Geert Wilders in the Dock
This is a guest post by Ben Cohen of Z Word
Last March, the right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders released a film about Islam entitled Fitna, an Arabic term which refers to civil strife. Unable to find a broadcaster because of the film’s blanket condemnation of Islam, Wilders ended up posting it on the internet. As Elif Kayi reported at the time, there were angry demonstrations around the world, including in Afghanistan, where Dutch troops were stationed with the NATO force. But the apocalypse did not come.
Nearly one year later, a Dutch court has overturned an earlier decision by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and decided to prosecute Wilders. The three judges in the Amsterdam Appeals Court said that “they had weighed Mr Wilders’s ‘one-sided generalisations’ against his right to free speech, and ruled that he had gone beyond the normal leeway granted to politicians.”
It hardly needs saying that Fitna – which you can watch here – is an awful film. To the dramatic strains of Tchaikovsky and Grieg, Wilders strings together fire and brimstone suras from the Qu’ran with footage of terrorist atrocities, Islamist preachers in full-throated antisemitic rants and even the gruesome beheading of a western hostage in Iraq. This, he wants you to believe, is the essence of the Islamic faith. And it’s coming to a street corner near you.
In case you’re not convinced, about ten minutes into the film there’s a shot of a burqa-clad woman pushing a toddler in a stroller down a quiet Dutch street. This is immediately followed by a graph which demonstrates the unstoppable rise of the Muslim population in The Netherlands. The path from theology to demography is not one that Wilders has much trouble in negotiating. As he said in a particularly inflammatory speech in Jerusalem, “From now on the motto of my party will be: ‘it’s demographics, dumbo.’”
Not unreasonably, some of Wilders critics see parallels between his film and the insidious tactics of antisemitic propagandists. You can also situate it in a broader tradition of scare films which predicate the future health of society on its ability to deal with the One Big Threat in its midst. In my view, Fitna is reminiscent of, and about as credible as, “Reefer Madness,” a 1936 movie financed by a church group in the US which carried the message that a single puff on a marijuana joint would send you spiraling downwards into murder, rape and mayhem.
But should he be prosecuted? It’s hard to make the case that the film is just a critique of Islamic theology; it invites the viewer to dislike Muslims as well, to regard them as a threat we would all be better off without. It is a racist film, for sure. Yet there is no exhortation to violence, no explicit call to deport Muslims, nothing that would make a court case watertight when it comes to a seamless link between hate speech and hate crime.
One of the grounds for prosecution lies, according to the court statement, in the “comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders.” At the conclusion of Fitna, a text scrolls up the screen announcing that just as Nazism was defeated in 1945 and communism defeated in 1989, “Now, the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.” Back in 2007, Wilders called for the Qu’ran to be banned, comparing it, for good measure, with Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
I don’t believe that anyone should be prosecuted for stupidity or grotesque offensiveness. I accept that others, including members of the judiciary, may disagree with me. If they do, though, then they need to be consistent.
If Wilders is to be prosecuted for comparing Islam with Nazism, then why not prosecute those who march through Amsterdam carrying banners equating the Star of David with the swastika? Why not prosecute the Dutch Socialist MP Harry van Bommel, who paraded along an Amsterdam street chanting the word “intifada” while a crowd behind him roared “Hamas, Hamas, Joden aan het gas!” (”Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”). Why not drag the execrable Gretta Duisenberg into the dock? This is a woman who has declared her “understanding” of suicide bombing, who has wondered aloud whether Jews are taking over South Amsterdam in the same way as they are taking over the West Bank and who giggled, when asked how may signatures she wanted on a pro-Palestinian petition, the answer “six million.” Why Wilders and not Duisenberg?
My point is that prosecuting Wilders is going to lead to an inevitable, and – for the Dutch especially – uncomfortable row about double standards and the legal process. Moreover, Wilders, is bound to make the argument that his prosecution is the best evidence for his claims about “Islamisation.” Far better, surely, to fight it out in the realm of ideas, as was done, to take one example, here.
Comments
| 21 January 2009, 5:45 pm |
Nick Griffin said “Islam is a wicked and vicious faith” and a UK court cleared him of any wrongdoing and implcitly said that it was OK to criticise a religion.
In the debate about Religious and Racial Incitement Boris Johnson quoted from the Koran and said something like “Well, isn’t THAT Religious and Racial incitement so shouldn’t we ban the Koran?” (He was ONLY making a point.
I guess the prosecution of Wilders rests on whether he is attacking Muslims as people or Islam as a faith. If your argument was that the idealogy of Islam was incompatible with Western and European societies, giving examples and suggesting that such idealogies were destructive to the way of life of existing populations then I feel that might be acceptable thing to say, just as many commentators rebel at the idea of imposing SHariah law without being against Muslims.
If you then show population forecasts of Muslim growth are you then inciting against that growth by implying some violence or are you arguing for immigration controls?
Its a case that has complexities and which you can argue both ways.
I guess we hold in our minds the Nazi propaganda films about Jews that imaged them as hook-nosed caricatures, like vermin and insects. I think Wilders has a message that needs to be considered but I can’t decide if the way he delivered it is without racism and a casting of the worst of Islam against ALL Muslims.
| 21 January 2009, 5:53 pm |
Islamism & Nazism.
It seems to me that people who equate Zionism with Nazism get a very free ride so why so sensitive about Islamism and Nazism. Is it because one is an idealogy (Zionism) and Islamism is following a religion which has preset boundaries that won’t/can’t change?
If you said “Islamist & Nazism” there have been some academic papers written on the subject and we can all quote the Mufti/Palestinians/Handzar Divisions and the Nazi War criminal Husseini but I doubt that alone would qualify for the analogy.
Muslims aren’t a race and so I can’t see the racial element as he presumably casts against Arabs, Asians and Caucasians when he uses the word “Muslim”.
I wonder if this is just pre-emption of the “Motoons” saga whereby we exercise our free speech to parody religions and their prophets but then the followers think its OK to kill people because of it. Are the reacting to an anticipated clash of civilisations?
