Here's a quick word association: When you say Europe, I say. . . Socialist. Correct? Wow, there's some deep understanding of the issues. Most Americans, including myself, are woefully and willfully ignorant about the rest of the world.
The discussion of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, given to him by the Norwegians, is just one example of the confusion that exists in my mind about Europe: people on the Right say something like Obama's Nobel Prize is Europe's bid to re-colonize America. That's from Dick Morris: "Europe wants to reverse the American Revolution and re-colonize us and it sees in Obama a kindred spirit willing to do its bidding." Is Morris right? Hell, I don't have any idea.
The photo is of a guy named Geert Wilders. I don't know much about him, except that he's an anti-Islam politician in the Netherlands. What does that mean, exactly? How much influence does he have? Is the backlash against Islam in the Netherlands on the rise? Again, I have no idea. Wilders put together a 10-minute film in March of 2008 that was supposed to have Holland in a "panic." I guess they survived. The film is called "Fitna," meaning "mischief" in Arabic. [An alternate translation: "unbelief," "confusion."] The film is critical of the Koran; Wilder has called the Koran a "fascist" book that incites violence. Here's a blog that catalogs the fallout over Fitna. I can't honestly say I remember hearing anything about it in March of 2008. Evidently the website Atlas Shrugs had the Wilder film, but it's disappeared. There's still information about it on that site, however. The film can be found on YouTube, but I'm not going to post it here. It's difficult to watch, which was Wilder's point. When films first came out about the Holocaust, they were difficult to watch as well, I'm sure. I wonder where Geert Wilder is living today, because he's surely under an Islamic death sentence.
Here are Parts 1 and 2 of an interview with Wilders from Fox News. I don't recognize the voice of the interviewer.
Wilders belongs to the "People's Party" and has recently been voted Holland's most effective politician. [Commentor "Vince" reminds me that there is no such country known as "Holland." Of course he's right, and this is just our lazy American way--the Netherlands, Holland, Dutch. But I would say to Vince that he will also see me using the term "America" or "American," for which some politically correct people in my own country would take me to task. It's just sort of a lazy shorthand, Vince.] Some call Wilders an Islam-basher and say that all over Europe, people like him are trying to appeal to anti-Muslim prejudice. Or are they trying to appeal to the head-in-the-sand attitude of secular Europeans who don't get it--that the 6,000 and growing number of mosques in Europe might somehow be a problem? A million Muslims in the Netherlands in 2006, double the number in 1990. The Netherlands a country of 16 million.
Here's a speech Wilders gave to the Dutch Parliament. He sounds sort of flipped into crazy about Islam, but maybe he has good reason:Madam Chairman, this government, this elite does not have even the slightest will to oppose Islamization. No, it looks to it as a great enrichment of the Dutch landscape. All those snug mosques, those cute headscarves, those cozy burkas. Yes, the Netherlands really becomes more beautiful with that. Here and there from time to time some are left dead, or some are raped, and eventually our country will go bankrupt. But all that may not spoil the fun. Only a grumbler would pay attention to that. Just have patience for a little while, because we await the Islamic Utopia.
I need to read up on this guy. I'm particularly interested in what's going on in the Netherlands because my family roots are there--my grandfather emigrated from there when he was fourteen years old in 1902. I still have relatives who live there, cousins my age who "vote left," they tell me. Holland is a bigtime Socialist country, and now I read that it's becoming a Muslim nation. What is going on in Holland?
A friend gave me some books to read that look interesting, but I haven't gotten to them yet. Undoubtedly they would be a start in understanding some of the issues facing Europe. I feel like I'm almost hopelessly behind the curve on all of this.
Londonistan, by Melanie Phillips, 2006. It seems like London has lost both its mind and its soul. Phillips is a British journalist. The book is described as powerful, frightening, and courageous--a last-minute wake up call for the British to act before its too late. The book's thesis: Britain has largely created a culture which breeds Islamic terrorism. How and why has this happened? Well, it sounds just exactly what Obama and his acolytes are pushing in this country.
First: Britain no longer believes in itself, no longer cherishes its founding values, and no longer thinks it has a role to play in the world. Wow, does that sound familiar?
Second: British authorities have seriously misjudged the threat of Islamic terrorism. Therefore Britain is engaged in a policy of denial, appeasement, blaming itself, and hiding its head in the sand. Read the news: denial, appeasement, self-blame--doesn't that sound like the main thesis of most of the Obama speeches we've heard lately?
Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's Too, by Claire Berlinski, 2006. Europe has lost its way and has a gaping hole in its soul, with its outright repudiation of its Christian heritage. Berlinski is an American academic and journalist who has lived and worked in Europe for many years. She argues that Europe is in the midst of a major crisis--one that will impact America and the rest of the free world.
