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From Europe News:
Jonathan Kay: Geert Wilders has won an important legal victory for all of us
National Post 24 June 2011
By Jonathan Kay
Geert Wilders is Dutch, not Canadian. And his acquittal this week on hate-speech charges was decided by a court in The Netherlands, not Canada. Nevertheless, his case deserves close scrutiny in our own country, because it points the way toward the correct balance between free speech and multiculturalism in all nations.
Mr. Wilders is perhaps the best-known third-party political leader in the world. That’s not only because his populist Freedom Party holds the balance of power in the Netherlands’ minority government, but because he has been full-throated in his denunciation of the threat to liberal values posed by unassimilated Muslim immigrants – a problem that most other Western politicians have dared not tackle.
Central to Mr. Wilders’ viewpoint is the idea that Islam – in the way it is presented in the Koran, and interpreted by fundamentalists – is a political ideology as much as a religion; and that this ideology is fundamentally incompatible with modern Western liberal values such as pluralism, feminism and gay rights.
"There is no ‘moderate’ or ‘immoderate’ Islam,” he recently told me in an interview. "Islam is Islam, and that’s it. This is the Islam of the Koran. Now, you can certainly make a distinction among the people. There are moderate Muslims – who are the majority in our Western societies – and non-moderate Muslims. But Islam itself has only one form. The totalitarian ideology contained in the Koran has no room for moderation. If you really look at what the Koran says, in fact, you could argue that ‘moderate’ Muslims are not Muslims at all. It tells us that if you do not act on even one verse, then you are an apostate.” (...)
Posted June 24th, 2011 by pk
Jonathan Kay: Geert Wilders has won an important legal victory for all of us
National Post 24 June 2011
By Jonathan Kay
Geert Wilders is Dutch, not Canadian. And his acquittal this week on hate-speech charges was decided by a court in The Netherlands, not Canada. Nevertheless, his case deserves close scrutiny in our own country, because it points the way toward the correct balance between free speech and multiculturalism in all nations.
Mr. Wilders is perhaps the best-known third-party political leader in the world. That’s not only because his populist Freedom Party holds the balance of power in the Netherlands’ minority government, but because he has been full-throated in his denunciation of the threat to liberal values posed by unassimilated Muslim immigrants – a problem that most other Western politicians have dared not tackle.
Central to Mr. Wilders’ viewpoint is the idea that Islam – in the way it is presented in the Koran, and interpreted by fundamentalists – is a political ideology as much as a religion; and that this ideology is fundamentally incompatible with modern Western liberal values such as pluralism, feminism and gay rights.
"There is no ‘moderate’ or ‘immoderate’ Islam,” he recently told me in an interview. "Islam is Islam, and that’s it. This is the Islam of the Koran. Now, you can certainly make a distinction among the people. There are moderate Muslims – who are the majority in our Western societies – and non-moderate Muslims. But Islam itself has only one form. The totalitarian ideology contained in the Koran has no room for moderation. If you really look at what the Koran says, in fact, you could argue that ‘moderate’ Muslims are not Muslims at all. It tells us that if you do not act on even one verse, then you are an apostate.” (...)
Posted June 24th, 2011 by pk
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