Part 2:ESW: Europe is changing

As previously, I am posting this as it is from Gates of Vienna. This is Part 2.

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ESW: Europe is Changing, Part 2

As I reported last week, on August 25 our Austrian correspondent Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was one of the podium speakers at a panel discussion organized under the auspices of Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party). The topic of discussion was “Europe is changing: Are there possibilities for a consensus with Islam(ism) or will there be a decline of our society and values?”

A video of Elisabeth’s concluding remarks is below, followed by a transcript. Many thanks to Kitman for subtitling and uploading this video:

Transcript:

I will keep my final statement short by giving you a short statement about the term “Islamophobia”, which was brought to our attention right at the end, and then I will give you three very short final statements without any comments.

With regard to Islamophobia: The term was introduced with the Islamic Revolution in Iran at the end of the 1970s as a fighting word with respect to sharia. It says in the sharia that Islam, the prophet, and Allah may not be denigrated. I have condensed this, but all of this can be found in the “Reliance of the Traveller”, the manual for sharia law. If you come to my seminar, you will learn all of this.

It says very clearly in this book that anyone, whether Muslim or non-Muslim denigrates the name of Allah or his prophet, however one may interpret this, is an Islamophobe and deserves death.

What should really worry us here is that this term has been put on an equal level, both in the UN, in which the Islamic countries are the leading [voting] bloc, simply because they have the highest number of countries, and the EU and the European Council have followed suit, that Islamophobia is equal to racism.

This a very worrying situation, and I especially believe in this context that Austrian politicians, but not just the Austrian politicians, also European politicians, are joining in this [equating Islamophobia with racism], for whatever reason.

This means: the term Islamophobia must be repudiated right away. Even if we say rationally that Islamophobia, a phobia is an irrational fear of something, I cannot have an irrational fear of Islam because I am studying the teachings of Islam, and the I know what is going on. And from this “fear” I can do something.

I hope I wasn’t talking in circles too much.

In any case, Islamophobia is to be rejected from our side we should not even use the term, because then we are on the side of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. This about Islamophobia. If you come to my seminar, you will learn a lot more about Islamophobia, and will learn about its dangers.

Now to my final statement. I promised to read to you three sentences, with which I completely identify myself.

The first statement: My criticism concerns an ideology and not the people. This is very important. And because words are put in my mouth, I repeat: My criticism concerns an ideology And not any human being.

The second statement: Every form of criticism of Islam, patriotism, and national awareness is labeled across the board with the term right-wing populism, and one is confronted with terms like hatred, xenophobia and extremism. This is what I ask you to consider and think about.

And my final thoughts are very dear to my heart. The statement reads as follows: Is it “right-wing” to stand for women’s rights? Is it “right-wing” to criticize a religion, or any other religion? Is it “right-wing” to defend the right of the individual over that of the ideology?

I say to you: if that is the case, then yes I say to you, Yes, I hereby present right-wing political views.

Thank you for coming tonight.

For previous posts on the “hate speech” prosecution of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, see Elisabeth’s Voice: The Archives.

Original post is here.