Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Men of Custard

”Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, French political philosopher (1712 - 1778)

Politicians today are craven! They do NOT deserve our respect!

Politicians, at least in the United Kingdom, are career politicians who only rarely have pursued other careers before entering Parliament.

In years gone by, this was very different: Men, and I mean men, used to go into politics when they had achieved a great deal in the real world, and when they felt that they had enough money to spend the rest of their working lives in the pursuit of improving the lot of the people. They were beholden unto no one, because they had made their money before entering politics, and were thus prepared to work for a relatively modest remuneration in order to try and improve the lot of the masses. Because they were men of independent means, they could speak their minds.

What we have today is but a mere pathetic shadow of the politicians of yore. What we have today are ‘company men’, party men, if you will. They toe the party line; and are terrified of losing their positions. How many politicians have you heard of recently who have been prepared to resign on a point of principle? Few, I would wager.

We, at least in the UK, are all the poorer for this sad development. It means that our politicians are far more concerned about their next pay packet than they are about the real concerns of politics.

Recent events have shown us, and very, very clearly, that our politicians are craven, unprincipled, and weak. Weak beyond measure!

The Houses of Parliament are peopled not only by men, but they are peopled by women also. To a great extent, British politics has become feminized. Bringing women into the political arena is, in many ways, a great thing; but it can only be a great thing if the women coming into politics can take the tough decisions necessary to ensure that our Judeo-Christian civilization can survive and thrive. Of late, this has clearly NOT been happening. On the contrary, our Judeo-Christian civilization, a civilization which has given us so, so much, has been dangerously weakened.

Just observe what has been happening in the United Kingdom! Just observe the pathetically weak and craven way that this NuLabour government has dealt with the threat that Islam has posed this nation! The ministers and politicians, all of whom are running scared, have placated these Muslims, even to the point of banning Geert Wilders from entering the country to show his film, Fitna, in the House of Lords.

It is abhorrent, to say nothing of being craven, to say nothing of being unworthy, to have banned this courageous man from this country. The decision was as disgusting as it was undemocratic. We in the United Kingdom were raised to expect our freedom of speech, we were raised to expect liberty. Yet, what has this awful government given us? Nothing but surrender to the forces of evil, surrender to the forces of darkness, surrender to the Jihad being waged against us. How can our politicians expect us willingly to embrace Muslims when we can see so plainly – it is as plain as the nose on your face – that Muslims are the cause of our loss of freedoms? How can this bring harmony in the community? Of course, it cannot!

The war on Islamic terror over the past years has been fought by politicians hell-bent on taking away the freedoms of the innocent people upon whom the ‘war on terror’ has been waged – the victims. Instead of targeting the perpetrators of the crimes, our ‘leaders’ have chosen to bring hurt upon the innocent. Why? Because they lack the courage necessary to punish the people who are perpetrating the crimes. Why? Because they know that if they were to punish the perpetrators of the crimes, they would meet with fierce opposition, whilst they know that by punishing the innocent, they will meet with nothing but meek and mild opposition, if indeed they meet with opposition at all.

Our so-called leaders, craven leaders almost all, decided that the ‘war on terror’ would be waged by taking your freedoms away, and mine. They decided that they would take our freedom away to criticize religion in general, and Islam in particular. (Oh, for the love of Allah, don’t criticize Islam!) As a result of this, and other stupidities, we now find ourselves with our hands tied firmly behind our backs, we find ourselves with a pitifully weakened voice. That’s how stupid and craven the politicians are that now lead us.

But can I tell you this: It is our birthright to be able to criticize Islam; it is our birthright to be able to criticize the Prophet Muhammad.

This is why it is IMPERATIVE that we be given an ‘international first amendment’, which Geert Wilders has called for, and which the International Free Press Society has called for, too. No constitution that the EU will write will be worth a damn if there is within it no ‘first amendment’. The people need to be free to speak their minds; they need to be free to criticize religion, any religion, and they need to be free to criticize any prophets considered to be – at least by some – the expounders of those faiths. No prophet, no god, must be above criticism, for any god worthy of being worshipped will accept such criticism. A god which cannot accept such criticism, a prophet who cannot accept such criticism, cannot be worthy of being worshipped at all! NO religion worthy of its salt is above criticism!

But our politicians are weak and craven and lacking in spunk: they cannot find it within themselves to criticize those who perpetrate crimes in the name of their pathetic religions, still less to criticize the religions themselves.

