The evening' speakers in high spirits. From left to right: Hans Rustad (Norway), the Swedes Gunnar Sandelin and Ingrid Carlqvist and the Danes Lars Hedegaard and Mikael Jalving. Photo: Steen

(COPENHAGEN, 2 February) “Come and listen to what you will never see, hear or read in the Swedish media.”

This is a quote from the invitation to the Swedish Free Press Society’s first meeting, which took place on 31 January in the City of Malmoe across the bridge from the Danish capital Copenhagen.

That same evening yet another murder and yet another bombing of a police station were added to the seemingly endless cycle of gangland violence in the Southern Swedish city. The number of unsolved murders in Malmoe since last summer now stands at eight and the city has acquired a reputation as the Murder Capital of Northern Europe.

But despite escalating violence and biting cold, 120 people turned up for the meeting, which was held under the watchful eye of about 20 uniformed and armed police in addition to a number of fierce-looking plainclothes agents that were there to protect the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been the target of several assassination attempts.

The Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist – the principal organiser of the event – had ample reason to be satisfied as she bid welcome to the audience and speakers:

“This is a historic meeting,” she said.

“We are here to break some taboos and let’s begin with the biggest one of all – Sweden’s immigration policies.”

Total blackout

As one of the evening’s speakers, the Swedish journalist Gunnar Sandelin, could testify, it is a risky business to write the truth about this national taboo.

In 2008 he wrote a critical piece for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter under the headline “Journalists impose blackout on immigration”. Since then he has been unable to find a steady job.

The article documented that the vast majority of so-called refugees have no legitimate reason to ask for asylum.

What is really taking place is a hugely expensive, camouflaged immigration. “In addition,” said Sandelin in his Malmoe speech, “we have no knowledge at all about who is entering the country. The great majority come without any identification papers and present the immigration authorities with cooked-up stories.

Many anonymous members of the immigration service are well aware of what is going on. Yet nothing is done.

“This ought to be an obvious issue for Swedish journalists but nobody wants to touch it. They simply impose a blackout when it comes to the entire problem of unregulated mass immigration. Instead they spend their time stigmatizing people who dare speak up. This is not a healthy social climate.”

Sandelin quoted a poll indicating that 90 pct. of the population agree that the Swedish media are not telling the truth about immigration and its consequences.

“Make them weep”

As a former journalist with the state-owned TV channel SVT Sandelin was able to reveal how the channel views its role when it comes to immigration.

At some point he asked his boss why the reporters kept labelling immigrants as refugees when it was evident that they were not.

“My boss informed me that immigrants are weak and that it is therefore the obligation of TV-journalists to be on their side.

Immigrants had to be presented as so pitiful that viewers would weep.”

According to Gunnar Sandelin, this is a highly ideological issue.

”It used to be the workers who were weak by definition – today it is the immigrants. We are being ruled by a sort of mental Stalinism that determines what roles various social groups must play. As a consequence, people are being misled and kept in the dark as to what is really going on.”

Inequality before the law

The other speakers were two Danes and one Norwegian.

President of the Danish Free Press Society Lars Hedegaard attributed most current threats against free speech to the fact the entire vision of an idyllic multicultural society has unravelled.

“As we can see in city after city and country after country, multiculturalism and cultural relativity have created problems so vast that politicians no longer know how to solve them. Angela Merkel has admitted that the multicultural utopia is off the table and so have David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy. But if they cannot solve the problems, they can at least try to prevent people from speaking about them.”

The result, said Lars Hedegaard, is the introduction of so-called “hate speech” and “racism” clauses in the penal codes and an ensuing string of convictions all over Europe. The problem is compounded by the fact that laws against insult are being applied selectively leading to inequality before the law.

“Some people are being punished for saying what the specially favoured – those defined as ‘week’ or righteous – can utter with impunity. In fact, the most favoured can say pretty much whatever they want.”

Hedegaard made a point of stressing that successful integration of immigrants cannot take place in a climate where people are afraid to speak their mind. “Who would integrate into a society that responds to any attack by limiting the rights of its own citizens?” he asked.

“Without free speech we cannot solve the problems of society. We cannot even identify them.”

Cracks in “The Realm of Silence”

The other Danish speaker, journalist and author Mikael Jalving, is quite an expert on Swedish debating culture. He spent most of a year travelling around the country in an attempt to get the Swedes to talk.

It proved difficult. He did, however, manage to collect enough material to write a book entitled “Absolute Sweden” in which he characterises the country as “The Realm of Silence”.

“There is a lot of discussion taking place in Sweden,” he told the audience in Malmoe. “But people rarely debate matters of import. That’s why I’m positively surprised that today we have a Free Press Society here in Malmoe. I wouldn’t have believed that two years ago.”

Sweden wants to be best

Hans Rustad, the editor of the popular Norwegian website Document.no, had also made the trip to Malmoe. He delivered a brief characterisation of Swedish immigration policies as it looks from a Norwegian perspective:

“Viewed from the outside, Sweden seems to have a great need to be the best. You want to be number one in goodness and tolerance, which is why you compete with other countries in the discipline of having the most liberal immigration policy.”

