Geert Wilders Quotes
We should be able to see Islam for what it is, make a distinction between the people and the ideology, and stop with being politically correct, and address the problems, as many people see it when it comes to the Islamisation of their country.
Wilders, Geert. Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me. Regnery Publishing, 2012.
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.
He wrote this in the midst of the Salmon Rushdie affair where some Muslim clerics had issued a fatwa calling for the murder of the author because in this view his writings offended Islam.
She was referring to the Muslim immigrants who were then coming into Europe in large numbers. Europe in general, and Italy in particular, have never had the American experience of assimilation of large numbers of immigrants, and many Muslims came to Europe just for the economic opportunities but did not like or respect the culture or the values. Some even preached hatred of the Christian West and fomented terrorism. This was different from America where Muslim immigrants arrived and despite the difficulties of new immigrants most thrived and were able to assimilate yet maintain their religion and cultural customs. At the same time many American Islamic immigrants represented the more modern Islamic which valued freedom and pluralism and unlike most Muslim nations of today, appreciated the advanced, modernistic, tolerant Islam of 1000 years ago when tolerance and freedom of thought within an Islamic framework made some Muslim countries the most advanced in the world.
This statement was made before the violent Islamic reaction to the Danish private newspaper publication of anti-Muslim cartoons depicting the Islamic Prophet—which most Islamic tradition forbids although there is no prohibition against it in the Islamic holy texts.
Bourne was one of the first writers with a national audience to question the classic but never real “melting pot” theory of immigration and suggest the “salad” model though he never used the term.
See {590863} for a similar sentiment.
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.
