Geert Wilders update from the Telegraph, with thanks to Vulcan:
Mr Wilders, 42, spent eight months sleeping in a cell in a high-security prison after receiving death threats from Islamist groups before emerging for his No bus tour across the Netherlands. For security reasons, his stops are unannounced.In opposing the constitution, Mr Wilders finds himself in an uneasy alliance with much of the Dutch Left, which sees it as undermining Holland's social model and traditional liberalism.
Both ends of the spectrum are feeding off a growing distrust of mainstream politicians and resentment over a lack of consultation on Europe. Mr Wilders's message about the evils of immigration and the loss of sovereignty to a European superstate is, he said inspired by Margaret Thatcher. "She rejected Europe very strongly and as a result today, because we were weak, the Dutch are paying Brussels what the British should pay. British people know their history and are sceptical about Europe. They are very wise and we can learn from them," he said.
Mrs Thatcher is still a political taboo in the UK and Tony Blair cannot acknowledge that he is reaping the political and economic benefits of Thatchers policies.
Equally, the Conservative party is fearful of any reference to Mrs Thatcher, despite the fact she landed them a record electoral victories against a backdrop of a pro labour BBC, endless strikes and continual moonbat protests.
She is like a deceased mother in law who remains unmentioned, but continues to weald ghostly power over men and women of the family generation after generation.
Proof of this is that despite being in power since 1997, Tony Blair's New Labour hasn't rolled back a single Thatcher policy.
British conservatives should take note of the USA elections, where Bush steamrolled through massive protests and an acamedia seemingly Moore in touch with the hippies of Woodstock who never really had to plan further than then where to score the next joint.
Now, back to the topic ( a bit). I came across an article in today's Independent (Politically very close to the New York Times and very popular with readers who like to follow Robert Fisk's rants), which featured an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who along with Geert Wilders is rather unpopular with muslims. (i.e. They want her dead)
In contrast to Geert Wilders, she is pro EU constitution but the real surprise is that the Independent have published her anti muslim remarks.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the kind of character which has the left in ideological knots. She belongs to all the correct victim groups, ie. woman, black and immigrant and therefore has to be listened to. But when she comes out with "....why don't I have the right to call my own religion 'backward'?" the left have only one remaining way to respond. Use the blanket word 'religion' to cover up the sins of just one : Islam.
In this case the Independent simply neglected to mention the actual problem religion in the headline: 'There are atrocities performed in the name of culture and religion in Europe'
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=642628
Despite the title it's still refreshing to see that the Independent can publish such articles.
Sebastien:
Nice post. I'm impressed at how prescient Margaret Thatcher was in her policies. She will be recognized as one of Britain's great leaders. Now if we could only have someone like her in Canada.
In The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie called Mrs Thatcher 'Mrs Torture' and characterised her is an extremely crude and idiotic manner, conflating her, as many leftists are prone to do, with the worst excesses of fascist dictators.
When the Ayatollah stuck the fatwa on him and he got to realise what a real fascist looks like, Mrs Thatcher supported Rushdie 100% and faced down the petitions from Islamic leaders in Britain. She was staunch and steadfast.
Oh, the irony.
he said inspired by Margaret Thatcher. "She rejected Europe very strongly and as a result today, because we were weak, the Dutch are paying Brussels what the British should pay. British people know their history and are sceptical about Europe. They are very wise and we can learn from them," he said.
Right said Fred.
Sebastien -- you mentioned an Independant article in which Margaret Thatcher criticizes Islam. Do you have a link for that? (the link you gave above is for a Hirsi Ali article). Thanks,
metaxy
I always liked what Maggie T. said to George Bush the First during the build-up to 1991 Gulf War:
"Don't go wobbly on me now George."
He did, and he lost the next election.
She didn't, but the ungrateful members of her own party threw her out of office in the middle of that conflict.
Irony is when you are right too soon.
May a million British Boadicia's bloom!
In the early 80s the music paper the New Musical Express used to call her the Thatchatollah, cf. Ayatollah, because they were both so intractable.
However she was responsible for saying (wields handbag)
There is no such thing as society
an attitude which in many ways is responsible for a lot of the selfishness current today. She was not completely responsible for it, no one person is, she was describing something that had been a generation in the making, but her policies took it furthur.
