Response to an American hebdo

Response to an American hebdo

An article in the American hebdo "Weekly Standard" criticizes the "Belgian Bush urinal sticker" - a response to it.

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ARTICLE

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/276vsdtv.asp

Piss Off

A Belgian novelty shows what the good people of Brussels really think about George W. Bush.
by Paul Belien
02/22/2005 8:40:00 AM

The newest Belgian fad--a Bush urinal sticker.
*picture#1*

Brussels

WHEN JOHAN VANDE LANOTTE, Belgium's Vice Prime Minister, goes to the toilets today, he finds the urinals in the offices of his ministry decorated with stickers. They show an American flag and the head of George W. Bush. "Go ahead. Piss on me," the caption says. Vande Lanotte is one of Bush's hosts in Brussels. Is peeing on your guest's head appropriate? In Belgium it is. After all, Brussels' best known statue is that of "Manneken Pis," a peeing boy.

The piss stickers, specially made to be used in urinals, can be seen these days in the public toilets of Belgian schools, youth clubs, and pubs. They were designed by Laurent Winnock, president of the Young Socialists, the youth branch of Vande Lanotte's Socialist party. Winnock did his creative work during his office hours, which would not be worth mentioning if Winnock did not work in the offices of Vice Prime Minister Vande Lanotte, as one of his press spokesmen.

Last Friday, Belgian television asked Robert "Steve" Stevaert, the Socialist party leader, what he thought of the stickers. It had not been his idea, he stressed, but he refused to distance himself from it. He hardly could, seeing as the stickers can be ordered for free through the party's official website. For Belgian television viewers the message was clear: Bush may be our government's guest, the ministers will greet him, smile and tell him that he is most welcome, but we all know what they think of the bastard.

For those who missed the "subtlety" of the urinal stickers, Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian minister of Justice and one of the Socialist party's most powerful figures, let go during prime time on Sunday evening, as Air Force One was about to land in Brussels. "I would rather have had John Kerry visiting us," she said on television. When the interviewer asked whether it was not undiplomatic to say so, she answered: "No. That is how I feel about it."

Meanwhile, however, a citizen of Ghent, where the stickers had also been distributed, has filed a complaint with the Belgian judiciary headed by Onkelinx. "This sticker has nothing to do with freedom of speech," he says. "If I go to the gents in the pub nowadays, I am forced to pee on Bush and the American flag because it is impossible to miss this sticker."

I do not know whether the president is aware of the real feelings of his Belgian hosts. Has the American Embassy in Brussels informed him? This question crossed my mind, as he was delivering his speech to a crowd of politicians, journalists, and businessmen in the prestigious halls of Brussels' Concert Noble on Monday afternoon. There, under a huge painting of Leopold II, Belgium's late-19th-century king (and the tyrant of the Congo), Bush addressed a few hundred people invited by the U.S. Embassy. I know some of them. They used to be my colleagues.

Fifteen years ago, I was sacked by a Belgian newspaper because I had written an article in the Wall Street Journal which the Belgian politicians did not like. Being a somewhat conservative and pro-American journalist, I was a regular contributor to the Journal in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These articles were not liked by my liberal colleagues, nor by the Belgian regime. On April 6, 1990, I was fired after writing a Journal op-ed piece about how a major story had been ignored by the Belgian media under political pressure from the top political parties.

That day ended my career as a newspaper journalist. None of the Belgian papers has been willing to employ me since. Fifteen years later I am still known by my former colleagues as "that fascist from the Wall Street Journal." And now I could see those same editors sitting in the audience, listening to a man whom they despise.

Indeed, they think that the world will be saved if America becomes more like Europe, whereas I think that Europe will be saved only if it becomes more like America. But that is an opinion which no one in Europe is allowed to have. Those who do, get peed upon.

Dr. Paul Belien is the author of the forthcoming book A Throne in Brussels on the "Belgianisation" of Europe (Imprint Academic, May 2005).

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MY RESPONSE to editor@weeklystandard.com

Dear Mister Belien,

This Belgian urinal sticker of 2005, doesn't it counterbalance this US urinal gadget of 2003?
*picture#2*

You write « I think that Europe will be saved only if it becomes more like America. But that is an opinion which no one in Europe is allowed to have. Those who do, get peed upon. »

Becoming more like America, is it violating International Obligations like some of those violated by US Rogue State?

01. Antiballistic Missile Treaty
02. Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
03. UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms
04. UN Human Rights Commission (HIV/AIDS drugs, human right to adequate food, moratorium on the death penalty)
05. International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty
06. Land Mine Treaty
07. Kyoto Protocol
08. Echelon program
09. OECD crack down of off-shore and other tax and money-laundering havens
10. Use and production of anti-personnel bombs and mines
11. International Conference on Racism
12. International Plan for Cleaner Energy
13. UN General Assembly resolution for an end to the US illegal boycott of Cuba
14. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
15. International Court of Justice (The Hague)
16. UNESCO New World Information and Communication Order
17. UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
18. UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
19. UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
20. UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
21. UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

No, thanks, that is piss upon the whole world.

Becoming more like America, is it saying « I don't know what you're talking about by "international law". » (G.W.Bush, press conference, December 11, 2003)?

No, thanks, that is piss upon the whole world.

You write « After all, Brussels' best known statue is that of "Manneken Pis", a peeing boy. »

Do you know that, according to the legend, the little boy "Manneken Pis" pissed on a wick and so doing saved the town of Brussels of the fire?
Does the good people of Brussels hope so doing to save the world of the fire?
Knows this little Iraqi boy about the legend of "Manneken Pis"?
*picture#3*

Praise to the US of B. Franklin!
Praise to the US of President A. Lincoln!
Praise and Thanks to the US of President W. Wilson!
Praise and Thanks to the US of President F. Roosevelt!
Praise to the US of M.L. King!
Shame and Blame on the US of President G.W. Bush!

Regards, a plain "Old European".

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)