In a famous essay published March 13, 2003 in the Wall Street Journal, The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt, Oriana Fallaci maintained a “scandalous” thesis:Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. It lodges thousands of Islamic terrorists whom governments don’t know how to identify and control. People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism [...] they feel protected.
Although she was talking about the war in Iraq, her words fit almost exactly what is going on in these very days in two European countries, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Last Wednesday a Dutch court ordered the criminal prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), for his “anti-Islamic hate speech,” that is for his statements against Islamofascism, considered “insulting” by the Court itself. So, as my friends of www.actforamerica.org put it, the message is clear: it’s okay for a radical Muslim to call for your death, but don’t you dare criticize the Muslim for doing so.Expectedly, “the Jordanian group ‘The Messenger of God Unites Us’ greeted the news with much happiness,” Klein Verzet (a Dutch blog in English) reports. And as it was not enough the State of Jordan
has issued a request for Wilders' extradition to stand trial in Jordan for blasphemy of Islam, a crime for which Shari'a law declares the penalty to be death. The Dutch parliament has taken the extradition request very seriously, and has shut out Wilders from all multi-lateral negotiations. As a precaution, Wilders no longer travels abroad unless he can obtain a diplomatic letter from the destination state promising he won't be extradited. For years now, Wilders has lived under looming death threats complemented by the threat that any day, Interpol might issue a warrant for his arrest at Jordan's behest.
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What a difference a few years make. When we started this blog, the Dutch had a reputation comparable to the Danes. But now it seems that the Netherlands has joined the madness of the UK, France, Sweden and Norway, in their mad dash to destroy the spirit of the native people, for diversity's sake.
Well, actually, in the meantime two Dutchmen, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, were being murdered for their outspoken opposition to Islamization in the Netherlands.
Let’s now talk about what is going on in the UK. Last Friday the Evening Standard reported that
Douglas Murray, a self-confessed “neo conservative”, was due to chair “Islam or Liberalism: Which is the Way Forward?” at the university tonight — 24 hours after the end of a week-long sit in at LSE in protest at Israel's attacks on Gaza.
The commentator and author, who is the director of conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “This is back to the bad old days of the LSE — where the most violent get to dictate people's education. It is worse than censorship — it's intimidation.” The debate, which is set to go ahead, is between Dr Alan Sked, a senior lecturer in international history at the university, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim writer and lecturer.
The LSE asked Mr Murray not to attend in the interest of public safety as his presence could provoke further unrest. A spokesman added: “He has spoken at LSE in the past and will be welcome to do so again in the future.”
By the way, as a British journalist noted (Phyllis Chesler reports), the London School of Economics had no such fears when known “members of Al-Mujaharoun, a pro-terror Islamist organisation,” spoke there. “The presence of the group was announced in advance, but that was OK with the School. Presumably that was because it was also OK with the Islamic campus ideologues in front of whom it cowers.”
And here is what Melanie Phillips and Oliver Kamm have to say :
MP :
Another victory for the forces of darkness, thanks to the pusillanimity of the LSE which, finding itself on the battlefield of the war to defend civilisation, has run up the white flag.
OK :
The LSE's conduct is cowardly and unconscionable. A university is a place for the untrammelled discussion of ideas. The LSE has curtailed the ability of one invited guest to contribute to a discussion - as chairman of a debate and not even as a speaker - because of a presumed threat of violence arising from the offence he might thereby cause. I've seen the LSE's internal correspondence on this. It refers to complaints made about Douglas's views on Islam. It seems that Douglas has been disinvited because of the effect on the sensibilities of students - or on "campus relations", as one particularly arch piece of misdirection has it - at a time of Middle East conflict.
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It is the LSE's responsibility - stemming from its function as an institute of learning - to rescind its decision, allow the event to take place as planned, and to send down any student who tries by violence or threat to prevent a guest from speaking.
Perhaps Oliver is wasting his breath with his call for the LSE to think again, and Melanie is right: they raised the white flag on the crumbling building.
