Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Heinz-Christian Strache: Defending the Judeo-Christian Occident

Below are two videos showing subtitled excerpts from a speech given by Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), during a symposium in Vienna on December 23, 2010. Both videos are embedded below the jump, to foil the Blogger bug. They are followed by a transcript.

For more on this speech and related issues, see Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s report.

Readers who follow European affairs closely will realize what a sea-change this speech represents. This is, after all, Austria, and the FPÖ is the most demonized of all major Austrian political parties. It is supposedly one of the most irredeemably anti-Semitic parties in Europe. So what is going on here?

What is going on here is that World War 2 ended sixty-five years ago. This is not your grandfather’s Europe. European anti-Semitism still abounds, but 95% of it can be found on the Socialist Left in unholy alliance with Islam.

The FPÖ represents the “New European Right”. Along with its fellow parties — Sverigedemokraterna, Vlaams Belang, Dansk Folkeparti, Schweizerische Volkspartei, Die Freiheit, De Partij Voor de Vrijheid, Lega Nord, and others — it is awake to the reality and the imminence of the Islamization of Europe.

This also means it has awakened to the common cause it shares with Israel and the Jews.

Update: I’m told that further excerpts from Mr. Strache’s speech are in the pipeline, and will be translated and subtitled in due course. Stay tuned.

Many thanks to the Counterjihad Collective for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing these videos:

