This is war. Real war, not theoretical war.
Not one day after we announced the First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, an event featuring Muhammad cartoonist Lars Vilks in Copenhagen, Denmark was attacked in the continuing war on our most basic freedoms. And that was just the first of two assaults on freedom in Copenhagen on Saturday.
Last week, Muslims fired upon police in a no-go zone outside of Marseille in France. That’s what civil war looks like in 21st-century Europe. This has been bubbling below the surface for years. I began reporting on a low-grade civil war in Denmark between Muslims and “bikers” back in 2008. Did anyone think that the situation would stand still since then? It’s fluid — all of it — and the undertow is pulling us under, unless we fight back.
The first attack Saturday in Islam’s ongoing war on Europe was at the Krudttoenden cafe in Copenhagen, at an event entitled “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression,” featuring Vilks and Francois Zimeray, the French ambassador to Denmark. An eyewitness said: “We heard… 20 or 30 shots and a person yelling something in Arabic.”
Vilks told me on Friday that he was continuing his ongoing work to defend the freedom of speech and that he had worked out a series of lectures and seminars in conjunction with an organization in Denmark, the Lars Vilks committee. He added that he was also speaking at Swedish universities. “And it works well,” he said. “Of course, I am still a very controversial person and, by some people, looked upon as an extreme racist.”
Nonetheless, he was optimistic, adding: “The Charlie Hebdo murder has had some effect on the subject. There is a more open interest for questions concerning freedom of speech and criticism of Islamism. I think it works best when the problems with Islam is presented together with many other kinds of censorship.”
We had asked Vilks if he wanted to judge our Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, which will be held in Garland, Texas on May 3, as he spoke at our American Freedom Defense Initiative Freedom Conference on September 11, 2012 — the day of the Islamic jihad attacks on our embassies in Cairo and Benghazi. However, after this shooting in Copenhagen, it seems highly unlikely that he will join us again. But freedom fighter Geert Wilders will be there.
Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, it got even worse. A couple of hours after the shooting at the free speech debate at the Krudttoenden cafe, there was another shooting at a Copenhagen synagogue. The targets in Copenhagen are the same as the targets in Paris last month: Muhammad cartoonists and Jews: those who have blasphemed according to Islam’s blasphemy laws, and the perpetual scapegoats and primary targets of devout Muslim hatred.
But in the face of this violence, the West is surrendering. What will the response to the Denmark cartoon shootings be? More calls for censorship and submission in the once-free world to Sharia blasphemy laws. Cowardice rules the day.
It’s already happening. The Huffington Post fumed that the “Texas ‘Draw the Prophet’ Contest is Shameless Muslim-Baiting.” Free speech is now “Muslim baiting,” according to the knaves of Islam at the Huffington Post. Muslims are murdering people, setting churches ablaze, and firing on cafes in Denmark where a cartoonist speaks at a free speech debate, and the Huffington Post attacks me for standing up for free speech.
Their editorial bias stands with the murderers and supremacists – as does that of CBS News, which titled its story, “Contest For Cartoons of Prophet Muhammad Draws Concern.”
The media is concerned? Why? Muslims are peaceful, right? So what’s the problem?
CBS quoted Alia Salem of the DFW Chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations, claiming that she supported freedom of speech. “We should have free speech, and nobody’s stopping her from doing this, go ahead, maybe there’ll be some Muslims entering this, who knows.” Yeah, right.
Salem said she was against the Charlie Hebdo jihad attack. “The very limited instances where I would agree with Pamela Geller would be this, that shouldn’t have happened, that’s not ok, that’s not ok for someone to commit a crime because someone drew a cartoon for crying out loud.”
That is true, and it’s why we’re having this event. We are going to stand with the editors of Charlie Hebdo. If you say “Je Suis Charlie,” you’re going to have to mean it. It’s not just a hashtag. To defend the freedom of speech, you’ve got to walk the walk and you’ve got to talk the talk, because people are dying because of cartoons. If Alia Salem really cared about the freedom of speech, she would be standing with us.
The lines are drawn. Free speech and free society is under serious assault. Is the West going to fight for freedom? Or just give up? Stand, now, for freedom. It’s worth fighting for, it’s worth dying for.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.