Fallout from the Antwerp murders

In the Brussels Journal Paul Belien writes about Thursday's murders in Antwerp:

Yesterday Hans Van Themsche, an 18 year old high-school student who had just been expelled from boarding school for smoking in the dormitories, went berserk and set out on a bloody rampage in Antwerp. In the morning he shaved his head down to the neck. He put on combat boots and a black leather outfit and went to a store of sporting and hunting gear to buy a rifle. Dressed as a “Goth” he walked through town and shot at three people who crossed his path: a veiled Turkish woman, a two year old Flemish toddler on a tricycle and her black nanny, killing the latter two and seriously wounding the first.

A policeman was able to neutralize the student by shooting him in the stomach. He is currently in hospital, recovering from the wound. According to the authorities he said he was a skinhead on a suicide mission who wanted to kill foreigners and intended the last bullet for himself. In a farewell note, which he left at his school, he mentioned “heaven, which does not exist” and wrote that his three brothers would feel better once he was gone. Luc Deprez, the schoolmaster, said that Hans Van Themsche, who turned 18 last February, was an intelligent and courteous boy. According to the judicial authorities, who questioned his parents, there are no indications that the murderer was raised “in a racist or violent environment.”

Apparently he and his brothers were not even allowed to play with toy guns as children. However the quest for someone to blame (other than the actual murder) soon found a target:

. . . Frieda Van Themsche (the murderer's aunt), however, is a member of parliament for the Vlaams Belang party. This party, which is Antwerp's and also Belgium's largest single political party, aims for the independence of Flanders, is opposed to Muslim immigration and does not believe in a multicultural society.

Following Hans Van Themsche's killing spree, however, his aunt is guilty by association, and so is the entire party. The Belgian government has strongly condemned the shootings, describing them as an extreme form of racism.

Not only that but the Brussels’s Journal is also open to attack:

Guilty, too, is this website because the writer of this article happens to be married to another VB member of parliament. Today a far-left organization, the Progress Lawyers Network (PLN), attacked The Brussels Journal in a press release, and demanded that "Paul Belien be prosecuted for his recent publications." Tomorrow the Belgian media will parrot the message. I am a prolific and outspoken writer, which in Belgium is not tolerated from a Conservative. Sixteen years ago, long before my wife went into politics, I was fired by a Belgian newspaper for writing an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal explaining why the Belgian media spiked the story of the late King Baudouin's objections to the Belgian abortion bill. Since then I have never been given the opportunity to write for a Belgian newspaper again. Last summer I started The Brussels Journal, which some want to silence because political correctness is all they want the public to hear.

In addition to being a conservative who has written a pro-life op-ed he has compounded his guilt by writing this:

Following the recent murder of Joe Van Holsbeeck I wrote that citizens should be allowed the right to bear arms (specifically mentioning peppersprays) if the authorities are no longer able to guarantee public safety. According to Belgian law it is illegal to buy, possess and carry pepperspray, although this is a purely defensive weapon which, if Joe Van Holsbeeck had been allowed to use it, might have saved his life.

I hope that all the people who haven't joined the NRA are listening. Apparently in Belgium they have, like the English before them, drunk deep of the anti-self defense Kool-Ade. Of course the Belgian authorities have promised new gun control laws.

Mr. Belien concludes this way:

. . . Hans Van Themsche’s killing spree is indicative of a society where young people have lost all respect for human life. Is it a coincidence that this should happen in a society that has lost respect for human life itself? Belgium has a very liberal abortion law and wants to extend its euthanasia legislation to minors and to the senile elderly (whose guardians will decide for them). Is it a coincidence that at the same time so many young people have also lost their faith in the future? They listen to Satanic and “goth” music, dress in black, shave their heads and write in farewell letters that “heaven does not exist.” Having lost faith in heaven, they then decide to turn the world into hell.

He is, of course, correct. When a group of people whether a generation, a nation or a religion embraces a self destructive nihilism it becomes capable of anything evil and nothing good.

It is also instructive to note that the Left in Europe seems to work in exactly the same way as it does in America. After the Oklahoma City bombing the American Left, from President Clinton on down, attempted to blame Rush Limbaugh. I guess that they thought that if the tragedy could be used to knock Rush off the air that it would have all been worth it.

In the present case it seems that the Belgian Left will use this tragedy to attempt to shut down Brussels Journal which seems to be almost the only conservative news and opinion outlet in the entire nation.