The whole thing is fascinating.
| 21 January 2009, 6:05 pm |
This posting is obnoxious and arrogant. The author falls all over himself to show us just how open-minded he is. It’s as though he asks; “does my sanctimonious ass look fat in this little moral frock?”
Wilders isn’t a film-maker, and so to sidestep the issues he raises by doing a critique of his cinematography skills is dishonest. Islamists…and it is the islamists who call the shots… make no secret of their desire to overrun Europe. The openly boast about it and constantly crow about the inroads islam makes into european society almost every day. And the euro-elites are scared so shitless that Europe will soon be known as the incontinent continent
Below is a kick-ass exchange that appeared on French televion ( France 3) a week ago between philospher Michel Onfray and three others about the very real possibiloity of Europe falling to Islam. It’s chilling, but if you don’t undertstand french ( it’s in french), then you can avoid a lot of messy unpleasantness…at least for now.
The straight, ugly dope or what happens when you lose your religion.
| 21 January 2009, 6:12 pm |
“It is a racist film, for sure.” The race in question being?
| 21 January 2009, 6:12 pm |
“I guess the prosecution of Wilders rests on whether he is attacking Muslims as people or Islam as a faith.”
Why the hell should that make a difference?
Honestly, the reason he’s being prosecuted is because his critics reacted violently, no?
| 21 January 2009, 6:12 pm |
Again I ask you, How is Islam a race. And if you don’t want to publish my comment then you an take down the link to my copy of Fitna as well.
| 21 January 2009, 6:16 pm |
Well at least free speech is dead. We need to admit to ourselves that this has nothing to do with ‘law’ and everything to do with fear of Muslims rising up and setting fire to cars and buildings. This coming from tolerant twits who themselves happily march down the street chanting for the incineration of all Jews everywhere. Good job. If Jews in Europe are to take anything away from this it’s that they should simply rebrand themselves as Muslims of Zion. Half the liberals will be cheering and the other half will be afraid to say peep.
Again, when talking about Islam the definition of ‘freedom’ itself is different. You are not free to be offended if you are Muslim. Apparently though you are free to kill and commit arson. This is no different than being held hostage by drug cartels in Mexico or Colombia.
| 21 January 2009, 6:22 pm |
Why should anybody’s metaphysical beliefs, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or whatever, be beyond criticism any more than their political beliefs?
Answer: they shouldn’t but the Muslim bloc at the UN is trying very hard to silence any and all criticism of Islam.
Indeed post 7/7, the very vaguely worded UK anti-religious hatred laws mean that even though it is theoretically possible to legally mock Islam, hardly anybody will because of the risk of prosecution (that and getting a burning rag through your letter box in the middle of the night.) All political parties except the odious far right self-censor on this and we have the nonsense of people like Hazel Blears making reference to the threat of unrest in “communities” (what Budhists, Jews, pagan communities?). Why let the BNP effectively take over a mainstream issue?
Ben, I would say that as a useful idiot they will come for you last. But in view of your surname I suspect you will be further up the list.
| 21 January 2009, 6:28 pm |
Interesting that the Dutch would go after Wilders and also Ayaan Hirsi Ali, yet Harry van Bommel, another Dutch MP, attended a pro-Hamas demo where the crowd shouted “Jews to the gas” with no consequences. Even more than the English, the Dutch seem the most eager to please their new masters.
| 21 January 2009, 7:02 pm |
Religious hatred should be encouraged. Especially against Islam. Next they’ll be prosecuting people for saying the Taliban are evil. Mustn’t offend the poor sensitive helpless defenceless Muslims. Patronizing bastards.
| 21 January 2009, 7:04 pm |
If Wilders is to be prosecuted for comparing Islam with Nazism, then why not prosecute those who march through Amsterdam carrying banners equating the Star of David with the swastika?
why not indeed; surely there is at least a presumptive case for prosecuting people for inciting hatred in this way.
Why not prosecute the Dutch Socialist MP Harry van Bommel, who paraded along an Amsterdam street chanting the word “intifada” while a crowd behind him roared “Hamas, Hamas, Joden aan het gas!” (”Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”).
Much weaker; you can’t really prosecute someone for something someone else said. Might be a case that “intifada” constituted incitement to murder but I wouldn’t fancy making it in a court.
Why not drag the execrable Gretta Duisenberg into the dock? This is a woman who has declared her “understanding” of suicide bombing, who has wondered aloud whether Jews are taking over South Amsterdam in the same way as they are taking over the West Bank and who giggled, when asked how may signatures she wanted on a pro-Palestinian petition, the answer “six million.” Why Wilders and not Duisenberg?
If she makes a habit of this sort of thing, definitely a case to be made, although the nature of the thing is that it’s a lot easier to prosecute people who make big, consolidated statements of their racist case (and then publish them, more or less daring the authorities to prosecute). If Wilders had stuck to making racist statements in public speeches he’d probably have got away with it.
| 21 January 2009, 7:07 pm |
‘It is a racist film, for sure’.
The race being?
‘Far better, surely, to fight it out in the realm of ideas’.
Agreed. A point that needs making particularly forcefully to the Islamists who think Islam should be beyond criticism and work themselves into a rage when it is criticised. A point the UN also seems unwilling to accept, given its recent endorsements of blatant attempts at censoring criticism of religion, with special reference to one religion in particular.
| 21 January 2009, 7:09 pm |
ami – it’s a link to a film called “fitna remade: Oh ok its in the filtered section of youtube. Incidentally, not quite OT as on the subject of censorship, I had a mass emailed message a couple of days ago about the IDF Gaza site which the email claimed had been pulled by youtube on the pretext of lack of interest. I checked as this seemed odd, and according to some blogs it had in fact been reinstated but behind the filter, which one blogger found offensive as this put it in a category with KKK and porn.
