Who lost Europe?

[KebreI]

I just got around to reading the transcript to his speech, I have been unintentionally putting it off. I just wanted to see you guys(gals) reaction. Several parallels can be draw to the central and south American illegal immigration problem in the US.





'In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost  Europe?'

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, chairman Party for  Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing  an Alliance of  Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in  Jerusalem.

 

The speech was sponsored by the Hudson Institute on  September 25. 
   
 Dear Friends, 
   
Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons.
I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy  season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have  three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national  emergency. So Four Seasons, that's new to me.

 

It's great to be in New  York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of  what Ayn Rand said: 'The sky over New York and the will of man made  visible.'  Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere,  still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we  are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job  than we possibly could have done.

 

I come to America with a mission.  All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger  looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic.  We might be in  the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a  clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West.

 

The danger I  see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The  United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an  Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who  lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day  to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.

 

My short  lecture consists of 4 parts.

First I will describe the situation on  the ground in Europe.

Then, I will say a few things about Islam.

Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit about the movie you just saw.

To close I will tell you about a meeting in  Jerusalem.

 

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen  the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome's  ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still  there.

And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred  years ago. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very  few visitors see -

and one that does not appear in your tourist  guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim  mass-migration.

 

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire  Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are  even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the  police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of  children.
Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three  steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs  you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic  activity.
These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics.  These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every  city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial  control of increasingly
larger portions of Europe, street by street,  neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city. There are now thousands  of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build  super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly,  the signal is: we rule. 
   
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority  of  the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a  ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name  among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam  the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean  mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many  state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all  pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost  exclusively by Muslims.

 

Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore,  whore'. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to  stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are  advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including  Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the locaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

 

In England sharia courts are now  officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a  man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because  he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record  numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World  War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and  Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this.  Stories about Islamization. 
   
 A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of  the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now.  Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century. Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be  threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to  assimilate. But there are few signs of that.

 

The Pew Research Center  reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as  greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do  not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion  reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a  worldwide caliphate.

A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch  Muslims admit they 'understand' the 9/11 attacks. Muslims demand what  they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up.

 

In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have  cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

 

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and  bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the  low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as  isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada.
I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not  come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much  of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against  non-Muslims,  forcing many native people to leave their  neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries. Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the  equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are  now a swing vote not to be ignored.

 

Our many problems with Islam  cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial  past,  as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with  Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.  Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101.


The first thing you need to  know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The  Quran is Allah's personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the  prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah's word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation.  It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is  no such a thing as moderate Islam.


Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent. The Quran calls for  hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls  for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to  fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for  every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world - by the sword. The Quran is  clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.


 The second  thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and  Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he  fought in
battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had  prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish  tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never  advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the  advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is  bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

 

Quran  as Allah's own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most  important facets of Islam.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a  religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins.
But  in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that  lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person.  Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy,  because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam  to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are  all totalitarian ideologies.

 

This is what you need to know about  Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the life of Mohammed are not 14  centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill  called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he  compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

 

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral  duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran  stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

 

Now, from the day  the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the  Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political  storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of  possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch  branch of the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a  series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional  attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to  Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie.

 

In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several  occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia  again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a  sell-out. A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not  ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me.  Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a  heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.

 

Now, I  would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we  will get together in its capital.
The best way for a politician in  Europe to lose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The  public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up  for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle.


I have  lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand  years of exile up to and including Auschwitz. Second because it is a  democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.  Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: 'Islam has bloody borders'.  Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is  situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial  advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir,  Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon,  and Aceh in Indonesia.

 

Israel is simply in the way. The same way  West-Berlin was during the Cold War. The war against Israel is not a  war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel  is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lie awake at  night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

 

Many in Europe argue in favor of  abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West.
It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values.

On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement  to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning.  It would mean the start of the final battle for world  domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything.  Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

 

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the  growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all  fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam.  Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all  converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism.

So-called  journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as  a 'right-wing extremists'
or 'racists'. The entire establishment has  sided with our enemy.

Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are  now all in bed with Islam. This is the most painful thing to see: the  betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe's history, our  elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of  civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal  Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there  are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level.


Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know  how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on,  they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of  peace, and we
should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya.  They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called:  'the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.' If there  is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites.  Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from  the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the  entire political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years  there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of  the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on  freedom, the public does not.

 

In my country, the Netherlands, 60  percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as  the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60  percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don't think the public opinion in Holland is very different from  other European countries. Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are  growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with  five percent of the vote. Now it stands at ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all similarly-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the
political arena, one voter at the time. Now, for the first time,  these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences.  It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe
for decades to come. It might also be Europe's last chance.

 

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem.  Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able  to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are  organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all  in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common  heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist  organizations will be allowed.

And we will only admit parties that  are solidly democratic. This conference will be the start of an  Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support. This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West.

 

America may hold  fast to the dream that, thanks to its location, it is safe from jihad  and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered  that dream. Yet there is an even greater danger than terrorist  attacks, the scenario of
America as the last man standing. The lights  may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe  means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland,  an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America -  as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With  an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the  heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Using nationalism to fight religion is a dangerous game. Should he succeed, what then do we turn to to defeat nationalism, emboldend by its defeat of religion?

[ZeaLitY]

All my European friends concur that many immigrants bring undesirable practices, religion, culture, and crime with them. At best, a nation can institutionalize secularism (although, look to Turkey to see how futile this can be), relentlessly prosecute criminals, and tighten controls on immigration (legal and illegal). At worst, a nation can use too much nationalism, confuse culture with race, become a police state, and promote xenophobia.

However, since the very thought of criticizing the actions of a generalish group of people who happen to fall under mostly a single racial banner is automatically racism, don't hold your breath for anything to happen at all. Granted, there are things like this and people like the Lega Nord:



And, believe it or not, the three people I know who live in Italy will attest that the poster depicts reality, right down to the sentiment of the elderly European who is having to wait in line behind unruly migrants and Roma. Still, nothing's going to change, and the people who vote for guys like Berlusconi based on a poster like this are not the kind who would be interested in practical, intelligent, fair solutions.

I didn't bother reading the article posted by Kebrel, though, so if it has any controversial suggestions, my post doesn't endorse anything.

[Thought]

Using nationalism to fight religion is a dangerous game. Should he succeed, what then do we turn to to defeat nationalism, emboldend by its defeat of religion?

Well the goal in the speech doesn't seem to be "defeat religion;" rather the goal seems to be that of cultural survival. Nationalism has nothing to do with it, though I suppose one might term what he is proposing to be "culturalism" (a bigger beast of a similar kind, to be sure, but one that is a good bit older). If that goal of survival is successful, why would it need to be defeated in turn? At best it might need to be restrained, so that survival does not become an obliteration of other cultures, but not even that is a given.

[MsBlack]

Note: This post uses http://sheikyermami.com/2008/09/28/transcript-of-geert-wilders-speech-in-new-york/ as a transcript of Wilders’ speech.

~

We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

Codswallop. Wilders jumps right in by setting up Muslims as some alien ‘them’; as something invariably awful and dooming. Furthermore, he goes on with what is mere alarmist nonsense

In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.

His second statement is correct; these people are better known as xenophobic alarmists.

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well.

This is a problem not specific to Muslims. Every sizeable population on this planet contains detached groups—minorities of ‘outsiders’ on the inside—with a strong uniting factor. Such informal segregation is merely an indication of a failing by one or both sides in coming to reasonable agreement

While Islam is a very serious problem, alienating its followers—which exacerbates the problem—should be avoided where reasonable. One may anger wasps when destroying a nest, but one would be foolish to anger wasps without destroying the nest.

The shops have signs you and I cannot read.

This sentence was probably effective in garnering support among xenophobes or the impressionable fools not far from becoming them anyway, which is unfortunately probably a surprising number.

You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity.

I can understand where his other bigotry came from, but I have no idea where this came from.

These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

Wilders is looking at a tiny poisonous slice of a rotting pie and suggesting that the whole pie will kill. In my experience from my very own United Kingdom, it is the Muslims—the allegedly fanatic minority—who tend to be victimised by the minority.

