Thanks for emailing the New York speech by Geert Wilders. My first reaction was simply to delete for the same reason others were clicking forward. But the email helped me understand something I've been working on about the difference between knowing, learning and the replication of information.
My ancestors in Europe (and America) were themselves ostracized, restricted, blamed, persecuted and evicted because of their middle-eastern origins, adherence to timeless religious and cultural beliefs and dietary preferences. So my instinct was to dismiss Wilders as a demagogue. His rhetoric has been used before, almost word for word, to stir fear about Chinese, Catholics, Jews or other groups.
Judging by the American panic his speech has created, Europeans are somewhat more inoculated to it, having been infected before. Are the Dutch any more inconvenienced by Halal than they are by Kosher consumers? Are France's mega-mosques any more threatening to secular society than California's mega-churches? Are there really more hate crimes committed by extremist Muslims in Europe as there are attacks on minorities by radical skinheads? Is a woman's decision to wear a hijab somehow more offensive than a man covering his head with a yarmulke? Should we be any more concerned that Pew found half of French Muslims may put faith before patriotism than that Pew found 40% of Americans see a conflict between religious teachings and modern society (although US Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus each only surveyed at about 30%)? And are demands for Islamic holidays more ominous than similar demands to take off on Columbus Day, St. Patrick's Day or Yom Kippur?
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