Heinz-Christian Strache 1



Heinz-Christian Strache 2


  Transcript, Video 1
00:00 The Middle East is often called a powder keg
00:06 and indeed the problems this region is confronted with are multifaceted
00:13 and for us in Europe often-times completely inscrutable.
00:17 We read about this in the newspapers, but we hardly have the imagination ,
00:22 what this situation is like for those people and peoples living there.
00:28 We Europeans often feel helpless while watching the news reports and we ask ourselves
00:32 what has happened again. We then lean back and ask ourselves
00:38 shrugging, why they down in the Middle East just can't stop fighting,
00:43 why they can't have peace
00:47 why they can't live in peaceful coexistence.
00:52 And we like to forget that the peace we are enjoying is not that old
01:00 actually only a few decades, that we Austrians, living in central Europe
01:08 or northern Europe, have not experienced a military conflict. ,
01:13 But the southern part of Europe only ten years ago experienced war.
01:22 
01:22 And it took two awful world wars
01:26 which were very, very gruesome, in order for European peoples
01:32 to talk to each other without fighting
01:38 for these peoples have to
01:45 manage a peaceful coexistence here in Europe
01:50 and to overcome old historic enmities
01:54 be they the German-French or Austrian-Serb.
01:59 These centuries-old enmities have now been overcome.
02:04 Nowadays, we are experiencing very different problems in our European societies,
02:08 which I will explain in more detail later.
02:11 There is coexistence, yes,
02:15 even friendship among the European peoples
02:19 but also a sense that every European people
02:25 has its own culture and identity that it wants to preserve.
02:29 There is European diversity, and it is the diversity ,
02:32 of the European people that needs to be preserved.
02:35 But the common thread that binds us together here in Europe
02:39 is the Christian Occident that has Judeo-Christian roots
02:46 which we must defend. And we are now experiencing
02:52 that our native countries are massively threatened
02:56 by totally undifferentiated mass immigration from non-Europeans.
03:02 There is an imminent Islamization taking place
03:06 not only in Austria, but in all of Europe.,
03:09 As a result, there is a chance that the indigenous ethnic groups in Europe ,
03:13 will die out in only a few decades if we do not counter-steer in political terms.
03:19 Our continent was a divided one until 1989, and there was a constant danger ,
03:26 of a nuclear war that hovered constantly, and only a few years ago ,
03:32 there were gruesome wars in the Balkan with countless victims.
03:36 And what did we have to experience after the peace?
03:42 That in the heart of Europe, in the southeastern European flank ,
03:47 an artificial Islamic state was founded, Kosovo,
03:53 which was made independent contrary to international law.
03:57 Many Serbs rightly said back then that historically
04:01 they have always been the Christian flank in the south
04:06 that they have fought for the preservation of Christianity in Europe
04:10 but we often abandoned them
04:12 during the 500-year Ottoman oppression
04:15 and now once again they feel abandoned by Europe
04:19 with respect to the European Union.
04:23 If we contrast all that with the war victims and the aberrations
04:29 as well as the dangers that we are facing today
04:31 then I say it is especially important that we do not condescend
04:38 towards the Middle East, that we try to understand ,
04:43 the threats happening there on a daily basis, that we try to get,
04:47 a correct view of all sides [of the conflict], preferably on the ground.,
04:52 In early December, I, along with other leading politicians from the Freedom Party
04:58 – Andreas Mölzer, Hilmar Kabas, and city councilman David Lasar
05:00 – was part of an official delegation visiting Israel.
05:05 It was my explicit wish to see the real situation.
05:13 Not just what you get from the media
05:17 but to understand the conditions and problems
05:22 on the ground, also by talking to the people there.,
05:26 We visited the West Bank, the Gaza Strip,
05:33 we also visited the Holocaust museum in Yad Vashem
05:40 the Knesset, where we were greeted by the deputy president of the parliament,
05:45 we had numerous interesting conversations with members of the Knesset.
05:51 We met with two mayors of large cities, namely Ashkelon,
05:56 which is familiar to us because it is mentioned in a fraternity song
05:59 "In the black whale to vote"
06:01 as we sung in our student songs
06:05 and Ariel, where we were received ,
06:08 by mayor Nachman
06:10 who is a former Likud member of the Knesset.
06:14 We also met with various university professors, religious dignitaries,
06:19 well-known intellectuals, and we attended a conference titled ,
06:24 “Fundamentalist Islamism and Terrorism”
06:29 because here in Europe we are threatened by precisely this
06:36 fundamentalist Islamism and terrorism that has ripped into our heart
06:39 with the strikes in Stockholm, as we have seen once again,
06:44 or with the arrest of the Chechen Islamic terrorist in Vienna
06:50 who even managed to get social security here in Austria.
06:57 We also wrote and signed together with representatives
07:01 of other European right-wing parties, such as Filip Dewinter ,
07:05 and his colleagues from the Vlaams Belang
07:09 with Kent Ekeroth from the Sweden Democrats
07:13 and René Stadtkewitz and his colleagues from the newly established
07:19 Freedom Party, the “Jerusalem Declaration”. ,
07:22 We have submitted this to the public
07:25 which was never published in the intended meaning
07:30 but only with interpretations, and never really the full text.,
07:37 Ladies and gentlemen!
07:40 This trip was very important for us, important in order to gain a better understanding ,
07:45 of the conflict in the Middle East, important to further dialogue ,
07:51 in order to explain and dispel misconceptions
