Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who has been tried twice for "hate speech" because he has pointed out some unpleasant truths about muslims and Islam, the [death cult] "Religion of Peace", wrote this speech for a meeting in Rome. He is incredibly articulate, well-informed, and accurate in his assessment of the dangers of both multi-culturalism and Islam:
The Failure of Multiculturalism and How to Turn the Tide
Speech by Geert Wilders, Rome, 25 March 2011
Signore e signori, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends of the Magna Carta
Foundation, molte grazie. Thank you for inviting me to Rome. It is great to be here
in this beautiful city which for many centuries was the capital and the centre of
Europe’s Judeo-Christian culture.
Together with Jerusalem and Athens, Rome is the cradle of our Western
civilization — the most advanced and superior civilization the world has ever
known.
As Westerners, we share the same Judeo-Christian culture. I am from the
Netherlands and you are from Italy. Our national cultures are branches of the
same tree. We do not belong to multiple cultures, but to different branches of one
single culture. This is why when we come to Rome, we all come home in a sense.
We belong here, as we also belong in Athens and in Jerusalem.
It is important that we know where our roots are. If we lose them we become
deracinated. We become men and women without a culture.
I am here today to talk about multiculturalism. This term has a number of different
meanings. I use the term to refer to a specific political ideology. It advocates that
all cultures are equal. If they are equal it follows that the state is not allowed to
promote any specific cultural values as central and dominant. In other words:
multiculturalism holds that the state should not promote a leitkultur, which
immigrants have to accept if they want to live in our midst.
It is this ideology of cultural relativism which the German Chancellor Angela
Merkel recently referred to when she said that multiculturalism has proved “an
absolute failure
My friends, I dare say that we have known this all along. Indeed, the premise of the
multiculturalist ideology is wrong. Cultures are not equal. They are different,
because their roots are different. That is why the multiculturalists try to destroy our
roots.
Rome is a very appropriate place to address these issues. There is an old saying
which people of our Western culture are all familiar with. “When in Rome, do as
the Romans do,” it says. This is an obvious truth: If you move somewhere, you
must adapt to the laws and customs of the land.
The multicultural society has undermined this rule of common sense and decency.
The multicultural society tells the newcomers who settle in our cities and villages:
You are free to behave contrary to our norms and values. Because your norms and
values are just as good, perhaps even better, than ours.
It is, indeed, appropriate to discuss these matters here in Rome, because the
history of Rome also serves as a warning.
Will Durant, the famous 20th century American historian, wrote that “A great
civilization cannot be destroyed from outside if it has not already destroyed itself
from within.” This is exactly what happened here, in Rome, 16 centuries ago.
In the 5th century, the Roman Empire fell to the Germanic Barbarians. There is no
doubt that the Roman civilization was far superior to that of the Barbarians. And
yet, Rome fell. Rome fell because it had suffered a loss of belief in its own
civilization. It had lost the will to stand up and fight for survival.
Rome did not fall overnight. Rome fell gradually. The Romans scarcely noticed
what was happening. They did not perceive the immigration of the Barbarians as a
threat until it was too late. For decades, Germanic Barbarians, attracted by the
prosperity of the Empire, had been crossing the border.
At first, the attraction of the Empire on newcomers could be seen as a sign of the
cultural, political and economic superiority of Rome. People came to find a better
life which their own culture could not provide. But then, on December 31st in the
year 406, the Rhine froze and tens of thousands of Germanic Barbarians, crossed
the river, flooded the Empire and went on a rampage, destroying every city they
passed. In 410, Rome was sacked.
The fall of Rome was a traumatic experience. Numerous books have been written
about the cataclysmal event and Europeans were warned not to make the same
mistake again. In 1899, in his book ‘The River War,’ Winston Churchill warned that
Islam is threatening Europe in the same way as the Barbarians once threatened
Rome. “Mohammedanism,” Churchill wrote — I quote — “is a militant and
proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. […] The
civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
End of quote.
Churchill is right. However, if Europe falls, it will fall because, like ancient Rome, it
no longer believes in the superiority of its own civilization. It will fall because it
foolishly believes that all cultures are equal and that, consequently, there is no
reason why we should fight for our own culture in order to preserve it.
This failure to defend our own culture has turned immigration into the most
dangerous threat that can be used against the West. Multiculturalism has made us
so tolerant that we tolerate the intolerant.
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: Our opponents are keenly aware of our
weakness. They realize that the pattern which led to the fall of Rome, is at play
today in the West. They are keenly aware of the importance of Rome as a symbol of
the West. Over and over again they hint at the fall of Rome. Rome is constantly on
their minds.
