Geert Wilders & Fitna veroveren Amerika

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Over een paar weken geloven alleen Rush Limbaugh en een paar andere
zeloten nog in GW&F. Goed voor hun!
Ons parlement wordt nog befaamd in de wereld met de export van onze
parlement-ariers.

Groet / Cees

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-02-24/the-anti-islam-film-everyones-talking-about

The Anti-Islam Film Everyone's Talking About
by Benjamin Sarlin
February 24, 2009 | 12:02pm

Steve Parsons, PA / AP Photo
The flamboyant Dutch politician Geert Wilders has sparked a worldwide
debate over free speech after being banned in Britain. But after his film
was shown in New York, it became clear that Wilders makes for a strange
kind of First Amendment martyr.

It's the nature of free speech laws that the times we must defend them
most forcefully are the times they are tested by the most extreme forms of
speech. Yesterday’s visit to New York by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the maker
of the controversial anti-Islam film Fitna, belongs in that category.
After sitting through the film, I can see why Wilders doesn’t make for an
easy-to-embrace First Amendment hero.

First, the obvious problem with the European First Amendment plan, which
went unmentioned in the speech: Wilders has called for banning the Koran
entirely. How does he reconcile this position with his new party platform
as free speech martyr?

Wilders became an international celebrity earlier this month when he was
essentially banned from the U.K. After he showed up with a copy of Fitna,
he was detained for several hours at Heathrow Airport and then sent
packing, with British officials saying he represented a security threat.

Op-ed columnists and bloggers on the left and right quickly denounced
Britain's move as a suppression of free speech, seeing shades of the
cowardice of news organizations who capitulated to extremists in refusing
to reprint the Dutch cartoons that set off anti-Western riots in 2006. And
rightly so—no good can come of cravenly giving in to the extremists
threatening Wilders' life no matter what he has to say.

But whether the decision to let him in was right or not, let's not be so
hasty to label Wilders a hero before actually seeing his work. On Monday,
Wilders brought it to a luncheon thrown in his honor at the Four Seasons,
which was hosted by the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank. And
it’s worth pointing out that the film is, to put it bluntly, atrocious.
It's not so much a documentary as a rapidly moving set of flashing
Clockwork Orange-style images, featuring Koranic verses followed by the
most grotesque news footage of terror humanly possible, with a soundtrack
of Islamic clerics again and again pronouncing death to the infidels, all
designed to instill a visceral hatred for all things Muslim. Nothing was
too taboo for Wilders: graphic depictions of the 9/11 attacks, London bus
bombings, and hostage decapitations, all shown in rapid sequence, ending
with a blunt subtitled message “Stop Islamisation Now” and a simulated
scene of someone ripping out a page from the Koran. At least one audience
member walked out in disgust mid-film and, at the very least, the drumbeat
of death wails and charred corpses did little to whet people's appetite
for the filet of sole the Four Seasons staff was serving the guests.

Nonetheless, the film finished to thunderous approval from the audience.
Shortly before the film, Hudson Institute president Herb London had
introduced Wilders as “my hero” and the mostly hardline conservative crowd
gave little indication that they felt any differently. When Wilders
himself took the podium, it was clear he had them in the palm of his hand.

As the blonde, Liberace-coifed Wilders went on about the threat of Islam
and the sanctity of free speech, his guests looked on with teary-eyed
admiration, often interrupting with applause. “The dearest of our many
freedoms is unfortunately under attack all throughout Europe,” Wilders
said. “Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural
element of our existence is now something we once again have to battle
for.”

Mindful of the American audience, Wilders kept the attention solidly on
free speech and mostly generic condemnations of Islamic extremism, playing
up his efforts to get a First Amendment passed for the European Union that
would nullify Britain and other countries' overly restrictive hate speech
laws. After the event, I sat down with Wilders to discuss his agenda in
more detail while he signed autographs for his fans.

First, the obvious problem with his European First Amendment plan: Wilders
has called for banning the Koran entirely. How does he reconcile this
position with his new party platform as free speech martyr?