07:56 about the Austrian Freedom Party.
08:01 I want to make very clear:
08:04 We also want to understand the problems in the ground.
08:10 We once had a neutral Austrian tradition, of which we are very much aware ,
08:15 and which we want to revive.
08:19 And I want to make something else very clear:
08:21 Accepting and respecting Israel's right to exist does not mean
08:29 accepting without criticism every action Israel takes.
08:34 Whoever believes that has misunderstood something. But it means
08:39 going into dialogue with an open heart and to receive relevant information
08:44 in order to understand certain things that previously were
08:47 not understood and could not be understood.
08:52 In this conflict with the Palestinian, the Arab population,
08:56 of course both sides must make a step
08:59 in order to find a workable consensus.
09:03 Just like any other people on this planet
09:07 the Arabs just like the Jews have a self-evident
09:11 human right to a homeland and Israel's right to exist
09:14 does not preclude the rights of the Arab population.
09:20 In the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel it says:
09:24 “We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples
09:28 in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness.” This sentence can and must be brought to life.
09:36 However, it is very clear that if the neighbouring peoples ,
09:42 have codified their disinterest in peaceful coexistence
09:47 and define as the objective the driving into the sea of all Jews
09:53 then this cannot be the ground for peaceful coexistence.
  Transcript, Video 2
00:02 We must also learn to understand the positions of the concerned parties.
00:09 This country [Israel] is strongly affected by fundamentalist Islam and terrorism.
00:15 Israel is bombarded on a daily basis by Katyusha and Qassam rockets
00:24 something that we were able to witness when we visited the very impressive museum in Sderot.
00:29 The museum shows the wreckage of hundreds of rockets fired into Sderot and other nearby
00:37 These rockets sported messages for the Israeli population
00:44 and one must know that more than 10, 000 such rockets have been fired into ,
00:49 Israeli territory in the past year alone and that the local population
00:55 there is confronted with death on a daily basis.
01:00 The people there, the parents, mothers and fathers
01:05 are forced to live with the threat of a Qassam rocket or a Katyusha rocket
01:09 being fired into Israel, for which there only 60 seconds from launch to impact,
01:13 and that the army needs 40 seconds alone to verify the launch
01:21 another five seconds to start the sirens
01:25 leaving a mere 15 seconds for the population
01:28 mothers, fathers, to sweep up their children
01:32 from the playgrounds and take them
01:35 to a safe bunker area to save the children.
01:39 And if you are confronted with this on a daily basis
01:43 and you have to send your children to school in a bullet-proof bus
01:49 then this is a situation that we here in Austria or in Europe
01:54 cannot imagine, because luckily we are not,
01:56 perhaps not yet, confronted with this.,
02:01 But here in the heart of Europe we are
02:05 also confronted with this terrorism
02:09 in the heart of Europe there are tendencies in that direction.
02:12 There are many fanatical groups, suicide bombers,
02:17 who blow themselves up and take others with them.
02:21 We experienced this in 2002, when I visited Gizeh together with ,
02:25 Hilmar Kabas and other members of parliament.
02:29 and other members of parliament
02:31 we had accepted this invitation.
02:34 During this visit we also experienced the doings of a suicide bomber
02:40 blowing up a bus and killing 30.
02:46 We felt the dramatic impact.
02:52 So we must not give in to the pretense that these problems
02:56 with stop at our doorstep. We must emphasize
03:03 the terror attacks in Madrid, where trains exploded,
03:07 and now Stockholm, or the arrest of terrorists in Austria. ,
03:12 This is omnipresent, and if we are to believe the German Federal Crime Agency,
03:18 then there are approximately 1, 000 radical Islamists, stealth terrorists
03:24 in Germany alone, just waiting for their orders to attack. ,
03:30 They are trained as sleepers who are waiting to attack.
03:36 We are aware of these terror warnings
03:40 from different newspapers that have reported on this topic.
03:44 Also recently here in Austria, a few years ago,
03:47 a Mr. Mahmoud Mohamed was arrested together with his wife
03:50 because he had planned five terror attacks
03:55 among others to deposit explosives in football stadiums during the Euro-Championships
04:01 and to take with them as many people as possible.
04:06 But they also planned - although it was never mentioned anywhere
04:10 in public or the media, but it's there in the police records,
04:16 so, never reported in the media -- but he planned,
04:18 – to shoot me with sniper rifles
04:22 during a performance at Wiener Theaterplatz.
04:25 We are witnessing these developments
04:29 in our society because we have the courage
04:31 to stand up against Islamization in our area.
04:37 Ladies and gentlemen!
04:40 Radical Islamism can be found everywhere in the western world
04:43 whether here in Vienna or in Berlin or in Paris, in New York,
04:49 and this ideology goes irreconcilably
04:57 contrary to everything in our Christian culture
04:59 where we still have Judeo-Christian roots.
05:04 There are deliberately planted hate preachers who are propagating the holy war
05:09 in mosques here in Austria, in Islamic school books,
05:16 which are used to teach 40, 000 Muslim children. ,
05:21 These books show Islamic terrorists as martyrs
05:25 who sport machine guns and grenades and who are revered;
05:30 the Islamist headscarf and the burqa are taught to be a matter of course
05:36 which the devout woman must wear
05:40 and which in the western cities is no longer a rarity.
05:46 And then the fanatics come to our country to preach.
