Former Colorado Senate President John Andrews

introduces the Hon. Geert Wilders at Western Conservative

Summit, Denver, June 30, 2012

Last weekend, the Hon. Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Dutch parliament spoke at the Western Conservative Summit (WCS) in Denver. He was foremost among a galaxy of conservative stars who spoke at the WCS.  More than 1000 attended the event, the third such forum sponsored by the Centennial Institute of Colorado Christian University (CCU) headed by former Colorado Senate President John Andrews. Wilders, author of Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me and Frank Gaffney, Jr., President of the Washington, DC –based Center for Security Policy addressed the Islamization threat here in America. At least one Colorado legislator suggested that perhaps it was time for the state to consider a ban on construction of mosques. This has become a controversial issue, given recent rulings in a Tennessee court that may forestall the opening of the expanded project of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.

Watch this C-SPAN video of both Gaffney and Wilders addressing the WCS.

Not much on the event and the messages of both Wilders and Gaffney filtered through to the mainstream press, engaged as it is in self-censorship of criticism of Islamic doctrine. It was left to the limited circulation The Colorado Statesman and Iran’s Press TV  to report this weekend on the forum and what transpired there.

Andrews of CCU set the stage for Wilders’ talk in his introductory remarks:

Saturday afternoon’s topic, Andrews said, would be “the existential threat to the United States of America posed by Islam.”

Pausing for a moment to let his words sink in, he continued. “I didn’t say ‘radical Islam,’ I didn’t say ‘extremism.’ After you hear from Frank Gaffney and our friend from across the Atlantic, Geert Wilders, you’ll know why I just say ‘the threat of Islam.’”

Wilders in his remarks at the Denver forum conveyed the central concerns in his book and speeches to audiences on both the continent and here in America:

For his part, Wilders emphasized what he described as a distinction between followers of Islam and the religion itself.

“I do not have a problem with Muslims,” Wilders said during his address. “There are many moderate Muslims. I always make a distinction between the people and the ideology. There are indeed many moderate Muslims. But believe me, there is no such thing as a moderate Islam — there is only one Islam, and that is a dangerous, totalitarian ideology that is intolerant, that is violent, that should not be tolerated by us but that should be contained.”

Wilders warned against opening the door to Sharia law — based on traditional Islamic principles — in Western courtrooms but added that it was already too late to keep Islam and its influences out of the country entirely.
 
“Your country is facing a stealth jihad, an Islamic attempt to introduce Sharia law bit by bit by bit,” he said.
In order to keep the United States from succumbing, Wilders said, politicians have to ignore what he promised would be derision from the liberal media and other quarters and firmly deliver strong medicine. First, he said, Americans have to stop putting up with “multiculturalism,” even as free-speech proponents cry foul. In addition, he said American courtrooms must bar Sharia law and “stop the immigration from Islamic countries.”

Most critically, he said, “We should forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in the West already.”

Wilders’ comment on a ban on mosque construction resonated with a Colorado lawmaker, Senator Kevin Grantham that was picked up in the Press TV account:

A Colorado state Senator is raising some eyebrows for praising a Dutch lawmaker’s anti-Islam crusade, saying in an interview that the lawmaker’s proposal to ban the construction of new mosques was worth considering in the United States.

According to the Colorado Statesman, Senator Kevin Grantham attended the Western Conservative Summit in Denver this past week, where Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders delivered a speech calling Islam a “dangerous, totalitarian ideology” and saying that to stop the threat of creeping Sharia law, American legislators should ban the construction of new mosques.

In an interview with the paper after the speech, Grantham said Wilders’ fear of an Islam was “warranted”, and that his anti-mosque plan was worth hearing out.

Regarding Wilders’ suggestion that Western governments ban construction of new mosques, Grantham said it was worth considering.

“You know, we’d have to hear more on that, because, as he said, mosques are not churches like we would think of churches”, Grantham said. “They think of mosques more as a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community, more in the cultural and in the nationalistic sense. Our churches - we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that, and we need to take that into account when approving construction of those”.

Gaffney of the CSP focused in his WCS remarks on the evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood influence campaign in America.  The Colorado Statesman noted:

Former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney — something of a pariah in right-wing circles since he began accusing anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of helping radical Muslims infiltrate the conservative movement — riled up the crowd immediately before Wilders spoke with a preview of a 10-hour video series called “The Muslim Brotherhood in America.” The series charges that a cabal of Muslims is staging a stealthy conquest of the United States by pretending to be moderate while ascending the rungs of power.
 
Gaffney called on conservatives at the summit to boycott the American Conservative Union’s regional Conservative Political Action Conference — known as CPAC — set to take place in Denver on Oct. 4, the day after the first presidential debate at the University of Denver, unless the organization renounces its association with individuals Gaffney claims have ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wilders received a standing ovation from many at the WCS forum. Local radio Denver radio personality attorney Craig Silverman who introduced Wilders noted ruefully that he had voted for President Obama in 2008:

“I thought Barack Hussein Obama was ideally situated to speak simple truths to the Islamic world,” Silverman said, adding that instead, the president “wouldn’t do it, he did not do it, and he will not do it.”

Saying he feared for America’s safety and for the very survival of Israel, Silverman declared that he has read few books in recent years that affected him as profoundly as Wilders’ memoir.

“Geert Wilders is a great man,” Silverman said. “He refuses to be intimidated. He is a profile in courage.”