The suicidal folly of tolerating the intolerant

If we want to stop the terror, the violence, the attacks on our women, if we want to protect our freedom and the freedom of generations to come, we have to get rid of the dangerous concept of cultural relativism – the false idea that all cultures are equal. People are equal but cultures are not.

Cultural relativism is weakening the West day by day. Government leaders, lawyers, judges, churches, trade unions, media, academia, charities – the majority of them are still blinded by political correctness and are condoning Islam.

As a result a little bit of the free West dies each day. But the truth is that our culture and identity – based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism – is not equal to but far better than the Islamic culture of submission, intolerance and violence.

Our civilization, based on the legacy of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, is the best civilization on earth. It gave us democracy, freedom, equality before the law, the separation of church and state, and the notion of sovereign states to protect it all. The remedy to all the misery and terror is clear: we have to reassert what we are. Only then will we be able to ensure a future for our children. In Europe today, the problems we face are existential. Not economics but Islamisation, terrorism and mass-immigration are our main problems.

Existential indeed, because it determines who we are, what we are and if we will exist as free people in the future. We have to support each other. That’s why we all should always support the Jewish State of Israel. Israel is one of us, the only democracy in the Middle East, a beacon of freedom in an unfree region. Israel is forced to defend itself against the dark forces of Sunni and Shia Islam. It is our duty to always support Israel. Israel is a vital outpost of Western civilization, the canary in the coalmine. If Islam conquers Israel, we will be next. The Israeli-Arab conflict is proof that Huntington was wrong: there is no clash of civilizations, but a clash between our civilisation and barbarism.

We are the free men and women of the West. Those who want to deny freedom to us do not belong to our society. It is as simple as that.

Islam is dressed up as a religion but is in reality a totalitarian ideology. It wants to dominate any society and is unwilling to integrate and assimilate. There is not one single country in the world where Islam is dominant that is truly free. And there are two important reasons why Islam is not to be considered a religion. First, no religion should demand that those who leave it be killed. Second, a religion should never mandate the subjugation of those who do not belong to it.

Last month as a lawmaker I proposed a bill in the Dutch parliament unique to any parliament in the world. My bill, which will be discussed and voted upon in the legislature next year, is called the Ban on Islamic Manifestations Act. One of the best US presidents ever, the great Ronald Reagan, used to say: “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

So I proposes a bill saying: No more Islamic schools, burqas, Korans and mosques in public space. According to a national poll done by one of the major polling agencies in The Netherlands, this proposed bill got immediate support from 40% of the Dutch people. Millions of people, from Christian-Democrats to conservatives — even one-third of the electorate supporting the Dutch socialist party — were in favor of my proposal.

We have to face the facts. Moderation in the face of evil is evil itself. Islam indoctrinates people with hatred against our society. America’s sixth President, John Quincy Adams, was right when he said, “The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mohammed is the Prophet of God.” As was Winston Churchill, the great British wartime prime minister, when he called Islam a “retrogade force”.

There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. And Islamic terrorists may be only a minority, but polls suggest that they have the support of the majority. Surveys in my country reveal that 73% of the Islamic population in the Netherlands consider Muslims who went to Syria to fight in the jihad to be heroes.

And may I ask: Where are the mass-demonstrations of ten thousands of Muslims in Amsterdam, New York, London or Islamabad or anywhere else in the world, who do not agree with the violence committed in the name of Islam and its prophet after another terrorattack? Where are they when radical Muslims call for the Christian Pakistani girl Asia Bibi to be hanged for blasphemy? Where are they? I have not seen any them, have you? You have not because there have not been any.

The majority may not commit violence, but they do not oppose it either.

Of course the majority of the Muslims are not committing crimes of acts of terrorism. The question is, however, if the silent majority allows bad things to happen.

In Second World War Germany, too, it was only a minority that committed the atrocities. But the majority allowed it to happen.

In the Soviet Union, too, it was only a minority that committed the horrible crimes. But the majority allowed it to happen.

By depriving Islam of the means to destroy our identity, we are not violating freedom — we are preserving our identity and guaranteeing freedom.

It would be contradictory to sing the praise of freedom, while at the same time standing idly by when Islam is eating away our freedoms. I say: Stop this charade! We should not turn freedom into a snake eating its own tail.

Islam wants to enslave us all to Sharia law and kill everyone who resists or dares to reject it. Abraham Lincoln, the American president who liberated your country from slavery, said (I quote): “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.” I agree. It is not wrong to discriminate between good and evil, between democracy and tyranny, between freedom and slavery.

The terrible situation we are in today is caused by our tolerance of evil. We are too tolerant of intolerance, we are too tolerant of Islam. We think that by allowing freedom to the enemies of freedom we prove to the world that we stand for freedom. But in reality, by refusing to draw boundaries to our tolerance, we are handing away our freedom. I do not want Sharia law in the West; I want the West to stay free of Sharia law.

Listen to what Karl Popper, the famous philosopher, had to say and I quote: “Unlimited tolerance leads to the disappearance of the tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, than the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

So we should not be so tolerant that we open the door to the horror of intolerance. It is our duty as Western patriots to protect our children from slavery, to adopt a sensible view of freedom, and to secure our continued existence as free individuals in a free society.

We live in an age where people like the idea of rights, as long as they do not have to pay a price for it. But when duty and honor command them to defend those rights they often flee away and turn against those who do their duty.

They call us extremists, they drag us to court, they try to silence or even kill us. But, my friends, let us not fool ourselves. Churchill warned that when someone threatens to kill you, you had better take him seriously and do everything you can to stop him. Freedom has a price. And we must pay the price. A choice has to be made.

The choice is between Islam and freedom. There is no middle way. Submission is unacceptable. We are neither prepared to collaborate with evil, nor to appease it.

Defending our freedom, defending our way of life, is not a task that is solely in the hands of our brave men and women, fighting battles in far away lands. Defending freedom requires constant vigilance against those who attack it, right here, on the soil of our homeland. The enemies of freedom will not seek to overthrow the Constitution in a single day. Instead, they will try to erode it from within. They will chip away little pieces of liberty, with every attack on our freedom of speech. They will hack and grind and chisel until the granite cathedral of the Constitution is no more than a brittle and hollow façade.

Defending our freedom, defending our way of life, requires all of us to be vigilant, courageous and audacious. It requires all of us to raise our voice. To raise our voice against the enemies of freedom. Against the tyranny of islam. Against everyone who tries to silence us! My message is tough, but I am sure that we can win if we stand together and honor the legacy of the founding fathers of our great nations by preserving the freedom of our children of grandchildren.

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. So let us do our duty. Let us go forth with courage and save freedom!

The above is an edited extract of an address by Geert Wilders at the Restoration Weekend, Palm Beach, Florida, on November 17 2019. The full text of his speech can be found at this link.