05:54 They preach a theocratic state and attack laicism
05:59 the separation of religion and state
06:01 who despise our achievements from humanism and the Enlightenment
06:06 and who reject democracy and eventually
06:09 want to abolish the equal rights of the sexes.
06:14 It is an attack on our building that consists of values which has different roots:
06:19 Germanism, Hellenism, and various floors, reaching up to ,
06:24 the Enlightenment and Christianity, but also the Judeo-Christian roots. ,
06:27 All of these facets have made us what we are today.
06:32 Then there was the revolutionary movement of 1848
06:36 in which we rose up in favor of freedom of speech and other civil rights.
06:41 All of these facets make us what we are today
06:45 today's democracy, today's fundamental rights.,
06:52 We should not forget this. Our accomplishments are in danger.
06:56 There are also dangerous tendencies regarding Turkey
06:58 which is not yet a European country and which is candidate for membership in the EU
07:08 because politicians within the system of the EU and Austria
07:12 are calling for non-European countries to become members of the EU
07:16 these dangerous trends and developments take place.
07:20 We can also witness these developments
07:23 which in Turkey do no happen in the underground like in Austria or Europe
07:28 but out in the open, state-sponsored. ,
07:31 There is a prime minister Erdogan
07:34 who has begun changing Turkish society to become Islamic
07:40 and step by step he has announced where the journey will end:
07:49 “Democracy was a train, from which you could alight once you reached your destination.”,
07:55 Then we no longer need democracy. These are the thoughts that accompany
08:03 Turkish imams who are educated
08:08 in Turkey by the Turkish government
08:13 and who then come to Austria to further parallel societies
08:18 by preaching in large multi-purpose halls, not just mosques.,
08:23 These imams are told to preach and teach in these halls
08:28 where Turkish embassy personnel check on them.
08:33 The faithful are thus also bound politically
08:38 and told where to go and what to do.
08:43 All this is happening here in Austria.
08:45 No other country in this world would accept these developments.
08:48 But here in Austria we are actually looking on while these imams
08:53 who were educated and trained by the Turkish state are active in Austria
08:58 teaching religious education, as well as in political agitation. ,
09:03 And a Turkish ambassador here in Austria insults Austria
09:07 while the government looks on, and who in reality should be kicked,
09:13 out of this country. This behaviour [by the ambassador] is unacceptable!
09:24 Today there is no longer any self-respect
09:28 especially among the politicians
09:33 who are silent when terrorist organizations like the IHH
09:36 are active unhampered here in Austria.
09:43 The politicians as well as the government look away
09:49 even though this organization has been added to the list of terrorist organizations
09:52 and banned in Germany, because it collected donations ,
09:57 used for terrorist activities and acquisition of
10:01 weapons, rockets, explosives, and other things.,
10:05 And what about [Omar] Al Rawi? This socialist representative is one of
10:12 the organizers of a demonstration in the heart of Vienna
10:16 that drew up to 10, 000 predominantly Turkish participants,
10:21 with Al Rawi as the ringleader. There were posters sporting messages like:
10:27 “Hitler, wake up!” or “The Star of David is the new swastika!” ,
10:33 These are kafkaesque developments here in Vienna
10:40 organized by members of parliament from the SPÖ
10:44 tolerated by the socialist mayor, Michael Häupl, and whom Mr. Muzicant
10:49 from the Jewish faith community meets for a briefing on a weekly basis.
10:54 The same goes for [chancellor] Werner Faymann
10:57 who finds nothing strange about these developments in our society.
11:03 You also have the Jewish community led by Mr. Muzikant
11:07 who lives true socialist doctrine. We are the only ones who led a dialogue
11:13 and during the [recent Vienna] election campaign we were the only ones who took action
11:17 with respect to this Islamism and anti-Semitism [during the demonstration]
11:23 and he – Muzikant – then claimed lie as truth
11:29 that FPÖ and Islamism act as a platform for anti-Semitism in our society.
11:36 This is a documented lie, and no lie can be better documented than this one,
11:42 because we were the only ones who during the election campaign
11:46 who not only pointed out these terrorist developments
11:49 as well as the anti-Semitism developments
11:53 but also rejected them.
11:56 Ladies and gentlemen!
11:58 All of this shows how hollowed out our society has already become.
12:03 It shows what kind of political representatives we have in our society
12:08 who sold us out. In twenty years, if we do not effect ,
12:16 a quick political change, we will no longer have ,
12:22 an ancestral German-speaking majority population
12:27 but an Islamic majority population intent on different laws
12:30 here in our ancestral countries, to implement them here.,
12:39 Ad we must therefore be vigilant and counter these threats
12:45 with all decisiveness and with all applicable consequences
12:48 for the freedom of the West was won through centuries of hard work.
12:53 Therefore we cannot and must not accept any relinquishment of our achievements
12:57 such as democracy, freedom of speech, equal rights, even in part. ,
13:01 And I said: We reject all totalitarian ideologies.
13:06 This is the party program of the Freedom Party.
13:11 as we have affirmed it. Whether it is fascism
13:16 national socialism, communism, Stalinism, or whether it is Islamism,
13:21 and regardless of whether this totalitarian ideology
13:26 is camouflaged as a religion or misuses a religion.
13:32 We also oppose everything or everyone
13:38 who even remotely supports or practices terrorism.

