dis-Integration

Read this and weep for the demise of Western civilisation:

Professor Guy Millière of the University of Paris:

Many of the elites seem to think of themselves as The Bequeathers of Absolute Truth — proud, self-righteous, totalitarian antagonists to any contrarian thought or speech — and they have seized power in universities, in the media and in nearly all political parties.

 

In Europe, defending free market ideas and Judeo-Christian values has become almost impossible… Silvio Berlusconi, a few weeks after the September 11 attacks on the US, said, “We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights.” Faced with the unanimous indignation of his peers, he had to declare a few days later that he was withdrawing his remarks.

 

When the French Interior Minister Claude Gueant recently declared that “not all cultures are of equal value,” a socialist deputy publicly expressed outrage, and added that sentences of this kind had “paved the way for the Third Reich;” the French National Assembly has envisioned legal action against him.

 

Criticizing Islam is even more dangerous.... The prominent Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who expressed the opinion that Islam was “fascism,” was prosecuted in the Netherlands in January 2009 for “inciting hatred against Muslims.” Although he was acquitted in June 2011 by a Dutch court, those who sued him brought the case before the European Court of Human Rights. Final judgment has not yet been reached. The plaintiffs said they felt “humiliated and threatened” by Wilders who, unlike them, must live in safe houses, under police protection…

An Austrian woman, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, gave a private lecture in Vienna in November 2009, during which she remarked that the prophet Mohammed, who married one of his wives, Aisha, when she was nine, “liked young girls,” and one month later found herself charged with “denigrating the teachings of a recognized religion.” In February 2011, she was sentenced to a heavy fine, which she paid; she nevertheless lives under constant threat.

Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society, affirmed in a December 2009 interview, that Islam treated women in a “degrading manner.” He was immediately convicted of “inciting hatred” and of “racism.” In May 2011, he too was sentenced to a heavy fine. When two Frenchmen, Pierre Cassen and Pascal Hillout, created a secularist movement, Riposte Laïque, [Secular Reply] in 2007, and published several articles against the Islamization of France and Europe, they were charged with “inciting racial hatred” against Muslims. It should be noted that Cassen is a trade-unionist and belongs to the left, and that Hillout was born a Muslim.... On February 3, 2012, the prosecutor requested a jail sentence of two months for Hillout, a jail sentence of three months for Cassen, and a crippling fine of 150,000 euros ($200,000) for Riposte Laïque. The verdict is to be delivered in a few weeks.

For a book about Islam in 2004 (Who’s Afraid of Islam?), that criticizes Islam and defends Israel, I ... still receive frequent explicit death threats — anonymous letters and e-mails, and pictures of slit throats — and copies of The Invention of the Palestinian People, my latest book, have been destroyed by organized gangs raiding bookshops.

The list of examples could be long; all who dare to criticize Islam, defend Israel, or even speak of “Western civilization” in Europe live in a situation of provisional freedom, and face increasing risks… Newspapers and magazines no longer feel free to publish their writings; large publishing companies refuse their books…

The loss of freedom can occur gradually. It can also be brutal. A ban takes hold, then another, and another and another. And nobody pays attention until its too late.