Geert Wilders, chairman Party for Freedom, the Netherlands
Speech
at the Four Seasons, New York
September
25, 2008
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 Holocaust 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 live 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 capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to loose
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
lay 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 smililary-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 tot 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 a danger 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 .
Dear
friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to
fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who
fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries
remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we
cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians.
We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe ’s
children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a
deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We
cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
This
is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers
before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our
enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.
These
are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving
away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from
Mr. Chamberlain. 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”.
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