Thursday, March 17, 2005

Geert fights back

This man has backbone. Geert Wilders is a Dutch MP who has been under police protection after receiving death threats from Muslims. He has now launched a political manifesto and plans to establish a new political party.

The manifesto doesn't really challenge the theoretical underpinnings of liberalism - not surprising for a politician who has recently left the Dutch Liberal Party.

Nonetheless, Geert Wilders' manifesto really does represent a shakeup of the complacent liberal consensus in The Netherlands. Consider the following extracts:

"I don't want an elite of cowardly and scared people to keep this country hijacked any longer.

"Our history forces us to a struggle that is not without engagement, but which is most necessary. That struggle is about the continuation of The Netherlands as a recognizable nation, a country that is on the point of saying goodbye to its old roots and wants to trade them for multiculturalism, cultural relativism and a European super state and all that under the leadership of a political elite that long ago lost its way. Of that elite I declare myself independent. [Me: Is this not one of the best quotes from any Western politician of recent times? It deserves to be properly applauded. If we are to have any future it will be through our political representatives having such strong, clear but measured thoughts as these.]

"The clearance sale of Dutch interests and our own Dutch identity becomes very clear when one looks at how the politicians give away our sovereignty to a cast of bureaucrats in Brussels.

"The European Union should not expand any further. Turkey in, The Netherlands out.

"A special status for The Netherlands in the EU ... We have to keep our autonomy in immigration affairs. Never may we allow a civil servant in Brussels or a French politician decide how many immigrants we need to accept.

"Considering the danger and influx of drugs (criminality), and considering the widespread corruption and administrative incompetence of the Antilles, the government should strongly promote the Antilles no longer being a part of the Dutch kingdom.

"The seizure of The Netherlands' population by an alienated elite shows also in the nonchanlant way politicians handle a problem that most people find very important: crime and safety.

"We have to get rid of the idea that civil servants in The Hague should make the curriculum for all the schools. Let the parents and teachers determine the content of the education and let the subsequent educational institutes freely select their students.

"Islamic schools may not be founded. Different situations don't need to be treated equally.

"We have to deny the use of our civil rights to those (Islamic) radicals who want to eliminate our constitutional state and civil rights.

"...no more asylum seekers should be allowed to enter; all political refugees should be helped in the region. [Me: I've been arguing this for a long time. We best help both refugees and host communities by resettling refugees safely in the most compatible areas. Settling refugees in entirely foreign cultures takes away an important part of their identity, which is especially cruel for the second generation who have no say in the matter.]

"Not only should radical imams leave the country, we should also undertake much firmer action to close radical mosques ... Financing by radicals - such as salafist groups out of Morocco or Wahhabist groups out of Saudi Arabia - should be prohibited.

"The Netherlands is full ... That is why we have to limit immigration and we have to close the borders for non-western immigrants ... for at least five years. Marriage immigration based on marriages between nephews and cousins will be prohibited.

"Getting Dutch nationality will be less easy."

(A full translation of the manifesto can be found here.)

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