Europa trenger en First Amendment

I am happy to be in New York again, even though in my coun­try today it is Queen’s Day, a natio­nal cele­bra­tion. This is why I am wea­ring my orange tie.

Thank you for giving me the opport­u­nity to address all of you. It is always good to be among fri­ends. It is an honor to be here in the pre­sence of so many people who care for the pre­ser­va­tion of free­dom in our civilization.

It is great to be in Ame­rica, the bea­con of liberty, the land of the free, the land where people are still allowed to speak freely. I know what I am tal­king about. I was acquit­ted after a legal ordeal that las­ted almost three years. I had been brought to court for cri­ti­ci­zing Islam.

Though at the end of the day I was acquit­ted, the court case was a dis­grace. It was a time-, money- and energy-consuming night­mare. This cha­rade that hap­pe­ned in the Net­her­lands for the last few years could not have hap­pe­ned in your great coun­try, where the First Amend­ment gua­rantees people the free­dom to express their opinions.

The First Amend­ment is what we need in the Net­her­lands and Europe.

I am in New York for the release of my book “Mar­ked for Death.” It reveals how Islam has alre­ady pro­foundly changed Europe in the last deca­des. It expo­ses the cul­tural rela­ti­vism which has affected Europe so deeply that many in Europe refuse to stand for liberty and pre­fer to appease Islam. It explains why Islam is a threat to freedom.

As you know, people who speak out like me pay a steep price for speak­ing these truths. Apart from legal attempts to silence me, there are also the threats by radi­cal Mus­lims to kill me. I have been living under per­ma­nent police pro­tec­tion for almost eight years now. But I do not regret one word. I see it as my duty to warn the West.

I have trave­led widely in the Isla­mic world. I have read the Koran. I have stu­died the life of Muhammad. It made me rea­lize that Islam is pri­ma­rily an ideo­logy rat­her than a reli­gion. This ideo­logy wants to impose Isla­mic sha­ria law on the whole world, inclu­ding us the Kafirs, the non-Muslims. This ideo­logy is also out­spo­kenly anti-Semitic.

This ideo­logy also harms Mus­lims. Islam belie­ves that eve­rything men have to know can be found in the Koran. As such, it is hostile to all forms of inno­va­tion. But wit­hout inno­va­tion there can be no pro­gress and people can­not prosper.

Many people unfor­tu­nately are blind to the nature of Islam because they do not rea­lize what Islam is, and mis­ta­kenly believe that it is a reli­gion just like any other religion.

I have writ­ten my book to inform them.

Islam fails four major tests that reli­gions should fulfill:

1. Adhe­rence to a reli­gion must be a per­so­nal choice;
2. no reli­gion should demand that those who leave it be kil­led; this makes it a tota­li­ta­rian ideo­logy rat­her than a religion.
3. a reli­gion must never man­date the sub­ju­ga­tion of those who do not belong to it;
4. a reli­gion must be in accord with basic human rights.

I have also writ­ten my book because I am not a def­eatist. The West is able to def­eat tota­li­ta­ri­a­nism just as it def­e­ated Nazism and Com­mu­nism in the past.

My book is dedi­cated to free­dom. It is inspi­red by many free­dom figh­ters, from pre­vious gene­ra­tions but also people from our age.

For­tu­nately, we are not alone in the fight for free­dom. We are in the com­pany of heroes and fri­ends. This gives us the strength to continue.

In order to def­eat Islam so, we must do four things.

The first and most impor­tant is to speak the truth, always and eve­rywhere also about Islam. Like the Ame­ri­cans, the people in the Net­her­lands and other Euro­pean countries despe­ra­tely need a First Amendment.

That will allow them to tell the truth about Islam and Muhammad. We must encourage Mus­lims to leave Islam and to choose free­dom and prosperity.

Secondly, we have to believe in the supe­riority of our Western values. If we do not believe in our own Western values, we will not be pre­pared to defend them. That is why we have to end the big­gest dise­ase in the world today, the cul­tural rela­ti­vism which pre­tends that all cul­tu­res are equal. Our Judeo-Chrisitian, huma­nist civi­liza­tion is more free, more democra­tic, more tole­rant than any civi­liza­tion the world has ever seen. We should not be afraid to say so.

Thirdly, we must stop the Isla­miza­tion of our socie­ties by rest­ric­ting immi­gra­tion from Isla­mic countries, and expel­ling those who vio­late our laws and com­mit vio­lence. If you respect our laws you are wel­come to stay; if you don’t, you do not belong here..

And fourthly, we must reas­sert our natio­nal iden­tities. The nation-state enab­les self-government and self-determination. This insight led the Zio­nists to estab­lish Israel as the home­land of the Jews.

Zio­nism teaches us one of the most impor­tant les­sons which the modern world needs today. The­odor Herzl argued that a Jewish state would faci­li­tate “a new blosso­ming of the Jewish spi­rit.” Today, we need our own respec­tive nation-states to pre­side over a new blosso­ming of our own Western spirit.

Our nations are the homes in which free­dom and democracy pro­s­per. This is true for the Net­her­lands. This is true for Ame­rica. This is true for Israel.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is a bea­con of free­dom in an unfree region, a bea­con of life in a place of dark­ness. If Israel falls, the West falls.

Mot­hers in the West can sleep safely because Israeli mot­hers at night worry about their sons in the army. Their fight is our fight. We should sup­port it.

