The real purpose

There's been a lot of fuss lately about the Danish cartoons, and the Islamic drive to curtail Western freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The global muslim outrage (wether orchestrated or spontaneous) has led many, if not all analysts and commentators, to conclude that these freedoms are at stake, are at the heart of the issue.

They are all wrong. As I wrote recently, this most current spate of violent Islamic outbursts, triggered this time ostensibly by some innocuous Danish cartoons, supplemented by some "even more offensive" images supplied by muslims themselves in order to raise the heat some more, all this has a more insidious goal: It creates and maintains a subconscious image of Islam and its followers as an entity that plays a major role in our lives.

The fact that this is already the case seems so obvious that it doesn't warrant mentioning it anymore by most mainstream analysts. And yet there is nothing normal about Islam's dominance of our newsmedia, our politics, our daily lives. There is nothing natural about the fact that Islam's outrage-of-the-day is the subject of watercooler discussions, at dinner tables and on every second blog or forum. And the (mostly unspoken) conclusion is always the same: Better watch your words.

Even in the days of the cold war, when perhaps the media paid much attention to whatever the Soviet Union did and said (as they should), the daily lives of normal average people were mostly untouched. There was this vague threat, perhaps, but most of us never believed that war would ever come to happen between the West and the East. Both parties were just too sane.

That feeling of security does not exist with Islam. It is clear to many people (much more than there were scaremongers during the cold war) that of all things, sanity is in short supply in the Islamic world.
During the cold war, no one in the West would be afraid to wear a T-shirt of Ronald Reagan, or of Lenin. Opponents might harshly disagree, but there was never any thought of violence against each other.

Today, very few people in Europe have the nerve to wear a star of David openly, or a Kippah. Very few people would dare to hang one of the offending cartoons of Mohammed in their window. We are already censoring ourselves. We're being considerate to people we don't really like anymore, but are fearful of saying and doing what we wish we could do, partly out of politically correct indoctrination, partly out of simple fear.

We are afraid. And we are made to cower ever more, as we are made to watch embassies burn, Westerners flee from Islamic countries, and riots in our own lands, where muslim youths ridicule police, destroy shops, scream that we either behave or loose our heads, and stare into the camera with murderous malice, demanding 'respect'.

They do this because Islam prescribes it. And because we let them.

In Islamic countries, these riots are orchestrated and often organized by the state. There is no freedom of protest there, and any protest is necessarily sanctioned, if not ordered, by the regime.

In Europe, they are organized by Islamic groups, and although often not officially allowed by the government, they are nevertheless not forbidden, nor stopped. The only reason for this weak stance is fear. Fear of what might happen if a city council might exercise its legal right to prohibit a demonstration it has good reason to expect will result in riots.

Fear of what happened in Paris. It could happen anywhere in Europe. We know it. Our governments know it.

And the Enemy knows it.

For the moment, muslims still need an excuse to riot, to be righteously angry. There are plenty of excuses, so there's never a shortage of reasons to force themselves and their barbaric demands upon us. And the less we act against them, the more often they will do this, and the smaller their excuses need to be.

Until it is us who need to find an excuse for everything we do in our country. Like publish a cartoon. A book. Show a play. A movie.
After which we will stop doing these things, either because they are forbidden, or because we would rather avoid the consequences.

Think about it. How free do you really feel? To say what you want, for the sake of saying it, without having to explain to anyone why you said it?

To wear what you want, without having to worry someone else will take exception, even to the point of assaulting you?

I don't feel THAT free anymore. Do you?

Islam ALREADY has far too great an influence on our lives, and it is a very negative one. What our politicians are exhorting us to do, we've already been doing, it just seems it is not enough.

This is not about freedom of speech. It is about freedom. Period. And the time has come and gone for stopping the encroachment upon our freedom. Too much has been given away already, will be lost unless we reclaim it. We must be serious about keeping our lands completely free, and not "free so long as...".

These lands are not The Household of Submission. These lands are not The Household of War.

These lands are our lands. Let's be determined to keep them that way. At all cost.