on 19-02-2013 10:57 AM
DUTCH politician Geert Wilders is creating waves – and he has yet to hold a single public meeting in Australia.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/
http://www.qsociety.org.au/
The taxpayer-funded multicultural channel SBS gave what it would think was a lengthy interview with Wilders last night and the taxpayer-funded ABC provided a shorter and very slanted interview with anti-Wilders protesters.
But his message cut through strongly - Islamists make poor migrants in Western liberal democracies.
We need to hear his message and think about what our misguided multicultural policy has wrought here.
Coincidentally, almost exactly a year ago The Economist magazine examined the effect of Islamic migration in the Nordic nations and the picture was not pretty.
In Sweden, it found that despite the best efforts of the Swedish state, the city of Malmo is a no-go zone with a 62 per cent rate of unemployment.
Angry (Muslim) youths have taken to rioting, torching bicycle sheds and recycling centres as well as cars.
Mass immigration, the magazine said, is posing serious problems for the region. For the Nordic countries to be able to afford their welfare states they need to have 80% of their adults in the workforce, but labour-force participation among non-European immigrants is much lower than that.
In Sweden only 51% of non-Europeans have a job, compared with over 84% of native Swedes. The Nordic countries need to persuade their citizens that they are getting a good return on their taxes, but mass immigration is creating a class of people who are permanently dependent on the state.
In the mid-1990s immigrants in their 40s—the age group that generally contributes most to the public budget—paid only marginally more in taxes than they received in benefits.
In Sweden 26 per cent of all prisoners, and 50 per cent of prisoners serving more than five years, are foreigners.
Some 46 per cent of the jobless are non-Europeans, and 40 per cent of non-Europeans are classified as poor, compared with only 10 per cent of native Swedes.
High immigration is threatening the principle of redistribution that is at the heart of the welfare state.
Income inequalities in the Nordic countries are generally lower than elsewhere, but Matz Dahlberg, of Uppsala University, reckons that immigration is making people less willing to support redistribution.
Immigration is also causing culture clashes.
Nordics fervently believe in liberal values, especially sexual equality and freedom of speech, but many of the immigrants come from countries where men and women are segregated and criticising the prophet Muhammad is a serious offence.
Peaceful Denmark found itself on the front-line of the culture wars when Jyllands-Posten, a newspaper, published cartoons making fun of Muhammad.
Immigration has divided the Nordics.
The Economist said the Swedes regard their open-armed approach to asylum-seekers as an expression of what is best in their culture.
The Danes revisited their immigration policies in 1999, spurred by the rise of the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party.
They tightened the rules for family reunification, made it more difficult for newcomers to claim benefits and set up an integration ministry.
Today Denmark receives more non-European immigrants than ever, but it has radically reduced the number of refugees while increasing the number of people on student and work visas.
Liberals are increasingly on the defensive.
The number of immigration-related attacks is rising.
In 2010 Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly blew himself up in the middle of a crowd of Christmas shoppers in central Stockholm; remarkably, he managed to injure only a couple of people.
Wilders has seen the problems arise in his native Netherlands and is here to warn Australians of the failure of multiculturalism.
He has travelled extensively in the Middle East and was invited by US politicians to address them.
Political correctness is so rife in Australia that former Immigration Minister Bowen stalled attempts to bring him here last year though Islamist hate speech imams appear to enter Australia and hold rallies at will.
What is good for hate-filled Islamists should be good enough for a Dutch MP and leader of the third largest political party in the Netherlands.
Wilders deserves support, his message needs to be heard – debate on this issue is more urgent than ever.
Yet the Q Society http://www.qsociety.org.au/ which brought him to Australia has had difficulty finding a venue and locations for his addresses must be kept secret until the last moment to make it more difficult for the protesters to disrupt those who wish to hear him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Society_of_Australia
This is what multiculturalism has reduced our once liberal democracy to.
Where once we used to pride ourselves on free speech we now need to hide champions of freedom from the bullies and thugs who don’t want or cannot debate its virtues.
Shame upon the nation.
on 21-02-2013 06:39 PM
AL : "but that is not all he has done, from reading about him..."
So enlighten us AL, please.
AL: "Freedom of speech .... has to be balanced with the rights of others."
It is AL, under various federal and State statutes,
Freedom of speech
Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write what we think privately or publicly, about the government, or about any topic. We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Free speech comes from facts, not rumours
Sadly, facts are often in short supply within CS.
Also:-
Freedom of association
We are free to join any organisation or group if it is legal.
Freedom of assembly
We are free to meet with other people in public or private places.
on 21-02-2013 06:42 PM
he speaks.. brevik acts. same school of thought, different approach. the vocal inspire the violent to act .
on 21-02-2013 06:52 PM
on 21-02-2013 07:00 PM
I am sure you are quite capable of finding anything I can find, John.
on 21-02-2013 07:01 PM
on 21-02-2013 07:11 PM
I understand LL, it is just that our society is based upon the rule of law, and observance of it.
AL: "I am sure you are quite capable of finding anything I can find, John"
Maybe AL, but why not support your "but that is not all he has done, from reading about him..." comment, with a link to the alleged "reading".
on 21-02-2013 07:13 PM
alleged? 😮
on 21-02-2013 07:17 PM
he speaks.. brevik acts. same school of thought, different approach. the vocal inspire the violent to act .
The mentally unstable will act of their own accord.
on 21-02-2013 07:44 PM
The mentally unstable will act of their own accord.
we all have influences ? brevik sees himself as a sane hero.. that view usually requires some peer support... of course he could be a real 'self starter' and as you say they do exist. but i would add wilders and the like provide more fuel to a pre-existing fire
on 21-02-2013 07:59 PM
all he does is state his opinion on the Koran
No, that is his starting point, Cat, he goes on from there to argue that because Islamic extremists justify their behaviour by quoting verses in the Koran it must follow that all Muslims share the same belief.
The Ku Klux Klan, the Hillsborough Baptist Church, and those extremist Right To Lifers who think it's OK to burn down abortion clinics (all groups who call themselves Christian) justify their behaviour by quoting verses from the Bible - are we to extrapolate from that that that all Christians subscribe to this belief and that Christianity is an evil and dangerous religion?,