“But in the process you have given up your own identity and that is dangerous. That is why I wish the Swedish Free Press Society success and good luck.”

Brian Lilley exposes a recent attempt to silence Sun TV in the segment below. To see his full blog post which includes the “offending” advertisement which ran on Sun TV, see Brian’s blog post here.

If after watching this segment, you are offended by this most recent attempt to silence Sun TV, please consider sending an email expressing your support for Sun TV’s freedom to speak to the CBSC.

MODERATED BY: Christine Williams, Producer/Host, CTS-TV

HOLD THIS DATE
Monday, October 24, 2011
7:30 P.M.
Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue
55 Yeomans Road, Toronto

Admission Free

CO-SPONSORSING ORGANIZATIONS
B’nai Brith Canada in association with Advocates for Civil Liberties, Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Association
Christians United for Israel, International Free Press Society, Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue and the Jewish Tribune

For more information, please call B’nai Brith Canada at (416) 633-6224 ext. 112

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Columnist Andrew Bolt outside the Federal Court in Melbourne after being found guilty of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. Picture: Trevor Pinder Source: Herald Sun

Bolt breached discrimination act – court

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Bolt breached discrimination act – court

A court has found News Limited columnist Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act.

 HERALD Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has lost an action brought in the Federal Court in which the columnist was accused of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act.

Bolt was found to have contravened Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Nine aboriginal applicants brought a class-action against Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times claiming Bolt wrote they sought professional advantage from the colour of their skin.

There were cheers and applause in the court when Justice Mordecai Bromberg read out his verdict.

He found that “fair-skinned Aboriginal people (or some of them) were reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to have been offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations conveyed in the newspaper articles” published in the Herald Sun.

In a brief statement outside the Melbourne court after the judgment, Bolt said “This is a terrible day for freedom of speech in this country.”

“I argued then and I argue now that we should not insist on differences between us but focus instead on what unites us as human beings.”

The Herald and Weekly Times, publisher of the Herald Sun, has not confirmed whether it will appeal the decision. The judge ordered parties to confer on on relief, which is expected to include a declaration by the publisher that the HWT and Bolt contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Judge Bromberg also expects the parties agree to prohibit republication of the newspaper articles. The nine “fair-skinned Aboriginals” party to the action led by Pat Eatock, including Larissa Behrendt did not seek monetary compensation or an apology from Bolt. The relief between the parties is anticipated to include costs.

After the decision, which was greeted by applause and cheers in the Federal Court, Pat Eatock said “It’s never been an issue of freedom of speech, it’s been an issue of professionalism.”

The Justice ruled that Bolt could not use fair comment or public interest to defence those particular articles.

At issue was Bolt’s assertion that the nine applicants had chosen to identify themselves as “Aboriginal” and consequently win grants, prizes and career advancement, despite their apparently fair skin and mixed heritage.

The nine applicants were led by activist Pat Eatock and included artist Bindi Cole, NSW Australian of the Year Larissa Behrendt, author Anita Heiss and former ATSIC chief Geoff Clark.

Four articles published by the Herald Sun columnist in the newspaper and his blog were “a head-on assault on a group of highly successful and high-achieving” Aborigines, Ron Merkel QC told the court during proceedings in late March and early April.

The nine people sought an apology from the Herald & Weekly Times and an order against republishing, but no compensation.

In an occasionally explosive case, Bolt’s writings about Aboriginal identity were painted as being akin to a “eugenics approach” and similar to writings that led to the Holocaust.

Bolt subsequently protested the slurs in court as “an unforgivable travesty.”

In concluding the eight day proceedings, counsel for the plaintiffs conceded Bolt’s writings did not incite “racial vilification or racial hatred”, rather they “constituted highly personal, highly derogatory and highly offensive attacks” on the nine individuals.

It would appear though, that what he was chanting was, E. E. EDL as explained in this presumably related story.

No room for extremism

THE sentence given to a man who chanted racist slogans outside a South Yorkshire mosque should stand as a stern lesson to anyone else who feels tempted to follow suit and stoke up hatred.

English Defence League supporter Daniel Parker will now have eight long months to come to terms with the error of his judgement and unacceptable behaviour.

We live in an age when understanding rather than hatred is needed more than ever.

All Parker achieved, apart from the loss of his liberty, was to play into the hands of extremists on both sides of the growing divide between communities in this country.

He should think himself lucky that the court did not serve the toughest sentence in its armoury for this offence, for then he could be spending years rather than months in paying the price for his actions.

There is no room for extremism, of any form and from anyone.

We are sure that our right-thinking readers will agree and welcome this sentence.

When legislation was passed making multiculturalism an “official” characteristic of Canada, the hope was that it would entice immigrants to celebrate their native cultures while adopting the liberal ethos of their new country. But Robert Sibley draws on the views of Muslim scholars, journalists and activists to argue that the 9/11 attacks revealed the flaws and failures of the state-promoted policy.

The Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is kind of a grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house.

— Muslim Brotherhood strategic plan for North America, 1991. Discovered in 2004 during an FBI raid on a house in Anandale, Virginia.