The last part here is more alarmist rubbish.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

The signal I got from this is that conditions are ripe for Islam’s prosperity. Don’t be surprised when the bacteria one feeds comes back to infect one in the ass. This isn’t some covert Islamic conspiracy. It is a result of a thriving religion. For better or for worse, many of these are people who have been forced into Islam and who are far from ‘Islamic extremists’ or ‘fanatics’. In this case, the greatest threat is the part, not the rotting whole. Either do away with it all or do away with the worst bit, but don’t confuse the part with the whole.

In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”.

Again, all these things point to excessive leeway being given. Issues like these can’t be defeated by bigoted speeches that only incite desired action amongst a small, impressionable portion of the people. When institutions such as schools are bending over for religious sensitivities and sexist abuse is such a problem, top-down action is also needed. Where direct top-down action is not feasible, the situation should be dealt with to bring about the best compromise, which never involves furthering animosity between parties.

Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.

I keep breaking paragraphs up because of ridiculous, non sequitur gripes like this scattered among the more valid ones.

The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

I’m genuinely curious about this due to my ignorance of the subject. Is there some Muslim guilt?

San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

These seem like simplistic projections of current rates that exclude other factors such as increasing non-theism.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they “understand” the 9/11 attacks.

In many cases, these sentiments are encouraged by rejection when these people do try to assimilate. Bear in mind that not only are Muslims often shunted on the basis of their religion, but—much more prevalently—on the basis of their appearance. When people weakly on one side are spurned by the other side in situations like this, they have no choice but to stick to the fold, often with greater conviction than they previously had.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots.

These aren’t instances of ‘random violence’! They’re symptoms of a greater problem that is not being properly addressed—one which is indeed being exacerbated.

They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

This is outright false.

Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq.

He had to drag this in, didn’t he? Well, he’s wrong anyway; the occupation of Iraq is causing Islamic backlash.

Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

If this is correct, then surely the same is true for Christianity and Judaism and many other religions that are—by Wilders’ usage—never moderate. All of these have holy books that give out nominally incontrovertible gospel truth.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia.

Almost all of this is also nominally true of Christianity—the prevailing religion amongst humans, and whose followers—according to the SCP—in part comprise almost half of the Dutch population—compared with the less than sixteenth of that same population that is Muslim.

If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Considering that this person is the leader of a major political party, it really is unfortunate—although not surprising—that they are so typically incorrect..

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level.

So here is Wilders proclaiming himself defender of “Judeo-Christian values” while voraciously denouncing the most unsavoury aspects that these religions share with Islam.

Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves.

This is partly true. However, such change should be partly facilitated by top-down action, as I said above.

These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”.

And so Wilders closes with a quote that contradicts one of his major complaints with Islam. Stylish.

~

As Radical_Dreamer already alluded to, extremist nationalism is not the way to fight extremist Islam. Islam must be dealt with, but progress will be slow—partly because of China shop bulls like Geert Wilders.

[Lord J Esq]

The spread of Islam in Europe is indisputably the single most dangerous anthropological phenomenon in the world today. A world that is hardly short on dangers, I might add. Europe is the world’s greatest engine of secular liberalism, and only America even comes close. Smaller players like Japan and Australia are important within their own borders, but not nearly as important from an international perspective.

To put it plainly, Europe and America set the world standard for human rights, civil liberties, cultural maturity, and economic independence. For either to come under the thrall of religious fundamentalism would be worse than a global disaster. It would change the course of history. The Western vision of egalitarian magnanimity would pass, and so many of the liberal gains we have made since the inception of the Industrial Revolution would suddenly become precarious in a way that is unthinkable today. An Islamic Europe is the most plausible of all paths to the destruction of the modern world and another dark age.

To this extent I must agree with Geert Wilders. But, except for one other point of agreement, it ends there. Wilders, his party, his philosophy, and his movement, both in the Netherlands and across Europe, are utterly odious caricatures of human decency. It was his ilk that gave us the very Holocaust he now invokes in his rhetoric. The only thing different is that this time his scapegoat is the Muslims. Make no mistake: If his people were in charge, Europe would soon look worse than America under the Republicans. European nationalist ultraconservatism is part of a larger problem to which the Islamization of Europe also belongs. If we look at causes rather than symptoms, the two cultural phenomena are not antagonists. They are siblings, for extremist nationalists and extremist Islamists share one essential quality: Leftists empowered them in the first place, through the doctrine of multiculturalism.

