Timothy Garton Ash: We need more pro-multicultural propaganda
Timothy Garton Ash has an op-ed in today’s LA Times showing once again the high anxiety pervading European elites about the rise of anti-Muslim parties (“Geert Wilders and how to handle a gold-medal hypocrite“). The idea is that Wilders is a hypocrite because he “calls for the holy book of some 1.5 billion people to be banned!” Ash leaves out Wilders’ charge that the Koran is a fascist book that incites violence. And Ash never mentions Wilders’ point that Islam in Europe has had a chilling effect on free speech:
Speech now deemed suspect includes subjects that are commonly and openly aired when not involving Islam: women’s subordination, violence, child marriages, criminalization of homosexuality and animal cruelty. While not all such cases resulted in convictions, all contribute to a broad and chilling effect on speech. Because there is little predictability in the prosecution and adjudication of such cases, hinging as they do on subjective feelings, nobody knows what can be said with impunity. The flawed premise that religious views can easily be compartmentalized into personal or social realms itself violates the teaching of most religions.
Not to mention the fact that people critical of Islam have been threatened, physically attacked, and even murdered. Wilders has an around-the-clock body guard. Read more