Wilders campaigning against the European Constitution (Image: Jacco de Boer)
Last night, Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders visited Toronto, where he spoke to both Sun TV’s Ezra Levant and the Canada Christian College. Wilders, for the uninitiated, is the leader of the third-largest political party in the Netherlands and the one-trickiest of one-trick ponies. His ideology can be summed up, essentially, as such: he really, really doesn’t like Muslims. His “Party for [non-Muslim] Freedom” probably has other positions on important issues, but it’s his unfortunate views on Islam that get him invited to international speaking arrangements. So what does Wilders believe? We take a look at five of his most ridiculous statements after the jump.
1. Canada should ban the burka
According to the Toronto Sun, Wilders offered that “if Muslim women are forced to wear burkas covering their faces, they will never find jobs or have friends in Canada, and will forever be dependent on their husbands.” Even if that were true, broad attacks on religious clothing usually end up making the state look silly. Case in point: France. There, even moderate Muslim women began wearing the burka to protest the country’s blanket ban, and police complained that they had better things to do with their time. Oh, and speaking of moderate Muslims…
2. There’s no such thing as moderate Islam
Wilders regularly compares the Quran to Mein Kampf, which is the kind of rhetorical trick that even the Internet frowns upon. But, apparently, it isn’t too silly for newspaper columnists. Wilders says: “There is no moderate Islam….There is no good part of the Quran.” That’s one heck of a broad statement, and it also happens to be completely at odds with the actual experience of Canadian politics. The country’s various Muslim communities have long been engaged in an important conversation over what “moderate” and “extreme” mean, and how to adapt Islamic views to Canadian culture.
3. The Muslims are taking over
Stop us when this sounds familiar: “An increasingly vociferous Islamic lobby has led to the harassment of Christians, female genital mutilation and polygamy, [Wilders] said, adding that with its own growing Muslim community, Canada faces the same fate.” Wilders believes that Muslims’ growing numbers and religious devotion make them, both in the Netherlands and in Canada, a danger to democracy. Likewise, Levant says: “The challenges radical Islam poses in Holland today are challenges we will face tomorrow.” This is generally called the “Eurabia” scenario, and even a passing glance at the actual data reveals that it exists only in the fevered dreams of, well, people like Levant and Wilders.
4. Brown people go home
From Wilders: “If [Muslims] want to have Islamic culture, [they should] stay in the country where [they] came from.” Yikes. We’re pretty sure we shouldn’t need to explain why that’s an absurd position for a country of immigrants, especially one that’s been welcoming Muslims for decades now. Hell, even the right-of-centre party in Canada is busy soliciting the “very ethnic” vote. Not only does Canada want them, it wants them to vote in large numbers!
5. Muslims are a threat to gay rights
This just makes us laugh—not because we’re ignorant of the actual homophobia that exists in many Muslim countries, but because the march of gay rights in Canada and the Netherlands is happening at the same time that Wilders believes the battle against creeping Islamization is being lost.
• Wilders controversial crusade against ‘Islamic ideology’ continues [Toronto Sun]
• Islam a threat to Western freedom: Wilders [National Post]
• Geert wilders: Islam’s most outspoken critic [National Post]
• Levant: Radical Islam issues hit here, too [Toronto Sun]
He shouldn’t have been allowed to enter Canada. Preaching hate and discrimination against anyone is not right or welcomed here.
May 10, 2011 at 5:59 pm | by SusanWhile he’s clearly not a great guy, Susan, he should be allowed to say his piece. I don’t think anyone should be banned based on what they believe, or for speaking out about their beliefs. Yes, even if I don’t agree with them.
May 10, 2011 at 6:48 pm | by MichaelIt is a shame that someone like Geert Wilders can find an audience here in Canada. Even before Wilders I can’t help but question the following of Ezra Levent; a miserable and excitable whinner and complainer if there ever was one. A pet of McVety. Trouble makers all. I’m especially embarrassed as a Jew and as a Netherlander/Canadian and as a woman.
All I can say is to be aware of our trouble-makers. Call them on their lies and hateful propaganda.
If Wilder is an MP, why is he on speaking tours? Does he not have responsibilities back home? We know Levent has a “job”…SunTV. LOLOL!