This is why our politicians are not worthy of being followed. This is why our politicians are not worthy of the title of ‘leaders’. This is why there is need of change at the top, this is why we are in need of change in the establishment.

We need leaders of spunk, but all I see around me are leaders of custard!

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Geert Wilders’ New York Speech

Thank you.



Thank you very much for inviting me. And – to the immigration authorities – thank you for letting me into this country. It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.



Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for. 


As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.



Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue; I gave up my freedom four years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since. 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 Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?



This is what video blogger Pat Condell said in one of his latest you tube appearances. He says: “If I talked about Muslims the way their holy book talks about me, I’d be arrested for hate speech.” Now, Mr Condell is a stand-up comedian, but in the video he is dead serious and the joke is on us. Hate speech will always be used against the people defending the West – in order to please and appease Muslims. They can say whatever they want: throw gays from apartment buildings, kill the Jews, slaughter the infidel, destroy Israel, jihad against the West. Whatever their book tells them.



Today, I come before you to warn of a great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, slavery of women, the end of democracy. It is NOT a religion, it is an political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.



There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter. First, there is the Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal [sic] al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect. Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. It’s fact.



This is Europe 2009. Muslim settlers calling for our destruction, and free speech on trial. All this is the outcome of a sick and evil ideology, the ideology that is weakening us, the surrender ideology of cultural relativism. It believes that all cultures are equal, and therefore Islam deserves an equal place in the West. It is their duty, the left thinks, to facilitate Islam. This way the cultural relativists paradise comes within reach and we will all be happy, and sing kumbaya.



The forces of Islam couldn’t agree more. Islam being facilitated by government is their agenda too. But they see it as jizya, the money dhimmis pay in order not to be killed or raped by their Muslim masters. Therefore, they happily accept the welfare cheque or the subsidies for their mosque or the money governments donate to their organizations.


This is just one example of cultural relativists and Muslim settlers having the same agenda. There is another. Islam considers itself a religion and therefore we are not permitted to criticize it. The left agrees. Although it hated Christianity for decades, now that Islam appears on the scene, they suddenly change course and demand ‘respect’ for something they call a religion.



Again we see the left and Islam having the same agenda: it is a religion, so shut up.



This all culminates in a third coming-together: nor the left nor Islam is in favor of criticism. In fact, given the opportunity, they would simply outlaw it. Multiculturalism is the left’s pet project. It is actually their religion. Their love of it is so great, if you oppose it, it must be hate. And if you say it, it is labeled hate speech. Now here is something the Islam can agree on.



This is the essence of my short introduction today: where the left and Islam come together, freedom will suffer.



My friends, make no mistake, my prosecution is a full-fledged attack by the left on freedom of speech in order to please Muslims. It was started by a member of the Dutch Labour party, and the entire legal proceeding is done by well-to-do liberals, the radical chic of Dutch society, the snobbish left. Too much money, too much time, too little love of liberty. If you read what the court of Amsterdam has written about me, you read the same texts that cultural relativists produce.




How low can we go in the Netherlands? About my prosecution, The Wall Street Journal noted: “this is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside”. The Journal concluded that by The Netherlands accepting the free speech standards of, “Saudi-Arabia”, I stand correct in my observation that - I quote - “Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties”.



Now, if the Wall Street Journal has the moral clarity to see that my prosecution is the logical outcome of our disastrous, self-hating, multiculturalists immigration policies, then why can’t the European liberal establishment see the same thing? Why aren’t they getting at least a little bit scared by the latest news out of, for example, the UK. News that tells that the Muslim population in Britain is growing ten times as fast as the rest of society. Why don’t they care?



The answer is: they don’t care because they are blinded by their cultural relativism. Their disdain of the West is so much greater than the appreciation of our many liberties. And therefore, they are willing to sacrifice everything. The left once stood for women rights, gay rights, equality, democracy. Now, they favour immigration policies that will end all this. Many even lost their decency. Elite politicians have no problem to participate in or finance demonstrations where settlers shout “Death to the Jews”. Seventy years after Auschwitz they know of no shame.



Two weeks ago, I tried to get into Britain, a fellow EU country. I was invited to give a speech in Parliament. However, upon arrival at London airport, I was refused entry into the UK, and sent back on the first plane to Holland. I would have loved to have reminded the audience of a great man who once spoke in the House of Commons. In 1982 President Reagan gave a speech there very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.