A couple of days after the 9/11 attacks, Raheel Raza received a phone call from a minister at the United Church in the Toronto neighbourhood where she lives. The minister wanted Raza to speak at the church that coming Sunday, to say something that might help the congregation understand the horrific events.

“She said her parishioners were terribly upset and she wanted a Muslim to speak to her congregation and I was the Muslim she knew best,” says Raza, recalling that phone call 10 years later. “I didn’t know what to say. What could I tell them? I was as shocked as anybody.”

Nevertheless, Raza, a journalist and activist, accepted the invitation. “But I had to make a choice. Was I going to be an apologist for Islam or was I going to actually address the issue of what was wrong with Islam.”

She chose the latter. That Sunday, Raza stood in the church pulpit and told 250 parishioners that those 19 Muslims who took part in the 9/11 attacks represented a perverse interpretation of Islam, and, yes, that perversion was present in North America as part of a deliberate effort to Islamize the West.

That speaking engagement would the first of many. For the next couple of years, Raza regularly spent Sundays in churches across Ontario, trying to explain this new world of Islamist terrorism that had crashed into Canadians’ lives.

But it was also the beginning of a period of reflection. “9/11 was a turning point for me,” says Raza, the author of Their Jihad … Not My Jihad that argues for Muslims to reclaim their faith from Islamic extremists. “I knew things were happening (in the Muslim community) I didn’t like before 9/11. So the attacks came as a surprise, but not as a total shock. But after the attacks I knew I had to stand up and speak the truth and say, yes, there are problems in Islam. 9/11 brought this whole issue (of Islamist ideology) to the forefront.”

But it’s not just Muslims that need to confront the dark elements of their faith, says Raza. Non-Muslim Canadians, too, must recognize their liberal democratic traditions are threatened, and government-sanctioned multicultural policies make it worse. “When I first landed in Canada and heard the word ‘multiculturalism’ I thought this country was telling me I could enjoy my culture, but at the same time it was my responsibility to adapt and blend into this new culture. It took me a while to realize that official multiculturalism, as promoted by the Canadian government, allowed people to ghettoize themselves. So, I was a multiculti fan until I realized it was doing more harm than good.”

That message is, no doubt, unwelcome to those sold on the beneficence of Canada’s four-decade-old attachment to multiculturalism. Yet it is a message that since 9/11 has acquired considerable resonance for a small group of Muslims attempting to prevent ultraorthodox Muslims from hijacking the faith and using the excuse of multiculturalism to import 7th-century tribal practices into 21st-century Canada.

“Canada is losing out because it drank the Kool-Aid of multiculturalism,” says Salim Mansur, a political scientist at the University of Western Ontario and the author of a newly published book, Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism. “This has profoundly weakened the country in its ability to get new immigrants to adopt Canadian values. The historical legacy of multiculturalism leads many immigrants to no longer make the effort to become Canadian.”

“Some of the practices allowed in the name of multiculturalism are fundamentally in contravention of western values,” says Muslim activist and scholar Farzana Hassan, the author of two books calling for Islam’s reformation, Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest of Islam, and Islam, Women and the Challenge of Today. “We have this abusive multiculturalism now, and it has become the West’s Achilles heel.”

Salma Siddiqui, the vice-president of the Canadian Muslim Congress, echoes that argument, saying “multiculturalism is faulty in that it has created conditions that make assimilation (of immigrants) hard. It’s not just failing Muslims immigrants. It’s failing all immigrants.”

Multiculturalism arrived in Canada in 1971. At the height of the Quebec crisis, Pierre Trudeau’s government conceived of multiculturalism as a way to dilute Quebec nationalism and, more generally, to promote tolerance in an increasing pluralistic and diversely populated country — “a feel-good public pronouncement that would do no harm,” as Mansur puts it. Like many theories, no one gave much thought to its long-term practical consequences. And so, in 1988 Brian Mulroney passed legislation making multiculturalism an “official” characteristic of Canada. The political elites hoped multiculturalism would entice immigrants to celebrate their native cultures while adopting the liberal ethos of their new country. (The Liberals, and later the Tories, also regarded multiculturalism as a vote-grabbing mechanism, but that’s another story.)

Instead, multiculturalism morphed into a decidedly anti-western posture. Multicultural theory, at its extreme, asserts that assimilating immigrants from non-western countries is morally wrong because it presumes the superiority of western culture. Assimilation thus amounts to coercion. Liberal societies, the argument went, must accept not only the immigrants but also their cultures. Indeed, the assertion of those immigrants’ cultural values becomes a fundamental right.

For moderate Muslims, that’s a formula for the West’s cultural suicide. The imposition of multicultural policies on a liberal western country like Canada has allowed the importation of cultural ascriptions and practices that are inimical to liberal traditions. And the fact that so many opinion-makers, politicians and otherwise avowedly secular liberals ignore this is, they say, disappointingly credulous and dangerously delusional. Multiculturalism weakens Canada as an open, tolerant, liberal society by granting minority groups opposed to the basic principles of liberal order the “right” to promote their hostility even as they benefit from the society they abuse.