May 10, 2011 at 8:00 pm | by GeoAs long as you’re ethical and keep up to speed with the facts, you can believe in God, understanding faith as such for a possible God beyond the known things, this way or that or no way and be a nice person.
The Qur’an defines homosexuality as a crime, and the hadiths prescribe serious punishment for it, wrong by the facts of science and bad by ethics, which makes Muhammad a sadistic homophobe.
Muhammad said Allah wanted death for people who unrepentantly declared they left the religion Muhammad created. God is possible, but he didn’t like the possibility of someone getting familiar with his religious concoction and openly criticizing it–he wanted someone to kill them.
Yet he left nothing compelling to substantiate that the orders to kill came from God’s word through Gabriel. Instead, he got some things wrong (homosexuality, where semen is created in the body, camel urine given as a remedy for sickness), which makes him a homicidal religious fanatic.
The liberal may say they don’t want these punishments today because Muhammad isn’t around anymore getting (allegedly) divine messages. They’re nicer to us who want separation of church and state, if they’re probably still a homophobe and prone to get too cranky about criticism of their reigion. Unfortunately, the conservative would say if those things were serious crimes any time at all then they would be all the time (how would homosexuality be a serious crime for a little while?), so has a more consistent logic about the source material, if their limited bigoted outlook is bad for getting the facts right, ethics, and assimilation into society with separation of church and state.
May 10, 2011 at 8:41 pm | by glenster1. Canada should burn the burka! Do you honestly think muslim women are able to successfully integrate and become successful Canadians without their eyebrows showing?
2. There are ‘moderate Muslims’, as in those whose values derive more from secular humanism and western culture than from the quran, but there is indeed no ‘moderate Islam’. Read the quran, see what the quran is all about, it is *not* moderate in the least.
3. The social, economic, security problems of Muslims in Western Europe, especially in France, Germany, UK, the Netherlands, are real, not imaginary. In the Netherlands alone their have been two prominent, brutal assassinations of politicians who had criticized radical islam.
4. Yes. Any immigrants who want to maintain values totally opposed to those of their new home — like refusing to recognize women or gays or Jews as equals — should stay in Saudi Arabia, thank you very much. Enough cultural relativism
5. Just because gay rights are still strong in Western Europe is hardly evidence that they are not threatened by the rising Muslim population…
May 10, 2011 at 8:46 pm | by Adamthe God of the bible kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6). In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody! In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered. http://www.evilbible.com/
People should be judged by how they interpret their own books and not by how we interpret it for them. If we were to do that we would have banned the bible a long time ago.
May 10, 2011 at 9:16 pm | by smithSusan please your just one of the many passive people who allow our country to be dictated and overun by this idealogy. It is people like you who are threatening our freedom by sympathizing with these people. You should be ashamed of yourself
May 10, 2011 at 9:42 pm | by smittyThis guy should have been banned from entering Canada. Why then was George Galloway banned?
May 10, 2011 at 10:31 pm | by NNHe is racist and promotes hatred and everything that is against the Canadian Values.
Shame on him and to whoever invited him.
For all you Islamic sympathizers, I think the true test of whether Islam is good for the world today is to simply look at Muslim Countries today. They are the most intolerant of any country on earth. What then may I ask will happen when they form the Majority Here in Canada? Oh and remember it only tales 40% to for a Majority Government at this point. I think we are in serious trouble.
May 10, 2011 at 11:20 pm | by CoryWhat RACE is Islam.
Wilders criticizes an IDEOLOGY rather than a race.
Islam is a misogynist and supremacist political IDEOLOGY.
This IDEOLOGY aims to remove the human rights and civil liberties of anyone who is not a Muslim male.
This IDEOLOGY is fascist because its normative form is military dictatorship, censorship of free speech and control of the economy by a clique who are also members-for-life of the unelected junta.
What BENEFIT does this fascist, misogynist, totalitarian IDEOLOGY bring to Canada…one of the freest and egalitarian countries in the world?
May 10, 2011 at 11:22 pm | by bergenvogelThis is a shameful article with poorly thought out points, I wish the author would at least give some thought to what he wrote instead of just jumping on the bashing bandwagon.
It actually reads as (poorly written) a paid-for anti-WIlders PR statement.
May 10, 2011 at 11:44 pm | by Harry“If we were to do that we would have banned the bible a long time ago.”