And when we try here to raise awareness of why Islam is a threat, and why a little inconvenience must be accepted to defeat that threat, when we meet the "don't care, what's it to do with me?" brick wall, that attitude is also part of her legacy.
Thatcher definitely got it right. It will be interesting to see what the Franco-German Neo-socialists will do to themselves. I have been talking to a few Englishmen on line and we all agree that the UK and Poland ought to join the US in a free trade agreement and leave the socialists to themselves.
After a few years, the UK and Poland will become the strongest EU economies, and the French and Germans will be psychologically devastated after their system fails, and will come crawling back to the "Anglo-Saxon Model", or what we call a "Market Economy".
Just imagine what the UK and Poland could do without having to provide for the french "social model"?
Metaxy, I apologize if my post gave the impression that Mrs Thatcher criticised Islam. However as I found it impossible to believe that she would think very highly of the religion of peace I decided to Google "Thatcher Islam" and came up with this gem http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2001-10/05/article6.shtml
She's one of us.
Thanks Sebastien. You say "She's one of us" -- I often wonder what it is that makes people one of us, and what makes others so obstinately not one of us.
It's clear that there has evolved a culture ("Leftist" for want of another term) over the past few decades that frames this issue of the problem of Islam within a PC multi-culturalist self-ashamed-of-the-West paradigm which includes an irrational fear of succumbing to racism and intolerance. It's also becoming abundantly clear that, for the most part, people on the "Right" (conservative Christians and conservative atheists) have a more rational culture of thought that has prepared them well for assessing the mountain of data that demonstrates the deadly and pernicious nature of Islamic culture. Only a tiny handful of "Leftists" are on our side (Christopher Hitchens, Paul Berman, David Horowitz, Oriana Fallaci, Michel Houllebecq, Bernard Henri-Levy, Alexandre Del Valle, Brigitte Bardot, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the late Theo Van Gogh, the late Pim Fortuyn), and when they do speak out for reason, they are vilified by their Leftist peers. This is not only an annoying shame -- it will increasingly prove to be dangerous for our collective self-defense in the years to come.
"ONE OF US"
All it takes to be one of us is the belief and realisation that our personal liberty is threatened by this foul religion.
All women are threatened.
All gays.
All non moslems
All women who ride bikes
All members of local performing arts groups
All musicians
All artists
All financial consultants who arrange loans that charge interest.
EVERYONE IS ONE OF US
I have added this link before and will do it again:
http://www.themuslimweekly.com/newspaper/viewfullstory.aspx?NewsID=NW00002041
If any one here is a member of the Conservative party please bring it to the attention of people.
From even casual enquiries that i have made i can tell you it has caused absolute fury amongst siks/hindus.buddhists that i know.
Labour can pander to the moslems if they want.
What the conservative party needs to do is court the votes of the above groups.
The tragedy and the shame is that all of the above have been on the "shit end of the stick" with regards
to islam. If we criticise islam how can we be accused of racism ?
My father has always been a labour supporter, he was furious when he saw the article.
islam is not a religious issue it is a human rights issue. This is what we have to make clear to people.
Regards
AI
wE WILL WIN BECAUSE WE ARE A FREE PEOPLE
"ONE OF US"
All it takes to be one of us is the belief and realisation that our personal liberty is threatened by this foul religion.
All women are threatened.
All gays.
All non moslems
All women who ride bikes
All members of local performing arts groups
All musicians
All artists
All financial consultants who arrange loans that charge interest.
EVERYONE IS ONE OF US
I have added this link before and will do it again:
http://www.themuslimweekly.com/newspaper/viewfullstory.aspx?NewsID=NW00002041
If any one here is a member of the Conservative party please bring it to the attention of people.
From even casual enquiries that i have made i can tell you it has caused absolute fury amongst siks/hindus.buddhists that i know.
Labour can pander to the moslems if they want.
What the conservative party needs to do is court the votes of the above groups.
The tragedy and the shame is that all of the above have been on the "shit end of the stick" with regards
to islam. If we criticise islam how can we be accused of racism ?
My father has always been a labour supporter, he was furious when he saw the article.
islam is not a religious issue it is a human rights issue. This is what we have to make clear to people.
Regards
AI
wE WILL WIN BECAUSE WE ARE A FREE PEOPLE
"ONE OF US"
All it takes to be one of us is the belief and realisation that our personal liberty is threatened by this foul religion.