“Multiculturalism is the slippery slope that leads to the acceptance or appeasement of the politics of jihad within a liberal democracy,” says Mansur. “The worm inside the doctrine of multiculturalism is the lie that all cultures are worthy of equal respect and equally embracing of individual freedom and democracy. The concerted assault by the Islamists on the essential and life-affirming values based on individual rights and freedoms is proof of this lie.”

Hassan concurs. “Once the people pushing this (Islamist agenda) are in positions of influence they will make sure that no philosophy or ideology can flourish other than the one they want. I will go so far as to say that if we allow these (illiberal practices) it will eventually spell the demise of western pluralism and western democracy.”

Both Hassan and Mansur have direct experience of this downside of multiculturalism. Indeed, their experience arguably illuminates one of the unthought consequences of multiculturalism.

“Until 9/11 I was still having this debate within myself about being a hyphenated Canadian; you know, was I a Muslim-Canadian or just a Canadian?” says Mansur, who arrived in Canada in the early 1970s from Bangladesh, which, at the time, was riven by ethnic politics. “But there was no ambiguity after 9/11. After 9/11, I was Canadian, full stop.”

But that ‘full-stop’ is difficult to sustain because of the “hyphenated” psychology promoted by multiculturalism. One of the irritating aspects of the multicultural mindset Mansur continues to confront after more than three decades in Canada, and long after having acquired citizenship, is how his fellow citizens, particularly the bureaucrats and document-creators, still insist on identifying him as an “Indo-Canadian.”

“This country keeps telling me I’m a hyphenated Canadian, that I’ll never be a full Canadian because, thanks to multiculturalism, there is no such thing as a full Canadian. I’ve made my life in Canada. But as far as multicultural Canada is concerned, I am something else.”

Hassan’s experience is of a different order, but not unrelated to the abuse of multiculturalism. Earlier this year, during a lecture at the University of British Columbia, she was confronted by Najma Mohammed, the education director of the B.C. Muslim Association’s board of women’s affairs, who denounced her for calling for a law to deny public services to women who wear the body-covering burqa and the face-hiding niqab in public.

Hassan argued such a restriction would not violate the Charter of Rights because such garments are themselves symbols of patriarchal oppression. Nor is wearing them a religious “right” because the Koran does not require them, saying only that women should dress “modestly.” “Muslim women are under tremendous pressure to conform to a particular school of thought in Islam,” Hassan said in her lecture. “It’s all part of the politicization of Islam that is taking place (in Canada and elsewhere), with the niqab and burqa as its most pernicious symbols.”

Ultraorthodox Muslim communities force women from early childhood to cover themselves in one fashion or another, and they grow up knowing no other way to live, according to Hassan. To free them from such garments would be a form of liberation. “Micro-cultures within the diverse cultures of Canada that justify the subjugation on women in this fashion are not equal to cultures that don’t,” she told the audience.

Najma Mohammed liked none of this, saying she was “very insulted” by Hassan’s remarks and that “nobody (was) oppressing me to wear this hijab.” Tellingly, she denounced Hassan for picking a “secular place” like a UBC hall to discuss such issues rather than within the Muslim community. “I represent all the Muslim community here,” Mohammed claimed.

Hassan cast doubt on that claim in refusing to retract her views. “There are women who are being forced into wearing the niqab and hijab,” she said, citing the case of Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old Muslim teen strangled to death by her father and brother in Mississauga in 2007 “because she refused to wear the hijab and she wanted to integrate more into Canadian society. This 16-year-old lost her life … so I am not going to go back on what I said. These women are being forced, and no matter what you say, that’s the simple truth about it.”

Hassan says the response to her lecture illustrates just how much Canada has changed in the 10 years since 9/11. A decade ago, who could have imagined anyone advocating a legal ban on clothing, or someone insisting on their right to a body-covering garment? How many people 10 years ago had heard of jihad or Sharia or, indeed, “honour killings” and the practice of polygamy? (“There are at least 100 men in the GTA who openly maintain polygamous marriages,” she says.)

Such questions highlight the problematic nature of burkas or niqabs, says Hassan. Giving them public sanction opens the door to other symbols — and the practices pertaining to those symbols — inimical to liberal society. “The practice of wearing the veil is proliferating in Canada. If we allow it to happen, what sort of society are we creating? If there is acceptance of this sort of thing you change the dynamics of a society and you no longer have a society that upholds the equality of all women.

“People who wear the burqa and people who promote Sharia are some of the most intolerant people. They will demand restrictions of freedom of speech against those who might question or criticize their religion. How can we tolerate intolerance?”

According to Raheel Raza, while the majority of Muslims do not share the Islamist agenda, they have been cowed into silence by an aggressive minority pushing the Islamization of Canada. “People are silenced by fear and intimidation. Criticizing fellow Muslims is akin to criticizing Islam, which is like criticizing the Prophet and the Koran and, therefore, God. This is the kind of brainwashing done on youths.”

