Last weekend, I was in Hungary for the presentation of the Hungarian translation of my book Marked for Death; Islam’s War Against the West and Me. I spoke in fully packed meeting halls and conference centres in Budapest, Nyíregyháza, Debrecen, Gyór and Sopron. I gave dozens of interviews. And I had lunch with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Visiting Hungary is a fantastic experience for any Western politician resisting the Islamic invasion of the West. In Hungary, there are barely any signs of Islamization. The Hungarians make no secret of their resolve to keep it that way. The attitude in Hungary and, for that matter, in Central Europe in general, is entirely different from that in the West. In Central Europe, people do not hesitate to speak out to express their attachment to their own national identity, rooted in the Judeo-Christian principles of Western civilization. They also make it quite clear that they are willing to defend their heritage.

It was also a strange sensation to see my book, which warns against the dangers of Islam, so openly in the Hungarian bookstores. I originally published my book in English in the United States. I did so because America has a First Amendment, which allows people to speak out, even when a message is politically incorrect. The Hungarian translation is the first translation of the book. In my own country, no publisher has the courage to publish it.

https://twitter.com/JackBMontgomery/status/931629032495607808

A German publisher, who was interested, backed out when it proved impossible to translate it into German without transgressing Germany’s stringent speech laws. Hence, the publisher asked me to have the term “Islam” systematically replaced by the weasel term “Islamism.” I refused because the message of my book is exactly that Islam itself is the problem.

Islam – not Islamism but Islam itself – preaches the political submission of the whole world to Allah. Muhammad left no doubt about this: “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah,’” he said.

The Qu’ran is equally unambiguous about it. “Fight them until there is no more dissension and the religion is entirely Allah’s,” it says in verse 8:39. The Qu’ran also contains the permission to kill Jews and Christians in verse 9:29, the command to terrorize non-Muslims in verse 8:12, the obligation to make war on the infidels in verse 9:123, and the order to subjugate the entire world to Allah in verse 9:33.

Hungary's prime minister warns ‘United States of Europe’ plotters are using mass immigration to engineer a “post-national, post-Christian” super-state. https://t.co/Bgybun9axx — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) November 14, 2017

In Hungary and Central Europe in general, one can talk much more freely about Islam than in Western Europe. There, people realize much more about what is at stake. Hungary even built a border fence to stop the flow of immigrants from predominantly Islamic countries. Viktor Orban is on his own doing much more for the safety and security of the entire European continent than German Chancellor Merkel, French President Macron, British Prime Minister May, my own Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and all the other Westeuropean leaders combined.

Like the Polish, Czech and Slovak leaders, Mr Orban constantly repeats that his country is Christian and that he wants it to remain so. He does not want to repeat the mistake that Western Europe has made by opening its doors to Islamic mass immigration. Recently, the Pew Research Center warned that, if present trends continue, France, Germany, Belgium and Austria, will be almost 20% Islamic by 2050. Britain and the Netherlands are closely behind, while Sweden will even be more than 30% Islamic by the turn of the century.

This is extremely dangerous. Because, while most Muslims may be moderate and non-violent, the Islamic ideology is not. It has indoctrinated many of Islam’s followers, who take the belligerent commands of Muhammad and the Koran very seriously. Just last month, it was revealed in Germany that 30% of Muslim students in the State of Lower Saxony can imagine themselves fighting and dying for Islam. In my own country, the Netherlands, research from Amsterdam University showed that 11% of the Muslims find it acceptable to use violence in the name of Islam. That is more than 100,000 people, which is twice the number of soldiers in our army.

New ONS figures show mothers born outside the UK accounted for 28.2% of live births in England and Wales in 2016. https://t.co/zqOmOmYX9A — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) July 19, 2017

Why is it that one can talk so much more freely about the dangers of Islam in Hungary and the other Visegrad countries than in the West? Why are our elites in politics, academia and the media behaving in such a cowardly and appeasing fashion towards Islam?

Perhaps it has to do with the hostage mentality, which has permeated the West. Owing to the already significant presence of Islam in their countries, many citizens in Western Europe seem afraid to express their desire that these countries remain rooted in their Judeo-Christian heritage. Our elites are certainly too cowardly to insist on it. But there is also another major difference between the Western and the Eastern half of the European continent.

Fifty years ago, everywhere in the West, the ‘Down with the West’ mentality of the self-proclaimed ‘progressives’ broke through. It led to the street violence of the student revolts in Berkeley, Paris and elsewhere. Western self-hatred became the new fashion. We were no longer allowed to say that our civilization was the best, we were told that it was the worst. Cultural relativism became the dominating trend among the ruling classes in the West.

Orban: “Our greatest threat is the indifferent silence of a European elite who are renouncing their Christian roots” https://t.co/2KoLLOXJqy — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) October 12, 2017

These classes have been the facilitators of the Islamization process. Firstly, by denying that immigrants should assimilate, since this would champion European culture over the immigrants’ native cultures. Secondly, by attacking Islam’s critics and the defenders of the West. And, thirdly, by so-called lawfare – a process in which Islamic sympathizers, both Muslims as well as non-Muslims, exploit Western law and legal systems to suppress and silence their critics.

None of these things have happened in countries like Hungary, Poland or the Czech Republic. Its citizens are not indoctrinated day after day with the message that they are guilty of all the injustices in the world. Their cultural heritage is not being systematically subverted by the elites. Their past is not slandered by professional activists. They are still allowed to be proud of their nation. While we in the West are told that we should be ashamed of it.

This shame and self-hatred is suffocating us. It is time to put an end to it. The more our elites criticize countries such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, the more we should support them and follow their example. If we in the West want to survive, if we want to overcome the existential crisis we are facing, we will need to de-Islamize our societies. This we will only be able to do if we start being proud of ourselves, our culture, our past, and our national heritage again. That is the most important lesson Central Europe can teach us. A people that is ashamed of its past, has no future. The future belongs to proud people, aware of their cultural and national identity and willing to defend it.

Geert Wilders is leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and author of Marked for Death; Islam’s War Against the West and Me (Regnery)