So, what should we do? Is this a good moment for freedom-loving people to give in or to change course? To all-of-a-sudden start singing praise of Islam, or proclaiming there is such a thing as a moderate Islam? Will we now accept the continuation of Muslim mass immigration to the West? Will we appease sharia and jihad? Should we sacrifice gay rights and women rights? Or democracy? Should we sell out Israel, our dearest ally, and a frontline state of Islam?



Well, my humble opinion is: No way, Jose!




I suggest to defend [sic] freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular. I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. In Europe we should defend freedom of speech like you Americans do. In Europe freedom of speech should be extended, instead of restricted. Of course, calling for violence or unjustly yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre have to be punished, but the right to criticize ideologies or religions are necessary conditions for a vital democracry. As George Orwell once said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.




Let us defend freedom of speech and let us gain strength and work hard to become even stronger. Millions think just like you and me. Millions think liberty is precious. That democracy is better than sharia. And after all, why should we be afraid? Our many freedoms and our prosperity are the result of centuries of endeavour. Centuries of hard work and sacrifice. We do not stand alone, and we stand on the shoulders of giants.




Late December 1944 the American army was suddenly faced with a last-ditch effort by the Germans. In the Ardennes, in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler and his national-socialists fought for their last chance. And they were very successful. Americans faced defeat, and death.



In the darkest of winter, in the freezing cold, in a lonely forest with snow and ice as even fiercer enemies than the Nazi war machine itself, the American army was told to surrender. That might be their only chance to survive. But General McAuliffe thought otherwise. He gave the Germans a short message. This message contained just four letters. Four letters only, but never in the history of freedom was a desire for liberty and perseverance in the face of evil expressed more eloquently than in that message. It spelled N – U – T – S. “Nuts”.



My friends, the national-socialists got the message. Because it left no room for interpretation!



I suggest we walk in the tradition of giants like General McAuliffe and the American soldiers who fought and died for the freedom of my country and for a secular and democratic Europe, and we tell the enemies of freedom just that. NUTS! Because that’s all there is to it. No explanations. No beating around the bush. No caveats.



Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man.

Hat tip: Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Liberty in Britain Is Facing Death by a Thousand Cuts. We Can Fight Back

THE GUARDIAN: It is shocking how many curtailments of freedom have been imposed. Each one may be small but the cumulative loss is vast

For 30 years I have been travelling to unfree places, from East Germany to Burma, and writing about them in the belief that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world. I wanted people in those places to enjoy more of what we had. In the last few years, I have woken up - late in the day, but better late than never - to the way in which individual liberty, privacy and human rights have been sliced away in Britain, like salami, under New Labour governments that profess to find in liberty the central theme of British history.

"Oh, these powers will almost never be used," they say every time. "Ordinary people have nothing to fear. It affects just 0.1%." But a hundred times 0.1% is 10%. The East Germans are now more free than we are, at least in terms of law and administrative practice in such areas as surveillance and data collection. Thirty years ago, they had the Stasi. Today, Britain has such broadly drawn and elastic surveillance laws that Poole borough council could exploit them to spend two weeks spying on a family wrongly accused of lying on a school application form. The official spies reportedly made copious notes on the movements of the mother and her three children, whom they referred to as "targets", and watched the family go home at night to establish where they were sleeping. And this is supposed to be modern Britain?

Let's be clear: though the Stasi headline is irresistible, such Stasi-nark methods do not yet make a Stasi state. The political context is very different. We don't live in a one-party dictatorship. But nor is this just "an isolated case", as ministers always protest. Almost every week brings some new revelation of the way in which our government has taken a further small slice of our liberty, always in the name of another real or alleged good: national security, safety from crime, community cohesion, efficiency (ha ha), or our "special relationship" with the United States.

Liberty comes last. As Dominic Raab writes in his excellent book The Assault on Liberty, this government "has hyperactively produced more Home Office legislation than all the other governments in our history combined, accumulating a vast arsenal of new legal powers and creating more than three thousand additional criminal offences". At a press conference today, the organisers of next week's Convention on Modern Liberty - whose moving spirits include the columnist Henry Porter and the democratic activist Anthony Barnett - will present a first attempt to catalogue the liberties we have lost, in a list compiled by the University College London Student Human Rights Programme.

