France greets the New Year with the traditional ceremonial Torching of the Citroëns

Happy New Year to you. On the Eighth Day of Christmas the multiculti fetishists gave to us:

An eight o'clock curfew:

VAST areas of East, North and South London have been declared "no-go zones" by terrified delivery drivers because of the acid attack epidemic, The Sun can reveal. Moped riders say they won't go to the violent hotspots after 8pm because they fear being attacked with acid or knives. They have been forced to cut down their hours - taking a massive pay cut - thanks to the dangers. The House of Commons heard last week that London has more acid attacks per head of population than any other world city.

Seven sexual assailants:

At least seven people were arrested for sexual assault in the German capital, police said, as cited by Die Welt newspaper... In most cases, women were "groped between their legs or their buttocks," Thomas Neuendorf from the Berlin police press office told Ruptly. "The suspects were predominantly young men from Syria or Afghanistan," he said.

Six stabbers arrested:

Six people have been arrested following four fatal unrelated stabbings that took place on New Year's Eve and in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Five homes raided:

Police have raided five homes as part of an anti-terror operation to foil a suspected Christmas terror plot. Loud bangs were heard as an army bomb squad was deployed following a raid in Chesterfield and there were also operations by counter-terror officers in three parts of Sheffield.

Four women gang-raped:

Another woman has been attacked and gang raped by several men in the Swedish city of Malmö... Police have searched an area in Högaholm with a special dog for semen. The victim was taken to hospital but had no severe injuries. This is the fourth gang rape in Malmö in less than two months.

Three pubs attacked:

"These were the only white businesses in the area," he said. "No Asian businesses were attacked. They were targeted because they were white.... There are so many areas in this city where white people are scared to go into.... I think we are heading towards disaster."

Two police officers lynched:

Horrifying video footage has emerged of a female police officer and her boss being beaten in a Paris suburb. The incident took place in the early hours of Monday following an emergency call in Champigny-sur-Marne, an area to the south-east of the city. The unnamed police officer was filmed by gang members as she was kicked around by the attackers. The footage was then uploaded onto the internet by the group.

and a canceled New Year in Sydney:

An Anglican church with a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been forced to cancel an annual New Year's Eve street party over terrorist attack fears. St Aidan's at Longueville, on the lower north shore, had hired bands or put on an annual family-friendly sausage sizzle on the last day of the year since 1999... The church's rector Reverend Craig Potter said new state laws requiring community groups to hire professional security guards and put up concrete or water-filled bollards meant his congregation couldn't afford a $10,000 bill to ward off a potential terrorist attack.

I tried to satirize the likes of the above over the weekend, but every day's headlines remind us that we're way beyond that.

You might be minded to discern a not altogether reassuring trend in all of this, but I wouldn't advise it. In Europe the ruling class has decided that the real problem are the people who insist on noticing such things. So January 1st was also the first day of a rigorous new German hate-speech law:

Beatrix von Storch, a leading figure in the Alternative for Germany party, is one of the first hit by new hate speech laws on social media. Critics say the legislation opens the way for censorship by internet companies.

Oh, perish the thought:

A lawmaker from Germany's anti-Islam, ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was blocked on Twitter most of Monday for lashing out over New Year's greetings sent by Cologne police in Arabic. "What the hell is happening in this country? Why does an official police site tweet in Arabic," wrote Beatrix von Storch, a leading party member for the anti-immigrant right-wing group.

"Diversity" is where once functioning societies go to die. But who ya gonna believe - the official happy-talk or your acid-scarred eyes?

~Tomorrow, Wednesday, Mark will be keeping his midweek date with John Oakley, live on Toronto's AM640 at 5pm Eastern. We hope you'll tune in.

For another perspective on the internal contradictions of vibrant diversity, Mark's trip to Northern England to meet "grooming" victims is recounted in the first issue of The Clubbable Steyn, which comes free with membership in The Mark Steyn Club: You can sign up for a full year, or merely an experimental quarter. And don't forget our new Gift Membership for a friend or loved one. Among the other benefits of membership is our series of audio adventures, Tales for Our Time - we'll have a new one later this month - and (even more hi-tech than radio serials) video poetry!

Club membership also confers the privilege of clobbering Steyn by logging-in and commenting below. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please see here.