Here he is with Dr. Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer. Spencer, more than anyone, helped me raise the money for my event for Wilders last Friday evening, and penned this delicious oped piece on the Wilders event. If you missed Spencer's remarks at the event -- watch them here. It was his finest hour.
Wilders spoke these words at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, site of the Conservative Political Action Conference, at an independent event organized by Pamela Geller, publisher of the popular website AtlasShrugs.com, and co-sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Dr. Andrew Bostom (editor of The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism), and my own Jihad Watch.
Geller’s determined efforts to get Wilders a platform in Washington show what one tireless citizen can do to make a difference -- a lesson that conservatives should increasingly heed in the Age of Obama, when so many organizations on the Right seem to have lost their focus and will.
In a jab at British authorities who barred him from entering the country in February, Wilders thanked immigration authorities for “letting me into this great country,” quipping: “It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.” The Brits seemed afraid that if Wilders went ahead with plans to screen in the House of Lords his short film Fitna, which shows how jihadists use the Qur’an to incite Muslims to commit acts of violence, Muslims might…commit acts of violence. Instead of admonishing Muslims that public order would be preserved and free speech upheld, British authorities sent Wilders back to the Netherlands. But in America, not only was Wilders allowed in, but he even screened Fitna in the Capitol at the invitation of Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz).
And at the Omni Shoreham event, he eloquently explained the need to defend free speech. “The real question,” he stated, “is, will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?” The 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, has undertaken a concerted initiative to compel Western governments to adopt Islamic restrictions on free speech. If successful, this would prevent us from understanding our enemy by outlawing even law enforcement and government explorations of how jihadists use Islam to justify violence and make recruits. Such investigations would be outlawed as offensive to Islam under the guise of “hate speech.”
And my other partner in crime, Dr. Andrew Bostom, reflects on Wilders's trip here:
Just this week, consistent with the understandings, and plaintive appeals by both Mr. Wilders and the Pakistani scholar Ibn Warraq (earlier here [10], and most recently here [11]), these reports emerged:
A World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll [12] released February 25, 2009 indicated the following about our erstwhile Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan—81% of the Muslims of “moderate” Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a “strict” application of Shari’a, Islamic Law; 79% of the Pakistan’s Muslims—one of the most important, and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations—want this outcome. Moreover, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the re-creation of a “..single Islamic state or Caliphate.”
Earlier, I detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires [13]—based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.
Grozny, Russia: Ramzan Kadyrov president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers (Friday February 27, 2009) at the mosque and explained with, according to this AP report [14], “chilling composure” why seven young women who had been murdered—shot in the head—deserved to die. Kadyrov proclaimed that the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and their shooting by male relatives in honor killings. He told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic, “If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed.” Kadyrov.” The report further observed that,
Kadyrov describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia. Women and girls are now required to wear headscarves in all schools, universities and government offices…
Read it all.