Other free countries, including the US, have overreacted to the threat of terrorism, violating their own basic constitutional principles and legal standards. The peculiarity of Britain is that we have nibbled away individual liberty on so many different fronts. We have been complicit in American-led torture of our own people; at the same time we have eroded free speech in ways unthinkable in the US; and we have become what Privacy International calls "an endemic surveillance society". >>> Timothy Garton Ash | Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>
Freedom Dies as Radical Islam Advances

THE DC EXAMINER: Halfway through “Fitna,” the short film about radical Islam made by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, we see an angry imam, speaking Arabic and telling how it will be.

“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah the day will come when we rule the entire world again!” the translation scrolls, “The day will come when we will rule America! The day will come when we rule Britain and the entire world!”

Score one for the Islamists, where Britain is concerned. The cringing bureaucrats of Gordon Brown’s Labour government barred Wilders from entering the country last week to attend a screening of “Fitna” at, of all places, Britain’s Houses of Parliament.

The 17-minute movie, which has been out for a year and is easily viewed online, seeks to make the case that Islam is dangerously in the ascendant in the Netherlands.

The film is composed almost entirely of scenes where Muslims are doing the talking, but it includes images of terrorist attacks and violent passages from the Quran.

It features clips of radical Islamist preachers calling for the murder of Jews and the defenestration of gays. It shows dead female victims of honor killings, a kneeling woman in a burqa being executed, and a captured Westerner being beheaded by masked Islamic militants.

Now, Wilders didn’t write the Quran, he didn’t bomb the Twin Towers, and where his narrative voice comes in, it’s not even saying anything very extraordinary – not in a world where a lot of people say a lot of things.

With the same material, one suspects that a practiced polemicist like Michael Moore could have made something even more shocking.

But Britain’s first Muslim peer, Lord Ahmed, warned that 10,000 Muslims would march on Parliament if Wilders appeared at the screening.

So the government caved. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith banned the Dutchman for fear his presence “would threaten community security and therefore public security.”

See how easily old freedoms are revoked? You would think that there’s no point in freedom of speech if you can’t use it to say unpopular things.

Yet in Britain – and in the Netherlands, where Wilders faces trial and a jail term for making “Fitna” – that freedom is gone. >>> By Meghan Cox Gurdon, Examiner Columnist | Thursday, February 19, 2009

FRONTPAGEMAG.COM:
Wilders Coming to America >>> Robert Spencer | Thursday, February 19, 2009

Geert Wilder’s English website >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

America Should Defy Islamic Supremacism

ENERGY PUBLISHER: Failure to defeat Islamic supremacism may cost Americans their freedom, and their identity.

Our generation shares the responsibility to challenge Islamic supremacism in America and around the world. Our responsibility is based on our nation and our leaders' accountability in defending our inalienable human rights of equality and liberty – which demands that we reject all supremacism, including Islamic supremacism. Such accountability on human rights also requires that we challenge those in denial on this threat who seek our surrender to Islamic supremacism abroad and at home.

Failure to defy Islamic supremacism will not only cost us our freedoms – it will also cost us our identity, as those who appease and support such supremacism will seek to use our nation's influence and power as a weapon against freedom – as we have recently seen in other nations.

To effectively defy Islamic supremacism, we must use our existing consensus in equality and liberty as a tool to ensure that Islamic supremacism is treated like any other supremacist ideology that would seek to threaten our freedoms. We know that outrage against supremacism is not enough; we are responsible to act to defy such supremacist ideologies that threaten our freedoms and take a public stand against them. >>> By Jeffrey Imm | Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Friday, October 03, 2008

If the Light Goes Out Stateside, the Light Goes Out for Us All!

There is no doubt that the USA is going through tough times; indeed, its very foundations are being rocked – financial and economic. Indeed, it could be argued that capitalism, the US’s raison d’être is being challenged profoundly. The current president, George W Bush, has only added to America’s problems. He has been a disaster for America. It is time for him to retire. And retire he will – shortly.

The recent débâcle with the USA’s most prestigious financial institutions either going to the wall, or having to be all but nationalized has only added to America’s woes.

It is a national disgrace that this profligate president has brought the once proud nation almost to its knees. America’s national debt is at an all time high: more than three trillion dollars, and still counting. Since 2001, a spurious war on terrorism has been fought, mostly in vain, since terrorism is not the ailment; rather it is a symptom of a far greater malady, namely Islam itself. It is rather like a medical consultant trying to treat the symptoms of cancer without excising the underlying cause: the tumour itself!

The US economy, totally deregulated as it has been since the era of Reagan, has succumbed to the worst of man’s faults and weaknesses: Greed. The people working on Wall Street, as in the City of London, have been paying themselves bonuses in Monopoly figures: Millions here, and tens of millions there. The result is there for all to see: The economic system has all but collapsed; and the American taxpayer is now being asked to pick up the tab.