This brings me to the remaining point on which I agree with Wilders: Islam is on the rise in Europe primarily because it is the primary tenet of multiculturalism that the assimilation of discrete populations into the national whole be discouraged in favor of promoting cultural diversity above the national identity. This happens to be an inherently unstable, socially disastrous philosophy. It is the worst idea that Western liberalism has come up with in four hundred years. Why? Because putting diversity above national unity destabilizes society, and if Europe or America comprises the “society” in question, all of our assumptions about the modern world fall unceremoniously through the floor. Diversity, for all its health benefits to society, is inherently dangerous, like electricity, and mustn’t go unregulated. It can be quite healthy to embrace the diversity of a fellow citizen who is Dutch first, and Muslim second. But it is potentially lethal to embrace the diversity of a fellow citizen who is Muslim first, and Dutch second. Why? Because without a common national identity, these diverse elements of the population will become competitors in the worst way, and the principal victim becomes not any of the factions but the very social fabric itself.

This same danger applies to the Geert Wilders folks. They are not responsible participants in European society. They want to change the system fundamentally. That’s the thing, you see: Liberalism won the 20th century. Europe and America, and Japan and South Korea, and Australia and New Zealand, and South Africa and Israel, and Canada and Taiwan, are all liberal by every measure that counts. The system to which I referred is inherently a liberal system. The ultranationalists want to supersede it just as much as the Islamists do, and multiculturalism not only enables this but actually encourages it. It is the Achilles’ Heel of liberal Western democracy.

Having said that, in practical terms Wilders and his Nazi wannabes are not nearly as dangerous as the Islamists. Why? Because, in spite of their usual penchant for obscene stupidity, the general public has a strong cultural memory of Europe’s recent history, and European-style, Christian-inspired ultraconservatism is well-understood and thoroughly loathed. Talk to mainstream or leftist Europeans and they will tell you how much they loathe the right-wingers. Some of them would make me look like Gandhi. As a consequence, right-wing nationalism is not likely to dominate in Europe anytime soon.

But Islam…Europe doesn’t understand Islam. Europeans long thought they were doing good in the world by thoroughly spurning the old attitudes of imperialism and encouraging the people living within their borders not to assimilate. Well, most of the time that worked out just fine. But not for Islam. Islam is a virulent religion, a predator and an opportunist. Islam took every inch granted it by the overly tolerant West, demanded even more, and with each advance grew bolder and more aggressive. Now secular liberalism faces a genuine existential threat in Europe, and the worst part is that Europeans are comfortable and complacent in their materially affluent, socially liberal lives and don’t have any visceral stimulus to fight back. Their prevailing attitude is that democracy will speak, and that those who enjoy liberal freedoms will continue to go on enjoying them, because a multicultural society allows for that. Great sentiment. Just one thing: Islam will destroy multicultural tolerance the day it gains a stable majority.

This is one of those frustrating, depressing problems where the right is wrong, the left is wrong, and the enemy is on the march. People on the right want to perceive this as a religious or socioeconomic turf war, which would only make the problem worse. People on the left refuse to acknowledge how bad the problem already is. And the enemy keeps right on chugging forward. Islam has the momentum. Time is on its side. And, at the policy level, only the fucking neo-Nazis want to do anything about it. I am understandably flustered.

Christianity and Islam have earned their profits in blood for thousands of years. Christianity has been largely defanged in the developed world (although not in the Third World.) But Islam runs amok wherever it lives. Secular liberalism, in its glorious success, has created the very tolerance and material comforts that now lead hundreds of millions of people toward an attitude of complacency and denial in the face of a mortal danger. We are, in this respect, the victims of our own success. This is why I call Islamization in Europe the most dangerous anthropological phenomenon in the world today: It isn’t just that Islam itself is barbaric in a way that would make the twelfth-century look positively Athenian. It’s also that secular liberalism has no immunity to Islam, and no cure for it. Europe has largely shed its observances in Christianity, but the people of Europe are only moderately more educated than they were before, and many of them are susceptible to the idea that Islam may not be so bad after all. To them, Islam is new, novel, and deserves the benefit of the doubt. They think it’s great that Muslim immigrants want to practice their religion. Even some Europeans are swayed into converting—willfully abandoning two thousand years of  brutal cultural progress in favor of the comfort of religious faith!