And the link I got from one the HP threads for the policeman’s blog Sheeps and Wolves about the anti Israel demo: when I got around to viewing the youtube clip it said it had been removed as inappropriate material. Given that the caption said it demonstrated how restrained the police were being, I can only think any inappropriate language or behaviour was on the part of the demonstrators – so why was that censored?
| 21 January 2009, 7:15 pm |
Hold onto your hats people. Whether or not you believe Wilders should be prosecuted (personally I believe he should not), Fitna was released in March last year and a case is only being brought against him now. The foul protests which are the examples used in the penultimate paragraph all happened much more recently and we may well see some kind of reaction to them in the future.
Just as with al-Ghuraba/Saved Sect’s protests about the Danish cartoons – at the time many of us were more than a tad surprised when the police appeared to do nothing about people with banners clearly soliciting murder. But the police gathered their evidence, let the protest disperse and the emotions surrounding the events calm, and then (six weeks later) they acted.
| 21 January 2009, 7:17 pm |
when I got around to viewing the youtube clip it said it had been removed as inappropriate material. Given that the caption said it demonstrated how restrained the police were being, I can only think any inappropriate language or behaviour was on the part of the demonstrators – so why was that censored?
The Youtube Mujahideen are very good at organizing complaints against anything that criticizes Islam and getting it removed.
| 21 January 2009, 7:18 pm |
This is the result of islamists placing pressure on the Dutch gov’t. The extend to which islamists demand censorship of any cultural artifact critical of islam is proportional to the truth about Islam those artifacts contain. The Islamists have pressured and pressured and the Dutch have folded.
I find it hard to believe Europe hasn’t woken up to the fact that Muslim immigration isn’t immigration at all, but rather a demographic invasion.
What do you think 1000s of Muslims were trying to say when, during the recent anti-Israel demos, they stopped, dropped and prayed in front of both Rome’s Colosseum and Milan’s Duomo?
And most of those who did would no doubt describe themselves as ‘moderate’ were they asked.
| 21 January 2009, 7:30 pm |
Why not prosecute the Dutch Socialist MP Harry van Bommel, who paraded along an Amsterdam street chanting the word “intifada” while a crowd behind him roared “Hamas, Hamas, Joden aan het gas!” (”Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”). Why not drag the execrable Gretta Duisenberg into the dock?
Van Bommel will be prosecuted: by Moszkowicz, Holland’s most illustrious lawyer, & jewish.
Duisenberg is a perverted case study for some sociopathologist. No doubt.
| 21 January 2009, 7:37 pm |
I have looked at the Wilders video
Essentially he is not expressing his views but allowing the Islamists to express theirs. And haven’t we all heard it before and don’t we hear it every day?
But I think the film does incite to racial hatred, though less so than the demonstrators who shouted, “Jews to the gas!”
If Wilders had brought clear indicatiuons into the film that it is anti-Islam, and not anti-Muslim, it would be acceptable.
Of course my musical ear is always alert. Ironically Tchaikovsky’s piece from the Nutcarcker is an Arab dance. Here it – like the Grieg melody – sounds more lethally melancholic than it does normally. It could speak for the melancholy of Arabs under the Islamic yoke. If I were collaborating with Wilders I would have made this theme more evident thematically. The Islam rantings are dreadsully true, but maybe the music is the truest part of the film: infinite melancholy about what the human species does to itself.
| 21 January 2009, 7:54 pm |
“The race being?”
You sound like swappie. “But I said Zionist. Zionist isn’t a race!”. “But I accused rootless cosmopolitans of drinking the blood of babies. Rootless cosmopolitans, who control the media, aren’t a race.”
Racists almost always, nowadays, hide behind more respectable discussion. So zionism can become code for Jew, when it should be merely a political philosophy, open to criticism like all others. And ‘islam’ is code for brown immigrants in most racist circles in Europe, not just a silly religion.
| 21 January 2009, 7:56 pm |
should read: you sound like A swappie
| 21 January 2009, 7:57 pm |
Both van Bommel and Duisenberg are being (privately) proscecuted in a class action.
I’m sure they’ll wriggle out of it somehow. Duisenberg in particular is a very shady character.
| 21 January 2009, 8:05 pm |
The Islamists have pressured and pressured and the Dutch have folded.
I vaguely remember that after Theo Van Gogh was stabbed to death and his head almost cut off, someone painted a large peace dove on a wall nearby. An iman complained and the Dutch authorities response was to quickly paint it over.
What do you think 1000s of Muslims were trying to say when, during the recent anti-Israel demos, they stopped, dropped and prayed in front of both Rome’s Colosseum and Milan’s Duomo?
I dunno. But I saw a photo of the Milan demonstration and it scared the hell out of me.
| 21 January 2009, 8:08 pm |
No it’s not. Find me a case where it’s used as a code for Indians.
| 21 January 2009, 8:16 pm |
I don’t believe that anyone should be prosecuted for stupidity or grotesque offensiveness. I accept that others, including members of the judiciary, may disagree with me. If they do, though, then they need to be consistent.
Meeting the legal standard (vague as it seems in this case) isn’t usually sufficient to justify prosecution; public interest matters too. The film pretty clearly has all the usual imminent-danger racist tropes: given the deeply ugly mood Muslims in Europe, its deeply disingenuous to emphasise the lack of exhortation to violence — a bit like Mugabe apologists who argued, back in the day, that he wasn’t encouraging anti-white violence because he’d only said that ‘Zimbabwe is for Africans.’ I won’t cry if Wilders is prosecuted.
And a very special shout-out to John P who continues to make me ashamed to share a religion with him.
| 21 January 2009, 8:27 pm |
“No it’s not. Find me a case where it’s used as a code for Indians.”
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_hate.jsp?id=278
If you knew any racists, you’d know they don’t really care to distinguish much.
| 21 January 2009, 8:53 pm |
“What do you think 1000s of Muslims were trying to say when, during the recent anti-Israel demos, they stopped, dropped and prayed in front of both Rome’s Colosseum and Milan’s Duomo?”
