Today I spoke in Berlin at a rally against antisemitism and Islamization, sponsored by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa (BPE), the most important German human rights organization, seeking to preserve European values, freedom and democracy. BPE is not tied to any political party, but has members that belong to all the German democratic parties. As an NGO, BPE also participates in conferences of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Other speakers included Renè Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin Parliament for the Christian Democrats (Angela Merkel’s party); Michael Höhne-Pattberg, a former member of the Green Party who left his longtime political associates after trying to awaken his fellow Leftists to the perils of Islamic supremacism, to no avail; Willi Schwend, the BPE President; and Achim Swietlik, Vice President of the BPE Berlin Chapter.
Leftists and their jihadist allies marched by twice in a counterdemonstration, shouting “Nazis raus” — Nazis, get out. The people assembled for the BPE rally shouted the same thing right back at them. Of course, there were no Nazis among us, and we were standing against antisemitism and in favor of free speech, legal equality, and democratic government, but the facts never stop the Left from making the charge, as we have all learned recently from stateside libelbloggers.
Many people at our rally had Israeli flags, and as you can see from the photo, I had one also. Not long after this picture was taken I got it mounted on a flagpole and waved it around at the beginning and end of my talk. The German police told the BPE organizers that we had to put the Israeli flags away when Leftists and Jihadis passed by. They told the same thing to several people in the crowd, including one man, Florian Euring, who was kind enough to explain the whole situation to me. Apparently the police were afraid that the Israeli flag would “provoke” the Leftist/jihadist demonstrators. But as I am not fond of placating thuggery and kowtowing before Islamic supremacism, I thought, well, if the police really don’t want the Israeli flag shown, let them arrest an American citizen, and then things will get even more interesting. So I went out front, close to the counterdemonstrators, waving the big flag, but the German police moved me back. They may also have said to put the flag away, but I have forgotten all my grad-school German, and so the flag stayed. A reporter, demonstrating an objectivity level on par with that of, say, Michael Kruse, passed by with a barrage of sharp words for me and my flag — but I still didn’t understand German.
During my talk, which was translated on the spot by Christine Dietrich of Politically Incorrect (where there are more photos), I spoke about the new Obama-sponsored anti-free speech resolution at the UN, and how it was of a piece with the spurious charges of the counterdemonstrators. Both represent attempts to demonize the resistance to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism as “hatred,” “racism,” “fascism.” I explained why the charges are not and cannot be true, as we were there in defense of Western Constitutional government, freedom of speech, legal equality, etc., and had no race-based issue with Islam or Muslims at all — or any inclination to look kindly upon white Western Islamic supremacists like Talib Islam, John Walker Lindh, Adam Gadahn, etc. I showed how the Koran actually manifests the religious hatred and incitement to discrimination and violence about which the resolution speaks, but noted that this resolution will never be used against Islamic jihadists. After all, it was crafted not to silence them, but to render the West mute and hence defenseless against the advancing jihad.
The situation is very grave, but as long as there are even just a few lovers of freedom left, the game is not over. And there are more than a few in Berlin; it was a pleasure and honor to meet them.