The former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan said — I quote: “The whole of
Europe will become Islamic. We will conquer Rome”.
Yunis al-Astal, a Hamas cleric and member of the Palestinian Parliament said
— I quote: “Very soon Rome will be conquered.”
Ali Al-Faqir, the former Jordanian Minister of Religion, stated that — I quote:
“Islam will conquer Rome.”
Sheikh Muhammad al-Arifi, imam of the mosque of the Saudi Defence
Academy, said — I quote: “We will control Rome and introduce Islam in it.”
Our opponents are hoping for an event that is akin to the freezing of the Rhine in
406, when thousands of immigrants will be given an easy opportunity to cross
massively into the West.
In a 1974 speech to the UN, the Algerian President Houari Boumédienne, said
— I quote: “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to
go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because
they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The
wombs of our women will give us victory.” End of quote.
Libyan dictator Kadhafi said, I quote: “There are tens of millions of Muslims
in the European continent today and their number is on the increase. This is
the clear indication that the European continent will be converted into Islam.
Europe will one day soon be a Muslim continent.” End of quote.
Our opponents are aiming for a repetition of the fall of Rome in the 5th century
and want to use exactly the same methods. “The strategy of exporting human
beings and having them breed in abundance is the simplest way to take possession
of a territory,” warned the famous Italian author Oriana Fallaci.
However, the situation today could be worse than it was when the Roman Empire
fell. The Germanic Barbarians who overran Rome were not driven by an ideology.
After having sacked Rome, they eventually adopted the Judeo-Christian civilization
of Rome. They destroyed Rome because they wanted its riches, but they realized
and recognized that Roman civilization was superior to their own Barbaric culture.
Having destroyed Rome, the Germanic tribes eventually tried to rebuild it. In 800,
the Frankish leader Charlemagne had himself crowned Roman Emperor. Three
hundred years later, the Franks and the other Europeans would go on the Crusades
in defence of their Christian culture. The Crusades were as Oriana Fallaci wrote — I
quote — a “counter-offensive designed to stem Islamic expansionism in Europe.”
Rome had fallen, but like a phoenix it had risen again.
Contrary to the Barbarians which confronted Rome, the followers of Muhammad
are driven by an ideology which they want to impose on us.
Islam is a totalitarian ideology. Islamic Shariah law supervises every detail of life.
Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to our
values. Respect for people who think otherwise, the equality of men and women,
the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, respect for Christians, Jews,
unbelievers and apostates, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech,
they are all under pressure because of islamization.
Europe is islamizing at a rapid pace. Many European cities have large islamic
concentrations. In some neighbourhoods, Islamic regulations are already being
enforced. Women’s rights are being trampled. We are confronted with headscarves
and burqa’s, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. “In each one of
our cities” says Oriana Fallaci, “there is a second city, a state within the state, a
government within the government. A Muslim city, a city ruled by the Koran.”
—
End of quote.
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The multiculturalist Left is facilitating
islamization. Leftist multiculturalists are cheering for every new shariah bank, for
every new islamic school, for every new mosque. Multiculturalists consider Islam
as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It
doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is
guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the
media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.
Ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in Europe today has to some extent been
deliberately planned
In October 2009, Andrew Neather, the former advisor of British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, confirmed that the British Government had deliberately organized mass
immigration as part of a social engineering project. The Blair Government wanted
to — I quote — “make the UK truly multicultural.” To achieve this end, 2.3 million
foreigners were allowed to enter Britain between 2000 and 2009. Neather says this
policy has “enriched” Britain.
Ordinary people, however, do not consider the decline of societal cohesion, the rise
of crime, the transformation of their old neighborhoods into no-go zones, to be an
“enrichment.”
Ordinary people are well aware that they are witnessing a population replacement
phenomenon. Ordinary people feel attached to the civilization which their
ancestors created. They do not want it to be replaced by a multicultural society
where the values of the immigrants are considered as good as their own. It is not
xenophobia or islamophobia to consider our Western culture as superior to other
cultures — it is plain common sense.
Fortunately, we are still living in a democracy. The opinion of ordinary people still
matters. I am the leader of the Dutch Party of Freedom which aims to halt the
Islamization process and defend the traditional values and liberties in the
Netherlands. The Party of Freedom is the fastest growing party in the Netherlands.
