Weyrich on Vlaams Belang

Writing at CNS News, Paul Weyrich defends Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party against the political forces that would ban it, and that, by banning it, would deliver Belgium under the heel of Islam. This is the first time I am aware of that a mainstream American conservative has come to the defense of Vlaams Belang. I’m happy to see this.

However, unmentioned by Weyrich is a certain recent immigrant to the U.S. and “scholar” at the American Enterprise Institute who has herself called for the banning of the Vlaams Belang. As recounted at VFR a year ago, Ayaan Hirsi Ali in February 2006 told the Antwerp newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen:

“I would ban the Vlaams Belang because it hardly differs from the Hofstad group [a Jihadist terror network in the Netherlands, involved in the assassination of Theo van Gogh]. Though the VB members have not committed any violent crimes yet, they are just postponing them and waiting until they have an absolute majority. On many issues they have exactly the same opinions as the Muslim extremists: on the position of women, on the suppression of gays, on abortion. This way of thinking will lead straight to genocide.”

Even while she would ban a party that seeks to defend Europe from being taken over by Islamic sharia law, Ali says she has no problem with Muslims promoting sharia in the West, so long as they do so without violence. She also recently equated Catholicism with Nazism.

It is disturbing to realize that this person has been praised by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch as “one of the heroes of our age.” Though Spencer duly criticized Ali for her attack on Catholicism, he then went right on lauding her. He has not retracted his depiction of this leftist anti-Christian as his personal hero. Why does he make this mistake? Because, like most mainstream conservatives today, Spencer’s politics are not primarily defined by what he is for, but by what he is against. He is against Islam. Ali criticizes some aspects of Islam (mainly its treatment of women and homosexuals), and therefore Spencer sees Ali as his ally and he overlooks all the ways—her attacks on Christianity and Christian political parties, her demonization of immigration restrictionists and those who seek to defend the West from Islam, her absurd agenda to use the West to “feminize” the Muslim world even as she encourages the West to accept more and more Muslim immigrants—in which she is a leftist enemy of our civilization. By contrast, traditionalist conservatives who define themselves by what they are for (namely our civilization), rather than by what they are against, instantly grasp the fact that Ali is an enemy.

- end of initial entry -

Prior to my posting the above, John D. sent me this:

I just watched a clip on Fox News with Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaking on the evils of Islam. Although the piece was short, it was a step in the right direction. To my knowledge, this is the first time that a MSM outlet has broadcast anything close to the idea that Islam itself “may” be the problem, and not just it’s extremist adherents. I hope this is a prelude of the necessary dialogue to come.

I replied:

Mainly she opposes Islam because it treats women and homosexuals unequally. She opposes the Catholic Church, which she equates with Nazism, for the same reason. Her anti-Islamism is incidental to her main commitment, which is cultural leftism.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 04, 2007 03:05 PM | Send