The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, by Walter Laqueur, 2007. Lacqueur has four-plus decades of experience writing on Europe's recent and contemporary history. He has no tolerance for political correctness and does not mince words. Europe's immigrant populations have high birthrates which increase social tensions, since the concept of the melting pot is utterly alien to Europe. Immigrant groups have ghettoized themselves and this hostility to the host countries is breeding violence. Europe will become a gigantic museum with Muslims as the ticket takers. Good-bye Europe. Depressing.
There are simply not enough hours in the day.
Update: Holland has a long, strong tradition of tolerance and freedom of speech. This is my grandfather's brother, Gerrit Roorda (1890-1977), speaking out in Holland against the Vietnam war. In 1966, at the age of 76, Uncle Gerrit walked 35 km in a Vietnam protest march. My grandfather said he was an avowed Communist, a man who "couldn't keep his mouth shut," so for the last 50 or so years of his life, he couldn't get a visa to visit his American brother.
His other brother, Jan Roorda, and Jan's wife Rien, were awarded the Certificate of Honor by the Yad Vashem for saving Jewish families in their small Dutch village during WWII.
That's the Dutch tradition that I know--politically complicated, even among families, but most of all, tolerant, of all voices. Is Islam tolerant? Judging just from the reaction to Geert Wilder's film, I would say a blanket "No." The facts of the film were never disputed, yet Liveleak was forced to pull the film from its site because of "serious" threats to the staff. When the European Union condemned the film, saying it inflames hatred, and calling the movie "anti-Islamic and insulting," others wondered where the EU's calls for tolerance had been when the jihadis were busy blowing up schools, businesses, rioting, and otherwise seeking to kill non-Muslims and those who are not strict adherents to their brand of Islam?
I am grieved at what's happening in Holland, and I want to know more--beyond the soundbites. My guess is, so goes Holland, so goes Europe. And then they would like America to be next--so we should be paying attention and getting educated. Or are we already just hopelessly behind? And is that question just hopelessly naive? I'm afraid the answer is "yes" to both.
Update #2: Here's an article written by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, (R, Michigan) in the WSJ, Opinion, titled "Islam and Free Speech," dated 26 Mar 2008, around the time the Wilders film was released. Pete Hoekstra was born in Holland and came to the U.S. at the age of three. His district in Michigan has the largest concentration of Dutch Americans in the country. His is a good voice to be speaking to the issue of the Wilders film, although I wish he had viewed the film before writing about it.Hoekstra writes that free societies hold freedom of speech to be a fundamental right: Criticism of Islam, however, has led to violence and murder world-wide. Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie over his 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses." Although Mr. Rushdie has survived, two people associated with the book were stabbed, one fatally. The 2005 Danish editorial cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad led to numerous deaths. Dutch director Theodoor van Gogh was killed in 2004, several months after he made the film "Submission," which described violence against women in Islamic societies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch member of parliament who wrote the script for "Submission," received death threats over the film and fled the country for the United States.
While efforts to create parallel Islamic societies have been mostly peaceful, they may actually be a jihadist "waiting game," based on the assumption that the Islamic populations of many European states will become the majority over the next 25-50 years due to higher Muslim birth rates and immigration.
What is particularly disturbing about these assaults against modern society is how the West has reacted with appeasement, willful ignorance, and a lack of journalistic criticism. Last year PBS tried to suppress "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," a hard-hitting documentary that contained criticism of radical jihadists. Fortunately, Fox News agreed to air the film.
I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence. We must not fool ourselves into believing that we can appease the radical jihadist movement by allowing them to set up parallel societies and separate legal systems, or by granting them special protection from criticism.
The entire article is a worthwhile read.
Update #3: Dutch right-winger Geert Wilders wins challenge against British ban
From some Home Office British spokesman (which I assume is like hearing from an anonymous White House "Senior Spokesman": ''The decision to refuse Wilders admission was taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence. We still maintain this view.''
Fabulous, how the Brits are so diligent about keeping right-win crazies out of their country. Recently they also banned American right-wing talk show host Michael Savage. They also published a list of people banned from the country for "fostering extremism and hatred." Said Michael Savage of Britain's Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who decided to publish the names of 16 of 22 people who have been banned by the government since October: "She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?"
Savage is another figure who doesn't coddle people with PC speech. He recently said about the epidemic of autism in this country that autism is often "a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out." I don't know that I buy what Savage says there; I only know what I see, which is parents, particularly in the grocery store, who seem to be clueless about how to be a parent to their child. Yes, I see that just about every day. Is there more autism? Probably, yes, more diagnosed autism than in years past. Are all children given the autism diagnosis really austistic. Almost certainly not. Savage says he is considering legal action against Smith for defamation.
What I would like to see from Jacqui Smith, rather than a list of people she has banned from entering England, instead is a list of people she has happily let into the country. If we had any actual practicing journalists these days, maybe such a list would be produced through, oh I don't know, something they used to call research.
