What Robert Spencer calls "the reliably dhimmi Wall Street Journal" lives up to its reputation this weekend in an interview by James Taranto of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, one of the great and brave and precious few defenders of Western civilization to fight against its existential and intertwining enemies, cultural relativism and Islam.
The WSJ headline reveals the soft, gooey underpinnings on which the interview is premised: `Our Culture Is Better'--a quote from Wilders--over the following subhead: "Champion of Freedom or Anti-Islamic Provacateur? Both." Taranto writes:
By his own description, Geert Wilders is not a typical Dutch politician. "We are a country of consensus," he tells me on a recent Saturday morning at his midtown Manhattan hotel. "I hate consensus. I like confrontation. I am not a consensus politician. . . . This is something that is really very un-Dutch."
Yet the 45-year-old Mr. Wilders says he is the most famous politician in the Netherlands: "Everybody knows me. . . . There is no other politician -- not even the prime minister -- who is as well-known. . . . People hate me, or they love me. There's nothing in between. There is no gray area."
To his admirers, Mr. Wilders is a champion of Western values on a continent that has lost confidence in them. To his detractors, he is an anti-Islamic provocateur. Both sides have a point.
"Both sides have a point"?
Ahem: To his admirers, Winston Churchill is a champion of liberty on a continent that has seen the end of liberty. To his detractors, he is an anti-Nazi provacateur. Both sides have a point....To his admirers, Ronald Reagan is a champion of Western freedom to peoples yearning to be free. To his detractors, he is an anti-Communist provacateur. Both sides have a point...Or, to flip it around: To his admirerers, Adolph Hitler is a champion of Aryan values on a continent that has grown soft from cosmopolitan impurities. To his detractors, he is anti-Semitic provacateur. Both sides have point...
Need I go on?
In fact, both sides do NOT "have a point" except in the rarified vaccuum of thumbsucking, handwringing and eternal dithering that is the habitat of all those among us who seek to remain glued to the sidelines of "moderation" during this ongoing struggle for the survival of what we still fancy is the Free World. Pointing out and defending against the threat to Western values posed by the march of Islam is precisely what a champion of Western values such as Geert Wilders does--and thank heaven for him. Our failure as a society to comprehend this indicates just how deeply not only Islam but also cultural relativism have advanced into our very fibres.