Basically, the NT did that regarding the type of OT examples you mention a
long time ago–Jesus said the people before were only brought along so far,
even only popularly embracing monotheism in the time of Isaiah. Jesus said
blessed is he who hasn’t seen yet believes–faith understood as such.
Accordingly, there was no more need for a country with the religion as the law
of the land and a militia to defend it, not even ethically arbitrary food and
clothes rules that just set the followers off from people in a ‘centric way.
I think the liberal argument about homosexuality makes more sense for it, too.
They were to go among all kinds of people, not giving offense but sacrificing of
themselves to gain others to God. (1 Cor.10:32-11:1) If you’re going to believe
in God, that’s basically how to do it.
Several hundred years after the NT, Roman Emporer Theodosius made it the law
of the land, unfortunately. Neither the belief nor non-belief tance should be
law of the land or people will be hurt or killed over something nobody should be
hurt or killed about.
In the early 600′s, Muhammad basically brought back all the problems of the
OT: the religion as law of the land with a militia to defend it and death for
apostates, homosexuality as a crime to be punished severely, even arbitrary food
and clothes rules.
Wilders is too much of a flame warrior about it, though.
May 11, 2011 at 2:25 am | by glensterThis hopelessly naive article is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and screeching “lalalalalalala” to the world.
In London a gay march in the east end of London was called off for fear of offending muslims who are oattacking gays and threatening shops were non-muslim shopworkers do not wear scarfs.
What Wilders says Islamism = Islam. While there may be good people who believe they are muslims, real islam is a homophobic, mysogenist, separatist and supremacist religion.
May 11, 2011 at 2:56 am | by LondonerThat article was written by a person who is typically ignorant about the real Islam-West situation.
Because there are some “benign” Muslims around does in no way mean there are not many who have extremist ideas according to their religious beliefs, and the truth is that you really CAN’T tell one kind of Muslim from the other. For all you know there’s a Muslim in your own neighborhood who is being radicalized and wants to become an anti-western cleric or terrorist .
And the ultimate Islamic objective is to see Islam, complete with it’s 7th century Sharia religious rules, dominate all societies .
It doesn’t matter how many “nice” Muslims are around. All it takes is a handful to kill 3000 people in one attack. But that 9/11 kind of ATTACK IS NOT THE MOST DANGEROUS KIND, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. The worst thing is the relatively slow, deliberate, imposing of Muslim religious lifestyle on our democratic cultures. It’s a fanatic 7th century culture demanding recognition and privlege and determined to have it’s way. It has gotten so you can’t even criticize Islam without being punished one way or the other.
They go by the Koran and the Koran teaches Islamic superiority, and it’s agenda demands Muslims convert or destroy all “unbelievers”. They want an Islamic Europe and an Islamic world-wide Caliphate. ( government ) .
Geert Wilders is right on target- absolutely right ; either listen to him now or be sorry tomorrow. Maybe Canada, like America, won’t feel the change in their society soon because they are both large countries. But the small countries of Europe sre really feeling the pressure, and starting to rebel against it.
The thing about Wilders is that he is ahead of the others. He has insight AND foresight – those who value their freedoms, their human rights, and their national identity should be glad there is someone brave enough to speak out against the tyranny of religious extremism. He says what many, many others have wanted to say, but were too afraid to talk. Bless him- he’s a rare and couragious person ; there aren’t many like him, and he certainly has more perspective than any one of these journalists who are always calling him a racist or some other nonsensical thing. He’s NOT racist, you stupids–Islam is NOT a race.
He’s positively correct also when he says there is no such thing as “moderate” Islam. He’s right. There are not different types of Islam. Islam is Islam. And you can’t have Islam without hate , violence, and bondage ( lack of liberty ) any more than you can have an omlete without eggs
Don’t blame a couragious freedom-fighter like Wilders for trying to expose Islam and telling you the truth–don’t blame him for not wanting a mosque in the tulip fields !
May 11, 2011 at 3:45 am | by JoanIt really thrilled me that those non-Muslims were soooo afraid of the Muslims (or is it Islam?) To think that we were merely cavemen and deprived of worldly creature comforts with no modern faculties and war tools to fight back.
May 11, 2011 at 3:47 am | by Abruh