Dutch Bile: Geert Wilders may think he looks like Mozart, but the Islamophobe is no Amadeus Peter (Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
This is the sort of thing you'd expect in Turkey, where it's illegal to insult Turkish identity, or in Morocco and Yemen, where it's illegal to insult the head of state, and of course in Saudi Arabia, where everything is illegal until determined otherwise by the Wahhabi vice squad. But in the Netherlands?
Geert Wilders is among Europe's more despicable human specimens. He is a hater. That's his specialty. He's also a celebrity, a sort of Paris Hilton of bile, but with the added cachet of being a member of the Dutch parliament and weird darling of the Dutch press, which voted him the 2007 politician of the year because he gives great quotes. (Good quotes are, to bad journalists, more valuable than the late Linda Lovelace's old specialty).
Wilders appeals to voters' basest common denominators: nativism, racism, tribalism. He compares the Koran, which he wants banned, to Mein Kampf, he has no problem including "terrorism" on his list of synonyms for Muslims, and he wants Muslim immigration to the Netherlands severely restricted. In 2008 he released a 17-minute film that does what high school sophomores do best: superimpose quotes with images for rancid irony. The quotes were from the Koran. The images were whatever gruesome images Wilders could get his hands on as long as the events portrayed were committed by the more fanatical of the sixth of the world's population that calls itself, however slanderously in the fanatics' case, Muslim. It was a 17-minute slander not dissimilar to the kind the Taliban would release about the decadent West, but demagogues are not known for recognizing what they see in the mirror for what it is.
For all that, I believe Wilders when he says: "It's not my intention to have anything at all to do with violence. On the contrary, I despise violence - I just want a debate." He's getting it. And that's fine. Wilders has never committed an act of violence, nor would he endorse acts of violence. His speech is hateful. His acts are not. Those who confuse the two are far more dangerous dogmatists than Wilders will ever be (as long as his sticks to his non-violent guns).
And yet. Today, Wilders was put on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred toward Islam. "Inciting to violence" is an insidious concept in law. It is usually the favored tool of authoritarian and repressive regimes. "Inciting to violence" is how Arab regimes (and Israel) justify the imprisonment of dissidents and resisters by the drove. It's how insecure regimes wield the power of the state against those who'd question it. The Netherlands isn't known as an insecure nation. It is among the world's most tolerant, and most admirable, democracies. That's what makes Wilders's trial so disturbing, and on so many levels.
Prosecuting someone for his words or his films or his ideas is despicable on its face. But Wilders, already wildly famous in Europe, doesn't need the added publicity. The trial will ensure that he gets it. What's more, he'll come out of it either way looking like those Muslim fanatic martyrs who love nothing more than the glare of prosecution, which they are quick to translate as persecution.
Not least: "Wilders' Party for Freedom has," according to press reports, "growing support among Dutch voters. According to current opinion polls, Wilders would receive more votes than the governing conservative party or the opposition socialists, if an election were to be held immediately." The trial will reinforce that popularity. Not smart of the Dutch judiciary.
The thing is, Wilders is his own worst defender. If he believes in the right of the state to ban books (whether it's the Koran or anything else), he has not much of a leg to stand on against the state's authority to ban him from saying things as incendiary as what he claims the Koran says. That's the prosecution's one clear opening: what's good for the goose is good for the Geert.
Not that I'd find that line of attack any more defensible than the prosecution itself. Haters are best left to burn themselves with their own flammable words. Or to stand in the court of public opinion--until their acts are directly harmful. Wilders belongs in court less than his prosecutors do.
See Also:
- Islamophobic Swiss Ban Minarets
- The False Seductions of Wafa Sultan
- Brigitte Gabriel, Islamophobe
- Is Nicolas Sarkozy an Islamophobe?
- Sarkozy Defends Islamophobia
- Sarkozy to Veil-Wearing Women: Stay Home
Comments
Geert Wilders is an admirable man, who does his best to warn his country-men, which means all Europeans, of the coming tempest. It is not a new tempest. Islam has been the most ruthlessly imperialistic political force the world has ever known. Islam and Nazism are allied by common ideological bonds. Geert merely reminds Holland and the world that certain ideas of ideological superiority get translated into all engulfing storms of murder and mayhem. Loojk to southern Sudan for examples. look to the Iran iraq war for another. If you prefer not to look doent complain when it topples the tower on you
Geert Wilders is a hero. I wish America would create a Geert Wilders, he is a hero.
You make many accusations about Wilders and what you claim him to be, without substantiation. Geert, as he has said many times, has nothing against Muslims, what he is against is the ideology which oppresses women, by insisting on 4 male witnesses to a rape. He is against the law of the Koran being above Western law. Islam is about submission to Allah and his laws. – sharia is incompatible with western democtratic values. Before you start name calling, check you facts. – amateurish!
I am a hater. I hate Nazism. I hate Communism. I hate Islam. Furthermore, I hate rapists, murderers, robbers, etc. I guess Pierre must love all these things… after all he is not a hater.
