May Day Mayhem: Swiss Anarchists Riot

Armies of anarchists clashed with Swiss police following the May Day labor marches in Switzerland last week, in a very under-reported series of dramatic battles on the streets of Zurich and elsewhere.

Front and center in the melee once again were the violent vandals of the Black Block; regular Covenant Zone readers may remember these goons' barbaric behavior during the Swiss election last October, which we covered here.

My translation of the French version of the story carried by Switzerland's 20 Minutes news site on the Swiss May Day Mayhem:

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Rubber bullets, water cannons, fiery containers, rains of bottles and stones, May 1st lived up to its reputation in Zurich. The "Chaoten ["brawlers"] of "Black Block" clashed with police around 5:00 pm in the neighborhood of Langstrasse. Calm returned in the early evening. The police proceeded with 200 arrests. The skirmishes erupted shortly after 4:00 pm between separatists and the forces of law and order. The latter had previously encircled 300 protesters of "the revolutionary alliance" in order to avoid the habitual outbursts following the official parade through downtown.
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The situation degenerated at Lausanne as well. Some 200 anarchists took on a McDonald's in St-Laurent around 5:00 pm. The fast-food restaurant had three windows and two garbage cans broken. It had to be evacuated and closed, said the ATS. The clashes continued around the Place de la Riponne and de la Cité. "The police proceeded to make many arrests and identifications", explained Anne Plesz, spokesperson for the Lausanne police. No rubber bullet or tear gas was fired.
....>>>>>>

McDonald's. It's always McDonald's.
In their perennial targeting of harmless little McDonald's restaurants for their pathetic McAnarchism, I think we see the real target of these feral brats: the bond of family.

Say what you want about the food, but McDonald's caters its business to Families, offering a family-friendly environment for parents to take their kids; parents can be confident that the restaurant has taken pains to be of support and service to the challenge of parenthood itself.

How many members of Black Block have spouses and children, I wonder? How many would be capable of the kind of commitment to self-discipline, self-sacrifice and self-awareness necessary to form a family and attempt to function as the societal unit it is meant to be?



How many have the minimal skills required to even work in a McDonald's?

They must see the multitude of citizens meeting more civilized objectives, and envy them their ability to place enough faith in themselves in order to start businesses, let alone families... what other motives beyond simple envy could account for their summoning such fury to smash so innocuous a target as a McDonald's restaurant?
They must see that the bridge of hope that family life offers, requires undiminished effort and unending renewal of purpose if it is to lead to a far better world than the self-imposed dark age paralysis the nihilists select for themselves.

They must see it, and somewhere under their masks acknowledge the truth: that for all their puffed-up rage, they are simply scared to grow up. For all the "guts" they portend to put on display, they don't have the fortitude to achieve the simplest of goals: to be a husband, a father... a Man.

Just who are they hiding from, as they cower behind their cowls? From us... or from themselves..?

Building a family, like running a restaurant, takes a degree of courage and faith that must truly frighten these juvenile delinquents if they feel they must participate in such theatrical performances in order to avoid surrendering to the obvious truth: that they cannot measure up to the simplest standard expected of them...

...to grow up and act like adults.

Swiss church under siege

Treating a wave of vandalism against its stained glass windows as the equivalent of a natural disaster, the community of Monthey have banded together to entomb their church's beautiful windows, in order to save them.

Thanks to the tireless French-language news site BafWeb for bringing attention to this story; my translation of a tragically symbolic defense against violent "youth", as a besieged Swiss church sacrifices outer beauty for inner peace:

Soccer balls, stones, and rubber bullets: following a renewal of attacks upon the Catholic church of Monthey, the parish has put protective measures in place for their stained glass windows.

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Sign of changing times, the church must protect its stained glass windows from vandals by imposing “armor-plating”!

Approximately 10,000 francs have been devoted towards this construction project, said parish priest Henri Roduit. “Acts of vandalism have always existed, but increasingly the phenomenon has taken on proportions too important [to ignore].”

And the pastor adds: “We are confronted with three sorts of vandalism against these stained glass windows. Besides soccer balls, there are stones thrown and rubber bullets fired from pistols.”

Facing up to the increasing frequency of these incidents, the parish wanted to take preventative measures, [because] of the high costs of repeated repairs. “The system chosen by the parish Council has the advantage of associating a defense against projectiles of all sorts along with protection against the cold. The plate-glass installed in front of the stained glass windows are made of a very solid composite material.” What’s more, the discretion of this process does not weigh upon the aesthetic. And let us remember that a stained glass window can be admired from the interior of a church. ...

Hiding the treasures of European culture behind increased layers of armor plating may speak well of the ingenuity and resilience of the remaining true believers, but what else does such a gesture suggest? It would be more reassuring that they would view their communities as a whole, and their very nation with the same pride, and would take measures on a larger scale to diminish the scale of "youthful" urban violence forcing those capable of appreciating the beauty of a stained glass window to remain indoors.
Are unrepentant thugs and vandals as inevitable as a winter frost? Maybe post-christian Europe has come to think so, if the remaining faithful few view a good defense as the best offense.