Europe Endless?

Islamists are stifling debate in what was Europe's freest country, says Douglas Murray in We should fear Holland's silence

Holland - with its disproportionately high Muslim population - is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism - not the "liberalism" that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

I can't help wondering how long this can go on. How long can Europeans take this?

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.

Europe shuffling into darkness, allowing it's culture to be eclipsed? I think there is a backlash coming. It may take a bit more bending but Europe will push back.