Israel is, indeed, a vital out­post of Western civi­liza­tion. That is why Islam con­ditions the fai­th­ful to hate the Jewish state and to view its destruc­tion as an impe­ra­tive. It is our duty to stand with Israel.

In my book I explain how we can defend free­dom and oppose Isla­miza­tion and cul­tural rela­ti­vism in a non-violent and democra­tic way. In fact, that is what my party, the Party for Free­dom, is doing in the Netherlands.

When I began to speak out against Islam 10 years ago, two things hap­pe­ned. Extre­mist Mus­lims from the Net­her­lands and all over the world mar­ked me for death, but Dutch people came to me to express their sup­port. In 2010, we became the third big­gest party in the Net­her­lands. Though the PVV did not become a coalition part­ner in the Dutch govern­ment, for almost two years we sup­ported a center-right minority govern­ment in return for measu­res to roll back Sha­ria in Hol­land, stop the Isla­miza­tion process, and coun­ter cul­tural relativism.

The Dutch govern­ment even had the audacity to speak out against the power­ful OIC, the Orga­ni­sa­tion of Isla­mic Coope­ra­tion. The OIC is an inter­na­tio­nal orga­niza­tion of 57 Isla­mic countries, most of them autocracies,.

This OIC con­sti­tu­tes the lar­gest voting bloc in the Uni­ted Nation. It cri­ti­cized the fact that Dutch jud­ges acquit­ted me of all char­ges in my court case. But the Dutch govern­ment made it clear to the OIC that free­dom of speech will not be muzz­led in the Net­her­lands. It told the OIC very bluntly: “The Dutch govern­ment dis­socia­tes itself fully from the request to silence a poli­ti­cian.” Never before had a Euro­pean govern­ment had the courage to con­front the OIC in such a for­ce­ful way.

Unfor­tu­nately, last week, the Party for Free­dom deci­ded to end its sup­port for the govern­ment. As you can ima­gine, this was a dif­fi­cult deci­sion for us, given the many things also on the sub­ject of isla­miza­tion that we were still to achieve. Unfor­tu­nately, how­e­ver, pre­vious Dutch govern­ments – as govern­ments elsewhere in Europe – have sig­ned away a sig­ni­fi­cant part of our own sover­eignty to the EU, the Euro­pean Union, a supra­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tion run by unelected and unde­mocra­tic bureaucrats.

The EU con­trols our bor­ders and deci­des over most immi­gra­tion rules. The EU also impo­ses a policy of aus­terity on our country.

When the govern­ment, in order to com­ply with the EU rules, deci­ded to raise taxes and slash the bud­get at the expense of the citizens rat­her than by trim­ming the govern­ment, my party had no other option but to bring the govern­ment down and we did so last week.

We are now head­ing for elections, which will be held on Sep­tem­ber 12th. Our electo­ral cam­paign will focus on the need to restore our natio­nal sover­eignty, because wit­hout our sover­eignty we can­not defend our iden­tity and fight against islamization.

My fri­ends, we con­ti­nue our efforts. Our oppo­nents have not been able to bully me. They have not been able to silence me. They shriek and yell, but we will never give in. One of my favo­rite pre­si­dents Ronald Rea­gan once said: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthear­ted.” Rea­gan was right. The future belongs to us.

In 2008, I released Fitna, a docu­men­tary about the true mes­sage of the Koran. Tomor­row, I release my book. I wrote it to inform people, and also to encourage freedom-loving Mus­lims to leave Islam. And to see Islam for what it really is.

I whole­hear­tedly sup­port those who struggle for free­dom in the Isla­mic world. The Arab, Tur­kish, Ira­nian, Pakis­tani, and Indo­ne­sian people have tremen­dous poten­tial. If they could libe­rate them­sel­ves from the yoke of Islam, if they would stop taking Muhammad as a role model, and if they get rid of the Koran, they would be able to achieve ama­zing things.

As I say in my book – my mes­sage to them, to all the Mus­lims all over the world, is clear: “Fata­lism is no option, Insh’Allah is a curse; Sub­mis­sion is a dis­grace. Free yours­el­ves. It is up to you.”

I rece­ive hund­reds of emails from all over the world. From people in Isla­mic countries, and from people in Western countries beg­ging for help. They, too, want to fight for free­dom and stop the Isla­miza­tion process. We have to advise and help.

I leave you with anot­her Rea­gan quote: “We need to act today, to pre­serve tomor­row.” Indeed, my fri­ends, there are so many things which we can do. Things which we must do. But we can do them only if we can count on each other. You can count on me. I spoke, I speak, I shall con­ti­nue to speak. I hope I can con­ti­nue to count on your support.

We are figh­ting for the future of our child­ren, the sur­vi­val of the Western spi­rit, the pre­ser­va­tion of our liberty and democracy, our Judeo-Christian and huma­nist heritage.

We must be brave and save our her­itage and our own con­sti­tu­tion. The West is in dan­ger, but we can still pre­vail. Even when we are insulted, even when we are har­assed and inti­mi­dated -- even when we are mar­ked for death -- we must stand up for our values, tell the truth and never, ever, be silent.

Address before the Gate­stone Insti­tute, New York City, April 30, 2012.

 

The First Amend­ment Is What We Need in Europe
by Geert Wil­ders
May 1, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3042/geert-wilders-first-amendment