Geert Wilders is one of the bravest politicians of this century, he needs every bit of support possible, especially from all the people where their best interest lies with his aims. All the haters of Geert Wilders must ask themselves, if they would rather live in an Islamic ruled land or as we are now, without radical Islam, its pretty clear cut. Anyone that does not approve of Geert is part of the enemy at the end of the day, or just plain thick!
What would have happened to Wilders if Turkey was a member of the EU?
Geert is 100% correct in all he says. He doesn’t ask for anything but the truth to be told. If the taliban appeared as a star witness they would agree with all his assertions about islam
Do your homework Pierre Tristam.
Being against the Islam is not hate.
He is someone who sticks his neck out by acting against fascism. Islamo-fascism.
The Koran is even more antisemitic then Mein Kampf of Adolf Hitler!
It even has the same solution to the Jewish problem!
You on the outer hand, by doing nothing you contribute to downfall of freedom.
Who is a despicable human specimen?
He who bravely endangers his live by fighting Islamo-Fascism or you contributing to to fall of freedom by publishing rubbish and nonsense.
This article is school-yard taunting, not journalism. If I bought a book about Adolf Hitler that started out like this article, I’d return it.
I’m un-subscribing.
I’m another hater of Islam and its child rape, torture, mutilation, cutting off of hands and feet, stoning women to death for being raped, and one-way hypocrisy in literally everything.
Geert Wilders is a true Hero of Freedom and you, in exercising your freedom of speech with this pack of insults toward him, would be put to death if your insults were directed at Mohammed instead.
Think about that before you write more such slander.
Wilders is a hero for speaking-out. Try living in Holland with your national identity slipping day-by-day.
@Author: To be fully consistent with your position, you yourself should also be tried for hate speech against Geert Wilders (who is, after all, a human being and thus a far more substantial target than Islam).
Here in Romania we have a saying: When 10 people tell you you’re drunk, go get some sleep! So I strongly suggest you read the comments…
Nykos, here in the United States we have a saying: Beware of the mob. It’s never right. And speaking from Roumania, you should know a thing or two about the perils of mobocracy (unless you were born yesterday).
@Pierre: I completely agree that the mob can occasionally be very wrong.
I now see the error of my ways. Only the Muslim mob ( 1/5th of the human race) is never wrong, since they are Allah’s chosen. And criticising them and their warlord-prophet who used to capture the women of his enemies and rape them after killing their husbands is thus off-limits, since he is the perfect example to follow.
“Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. “(Qur’an 3:110)
Now, again, why shouldn’t I or Wilders or anyone else have the right to point out how OFFENDED we are by these kinds of verses (without being dragged to court), while Muslim imams and their followers are free to say whatever they like?
How can we progress as a species if we look up to and “respect” a book of ideology, written in the 7th century, instead of modern textbooks on psychology, evolution, anthropology, economy and game theory (which says it’s always better to create rather than destroy and to cooperate rather than segregate)? By the way, the Qur’an contradicts nearly all evidence based research in those sciences.
How can we ever make future progress if we respect a book that promotes stagnation (it claims to be the ultimate solution to anything, for all times) and even destruction in some of its passages?
YOU DEEPLY OFFEND ME – both Muslims and their supporters. Yet we both know that the court will dismiss any case I would make against you or any Muslim, but not vice-versa. Even if not, I would never sue you for your beliefs, because that would contradict mine.
Folks, you have to understand what drives these people: There is no greater calling than doing jihad in the name of Allah.
There are no Muslim fundamentalists, there is no radical Islam. There are only Muslims that adhere to the guiding principles of Islam and their duties as Muslims of spreading Islam; “there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger. ”
Mohammad’s revelations in Medina, after he had become a wealthy and powerful warlord, thru the concept of abrogation transformed “the religion of peace” . Thus replacing the former moderate and tolerant verses in the Koran from his revelations in Mecca with “better ones”. It is the duty of all believers to spread the truth: There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his Prophet. Some Americans believe in choice and, great news for those folks, there are three choices: Conversion to Islam at the point of the sword, dhimmitude, or death. They really like beheading, “strike at the necks of the non-believer” (that’s us baby). There is no greater calling than doing jihad in the name of Allah.
Look at Geert Wilders on trial for offending Muslims, with his divisive hate speech by showing a bunch of clips from Muslim protests, the teachings of various Imams, and quoting verses from the Koran.
The teachings of Islam are at right angles with the ideals of western culture “Is what I’ve said illegal if it’s true?
God have mercy on us all. We must all stand up and be counted!
Pierre, you are just another Dhimmi that will be killed last by the advancing islamic hoards. You’re an ignorant fool who can’t read the writing on the wall. I would presume Neville Chamberlain your hero, you cowardly idiot.
Thank you God, there are still sane people in the world!
Go Geert Wilders!
