Beside the foundation ceremony of DIE FREIHEIT’s state association in Baden-Wurttemberg, PI-Blogger Frank Furter met with Robert Spencer to conduct an interview in which the famous American author and scholar explained about his impressions from the Great Islam-Critic Weekend in Stuttgart, the current situation in the US and the content of his upcoming book. Finally, Spencer gave a confirmation for another visit to Germany in the beginning of September.
FF: Dear Mr. Spencer. First of all, welcome to Germany! It’s very nice to meet you! How are you?
Spencer: Very well, thank you. It’s been a great week here in Germany!
Is that true?
Yes! It was very illuminating in terms of explaining, showing what is the real problem and how desperate is the situation, which I hope will mobilize people to become much more active and to fight for their freedoms before it’s too late.
Of course all our readers have already noticed what happened last Thursday. But could you perhaps describe how your impression was?
Certainly. I think there were around a thousand “Antifa” demonstrators with Muslims joined in with them, and a small group of people in our crowd. Many people didn’t come because they heard that there would be danger. And then there were about 500 police. But they didn’t really do much to protect us from the fascists. The fascists were throwing bottles, and ice, and excrement, and eggs. They were crashing onto the stage as we were speaking. But I think it was a great victory because we showed that we were not going to be frightened, we were not going to be intimidated, and we were not going to curtail our activities because of them. And so they are on notice now: We are never going to give up, we are never going to give in, and we are never going to surrender!
Many people in Germany think that America is a very dangerous place because many citizens have weapons. But in terms of this happening, did you experience that in America as well? How is the situation over there?
No, I can tell you that we staged two large rallies at Ground Zero in New York City last summer, June 6th and then again on September 11th 2010. We had very large crowds, thousands of people each time. And there were left demonstrators protesting, but the police were very good and they moved them to another area. They were not able to stay where we were. And so there were no violent incidents. The police were also very ready to protect us and didn’t just say, “Find a way on your own”, like the Stuttgart police did when we asked them to escort us out of the area. In the United States there is much less awareness of this problem and the problem is not as advanced. At the same time there is a much greater tendency to enforce the rule of law. At least so far! I expect that if the official indifference to islamization and the active abetting of islamization continues there as it does here, then we will see violent incidents in the future.
That means the situation in America is not as bad as here. But can you explain why Europeans are so weak, and not fighting against that problem?
I think the problem is World War II. That is the problem in America also, that most people are still fighting the last war. They are very afraid of racism because racism is our national trauma in America, and there was a racist nationalism that destroyed Europe. The problem is that the Islamic supremacists have been very clever in portraying any opposition to themselves as racism. And that is the one thing that Westerners, Germans and Americans both, are very afraid of being. And so they have been brainwashed to a certain extent, or perhaps better to say manipulated into thinking that any opposition to Islamic supremacism is racism. That makes them turn away from it without examining.
That means, in terms of fighting against Islamization, Europeans are weaker than Americans, because their past experiences with racism were even worse?
Yes. Without a doubt, the trauma of Europeans is a whole lot bigger than the that of the Americans. It looks as if there is a correlation.
I have heard that you are now writing a book entitled “Did Mohammed exist?” So, do you have doubts about that?
Yes, actually I do. This is a question that came to my attention several years ago. I remember having a very detailed discussion with the great Islamic scholar Ibn Warraq in which he was arguing that Mohammed did not exist. And I was arguing that he did, on the basis of his having been a very coherent character, somebody that it would be hard to imagine he could have been fictional. And also there were embarrassing elements of his life that Muslims seemed to be embarrassed about and that they tried to explain away. It seemed hard to believe that they would invent these things, for any reason. But the more I looked into the question, the more I have seen, while researching for this book, that actually all the stories about Mohammed seem to have been invented for various political or religious reasons – even the embarrassing ones. The entire religion was constructed in order to justify the political conquests that the Arabs were making and to unify their new empire. One of the most telling evidences of this is that although their conquests started in the 630s, it’s not until the 690s that there is any mention in any of the artefacts that they left behind: coins, inscriptions, anything. No mention of Mohammed, Quran or Islam. And so, one would think that if they had come storming out of the desert holding the Quran and energized by the teachings of Mohammed, surely they might have mentioned this in all that time. This is a very important exploration. I hope to make it clear in this book, because it emphasizes that Islam is fundamentally a political ideology, and only secondarily a religion. It was in the first place a political ideology and system, and the religion was then developed to accompany that and to give it a foundation.
