Geert Wilders: The Anti-Fascist
March 16, 2010 - Frank Gaffney, Jr.
At a time when President Obama insists that the most pressing threat facing America is the growing cost of health care, a recent speech in Britain's House of Lords by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders is a salutary reminder of what is really endangering us all: The rising tide of Islamic supremacism codified by authoritative Islam in the brutally repressive law of Shariah – the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran among other Islamic states.
For pointing out that danger and striving in his native Netherlands to counteract it, Mr. Wilders is being reviled and slandered. Condemnation from the Islamists is to be expected. Ditto the attacks from their friends on the political Left. Unfortunately, he has also recently been sharply criticized by several prominent and influential American conservatives. On Fox News last week, Glenn Beck called him "a fascist," Bill Kristol said he was "a demagogue" and Charles Krauthammer described him as "extreme, radical and wrong."
With all due respect to my friends in the media, let me paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: I know Geert Wilders, Geert Wilders is a friend of mine and Geert Wilders is no fascist, demagogue or extremist.
In fact, at great personal cost and with extraordinary courage, Geert Wilders has been trying to save his country from the true fascists of our time, those whose demagoguery is unmistakable and whose extremism is all too real: Shariah-adherent Muslims in the Netherlands, in Europe more generally and in the wider world – including, increasingly here in the United States.
Now, I have had my disagreements with Mr. Wilders – primarily about the way he sometimes characterizes the problem posed by Shariah. But let there be no doubt: He is committed to protecting freedom and Western civilization in an era when too many are choosing the easier course of ignoring the gathering threat being posed to them by Shariah-inspired, fascistic Islamic supremacism.
Geert Wilders does so in the tradition of others who valiantly fought earlier efforts to impose intolerant and repressive ideologies on free societies. Indeed, in his appearance before Britain's House of Lords on March 5th, he invoked: Ronald Reagan who famously declared, "We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow;" George Orwell's "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear;" and Winston Churchill's comparison of the Koran to Mein Kampf and "Winnie's" century-old admonitions about the threat "Mohammedanism" poses to Western civilization.
[In his address in London at the invitation of Baroness Caroline Cox and Lord Malcolm Pearson – two of Parliament's greatest contemporary champions of freedom, Mr. Wilder noted caustically that he is on trial in the Netherlands today for making the same comparison as Churchill did in his Nobel Prize-winning history of the Second World War. He then asked rhetorically, "I wonder if Britain will ever put the beliefs of Winston Churchill on trial?"]
Perhaps Geert Wilders' most trenchant warning concerns the alarming political nexus between the Left and the Islamists – what some have called the "Red-Green axis." He told the House of Lords: "The Left is facilitating Islamization. Leftists, liberals, are cheering for every new Shariah bank being created, for every new Shariah mortgage, for every new Islamic school, for every new Shariah court. Leftists 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 practicing cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties."
In the face of these perils, Geert Wilders offers policies that infuriate the adherents to Shariah and their allies on the political Left – and that strike as "extreme" some who have yet to confront the danger this axis poses to the Free World and Western civilization. He calls for Europe to adopt something akin to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment – hardly the stuff of fascism. He proudly and correctly declares the West's tolerant, freedom-rooted culture as superior to that of totalitarian Shariah Islam.
Mr. Wilders also seeks an end to mass immigration from Islamic countries, expulsion of criminal immigrants and a halt to further construction of mosques. Clearly, in some quarters, these are seen as controversial proposals. But they reflect a harsh demographic reality: Failure to take such steps will inevitably condemn free societies like the Netherlands to submission at the hands of swelling numbers of Shariah-adherent Muslims.
Geert Wilders' courage in standing up to the Red-Green axis and its shared agenda of destroying Western civilization has made him the man of the hour in his country. Even as he is being prosecuted by his government for exercising free speech, his commitment to protecting it and other liberties has made his Freedom Party the most popular in parts of the Netherlands – and given him a good shot at becoming the next Dutch prime minister in elections to be held there in June.
All of us who hate fascism need to recognize the real source of that threat in Europe and elsewhere today. It arises from Shariah's adherents, not those like Geert Wilders who thankfully are standing up to that totalitarian ideology in the tradition of great democratic anti-fascists like Reagan, Orwell and Churchill. As such, Mr. Wilders deserves our thanks and support, not denunciations from fellow freedom-fighters that unintentionally provides political cover for our common enemies' efforts to discredit and, if possible, to kill him.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.
I am an politically-independent Jewish conservative who, unlike many of my politically conservative fellow Jews and non-Jews, is willing to hold "our side" accountable when they err.
In this spirit, I publicly repudiated former President George W. Bush for his anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Muslim policies as well as his repeated lies about Islam and the war we in which we are engaged; a war not of our choosing.
Conservatives and Republicans are and were wrong to give President Bush a pass when he violated conservative principles, as Glenn Beck has done with Mr. Wilders. Many conservatives are willfully and shamefully silent on Glenn Beck's latest transgression.
As far as Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol are concerned, in my view, these two were apologists for George W. Bush. Now it would appear they are Jewish for totalitarian Islam.
posted by : Steve Klein
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Correction. I meant to write:
As far as Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol are concerned, in my view, these two were apologists for George W. Bush. Now it would appear they are Jewish apologists for totalitarian Islam.
posted by : Steve Klein
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 11:59 AM
The old testament speaks of the "little foxes that spoil the vines". It is not the open offensive that will destroy us; that usually unites us. But the weak politicans who will not stand upon principle and allow our constitution to be trampled underfoot are allowing the "little foxes" in. They have already burrowed into our institutions of higher learning, permeate the current administration and are seen in religious organizations that should no better than to capitulate to islam which has not quarter for anyone with differing beliefs when they are in power. Observer the countries where they are in charge. One would have to be blind or willingly stick their head in the sand not to see it.
Geert Wilders is carrying the torch behind which we should offer support as well. He knows very well the price of his stand yet he is taking it because the enemy is at our door and is trying to break it down. May we stand strong in this fight along side men like Mr. Wilders.
posted by : Artaxerxes
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 12:10 AM
He is only ignoring the Islamic issues because he is a Muslim (admittedly - accidently of course, and then pretended it was a non-issue). The Little "o" is a very dangerous man for this country and he sits in the big chair with the big button. How safe do you feel now?
posted by : Phyllis
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 01:11 PM
I only wish Wilders was running for election here in Britain.
Our Labour government has secretly imported millions of muslims, mainly from tribal Pakistan as a deliberate ploy to gain a voting base and disrupt our nationality.
That's what the left does.
Google Neather to find out more and weep for a Britain lost to a horde of third world barbarians who whilst taking all the state can give, offer not one jot of gratitude or respect in return.
Wev are in big trouble and now it's down to the likes of Wilders to extricate us from this mess.
posted by : logdon
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 04:21 PM
I concur completely with Steve Klein and the other posters. This new wrinkle - whereby so-called and once-respected "Conservatives" dare to call Wilders "fascist," etc. - is most disturbing; and Gaffney is spot-on by identifying the Left as a total enabler of Islam and the Islamicists. It is a dreadful "meeting of the minds" and collaboration - in a word, a double-headed enemy. But with Beck et al's recent lies about Wilders, a whole new world of evil, ignorance & lies seems to have opened up - and I, for one, am more disturbed about this unbelievable state of affairs than anything since 911. We are in a fight for our civilizational lives - and too many of our friends, family & acquaintii are in complete ignorance of that fact. I'm beginning to feel like the little boy who cried "wolf!" only I'm not kidding! Perhaps it's more like the Greek goddess Cassandra who prophesied the Trojan War but was dismissed as a raving lunatic. HELP!!!
posted by : Joy
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 07:38 AM
