[2]This past week I had the great pleasure of meeting and hearing Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders several times . At each event, Mr. Wilders spoke either before or after a presentation of his harrowing, but realistic [8] film, “Fitna [9].”
Just this week, consistent with the understandings, and plaintive appeals by both Mr. Wilders and the Pakistani scholar Ibn Warraq (earlier here [10], and most recently here [11]), these reports emerged:
A World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll [12] released February 25, 2009 indicated the following about our erstwhile Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan—81% of the Muslims of “moderate” Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a “strict” application of Shari’a, Islamic Law; 79% of the Pakistan’s Muslims—one of the most important, and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations—want this outcome. Moreover, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the re-creation of a “..single Islamic state or Caliphate.”
Earlier, I detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires [13]—based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.
Grozny, Russia: Ramzan Kadyrov president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers (Friday February 27, 2009) at the mosque and explained with, according to this AP report [14], “chilling composure” why seven young women who had been murdered—shot in the head—deserved to die. Kadyrov proclaimed that the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and their shooting by male relatives in honor killings. He told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic, “If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed.” Kadyrov.” The report further observed that,
Kadyrov describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in
British jihadist Anjem Choudary led a march in
The demo comes 18 months after three of Choudary’s supporters were jailed for soliciting murder in a
Today’s march won permission after a council withdrew funding for a St George’s Day parade in the
Pamela Geller has video of this
All week long, Geert Wilders, at each of his venues, posed this existential question [18]:
Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue; I gave up my freedom four and a half years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since because of death threats from Muslims and terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda. In the last few years I lived in different safe houses, army-barracks and yes: even prison cells in order to be safe. But it’s not about me. The real question is: will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of
Finally, how fitting that Mr. Wilders a bold, informed and serious politician—who now, according to the latest poll, heads the most popular political party in the Netherlands [19]—at last had an opportunity to meet with the Pakistani secularist Ibn Warraq, whose unparalleled insights and courage have inspired the Dutch Parliamentarian.
Here is a sampling of what Ibn Warraq has left for us to learn about the great struggle of these times:
The root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam. American foreign policy has nothing to do with the stoning to death of a woman for adultery in
The doctrine of Moral Equivalence extends to every aspect of Western civilization. Thus “Christianity is no better than Radical Islam”- note, already, that no one will write “Islam” tout court though the Meaculpists are quite happy to write Christianity as opposed to “Christian fundamentalism.” Then the familiar litany of the putative crimes of Christianity: the Crusades, though they were a belated response to several centuries of Islamic Jihad; the Spanish Inquisition, though historians such as Henry Kamen (The Spanish Inquisition (1965)) established that the Inquisition was not nearly as cruel or as powerful as commonly believed, and the number of heretics actually killed was comparatively low, and the equivalent Islamic Inquisition, the Minha is scarcely known let alone talked about. The fact is Christianity has absorbed many principles of the Enlightenment, and Islam has not. Then there are the crimes of Western imperialism - some undoubtedly true and a disgrace to Western ideals, but which must be seen in comparison to Islamic Imperialism to put it all in perspective. Islamic Imperialism virtually destroyed several cultures - Eastern Christianity and the culture of Pre-Islamic
The doctrine of Moral Equivalence comes easily to a culture already infected with moral and cultural relativism. Other common characteristics of the apologists of totalitarianism include, denial of the evidence, of reality: leading to search for “real causes,” or “root causes,” which is bound to lead to conspiracy theories; contempt for Western institutions, but a willingness to exploit them for their own use; being ideologues they are immune to criticism, and contrary evidence, which they are able to explain away; masochism, since they are lacerated with feelings of guilt, ready to blame everything automatically on the West, take blame for all the ills of the world, and as a consequence wish to see the West punished, humiliated, denigrated, vilified and calumniated, the West deserves to be punished, we deserve to be punished, I deserve to be punished; exaggerations of the virtues of the Other, and the crimes of the West, denial the Other could be racist, imperialist, or colonialist, in short, evil; arrogance of the intellectuals who cannot be bothered to learn the facts, do the hard research in archives, and primary sources.
Do we have to go on apologizing for the sins our fathers? Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before, the institution of elected parliamentary democracy and the rule of law? What of the British architecture of
On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus,
The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises,
stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.
How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist and to be despised? Why should they, in the words of the African-American writer James Baldwin, want to integrate into a sinking ship? Why do they all want to immigrate to the west and not
Freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it or it will die from totalitarian attacks. It is also much needed in the Islamic world. By defending our values, we are teaching the Islamic world a valuable lesson, we are helping them by submitting their cherished traditions to Enlightenment values.
All Articles Copyright © 2007-2008 Dr. Andrew Bostom | All Rights Reserved
Article printed from Andrew Bostom: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog
URL to article: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2009/03/02/geert-wilders-ibn-warraq-and-islamo-realism/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/ibn_warraq4-1.jpg
[2] Image: http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/geert_wilders_1721161b-1.jpg
[3] Monday February 23, 2009 in
[4] February 25, 2009 in Boston at the WTKK studios: http://wtkk.everyzing.com/viewMedia.jsp?dedupe=1&res=404714779&index=3&col=en-aud-pod_wtkk-ep&e=21928820&il=en&num=10&s=PZSID_0000806771;Michael+Graham%2C+WTKK%2C+Boston%2C+MA&start=0&expand=true&match=query,channel&filter=0&y=0&x=0
[5] an inspirational lecture at a
[6] Friday February 27, 2009 at The National Press Club in the morning: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-freedom-of-speech.html#readfurther
[7] culminating in an electrifying event held for Mr. Wilders at CPAC: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/03/we-turned-a-corner-friday-night-something-really-big-happened-something-historic-in-the-face-of-a-complacent-lethargic-co.html
[8] harrowing, but realistic: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/is_the_wilders_movie_fitna_a_d_1.html
[9] Fitna: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020472.php
[10] here: http://www.cosmoedu.net/Democracy%20in%20a%20Cartoon%20-%20SPIEGEL%20ONLINE%20.pdf
[11] here: http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/32686/sec_id/32686
[12] World Public Opinion.org/
[13] Earlier, I detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/04/the_muslim_mainstream_and_the.html
[14] AP report: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/28/europe/EU-Russia-Ruling-Chechnya.php
[15] 40% of this critical demographic group support this goal: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4407115.ece
[16] report: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2009/03/025059print.html
[17] here: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/02/march-for-islam-yes-to-sharia-march-no-to-geert-wilders.html
[18] existential question: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/upload/wysiwyg/center%20publication%20pdfs/Backgrounder%20on%20Geert%20Wilders%20and%20Fitna%20-%20DC%20Speech.pdf
[19] according to the latest poll, heads the most popular political party in the
