Bat Ye’or, a hero of our age, with Spencer
In “Geert Wilders and the Fight for Europe” in National Review, February 16, the renowned historian Bat Ye’or discusses the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s (OIC) efforts to criminalize free speech, and the Wilders case and its implications for Europe and the free world in general:
[…] In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC”s view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations” own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe “” where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values.
Geert Wilders is the latest victim of this enormous world machinery. His crime is maintaining that Europe’s civilization is rooted in the values of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and the Enlightenment “” and not in Mecca, Baghdad, Andalusia, and al-Kods. He fights for Europe’s independence from the Caliphate and for its endangered freedoms. He had received serious death threats even before Fitna was released.
Many Muslims in the West support him, but Geert Wilders”s principal weapons are his courage and his willingness to resist even his own government, which is slowly submitting to the OIC”s pressures. Wilders”s enemies pretend that he is an insignificant personality who makes “provocative” statements only in search of fame. In fact, if his motivation were self-interest, he could do far better by courting the OIC”s favors “” as so many Europeans are doing, consciously or unconsciously “” rather than risking his freedom and indeed his life.
Read it all.