Because the message of my party is so important, I support initiatives to establish
similar parties in other countries, such as Germany, France and the United
Kingdom, where they do not yet exist. Last month, a poll in Britain showed that a
staggering 48 percent of the British would consider supporting a non-fascist and
non-violent party that vows to crack down on immigration and Islamic extremists
and restrict the building of mosques. In October last year, I was in Berlin where I
gave a keynote speech at a meeting of Die Freiheit, a newly established party led by
René Stadtkewitz, a former Christian-Democrat. German polls indicate that such a
party has a potential of 20 percent of the electorate.
My speech, in which I urged the Germans to stop feeling ashamed about their
German identity drew a lot of media attention. Two weeks later, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that multiculturalism is “an absolute failure.”
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Bavarian Christian-Democrats, was even more
outspoken. “Multiculturalism is dead,” he said.
Last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “We have been too concerned
about the identity of the immigrant and not enough about the identity of the
country that was receiving him.” — End of quote.
Five weeks ago, British Prime Minister David Cameron blamed multiculturalism
for Islamic extremism. “We have allowed the weakening of our collective identity,”
he said. “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged
different cultures to live […] apart from the mainstream.” — End of quote.
In his speech, David Cameron still makes a distinction between the Islamist
ideology, which he calls extremist and dangerous, and Islam, which he says is
peaceful religion. I do not share this view, and neither did Cameron’s great
predecessor Winston Churchill. Stating that Islam is peaceful is a multiculturalist
dogma which is contrary to the truth.
Politicians such as Merkel. Sarkozy and Cameron still do not seem to have
understood what the problem really is. Nevertheless, the fact that they feel
compelled to distance themselves from multiculturalism is a clear indication that
they realize they need to pay lip-service to what the majority of their populations
have long understood. Namely that the massive influx of immigrants from Islamic
countries is the most negative development that Europe has known in the past 50
years.
Yesterday, a prestigious poll in the Netherlands revealed that 50 percent of the
Dutch are of the opinion that Islam and democracy are not compatible, while 42
percent think they are. Even two thirds of the voters of the Liberal Party and of the
Christian-Democrat Party are convinced that Islam and democracy are not
compatible.
This, then, is the political legacy of multiculturalism. While the parties of the Left
have found themselves a new electorate, the establishment parties of the Right still
harbour their belief that Islam is a religion of peace on a par with peaceful religions
such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and others.
The problem with multiculturalism is a refusal to see reality. The reality that our
civilization is superior, and the reality that Islam is a dangerous ideology.
Today, we are confronted with political unrest in the Arab countries. Autocratic
regimes, such as that of Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Kadhafi in Libya,
the Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, and others, have been toppled or are under attack.
The Arab peoples long for freedom. This is only natural. However, the ideology and
culture of Islam is so deeply entrenched in these countries that real freedom is
simply impossible. As long as Islam remains dominant there can be no real
freedom.
Let us face reality. On March 8, the International Women’s Day, 300 women
demonstrated on Cairo’s Tahrir Square in post-Mubarak Egypt. Within minutes,
the women were charged by a group of bearded men, who beat them up and
dragged them away. Some were even sexually assaulted. The police did not
interfere. [Note: It was worse than stated here. A number of unmarried
muslim women were taken to a police station were they were subjected to a
"virginity test" which consisted of torture, sexual assault and "examination"
by a physician to prove virginity.
http://www.mydaily.com/2011/03/24/
virginity-test-female-protesters-egypt/]
This is the new Egypt: On Monday, people demonstrate for freedom; on
Tuesday, the same people beat up women because they, too, demand freedom.
I fear that in Islamic countries, democracy will not lead to real freedom. A survey
by the American Pew Center found that 59 percent of Egyptians prefer democracy
to any other form of government. However, 85 percent say that Islam’s influence
on politics is good, 82 percent believe that adulterers should be stoned, 84 percent
want the death penalty for apostates, and 77 percent say that thieves should be
flogged or have their hands cut off.
Ronald Reagan was right when he called Kadhafi a “mad dog.” However, we should
not harbor the illusion that there can be real freedom and real democracy in a
country where Islam is dominant. There is no doubt that the results of the Pew
survey in Egypt apply in Libya, too. It is not in our interest to bring the Muslim
Brotherhood to power in Tripoli and install a khalifate in Libya.
Of course, the world has to stop Kadhafi from killing his own people. However, as
UN Resolution 1973 stated last week, this is primarily the responsibility of — I
quote — “in particular [the] States of the region.” End of quote. Why does a
country like the Netherlands have to contribute six F16 fighter jets to enforce the
arms embargo in Libya, while Saudi Arabia does not contribute a single plane from
its fleet of nearly 300 fighter jets? Arabs are dying, but the Arab countries are
shirking their responsibilities.
