The spread of jihad is irreparably undermining Europe's post-War reputation as a continent of security and peace.
In addition, free speech seems increasingly regarded by mainstream politicians as dangerous and archaic. Diversity of opinion often appears seen as an obstacle to multiculturalism, the objective of which, ironically, is diversity.
These dual trends are set to come to a head in the Netherlands next year, in elections set to follow the conclusion of the trial of Dutch MP Geert Wilders this November. Wilders is the leader the Netherlands' Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, or PVV), which currently tops the country's polls. He faces imprisonment on a charge of hate speech, for saying that the Netherlands could use "fewer Moroccans."
As Wilders outlined in his opening statement to the court on March 18, the politically-motivated bias against him of one of the judges is a matter of public record. Moreover, despite ample demonstration by Wilders's defense of the forgery of a group of the criminal complaints that initiated his prosecution, his trial nevertheless continues.
This miscarriage of justice being orchestrated against Wilders is merely one aspect of the many prosecutions being carried out under laws less about prevention and punishment of actual crimes, and more about criminalizing dissent against the demographic transformation of Europe.
 The miscarriage of justice being orchestrated against Dutch MP Geert Wilders is merely one aspect of the many prosecutions being carried out under laws less about prevention and punishment of actual crimes, and more about criminalizing dissent against the demographic transformation of Europe. (Source of Wilders photo: Flickr/Metropolico) |
The link between the erosion of freedom of speech and the speed of the Islamic colonization of Europe is rarely addressed. One would think that every terrorist attack would prompt serious questions among Europe's leaders over the wisdom of continuing mass immigration of Muslims.
In fact, the opposite is taking place.
Apologists for Muslims, apparently respected by the media, have been instrumental in shifting focus away from the victims of terror attacks, onto objections to the "rhetoric" used by non-Muslims in the wake of every atrocity. This maneuver appears driven by the apologists' and the media's desire to prevent alleged "Islamophobic" attacks on Muslims, which they blame on the "far-right." After terror outrages in the name of Islam, its apologists arguably perform defensive operations that try to render Islamic doctrine immune from scrutiny.
That apologists for Muslims have internalized such a rationale comes as no surprise to any reader of the Koran, in which vitriol directed against non-Muslims for their faith precedes divine commands for their slaughter. The passive cooperation of most media interviewers, however, reveals just how sharia-compliant Europe has now become.
Ironically, the very fact that European nations have freedom of religion, a principle which fundamentalists so keenly exploit, helps explain why the continent has gradually drifted towards secularism and atheism. Christians and Jews are not told they will be killed if they leave their religion. As the leading Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi admitted on television, if it were not for the threat of death under Islam's apostasy laws -- "Muhammad said: 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him' (Bukhari 9.84.57)" -- the religion would not today exist.
Freedom of religion begins with being able to choose whatever belief -- or non-belief -- you wish, rather than adhering to theological claims of authority.
The mere threat of prosecution is usually sufficient to silence those who express public opposition to mass Muslim immigration, and is also being exploited by many to silence any questioning of Islam.
Dutchmen who tweet their opposition to the construction of "refugee" centers in their towns receive visits from police who threaten them with charges of sedition. A Belgian who spoke out about Muslim children in the city's schools cheering the recent Brussels attacks welcomed three policemen to his door. And a London man who tweeted about his decision to confront a Muslim over her views on the Brussels attacks was arrested, had his home raided, and all his computer equipment seized. More well-known, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel was caught on an open microphone asking Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to curtail speech critical of "the wave of Syrian refugees entering Germany."
With democratic avenues for opposing mass Islamic immigration branded as "extremist" – an allegation leveled at any political party seeking to address the matter -- citizens might be forgiven for using social media to vent their anger at the consequences of this migration.
The eagerness with which social media giants, such as Facebook and Twitter, have imposed a policy of enforced silence -- in close concert with Europe's leaders -- is a further irony that will not be lost on future historians.
Lutz Bachmann, for instance, who in 2014 founded the now Europe-wide PEGIDA protest movement, has since been drawn into 288 separate criminal investigations by police, later dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence.[1]
After a photograph of Bachmann sporting a Hitler moustache was circulated, controversy over his character reached an understandable crescendo. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with him or his views, the "example" being made of Bachmann reveals how anyone not toeing the party line is subjected to relentless prosecution on virtually any pretext, as a new form of punishment.
Bachmann is nevertheless still subject to 14 ongoing prosecutions and faces a trial aimed at his imprisonment, scheduled to start in Dresden on April 19, for allegedly using a single derogatory word "Viehzeug" ["animals, creatures, insects"] in a Facebook post describing last year's illegal migrant influx. Bachmann's defense attorney maintains there is no evidence that his client actually posted this entry.
PEGIDA's deputy leader, Tatjana Festerling, also faces jail in April for saying, "If we don't grab our pitchforks and fight the Islamization of Europe, we are lost." Her lawyer says he is flabbergasted that Festerling's description, in a speech, of how European serfs once stood up to their undemocratic masters, has resulted in her trial for incitement to hatred against Muslims.[2]
In February, Edwin Wagensveld, the head of PEGIDA's Dutch branch, was also taken into custody. Video footage shows his crime: wearing a furry pig hat.
If one tenth of this accusatory effort had been spent to pursue imams using European mosques to preach actual violent sedition, the terrorist threat Europe now faces might now be negligible.