John P, you’re not wrong, but the Roman Catholic church is not a brave bulwark against the Islamicisation of Europe, it just isn’t. Do a google image search of “John Paul Koran”. Look at the rubbish the Pope has talked about Israel and not just during this war either. You lot are as pathetic as any simpering liberal.
| 21 January 2009, 9:29 pm |
To the people at the top of the thread who questioned how Fitna could be racist, John P has kindly given you the answer.
I find it hard to believe Europe hasn’t woken up to the fact that Muslim immigration isn’t immigration at all, but rather a demographic invasion.
What clearer an example of Muslims being treated as though they are a race could you want?
| 21 January 2009, 9:37 pm |
“Not unreasonably, some of Wilders critics see parallels between his film and the insidious tactics of antisemitic propagandists.”
I don’t see the parallel at all.
Wilder’s stretches some points but he doesn’t offer any blood libel accusations nor does he falsify history.
Why do we liberals always use Jews as a point of comparison when you want to exonerate some cause, but don’t object to them when you want to indict Jews on some outlandish charge?
| 21 January 2009, 9:39 pm |
Gsirrah
I
“What clearer an example of Muslims being treated as though they are a race could you want?”
Not all groupings are racial, Gsorrah.
| 21 January 2009, 9:39 pm |
It is a racist film, for sure.
As others have pointed out, your use of the anti-concept ‘racism’ was ill-judged.
Ironically, literalist Islam makes no distinction between races: all must submit to Allah.
Most Muslims object to non-Muslims marrying Muslim women: many people have been assaulted, hunted down and killed in the UK because of Islamically prohibited relationships.
Fitna and Wilders help to draw attention to such obscenities.
| 21 January 2009, 9:41 pm |
Why is it that Muslims object when people accuse them of invading Europe but hurl the same accuastions at Jews who moved back to their historic homeland?
Muslims can immigrate wherever they like but Jews and other can’t immigrate to Muslim ruled countries.
Talk about double standards.
| 21 January 2009, 10:04 pm |
Reason. I feel you didn’t read what I wrote:
“What clearer an example of Muslims being treated as though they are a race could you want?”
Not all groupings are racial, Gsorrah.
The point is, if you are start talking about demographics then you are treating Muslims as though they are a racial group with certain (negative) inherited characteristics. This kind of rhetoric is closer to racism than any other term I can think of to apply to it.
| 21 January 2009, 10:22 pm |
Imam, you have a great name. The same can’t really be said of your points:
Most Muslims object to non-Muslims marrying Muslim women: many people have been assaulted, hunted down and killed in the UK because of Islamically prohibited relationships.
Fitna and Wilders help to draw attention to such obscenities.
1. Most Muslims object to non-Muslims marrying Muslim women All schools of law agree that a Muslim woman should marry only a Muslim man but that a Muslim man can marry a woman from the People of the Book. I assume this is what you are basing this rather vaguely worded point on. Do you have anything to back this up about Muslims in the UK? Or indeed about Muslims in the modern world? Or to connect it to what you say next?
2. many people have been assaulted, hunted down and killed in the UK because of Islamically prohibited relationships The claim that honour killings are a specifically Islamic thing is one of those unpleasant inaccuracies that just don’t go away. Read this report from the centre for Social Cohesion which treats this topic in pretty good detail – it is particularly good at highlighting the far more important role of cultural background in this depressing area.
3. Fitna and Wilders help to draw attention to such obscenities. Really? But the film and Wildeers do not add anything to debate about these topics. Any rubbish “truth about Islam” website can give you all the Qur’an quotes and videoclips which he uses. And there are plenty of people raising the topic of honour killings and other matters in a far more nuanced manner which actually leads to debate rather than simply boosting the status, fame and ego of Geert Wilders.
| 21 January 2009, 10:25 pm |
Toby.
Why is it that Muslims object when people accuse them of invading Europe but hurl the same accuastions at Jews who moved back to their historic homeland?
Muslims can immigrate wherever they like but Jews and other can’t immigrate to Muslim ruled countries.
Talk about double standards.
So Muslims in the west should be held to account for the actions of governments in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East? Do you appreciate the bigotry of what you just said?
| 21 January 2009, 10:49 pm |
To the dramatic strains of Tchaikovsky and Grieg, Wilders strings
together fire and brimstone suras from the Qu’ran with footage of terrorist atrocities, Islamist preachers in full-throated antisemitic rants and even the gruesome beheading of a western hostage in Iraq. This, he wants you to believe, is the essence of the Islamic faith.
Unfortunately, this is the ‘essence of the Islamic faith, really it is.And it’s coming to a street corner near you.
Alas, it already has.
Wilder’s film is spot on. All the Koran quotes are completely kosher.
Bog standard, mainstream Koranic literalist Islam is a nasty political religious ideology; there really is no getting away from it.
Wishing it were other than it is, for whatever reason….to put the best spin on it… because to face the uncomfortable facts seems too big a problem; tragically, is just wishful thinking.
| 21 January 2009, 10:49 pm |
“The point is, if you are start talking about demographics then you are treating Muslims as though they are a racial group with certain (negative) inherited characteristics. This kind of rhetoric is closer to racism than any other term I can think of to apply to it.”
This is wrong, Gsirrah.
The word race has a specific meaning. I may hate or love veterians as a group, but they are not a race.
| 21 January 2009, 10:53 pm |
Gesirah,”So Muslims in the west should be held to account for the actions of governments in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East? Do you appreciate the bigotry of what you just said?”
Don’t be a hypocrite. Many of this same Muslims have been demonstrating calling on Jews to be gassed. Have you been readig Harry’s Place?
