Resistance against Islam’s influence on public life in Europe has been on display for decades. When Frits Bolkesteijn, a Dutch liberal conservative, raised his eyebrows at the impact of Islam in 1991, he triggered a major debate. Mr Bolkensteijn was advocating liberal principles that may contrast with some Islamic traditions to this day: the separation of church and state, gender equality, the preservation of a neutral and “rational” public space.
After the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, 2011, however, the European debate converged onto viewpoints regarding identity and culture. The then Chairwoman of the Danish People’s Party, who later became a Speaker of the Parliament, called the 9/11 terrorist attacks a crime against “our civilization”. In the meantime, an academically criticized but influential prophecy of a “Clash of civilizations” penned by a Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington, permeated into political communication.
By the time Geert Wilders gained 6 per cent for his nativist Party for Freedom in the 2006 Dutch parliamentary elections, opponents of Islam rarely differentiated between political Islam and Islam as such any more. In his party manifesto, Wilders called Islam “a totalitarian ideology” which “prescribes to its supporters a perpetual war until the moment that the whole world is Islamic”.
