...men of the West!
0 comment Tuesday, November 11, 2014 |
''By all that we hold dear on this earth, I bid you stand, men of the West!"
- Aragorn, in Return of the King
Via Democracy Frontline, a report on the speech given by the two leaders of the Vlaams Belang Party of Belgium to members of the Robert A. Taft Club in Arlington, VA.
Now the largest party in Belgium, the VB is one of the most successful European political parties battling for immigration restriction and local autonomy. Party spokesman Philip Dewinter and chairman Frank Vanhecke stressed to an enthusiastic audience that their struggle is America�s struggle, that they are fighting for the preservation of Western Civilization everywhere.
[...]Mr. Dewinter, who spoke first, immediately revealed his Confederate sympathies by saying how pleased he was to be speaking "on the good side of the Potomac River." He opened with a salute to the "visionary" Patrick Buchanan, noting that the book Death of the West was a warning to all Western people. Europe, he said, is where the conflict is sharpest because the continent "is about to be taken over without a fight by people who are hostile to Western Civilization." The newcomers are largely Muslim, with the effect that "Europe is gradually turning into Eurabia."
Mr. Dewinter spoke of a serious demographic crisis, pointing out that average European lifetime fertility of 1.2 to 1.4 is far below the replacement rate of 2.2
[...]"We are living on a dying continent," Mr. Dewinter warned, "but we are not dead yet."
[...]Mr. Dewinter quoted Libya�s Muammar al-Gaddafi who, citing the highest estimate, predicted that "the 50 million Muslims in Europe will turn Europe Islamic in a few decades." This is, indeed, the fate the VB works to prevent. "Islam is a primitive religion," said Mr. Dewinter, that could "lead Europe back to the Dark Ages."
[...]"We share the same Western civilization," he said. "Join us in our struggle for Western survival!"
[...]Whenever anyone criticizes multiculturalism, he explained, its supporters point to the United States as a successful example. "Is multiculturalism working in America?" he asked with a smile. "No, no," cried the audience.''
I second the audience's ''no, no.''
Small occurrences like these, which might seem insignificant to many people -- just two men, from a minority party in a small country, speaking to less than a hundred men in Virginia --- are significant to me; they are a sign that, even in the most dire circumstances, people are searching for solutions, and finding ways to take a stand against the 'dying of the light' in Europe. While people like Mark Steyn, whose mother is Belgian, are cracking jokes about the fall of Europe to the forces of Islam, these men, Dewinter and Vanhecke, are doing what they can toward the survival of their people and their way of life. And they are seeking to make common cause with other Western peoples, rightly recognizing that we are all in the same troubling situation. Some may counsel despair and passivity, some may preach resignation and cynicism and detachment, but these men are trying to do something about the situation. These are true 'men of the West.' Passivity, resignation, and submission are not part of the heritage of the Western peoples, at least not until this age of gathering darkness. I maintain that it isn't in our nature to give in and give up.
Mr. Vanhecke predicted his party will suffer further attacks from opponents who care nothing for democratic principles or the will of the people. "Freedom of speech is absolutely essential," he said. "We ask US citizens to protest this lack of free speech in Europe." If Americans do nothing, he warned, they too will be strangled by European-style totalitarianism. "We are fighting for the West," he explained; "we are fighting for you." He, too, brought the audience to its feet, with a ringing quotation from The Lord of the Rings: "Men of the West, stand and fight!"
The choice of the quote from The Lord of the Rings is an inspired (and obvious) one; that phrase, which was uttered by Aragorn, seems to be particularly fitting for our time, as does the whole scenario of Tolkien's LOTR cycle. The West in dire peril from the forces of Mordor, and the need for essentially home-loving, peaceful peoples to unite and stand against a relentless enemy. Tolkien may not have foreseen today's threat to the West, but his works were prophetic nonetheless.
If Dewinter and Vanhecke and the Vlaams Belang party can stand up against the Islamic onslaught, surely we in America can emulate their example, and we can speak up in support of them and others like them; we are all part of the same struggle, and we can draw inspiration from one another.

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