Bruce Bawer wonders if he’s about to join the club:
In France and Italy, Oriana Fallaci is put on trial for disparaging Islam. In Canada, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are hauled before “human rights commission” tribunals for criticizing Islam in print. In Australia, an Islamic organization sues two pastors for “vilification of Muslims.” In Britain, a Daily Telegraph columnist is arrested on charges of hate speech for having written negatively about Islam, and the Archbishop of Canterbury proposes that Parliament pass stronger laws against such speech acts. And in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, the head of the Freedom Party, which performed so well in the June 9 general elections that Wilders may end up in the governing coalition, still faces trial for having made a film about the Koranic foundations of terrorism.
Now Mr. Bawer finds himself cited for “Islamophobia” in an official report from Norway’s near parodically Orwellian “Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion”. On the one hand, he makes a much better poster child for the multiculti state’s assault on core liberties than me or those Aussie pastors do: Mr. Bawer is a gay man who quit America for Europe because he thought it would be more “tolerant.” On the other, he’ll be just another “extreme right-wing Islamophobe” by the time they’re through with him. He’s learning the hard way that “tolerant” liberal democracies won’t tolerate anyone who dissents from the multiculti pieties.
I wonder how long these countries can keep the lid on the racket:
Members of the Muslim Against the Crusade group clashed with far right protesters as they shouted ‘murderers, murderers, murderers’ and ‘British troops go to hell’ as members of the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment paraded down the streets of Barking, Essex.
The chants were drowned out by a large mob on the opposite side of the street who retaliated with jeers of ‘Traitors’ to the Muslim protesters.
The hour-long parade had been delayed due to growing tensions between the two sides, with anti-Mac protestors singing God Save the Queen and drinkers at a nearby pub hurling frozen pork sausages at the Muslims…
One member of the Mac group used a megaphone to shout: ‘This is a protest against parading in a Muslim area. We love death the way you love life.’
He branded British soldiers as ‘butchers’ and ‘despots’.
The Muslim protesters chanted ‘Democracy’ as they had an uneasy stand-off against a mob, some waving St George’s Crosses, Union flags and an English Defence League flag.
Anti-Mac protesters sang ‘I’ll be English ’till my dying day,’ and jeered ‘We pay your benefits’.
I’m not sure if Britain has a “Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion”, but, if so, no doubt they’re taking names.