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05-16-2008, 10:05 AM
Anders Jerichow, Danish PEN president, editor at Politiken
Edited version of author’s translation, April 28, 2008
Geert Wilders has won the first round in his self-proclaimed battle against ‘Islam’ - if only in the fact that the media around the world is now spending time and space reviewing and discussing his hateful ‘documentary’ Fitna.
It is his claim that Muslims in general endanger Europe. Does that sound like anything we heard before? Indeed, seven decades ago - in the propaganda movie Der Evige Jude - Nazis claimed that Jews threatened the Third Reich - and anyone else who found the message of the movie attractive.
Too many took the movie to their heart, and the result is all too well-known. A genocide of six million people, a world war, and Europe in ruins, because too many trusted the hateful propaganda of Hitler, and too few - inside Nazi Germany as well as outside - were ready to stand guard on behalf of democracy and religious, as well as cultural, equality.
Today the old Nazi movie is available at film museums and libraries. We know its content as well as its intent. It is material for classroom lessons in racism and the abuse of media for hate speech.
Geert Wilders so-called documentary belongs on the same museum shelves. He uses the same old tricks: quotations from a religious book - this time not the Talmud but the Qur’an - and this time attached to samples of live pictures from modern terror; the flights into World Trade Center in New York; the train bombs in Madrid; fundamentalist preachers unleashing hatred towards Jews and other non-Muslims, threats towards the free world, etc.
So Wilders takes the first round, if only because we are not ready to ignore his film or leave it for archives of hate-speech. He attracts attention, because there is a new audience for his new doomsday story and because we haven’t adapted to the possibility of instant worldwide publication.
His live pictures of violence probably are true, whether the flights in New York, from the trains in Madrid, the decapitated body in Iraq, the Hizbollah parade in Beirut or the public hanging of a gay youth in Iran. And he wants us to ask, ‘well, maybe part of it makes sense…’. But you don’t need a degree in psychology to realize Wilders’ intention. A dour factual statistic is the central theme of the propaganda movie - two simple graphs showing an increase in the number of Muslims in Holland and across Europe; if we don’t take care, it claims, these hateful, violent men will take over all of Europe and soak it in blood.
Whether Wilders can be charged with racism is doubtful. Even a charge of blasphemy is questionable, although most blasphemy laws don’t seek to protect religions solely from criticism; they protect believers against hatred by protecting their religious books. Wilders will insist on freedom of speech as an elected parliamentarian, just as he will maintain that the violent pictures are indeed true, as is the tendency of the graphs.
The combination is evil and producing hatred itself.
Morally Wilders is guilty of hate-speech of a pathetic and dangerous nature. He depicts the sheer number of Muslims and its growth as a danger to Europe. He uses quotations from the Qu’ran - and from preachers who in the Muslim world itself are seen as extremists - to warn against Islam and against Muslims, just as the Third Reich warned against Jews and Judaism.
If only we had learned the lesson of hate-speech from the Third Reich, from the Balkans or from Rwanda, Wilders would never have become a star among the immigrant-fearing Dutch on the right. And a pathetic ‘documentary’ from a sole Netherlands propagandist never would have attracted worldwide attention.
We are still learning the first lesson of globalization. We still need to ignore the meanest tricks and certainly to refute the ugly tool of racism: hate-speech.
This battle won’t be won by restrictions on freedom of speech; that is a victory Wilders shouldn’t enjoy. He is only dangerous if he is taken seriously and trusted. His short film is 14 minutes, i.e. 14 minutes too long. But it should be available at national film libraries for lessons in racism and the rhetoric of hate-speech.
In the best of worlds, we should ignore the film. Instead, we need caution; not in fear of Wilders, but because of times in which we live.
Edited version of author’s translation, April 28, 2008
Geert Wilders has won the first round in his self-proclaimed battle against ‘Islam’ - if only in the fact that the media around the world is now spending time and space reviewing and discussing his hateful ‘documentary’ Fitna.
It is his claim that Muslims in general endanger Europe. Does that sound like anything we heard before? Indeed, seven decades ago - in the propaganda movie Der Evige Jude - Nazis claimed that Jews threatened the Third Reich - and anyone else who found the message of the movie attractive.
Too many took the movie to their heart, and the result is all too well-known. A genocide of six million people, a world war, and Europe in ruins, because too many trusted the hateful propaganda of Hitler, and too few - inside Nazi Germany as well as outside - were ready to stand guard on behalf of democracy and religious, as well as cultural, equality.
Today the old Nazi movie is available at film museums and libraries. We know its content as well as its intent. It is material for classroom lessons in racism and the abuse of media for hate speech.
Geert Wilders so-called documentary belongs on the same museum shelves. He uses the same old tricks: quotations from a religious book - this time not the Talmud but the Qur’an - and this time attached to samples of live pictures from modern terror; the flights into World Trade Center in New York; the train bombs in Madrid; fundamentalist preachers unleashing hatred towards Jews and other non-Muslims, threats towards the free world, etc.
So Wilders takes the first round, if only because we are not ready to ignore his film or leave it for archives of hate-speech. He attracts attention, because there is a new audience for his new doomsday story and because we haven’t adapted to the possibility of instant worldwide publication.
His live pictures of violence probably are true, whether the flights in New York, from the trains in Madrid, the decapitated body in Iraq, the Hizbollah parade in Beirut or the public hanging of a gay youth in Iran. And he wants us to ask, ‘well, maybe part of it makes sense…’. But you don’t need a degree in psychology to realize Wilders’ intention. A dour factual statistic is the central theme of the propaganda movie - two simple graphs showing an increase in the number of Muslims in Holland and across Europe; if we don’t take care, it claims, these hateful, violent men will take over all of Europe and soak it in blood.
Whether Wilders can be charged with racism is doubtful. Even a charge of blasphemy is questionable, although most blasphemy laws don’t seek to protect religions solely from criticism; they protect believers against hatred by protecting their religious books. Wilders will insist on freedom of speech as an elected parliamentarian, just as he will maintain that the violent pictures are indeed true, as is the tendency of the graphs.
The combination is evil and producing hatred itself.
Morally Wilders is guilty of hate-speech of a pathetic and dangerous nature. He depicts the sheer number of Muslims and its growth as a danger to Europe. He uses quotations from the Qu’ran - and from preachers who in the Muslim world itself are seen as extremists - to warn against Islam and against Muslims, just as the Third Reich warned against Jews and Judaism.
If only we had learned the lesson of hate-speech from the Third Reich, from the Balkans or from Rwanda, Wilders would never have become a star among the immigrant-fearing Dutch on the right. And a pathetic ‘documentary’ from a sole Netherlands propagandist never would have attracted worldwide attention.
We are still learning the first lesson of globalization. We still need to ignore the meanest tricks and certainly to refute the ugly tool of racism: hate-speech.
This battle won’t be won by restrictions on freedom of speech; that is a victory Wilders shouldn’t enjoy. He is only dangerous if he is taken seriously and trusted. His short film is 14 minutes, i.e. 14 minutes too long. But it should be available at national film libraries for lessons in racism and the rhetoric of hate-speech.
In the best of worlds, we should ignore the film. Instead, we need caution; not in fear of Wilders, but because of times in which we live.