Dear Mayor of Monschau - Main contents
Dear Mayor Margareta Ritter (margareta.ritter@stadt.monschau.de),
I have had the pleasure of visiting your exquisitely beautiful German town, the second member of my family to do so. The first was my dad, who, as a member of the 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron in Gen. Bradley's Army, had, with time out to recuperate from wounds incurred at the Battle of St Lo, fought across nothern Europe from D-Day plus 2 until reaching Monschau by the end of 1944.
I only bring this up because I read this morning that you have declared Geert Wilders, who recently weekended in your town, "not welcome" in Monschau. "People who, just like Mr Wilders, encumber the Dutch integration debate with right-wing populism and who want to ban the Qur'an, comparing it to Mein Kampf, are not welcome in Monschau," you are quoted as having said.
I protest. First of all, it is not "right-wing populism" with which Wilders "encumbers" the integration debate. It is with facts about sharia (Islamic law), a totalitarian and supremacist legal and religious system. He takes these facts to the public arena, a place where fears of Islamic retribution have to date silenced this essential, civilizational conversation. Another fact he brings, however discomforting to multicultists such as you appear to be, is the similarity between Mein Kampf and the Koran. You may declare Wilders -- and all of his thousands of Dutch supporters -- persona non grata in Monschau; that won't make sharia or those Koran-Kampf similarities go away.
But maybe you don't care. Maybe you have now found a new totalitarianism to submit to. But I protest your decision to make Monschau off limits to Wilders, a defender of liberty against totalitarianism -- the same liberty my dad was in and around Monschau to defend long ago against a similarly supremacist totalitarianism. I have a strong hunch he would say that, so long as you are in office, liberation wasn't worth the effort.
Sincerely,
Diana West, USA
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