Hassan echoes that view, saying that even “skeptical Muslims,” those who no longer believe every word of the Koran is God’s — a “quite significant” number, she says — are afraid to speak against the ultraorthodox agitators. “Many Muslims are afraid to speak out. They love Canada. They love the freedom here, but they are afraid.” But it is not only fear of violence; they also fear ostracism. They want to remain within the fold as “cultural Muslims.”

Silence through fear means the radicals and extremists have a greater opportunity to claim they speak for Muslims as a whole. “I don’t believe in this narrative that they (the Islamists) are a small minority and can be ignored,” says Hassan. “Absolutely not. They are the ones calling for Sharia. They are the ones wanting to put limits on freedom of speech and so many other values that we cherish in the West.”

Muslims promoting extremist views aren’t the voice of Islam, says Salma Siddiqui. Unfortunately, they are often the ones who speak loudest and get the media attention, thus giving non-Muslims a false impression of Islam. “Most Muslims want to have a life where they can live in harmony with others in society. Muslims promoting extreme religious values, or who reject liberal, pluralist values, do not speak for all Canadian Muslims.”

Nonetheless, say moderates, the Islamists are often able through intimidation to promote the most orthodox interpretations of Sharia law, import imams to preach radical jihadist propaganda in the mosques, and even insist on their “right” to ban liquor, music or whatever offends them, in areas with a majoritarian Muslim population.

Canadians, says Mansur, need to openly discuss how the country’s civilizational character as “a secular, liberal, and predominantly Christian” culture “is threatened by open immigration and multiculturalism.” And immigrants, he says, have to accept that “to be Canadian in the fullest sense means to embrace the West and freely assimilate its distinctive culture. Since 9/11 the Muslim population in the West has not shown forthrightness and determination in repudiating Islamism as an ideology that increasingly makes a mockery of Islam as a peaceful religion.”

Raza echoes that view, adding that non-Muslims should reject notions of Islamophobia. “Many Muslims in the West use Islamophobia as a penalty card against free speech whenever there is criticism of Muslims. This reactionary response is stifling dialogue, debate, and discussion — all signs of a healthy thriving democracy. The best thing non-Muslims can do, for themselves and Muslims who genuinely want to be part of Canada, is speak out. Keep the issues alive in the public consciousness to create a critical mass of people who can act to thwart the Islamist infiltration.”

For Raza, the situation is worrisome. She and her husband fled to Canada from Pakistan in 1989 after the regime of then-president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, under the influence of Saudi Arabian Wahhabists, began imposing more and more religious restrictions and taboos on what until then had been a tolerably free and liberal-oriented society. Raza, a Shia Muslim, and her husband, a Sunni, were suddenly social pariahs, ostracized by both communities. In coming to Canada they thought they’d escaped that kind of bigotry and intolerance.

“We find it ironic that the very ideology we were trying to run away from 23 years ago has followed us to Canada.”

Recommended Reading:

Farzana Hassan, Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest of Islam, McFarland, 2008; and Islam, Women and the Challenge of Today, White Knight Publications, 2006.

Salim Mansur, Delectable Lie: A liberal repudiation of multiculturalism, Mantua Books, 2011; The Muddle of Multiculturalism: A liberal critique, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, 2010; “Immigration and Multiculturalism Undermine Culture and Security in Canada,” in The Effects of Mass Migration, Fraser Institute, 2009.

Raheel Raza, Their Jihad — Not My Jihad, Basileia Books 2005.

Speech of Geert Wilders in Berlin 9/3/2011

(By Geert Wilders)

Thank you for inviting me to Berlin. It is an honour to be here in this beautiful city of Berlin. When I was here last year I emphasized how important Germany is for all of us. We all benefit from a healthy, democratic, self-confident Germany.

Much has happened since my last visit. In the Netherlands we were able to achieve many amazing things. We have successfully started to roll back the process of Islamization in the Netherlands.

We have done so in a peaceful way and through the democratic process. Recently, a deranged narcissistic psychopath from Norway committed a horrible crime. In cold blood he murdered nearly eighty innocent fellow citizens. The assassin pretended to be a concerned European. He said that he had committed his atrocity because “It is meaningless to participate in the democratic process.”

But he is wrong! The mass murderer from Oslo murdered and maimed, and he justified his heinous crime by denying – I quote – “that it is remotely possible to change the system democratically.” – end of quote.

But he is wrong! The Oslo murderer falsely claims to be one of us. But he is not one of us. We abhor violence. We are democrats. We believe in peaceful solutions.

The reason why we reject Islam is exactly Islam’s violent nature. We believe in democracy. We fight with the force of our conviction, but we never use violence. Our commitment to truth, human dignity and a just and honourable defence of the West does not allow us to use violence nor to give in to cynicism and despair. We cherish the tradition of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Jelena Bonner, Lech Walesa and Ronald Reagan. These heroes defeated a totalitarian ideology by the power of their conviction and without firing a single shot. As the ex-Muslim and Islam-critic Ali Sina said in a reaction to the Oslo atrocity: “We don’t raise a sword against darkness; we lit a light.”

So it is. We lit the light of the truth. And the truth will set us free.