And one of the major threats of the current crisis is not even addressed by our
leaders: How are we going to prevent that thousands of economic fugitives and
fortune seekers cross the Mediterranean and arrive at place like Lampedusa? Now
that Tunisia is liberated, young Tunisians should help to rebuild their country
instead of leaving for Lampedusa. Europe cannot afford another influx of
thousands of refugees.
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is time to wake up. We need to confront reality and we need to speak the truth.
The truth is that Islam is evil, and the reality is that Islam is a threat to us.
Before I continue I want to make clear, however, that I do not have a problem with
Muslims as such. There are many moderate Muslims. That is why I always make a
clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam.
There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.
Islam strives for world domination. The koran commands Muslims to exercise
jihad and impose shariah law.
Telling the truth about immigration and warning that Islam might not be as
benevolent as the ruling elite says, has been made a hate speech crime in several
EU member states. As you probably know, I have been brought to court on charges
of hate speech. That is the paradox of the multicultural society. It claims to be
pluralistic, but allows only one point of view of world affairs, namely that all
cultures are equal and that they are all good.
The fact that we are treated as criminals for telling the truth must not, however,
deter us. The truth that Islam is evil has always been obvious
to our ancestors.
That
is why they fought. It was very clear to them that our civilization was far
superior
to Islam.
It is not difficult to understand why our culture is far better than Islam. We
Europeans, whether we be Christians, Jews, agnostics or atheists, believe in
reason. We have always known that nothing good could be expected from Islam.
While our culture is rooted in Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, Islam’s roots are the
desert and the brain of Muhammad. Our ancestors understood the consequences
very well. The Koran, wrote the historian Theophanes, who lived in the second half
of the 8th century, is based on hallucinations.
“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find
things only evil and inhuman,” the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II said in 1391,
adding: “God is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonable is contrary to
God’s nature.”
For 1,400 years, Westerners have been criticizing Islam and its founder because
they recognized evil when they saw it. But then, suddenly, in the last decades of the
past century, especially from the 1970s onwards, Western intellectuals stopped
doing so.
The moral and cultural relativism of Marxism led the West’s political and
intellectual elites to adopt a utopian belief in a universal brotherhood of mankind.
Multiculturalism is a culture of repudiation of Europe’s heritage and freedoms. It
weakens the West day by day. It leads to the self-censorship of the media and
academia, the collapse of the education system, the emasculation of the churches,
the subversion of the nation-state, the break-down of our free society.
While today — at last — our leaders seem to realize what a disastrous failure
multiculturalism has been, multiculturalism is not dead yet. More is needed to
defeat multiculturalism than the simple proclamations that it has been an “absolute
failure.” What is needed is that we turn the tide of Islamization.
There are a few things which we can do in this regard.
One thing which we should do is to oppose the introduction of Sharia or Islamic
law in our countries. In about a dozen states in the United States, legislation is
currently being introduced to prevent the introduction of Sharia. In early May, I
will be travelling to the U.S. to express my support to these initiatives. We should
consider similar measures in Europe.
Another thing which we should do is support Muslims who want to leave Islam. An
International Women’s Day is useless in the Arab world if there is no International
Leave Islam Day. I propose the introduction of such a day in which we can honor
the courageous men and women who want to leave Islam. Perhaps we can pick a
symbolic date for such a day and establish an annual prize for an individual who
has turned his back on Islam or an organization which helps people to liberate
themselves from Islam. It is very easy to become a Muslim. All one has to do is to
pronounce the Shahada, the Islamic creed, which says — I quote “There is no god
but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” It should be equally easy to
leave Islam by pronouncing a counter-Shahada, which says “I leave Islam and join
humankind.”
A third measure to turn the tide of Islamization is to reemphasize the sovereignty
of the nation-state. The peoples of the free world will only be able to fight back
against Islam if they can rally around a flag with which they can identify. This flag,
symbolizing pre-political loyalty, can only be the flag of our nation. In the West,
our freedoms are embodied in our nation-states. This is why the multiculturalists
are hostile to the nation-state and aim to destroy it.
National identity is an inclusive identity: It welcomes everyone, whatever his
religion or race, who is willing to assimilate into a nation by sharing the fate and
future of a people. It ties the individual to an inheritance, a tradition, a loyalty, and
a culture.
I want to elaborate a bit on this since we are gathered here today in Rome. Again, it
is appropriate that we are in Rome. In this city, in 1957, and — what an ironic
coincidence — on this very day, the 25th of March, the Treaty of Rome was signed.
This Treaty obliges the member states of the European Union to aim for “an ever
closer union.”