All women are threatened.
All gays.
All non moslems
All women who ride bikes
All members of local performing arts groups
All musicians
All artists
All financial consultants who arrange loans that charge interest.
EVERYONE IS ONE OF US
I have added this link before and will do it again:
http://www.themuslimweekly.com/newspaper/viewfullstory.aspx?NewsID=NW00002041
If any one here is a member of the Conservative party please bring it to the attention of people.
From even casual enquiries that i have made i can tell you it has caused absolute fury amongst siks/hindus.buddhists that i know.
Labour can pander to the moslems if they want.
What the conservative party needs to do is court the votes of the above groups.
The tragedy and the shame is that all of the above have been on the "shit end of the stick" with regards
to islam. If we criticise islam how can we be accused of racism ?
My father has always been a labour supporter, he was furious when he saw the article.
islam is not a religious issue it is a human rights issue. This is what we have to make clear to people.
Regards
AI
wE WILL WIN BECAUSE WE ARE A FREE PEOPLE
Thatcher may have got it right on Islam, but she always played on the polictics of identity and public fears about immigration. She's a person who called Mandela a terrorist or refused to condone apartheid. Her opposition to immigration was also non-sensical. Without immigrants and their skills infrastructural facilities like NHS would have long crumbled. Moreover tories have a sense of superiority complex over immigrants. In UK racism is live and kicking largely because people like Thactcher failed to take any concrete steps to end it. You guys will probably never experience racism. But i've experience worst kinds of abuses and taunts. Theres very little you can do except swallow your pride and self respect. Whatever be her legacy but to immigrant population she would always remain a racist Iron Lady.
Please, no revisionism. Thugcher was the most odious object in my lifetime, a grating-voiced, gimlet-eyed governess with the impact of nails scraped across plastic and a mind whose self-regard was only equalled by its shallowness. She was blindly racist and her attitude to Europe depended not on any belief in democracy, but on her belief that Britons should not associate with racially inferior wogs. Of course she would not like Islam - most of those who practiced it had even darker skins than the wogs in Brussels and others points south. She was wrong about everything and was eventually dispatched by her own party, when they realized that they had to destroy her or be destroyed themselves. Incidentally, nothing is more odious about Tony Blair, whom I call the Tory Blur, than his disgusting dependence on her. This country tried to vote out the Tories in 1997 and got back a Tory government in disguise, precipitating a nationwide estrangement from politics that has not yet seen its worst fruits develop. Meg Thug and the Tory Blur: two symptoms of the British disease.
Royal Festival Hall 1971. Margaret Thatcher the Minister for Education spoke to an assembly of English 6th formers. Including a miniskirted young Weatherwax.
Unfortunately my shouting Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher at her didn't stop her career one little bit. Put me in lumber with the deputy headmistress however.
Someone I know saw her at a local tory party do recently. She is frail, confused and a shadow of her former self. Unlike Barbara Castle who kept her marbles and her passion to the end.
For once i wish that Brighton bomber had succeded.
"For once i wish that Brighton bomber had succeded."
Hmmm, and what makes this statement any different than cheering after the 9/11 attacks? You, sir, are a hypocrite.
u dont ralise how bitter we are about Thatcher. 9/11 wasnt justified in any sense. Thatcher is a lady who considers every non-white as an inferior race. She's another one of so-called greats from "White man's burden" cult.I'm not an IRA supporter nor an apologist but i dont consider it a terrorist organisation. They fought for a cause Al Qaeda doesn't. But she's a lady who let 9 men including MP Bobby Sands starve to death in an Ulster prison, she certainly deserves to be tried for it. You'd know better if u were an non-white Brit.
KT, did you have any purpose here other than to belabour commentary by auto-attacking everyone? Mere curiousity, of course.
Imam Geoff
Vikrant_Camberleykar: you forget the three unarmed IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar on her orders - an action that degraded the British Army to the level of a hit squad at the orders of a mafia boss. The ten hunger strikers started their own "protest" themselves, when already in the can for terrorist crimes; the Gibraltar three, though certainly members of a terrorist organization, were nothing more than unarmed suspects, and a civilized state would have arrested and convicted them. Meg Thug sent the SAS to riddle them with bullet on the street.