The truth is that Islam can be successfully fought with democratic means. We do so in the Netherlands. You can do so, too, in Germany! Let me tell you what we have achieved in the Netherlands since my last visit to Berlin, less than one year ago. It will encourage you. What can be done in the Netherlands can also be done in Germany.

My party, the Party for Freedom, which has 24 seats of the 150 seats in parliament, supports a minority government of Liberals and Christian-Democrats. We do this in return for measures to restrict immigration, roll back crime, counter cultural relativism, and restore our traditional Western freedoms, such as freedom of speech.

The Party for Freedom has been in this position for less than a year, but we are achieving great things.

We have achieved that the Netherlands will soon ban the face-covering Islamic burkas and the niqabs!

We will restrict immigration from non-Western countries by up to 50% in the next four years!

We are going to strip criminals who have a double nationality and who repeatedly commit serious crimes, of their Dutch nationality!

The Party for Freedom is bringing a message of hope to the Netherlands.

The new policies will place more demands on immigrants.

Integration will not be tailored to different groups anymore.

There will be a tougher approach to immigrants who disobey the law.

Those who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress, will see their access to welfare payments diminished.

We have also achieved that anti-Israeli activities will no longer be funded with Dutch taxes.
So-called humanitarian aid organizations that directly or indirectly support anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions and that deny Israel’s right to exist will no longer get government funding.

The Dutch government will boycott the United Nation’s Durban III meeting against racial discrimination because it has been transformed into a tribunal for accusations against Israel.
The government will strengthen our political and economic relations with Israel. Investment rather than divestment will be our policies towards Israel.

We stand with Israel. We love Israel. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel is part of our civilization.

My friends, what the Party for Freedom has achieved, shows that it can be done. To borrow a phrase from President Obama: Yes, we can! We can stop the islamization of our societies. The Dutch example shows that we can win. David can defeat Goliath!

Last July, the Dutch government even did something which not a single nation has dared to do before. It spoke out firmly against the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The OIC is an international organization of 57 Islamic countries, most of them barbaric tyrannies. This OIC constitutes the largest voting bloc in the United Nation. It had criticised the fact that Dutch judges had acquitted me of all charges of group insult and incitement to hatred and discrimination. But the Dutch government made it clear to the OIC that freedom of speech will not be muzzled in the Netherlands. It told the OIC very bluntly: “The Dutch government dissociates itself fully from the request to silence a politician.” – end of quote.
We will never submit to the Islamic OIC bullies!

As you probably know, for almost two years I went through the ordeal of being a suspect in a criminal case. I was dragged to court in Amsterdam on the accusation of hate speech crimes. Last June, this legal charade ended with a full acquittal.

The Dutch people learned through my acquittal that political debate has not been stifled in their country. My acquittal was a victory for freedom of speech. The Dutch people also learned that they are allowed to speak critically about Islam. They learned that resistance against Islamization is not a crime. They learned that there is hope and that liberation is near.

My acquittal marks the turning of the tide. Not only in the Netherlands, but in the whole of Europe. It is the first breach of the dyke. We have started the roll-back operation. We have sent a message to the ideologues of Islam: Don’t tread on us!

My acquittal has a significance which far surpasses the Netherlands. It has a meaning for the whole of Europe and the free world. My acquittal marks the end of an evolution whereby our civil liberties in Europe are constantly being restricted in order not to offend Islam and anger Islamic fanatics.

My acquittal legitimizes criticism of Islam. It does so also in Germany and everywhere else.

Indeed, why should you Germans not enjoy the same rights as the Dutch! If peaceful and democratic resistance to Islamization is not a crime in the Netherlands, it should not be a crime in Germany either.

So, here is my message to you: Continue your fight for freedom and freedom of speech!

Do not let your politicians and judges grant you fewer rights than the Dutch!

Do not let yourselves be intimidated by Islamic or leftist opponents who shriek and yell. Do not let yourselves be intimidated by media who claim that a murderer who has lost his belief in the democratic process has anyhow been influenced by us.

My friends, when I visited you last year, even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that we would have been able to influence government policies in the way we have done.

That is why I tell you: Never give in to the bullies! Never give up hope. Never despair! You can still turn the tide! One can always turn the tide!

It is true: Germany has been less fortunate than the Netherlands.

When I was here last year, Tilo Sarrazin had just published his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab.” Sarrazin’s book was a bestseller. It hit a nerve. It sold over one-and-a-half million copies. This shows that German society is ripe for change. But politically Sarrazin’s book has changed nothing yet. On the contrary, the German political elite raised the speed of Islamization in Germany. Bundespresident Wulff said “Islam is a part of Germany.” Chancellor Merkel said that multiculturalism is an absolute failure, but she continues to defend Turkey’s entry into the EU. The spread of Islam continues unabated in the German class rooms, on Germany’s streets, through the construction of new mosques, etcetera, etcetera.

Your situation has worsened because you do not have a party – yet – with enough electoral support to influence German politics for the better. Germany needs a rightwing party that is not tainted by ties to neo-Nazis and by anti-Semitism, that is decent and respectable, but also firm.
René Stadtkewitz is working very hard to make Die Freiheit as successful as the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands. René, we are here to help you! Because Germany deserves better than what it gets today!

