Now, Geert Wilders is about to fly to the United States from Rome. He is scheduled to make public appearances in Washington this week, including a Feb. 27 press conference at the National Press Club. The chief sponsor of the event, reports Newsweek magazine, is Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., a prominent neoconservative think tank.
In its efforts to defend the "true image" of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish "Islamophobia" and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC's view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless "dialogues." It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations' own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values.
This reminds me of a dialogue I had some days ago with one of my readers. The subject, which is very much to the point, was Oriana Fallaci. "Rob, isn't Fallaci a tad, shall we say, excessive if not distasteful? I'm all for being vigilant but ... there are limits, no?" he told me. I answered him that, in my view, Oriana was a kind of lay prophet who turned out to have been right on all fronts. She was never a right-wing hawk, nor a "fanatic Christian fundamentalist." On the contrary, she was an agnostic and secularist journalist, trained, so to speak, in the school of facts and objectivity. Of course she was very provocative, and her latest writings—actually a very peculiar "literary genre"—were imbued with a sense of urgency that makes them both disturbing and enlightening. If she was "excessive," I argued, it was because of the "excessiveness" of our times. Well, actually I find that what happened to Wilders in his own Country and in the UK is "excessive," as much as what happened in Milan and in Bologna on January 3 was "exaggerated." And if so many people—here in Italy, as well as in other European countries—who, to speak frankly, are not and have never been extremists, who have always been respectful of other's religious beliefs, political views, and opinions on life and the world, have become or are becoming aware that it's time to wake up and to start facing facts, does this mean that they have suddenly become crazed fanatics and extremists?
Geert Wilders is maintaining that Europe's is rooted in the values of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and not in Mecca? What is wrong with it? Is this a crime? It would seem so, if we pay attention to some European governments, or the mainstream Western media and their grotesque mischaracterization of Wilders' unequivocal defense of free speech. "Demonizing Wilders, and imposing de facto limitations on his free speech criticism of Islam—not matter how reasonable his concerns may be—is a task for which our craven, lemming-like media elites are far better suited," writes Andrew G. Bostom on American Thinker.
I saw him on the "Glen Beck Show" this afternoon. At least he got in this country, though he and Beck laughed saying our immigration officials will let anybody in. It was an impressive interview. The show has only been on a month on Fox News, and in its time slot is number one, beating out, in combined ratings, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. It's already the third rated cable news show overall. So Mr. Wilders is off to a good start. The main stream media probably won't cover him since they side with the Dutch and English governments and are against free speech, unless it's their own, of course.
Wilders was on "The O'Reilly Factor" this evening. "O'Reilly challenges and Wilders was brilliant. I suspect it'll be on YouTube by tomorrow.
Freedom of speech and of the press are bedrocks of Western democracy, and I doubt that many in our societies seriously disagree with that. So how does Britain, supposedly the cradle of democracy, justify banning Wilders because of his ideas and what he might say?
I agree that it's good the U.S. let him enter, but if he tries to speak at a university, watch the addle-brained leftists of the faculty and their little robot students start rioting!
Saw the show clip via YouTube in the UK. First point is that O'Reilly should 'shut up' & let Geert Wilders make his points without constantly being shouted down & interupted. Other than that Geert Wilders was & is so right. The UK government (Labour) committed a most reprehensible act in denying him entry last week on the flimsy pretext that he would arouse public disquiet & his film conveys a "racist" message. This was all under the threat of a certain Lord Ahmed (Labour) threatening 10000 muslims demonstrating before parliament. This is the same Ahmed who has today been sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for a driving offence & has a previous record for drink driving. So threats of violence does work, as Ahmed proved. This only reinforces Wilders' argument, which is that islamists can say & threaten other religions & peoples at will but will not 'toletrate' to others the luxury they demand & grab.
Our weak kneed, kow-towing governments are acting like cowards in the face of islamofacist threats. What the government was doing was pandering to its muslim & islamofacist voters in the inner cities, whilst ignoring the very real concerns of the indigenous voters.The British people are disgusted with our excuse for a government & the peril it has placed us in.
Wilders, nor his film, does not incite any form of racism; it points out the areas of the koran which its cult leaders & terrorists quote to justify their own racist murders of the innocent. Is that racist? Is that anti islam? Is any critique of a film,book etc anti the author or producer? I think not.
The western civilisations must stand firm against the religion of peace or it will have us all in pieces.
"O'Reilly should 'shut up' & let Geert Wilders make his points without constantly being shouted down & interupted."
The O'Reilly interview is great. Wilders is exactly right when he says that most muslims are not terrorists, but almost all terrorists are muslims. The real question for the West is, are we going to surrender our cultures to Islam?