America
as the Last Man Standing
Speech by Geert
Wilders, chairman of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, 25
September 2008, Hudson Institute
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 from 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.
| Half of
French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their
loyalty to France. |
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 neighborhoods, 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 fulfill
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.
| If you
want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism
or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian
ideologies. |
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
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 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. |
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.
| 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. |
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 sharia.
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”.