My friends, your country is the political backbone of Europe.

Germany is the most populous country in Europe. Germany is the economic motor of Europe. If Germany is sick, we are all sick.

Last year, I urged you: Stop being ashamed of Germany. It is unfair to reduce German patriotism to national-socialism, just as it is unfair to reduce Russia to Stalinism. Be proud of your country. Only if the Germans have pride in Germany, they will be prepared to stand for Germany and to defend Germany. And you must stand for Germany, just as the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands stands for the Netherlands. We must all stand for the survival of our nation-states because our nation-station states embody the democratic liberties which we enjoy.

Without the nation-state there can be no real national political freedom. That is why we must be good patriots. Patriotism is often branded as fascism. But patriotism is not fascism. On the contrary. Every democrat and defender of freedom must by definition be a patriot. A soul needs a body. The spirit of political liberty cannot flourish outside the body of the nation-state. The nation-state is the political body in which we live. That is why we must preserve and cherish the nation-state. So that we can pass on the liberty and the democracy which we enjoy to our children.

Without a nation-state, without self-governance, without self-determination there can be no security for a people nor preservation of its identity. This was the insight which led the Zionists to re-establish the state of Israel. Theodore Herzl said that there had to be a Jewish state because – I quote – “what we want is a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.”

Dear friends, we urgently need a new blossoming of the German spirit. For decades, the Germans have been ashamed of themselves. They preferred to be Europeans rather than Germans. And they have paid a heavy price for it. We have all paid a heavy price for it.

Europe is not a nation; it is a cluster of nations. The strength of Europe is its diversity. We are one family but we live in different bodies. Our cultures are branches of a common Judeo-Christian and humanist culture, but we have different national cultural identities. That is how it should be.

Uniformity is a characteristic of Islam, but not of Europe. Islam eradicated the national identities of the peoples it conquered. The Coptic identity of Egypt, the Indian identity of Pakistan, the Assyrian identity of Iraq, the Persian identity of Iran, they were all wiped away, cracked down upon, or discriminated against until this very day. Islam wants all nations replaced by the so-called Ummah, the common identity of the Nation of Islam to which all have to be subservient and into which all national identities have to vanish.

Islam tried to conquer Europe, but never succeeded so far. That is why we Europeans were able to develop our different identities as nation-states. If we want to hold on to these we must stand together against the forces which threaten our identities. Today we are confronted by two dangerous forces: Islamization and Europeanization.

When I was here last year, I spoke at length about the threat of Islam. Today, I want to draw your attention to the threat of Europeanization. By Europeanization I mean the ideology which posits that our sovereign nation-states have to submerge in a pan-European superstate.

The European Union’s Founding Fathers held that in order to avoid a future war in Europe, Europe’s nations, and especially Germany, had to be encapsulated in what the Rome Treaty called “an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe.” Robert Schuman said that the EU’s aim was – I quote – “to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.” – end of quote.

The Eurocrats think that nation states in general – and especially Germany, Europe’s largest nation-state – are the problem. They are wrong. The real cause of the Second World War had not been the German nation state – it had been Nazi totalitarianism.

There is nothing wrong with Germany. The cause of the war was the Nazi ideology. The remedy against totalitarianism is not building a superstate. The remedy is introducing more direct forms of democracy at the lowest possible levels. Instead of depriving Germany and other nation-states of their sovereignty, the post-war leaders should have introduced a Swiss-like system in our countries. Small units should have a large degree of local sovereignty. The individual citizen should be given a direct democratic say over his own fate and that of his community.

Instead, the peoples of Europe were robbed of their sovereignty, which was transferred to far-away Brussels. Decisions are now being taken behind closed doors by unelected bureaucrats. This is not the kind of government we want!

We want less bureaucracy! We want more democracy!

We want less Europe! We want to hold on to our sovereignty. We want home rule! We want to remain independent and free! We want to be the masters in our own house!

In December 1991, the Maastricht Treaty called for a single European currency. The Dutch guilder and the D-mark were sacrificed on the altar of European unification. Helmut Kohl sold this project to the German people as – I quote – “a matter of war or peace.” – end of quote. The euro was presented as “an angel of peace” which the Germans had to sponsor by giving up the mark. During the past six decades German politicians have told the Germans that the nation state, and especially Germany, was so dangerous that it had to be emasculated. The Germans had to become Europeans instead of Germans. To achieve this political project, national and monetary sovereignty was relinquished. Economic and national interests were sacrificed on the political altar of so-called Europeanization.

All the countries which joined the euro lost the power to adjust their currency to their own economic needs. They have all suffered as a consequence. The currency of some countries is undervalued, the currency of others is overvalued; they all have to share in carrying the burden of other countries, even if the latter are suffering from self-inflicted policies, corruption or fraud. The European monetary system has allowed some countries to get a free ride at the expense of others, while those who cheat are in a position to blackmail those who have to foot the bill. This charade has to stop!

