Islam, Wilders, Freedom and Hypocrisy

OK, two events, two different reactions: one features virulent anti-Semites, jihadists and opponents of women’s rights; the other champions freedom, democracy, pluralism and genuine tolerance. So which event is welcomed with open arms by the Gillard Government, and which event is seen as a major security threat?

The answer should be obvious, but we live in a very confused nation where common sense and morality are in short supply. Thus the jihadists are given a royal welcome while the freedom fighter is treated like an outcast. There is one word for this: dhimmitude.

When Islam is in charge, non-believers do not have too many options: death, conversion, or dhimmitude. The last one refers to the state of second-class citizenship in which non-Muslims are treated appallingly. Islam is elevated to an untouchable status, and all those who have not submitted to Islam are living in fear, daring not to criticise their overlords.

The really tragic thing is, this does not just happen in Muslim-majority nations. Increasingly we are seeing it occur in Western nations. So many of our spineless leaders have bent over backwards in seeking to ingratiate themselves to their Muslim minorities. They dare not say anything negative about Islam, but they will readily seek to silence any voices seeking to warn about the dangers of Islam and stealth jihad.

In a recent article on dhimmitude in France, Joseph Harriss offers this description: “Coined by the writer Bat Ye’or from the Arabic noun dhimmi, meaning a non-Muslim citizen of an Islamic state, dhimmitude describes the submissive condition of second-class citizens subject to special taxes and other humiliations. What they say and do must be approved by Islamic authorities. In her prescient book Eurabia, Ye’or predicted that some European nations would adopt ‘a strict political correctness that brooks no criticism of Arab governments or Muslim immigrants, and that, in deference to Arab prejudices, promotes anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel attitudes.’ That’s a pretty fair description of France today.”

Yep – and Australia too. How else do we explain the recent debacle over visiting Dutch MP Geert Wilders? And his visit contrasts so very sharply with the upcoming “Islamic Peace Conference” in Melbourne. Australia has proven that it is already a dhimmi state in the way it has handled these two events.

For a look at just how explosive and dangerous the invited speakers are to the Muslim conference, see my earlier article which provides plenty of detail on this: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2013/03/02/islamic-peace-conference-in-melbourne/

Now that Wilders is gone, a few more voices have discussed with amazement just what transpired here. Miranda Devine begins her piece as follows: “If you needed proof that free speech in Australia is on the run, look at what happened when Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders came to town.

“With 10 per cent of the vote in Holland, Wilders is a mainstream politician, leading the third largest political party in one of the most tolerant liberal democracies in the world. Yet in Australia he is treated like a pariah, denied a visa for months, and unable to secure a venue for his speaking tour in Perth.

“Instead of a ‘welcome to country’ before he spoke to audiences in Sydney and Melbourne last week, organisers had to read aloud a statement of Victoria’s racial and religious tolerant act. As much as anything, this curious legal requirement adhered to by the Melbourne-based Q society which hosted Wilders, explains why Australians are open to his message of creeping Islamisation. That and the enormous security needed to guard him from assassins 24-hours-a-day.

“It is shameful that of all the Western democracies Geert Wilders has visited it turns out, Australia is the most repressive. Not only did more than 30 venues refuse to host him or cancel at the last minute, politicians denounced him and in Melbourne protesters tried to block the entrance of the function hall where he was speaking and pushed at least one attendee to the ground in violent clashes. This of course is great publicity for Wilders.

“When you meet him in person, he is much more normal than his image would suggest. The shock of hair isn’t quite so yellow and he presents as a tall, well-dressed, quietly spoken, articulate politician with perfect English. ‘I have no problem with Muslims,’ he said reasonably on a balcony in an undisclosed location on Sydney harbour, with yachts clinking nearby, and an armed bodyguard even nearer. The majority of them are not extremist. But there is no such thing as moderate Islam’.”

Paul Sheehan had this to say, in part: “After scuffles outside Wilders’s speaking venue in Melbourne last week, NSW police took no chances. On my way to the venue I encountered nine uniformed police at Liverpool station; a mobile police command post; a mobile police custody unit; a row of paddy wagons; a police cordon of 36 officers at the rear of the venue; another police cordon, with 56 officers, at the front; four mounted police; two checkpoints and a metal detector. Finally, inside the hall, about a dozen plainclothes officers stood around the room….

“The function room was packed with about 500 people. ‘I could have sold a lot more tickets but we ran out of room,’ the tour’s organiser, Debbie Robertson, told me. The venue was a very late compromise. Such was the paranoia surrounding Wilders’s visit that Robertson’s book attempts had been rejected by dozens of venues. The event in Perth was cancelled late after the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, pulled the plug on the venue. As Wilders strode to the podium he was given a cheering ovation. He responded: ‘I am here with a message that your political leaders do not want you to hear.’ More cheers.

“His message was explicit: Islam is a social, legal and political code, not just a religion, which makes Muslim communities self-segregating and damages social cohesion. ‘Do not repeat the mistakes we have made in Europe . . . we are experiencing that the more Islamic a society becomes, the less free it becomes . . . in each of our cities there is a city within a city, a state within a state . . . Islamic racism is growing inside our cities’.”

If you want to hear all that Wilders said in his Sydney visit, you can see his talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXUyD_H_mtk

I dare say his talk was far more wise, balanced, respectful, tolerant, and valuable than anything that will be said in the upcoming Melbourne Islamic conference.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/12/18/slouching-toward-dhimmitude
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/free-speech-stoned-to-death/story-e6frezz0-1226584164862
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/overkill-in-the-name-of-islam-threat-20130224-2ezhw.html

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