“It is a process of the Netherlands, of Germany, of France redefining who and what we are. Right now, we don’t know who we want to be. All we know is that we don’t want it to be Muslim.” From the Washington Times, with thanks to Anthony:
AMSTERDAM – Parliamentarian Geert Wilders sees himself as the legendary Dutch boy, finger in the dike, holding back a rising tide of immigrants that threatens to swamp the Netherlands and all of Europe.
“Immigration is the biggest problem that Dutch society is facing today,” said Mr. Wilders, in his office in The Hague.
“We have been so tolerant of others’ culture and religion, we are losing our own. … Europe is losing itself. … One day we will wake up, and it will be too late. [Immigration] will have killed our country and our democracy.”
The intense politician spoke under the watchful eye of bodyguards, as his picture has been posted on Muslim Web sites calling for his beheading.
Mr. Wilders’ passion reflects a problem confronting much of Europe.
Old, cold and settled in its ways, the Continent struggles to absorb waves of immigrants, to protect itself from the growing hatred of Muslim militants in their midst and to live with the dark fear of a world spinning out of control….
Mr. Wilders demands, and many support, a five-year moratorium on all non-Western immigration, even to unite a legally working husband with his family.
He wants illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers deported, and all immigrants to have a working knowledge of the Dutch language before they arrive.
To remain in the Netherlands, a newcomer should pass a basic civics exam, one that few Dutch could pass.
Mr. Wilders calls mosques “houses of terror and recruitment” for jihad. He describes Islam as “dangerous” and “fascist,” articulating the fears of many.
He says that Muslims beat their wives and children, and occasionally kill a daughter who wishes to marry outside the faith. He says that imams preach that homosexuals “” even in a society where same-sex “marriage” is legal “” should be executed.
“I am talking about non-Western immigration to the Netherlands,” Mr. Wilders said in a recent interview.
“The lessons of Pim Fortuyn have not been learned.”…
Jan Rath, who also teaches ethnic and immigration studies at the University of Amsterdam, said that Holland’s historic acceptance of religious minorities such as the Mayflower Pilgrims masks a different reality.
When Reform Protestants took power in Holland in the 16th century, Catholics were allowed to stay and worship, but only if they did so in “hidden” churches. He said the Muslims would be facing less resistance today if they were not so obvious.
“I understand the emotional difficulty of seeing your society change before your eyes. My mother is an older Catholic, and the people in her neighborhood and church are very upset that they are building a mosque in her neighborhood.
“The priest had to remind them that not so long ago there were restrictions on Catholics, like her, from building churches” in Protestant Holland, Mr. Rath said.
But are the two situations really equivalent? Hysterical polemics aside, the Catholic Church doesn’t really have a comprehensive program for governing states that its adherents are pressing forward as the law of God. In other words, the Church has nothing comparable to the Sharia.
Rachid ben Larbi, a Moroccan from Tangiers, in Holland only 18 months, already speaks Dutch, to go along with his Arabic, Spanish, French and English.
“The problem is not with the new generation, but with the old generation,” he said while helping customers with new cell phones, easily switching among English, Dutch and Arabic.
“How can you ask a 45-year-old woman, from the Moroccan countryside with three or four children, to integrate? The government should give her time,” he said….
“Time solves a lot of things,” said Mr. Rath, of the University of Amsterdam. “It is a process of the Netherlands, of Germany, of France redefining who and what we are. Right now, we don’t know who we want to be. All we know is that we don’t want it to be Muslim.”