Brussels, the self-proclaimed capital of the European Union, is no longer the beacon of a united Europe, but an advanced symptom of its disintegration.

The normalization of radical Islamic and anti-Semitic discourse we are witnessing in Brussels is the result of 15 years of leaders abrogating their responsibility.

So many responsibilities abrogated, while the parties were unable to win national elections and pull together governing coalitions — at one point they went four years with caretaker governments, as I recall.

Brussels, through its inability --- or unwillingness -- to make unpleasant but necessary choices, is setting itself up as the first potential locus of protracted European unrest.

The Islamist Team Fouad Ahidar party embodies a new situation: a political Islam that no longer hides its identity. Instead, it advocates that a religious identity be the underpinning of national cohesion. This fragmentation reflects a profound breakdown in the social contract, between the old European society, which confines religion to the private sphere, and the "new Europeans" (Muslims), who want everything to be subject to their religious doctrine.

Crime rates are rising everywhere in Brussels, particularly in an area in the spotlight for its frequent shootings: the Bruxelles-Midi Zone (Saint-Gilles, Forest, Anderlecht). Between 2022 and 2023, notes the newspaper L'Echo, robberies and extortion rose by 23%, robberies without weapons by 34%, pickpocketing by 27%, and armed robberies by a staggering 53%.

Jew-hatred, often marketed in unconvincing, transparent disguises as "anti-Zionism," flourishes in many other Islamic-centered and radical left-wing circles.... in Brussels, Jew-hatred enjoys almost total impunity.

As of 2023, 74% of Brussels' population is of foreign background, compared to a European average of 10%... This demographic transformation or "great replacement," far from being accompanied by an effective integration policy, has saturated Brussels -- overcrowded schools, overwhelmed hospitals, sorely inadequate housing -- and exacerbated communal tensions.

In 2022, a report revealed that 35% of young people with an immigrant background in Brussels were living in households where nobody has a job -- a breeding ground for delinquency and radicalization.

Brussels is not only a city in crisis, it is a city on the brink of implosion.