“I'm the one who normally opposes the banning of books, this looks very
contradictory,” Wilders acknowledged. However, he explained, “the left”
and “liberals” applauded a ban on Mein Kampf and the Koran should fall
under a similar category, even if his proposed First Amendment law were
passed in Europe.

“I believe that with the First Amendment—it’s also the case in the
Netherlands—the red line is still incitement of immediate violence and
this is the case of the Koran,” Wilders said. “It's right in there: 'kill
them' and 'seize them.'”

Then there's the pesky issue, immigration aside, of how to reduce the
number of Muslims currently in Holland, whom Wilders regards as a
permanent fifth column. Wilders’ approach favors the carrot and the stick.
First, institute payments to Muslims who leave the country (“on a
voluntary basis”), then kick out all Muslim criminals by force, including
natural born citizens.

“If they commit a crime and commit it again they should be sent away, even
if it means they should be denaturalized and stripped of Dutch
citizenship," Wilders said.

I asked Wilders what his thoughts were on American Muslims, who have
assimilated with far less social unrest than in Europe.

“Have you heard of 'taqiyya?'” Wilders said, referring to a provision in
Islamic law in which believers can conceal their faith in order to escape
physical harm and persecution. “Taqiyya means Muslims can lie. They are
even rewarded to lie, and they should lie. I'm not saying all do, but most
of the time it's Muslims living under non-Muslim rule in non-Muslim
countries. Taqiyya means that they can fool and lie and are allowed, even
have incentive, to lie until they become stronger and change their tune.”

The explanation bore a creeping resemblance to anti-Semites' historic use
of the Kol Nidre prayer on Yom Kippur, in which religious oaths made
before God are declared void, to inaccurately claim that Jews had carte
blanche to lie.

I asked if he thought America's former ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay
Khalilzad, might be a sleeper agent by this logic. Of course not, Wilders
assured me with a smile. He clarified his philosophy: there are some
moderate Muslim individuals in this world, like Khalilzad, but no such
thing as a moderate Muslim religion, therefore the only solution is to rid
the world of Islam. Plus a lot of the supposedly moderate individuals are
only faking it until the moment they can stage a coup and turn America
into New Iran. Why do people keep confusing his position?

Wilders' case has drawn comparisons to another Dutch opponent of Islamic
extremism: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who served in the Dutch parliament before
being removed in 2006 over inaccuracies in her asylum application from
Somalia. She has lived with constant threats on her life ever since she
wrote a short feminist film critical of religious subjugation of women in
Islam. The film's director, Theo Van Gogh, was brutally murdered by a
Muslim zealot over the film, sparking an international debate over
assimilation and free speech in Europe. I called Hirsi Ali to ask her what
she thought of Wilders' politics.

“I think that’s ridiculous, and I've been very hard on him for that,”
Hirsi Ali said when asked about Wilders' call for a ban on the Koran and
mass deportations. “He and I are not friends at all.”

Hirsi Ali nonetheless said she was glad Wilders was bringing attention to
Europe's poor record of assimilation. She opposes Britain's decision to
bar him.

“It's only going to win him more popularity,” she said. “He is hounded,
he's demonized, he's prosecuted—what people are trying to say is he's the
problem, not that Islam is the problem. I was treated pretty much the same
way...along with anybody who goes against the establishment creed that the
problems of assimilation have nothing to do with cultural factors and only
socioeconomic factors.”

And therein lies the problem. By banning Wilders, Britain has handed him
the kernel of high ground that allows him to spread his views farther and
wider than ever before. If they had the sense to side with free speech and
let him screen his unwatchable film in peace, he'd likely have been
ignored as yet another attention seeking kook. Instead, one is forced to
waste a perfectly nice afternoon defending an abhorrent xenophobe whose
devotion to his bleached-blonde hair almost certainly exceeds his devotion
to actual free speech. Thanks a lot, Mr. Prime Minister.

Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered
New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for
talkingpointsmemo.com.

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