“During an anti-Israel march, Dutch parliament member Harry van Bommel chants “Intifada!” while in the background can be heard another chant: “Hamas, Hamas, Joden aan het gas!” (”Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”)”
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/12/amsterdam-january-3-2009/
“Socialist Party MP Harry van Bommel says that in the wake of consultations with the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, he has decided not to attend the Auschwitz Remembrance ceremony on 25 January. According to a press release on the Dutch Auschwitz Committee’s website, the organisation convinced the Socialist MP not to attend. Mr Van Bommel was severely criticised by fellow MPs and numerous organisations in the Netherlands last week after he called for a new intifada against Israel during a demonstration. He was also criticised for doing nothing while marching in the midst of a group shouting “Hamas, Hamas, all the Jews to the gas” and other anti-Semitic chants.”
No one is holding Arabs in Europe responsible for what they didn’t do, only for what they do!
| 21 January 2009, 11:02 pm |
Wilders film contains no incitement to anyone, to take any action against muslim people. Nor does it defame the religion, it showcases aspects of the scripture. Everything he showed in that film is easily verified, and it is all drawn from material which is already in the public domain. It probably will make some of its audience take a dim view of muslims.
Our own Edmund Standing has published some compilation pieces on this site about the BNP. He does meticulous research and his claims are verifiable excerpts of what they themselves have declared in the public domain. It will probably make readers take a dim view of BNP members.
If Wilders can be prosecuted, then by the same token our own Edmund Standing could be proscuted for publishing his stuff. They are both doing the same thing, and in both cases it is entirely justifiable. Neither one is being deceptive, neither one is publishing private information. Neither one is inciting any illegal conduct towards anyone.
There is no way I can see any case for bringing charges, in either case. If people are not free to do this, then our civil liberties are gone.
Well mine are not for sale, at any price.
| 21 January 2009, 11:03 pm |
sorry the last post was fired off a tad too soon.
Let’s try again…
To the dramatic strains of Tchaikovsky and Grieg, Wilders strings together fire and brimstone suras from the Qu’ran with footage of terrorist atrocities, Islamist preachers in full-throated antisemitic rants and even the gruesome beheading of a western hostage in Iraq. This, he wants you to believe, is the essence of the Islamic faith.
Unfortunately, this IS the ‘essence of the Islamic faith; as any even cursory study of Islamic history will attest.
And it’s coming to a street corner near you.
Alas, as we all know, it already has.
Wilder’s film is spot on. All the Koran quotes are completely kosher.
Bog standard, mainstream Koranic literalist Islam, is a really nasty, violent political religious ideology; there really is no getting away from it. If the film demonises Islam – which it does – it is simply because the Islamic faith IS intrinsically demonic. And as you managed to notice, there is not a jot of incitement in the film, it is critical of Islam. Oh, and the film is not in the least bit ‘racist’.
Wishing Islam were other than it is, for whatever reason….to put the best spin on it… because to face the uncomfortable facts seems too big a problem; tragically, is just wishful thinking.
| 21 January 2009, 11:17 pm |
What crap. Islam is a religion NOT a race.
Islam = shit
Arabs = people
Learn the difference!
| 21 January 2009, 11:28 pm |
The word race has a specific meaning. I may hate or love veterians as a group, but they are not a race.
Gsirrah is correct. What matters, in this case, is the racist’s belief, not its truth. Looking like (most people’s idea of) a Muslim is sufficient to get you treated as a Muslim.
John P, you’re not wrong, but the Roman Catholic church is not a brave bulwark against the Islamicisation of Europe, it just isn’t. Do a google image search of “John Paul Koran”. Look at the rubbish the Pope has talked about Israel and not just during this war either. You lot are as pathetic as any simpering liberal.
No Catholicism no Europe. Plus we have the longest institutional memory going, so we know what it’s like to be a persecuted minority.
| 21 January 2009, 11:53 pm |
“Gsirrah is correct. What matters, in this case, is the racist’s belief, not its truth. Looking like (most people’s idea of) a Muslim is sufficient to get you treated as a Muslim.”
Rubbish, Emmanuel.
Suppose my idea of a Muslim is of a wonderful peace loving human being an whenever I see a Muslim I think “wonderful peace loving human being,” does that make all Muslims a race?
I think not.
Tace is a biological category not a sociological one.
I know people who gave up being Muslims, yet they never gave up their racial affiliation.
Your commnet is pseudo logical.
| 21 January 2009, 11:56 pm |
emmanuelgoldstein’s name links to an article about Obama which actually disproved his point.
Obama’s father was a former Muslim, but not a former VBlack man. Obama is and was a Black man, but not a Muslim. Not even a former one.
Get it, Muslim is not a race, it’s a religion.
| 22 January 2009, 12:25 am |
It is NOT a racist film. It is an anti-Islam film. Wilders is quite entititled to be anti-Islam if he feels that way, in the same way as radical Islam followers are anti-Christian/Jew.
In London raving loony Gaza protesters/rioters pursued the police here a couple of weekends ago screaming about destroying Israel and the west. The police were unwilling or unable to do anything about these people. Our governments are fearful and hamstrung by Human Rights legislation.
A post at Jihad Watch mentions the November UN resolution to prevent ANYONE criticising ISLAM! This is CRAZY. They too are trying to meld anti-Islam attitudes into racism. They are NOT the same.
The UN is WRONG here. They have no right to tell people what they can or cannot like. They can try to protect human rights or the rights of races. They can and should do no more than that. Religions are not set up as protected species.
I don’t give a damn what race people belong to. If they’re blue-eyed blondes like Wilders they too have no right to tell US in OUR countries that they intend to take it over. And they have no right to tell us that we in our countries have no right to criticise them for the threats.
Free speech/ranting/screaming /abusing/intolerance is all accepted when it comes from those brainwashed by this corruption of a ‘faith’.
We are blind fools if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that such a doctrine is able to be liberalised by showing them our tolerance. Tolerating the intolerable is no longer tolerable.
In a (typically liberal) attempt to separate Islamism/Islamists from the perverted minority I have coined the words Islamicism/Islamicists.
I’m not 100% sure that I should be going to these efforts.
People of Islamic beliefs should. And they should be doing it loudly.
If Wilders is convicted of anything, I firmly believe we have lost the fight in Europe. Just as the Americans already think.
