No Country Can Survive Without Deeply Rooted Tradition and Patriotism
by Geert Wilders
Patriotism, Margaret Thatcher once said, is one of a nation’s “pillars of greatness.”
Today it is exactly fifty years since that Mrs. Thatcher became the leader of the British Conservative Party. She is one of the politicians who has inspired me most. She was a passionate freedom fighter as well as a patriot, and she understood that a country cannot survive if it is no longer rooted in its traditional values.
“Patriotism,” Thatcher said, “means that we cherish a nation’s history and feel concern for its future long after we ourselves have gone. It means that we will be prepared to make any sacrifices for the sake of our country and the things for which it stands. Take it away, and greatness decays; national freedom, even national survival will be placed in jeopardy.”
Today, we are living in amazing times, full of optimism for the future. In May, I will be speaking at the CPAC conference in Budapest, Hungary. Its theme is “The Age of Patriots has begun.” And so it has! In America, Donald Trump has ushered in a sea change in politics. He is performing a political miracle, which, barely a year ago, seemed almost impossible: To simultaneously roll back wokeism and illegal immigration.
In Europe, we are set to do the same. America’s Constitution allows Trump to immediately put his political mark on the country. In my home country, the Netherlands, as in most other European countries, we are obliged to build coalition governments and seek compromises. Our processes of decision-making take longer – far too long in my opinion. But let there be no doubt about it: In Europe, too, wokeism and illegal immigration will be ended. Trump’s victory is working as an accelerant of patriotism on both sides of the Atlantic.
All across the West, our national identity is rooted in Judeo-Christian values. Both wokeism and multi-culturalism are undermining this identity. The fight against wokeism and against mass immigration are two sides of the same coin. It is the same fight. And it is an existential fight.
Wokeism, reduces an individual’s identity to the color of his skin or his sexual preference – away from what traditionally defines our identity: our relationship with our family, with our neighborhood and with the nation into which we are born. Wokeism redefines identity into something essentially egocentric and subjective, while identity is traditionally defined in relation to others: an objective allegiance to family and nation.
One does not need to be a practicing Christian to acknowledge the deep truth of what the 13th-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote: “The principles of our being and governing are our parents and our country, which have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor chiefly to his parents and his country, after God.”
The slogan for next May’s European CPAC Conference is: “God, Homeland, Family.” Margaret Thatcher would undoubtedly have agreed, so would Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Thomas Aquinas. We are standing in a tradition of ages and walking in the footsteps of giants.