I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life – economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book – but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state. Islam is totally contrary to our values.
Geert Wilders, March 2009
Andrew G. Bostom
American Thinker
10/18/2010
Islamic correctness, which criminalizes any criticism of Islam, is a rising force in the world, and not merely in Muslim-majority countries. Even in traditionally tolerant Holland, a combination of misguided liberal multiculturalism and a fear of violence from immigrants has led to a sometimes farcical prosecution.
This past Friday (10/15/10), Dutch prosecutors asked the presiding judges to acquit Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders on all charges of inciting hate and discrimination arising from his comments on Islam.
Wilders was unsurprisingly “very happy” with the prosecutors’ recommendations, adding with his usual plainspoken lucidity, “I do not insult, I do not incite to hatred, I do not discriminate. The only thing I do and will continue to do is to speak the truth.”
However, former U.S. federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy underscores an important caveat regarding the presiding judges: they could ignore the recommendations of the Dutch prosecutors and convict Wilders when they deliver their verdict next month. McCarthy reminds us that the Dutch prosecutors never desired to charge Wilders, but they were in effect “overruled” by the Dutch judiciary…
…But Wilders’ assessment not only comports with scholarly observations made (primarily) before the advent of the postmodern Western scourge of cultural relativism, it is supported by contemporary hard polling data from 2006/2007 and their more recent follow-up reported February 25, 2009.
At present, overwhelming Muslim majorities — i.e., better than two-thirds (see the weighted average calculated here) of a well-conducted survey of the world’s most significant and populous Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries — want these immoderate outcomes: “strict application” of Shari’a, Islamic Law, and a global Caliphate. Specifically, the World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll (released February 25, 2009) indicated the following about our putative Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan: 81% of the Muslims of “moderate” Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a “strict” application of Shari’a, Islamic Law; 76% of the Pakistan’s Muslims — one of the most important and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations — also want this outcome. Furthermore, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the recreation of a “single Islamic state or Caliphate.” Elsewhere, I have detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.
And these concrete data validate eminent Western scholarly appraisals of Islamic despotism, or in modern parlance, totalitarianism…
The entire article is at American Thinker.
Update: Gates of Vienna, Throw this case out!:
Our Flemish correspondent VH sends a report of yesterday’s proceedings in the Geert Wilders trial, based on translated material from the Dutch press. The focus is on the plea by Bram Moszkowicz, who demanded that Wilders’ case should be thrown out, since the court convicted him in advance…