I have posted at my blog on this here:
| 22 January 2009, 12:30 am |
Goldstein:
“What matters, in this case, is the racist’s belief, not its truth. Looking like (most people’s idea of) a Muslim is sufficient to get you treated as a Muslim.”
What rubbish!
You are effectively saying that the law must over-compensate for the irrational behaviour of the ignorant. By that measure, the activities of paedophile rings would have to be covered up in the press, in case the chavs unleash their anger on podiatrists, pedlars, and paediatricians. The beliefs of Scientologists would have to be whitewashed in case people tease scientists over it. And it would be illegal to install central heating radiators in case people thought they were radioactive.
The Law is not there to prevent idiots from doing stupid mindless things. Nor is it there to save idiots from the consequences of their stupid mindless conduct.
Kindly stop trying to reduce us all to the lowest common denominator.
| 22 January 2009, 12:33 am |
Obama is and was a Black man
That’s to my mind a divisive statement, he’s no more a black man than he is a white man.
If one must bring Obama’s race into it – which I think one really shouldn’t – rather describe him as a fellow of mixed race or if you insist; ‘a man of colour’.
| 22 January 2009, 12:51 am |
1. Most Muslims object to non-Muslims marrying Muslim women All schools of law agree that a Muslim woman should marry only a Muslim man but that a Muslim man can marry a woman from the People of the Book. I assume this is what you are basing this rather vaguely worded point on. Do you have anything to back this up about Muslims in the UK? Or indeed about Muslims in the modern world? Or to connect it to what you say next?
2:21 does not invalidate marriage between a non-Muslim man and Muslim woman if you read the text with an open mind. The Qur’an only prohibits marriage to male polytheists. As the Qur’an makes a clear distinction between polytheists and People of the Book, an open-minded Muslim would allow his/her daughter to marry a non-Muslim provided the non-Muslim is Jewish, Christian or Sabian.
A textual study of this portion of the 2nd surah reveals numerous ambiguities attested to by significant variations here in early manuscripts. Ibn Abi Dawood records some 50 alternative readings for portions of the 30 verses stretching from 2:10-2:30. It would not be outrageous to suggest that the Uthmanic recension’s consonantal text, pre-vowelling, could have eventually incorporated some later scribal errors here in response to the ambiguity of the ‘receptus’. The unpointed, unvowelled Qur’anic rasm at 2:221 could easily have included a repetition of the opening prohibition (لا تنكحوا المشركات حتى يؤمن) later on in the verse which was later emended and pointed to allow for a gender distinction. Modern textual criticism of the Qur’an has proposed numerous emendations to explain portions of the text containing grammatical peculiarities, awkward lexis and repetition. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility for just such a scribal error to have eluded the reciters anxious to preserve the fiction of a ‘perfect’ Qur’an.
Unfortunately, many Muslims in the UK are not open-minded, and they prohibit their daughters from marrying non-Muslims, often under pain of death or abuse or ‘re-education back home’, based on nothing more than prejudice. Thankfully, there are a growing number of Muslims who reject Qur’anic literalism and the cultural bigotry of their parents.
Scholars too, though they are in a minority, have advocated mixed marriage based on the lack of a clear ruling in the Qur’anic text.
Muslims who prohibit their children from marrying non-Muslims (oddly it seems confined to women…strange that) are not alone in their bigotry: Hindus, Sikhs, Orthodox Jews and some Christians reject interfaith marriage.
2. many people have been assaulted, hunted down and killed in the UK because of Islamically prohibited relationships The claim that honour killings are a specifically Islamic thing is one of those unpleasant inaccuracies that just don’t go away. Read this report from the centre for Social Cohesion which treats this topic in pretty good detail – it is particularly good at highlighting the far more important role of cultural background in this depressing area.
I’m not talking about so-called ‘honour crime’, I’m talking about Muslims killing, maiming and disowning their daughters and sisters because they wish to marry a non-Muslim. My wife is Muslim: before and after we were married, our lives were threatened, we were chased through East London by crazed maniacs and had to eventually flee the country. Even now, mine, my wife’s and my child’s life are in danger if we accompany each other in a certain area of London. I know other couples who have lived and are still living similar experiences: some have left the UK permanently.
I’ll grant you that honour crime is not specific to Muslims, but, pull the other one sunshine, it still occurs most frequently amongst Muslim communities irrespective of geography: Sylhetis and Mirpuris are the most prolific offenders in the UK, but it also goes on amongst Kurds and Egyptians. Honour crime is extremely common in the Levant, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. Such a wide area, with such a profusion of cultures cannot explain the prevalence of honour crime. There must be something else mandating it: Islam.
3. Fitna and Wilders help to draw attention to such obscenities. Really? But the film and Wildeers do not add anything to debate about these topics. Any rubbish “truth about Islam” website can give you all the Qur’an quotes and videoclips which he uses. And there are plenty of people raising the topic of honour killings and other matters in a far more nuanced manner which actually leads to debate rather than simply boosting the status, fame and ego of Geert Wilders.
I’ll grant you that there’s nothing particularly innovative or subtle in Fitna, but it does raise the profile of some of the most problematic texts in the Qur’an.
| 22 January 2009, 12:56 am |
Reason.
The word race has a specific meaning. I may hate or love veterians as a group, but they are not a race.
You still aren’t responding to what I actually wrote. I will try to be clearer this time.
When you express fear about Muslims having children and increasing in numbers in Europe you are not stating a fear about what Muslims believe and/or do – you are expressing a fear about who Muslims are. This dislike of a people for some perceived inherent inherited evil is very different to disagreeing with an ideology. There is no perfect word for this unpleasant phenomenon in English when talking about a non-racial grouping, but racism is the best of them, in my opinion, at conveying the hatred of what is going on.