8 comments:

EscapeVelocity said...

It cant be stated enough the importance of shoring up the Christian heritage and underpinning of European societies and systems. The zeitgeist has been since the 60s the tearing down of that Christian heritage and underpinning, via moral and cultural relativism, (and the expansion of freedom)...in order to benefit any and all minority or "historically disadvantaged" groups.

The problem is that this weakened Christian authority, has allowed Islam to waltz in and set up shop. And that is bad news for everybody.

Secular Hedonism can not stand.

Anonymous said...

European anti-Semitism still abounds, but 95% of it can be found on the Socialist Left in unholy alliance with Islam.

Even if this is true: So what?

Why would/should the fate of Israel matter so much to Europeans? Why should we be such bitter partisans on one side or another in these intra-Semitic squabbles??

I just don't get it.

Anonymous said...

@hailtoyou:

I just don't get it.

Clearly not. Viewing the fate of the State of Israel as simply "an intra-Semitic squabble" is to discount the notion that the Islamic, antisemitic threat to Israel and the Islamic, anti-European/Christian threat to Europe are related, if not completely in pari materia.

There are plenty of blogs that decry any and all attempt to link Islamic antisemitism with the Islamic threat to Europe; GoV is generally not among these.

Anonymous said...

Nonsubhomine,

If the entity of Israel were dissolved and the entity of "Palestine" were to return, how would your life be affected? How would European and American Christians be affected in any way?

It seems that some in the Counter-Islamic Movement are far more interested in cheerleading for a Semitic group's hardline-ethnostate (Israel), than in pushing for their own nations' interests. This continues to puzzle me.

I am genuinely interested in hearing this rationalized.

Anonymous said...

hailtoyou: "If the entity of Israel were dissolved and the entity of "Palestine" were to return, how would your life be affected?"

I find your question and its phrasing to be disingenuous. Your calling Israel an "entity" instead of a country says a lot about you. But, here goes nothing....

1. Islam is a supremacist political ideology hell bent on subjugating ALL of humanity as slaves to Allah - an all-around evil "entity" who, among his other flaws, encourages Muslims to violently cut off the clitorises of little girls (140 million and counting) and then forcibly marry the little girls to adult male cousins.

Islam convinces its followers that the whole world belongs to Allah, and Muslim jihadis must reclaim the whole world by any available means including cruel and unusual violence against non-Muslims. Any country including Israel (and Sudan) that the world surrenders as a concession or appeasement to the United Nations' Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) convinces Muslims that Muslims will indeed conquer the whole world for Allah and exponentially increases the propensity for all Muslims to use violence to achieve their political aims - because Muslims regularly use 1) actual violence against Israel (and Sudan), and 2) the threat of violence against Western nations who support Israel (and Sudan).

2. Many of the most holy sites of Judaism and Christianity are located in Israel. When Israel controls these holy sites, the holy sites are available for all religions to visit and pray.

