Winston Churchill Compares "Mein Kampf" to the Koran

As the Dutch politician Geert Wilders nears the release of his film expected to present the Koran as analogous to Hitler's Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), a point he has already made, it is worth recalling who else has made this comparison. Yes, in recent years, it's become a quite common theme on the right – for example, Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly did so on his show in 2002.

But the really interesting comparison is Winston Churchill's, though he did it the other way around. It comes on p. 50 of From War to War, the first part of the first volume of his 6-part Second World War. Chapter 4 deals with Adolf Hitler, including a close look at Mein Kampf, which Churchill called "the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message."

Comment: I disagree with the comparison (and also reject the idea to ban Islam or the Koran), seeing this as counterproductive: it won't happen and it need not, as Muslims' understanding of their religion and scripture are potentially flexible. That said, the Churchill quote points to the undeniably deep-felt Western hostility to the Koran. (February 21, 2008)

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