Islamophobia Sweeps Europe

The continent which produced imperialism, slavery and Hitler now produces Geert Wilders. Belgium and France ban the burqah, a British MP has stated he will refuse to speak to constituents who refuse to reveal their face and Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders declares his aim to launch his Stop Islam movement in five countries. It is Europe, not the Moslems, who are seeking a culture clash.

Photo: Islamophobia Sweeps Europe

Islamophobia Sweeps Europe

Europe never ceases to amaze with its abject arrogance, its imperious imperialistic policies and its disgusting demagogy. The continent which produced, imperialism, slavery and Hitler now produces Geert Wilders. The victims this time are not the Jews, but Muslims and as was the case with Hitler, the horrific, racist, genocidal Nazi movement was not only endemic to Germany but had its metastases spring up all over the Continent in similar movements.

Like Hitler, in his revolting, cruel and totally unacceptable campaign against the Jews, Geert Wilders wishes to internationalise his movement, called “Stop Islam – defend freedom”. “Freedom” is a buzz-word much used and abused by those who have an agenda, used against the Soviet Union by those whose own practices were far from peaceful or well-intentioned: “Freedom” was used by those who supported repressive Fascist dictators in Africa and Latin America, “Freedom” was used by those who attacked Fidel Castro and then tried to assassinate him 700 times.

So not surprisingly, this odious racist called Wilders takes the same word in vain to further his cause. And precisely what is it?

“I have a problem with Islamic ideology, the Islamic culture, because I feel that the more Islam we get in our societies, the less freedom that we get” (Wilders, in London, 2009). Now for a man who states that he is not a racist, how near to the mark is that?

What is alarming is that Wilders has mounted passages from the Koran and shown them in Islamist terrorist attacks in the film Fitna, and what is even more alarming is that he has garnered support among the Dutch electorate, his PVV Party for Freedom gaining 24 seats in the Dutch Parliament (out of a total of 150), making it the third largest political party, in June’s election.

In the near future, Wilders promises to take his movement to the USA, Canada, France, Germany and the UK, where the Conservative Member of Parliament for Kettering, Philip Hollobone, has declared that he will refuse to speak to women who refuse to remove their burqahs.

What we are dealing with here is abject and utter pig-headed ignorance in a European holier-than-thou top-down attitude, this from the Continent that went globe-trotting “civilising” the world and its peoples with the Christian Bible and the bullet. Jesus Christ was not the only prophet, Christianity is one of the many religions, one of the many paths to God. It does not have a monopoly on the truth, it is not the only Word.

And if Europeans could strut around the Middle East, colonising vast swathes of Islamic territory in the past, imposing their will as they siphoned off resources, then why should Moslems be told what they can or cannot wear today?

Asking a Moslem woman to remove her burqah is an insult, given that she has chosen to wear it to hide her body in respect for her husband and if she has chosen to do that freely, out of her own volition, who has the right to tell her to act otherwise?

Just because an Islamic woman wears a burqah does not mean she is wearing a bomb belt under it any more than the man who is dressed as an Anglican bishop is gay or the Catholic priest is a paedophile.

Islam is a religion of peace; Islamist fundamentalism is something entirely different and it is important to separate the two issues, respecting Islam and its wonderful culture, including its laws, lores and traditions so as not to make dangerous parallels between two extremes which do not exist, then tar everyone with one and the same brush and create another wave of racism in a Continent whose equation appears to bear this as a constant factor.

If it is now a European value to tell people what they can and cannot wear, then how telling a statement this is on a Continent which has imposed the E.U. on its citizens in a most undemocratic fashion and how ominous it is that an odious creature such as Wilders can be seriously contemplating the internationalism of his racist priggish ignorance instead of being where he belongs – in the wilderness, far away from humanity.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru