 Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent.
He has the potential to emerge as a world-historical figure. That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population's withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants. This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari'a)? Wilders, 46, founder and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), is the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity. That's because he and the PVV differ from most of Europe's other nationalist, anti-immigrant parties. The PVV is libertarian and mainstream conservative, without roots in neo-Fascism, nativism, conspiricism, antisemitism, or other forms of extremism. (Wilders publicly emulates Ronald Reagan.) Indicative of this moderation is Wilders' long-standing affection for Israel that includes two years' residence in the Jewish state, dozens of visits, and his advocating the transfer of the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem. In addition, Wilders is a charismatic, savvy, principled, and outspoken leader who has rapidly become the most dynamic political force in the Netherlands. While he opines on the full range of topics, Islam and Muslims constitute his signature issue. Overcoming the tendency of Dutch politicians to play it safe, he calls Muhammad a devil and demands that Muslims "tear out half of the Koran if they wish to stay in the Netherlands." More broadly, he sees Islam itself as the problem, not just a virulent version of it called Islamism. Finally, the PVV benefits from the fact that, uniquely in Europe, the Dutch are receptive to a non-nativist rejection of Shari'a.
This first became apparent a decade ago, when Pim Fortuyn, a left-leaning former communist homosexual professor began arguing that his values and lifestyle were irrevocably threatened by the Shari'a. Fortuyn anticipated Wilders in founding his own political party and calling for a halt to Muslim immigration to the Netherlands. Following Fortuyn's 2002 assassination by a leftist, Wilders effectively inherited his mantle and his constituency. The PVV has done well electorally, winning 6 percent of the seats in the November 2006 national parliamentary elections and 16 percent of Dutch seats in the June 2009 European Union elections. Polls now generally show the PVV winning a plurality of votes and becoming the country's largest party. Were Wilders to become prime minister, he could take on a leadership role for all Europe. But he faces daunting challenges. The Netherlands' fractured political scene means the PVV must either find willing partners to form a governing coalition (a difficult task, given how leftists and Muslims have demonized Wilders as a " right-wing extremist") or win a majority of the seats in parliament (a distant prospect). Wilders must also overcome his opponents' dirty tactics. Most notably, they have finally, after 2½ years of preliminary skirmishes, succeeded in dragging him to court on charges of hate speech and incitement to hatred. The public prosecutor's case against Wilders opens in Amsterdam on January 20; if convicted, Wilders faces a fine of up to US$14,000 or as many as 16 months in jail. Remember, he is his country's leading politician. Plus, due to threats against his life, he always travels with bodyguards and incessantly changes safe houses. Who exactly, one wonders, is the victim of incitement? Although I disagree with Wilders about Islam (I respect the religion but fight Islamists with all I have), we stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the lawsuit. I reject the criminalization of political differences, particularly attempts to thwart a grassroots political movement via the courts. Accordingly, the Middle East Forum's Legal Project has worked on Wilders' behalf, raising substantial funds for his defense and helping in other ways. We do so convinced of the paramount importance to talk freely in public during time of war about the nature of the enemy. Ironically, were Wilders fined or jailed, it would probably enhance his chances to become prime minister. But principle outweighs political tactics here. He represents all Westerners who cherish their civilization. The outcome of his trial and his freedom to speak has implications for us all. Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Daniel Pipes 
 A theme constantly repeated both by the internationalist left and the isolationist right is that Islamic terrorism is a backlash or blowback against our foreign policy. Exponents of this point of view, whether it is Bill Ayers or Pat Buchanan, echo the same list of Muslim grievances against America and imply that if we simply left the Muslims alone, they in turn would leave us alone. But their premise is as foolish as arguing that the Visigoths would have left Rome alone, if only Rome had left the Visigoths alone. One can buy some time by leaving the people who are expanding into your territory alone, but that just means postponing the inevitable. Europe is full of governments anxiously trying to leave the Muslims who are overrunning their countries alone. And all they're doing is buying themselves a little time, until the inevitable sacking begins. In countries such as France and Belgium, the sacking has begun already. The internationalists and isolationists who are expert at offering the most cynical and conspiratorial readings of American foreign policy, also inevitably offer the most optimistic and naive readings of Muslim expansionism. That double standard is a mandatory requirement for blaming America first and blaming Islam never. Instead Muslims are treated as pinballs who only act violently in response to our aggression. This pinball theory of Islamic victimization is used to sell absurdities such as the Cycle of Violence theory, which argues that if people stopped fighting Islamic terrorism it would go away, or the They Hate Us Because of Our Foreign Policy theory which pretends that Islamic terrorism is a justified response to our liberation of Kuwait, protection of Saudi Arabia and foreign aid to Israel. Both theories dehumanize Muslims by assume that the Ummah has no larger agenda than just wanting to be left alone. Far left and far right critics of America, such as Ayers and Buchanan, routinely charge America with that dreaded "I" word, Imperialism. But it is the rising Caliphate that practices actual imperialism, spreading the faith by the sword, expanding its dominions by exploiting Muslim fifth columns around the world, and murdering anyone in its way. Muslim corporations from the oil rich gulf states leverage their wealth to promote their influence in the United States and Europe. Muslim nations band together in the UN to outlaw any speech they consider blasphemous, even when that speech takes place in non-Muslim countries. When Obama bows to the Saudi King, when tax dollars are used to repay US oil companies whose property was nationalized by the Saudis, when Saudi lobbyists hold high positions in the government, when terrorists out of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia murder thousands of Americans while their countries profit from US foreign aid and rising oil prices from the aforementioned nationalized US oil companies, when Islamic leaders promote death and terror against the infidels, while demanding unflinching respect for their beliefs-- there you can see true imperialism. There was a time when Islamic terrorism was about foreign policy, but that time has long passed for Europe, where Islamic terrorism is now a matter of domestic policy. It is quickly becoming a matter of domestic policy in America as well. Because while Westerners may divide Islamic grievances into domestic and foreign spheres, Muslims themselves make no such distinction except within their own nations. The rise of an Islamic minority in a non-Muslim country to the Muslim mind demands the imposition of Islamic law, since all other forms of jurisprudence are illegitimate and inferior in comparison to it. If that request is not granted, then Muslims naturally have the "right" to rise up against their oppressors. If the request is granted, the first seeds of an Islamic takeover have been planted. Soon disputes between Muslims and non-Muslims will have to be tried in accordance with Islamic law. Blasphemy must be outlawed. And Islamic law must step by step become the basis of the nation's legal system. Eventually the nation's indigenous legal system is so weak and inferior that it is wholly swallowed up by a little problem named Sharia. When Muslims speak of fighting an American or Western empire, they don't mean it in quite the sense that Ron Paul or Cindy Sheehan do. They mean it in the sense of obliterating the Pax Americana, the hegemony of the Western powers in the military, economic and cultural spheres-- and replacing it with their own. The Ummah is not searching for some Benetton/UNICEF fantasy of global co-existence. It is playing a zero sum game from which there is no exit. The Islamic birth rate combined with their domestic impoverishment and oppression stimulate immigration, the growing treasure houses of the oil rich states are used to buy power and influence-- and to do what all royal houses do, extend their power and dream of global ambitions. American and European internationalists are still wedded to Soviet propaganda, which with the flexibility of Communist dogma was willing to embrace anyone at war with the West as an enemy of capitalism. This flexibility allowed them to embrace Hitler and Nazi Germany as victims of Western Imperialism (at least until German tanks swept across the border). Embracing Islamism seems almost like a trivial contortion of principles at this point. American isolationists like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul still think that bashing American foreign policy and Israel is a cure all for all of Islam's ails, a foolish cowardice that they share with many tottering European governments who imagine the same thing. While Islamists such as Bin Laden do indeed resent America's ties to the governments of Egypt, Yemen, Israel or the House of Saud-- that is only because we stand in the way of their ambition to take over those countries, a move that would quadruple the world's terrorist quota. One might as well argue that the solution to race riots is to appoint Al Sharpton president, an absurd premise that neither Buchanan nor Paul would sign on to at home, but that they somehow seem to think would solve all our problems abroad. While European right wing isolationists have generally learned that playing the foreign policy card or taking out and polishing one's antique anti-semitism for display, as the likes of Buchanan are wont to do, are no answer, their solutions depend on isolationism combined with a limited domestic crackdown are no answer either. That might have been enough in 1968, but probably not even then. It certainly would not be enough now. Not in a world where the Caliphate is organized enough to sow domestic terrorism around the world, while keeping a death grip on the UN and the international energy trade. Not in a world in which NATO warplanes bombed a country to rubble because it dared stand up to Islamic separatists. Not in a world in which international boycotts are organized by the left against Israel for simply building a wall to keep the terrorists on their side of the border. Not in a world in which the ministers of every civilized nation tremble when the Caliphate squeaks. One cannot simply build a wall and then wait out the worst of it. Because the worst of it is yet to come. If darkness spreads across Europe and the world, then Fortress Britannia will not wait it out alone. Not without cutting off international trade, ending free elections in which any more liberal party could win, developing a nuclear shield and enough weaponry to stand off all the combined forces that the UN or the remains of NATO could field. In short it isn't feasible. If a patient falls ill, he cannot simply wall off the disease in his foot or his right arm. And like it or not, the modern world has become far too interconnected for isolationism to be a survival strategy anymore. No single nation alone could have stood off Nazism. No single nation alone can stand off Islamism.What was once foreign policy, is now domestic policy. What was once a distant thunder, is now a dull roar in our own streets. If you build a wall, they can shoot rockets over it. If you pass laws, they will become causes of terror. And if you fail to pass them, you will be forced to live under theirs, sooner or later. We can either stand together, or following the cowardly policies of the last few decades, sell each other out in the hopes that the best diplomat and the most esteemed backstabber will be the last to be eaten by the black crocodile of the caliphate that circles the globe from ocean to ocean. There is no help for it, but to form an alliance of nations, an alliance of religions, an alliance of philosophies and civilizations, from the east to the west. That alliance is not yet here, but it must come, if we are to survive what waits ahead for us.
"The Council of the Islamic fiqh academy, emanating from the organization of the Islamic conference issued the following fatwa concerning secularism in its meeting held in Manama on 14-19 November 1989:
Resolution no 99 (2/11) on secularism
The Council of the Islamic Fiqh Academy, emanating from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in its 11th session held in Manama, State of Bahrain, on 25-30 Rajab 1419 H (14-19 November 1998),
Having examined the research papers presented to the Academy in respect of "secularism" and in the light of the discussions which drew attention to the seriousness of the matter facing the Muslims Ummah,
Resolves:
First: Secularism (which is the separation between religion and daily life) started as a reaction to the arbitrary acts committed by the Christian Church in the medieval ages.
Second: Secularism spread in the Muslim countries with the force of colonization and its stooges, and under the effect of orientalism, and thus led to the fragmentation of the Muslim Ummah, to casting doubts on the true belief and to the distortion of the bright history of our nation. It also led to the spreading of misconception among the young generation that there is discrepancy between reason and Shari'a texts; and thus secularism strived to replace the perfect Shari'a by man-made laws and promote licentiousness, moral degradation and the destruction of noble values.
Third: From secularism spread destructive ideologies which invaded our countries under different names, such as racism, communism, Zionism, freemasonry, etc., which led to the dissipation of the Ummah's resources and the deterioration of economic conditions. The result was the occupation of some of our holy lands, such as Palestine and Al-Quds. This is an indication of its failure to do our Ummah any good.
Fourth: Secularism is a man-made system based on principles of atheism which run counter to Islam, in part and whole. It converges with international Zionism and calls for licentiousness. Therefore, it is an atheist sect that is rejected by Allah and His Messenger and by all the believers.
Fifth: Islam is a religion, a state and a comprehensive way of life. It is suitable for every time and every place. It does not approve of the separation between religion and life. It requires that all laws and regulations emanate from it, and that practical life follow its system whether in politics, economics, sociology, education, media, or any other sphere of life.
Recommendations:
The Islamic Fiqh Academy makes the following recommendations:
a) Muslim rulers should confront the methods of secularizing Muslims and their countries and take the necessary measures to protect them from such methods.
b) Muslim scholars should spread their missionary efforts to expose secularism and warn against it.
c) Drawing up a comprehensive Islamic education plan for schools, universities, research centres and information networks to devise one formula and one educational discourse and to stress the need for the revival of the role of the mosque, to pay special attention to sermonizing, preaching and guidance, to give preachers adequate qualifications which respond to the requirements of our age, to refute misconceptions about Islam, and to protect the goals of our noble Shari'a."
 By Matthew Hickley | 21st February
Baroness Warsi said Labour has failed to tackle the problem of polygamy in Britain because of 'cultural sensitivity'
Politicians have failed to take polygamy seriously because of 'cultural sensitivity', a Muslim peer has claimed.
Baroness Warsi, a Tory spokesman for community cohesion, said this has resulted in laws banning the practice not being properly enforced.
The Conservative peer urged the Government to bring in rules demanding the registration of all religious marriage ceremonies to stop men in Britain marrying more than one woman without registering them.
The Government has no figures on polygamous marriages, but the practice is thought to be common in parts of the Muslim communities and the number is thought to run into thousands.
Polygamy is a crime in Britain, punishable by up to seven years in jail.
But the practice is legal in many Muslim countries, and the UK benefits system recognises 'extra' wives as dependents - provided the marriage took place legally overseas.
Islamic law allows a man to take up to four wives, provided he can support them properly and equally.
In some cases it is thought Muslim men marry second wives in a religious ceremony in the UK without registering the marriage.
The changes urged by Baroness Warsi would end that practice by demanding that all such weddings be registered - rendering the man liable to prosecution.
The Tory peer, who was born in Britain to Pakistani parents, said: 'There has been a failure on the part of policy-makers to respond to this situation.
'Some of it has been done in the name of cultural sensitivity and we've just avoided either discussing or dealing with this matter head on.'
She told the BBC: 'There has to be a culture change and that has to be brought about by policymakers taking a very clear stance on this issue, saying that in this country, one married man is allowed to marry one woman.
'And that must be the way for everyone who lives in this country.'
Muslim weddings are not recognised by the state, and couples must also undergo a register office ceremony to be married in the eyes of the law.
Baroness Warsi proposed rules making it compulsory to register private Muslim 'Nikah' marriage ceremonies which take place in the home - with 'an imam and a couple of witnesses there' - within a four-week period.
She said: 'If that was the case, then those marriages would have to be declared within law and if those marriages were declared within law, then clearly if the person has a first legal wife then there could be potential cases of bigamy being brought.'
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: 'It is Government policy to prevent the formation of polygamous households.
'Polygamous marriages that have been contracted in overseas countries are legally recognised.
'It is not the role of Government to take a position on the rites, beliefs or practices of any particular religious faith, other than where these give rise to conflict with the common law.'
Ministers reviewed polygamy laws last year, but opted to leave them unchanged.
Men with multiple wives can claim extra income support, jobseeker's allowance and housing and council tax benefits for his dependents provided the marriage took place legally overseas - although the state only recognises one of his wives as his legal spouse. Source: Daily Mail H/T: Doctor Bulldog and Ronin
 The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) will present its first all day international conference on Political Islam, Sharia Law, and Civil Society on Friday 10 October 2008. Since apostasy is punishable by death under Islamic law, the conference coincides with the International Day against the Death Penalty. Speakers at the conference, including Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling, and Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, will focus on Apostasy; Sharia Law; and Creationism, Faith Schools and Religious Education. Dawkins will also present his criticism of Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, for which Dawkins' site has been banned in Turkey. Other distinguished speakers at the conference are Mina Ahadi, Roy Brown, Giles Enders, Johann Hari, Ehsan Jami, Houzan Mahmoud, Caspar Melville, Taslima Nasreen, Fariborz Pooya, Terry Sanderson, Joan Smith, Bahram Soroush, Hanne Stinson, Hamid Taqvaee, Ibn Warraq, Keith Porteous Wood and Zia Zaffar. The event includes a comedy act by Nick Doody, the work of a well-known artist, Fitna Remade by Reza Moradi and Breaking the Taboo by Patty Debonitas. For more information, a press pass, booking form or to interview speakers, please contact: Maryam Namazie Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain BM Box 1919, London WC1N 3XX, UK Tel: 07719166731 E-mail: exmuslimcouncil@gmail.comwww.ex-muslim.org.ukDetails on the conference: 10 October 2008 10am-6pm (Registration begins at 9am) Conway Hall London 25 Red Lion Square WC1R 4RL (Closest station: Holborn) GBP 40 statutory organisations/businesses; GBP 20 voluntary sector; GBP 10 individuals, including lunch and refreshments.
Update:
Cindy Wockner July 30, 2008 12:00am THE death row Bali bombers want to be beheaded instead of being shot by a firing squad. They are appealing to the Indonesian Constitutional Court on the grounds that death by firing squad is torture. The three want to be beheaded in the way that capital punishment is carried out under strict Islamic law. They will claim that prisoners can take too long to die when shot. Their lawyers denied the move was a tactic to delay the executions, which authorities said were imminent. Lawyer Mahendradatta said the issue was about ensuring due processes of law were followed when it came to irreversible punishment and not about saving the lives of Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra. The lawyers will meet Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji tomorrow to complain that the latest appeal knockback by the Supreme Court was in the form of a letter signed by a court clerk and not a decision by judges. Mr Mahendradatta said the Constitutional Court appeal would argue that death by firing squad could be torture. If the firing squad does not kill the prisoner immediately, the commander has what is known as an amnesty shot with his pistol. "The regulation itself admits that there is a possibility that one shot is not going to kill the prisoner, which means it is torture," he said. "The constitution says the right not to be tortured cannot be reduced under any circumstances. "They (the bombers) are on the death sentence not torture. "Amrozi and the others are ready to die, not only today but since they got the first verdict in Denpasar. But this is about the law and precedent." Executions should be carried out only when all legal procedures had been followed properly, he added. "If they want to execute Amrozi and the others, just go ahead -- but say it is in the name of revenge because if you want to execute them by the regulations then you have to follow all the procedures of the law." Mr Mahendradatta said the Muslim Lawyer Team, which represents all three condemned men, would meet the Attorney-General and press him to make sure the law was followed. "We are going to go to the Attorney-General to ask them to obey the law. I have never seen a situation before where a clerk makes a court ruling." It is unlikely the Constitutional Court appeal would stop the executions. Authorities want the executions carried out before Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month, which starts in September. Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji has previously said appeal or no appeal, the executions would go ahead. Prosecutors in Bali, who are in charge of arranging the executions of the bombers who killed 202 people in 2002, say everything is ready and they're waiting for a date. The three will be executed on Nusa Kambangan Island, off the coast of Central Java, where their jail is located. Source: HeraldSun
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Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent.
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