Unfortunately, this union, like other multinational organizations, has become one
of the vehicles for the promotion of multiculturalism. The EU has fallen in the
hands of a multiculturalist elite who by undermining national sovereignty destroy
the capacity of the peoples of Europe to democratically decide their own future.
The new government in my country, which is supported by my party, wants to
restrict immigration. That is what our voters want. But we are confronted by the
fact that our policies have to a large extent been outsourced to “Europe” and that
our voters no longer have a direct say over their own future.
On account of international treaties, EU legislation prevails over national
legislation and cannot be reversed by national parliaments. Indeed, in 2008, the
European Court of Justice, the highest court in the EU, annulled both Irish and
Danish immigration legislation. The Court stated that national law is subordinate
to whatever is ruled on the European level. In March 2010, the European Court of
Justice annulled Dutch legislation restricting family reunification for immigrants
on welfare.
The ease with which Europe’s political elite conducts an immigration policy aimed
at the deracination of Europe shows the insensitivity of this elite. It willingly
sacrifices its own people to its political goal, without any consideration for the
people involved.
Lower class blue-collar people have been driven from their neighborhoods. There
is no respect for their democratic vote. On the contrary, people who do not agree
with the multiculturalist schemes are considered to be racists and xenophobes,
while the undefined offence of “racism and xenophobia” has been made central to
all moral pronouncements by the European Union, the Council of Europe, the
United Nations, and other supra-national organizations. This represents a
systematic assault by the elite on the ordinary feelings of national loyalty.
In 2008, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that the
member-states must — I quote — “condemn and combat Islamophobia” and ensure
“that school textbooks do not portray Islam as a hostile or threatening religion.” —
end of quote.
In March 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution
criminalizing so-called “defamation of religions.” The resolution, authored by
Pakistan, mentions only one religion by name: Islam. With its 57 member states the
Organization of the Islamic Conference systematically uses its voting power in the
UN to subvert the concept of freedom and human rights. In 1990, the OIC rejected
the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and replaced it by the Cairo
Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which states in articles 24 that — I quote
— “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the
Islamic Sharia.” — end of quote.
This “human rights” charade has to stop if Western civilization wants to survive.
Human rights exist for the protection of individuals, not religions and ideologies.
The EU’s aim, meanwhile, seems to be to destroy the old sovereign nations and
replace them by new provincial identities, which are all clones of each other.
Britanistan will not differ from Netherlandistan, nor Germanistan from Italiastan,
or any other province of the European superstate in the making.
We must reclaim Europe. We can only do so by giving political power back to the
nation-state. By defending the nation-states which we love, we defend our own
identity. By defending our identity, we defend who we are and what we are against
those who want to deracinate us. Against those who want to cut us from our roots,
so that our culture withers away and dies.
My friends,
Twenty years after the ordinary people, Europe’s mainstream conservative leaders,
such as Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron, have finally — better late than never —
come to the obvious conclusion, namely that multiculturalism is a failure.
However, they do not have a plan to remedy the situation.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for change. We must make haste. Time is running
out. Ronald Reagan said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”. That is
why I propose the following measures in order to preserve our freedom:
First, we will have to defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our
liberties. If we are free to speak, we will be able to tell people the truth and they
will realize what is at stake.
Second, we will have to end cultural relativism. To the multiculturalists, we must
proudly proclaim: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Only
when we are convinced of that, we will be willing to fight for our own identity.
Third, we will have to stop Islamization. Because more Islam means less freedom.
We must stop immigration from Islamic countries, we must expel criminal
immigrants, we must forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough
Islam in Europe already. Immigrants must assimilate and adapt to our values:
Fourth, we must restore the supremacy and sovereignty of the nation-state. Because we are citizens of these states, we can take pride in them. We love our nation because they are our home, because they are the legacy which our fathers bestowed on us and which we want to bestow on our children. We are not multiculturalists, we are patriots. And because we are patriots, we are willing to fight for freedom.
Let me end with a final — and a positive — remark: Though the situation is bad and multiculturalism is still predominant, we are in better shape than the Roman Empire was before its fall.
The Roman Empire was not a democracy. The Romans did not have freedom of speech. We are the free men of the West. We do not fight for an Empire, we fight for ourselves. We fight for our national republics. You fight for Italy, I fight for the Netherlands, others fight for France, Germany, Britain, Denmark or Spain. Together we stand. Together we represent the nations of Europe.
I am confident that if we can safeguard freedom of speech and democracy, our civilization will be able to survive. Europe will not fall. We, Europe’s patriots, will not allow it.
Thank you very much.
