Posted on 05/14/2012 5:32:06 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under 24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this.
And then I took a stroll in the woods, and felt vaguely ashamed at the ease with which I was willing to hand a small victory to his enemies. After I saw off the Islamic enforcers in my own country, their frontman crowed to The Canadian Arab News that, even though the Canadian Islamic Congress had struck out in three different jurisdictions in their attempt to criminalize my writing about Islam, the lawsuits had cost my magazine (he boasted) two million bucks, and thereby “attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.” In the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders’ foes, whether murderous jihadists or the multicultural establishment, share the same “strategic objective” — to increase the cost of associating with him beyond that which most people are willing to bear. It is not easy to be Geert Wilders. He has spent almost a decade in a strange, claustrophobic, transient, and tenuous existence little different from kidnap victims or, in his words, a political prisoner. He is under round-the-clock guard because of explicit threats to murder him by Muslim extremists.
Yet he’s the one who gets put on trial for incitement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
That is really an excellent and powerful essay Steyn wrote as the forward to the Wilder’s book.
This passage really stood out to me:
‘’ ... It’s not necessary to agree with everything Mr. Wilders says in this book — or, in fact, anything he says — to recognize that, when the leader of the third-biggest party in one of the oldest democratic legislatures on earth has to live under constant threat of murder and be forced to live in “safe houses” for almost a decade, something is badly wrong in “the most tolerant country in Europe” — and that we have a responsibility to address it honestly, before it gets worse.”
It will come from them. As the general populace sees that the mainstream politicians are paid off, they will turn more and more to the hard nationalist parties. That is not necessarily the right -- remember, Hitler's party was socialist.
The Spirit of Geert Wilders [Steyn]
Those who seek to analyze Islam outside the very narrow bounds of Eutopian political discourse wind up either banned (Belgium’s Vlaams Blok), forced into exile (Ayaan Hirsi Ali), or killed (Fortuyn, van Gogh). - How speedily “the most tolerant country in Europe” has adopted “shoot the messenger” as an all-purpose cure-all for “Islamophobia.”
It’s not “ironic” that the most liberal country in western Europe should be the most advanced in its descent into a profoundly illiberal hell. ... It was entirely foreseeable, and ... all Geert Wilders is doing is stating the obvious: A society that becomes more Muslim will have less of everything else, including individual liberty.
The article is worth the read; check it out.
Thanks, anonymous.
B U M P
” This passage really stood out to me:
‘’ ... It’s not necessary to agree with everything Mr. Wilders says in this book — or, in fact, anything he says — to recognize that, when the leader of the third-biggest party in one of the oldest democratic legislatures on earth has to live under constant threat of murder and be forced to live in “safe houses” for almost a decade, something is badly wrong in “the most tolerant country in Europe” — and that we have a responsibility to address it honestly, before it gets worse.”
To me as well.
Wilder has courage.
Steyn has courage.
Where are the rest of the people with courage?
” Wilder has courage.
Steyn has courage.
Where are the rest of the people with courage? “
The military & private citizens....none in D.C.
Geert Wilders Fitna A shocking must see.
The problem is not simply a highly organized culture of thuggery that will take whatever it is offered - that, alas, is what has happened to the main current of Islam once oil money purchased a revolutionary movement, and not for the first time in the bloody history of that faith. To the modern observer it seems grotesque to claim that once it was among the more tolerant of religions but once, a very long time ago, it was. No longer.
The difference is that it became tolerant only when its excesses were opposed by force, and that is precisely what multiculturalism has taken on as its signal purpose to prevent. It is a lesson in human behavior that transcends religion: thuggery must be opposed by force. That force must evince itself not only internationally but, and perhaps even more importantly, within a culture that is under prodding for weakness: Europe's cultures and our own only to a slightly lesser extent, and only for the time being. Not to do so is to commit suicide, as near as anyone can tell, the suicide of Western culture is the multiculturalists' holy grail.
If the rule of law - OUR law, Constitutional law, not Shari'a - is not imposed with whatever force is necessary, it is worthless. Here is where multiculturalism is the biggest problem - one law, and not Special Rules For Special People, not law twisted in the favor of someone's illusion of "social justice," to right historic wrongs, to "even the playing field", but one law for everyone. That is the only way we will be able to live with Islam in our society. It, and not we, must submit.
Too bad you didn't take a longer stroll over enemies closer to home.
The problem is not simply a highly organized culture of thuggery that will take whatever it is offered - that, alas, is what has happened to the main current of Islam once oil money purchased a revolutionary movement, and not for the first time in the bloody history of that faith. To the modern observer it seems grotesque to claim that once it was among the more tolerant of religions but once, a very long time ago, it was. No longer.
The difference is that it became tolerant only when its excesses were opposed by force, and that is precisely what multiculturalism has taken on as its signal purpose to prevent. It is a lesson in human behavior that transcends religion: thuggery must be opposed by force. That force must evince itself not only internationally but, and perhaps even more importantly, within a culture that is under prodding for weakness: Europe's cultures and our own only to a slightly lesser extent, and only for the time being. Not to do so is to commit suicide, as near as anyone can tell, the suicide of Western culture is the multiculturalists' holy grail.
If the rule of law - OUR law, Constitutional law, not Shari'a - is not imposed with whatever force is necessary, it is worthless. Here is where multiculturalism is the biggest problem - one law, and not Special Rules For Special People, not law twisted in the favor of someone's illusion of "social justice," to right historic wrongs, to "even the playing field", but one law for everyone. That is the only way we will be able to live with Islam in our society. It, and not we, must submit.
I'm keeping a copy of your brilliant post.
Law of Unintended Consequences. Political correctness was foisted by the left upon the West as a tool to weaken it from within. But along the way, they got outflanked by the Muslims, who moved in quicker and more forcefully.
The more I think about our War with Islam, the more I believe the "follow the money" comments are the heart of the matter. Oil money has wooed the academics and politicians - "here's the money, now STFU." Looks at Kagan's $20 million bribe and all the PC mulit-culti 'fairness' and 'social justice' crap our kids are fed.
The new battle plan against Islam stars today with a national push for total energy independence. Sarah Palin is right. Starve the beast.
"Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven’t learned enough to dismiss common sense (a prerequisite for power in Washington these days). Help me out, friends! Help someone like me – and the majority of Americans – understand why we would ever kowtow and bow to foreign regimes that hate us, instead of doing all we can to starve the beast of terrorism in our plight for security, prosperity, and peace."
Two winners:
“So you’re not a pedophile if you deflower the kid in fourth grade but keep her around till high school?”
“So it is necessary for more of us to do what Ayaan Hirsi Ali recommends: share the risk. So that the next time a novel or a cartoon provokes a fatwa, it will be republished worldwide and send the Islamic enforcers a message: Killing one of us won’t do it. You’d better have a great credit line at the Bank of Jihad because you’ll have to kill us all.”
Steyn has been a fierce advocate of American values and sometimes the sole opposition speaking up against “enemies closer to home.”
Your snarky comment shows your ignorance.
Bring back Urban II!
Criticizing Mad Mo cost Theo Van Gogh his life.
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