It’s a disgrace. Nothing short of a national disgrace. There is simply no reason why the American taxpayer should bail out the bankers and financiers of Wall Street, with all their greediness and excesses. They certainly should not be expected to pay for the bonuses of these greedy and unprincipled people. They should be allowed to perish, as should the institutions they worked for.

The bail-out is flawed to its very core. When people in America are going hungry, and when more than forty million people there cannot afford healthcare, there is something very flawed in a bail-out plan which cossets the very people who have caused the near collapse of the capitalist system.

Yet, for all the flaws of the capitalist system, we have nothing better with which to replace it. It is an imperfect system to be sure; but it’s the very best system man has ever been able to come up with. We must nurture it; and we must certainly be careful that we do not lose it.

America is no paradise on earth; America’s sidewalks are not paved with gold. America is as flawed as anywhere else on earth. Yet America has given the world something which the rest of the world has been unable to give people. It has given them hope and freedom – the hope to aspire to a better life; and the freedom to live without fear. How many other countries can say the same?

America has been a beacon of freedom for a couple of centuries. People have for centuries flocked there in their droves, in search of a better life. As a result, America has become a hub of creativity, for nothing fosters creativity more than freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

Yet, we are living through very difficult times. So many, worldwide, are gloating in the difficulties that America is now experiencing. When the US was attacked on September 11, 2001, few could have imagined the success that OBL would have had by flying planes into the Twin Towers in New York. Indeed, OBL couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome from this attack. He wanted to bring the USA to its knees; and to its knees it has just about brought it.

But if anyone out there is happy about this, then his happiness is totally misplaced; and for one simple reason: If America is no longer to be the world’s superpower, then the world will fall into darkness.

Why? Because the US has guaranteed freedom not only for itself, but also for much of the rest of the world. Which other country in the world could do this? Russia certainly couldn’t. In Russia, one goes against the political system at one’s own peril. Ask the once richest man of Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky! He’ll tell you the price he has had to pay for perceived criticism of the system, and for political activity in a country which understands neither democracy nor freedom.

In a silly article asking who else would be up to replacing America’s hegemony, SpiegelOnline International posed the question who could take over from America’s pole position. The answer is no-one! Which other country could guarantee us all such freedoms? Which other country would be so generous with its resources? Which other country would come to aid all in time of need?

Where would Germany be today without the aid of America after the Second World War? And where would Britain be today without America’s help in that very same war? Indeed, how free would Europe be today without the the help of the generous, oh so generous Americans?

America, and the rest of the West, is under threat from the Islamic world; indeed, our great Judeo-Christian civilization could go under because of the threat of Islam. Islam is not only knocking at our door, it is already within, and is out to destroy everything we in the West stand for: Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, or the freedom to choose none, freedom of sexual expression, and freedom in so may other ways, too. Yet only the few are listening! Only the few are taking these threats to our liberties seriously.

For most people, these threats are but abstract, distant possibilities; yet they are not. They are anything but. They are very real. Muslims are here in the West; and many of them – though certainly not all – are out to destroy everything Western. They must NEVER be allowed to achieve their goals. We must this resist attack with every fibre of our beings. We must OVERCOME!

If we do not, the West will be taken into a New Dark Age. The way of life that will ensue will be one which will be quite unlike the way of life we have come to know, understand, appreciate, and love. It will be a repressive way of life – repressive for women, repressive for infidels, repressive for Christians, repressive for Jews, repressive for homosexuals, repressive, indeed, for all except Muslims.

If we are to fight this darkness, it is imperative that the United States be kept strong, and buoyed up. The United States needs to be strong militarily, financially, and economically, for without a strong United States, there is little hope for a free world. Little hope for liberty. If the light goes out Stateside, the light goes out for us all!

©Mark Alexander

All Rights reserved

Friday, May 23, 2008

We Should Fear Holland’s Silence

This article, from February 2006, deserves to be read and re-read by all who love liberty! Our craven leaders are giving our freedoms away.

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Islamists are stifling debate in what was Europe’s freest country, says Douglas Murray

‘Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.

Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam’s current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.

Both Ye’or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn’t have any other name, couldn’t think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out — the security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.

I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference on what would have been Fortuyn’s 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the effects of Europe’s increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam’s violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below “national emergency”.

