Geert Wilders Quotes
I don't have a problem with people from Slovakia and Lithuania. But I do have a problem with immigration from Islamic countries.
Wilders, Geert. Speech at the House of Lords. London, United Kingdom, 5 Mar. 2010.
Although generally a supporter of immigration, he began to oppose it when the very large numbers of immigrants who were ethnically and culturally different began to enter the United States. Northern Italians were OK but the Southern Italians were from a different social class. German Jews had made great contributions to America but the Russian Jews were peasants and serfs. Polish immigrants also. Walker was worried that for the first time in America there would be a social class division as the historical difference between rich and poor in America he believed was within ethnic groups and not between them.
The journalist and author, one of the most influential Italian journalists and intellectuals, was then dying of cancer and came out of retirement to warn about the great threat that she believed that Islam was for the West. See {587753} for her earlier warning. While at the surface, she appears to be a very bigoted individual, her main concern about Islam in general and for European immigration in particular had an intellectual and sophisticated base. Specificly, was 1) Islam is the ONLY religion that teaches and demands the transcendence of nationalism in a world that is organized around nations. It demands a concept of Muslim land as opposed to Egyptian land or Pakistani land. 2) It is overtly sexist and requires sexism of its adherents as opposed to other religions where sexism is traditional and cultural and not as theological. 3) It is anti democratic and requires adherents to conflate religion and government. However, what Fallaci was unaware of was the reform and modernist movement within Islam who argued for a modern, democrative evolution of the religion much as what has occurred with Christianity and Judiasm and other religions.
Most people are very surprised that the great Benjamin Franklin was so narrow-minded at one point in his life. The German immigration almost halted during the Seven Years War, and the influx of Germans to Pennsylvania did not resume at the same rate.
Geert Wilders is a Dutch businessman and politician. He has been Leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid – PVV) since he founded it in 2006. Wilders is the parliamentary leader of his party in the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer). In the 2010 formation of the Rutte cabinet, a minority cabinet of VVD and CDA, he actively participated in the negotiations, resulting in a "tolerance agreement" (gedoogakkoord) between the PVV and these parties, but withdrew his support in April 2012, citing disagreements with the cabinet on proposed budget cuts. Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam and the EU; his views have made him a controversial figure in the Netherlands and abroad, and since 2004 he has been protected at all times by armed bodyguards.