To put Wilders and god in the same sentence is like putting Glenn Beck and Thomas Jefferson in the same sentence. Heave, ho!
Pierre should concentrate on knocking down each of Wilders accusations. If he can.
Mr. Tristam
I hope you see from the comments that your idiotic opinions are in the minority. Too long journalists like you have controlled public opinion, hopefully you and the other paid stooges like you will come to realise that thanks to the internet your opinions mean very little.
Did you dislike my comment so much you had to delete it together with your foolish reply?
You are really a coward.
Pierre, Are you hoping to be spared, or what?
Just look at Pierre’s bio and you’ll know where he is coming from. Don’t let the French sounding name fool you.
Ah, yes, you got me JeffK, Lebanon, New York and Florida, those dens of Islamist intolerance and Qaeda quackery! Brilliant, JeffK, just plain brilliant. You must be a savvy reader of Newsmax and other such foxy sites. As for zaggle’s worship of the herd mentality? What can I say? Fanaticism speaks for itself. I can only keep feeding it its rope. Thanks for grabbing.
What a crap article, You start off with ‘his a hater’, Very soon after starting, Make it clear to people that this is your opinion and NOT fact please.
Or even better why dont you prove he is a hater?
The quran and allah himself IS a hater WITH PROOF, he HATES unbelievers so much that he would burn them alive to a crisp and then give them new skins so he can do it again!
Wake up and smell the coffee – Islam = Haters religion.
Look in the mirror muslims and please try to grasp self awareness and realise that you are not good, infact you are evil thinking you are good, Wether you like it or not.
Peace – Real peace, Not muslim peace.
” ‘Inciting to violence’ is how Arab regimes (and Israel) justify the imprisonment of dissidents and resisters by the drove.”
So silencing dissent and fighting terrorism are morally equivalent to you? Good to know.
Unfortunately that little “(and Israel)” probably worked on most of your readers, but thankfully there are some who still remember that Israel is a free democracy. Shocking I know.
Mnewman has probably put his finger on it – This “useful idiot” as Communists would call him, hopes they will remember his sympathetic article when the beheadings start in the Hague.
All to easy to label someone a “hater”. This is a very childish insult, though, since hate is an intense emotion of dislike, implying loss of self-control, unreason, and of course, fury. Wilders is simply speaking clearly – he has analyzed aspects of Islamic culture and thought, based on qu’ran, haddiths, and current political situation abroad and at home in Netherlands, and found them to be threatening to Westeners.
Given he has to remain under 24 hour protection from violent muslims in order to express these views, one can see how he is increasingly vindicated in this sense of threat. And given he is being prosecuted for expressing his views, one can see how the charge of excessive political correctness to protect Islam is also vindicated. The combination of the two is surreal: A Western court seeks to protect comments upon an ideology that routinely uses assassinations to get its own way.
Yes, i hate that, about as much as i can on an intellectual level. This is not an emotional reaction, there is no sense in which it is irrational. Furthermore, the crime and unemployment statistics for Moroccans and Somalians are shocking. Having a government that cannot even discuss this for fear of being called “racist” means having a government that cannot act in the country’s best interests – a weak and failing state.
The West will always protect its citizens basic rights, but it shouldn’t be in a position of tolerating zealous or extremist Islamic viewpoints, or of coddling criminality for fear of causing offense. Wilders has the courage to say this, and is a genuine “freedom fighter” as he is risking his life to speak out against th intolerant and backward “gangsters” who police the public status of this “harmless, peaceful” religion.
When Islam grows up, it will earn some respect. So long as it uses riots and death threats, Wilders has my 100% support in curbing Islam’s aggressive and unearnt expansion in our lands.
Thanks, Mr Wilder’s for stating the facts and standing firm by the truth, with courage in defending, not only the human rights of muslims, but non – muslims as well. May God Bless, Support & Protect all those that stand up for good morals, and go out of their comfort zone, (as yourself & others, whose lives are constantly threatened), to stop Islamic Sharia Law’s from being enforced in western countries as well as injustice all over the world. Clearly, there is enough oppression as it is, in arab dominated countries from Islamic Sharia Laws in place.
We respect Mr Wilder’s commitment for this cause, in defending everyone’s human rights, from islamic idealogy that teaches superiority & oppression against the infidels “non – muslims”, because they are falsely accused of being ‘enemies of God’. Let God be the only Judge, because he only is the Perfect One. My dear friends, God is Love and he created us all Equal.
u think your self a great wise man , its your foolishness,still u don’t know your birth.you can hate muslims but not islam.
still i love you.
Muslims are murdering and beating gays coming out of bars in amsterdam..Geert is the only person to stand up to this outrage. How dare you callthis brave man”Despicable”..you need to open your eyes and see what Islam is doing all over the worls…I have dozens of videos of it.
If geert doesnt tell the truth, and other poor souls who have been murdered by Islam like Pym Fortun, who will….
I am Geert Wilders TOO.