The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an annual political conference attended by conservative journalists, commentators, and elected officials from across the United States and, more recently, the European Union, where the concept of conservative conferences has moved. The last conference was held in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Such personalities as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, American Republican Congressman Paul Gosara, American conservative commentator Jack Posobiec and the aforementioned Geert Wilders spoke there.
And Wilders first praised the roots of conservative conferences. “We stand on the shoulders of giants. Not only Dutch giants, heroes like Pinfontein or Theo von Gogh, both murdered in my country as martyrs of freedom, but also some of our heroes and yours, like the great Ronald Reagan, who in 1974, exactly 50 years ago, delivered his inaugural address at the the first meeting of CPAC,” Wilders recalled the beginnings.
He definitely didn’t want to just be critical. He pointed out that many things have changed for the better in the 50 years since CPAC was founded. For example, he stated that Eastern Europe had thrown off the yoke of communism. But then he began to salt the open wounds of the whole of Europe. “But unfortunately, much has changed for the worse. New and serious threats have emerged, which is why CPAC is still necessary,” Wilders said.
And he identified two decisive threats that threaten the conservative nature of Western society. “Today we face two major existential threats. One internal and one external,” said Wilders, pointing primarily to the so-called woke culture. “First is wokeism, cultural relativism, the prevailing idea in much of academia and the media that there are no objective truths, no loyalty, no freedom, no nation, no family. Everything is subjective for them. Everything is relative. Everything is fungible and without value. And that is the message of the left-wing elites,” he pointed to the first threat to Western civilization.
And he let go of the left as such. “They got rid of their national sovereignty. Sometimes they even destroyed the economy. They abolished the national currency. They have corrupted the education of children. And last but not least, they opened our borders for mass immigration and immigrants from a completely different cultural background,” he expressed his political dislike for left-wing politics. And thus he got to the second, external threat, which according to him threatens Western civilization. To immigration.
“And that brings me to the external threat, which is demographic,” Wilders told the conference, reading the headline in a presentation running on the screen behind him. “The population of Africa will quadruple from the current 1.4 billion to almost 5 billion by the end of the century,” Wilders emphatically said from the lectern. “And a third of them want to move abroad and come to Europe. In the last 50 years, governments have flooded us with mass immigration, often not genuine refugees, but unskilled illegal immigrants and fortune seekers. And these immigrants are not good for our society. They cost us money and represent a huge burden on the European social security system,” thundered Wilders.
“Europe is really facing a huge immigration and asylum crisis today, because despite the huge costs, mass immigration has never stopped,” said Wilders. And he mentioned that the other side of the political camp, on the contrary, welcomed such migration. “Mass immigration, on the contrary, was encouraged, cultural relativists saw it as enrichment.”
He turned to Western Europe, where immigration is a serious problem. “There are neighborhoods in most of Europe that have almost become no-go zones, territories where our women and daughters are no longer safe and our Judeo-Christian values have completely disappeared.”
And he also ran into protests in support of the Palestinians and against Israel. “Look around and you can see people waving Hamas and Islamic Jihad flags and shouting anti-Semitic messages in many European capitals following the massacre of innocent Israeli civilians on October 7 last year. And it is no surprise that the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies shows that 67% of the Arab world considers this barbaric massacre to be legitimate,” Wilders shocked the audience.
He then turned the flow of his own words to his personal experience of having to live under police protection all the time because, he said, he allowed himself to criticize Islam. “20 years ago, in 2004, I had to leave my home because Islamic fanatics put me on the death list. For two decades now, my wife and I have been living in barracks, in prison cells, in government shelters, under round-the-clock police protection, just to stay alive. Why?” the Dutch politician asked rhetorically and immediately answered. “The reason is that I dare to criticize Islam. Mullahs and imams sent a fatwa on my head to kill me. But we will never give in to totalitarianism,” Wilders shouted. “We never give in to violence. We are never subject to death threats. Our freedom of speech is sacred and we never, never, never compromise with the truth,” Wilders emphasized.
He turned to the audience asking who voted for such a policy, who voted for it in the elections. “Many European nations today are overwhelmed by an ever-increasing number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, more than we can handle. Why did we allow this? Why didn’t we stop it? Which people voted for this ridiculous policy? Why have politicians across Europe refused to do their duty and speak out against this madness?” Wilders asked belligerently.
And he explained why his party in Holland celebrated success in the last election. “My party has always refused to follow politicians like French President Macron or former German Chancellor Merkel and many others who have opened their borders, impoverished and endangered people and diluted European Judeo-Christian and humanistic culture and civilization. We have always defended our people. We shouted stop at the bureaucrats in Brussels when they wanted more and more federalism and less of our national sovereignty. We shouted stop to their policy of open borders!” shouted Geert Wilders from the desk and pointed at the Dutch voters, citizens. “And now, finally, sick and tired of being ignored, sick and tired of having their values and everything they hold dear trampled upon, the Dutch cried, enough is enough. At the election, they said – stop. And they flocked to us. Almost 25% of Dutch voters, two and a half million people, supported us because they understood that we and only we were always on their side,” said Wilders.
And he wanted to send a message to the other countries of the European Union that they should not be afraid to shout “stop!” to the politics of the woke left parties. “My message to you is that if you shout – stop this ridiculous politics – millions of decent, good citizens will join you because they have had enough, because they want to save the future of their children and live with dignity in their country. And that, my friends, is why you should take heart. Realize that you stand on the shoulders of giants and stand for the truth because, as George Washington once said – the truth will ultimately prevail where the effort is made to bring it to light,” Geert Wilders concluded his speech at the CPAC conference to thunderous applause.
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author: Marian Kučera