Then I have to ask: How about Jesus? Did Jesus also not exist? Or how would you compare that with the historical tradition of Mohammed?
Well, actually it is very interesting that you ask that question. Because, what I am trying to do with this book is to extend the historical criticism that has been focussed upon Christianity and Judaism exclusively over the last couple of hundred years and has never been extended to Islam. Now I am trying to bring to popular attention the works of scholars like Christoph Luxenberg, Hans Jansen, Ibn Warraq and others, who have been extending this with great courage into the question of Islam.
But the fundamental question about Jesus is this: whether or not one believes that he existed, whatever one may think about the historical validity of the gospels, this is a question that Christians have not feared to ask and to answer. And it is a question that Christians have not feared the investigation of. They have never killed or threatened anyone in the recent past for examining this question. In Islam of course, it’s a very different story. And historians have, to a tremendous degree, very uncritically accepted the canonical Islamic story about the origins of Islam, partly out of fear of repercussions if they dared to question it. And so, this is also part of the expiration that free people have to carry out. Because, if we do not, it is yet another aspect of life in which we are surrendering to the Islamic agenda instead of living as free people.
The big difference between the Christian world and the Islamic world is that there has not been such a process of Enlightenment in the Islamic world. How big is your hope, that such process could take place in the near future?
I don’t think that will happen! But I do think that the massive influx of Muslims into the West is an opportunity for Westerners to stand and defend the values of our own culture. Instead of being supine and accommodating and submitting to their agenda, we should be actively defending our own system of laws, our own perspective, our own respect for human reason, and respect for the dignity of the human person. If we did that, then there would be Muslims who would discard their system and live as we do. And there already have been to some degree. But this is something that would happen much more often, if we had a little more of the courage of our own convictions.
Unfortunately, politicians are currently doing the opposite of that, here in Europe, but also in the US. What is your opinion about your President Obama, especially in terms of his behavior towards the Muslim world?
Obama has pursued a stance of warmth and openness toward the Muslim world. The most notable feature of this has been his active abetting of the advance of stealth jihad initiatives to insinuate elements of the Sharia into the US. He has identified the problem solely as “Al-Qaeda,” and so any Islamic supremacism outside of Al-Qaeda appears to be fine with him.
Recently, many Europeans noticed the Tea-Party-Movement in the US. What do you think about that, and do you see any promising tendencies of Islam criticism in that movement?
The Tea Party has not been as attentive to the problem of Islamization and stealth jihad as I would have liked, but there are signs that that is changing.
If we look to Germany again, there is a party called “DIE FREIHEIT”, founded from Mr. René Stadtkewitz. In The Netherlands, there is the PVV from Mr. Geert Wilders. In several other European countries, similar Liberty Parties have yet been established. Did you observe this development? And what is your opinion about the possibilities and chances for the future?
These parties give me great hope that Europe is not dead, that Eurabia is not a reality and never will be, and that European people will reassert their freedoms and the human rights that are threatened by Islamic law. I have great respect for Mr. Stadtkewitz. I had the great honour of meeting him several years ago when I spoke in Berlin. I am very happy that he is founding this party. It’s urgently needed, and I wish it all success.
I have heard that Mr. Stadtkewitz also invited you to join his party’s big conference about Islam and Integration on September 3rd 2011, together with Mr. Geert Wilders and Mr. Oskar Freysinger from SVP, Switzerland. So may I ask: can you already confirm that we will see you there again?
Yes! I am very honoured to come to Berlin on September 3rd! I have to re-arrange a few things with my schedule, but I will do so! I would be greatly honoured to be on the stage with Mr. Wilders, Mr. Freysinger and Mr. Stadtkewitz. I look forward to this meeting as the initiation of a new international solidarity movement that will truly fight for freedom and the dignity of all human beings!
Mr. Spencer, that sounds very promising. I am really looking forward to meet you there again! Have a nice trip back to the US. Many thanks for the very informative conversation.
Thank you. It has been my honour.
