An interview with Geert Wilders....

His trial has just started in the Netherlands...and here's an interview with Hege Storhaug of Norway's Human Rights Service.

HRS: Like Robert Redeker and Kurt Westergaard, it may be that you will not be able to live in freedom for the rest of your life. What do you think of this situation?

Wilders: That might be true, and if so is a very sad conclusion. I wouldn’t wish my worst political enemy not to be free. But I have no regrets. I have to pay a high price for the fight for freedom but it’s worth it because if I and others in the world don’t fight against the ideology of hate and submission, we will all lose our freedom.

HRS: Do you, as a living symbol of freedom, really believe that the Koran should be prohibited, or was that proposal a conscious provocation? Do you really hope for book burnings of the sort that would remind us of some of the darker hours of Europe’s history?

Wilders: You have to see this proposal in the Dutch context. In the Netherlands Mein Kampf is outlawed. When it was outlawed, the politically correct leftist and liberal parties applauded it. My point was that for the same reason and (legal) arguments that Mein Kampf was outlawed in the Netherlands, the Koran could and should be outlawed since both books are full of incitement of violence. Of course the left were angered by my proposal to outlaw the Koran, and this was inconsistent, at least. So I did introduce a parliamentary resolution to outlaw the Koran in the Netherlands, but that resolution was rejected by the majority.

HRS: How do you envision Europe in 10-20 years? Will Europe have rediscovered its identity and pushed back the dark forces of Islamism, or will the old Europe have collapsed in fear? How can the dark forces of Islamism be forced into retreat, neutralized? If fear wins out, what will Europe look like in 2025?

Wilders: Europe is weak. European leaders are weak. We currently have more appeasers like Chamberlain leading European countries today than fighters like Churchill. If we stay weak, we lose our identity; our culture based on Christianity, Judaism, and humanism will lose ground and Islam will grow even stronger in Europe today. We will face a Eurabia, as my dear friend Bat Yeor has so rightfully described it. There will be no freedom, no room for anything but Islam, no tolerance, and more sharia. It will be hell. However, more and more people are becoming aware of the Islamic threat, unlike the political correct political elite that is still pampering the multicultural society and cultural relativism. There is a growing gap between the awakening vox populi and sleeping political elite. That’s why my Party for Freedom (PVV) in the latest poll from yesterday is (virtually) the biggest party in the Netherlands. That is encouraging. But we have a long way to go and we should fight, since liberty is at stake.

Please read the whole interview...