That right there is the greatest flaw in the human species, lit up like a float in Disneyland’s Electrical Parade.

Without a change in popular sentiment, fundamentalist Islam will continue to swell throughout Europe. Whether it eventually reaches majority status in a major European nation is open to debate. It depends on how the economies and politics of the Islamic world develop over the coming decades, and how the non-Muslim majorities in Europe decide to address the problem of Islamic radicalism.

The most important step would be for Europe to outgrow multiculturalism and embrace some kind of assimilative doctrine. Even partial assimilation would defuse this situation. Unlike Wilders I don’t mind the “signs that I can’t read” or the religiously segregated neighborhoods. None of that matters. The only thing that must be common to all Europeans is the respect for a system whose primary goals are human rights, civil liberties, cultural maturity, and economic independence for all people.

How Europe gets to that point is not in my hands. Were it, I would not pursue the right-wing strategy of freezing immigration, deporting radicals, and goodness knows what else Wilders wishes he could do when he’s in the limo each morning jerking off. I’d confront the problem from the other direction:

First of all, gird the justice system. No Sharia law. No tolerance for religious-inspired abuses against the rights of women or other vulnerable groups. No special treatment for people on religious grounds, except for those cases which are truly innocuous and unobtrusive. Period. The justice system must dispense justice, or at the very least it must try with all sincerity. There can be no tolerance for a culture of violence and oppression simply because that culture happens to be a religion.

With the justice system clearly oriented, my primary strategy would be, more or less, to extend my hand to Muslims, genuinely. I would give them every reason to join society at large. And I wouldn’t be wishy-washy about it, either. I’d be ruthless. Secular liberalism has two major weapons that are undefeatable. One is economic prosperity. If it becomes in the economic interests of Islamic fundamentalists to assimilate and take on their nation’s identity, then they will assimilate. The other is education. A good education lights up the world, and liberates people from the slavery of orthodox religion. I would turn the full power of those institutions onto the Islamic community. They’d have money, schools, democratic representation, every opportunity made available to them. Because, at the end of the day, there are only two ways to defeat an enemy: Destroy them. Befriend them. One or the other. There is no in-between.

It is precisely because there is no in-between that I would be so emphatic about extending my hand in friendship. Punishment won’t work. Illegalization won’t work. Ostricization won’t work. Banning religion won’t work. All of those strategies would fail, because they are weak, feeble imitations of the only true power to destroy, which is wholesale slaughter. The enemy would not only survive, but would become more embittered and antagonized. This is strategic lunacy, and it is also what Geert Wilders wants to try. He’s stupid.

What will work is assimilation—community-building, education, economic empowerment, mutual respect, and social inclusiveness. E pluribus fucking Unum. Let them keep the vestments of Islam, but make them put on the cloth of the West as well.

I hope Europe realizes this soon.

[Daniel Krispin]

Yes, I find that an interesting point Lord J, and you make a fair argument. See, here in Canada we, too, have this policy of acceptance over assimiliation, and I wonder sometimes if it is not our cultural downfall. For all that we pride ourselves to be multicultural, I think we would be better off if those who immigrated to Canada were made to see themselves as Canadian first, even as those in the US are made to see themselves as American first. As much as I tease certain of my friends for zealous patriotism, there is something to being a staunch defender of the country one has chosen to live in.

For example, I am by ancestry German. My father is directly from Germany, being born there. As such, I am as it were a first generation Canadian (I suppose it would be that.) Yet were there ever some conflict between Canada and Germany, both I, and my father, would see ourselves as Canadian. This is where our oaths lie. We have been wholly assimilated into the country.

Unfortunately, assimilation is often seen as evil in both Canada and Europe (as that famous 'I am Canadian' beer commercial put it, 'diversity, not assimilation.) Yet... as you rightly put it, this may serve to be an undoing if it is allowed full reign. No matter what culture immigrants adhere to, they should firstly see themselves as Canadian (or European, or whatever.) That should be the required payment for living where they have chosen to live.

