Cognitive Dissonance in Europe

It had to be galling. Geert Wilders, a member of Dutch Parliament, was found guilty three months ago of “inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans” — the very people who have been trying to kill him since at least 2003. Newsweek reported that he has to go around, “wearing a bulletproof vest and being shuttled between safe houses to avoid assassination. ‘I’m not in prison,’ he says. ‘But I’m not free, either. You don’t have to pity me, but I haven’t had personal freedom now for 10 years. I can’t set one foot out of my house or anywhere in the world without security.’” 

The Wilders trial perfectly illustrates Europe’s state of cognitive dissonance. In many European Union countries, one is charged with “hate speech” for criticizing Muslims who are terrorizing the entire continent. France’s Marine Le Pen has also been charged in France, along with Brigitte Bardot.

Bardot and Le Pen

It was interesting to watch media spin last Wednesday’s Dutch election results as Geert Wilders’ PVV Party, which they always call “far right,” gained five seats (33%), yet he was “defeated.” Prime Minister Rutte’s VVD Party lost eight seats (-20%), but he won a “great victory.” Prime Minister Rutte’s governing partner in the ruling coalition, the Labour Party, lost nineteen seats (-75%). How is this a victory? Because Wilders didn’t thump him as badly as polls suggested he might.

Wilders is tall. I'm 5'10"

I met Geert Wilders seven years ago at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. He was surrounded by large, shaven-headed, tough-looking, unsmiling, body guards with ear pieces who were constantly looking around at the rest of us in the hotel function room. He cannot go anywhere without them and it’ll be that way for the rest of his life. Why? Because he’s “far-right”? No, it’s because he has dared to criticize Islam, comparing the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf as both advocate slaughtering Jews. For that, Muslims put a fatwa on his head. That means Muslims are obligated to kill him whenever they get the chance.

Bodyguards check me out

He’s been living like this since he came to the defense of a fellow member of Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was a Somali immigrant. Hirsi Ali got off a plane in Holland rather than go on toward Canada where her family had arranged she be married to an aging relative. She was granted asylum and then got elected to Parliament. Hirsi Ali’s Muslim parents had forced her to undergo a genital mutilation procedure when she was a girl. 

Hirsi Ali and Wilders at The Hague

Together with filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (great-grandnephew of the famous painter) Hirsi Ali made a short film called “Submission” depicting Muslim treatment of women. For his effort, Van Gogh was shot and stabbed on the street in broad daylight by a Muslim immigrant. Pinned to his body with a knife was a note declaring that Hirsi Ali was next. In 2003, Muslims staged an hour-long grenade assault on a building in The Hague where Ali and Geert Wilders were working in an effort to kill both. In spite of all this, it’s still criminal to criticize the “Religion of Peace” in Europe.

Angela Merkel and other European leaders said the Dutch election last week was a “good day for democracy” and for Europe because Wilders wants to lead Holland out of the European Union. All across Europe, however, there’s rising opposition to the EU’s open-borders policy of accepting millions Muslim “refugees” in spite of what millions of native-born citizens want. That’s one of the factors propelling the rise other conservative leaders in France, Austria, Germany, Italy, and other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Turkey is threatening to release 15,000 more Muslim “refugees” a month to “blow the mind” of Europe. The Turkish foreign minister said, “Soon, religious wars will begin in Europe.” President Obama’s good buddy, President Erdogan of Turkey urged Muslims living in Europe to have at least five children. It’s part of the Islamic concept of hijrah, which Islam historian Robert Spencer calls “jihad by emigration.”

If you ask ordinary Dutch, French, German, and British people, they’d say the religious wars are already underway and have been for years. Every day there’s a stabbing, a rape, a bomb, a truck attack, or some other Muslim terrorist incident somewhere in Europe, yet Merkel alone let over a million Muslims into Germany just last year. She’s up for re-election in September.

The left in Europe has for decades been pushing for ever more centralized government through the EU and the UN — and for open borders. To pave the way, they’ve attempted to indoctrinate the populace with the multicultural myth that all cultures are equal. Dutch, French, British, German, or any other European culture is no better than Muslim culture. All should be able to live together in harmony. Ordinary Europeans, however, aren’t buying it.