Controverso Quotidiano: You have written much recently about Europe's nativist-nationalist-populist-far-right parties, which you call civilizationist. Why do you use this term?
Daniel Pipes: Because none of the other words you used describes these parties precisely; their focus is on preserving Western civilization, making civilizationist most accurate.
CQ: Some important civilizationist parties – the National Rally in France, Freedom Party in Austria, Fidesz in Hungary, and the Alternative for Germany – retain an antisemitic element. Is this permanent or transitory, growing or decreasing?
Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein, expelled from the Alternative für Deutschland.
DP: That element is undeniably present but most civilizationist parties are making an effort to expunge it. For example, the Alternative for Germany just expelled Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein due to her connections to Verein Gedächtnisstätte, a Holocaust-denying organization. It's a constant battle but, over time, the parties appear to be less antisemitic. One cannot expect too much, however, for what political party in Europe is not to some extent Europe antisemitic?
CQ: Clear ties exist between Putin's Russia and such civilizationist parties as the National Rally, Fidesz, and Italy's League: how much should this worry us?
DP: Plenty. Putin is taking advantage of the civilizationists' isolation and financial neediness to win influence over them. The solution lies not in further marginalizing them but in bringing them into legitimate politics, so they don't feel the need to turn toward an external dictator.
CQ: What do you think of Hungarian-born George Soros, an outspoken advocate for immigration into Europe, who last year bestowed $18 billion on his Open Society Foundation to build an "open society" without borders?
DP: Given that Soros funds personal attacks on me, I naturally have a very dim opinion of him. The anonymous website dcleaks.com in August 2016 released a confidential file from Soros' Open Society Foundations (OSF) that included an internal 2011 memo, "Extreme Polarization and Breakdown in Civic Discourse," which discussed a $200,000 OSF grant to the Center for American Progress (CAP) to "research and track the activities" of the Middle East Forum and other NGOs combating Islamism. Later in 2011, CAP published a 138-page report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, which characterized me as a "misinformation expert" whose "alarmist rhetoric" encourages anti-Muslim stereotyping, charges that a follow-up report repeated in 2015.
Beyond this personal reason, I see Soros' goal of a borderless society, via what is humorously known as his "Open Borders Foundation," as a perfect vehicle for the destruction of Western civilization.
CQ: Please comment on this statement by Peter Sutherland, UN Special Representative for International Migration: "Sovereignty is an absolute illusion that has to be put behind us. The days of hiding behind borders and fences are long gone. We have to work together and cooperate together to make a better world. And that means taking on some of the old shibboleths, taking on some of the old historic memories and images of our own country and recognizing that we're part of humankind."
DP: Peter Sutherland should work for Soros. It's a match made in heaven.
CQ: And comment on this statement by Douglas Murray in The Strange Death of Europe: "The world is coming into Europe at precisely the moment that Europe has lost sight of what it is. And with while the movement of millions of people from other cultures into a strong and assertive culture might have worked, the movement of millions of people into a guilty, jaded and dying culture cannot."
DP: I emphatically agree. I have pursued this same angle in a blog (which quotes Murray) begun in 2005, "British Culture – Worth Saving?"
CQ: Outspokenness takes a toll. For example, Thilo Sarrazin, a Social Democrat, published Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Abolishes Itself") in which he argued that low German birth rates and high levels of Muslim immigration are fundamentally transforming German society; for this, he had to resign from the Bundesbank's executive board. Renowned French historian Georges Bensoussan said that antisemitism is a permanent cultural feature of Islamic culture and was dragged into court on charges of racism. These and many other instances raise the question: How much does political correctness serve the Islamist agenda?
DP: A lot. The Rushdie Rules, the Islamist crackdown on the open discussion in the West of Islam and related topics, began with Khomeini's notorious edict on Salman Rushdie in 1989. At that time, the Left stood quite robustly with Rushdie. (Norman Mailer, the American novelist: "It is our duty to form ranks behind him, and our duty to state to the world that if he is ever assassinated, it will become our obligation to stand in his place. If he is ever killed for a folly, we must be killed for the same folly.") Thirty years later, the Left would not offer this solidarity. Its rejection of the open discussion of Islam neatly complements that of the Islamists.
CQ: How are we to fight political correctness?
DP: By encouraging more conservatives to become intellectuals.
Matteo Salvini, head of Italy's Lega.
CQ: The Left regularly accuses the leaders of civilizationist parties of fascism. For example, Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's League and the interior minister who has made it his priority to stop uncontrolled immigration, is depicted as heir to Benito Mussolini. Is there any truth to this charge or is it ridiculous?
DP: It's ridiculous. With its emphasis on state power as a living faith, fascism destroys Western civilization while Salvini and other civilizationists want to save it.
Clever, those leftists: they accuse someone of wanting the opposite of what he actually wants. I too have experienced this; a recent example was my being characterized as far-right by, of all people, the descendants of Nazis in the German and Austrian media.
CQ: How serious is the risk of Islamization in Europe?
DP: Very serious. It is inevitable unless civilizationists manage to control the borders and integrate Muslims.
CQ: What are the remedies for Islamization?
DP: Europeans waking up and voting to take the necessary steps.