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice. We Should Fear Holland’s Silence >>> By Douglas Murray | February 26, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Friday, April 04, 2008

Silencing the People

IT IS axiomatic that freedom of expression is the foundation of human freedom and progress. When people are not allowed to express themselves freely, there can be no debate or inquiry. It is only due to free debate and inquiry that humanity has progressed from the Dark Age to the Digital Age. This is why the first act of every would-be tyrant is to take control of the marketplace of ideas. - Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post

It has recently been reported that Susan Winter, a politician (Stadträtin) in Graz, Austria has been indicted for "Incitement and Degradation of Religious Symbols". If found guilty, she faces up to two years in an Austrian jail! Why? Because she had the temerity to speak her mind, she had the chutzpah to speak the truth as she saw the truth to be. After all, she believed, rightly in my opinion, that she lived in a European country which upheld the right of free speech. Not so, it seems.

She stated that the prophet Muhammad was a Kinderschänder, child molester, or paedophile. She also stated that Muhammad was a warlord. There were videos of her speech on YouTube, and even on my own website, but they all appear to have been removed! (God knows who removed them!)

That a person in Europe is now no longer able to express himself/herself freely, and with impunity, augers badly for our future here in Europe, for however repugnant a person’s ideas are, that person should be allowed to express them freely. As Caroline Glick stated (above): "It is axiomatic that freedom of expression is the foundation of human freedom and progress."

One thing that differentiates the world of the West with the Muslim world is this: Until now, we Westerners were allowed to express ourselves freely, without fear of reprisals from the law. The same cannot be said about people’s rights in Muslim nations. Is it, then, any wonder that the West has moved from the Dark Ages to the Digital Age, whereas the Muslim world has not? Whatever vestiges of the Digital Age the Muslim world enjoys can be attributed directly to the progress made by Westerners. For without Western civilization, Muslims would still be riding around on their camels, and would be living in tents.

One must therefore ask oneself one simple, but one very important, question: Is it the intention of European politicians to take western Europe back to the Dark Ages? Or are they just too yellow to speak up for Judeo-Christian civilization, the civilization which has brought the West so much in terms of human progress and development?

Do these weak, wimpish, excuses for politicians not realize that this wonderful civilization is not theirs to give away? Don’t they realize that we are merely custodians of this civilization?

Another recent example of the cowardliness of Western politicians is in their recent reaction to Geert Wilders’ wonderful, short film, Fitna. In that short little video, he managed to encapsulate all the dangers that Islam – yes Islam, not Islamism – poses to the till yet free, Western world.

Yet what has he got for his labours in return? Nothing but a blasting! European politicians, almost to a man, have denigrated this courageous Dutch politician for telling the people what they don’t want to know, but need to know if they are to be able to continue living in liberty.

Balkenende, the prime minister of the Netherlands, is probably the example par excellence of a politician without gonads. Before the film’s release, he had been running around like a headless chicken, trying to minimize the expected fall-out from the release of the excellent film.

If the Dutch government had been able, legally, to silence the brave and courageous Geert Wilders, then there is absolutely no doubt that it would have done so.

So where is all this leading to? Well, the answer to this simple question is quite simple: To no good place!

First of all, it should be stated that it is no good talking the talk without walking the walk. Western politicians are very adept at talking up the benefits of democracy and freedom. But to all but the blindest among us, it should be obvious that they are also adept at taking people’s liberty and democracy away from them! They are running scared; and they are hell-bent on avoiding conflict with an enemy – Islam – which is implacable. But there is a word in most languages for this. In English, it is called appeasement. In French, it is called apaisement, in German, Beschwichtigung. Whichever word you use in your language, it amounts to the same thing: Weakness!

It should be obvious to all that the West has not come to this wonderful place without struggle and strife. In each and every age, we will find our enemies and detractors. In the twentieth century, people had to live with the dangers of Nazism, for Hitler was the enemy of the day. But people back then had a backbone, and they had principle, too. And they were willing to fight for those principles; indeed, they were willing to die for them. They were most unlike the current bunch of excuses for statesmen we have leading us today! Think of them: Brown, Verhagen, Balkenende, Bush, ex-prime minister Blair. The list is endless. They are all wimps; they are all cowards, they are all unworthy of leading the free world.

We should all get one thing straight: Islam is not in the West to be equal to any other faith; rather, it is here to become dominant. Muslims will not rest until the laws of the land are supplanted by the laws of the Qur’an, by the so-called Sahri’ah laws that their god – Allah – is supposed to have sent down to them.