Recent experience shows that the specter of Muslim control of Jewish and Christian holy sites will bring an entirely different circumstance. When Muslims control Jewish and Christian holy sites, these sites face severe restrictions or prohibitions on non-Muslim visitation - and, worse yet, potential wholesale destruction of historical artifacts that contradict Mohammed's Muslim narrative.

Anonymous said...

3. Currently, the women and children in Israel have recourse to civil law that trumps Sharia Law. If the world cedes Israel to Muslims, all women and children who continue to live in the area will immediately be subjugated as being less equal than men under barbaric Sharia Law.

4. Israel is a legitimate country existing under a peacefully and lawfully negotiated agreement. If Muslims are able to use specious claims and unremitting violence to renegotiate international borders, then no country is safe from being claimed by the ummah. But, Sudan knows that already. It does seem a shame when one part of a country must secede in order to attempt to escape from a minority of violent Muslims practicing Sharia Law.

5. Israel recently discovered significant energy reserves that the Muslim world is intent to appropriate for its own purposes. As Saudi Arabia has illustrated, Muslims use their oil money to establish violent mosques and madrassas around the world instead of increasing the standard of living of their poor citizens - with the ultimate irony being that then Muslims leaders inevitably and falsely attribute all Muslim violence to poverty instead of the Islamic-mandated violence called jihad that is inculcated into poor, middle class, and rich Muslims alike from birth.

Freyja's cats said...

I can understand how hailtoyou feels.

My logic is a bit different, though.

Europe was a very troubled place with a large Jewish population.

Once, unfortunately for Jews, Europe's Jewish population was significantly decreased, both by war and by migration to the U.S. and Israel, then Europe began to become more stable.

Russia calmed down quite a bit once a large number of Russian Jews had migrated to the U.S. and Israel.

Many Jews reading this comment will not appreciate it.

However, I am of Germanic descent, so I have a different point of view.

If Israel succumbs to Islam, and violence breaks out, then Israeli Jews would likely migrate back to Europe, or to the U.S.

I would much rather have Jews in Israel, away from both Europe and the U.S.

If Israeli Jews took refuge in Europe, it is possible that the old anti-Jewish sentiment could develop again, especially as many of those Israeli Jews would be leftist and hostile to Germans.

If Israeli Jews took refuge in the U.S., then there will only be more political tension in the U.S.

There are already a lot of U.S. citizens who do not like the large amount of government influence that Jews have in the U.S.

If the U.S. had to absorb all the Jews in Israel, then the Jewish population in the U.S. would nearly double.

That would just increase anti-Jewish sentiment in the U.S.

I think it is better for everybody for Jews to have their own space.

In fact, it is my personal feeling that it would be nice if all Jews in the world would move to Israel. That would double Israel's population. This would strengthen their national position in Palestine relative to the way it is now.

Of course, the Palestinians would then likely get pushed out of the Left Bank altogether, unless Israel built up, rather than out.

However, this would drain a lot of the Left out of the U.S., because a lot of U.S. Jews are leftists. A giant chunk of Democrats would suddenly be gone. Then the U.S. would trend more conservative.

And with fewer Jews in the U.S. incessantly demanding that the U.S. immigration levels be as high as possible, we Europid folks here in the U.S. could finally shut down immigration altogether, or at least to a reasonable level.

Europe and the U.S. would then be much less "diverse"...and, possibly, much happier and more united.

Anonymous said...

HC Strache needs to have a website in English like Gert Wilders and a page that clearly shows his positions on the issues of multiculturalism and Europe in general in print. Although I understand some Austrian it isn't enough to translate for myself instead of depending on a translator.

An issue that comes up frequently on this site are the comments that paint anyone secular or on the Left as anti-Israel or pro-Islam. This is gross misconception. As a European I'm a Left-winger who votes for Gert Wilders and generally takes a pro-Israeli stance - and I am not the only Lefty who is this way. Most of us understand that tolerance, here and in America, must work both ways, and foreigners are expected to integrate into European society, not create enclaves. If not, Muslims or anyone else, may return to where they came from.