It is the same story again and again and again: any voice raised against a political and social system that mandates the end of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, and second-class status for women and non-believers, is consigned to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “racism,” “nativism,” “xenophobia,” etc. Those who make these charges never point to someone and say, “This person is engaging in valid criticism of Sharia and jihad terror, without tipping over into bigotry” — although Hamas-linked CAIR and others have claimed that there are such people, they have never named one, and I think it is safe to say that they never will, because for years now Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies have leveled these charges against people (including me) who were not in the least bigoted, racist, hateful or xenophobic. In reality, they tar anyone and everyone, without exception (remember Bill Maher?) with these labels if he or she dares to stand for a society that guarantees equality of rights of all people before the law, as opposed to Sharia.
The effect of this has been what I suspect was the intended effect all along: to intimidate large numbers of people (including the political and media elites) into thinking that they must not stand too strongly against Sharia, jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, because if they do, they’ll be smeared with the “bigotry” charge, which will result in their professional (and possibly personal) demonization, marginalization, and isolation.
But in refusing to acknowledge that critics of Sharia oppression and jihad terror have any valid point at all, the elites are becoming increasingly out of touch with the masses of people, who have to live with the consequences of the policies they foist upon us. By here refusing to acknowledge that PEGIDA has any valid reason to be concerned about anything regarding immigration and the Islamization of Germany, Merkel is not solving the problems that PEGIDA is calling upon her government to address. Those problems will not go away. And by foreclosing on an honest public discussion of them, Merkel is only fostering resentment among those who know the problems are real and aren’t just a question of “bigotry,” and emboldening the exponents of Islamization to become more aggressive, knowing that the government will not stand against them. All this ultimately makes it harder for there to be a resolution to these problems that doesn’t involve a serious disruption of German society.
Merkel is not alone in this, of course. She is just a clone of Cameron and Obama and Hollande and so many others. History will look back on them, if free people still exist to take that look back, as those who squandered the patrimony of Western civilization and destroyed free society in the interests of chimeras, myths, half-truths, and comforting fictions.
“Merkel tells Germans not to attend anti-Islam rallies,” by Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press, December 31, 2014:
BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday warned the country’s citizens not to participate in weekly anti-Islam rallies that have attracted growing numbers of supporters in the eastern German city of Dresden.
Merkel condemned the organizers of the protests and said they were driven by prejudices and hatred against foreigners.
The chancellor used unusually direct words in her New Year’s speech on Wednesday for the rallies organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA which have been attended by thousands.
When the protesters chant “we are the people,” they actually mean to say “you don’t belong — because of your religion or your skin color,” Merkel said.
PEGIDA organizers insist they are protesting only against extremism and not against immigrants or Islam itself, but the demonstrations have received support from far-right groups, prompting concerns that anti-foreigner sentiment might be rising….