This does not mean that I believe his film should be banned or that he should be prosecuted. Merely that his behaviour towards Muslims is much more similar to crude anti-specific-skin-colours/tones racism than it is to, say, intellectual disagreement over ideological matters, as Wilders claims to be engaging in.
| 22 January 2009, 1:14 am |
When you express fear about Muslims having children and increasing in numbers in Europe you are not stating a fear about what Muslims believe and/or do – you are expressing a fear about who Muslims are.
Nope…. not even close. Certainly not in my case – and no doubt many others, possibly even Wilders, though I don’t know enough about him to argue the toss. No the problems IS what many Muslims believe. And unfortunately there is a high very correlation between self describing Muslims and Koranic literalism.
By way of demonstration I don’t have a jot of an issue with Hindu immigration from the Indian sub continent, nor with Muslim apostates. Folks who are of the same gene pool – ‘race’ – genetic stock, as the bulk of UK Muslim immigrants.
No…. the problems for me, is mainstream Koranic literalist Islam itself, not the DNA make up of its adherents. I suspect many feel like this.
| 22 January 2009, 1:21 am |
“You still aren’t responding to what I actually wrote. I will try to be clearer this time.
When you express fear about Muslims having children and increasing in numbers in Europe you are not stating a fear about what Muslims believe and/or do – you are expressing a fear about who Muslims are. This dislike of a people for some perceived inherent inherited evil is very different to disagreeing with an ideology. There is no perfect word for this unpleasant phenomenon in English when talking about a non-racial grouping, but racism is the best of them, in my opinion, at conveying the hatred of what is going on.”
This offers us more pseudo logic.
I am opposed to Communists having lots of children and trying to force their way of life on me and my children.
This isn’t racism, since people who are communitst or Muslims can change their beliefs. You can’t change your race.
I have no objection to people who Arabs or Indonesian or some other nation whose religion is predominantly Muslim if they are not religion.
It is your religion I detest not your person.
| 22 January 2009, 1:25 am |
One more point, Gsirrah.
Many secular Israelis detest the ultra Orthodox Haredim who are gaving children at twice the rate of secular Israelis.
Surely these secular Israeli Jews are not “racists.”
You don’t need to change the meaning of words in order to object to the fear people like me have of religious fanatics.
| 22 January 2009, 1:49 am |
OK. let them get on with it, Wilders knows the score here. This not like holocaust denial.The authorities should remember, one day, after some little incident, they will have to a face a whole town or community.
I find it depressing that some here have to think and almost embarrasingly try to justify their naming of something has being bad especially in the European context of free speech. Where is AA. now?
| 22 January 2009, 2:08 am |
I hope Wilders does a Howard Hughes on these cowardly dhimmis.
As for Cohen’s article, it is pure posturing.
This, he wants you to believe, is the essence of the Islamic faith.
Strawman. The film speaks for itself, you can make whatever inferences you wish.
As for ‘it’s demographics, dumbo.’, that is again, pretty obvious, whether Cohen finds it offensive or not. But Cohen would seem to be a “post-modernist”, where avoiding giving offence (except if you should be brown with a beard and kefiya) trumps facts.
| 22 January 2009, 2:17 am |
Wilders cleverly did nothing more than quote the Koran and Hadith and intercut with bona fide news items.
Of course, we know in the UK that is not enough to save you from a hate crime charge, but it must make it difficult for the authorities.
The guy doesn’t strike me as racist, although he may be. But I have never heard him come out with anything racist.
The problem with Islam is not “difference” it is content.
When I see a Buddhist in flowing robes on a local street I look on that sight with complete equanimity, knowing that there is nothing in Buddhist philosophy which sets him at violent odds with our democracy or our culture. Buddhism, though I may not agree with its self-denial philosophy, seems a kindly enough ideology. No doubt there are unkindly Buddhists but the philosophy itself seems reasonable and peaceable.
The “difference” in clothing and sometimes ethnic origin concerns me not a jot.
When I see a woman in a full blown Burkah or man with flourishing beard and loose fitting chemise, I feel quite differently, knowing what such clothing normally denotes – a belief in an ideology that wants to subjugate me personally and make illegal my way of life. It wants to turn me into a second class citizen in my own country. It might never get the chance – pray Allah or whoever it never does – but that has no great bearing on my thoughts or emotions – it’s what they want to do that’s important to me.
| 22 January 2009, 3:21 am |
Support this petition for Geert.
| 22 January 2009, 3:57 am |
Wilders’ friend was murdered.
| 22 January 2009, 7:46 am |
‘When you express fear about Muslims having children and increasing in numbers in Europe you are not stating a fear about what Muslims believe and/or do – you are expressing a fear about who Muslims are’.
If racist parents across Europe were on a huge baby drive and by and large were successful in bringing their children up as racists who remained as racists and spawned more racists, those demographics would bother me.
Similarly, given Muslims in Europe generally have a high birth rate and seem worryingly successful at passing on their beliefs to their children, it seems legitimate to me to worry about what this will ultimately lead to. Hopefully we are seeing a kind of time lag and in a few generations Muslims will become as secular as the rest of us. I’m not so sure. I’m also unsure as what the answer to this is, but it certainly doesn’t lie in the hatred and mass deportation ’solutions’ of extremists like the BNP who absolutely ARE using Islam as a trojan horse issue to bring in their racist agenda. Absent secularisation, we can hope for liberalisation, a liberalisation of Islam from within. We’ll see.
I recommend the chapter entitled ‘The Trouble With Islam’ in Sam Harris’s excellent book The End of Faith for a sober discussion of these issues. I don’t recommend people like Wilders.
| 22 January 2009, 9:33 am |
I posted on this story today, as I was stunned that anyone thinks Geert Wilders has broken any laws.
If he hasn’t, they will be giving him a national platform on which to air his views – making things worse for everyone.
If he has, they will be crippling freedom of expression – making things worse for everyone.
| 22 January 2009, 10:27 am |
Plenty of wisdom there, Edmund. But this struggle has long to run, and it may prove necessary to form unsavoury alliances in order to win it – we face a determined, organised, well funded and unscrupulous foe. The current battlefield is Legal Jihad – where Islamists (mainly the many headed Muslim Brotherhood, with its proxies and franchises) use our legal systems to suborn our culture. This is a That may include Wilders, Griffin, Hu and Putin. Such is politics.