Shari’ah law is anathema to all the West stands for. It tolerates no equality between the sexes. It tolerates no rights for homosexuals. It tolerates no diversity of belief; and it certainly doesn’t tolerate disbelief. If Shari’ah gets the upper hands, we shall all be praying in the direction of Makkah, we shall all be Muslims then.

It is time for Westerners to re-assert their commitment to Judeo-Christian culture, to Judeo-Christian civilization, to liberty, democracy and all that our wonderful, superior civilization has given us. It is also high time for the people to stand up and tell their leaders that we will not be silenced.

As Geert Wilders said, the hour is late. There is little time to lose. If we lose this battle, we shall surely be taken back to a ‘New Dark Age’. No kidding!

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Islam: The Enemy of Democracy and Freedom!

Until 9/11, the western world was largely ignorant of the religion of Islam, of its goals, of its aspirations. Indeed, even since 9/11, most people, and that includes our politicians, would not score very highly in a test of their knowledge on the subject. It should be obvious to all thinking people that our politicians are actually unaware, dare I say blind, to the dangers that Islam will increasingly cause us. It is truly a case of the blind leading the blind! That means to say, uninformed and unthinking politicians leading an ill-informed electorate. But folks, this is what we have right now. The same can hardly be said of Muslims in the Islamic world, though; for their knowledge of Christianity far surpasses - even though much of their knowledge is quite distorted - any knowledge of Islam by the man in the street in the West.

As the old saying goes, knowledge is power. But what we often don't hear uttered is its converse: Ignorance is weakness!

The West is far weaker than it need be because of this ignorance of Islam, since Islam is our greatest enemy. The greatest enemy since Nazism and communism. I'll give you some good reasons why this is so. And none of them - absolutely none of them - are based on hatred!

Islam is the enemy of the West for a plethora of good, solid reasons, and if we wish to survive as a civilization, we are going to have to bite the bullet and deal, head on, with the issues these reasons raise. Let us begin...

First and foremost, we are dealing with a religion which does not recognize any separation of politics and religion, any separation of the political from the spiritual. For Muslims, life is one coherent whole: the political and spiritual both meld into one. This has always been so, and always will be. No re-classification of the religion into two separate parts is possible because of Islam's very nature.

In Islam, all power rests with Allah, the god of Muslims. The Qur'an, their holy book, is always taken literally. Those words are considered to be the actual words of Allah. Therefore, none of these words can be changed, for to change any of them would be tantamount to tampering with Allah's words. This would be a grave sin in their eyes.

For the same reason that the words contained in the Qur'an cannot be changed, they cannot, therefore, be re-interpreted either. So do not hold your breath for any kind of reformation in this religion, because it 'ain't gonna' happen!

In Islam, all power rests with Allah, and it filters down via his vice-gerents on earth to the people. Hence the great desire among Muslims to restore the caliphate. Contrast this with the Western model of government!

In the West, the ideal political system is democracy. In democracy, all power rests with the people, and they exercise that power at the polls. In a democracy, all power filters in the opposite direction from Islam. In democracy it filters up; in Islam, down! Herein lies the greatest barrier to the miscibility of the two worlds: the western world and the Islamic world!

Without digressing too much here, I should like to add that this is the main reason why George W Bush and Blair's venture into Iraq to bring democracy there was a grave error of judgment. How can one bring democracy to a region of the world where the people who inhabit that region believe that all power rests with Allah, and where they believe that Allah has prescribed their way of life for them for then, for now, and for all time?

I would suggest that where such a dichotomy exists, the most sensible and prudent thing to do would be for us to lead our lives as we see fit, and for those people to be allowed to live their lives as they see fit. That way, there would be hope of some peace in this world.

But this is not what we have done. We have done the very opposite of this: We have entered the Middle East in the hope - the vain hope in my opinion - of bringing our way of doing things, our way of life, to them; furthermore, we have allowed millions and millions of Muslims into the West - and at the very time when Christianity, the religion which underpins the West, is greatly weakened anyway - which will only give us headaches for the years ahead. Why? Because Muslims who immigrate bring their hopes and dreams and aspirations with them of establishing Islam everywhere on earth. To Islamize the world is the main aspiration of the Muslim; and we have seen these past weeks, the manifestation of aggression in its cause in France. For what happened in France was in no small part because of the Muslim's desire to establish Allah's caliphate here on earth. These were the first rumblings, the first roar of the lion! Expect more of this in the future, as Islam grows stronger and stronger.

