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upon telegram to the president, phoning the prime minister, giving interviews to the news media: "This man's stay here" -- and I had only a four week visa, only two weeks more I could have stayed there -- "this man's stay here is going to destroy our morality, our religion, our church, our tradition."
When I heard this I said, "If a religion, a church, a morality, a tradition, can be destroyed by a single human being in two weeks' time -- something which you have created in two thousand years -- then it is worth destroying; there is no question about it."
And a paranoia has spread all over Europe. Now in the European parliament there is a motion that I should not be allowed to land at any airport in Europe. Perhaps even my landing at the airport is going to destroy their morality, their religion, their tradition. It shows only one thing: they also know that they are standing on a rotten foundation. Just a push -- which even a tourist for two weeks can manage -- and your whole edifice will be shattered.
This is strange... in a civilized world if I do not agree with you we can discuss it, we can come to an agreement. But dynamiting my house is not the answer. It seems people have not learned anything.
Do you think crucifying Jesus was the answer? The crucifixion created Christianity.
Was poisoning Socrates the answer? Nobody is respected more in the whole history of Greece than Socrates. People have completely forgotten the names of those who had decided to poison him. But Socrates' name will remain immortal as long as human beings are on the earth. Even today he is contemporary. His thinking must have had tremendous insight for two thousand years to have passed without him being out of date. He was their very cream -- the genius of the whole Greek mind -- and they destroyed him.
It seems that there has been a conspiracy, going on for centuries, of mediocre people against the genius. And of course the mediocre people are in the majority -- they have all the power. They have the government, they have the military, they have the police, they have the nuclear weapons. The genius has nothing except his intelligence, and intelligence
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