[Thought]

On the plus side (if such a thing can be called a plus), the idea that diversity is more important than assimilation is one that cannot survive, specifically for (some) of the reasons J pointed out. Such an idea cannot defend itself nor can it survive simple environmental pressure. The genes that are fighting for survival and propagation in the modern world are not found in our DNA; rather, the genes of the modern world reside in our heads. The genes of the modern world are ideas, and like the old genes of DNA, some benefit the whole and earn their survival while others weaken the whole and will be weeded out.

For shock value, allow me to term the above ideas regarding diversity as “the Doctrine of Tolerance;” in so far as a society is tolerant of everything, it cannot survive. It is like a man without an immune system; when free of contagions, he can live a happy and healthy life, but if along comes even the most mundane of childhood diseases, then his body will waste away without a fight.

Tolerance is merely a polite word for apathy. There are only two things in this world that a person will tolerate: that which one approves of and that which one does not care about.

Yet if one approves of an action, then one must inherently disapprove of the opposite action (if I approve of responsible voting, I must disapprove of irresponsible voting). But a perfect, all encompassing doctrine of tolerance does not allow one to approve of this and disapprove of that, leaving us only with those things that we don't care about.

The Doctrine of Tolerance, when applied to culture, is little more than an insult. Those who adhere to it are politely stating that they do not care about their own culture and they certainly do not care about the culture of others. Don’t tell them that you are Canadian, European, or Muslim. They could not care less if instead you were talking about the comparative merits of snow in Siberia and snow in Alaska. And if one does not care about their own culture, they will not care if it survives. If one does not fight for survival, do not be surprised when one does not survive.

Again, for shock value, allow me to propose that Intolerance has gotten a rather bad reputation in the 20th century, unfairly so. It is Intolerance that allows the body to survive. Intolerance is a motivator, the antithesis of apathy. To return to the analogy of the immune system, intolerance is what allows us to fight off infection and, in the very act of fighting off the infection, makes us stronger than we were before.

This is not to say that intolerance does not have its own dangers. An immune system that rejects food and well as virus will starve the body, and an immune system that never has anything to fight will turn on itself (as we have seen in the 20th century; autoimmune diseases tend to be caused by a too-sterile environment and cutting edge treatments of such things, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, are to infect the patient with a parasite). Intolerance is necessary, but only when it is functioning properly.

I would also propose that mere allegiance to one's country is not the proper course of action for combating the Doctrine of Tolerance that threatens to put the western world in the hospital. The cure is patriotism, but, as G.K. Chesterton put it, the patriotism needed is not the one that says, "my country, right or wrong." Rather, the patriotism that is the cure is more akin to what President John Quincy Adams said; "May our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right." The patriotism that is the cure to this threat is a three part belief;

1) We must believe that there are those concepts that are right and to oppose them is to be wrong.
2) We must believe that our country (regardless of what country we happen to live is) is inherently good enough to merit being corrected when it strays from the first point.
3) We must believe that our country (regardless of what country we happen to live in), when is strays from that first point, needs to be corrected.

All that would remain, then, is to determine which concepts are right, which that we must place almost mystical faith in. Allow me to be the next in a very prestigious line of individuals, a line by harsh merit I doubt I belong in, and claim that that which we must believe to be right is the claim that all humans are equal and deserve freedom. Anyone, Muslim or not, Republican or not, American or not, who believes in that is our brother and fellow citizen, regardless of nation, race, or creed. It is not Nationalism that we must cling to, but Culturalism.

Curiously, one will notice that this is very similar to the cause of the original post; Muslims tend to have this sort of patriotism (indeed, many religious individuals in general tend to have that sort of patriotism). The problem isn't that they have patriotism, but that we disagree on what is right, and those who hold to the concepts that form the foundation of Western Culture do not believe in them above all else. Survival is often determined in a battle of wills, but the Occident has not shown that it even has will enough to challenge the incursion of the Orient, let alone win the subsequent battle.

An Islamic Europe is the most plausible of all paths to the destruction of the modern world and another dark age.

Oh come now, I’ve never seen any proof that Islamic nations are any poorer at keeping records than non-Islamic ones. Lack of records, not lack of cultural development, is what creates a dark age.

[Lord J Esq]

@Krispin:

Since we don’t seem to have any disagreements this time (!), let me take the opportunity to say that I like your photo. I’m not quite sure what you were going for—it looks like a fusion of multiple genres—but it’s certainly thought-provoking and very cute.