Muslims, by and large, do not respect non-Muslims. How can they? Their religion does not allow them to do so. Their religion preaches that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims; indeed, they use the derogatory term infidel for us. This word to some Westerners might simply mean that they call us infidels because we are people who do not subscribe to their faith. This, after all, would be quite logical, since to us it simply means not fidele, or not true to the faith. But this does not completely describe what Muslims mean by this term. To Muslims, to be called an infidel is an insult indeed! It has connotations of inferiority, backwardness, and even uncleanness!

You see, Muslims believe that Islam is the perfection of religion for man for all time. They call it ad deen al kamal, the perfect religion. People, in their eyes, who have not yet submitted to the will of Allah, are in a state of pre-Islamic chaos, a state known to them as Jahiliyyah! To Muslims, all Muslims, the whole world is classified in two parts: that part of the world which has submitted, and is therefore in the Islamic state, known as Dar al Islam, and that part of the world which has yet to submit, and is therefore in a pre-Islamic, chaotic, jahiliyyic state, known as Dar al Harb, or the House of War!

The House of War is the part of the world which has yet to be taken over, and must at some point be taken over in the future. We, I am sorry to inform you, are in the House of War. So we can expect anything at anytime.

Some people would ask why we were able to go for quite a long time without problems with Muslims. The answer to that is a simple one indeed. First of all, there were relatively few Muslims living in the West, so the ones that did live here were not powerful. Secondly, Muslims living in the Islamic world were, for the most part and for many years, poor by anyone's standards. This all changed with the Oil Embargo of the 70s - a time when the price of oil on the world markets soared. As a result of this, the Islamic world became rich and empowered. Money is power; and it talks loudly! In recent years we have seen evidence aplenty of Islam being on the move. I tell you now: If we do not find a way of clipping its wings here in the West, we shall lose our democracy, and we shall be in deep, deep trouble.

So the trouble we will have with Muslims will not come only from without, but in the future we can expect trouble from the Muslims within. The millions of Muslims living here in the West will not integrate, because it is not in their worldview to do so. It is also forbidden them by their very own Prophet Himself, the Prophet Muhammad. He forbade Muslims even to befriend infidels. He also exhorted them to kill us. And he certainly told them that they should live separate lives, and dress and behave differently, so that they could easily tell themselves apart.

No Western politician is going to be able to change these facts. For facts they are indeed. Moreover, as Islam will grow here, their numbers will become greater and greater, and they will be able to use our democratic system to outvote us and introduce their form of government based as it is on their beloved Shariah, or quranic laws! How do you propose we shall be able to stop them? We shall be outnumbered, and as the outcome of democratic elections depends on the number of votes cast, we shall be able to do nothing about it! This time will come quicker than we might think, because so few babies are being born to infidel families.

The only thing left for people to do, will be to fight. Inevitably, at some point, civil war will ensue. If the political process fails people, then this will be all that will be left for them: civil war, guerre civile, Bürgerkrieg, call it what you will.

But one thing I can assure you, no politicians' sweet talk, posturing, or manœvring, will get us out of this one without conflict at some point in the future.

You see, one of the biggest problems for the West is its devotion to the concept of freedom of religion. This is a lofty concept and ideal indeed; but this devotion blinds people to one important reality: Islam is not just a religion, but a political system also. Indeed, it is more of a political system than anything else, and it is, in addition, a political system diametrically-opposed to our own. It abhors freedom of choice, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of anything that we so cherish! The only thing one is free to do in Islam is become a Muslim, and submit to the will of Allah!

These two systems are totally immiscible, and unfortunately, we have imported this immiscibility right into the heart of the West! To our own great disadvantage, and to the disadvantage of our long term peace and security. What, I ask you, will the Americans do when the ever growing Muslim population in America starts wanting to tinker with the Americans' beloved Constitution? When Muslims will see their way clear to supplant the Constitution with Shariah law?

Questions like these are the ones we should be grappling with NOW. To wait until the time comes would be foolish indeed.

Wake up to the harsh realities of life in the twenty-first century! We've got some collective thinking to do if we wish to save ourselves from darkness! Perhaps we shall, indeed, be forced to think about having to re-classify Islam as a political system first and foremost, a political system immiscible with our own, and one whose advance needs to be forestalled. This may be one of our only sensible alternatives. Since to give complete, unhampered freedom to Islam to grow here in the West is tantamount to digging our own graves!

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved