I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam

guardian.co.uk ^ | Ian Traynor

[listenhillary]

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star Geert Wilders, the popular MP whose film on Islam has fuelled the debate on race in Holland, wants an end to mosque building and Muslim immigration.

TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

[the invisib1e hand]

TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

Perfect.

The thought-makers haul out their props to set the context: it is about islam vs. catholicism. Ironically, this time they got it right.

Guess which side the devil is on?

[listenhillary]

Due to stupid excerpting rules, I forgot to get to the meat of the article. He is planning on releasing a 10 minute scathing review of Islam that has Europe planning to quickly pull personnel from afflicted countries if the movie is shown.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I don’t hate rapists; just rape.

[expatguy]

I think it goes without saying that RAGEBOY will NOT be pleased.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[txzman]

“’the ideology of a retarded culture.’

Though I like this description, I still prefer my own: the Cult of Death.

[ecomcon]

...he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

Though I don't want to outlaw books or change the constitution, I'm down with the rest of that. It should be prison for anyone advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Put the jihadis and imams in prison for sedition.

[Poser]

This guy is either very brave or very stupid. The article says he’s not stupid.

[ecomcon]

He’s got guts for sure.

[livius]

You can’t blame Muslims who have been indoctrinated in this garbage since their youth for being a little crazy. The approach to them should be that of encouraging them to rationally examine their “religion” and also offering them an alternative.

Unfortunately, of course, the Dutch bishops stopped offering anybody an alternative to anything decades ago, so there are a lot of Muslims in Holland who probably have little idea of anything but their own crazy cult. So naturally, Muslim reaction to being encouraged to examine Islam is to threaten to kill anybody who makes that suggestion.

I think you can blame converts for adopting it, though, and I think there has to be really aggressive preaching on its error and also a clear realization that it is NOT a religion, but a theocratic political cult based on a dream of tribal and Arab racial superiority.

[SampleMan]

Though I don't want to outlaw books...

Even when the book calls for the violent overthrow of the government and enslavement of non-muslims?

[FreedomPoster]

Here, you should keep this on hand for the movie's release:

[Islander7]

Wilders is lucid and shrewd and the provactive soundbites trip easily off his tongue. He was recently voted Holland's most effective politician. If 18 months ago he sat alone in the second chamber or lower house in The Hague, his People's Party now has nine of 150 seats and is running at about 15 per cent in the polls. His Islam-bashing seems to be paying off. And not only in Holland. All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice.

A few months ago the Swiss People's Party of the pugnacious billionaire Christoph Blocher won a general election while simultaneously running a campaign to change the Swiss constitution to ban the building of minarets on mosques. Last month in Antwerp, far-right leaders from 15 European cities and from political parties in Belgium, Germany and Austria got together to launch a charter 'against the Islamisation of western European cities', reiterating the call for a mosque-building moratorium.

'We already have more than 6,000 mosques in Europe, which are not only a place to worship but also a symbol of radicalisation, some financed by extreme groups in Saudi Arabia or Iran,' argued Filip Dewinter, leader of Belgium's Flemish separatist party, the Vlaams Belang, who organised the Antwerp get-together. 'Its minarets are six floors high, higher than the floodlights of the Feyenoord soccer stadium,' he said of a new mosque being built in Rotterdam. 'These kinds of symbols have to stop.'

- - - S n i p - - -

The Dutch government is planning emergency evacuation of its nationals and diplomats from the Middle East should the Wilders film be shown. It is alarmed about the impact on Dutch business. 'Our Prime Minister is a big coward. The government is weak,' says Wilders. 'They hate my guts and I don't like them either.'

- - - S n i p - - -

I like this guy!

[Ramius]

Wow. It appears that Old Europe may have some fight in her yet. Now we’ll see if this sort of thing can attract a following, or if he just gets treated as the crazy uncle that lives upstairs.

[ecomcon]

Damn sure outlawed in my house, but it’s not the feds role to ban books. Put the authors of seditious writings in jail. Can’t put mohammed in jail as he’s already dead. Punish actions, not thought.

[Ramius]

I don’t hate rapists; just rape.

Not even close.

[silverleaf]

Brave guy. The religion of peace will be looking to slit his throat pronto.

[Kolokotronis]

“I think you can blame converts for adopting it, though, and I think there has to be really aggressive preaching on its error and also a clear realization that it is NOT a religion, but a theocratic political cult based on a dream of tribal and Arab racial superiority.”

I trust we will all blame the political elites of this country for embracing the Religion of Peace at the ballot box in November. I know the Christians of the Balkans and to the East feel very strongly about having their culture destroyed as part of America’s Islamic New World Order.

[g'nad]

you’ll notice the French are particularly absent in the list of countries standing up to the threat from islam...

[listenhillary]

Thanks - Much better excerpt than I did originally.