@Thought:

I don’t agree with your logic. Tolerance is not just a synonym for apathy. Sometimes it is. Other times, tolerance is an exercise in discipline. For instance, I continually have to press myself to be tolerant of, for instance, people like yourself, who deserve respectful engagement by the merit of their ideas, but who nevertheless belong to a religion that I deem horrible. My tolerance in this case is most definitely not apathetic, I assure you. Nor is it an insincere tolerance, as you may be inclined to suspect. It is only the consequence of competing desires within me. My desire to respect your intelligence overpowers my desire to run you over with an impressively large bus. Pray that the balances do not change once I commission and license said bus. =)

I do not know whether this undermines your central premise, primarily because I’m not sure what your central premise is. I leave that judgment to you.

Meanwhile, I agree with you on one count: Measured intolerance is appropriate. This, after all, is my primary justification for being imperially antagonistic against organized religion rather than individualistically tolerant of it. You and I would undoubtedly disagree on the specific standards and rubrics, but in principle we are in concurrence. Some things must not be condoned, accepted, permitted, or endorsed, or tacitly unopposed.

Finally, I beg to differ with you on one remaining count. It is not a disagreement, per se, but a difference of perspective. In my above post I wrote about national identity trumping religious identity. This is not because I am a nationalist or even a patriot. I do think of myself as a patriot, but that is not what informed my thinking. Indeed, I am not particularly fond of the concept of national sovereignty and, more particularly, national borders. However, my personal political preferences are independent of the political realities of the world. Because the world is comprised of sovereign nations, then, for the sake of world stability, national allegiance must usually trump all other allegiances, for the sole reason that destabilizing the great nations of the world would bring about catastrophe.

Oh come now, I’ve never seen any proof that Islamic nations are any poorer at keeping records than non-Islamic ones. Lack of records, not lack of cultural development, is what creates a dark age.

Incorrect, kemo sabe. The reason that I said an Islamic Europe is the most plausible of all paths to the destruction of the modern world and another dark age, is because, as I explained, Europe (in conjunction with America) sets the standard for the world to follow in terms of human rights, civil liberties, cultural maturity, and economic independence for all people. If Europe were Islamified, then the world standard would change because Islam has a different set of premises than secular liberalism does. When I said “dark age” I wasn’t necessarily referring to a technological level of development, but rather to a socioeconomic ideal, with the aforementioned (human rights, etc.) serving as the points of reference.

[Thought]

I don’t agree with your logic. Tolerance is not just a synonym for apathy.

Two things. First, I agree; you'll note that I specifically said my use of the words "Tolerance" and "Intolerance" was for shock value. Secondly, you'll note that the tolerance that I was referring to was an extreme version of it (which is why you can then agree that measured intolerance can be appropriate).

As I said, there are two things which one will tolerate; that which one approves of and that which one does not care about. But I then identified an extreme version of tolerance that does not allow us to approve of anything, as approval goes hand in hand with disapproval and disapproval is verboten. Extreme tolerance does not allow us to say that intelligence is better than ignorance, any more than it allows us to say that men are better than women; extreme tolerance does not allow us to value one thing above another. If we cannot approve, that only leaves apathy. But perhaps you see a third thing that one will tolerate?

Incorrect, kemo sabe. The reason that I said an Islamic Europe is the most plausible of all paths to the destruction of the modern world and another dark age…

Sorry, I was being unnecessarily difficult. I knew that is what you were referring to, but my objection was that you were misapplying the phrase. Look at it this way, if someone were to say that a Evolution isn't true because it is just a theory, you would insist on the proper usage of the word "theory" (as defined by science) would you not? That is exactly what I am doing, but I am insisting on the proper usage of the phrase "dark ages" as defined by history. The way you were using it is outdated and passé.

EDIT: I suppose it might be useful to state that my central premise was that measured intolerance can be appropriate. I was merely attempting to attack the concept of extreme, deadly, tolerance that is held in some places of the West. It is almost an unspeakable horror to state that some aspect of Western culture is better than an analogous aspect in other cultures because it is "intolerant," yet it is only through such intolerance that any culture can survive.