Signs of Change in Europe

Update: Link to Geert Wilders' speech in Berlin.

I like to keep track of what's going on in the Netherlands, since that's where my father's family is from--that's where the "Roorda" comes from in "roordawrite." I have family who live there still, and as one cousin told me, most of them "vote left."

However, there does seem to be a new resurgence of the right in the Netherlands. Islam critic Geert Wilders (in photo) has just announced his approval of a new Right leaning Dutch coalition government that will include his Freedom Party as a member. Essentially that means the center-right has agreed to a coalition with the far-right.

The Freedom Party has called for stricter control of immigration along with an end to policies that have resulted in what are essentially Muslim "no go" ghettoization of complete neighborhoods and increased youth violence in the Netherlands. "A new wind will blow in The Netherlands," declared Wilders. His party would ban the burqa; he also campaigns on putting an end to the building of new mosques. "The immigration policy . . . is aimed at limiting and reducing the arrival migrants with few prospects."

Wilders is putting together an international campaign to stop the Islamization of the West called the International Freedom Alliance. Says Wilders, "It is not just a Dutch problem that our freedom is being curtailed and Islam is advancing, it is a problem for the entire free West. . . ." He says that in many countries, this campaign will not be applauded, "but that must not be a reason not to do this."

Wilders will take his Freedom Alliance to Berlin on October 2. A website called Tundra Tabloids has more information about Wilders in Germany here. An anti-immigrant wave seems to be sweeping across Europe: Europen Post-WWII "tolerance" seems to have passed its peak in places like Germany, France, and Italy. The Swedes are calling it a "common sense" aversion to Muslim immigration.

There are also signs in other places in Europe that the people have had it with the socialists. Sweden's long-ruling Social Democrats recently went down to their worst defeat since 1914, with the entry of the "hard-right anti-immigrant" party into Swedish parliament.