NEVER Give In

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, a Dutch Parliamentarian and chairman
of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York,
introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad
Conference in Jerusalem (which I hope to be attending).

The speech was sponsored by the Hudson Institute on September 25 (2008)

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come
from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January
1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the
government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that's new to me.

It's great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office
buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: "The sky over New York and the
will of man made visible." Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been
nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we
are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we
possibly could have done.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is
a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We
might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is
a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to
America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the
scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last
bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation
or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe
risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming
a reality.

My short lecture consists of 4 parts.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will
say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a
little bit about the movie you just saw. To close I will tell you about a
meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The
Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome's ancient buildings and maybe the
canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the
same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist
destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see - and one
that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the
parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a
new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few
indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might
regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves,
where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group
of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps
ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I
cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These
are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim
neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These
are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger
portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city
by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger
congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there
are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region.
Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam,
Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18
population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim
neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned,
because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult
to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food
to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost
exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear "whore, whore".
Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in
the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid
authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the
same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in
many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England
sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many
neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves.
Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels,
because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in
record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World
War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and
Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about
Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego
University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the
population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis
has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the
Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs
of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see
their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of
French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for
Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in
favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch
Muslims admit they "understand" the 9/11 attacks.

Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them
respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we
have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into
official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam
is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic
attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if
there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from
Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty
crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus
drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income
suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I
call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators "settlers". Because that
is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they
come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are
settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against
non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their
cities, their countries.

Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They
believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level,
Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or
the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to
do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam
itself.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know
about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah's
personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where
the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah's word and therefore
not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and
for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure,
there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The
Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to
fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every
Muslim, Islam is to rule the world - by the sword. The Quran is clearly
anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet.
His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if
Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa
wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a
mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time.
Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies
murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself
slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of
slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality
than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is
bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah's own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most
important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion.
Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence
Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules
for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every
aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with
freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to
compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism,
these are all totalitarian ideologies.

This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is
going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of
Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal,
that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill
called Islam "the most retrograde force in the world", and why he compared
Mein Kampf to the Quran.

Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to
educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran stands at the
heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted
to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not
belong to its fringes.

Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a
stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political
storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The
Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible
attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the
Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due
for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban
threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in
Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I
ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I
would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions.
Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced
that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary
General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein
as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an
absolute disgrace, a sell-out.

A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet.
Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there
were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the
Netherlands because of Fitna.

Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we
will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to
loose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has
wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the
aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending
Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it
dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland
after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second
because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of
defense.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: "Islam has bloody borders". Israel is
located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault
line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the
front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern
Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply
in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the
West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for
all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would
have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest.
Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake
at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of
the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the
grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go
down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our
Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept
our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous
encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the
demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of
Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the
beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination.
If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that
the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing
Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are
losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is
even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts,
the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire
political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of
multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all
critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. The
entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and
Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this
moment in Europe's history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up
for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal
Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very
few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel,
Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation
is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and
tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get
along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President
Reagan so aptly called: "the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our
freedom."

If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites.
Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the
citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire
political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a
rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs
on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent
of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one
policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the
biggest threat to our national identity. I don't think the public opinion in
Holland is very different from other European countries.

Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are growing, against all odds. My own
party debuted two years ago, with five percent of the vote. Now it stands at
ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all similarly-minded parties
in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining
footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.

Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and
exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that
might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be
Europe's last chance.

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor
Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the
Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in
Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and
that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select
audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will only admit
parties that are solidly democratic.

This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This
Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political
parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your
support.

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold
fast to the dream that, thanks tot its location, it is safe from jihad and
shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from
ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet
there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario
of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster
than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and
democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of
military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies
with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone
to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had
to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by
people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American
cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose
memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely
its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe's
children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a
deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We
cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen
dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided
with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation,
giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw
lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons
from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:

"Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large
or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of
the enemy".