If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. – Winston Whurchill
| 22 January 2009, 2:00 pm |
Absent secularisation, we can hope for liberalisation, a liberalisation of Islam from within. We’ll see.
You’re dreaming. A Dutch Muslim politician, who has always been feted by the dutch establishment as a moderate and as an example for the young, recently demanded that a whole section of Amsterdam be reserved exclusively for Muslims. He is asking that a part of Amsterdam be surrendered to Islam. He sees nothing outrageous in the demand and, in fact, feels Holland’s Muslims are entitled to it.
Yet, Mr Cohen is critcising those would would resist such moves.
This is about territory, about expanding Islam. These aggressions, these takeovers, whether they involve mere schedules at swimming pools or demands for gigantic mosques with 200 metre high minarets, are all about claiming territory.
This is an invasion, but it is a smiling invasion (for now), and one in which a fascist, hate-filled ideology, one which would see us enslaved or rendered second class, sets up shop under cover of religion and multiculturalism. And it sets up shop largely at our expense.
I’m also unsure as what the answer to this is, but it certainly doesn’t lie in the hatred and mass deportation ’solutions’ of extremists like the BNP who absolutely ARE using Islam as a trojan horse issue to bring in their racist agenda.
For get about the BNP and ‘deportations’. In any case, the BNP wants to pay them to leave.
This is an invasion, the latest attempt by Islam to conquer Europe, except through mass immigration and the establishment of Saudi-funded networks of extremism
You repell invaders and invasions, you ‘deport’ illegals.
What people don’t understand is that the probleme is getting so serious that people are beginning to take concrete action and, in fact, are light-years ahead of the mainstream pols. Wilders represents a threat to the mainstream, but if the entrenched mainstream prosecutes him, and if it is found that they were goaded into doing so by radical Islamists, then I think public anger will be such that Wilder’s support will skyrocket.
| 22 January 2009, 6:46 pm |
Reason.
You don’t need to change the meaning of words in order to object to the fear people like me have of religious fanatics.
I am not trying to change the meaning of racism, I am merely suggesting the Geert Wilders’s treatment of Muslims is more similar to racism than to a fear of religious fanatics. This is not to say that all people who attack/criticise Islam are doing so in a manner akin to racism. But he is.
Edmund Standing made the point that we would probably be afraid if racist parents across Europe were having more children than non-racists. This analogy which suggests that all Muslims are a cohesive block with unpleasant views – akin to racists – is a foul one and one unworthy of a contributor to HP.
Furthermore, with the exception of clear racists concerned about the implications of non-white people living in Britian, people do not worry about the demographic threat of any other group. Reason’s possible exception of orthodox haredim in Israel is interesting. I do not know enough about their position in Israel to comment properly on this matter, but if somebody in London were to make a comment like Geert Wilder’s about the presence of orthodox haredim in London and the demographic threat they present to British ways of life then I would condemn them for anti-semitism. That’s to say, racism.
My main reasons for thinking that Geert Wilders’s treatment of Muslims is more akin to the easily recognisable anti-skincolour racism than to any kind of intellectual disagreement with Islam:
1) Muslims are all treated as though they are the same and that at least some of the characteristics they share are negative and a Muslim baby is assumed to inevitably inherit the unpleasant characteristics of his/her unpleasant parents.
2) The demographics are assumed to speak for themselves. This is much more similar to the anti-skincolour racism (”they should not be here”) than it is to a non-racist discussion of the topic of immigration.
| 22 January 2009, 8:44 pm |
I think it would be pertinant to point out the equivalent distinction between religious Jews and nonreligious ones.
A follower of Judaism is a Judaist. An ethnic Jew, who may or may not be Judaistic, is Jewish.
This might help alleviate accusations of anti-semitism in some cases if the intent is to criticize the religion and not the race of people.
| 22 January 2009, 11:54 pm |
If we are going to prosecute Wilder’s for ‘inciting hatred’ (a.k.a. offending Muslims), we should also prosecute – for the sake of being consistent – numerous Muslim leaders, imams (and etc) for inciting actual hatred against, among others, gay people.
Also, we should bear in mind that Wilder’s is not verbally attacking Muslims. He is verbally criticizing Islam as an ideology – so I’m not sure how such behaviour can be compared to racism. Islam is not a race. It’s an ideology like Marxism or Nazism.
| 23 January 2009, 3:41 am |
| 23 January 2009, 1:59 pm |
Muslims are all treated as though they are the same and that at least some of the characteristics they share are negative and a Muslim baby is assumed to inevitably inherit the unpleasant characteristics of his/her unpleasant parents.</i
Wilders is condemning Islam as a racist hate-filled ideology, and he has described it as a work of hate, and it’,s a description I find accurate having first read it some 35 years ago.
He’s not attacking Muslims, but rather the violent ideology they mistakenly feel is a religion. Once again neither Islam nor Muslims constitue a race in any sense of the term.
Gilders has had a very good go at the islamist ideology, and has critcised it the way we would communism or stalinism. In doing so has done something good. His prosecution will serve to bring the more repugnant aspects of Islam to light and to educate the public about it free of the spin-doctoring and fluffy-bunny approach that Islamists have always used.
The islamists only defence is to chirp the word “context”, a tactic which is now worn thread-bare.
The Koran is replete with passages urging violence against non-Muslims, and i think that there is a close connection between the penchant of SOME Muslims to engage in violence based on those passages.
Another observation supporting this assertion is that the more an individual practices the Islamic faith to the letter, the more likely they are to sympathise with jihadists or to become jihadists themselves.
Two ex-muslims in my entourage told me they left Islam the moment they read the koran in their native tongues and realised just how vulgar and violence-ridden parts of it were.
Far better, surely, to fight it out in the realm of ideas, as was done, to take one example, here: Where?