself is misleading, lacking correspondence with its content. Furthermore, he adds, “it is very difficult to define ‘civilization’, which tends to be identified with religion and culture. What constitutes a civilization today? Who represents it? Who speaks on its behalf? The Center for Inquiry [pdf], in turn, condemns the Alliance’s lack of “discussion of Islamist movements and organizations world-wide; the question of tensions between Islamic law and government and universal human rights norms.”
Then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan then set about selecting personalities for the Alliance’s so-called High Level Group which would be in charge of solving the clash of civilizations once and for all. The members of the HLG were not elected nor did the public even know about the creation of this group, nor does any member represent a secularist organization. This is significant, since the HLG adopted the Islamic view of history, shifting all the blame onto the West for any and all conflicts. Colonialism and Zionism, of course, are at the top of the list of shame.
The HLG, in the name of the Alliance’s 100-plus members, decided — without any democratic process or discussion — that “world conflicts are reduced to conflicts between the privileged and the poor, between the powerful and the weak, because […] poverty leads to despair and alienation.” (Bat Ye’or, Europe, p. 94) An action plan was recommended to “reduce conflicts through affirmation of mutual respect between peoples, creating a relationship that gives special attention to relations between Western and Muslim societies.” (p. 95) All of this takes place in the hope of reducing hostility and promoting harmony among nations and cultures of the world. Apart from the fact that these plans will influence millions of people in Europe and the United States and Canada, none of these millions of citizens have been informed of, let alone asked about, the Alliance’s deals and plans, while the interests of the OIC are being implemented through the backdoor. Before we move on, a few questions come to mind immediately:
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What does reducing hostility mean?
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What is the definition of harmony?
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What does the promotion of harmony entail?
But apparently there is no need for any definition, as we shall see later. Makes dialogue and harmony much easier, doesn’t it?
Bat Ye’or’s assessment of the reports issued by the High Level Group is devastating. They are
unilateral, granting the United Nations, the OIC and international organizations the right to determine the policies, laws, culture and thought processes of [500] million Europeans [and Americans]. It is an international, multipolar, fascist-type and totalitarian government that carries out such a cultural inquisition [that] would replace their democratically elected national systems. Conclaves acting without the public’s knowledge insert their decisions by means of networks, partnerships and ‘representatives of civil society’, who have been elected by no one but themselves and paid by mysterious humanitarian ‘foundations’ aiming at world ‘peace and justice’. (pp. 108-9)
Next: Ignoring the central problem of our times