The European monetary system is deeply flawed. It is also immoral. As Theodore Herzl said “The character of a people may be ruined by charity.” This applies for those at the receiving end of charity, but also for those who donate it. The so-called pan-European solidarity is literally ruining us! Germany has paid enough for Europe already!

The same applies for the Netherlands. Our citizens do not have to pay the debts of others!
My friends, your party Die Freiheit embodies the best hope for Germany. Because your party is the only party in Germany which has the courage to state loud and clear that countries which cannot pay their debts should leave the euro. I fully agree.

My friends, time is running out. We have to act for the sake of democracy and the future prosperity of our children. The former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky warns that rather than preventing war, the European project makes conflicts more likely. He draws a parallel between the EU and the former Soviet Union which also suppressed feelings of national unity. When economy reality defeated the Soviets’ political project, the suppressed feelings of national identity bounced back with a vengeance and destroyed the Union. Bukovksy fears that if we do not stop the European moloch from expanding the same thing might happen in Europe.

The European leaders state that the only way to solve the current crisis is more European governance. They advocate more powers for Brussels. They are wrong. More Europe only makes matters worse. We have to oppose their attempt of further centralization.

We do not want more Europe! The EU lacks democracy, accountability and transparency. That is why we reject it. We want less Europe! Let us hope that next Wednesday the German Constitutional Court protects national sovereignty.

As a national legislator in the Netherlands I experience day by day how little we still have to say about our own fate. We are expected to rubberstamp laws which have been made by the EU Council of Ministers. The 27 EU commissioners convene behind closed doors with their colleagues. They negotiate in secret and then emerge to announce their agreement and present it. That is how the system works.

Recently, your Chancellor, Frau Merkel, went to Paris. Together with President Sarkozy she announced plans for an economic government of the eurozone.

We oppose this. We want the national parliaments to decide about our economic policies. We do not want to spend our taxpayers’ money on eurozone countries, such as Greece. Let those who have cheated us, who have mismanaged their economy or who have foolishly lived beyond their means, take care of themselves.

Moreover, the EU treaties forbid bailouts.

The Party for Freedom opposes every bail out. The Dutch minority government will never be able to count on our support in this regard. Today its wrongheaded euro policies are supported by the europhile leftist parties. I repeat: We will never support the Dutch government’s approval of the bailouts, not even if the government would lose the support of the left.

We have voted, and we will vote, against every plan to bail out other countries. Sovereign countries have to take care of their own needs. That is what sovereignty is about: freedom and the ability to take care of oneself.

Our peoples resent the fact that they have to pay for others. Our peoples resent the permanent alienation of power from their nation-states. They care about their nation because they care about democracy and freedom and the wellbeing of their children. They see their democratic rights and their age-old liberties symbolized in their national flag.

But there is more. National identity also ties an individual to an inheritance, a tradition, a loyalty, and a culture. National identity is also an inclusive identity: It considers everyone to be equal, whatever his religion or race, who is willing to assimilate into a nation by sharing the fate and future of a people.

My friends, we need to give political power back to the nation-state, in the name of democracy, in the name of freedom, in the name of human dignity. By defending the nation-states we defend our own identity. By defending our identity we defend our liberties. By defending our liberty we defend our dignity.

I urge you: Stand up for the nation-state. Be proud of your country!

In his Farewell Address as American President, Ronald Reagan said that the thing he was most proud of in his presidency was – I quote – “the resurgence of national pride that I called, ‘The New Patriotism.’” – end of quote.

Europe needs new patriotisms. Europe needs dozens of new patriotisms. We need True Finns, and True Danes, True Frenchmen, and True Irishmen, True Dutchmen, and, my friends, we need True Germans!

Reagan said that we had to teach our children what our country is, what it stands for and what it represents in the long history of the world. He said that Americans need – I quote – “a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.”

Reagan’s words apply to us, Europeans, too. We need a resurgence of national pride, a love of country and institutions. Our national parliaments are our democratic institutions. We must defend them.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, I have said enough. It is time to act. We must make haste. Time is running out for Germany, for the Netherlands, for all the other great nations of Europe. As Ronald Reagan said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”.

Here is a short summary of five things which we need to do in order to preserve our freedoms.

First, we must defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our liberties. Second, we must end cultural relativism. Our Western culture is far superior to other cultures. Third, we must stop Islamization. More Islam means less freedom. There is enough Islam in Europe already. Immigrants must assimilate and adapt to our values. Fourth, we must restore the right to decide about our own money. We should not pay the debts of others. The survival of the euro should not be used as an excuse to reward countries which have shown that they were not worth to belong to the eurozone. Fifth, we must restore the supremacy and sovereignty of the nation-state. Our nations are the legacy which our fathers bestowed on us and which we want to bestow on our children. We are the free men and women of the West. We are the true men and women of the West. We do not stand for a superstate. We stand for our own country.

You stand for Germany. I stand for the Netherlands. Others stand for Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, and all these other beautiful freedom-loving nations of Europe. Together we represent the nations of Europe. Together we stand.

We will stand firm. We will survive. We will defend our freedoms. We will remain free.

Thank you very much.