BOY, IS THIS WEIRD – AT 11:45 P.M. ET:  Who said that Muslim immigrants to Europe don't want to be European?  Maybe we should ask whether the Europeans want to be European.  From Spiegel online:

With Germany celebrating as its football team advances through the World Cup, the flag is flying everywhere in the country. But as one German of Lebanese descent has found out, not everyone in the country is a fan of the patriotic display. His giant German flag keeps getting torn down -- apparently by left-wing activists.

He will not stand for any ridicule. "I will defend the German flag," says Ibrahim Bassal resolutely, hitting the glass counter three times to make his point. Over the past few days he has been through a lot and what he has experienced has only strengthened his resolve. "I won't let anyone get at it," he adds.

Bassal is the proprietor of Bassal's Elektroshop, a store selling mobile phones and other electrical goods, in the working-class district of Neukölln in Berlin. No other neighborhood in the German capital offers such a diversity of cultures. Left-wing students rub shoulders with Turkish immigrants, while local businesses include the "Al-Hara" snack bar and the "Sultan" bakery. There are more than 160 nationalities recorded as living in Neukölln and around 35 percent of the district's population are foreigners.

And...

Over the past few weeks, ever since the start of the football World Cup, the neighborhood has been the scene of what local media are calling the "Neukölln flag fight." Left-wing activists have called on sympathizers to destroy the German flags which can be seen everywhere, arguing that they are a symbol of German nationalism.

Of course, they have no problem with Russian nationalism, or Iranian. 

"We won't let them take away our beautiful Germany, the one we have in our hearts," Bassal explains and bangs on the glass counter again. He was born here, he has always lived here and he feels like a proper German, he says.

COMMENT:  As the philosopher Red Buttons used to say, "Strange things are happening."

June 29, 2010