Western Civilization on Trial
National Review Online Symposium
As the Geert Wilders case goes into pre-trial, National Review Online asked our experts: Is there any legitimate reason he’s in court? What are the implications of such a trial being held, nevermind its outcome?
BAT YE’OR
Geert Wilders is a hero for those countless Europeans who cherish a free and democratic Europe — a Europe proud of its Judeo-Christian and humanistic values, its civilization, and its achievements in the field of human rights. But this is not today’s Europe. In today’s Europe, synagogues, Jewish schools, clubs, and cemeteries need to be guarded — as if going to a Jewish school or praying in a synagogue were a crime punishable by death as in Nazi-occupied Europe. Intellectuals, scholars, and those who protest the creeping Eurabization of culture and society are threatened, boycotted by their colleagues, thrown out of their jobs, forced to leave their families and go into hiding, or obliged to live with bodyguards. Wilders has devoted his life to freeing Europe from Eurabia’s clutches. To this titanic struggle he has sacrificed the security of his life and the joys of family. Threatened by a desert whirlwind blowing hatred upon Europe from the south, spending days and nights shielded by bodyguards, persecuted and tormented by his feckless Eurabian opponents, Geert Wilders incarnates the free soul of an unbending Europe.
— Bat Ye’or is author, most recently, of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.
It is fascinating how those brave American media souls that tout themselves as telling the people the plain unvarnished truth about what they need to hear, are also the people in charge of not telling the people the truths that they do not want the people to hear.
Letters to CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News, pointing out what they want to not deal with, is an issue Americans desperately need to hear all about.
Surely the American people are intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions as to what is going on in Amsterdam and why as regards Geert Wilders and what that means to the whole idea of freedom of speech for Americans and their Western European cousins, especially if the Dutch court should find in favour of the prosecution.
So, all of you who care deeply about freedom of speech and are deeply offended by what the Dutch are doing to Geert Wilders, I encourage you to take a few moments and write to the major media organizations to make your views known, which is what I am doing right after I hit the submit button.
That will certainly change the world while file 13 digital or real get filled to overflowing. Nobody reads that stuff except those already on the same page, if you manage to get it posted.
Go blow up the dutch embassy in Canada. That will get you attention and 5 min of fame; To be replaced by Blizzard stories. The weather always more topical and interesting to you North Americans.
You could boycott Dutch Gouda cheese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Silent#Assassination
Supporters of Wilders should ask, “Who is today’s Balthasar Gérard?”
Nihilism is a direct conclusion from xtian doctrine:
xtian doctrine is so full of contradictions that it invite people who grow up with all this stuff to think that nothing has sense.
xtianity claims that G-d gave the Tora in which it is written that He gave eternal and good commandments and that He is one, but then they say that He decided to become “three” so that one “part” of Him can proclaim the commandments to be no longer eternel since they are in reality abusive and bad.
The normal reaction of any intelligent man who grow up within xtianity is to conclude for himself that G-d does not exist and that both the Jewish Tora and the “new testament” are human inventions.
Given that their is no transcendental revelation, continues this intelligent Westen post-xtian man logically, we must find out by our own intellectual means the truth. However, in every generation menkind (menaing the West, since the Westen man knoweth nothing than himself) declares the beliefs of the previous generation as an error and comes up with a new truth, so that after a number of generations, the intelligent Western man has to conclude logically that there is no truth at all, and since there is no truth, it remains only POWER.
Now, it is exactly this POWER which comes to destroy the post-xtian West in form of arab terrorism in accordance with what the Prophets and the Sages predicted. We all should rejoice. If the West disappears – Hine Ma Tov UMa Naim.
Tar,
You are living in the past.
The Christians are not your enemies anymore.
Direct your malice towards the Muslims.
p.s.
There was nihilism long before there was Christianity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyQFNiPZTI8
And after as well apparently.
I once engaged bunch of pacifists who carried “War solves nothing” and “No terrorist acts can be prevented by war” signs. Though my attempts at convincing them otherwise were futile, the discussion itself was curious. In a sense, they are right: wars never prevented new wars and cannot prevent terrorism. But, as Keynes remarked, “In the long run we’re all dead.” Taking too long a perspective nullifies any solutions because current measures have very little impact on remote events.
A war on the Taliban would not affect German terrorists a hundred years from now. Nothing would. In the long run, there are no solutions: no war ever produced eternal peace, but neither has every peace treaty.
France and Germany fought some time after signing a peace treaty, and signed a peace treaty after fighting. War solves nothing, and peace also solves nothing; in the long run, nothing solves anything.
But within reasonably short time frames, wars are remarkably effective: Germans were stopped by war, and so were Arabs on multiple occasions. The Israeli war on Palestinian terrorism stopped the two Intifadas.
Peace, on other hand, changes nothing but only formalizes the facts established by war. After the Germans were utterly defeated, peace ensued regardless of whether a peace treaty had been signed. After Israel defeated Syria, there was peace even without a peace treaty. War changes facts, and peace is only the name for the resulting change.
How many wars have the Axis Powers started recently?
I’ll take a guess: Dunno, How Many?
How many wars have they not started??
They have not started twelve.
Thanks to WW II, Hitler and Mussolini are dead.
As a result, each has maintained a relatively low military profile.
War is to be credited for their lack of war making.
Killing the bad guys is the ultimate peace rally.
Pacifists represent a most vulgar irony: peacemakers who engender war, as opposed to warriors who preserve peace.
You may now recommence singing, “Eve Of Destruction”, which is among the most obnoxious songs ever.
Barry McGuire, my ass.
Not Eve but Sue of Destruction.
I can sing that one; Paul Anka, eat your heart out.
Reminds me of little old ladies who drive 30 in a 65 mph zone. They never have accidents themselves.
How about that Betty White?
Ayn,
Your “analysis” is a little shallow. You do not see the devastating side-effect which had and still has xtianity upon the Western civilisation: decadence, self-dissolution and nihilism. It is this side-effect of xtianity which makes islam so dangerous to the West. The West will loose against islam because the West wants to annihilate itself. As long as you do not cure the disease on its root, you will not save the patient. Therefore, the whole anti-Islam war of wilders, Belman and co. is just a waste of time, a sort of intellectual masturbation. Islam is stronger than the West and will win since islam has a clear message, although a wrong one, while the West, including assimilated american Jews, have no message. It is not enough to want to survive. One has to have a mission which makes you worth to survive in order have the strength to survive. And the West is lacking such a mission, just as assimilated Jews are lacking such a mission. And that is the reason why Peres, Barak, Livni, Olmert and Netanyahu act like they act. They do not know where to go. And those people are the last ones who will stop islam.
this is a dispute among the researchers. some opine that sophism is nihilism. others say that buddhism is nihilism. but this does not negate the fact that European nihilism is a product of xtianity as I developped. and as long as xtianity is not uprooted, nihilsm will be the virus which will make the West lose against islam. of course, you a free to ignore all this.
After its “reunification”, the first thing what Germany did is war against Serbia. And actually Germany is making war, including some massacres on civilians, against Afghanistan. But above all, Germany is making war against Israel, although not openly, for the moment….
Good at everything she has ever done, from Password to Mary Tyler Moore to Golden Girls and now Super Bowl ads.
That is because “I” am a very shallow person. I believe that Bill Narvey has already written the definitive tract on that topic.
Sophistry is sophistry…not nihilism.
Buddhism is idealism…not nihilism.
Nihilism is a rejection of philosophy and faith, and is therefore the antithesis of Christianity, which is excessively faith-based.
Gee, Tar.
I wish you would have led with this sentence.
Yamit,
This is true. The only “thing” which can bring eternal peace is Israel. In order to understand this one has to discern three things: a) the nature of the nations of the world, b) the reason of wars and c) the essence of Israel.
The nature of the nations of the world lies in their partial moral systems. Every nation has a particular value which is on the top of its moral system and which makes out its particularity among the family of nations, while many values are secondary of even lacking at all in the system of each of the nations.
War is the fruit of the particularity of the nations. When a nation B has a virtue which nation A does not have, than nation A is aware of its imperfection as long as nation B exists and lives in freedon. But if nation A defeats nation B, then everything is allright again for A.
Israel is the only nation which has NO particularity. We have no own culture. A german Jew has the german culture, an algerian Jew has arab culture, an argentinian Jew has argentinian culture etc. There is no Jewish food, no Jewish music and no Jewish mentality. We are a MIX of all nations together. We are MICROCOSMOS of the nations of the world. And Judaism prefers no virtue above any other. That life is the highest value in Judaism is an inevention of assimilated Jews who want to please xtians. There is no such thing as a highest value in Judaism. There is no such thing like “good” and “bad” in Judaism. Everything depends on the situation. What makes a certain trait good or bad is the dosage, the time and the place. Killing a man can be good or bad, love can be good or bad, tolerance can be good or bad, intolerance can be good or bad. Israel is the only UNIVERSAL NATION. And we can therefore UNITE the humanity, since everybody can recognise himself in us, and we can also understand everybody. When we succeed in making peace among us Jews in Israel and build a perfect society, then we shall serve as a practical model for the whole world.
you obviously never opened a philosophy book in your life – Bur VeAm HaArets
An example of why I will probably always agree with Ayn even if I don’t.
yes yes credo quia absurdum est, natus est dei filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est dei filius; prorsus credible est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile
nos verus Israel sumus, laetemur in te, domine, hostem spernentes et malum, x redempti sanguine.
ditto back; and I hope I didn’t just use some bad words.
you are demonstrating that sophism is rightfully considered nihilism, and this explains why xtians so loved sophism and still do, as I see.
Tar Yag you should quit while nobody including me chooses to embarrass you. So far you are batting 100% all wrong and to go over each of your points would be a tedious exercise for nothing as you probably wouldn’t grasp the essence.
Your quote in Latin:
“I believe because it is absurd” Has been used to death by everybody and from both sides of the Isle. I suppose you want to say that: Christianity is irrational because it encourages us to believe things that are absurd. Actually this is a misquote and interpretation of Tertullian’s views. Check it out.
Never one that was written in crayon.
sophism: an argument apparently correct in form but actually invalid
nihilism: the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more meaningful aspects of life
In that case, some who opine are illiterate.