Considerable light is shed on how such prosecutions are possible by the recently published autobiography of Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League. In Enemy of the State, Robinson recounts his family's desperate struggle in 2013 to have him released from an illegal five-month long period in solitary confinement, which was imposed for using a false name on a passport.
Law firms ostensibly concerned with civil liberties, Robinson claims, have become so accustomed to enriching themselves at state expense -- as a result of bringing spurious human rights cases on behalf of Muslims -- that supporting Europe's genuine political dissidents becomes just bad business.[3]
Robinson again faces incarceration on April 14, and has frequently stated his belief that the ultimate objective of his incarceration is to facilitate his murder in British prisons.
Enemy of the State also recounts Robinson's repeated previous attempts, in writing, to plead with prison governors to have him segregated.[4] These requests are always ignored, as his injury record corroborates. Instead, he was placed in prison wings with high jihadist populations.
On April 3, the UK's shadow Justice Secretary, Lord Falconer, said that British prisons are becoming "terrorist academies."
No doubt conscious of President John F. Kennedy's words that, "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable," social media companies were proud to trumpet their role in galvanizing and providing a platform for the spread of democratic opposition during the Arab Spring of 2011.[5]
However, as theocrats took charge within the Arab world, Cairo's Tahrir Square descended into a site of mass violence against women.
By the turn of the year 2016, thanks to decisions made by Chancellor Merkel, a disregard for women's rights had been imported into the heart of Europe in such demographic concentrations, that its street-level consequences finally became undeniable. Events in Cologne quieted many who for years had ridiculed the very concept of 'so-called Islamization.'
In just one evening, New Year's Eve 2015, the precincts of Cologne Cathedral witnessed hundreds of sexual assaults committed by young Muslim men. News of the sex attacks, thanks to both social media and alternative media, stunned the world, and overturned the cover-up by both the authorities and the press.
That such Muslim criminality remained largely unchallenged by police, would have come as no surprise to the original inhabitants of Islamic enclaves across Europe, such as Molenbeek, Neukölln, Malmö, Luton, or Seine-Saint-Denis, in which terrorists can apparently now roam at leisure.
Social scientists have derided native Europeans escaping such unreported realities for decades, with the term "white flight," ascribing to them coded accusations of racism.
Despite this, a recent announcement by the Hungarian government, that there are at least 900 Islamic no-go zones spread across Europe, was predictably met with cries of "conspiracy theories" by the mainstream press.
It is impossible even to imagine a scenario of German men cheerily celebrating the New Year by shooting fireworks directly at the Cologne Central Mosque, as a precursor to an orgy of gang rape against hundreds of Muslim women. Such a parallel imagining of that night's events illustrates the enormity of the ethical gulf between European society and a significant number of the Muslims who now call Europe home.
There are many Muslims who say that the only credible means of ensuring that these realities do not worsen is for Islam to reform itself. At the same time, however, many also say that non-Muslims should tread carefully regarding Islamic sensibilities, for example, in referencing startling acts in the recorded life and character of their prophet.
Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, alleges in his book that the staff at the respected Quilliam Foundation think-tank were more interested in policing his Twitter posts than in publicizing their own data on how 90% of Britain's mosques preach fundamentalist Islam.[6]
Many Muslims, rather than questioning their own faith's scripturally-mandated traditions of taking up arms, evidently prefer telling non-Muslims to lay down their words.
With Islamic ideologues on one side, and genuine progressives on the other, religious reform will depend on adherents separating themselves away from the extremists.
As Martin Luther demonstrated within the Ninety-Five Theses he nailed to the church door -- the event which sparked the Protestant Reformation in 1517 -- there is no more effective non-violent weapon for reforming a doctrine than questioning the tenets being preached in the name of that faith.
Rare public figures such as Geert Wilders, Lutz Bachmann and Tommy Robinson perpetually risk prosecution, and even death, for daring to state that the mass migration of Muslims into Europe has been a disaster.
Before such immigration, the religiously sanctioned butchery of female genital mutilation, suicide bombers attacking airports and public transport networks, the disfigurement of women with acid attacks, sharia courts, organized mass child-rape grooming gangs, exponentially increased incidence of stranger-rape in countries such as Finland, Norway, Sweden and Germany, were all unheard of in modern Europe.
The vast majority of the continent's continuing arrivals remain military-aged Muslim males, exactly the demographic against which, should there be mass outbreaks of lawlessness, the use of physical force might be necessary. Yet within sharia-ruled enclaves, the rule of law and government authority are already ceasing to exist.
In the absence of the ability to present the truth without fear of prosecution, it is becoming increasingly impossible to detail how certain criminal acts are often derived from the founding religious texts of Islamic doctrine, and preached in mosques throughout Europe and the Middle East. In view of this, we may end up with a Balkanized Europe, if not an Islamized one.
Any religion whose principles mandate death for those who leave or criticize it, can only be moderated by its adherents if they do not face even more obstacles.
If the criminal justice systems of European nations continue to pursue charges against whoever questions or criticizes Islam, what hope is there then for the silent members of the Muslim community who might wish to speak out? What message is being sent?
George Igler, a political analyst based in London, is the Director of the Discourse Institute.
[1] Interview conducted on April 2, 2016.
[2] Interview conducted on January 30, 2016.
[3] Robinson, T. (2015) Enemy of the State, The Press News, pp. 223-226.
[4] Ibid., pp. 293-294, p. 297, p. 304.
[5] Rushkoff, D. (2013) Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Current, p. 55.
[6] Robinson, T. (2015) op.cit., pp. 255-260.
