Saturday, March 7, 2009
Jeff Jacoby has an excellent interview with Geert Wilders, conducted during Wilders' swing through Boston. Jacoby finally digs in on some of the tougher questions that Wilders often gets a pass on, such as his views on free speech, the Koran and Islam itself. Must read and consider: Islam and freedom of speech.
There is no equivocation here. Wilders believes that Islam is a totalitarian ideology, not a religion, and cannot be considered in the same light as Judaism or Christianity. Unlike Daniel Pipes, he does not believe in a distinction between Muslims and Islamists. As far as reformists like Zuhdi Jasser, he says there just aren't enough of them to make a difference. As a Dutchman in a European context, the hour is very late and he doesn't feel there's time enough to beat around the bush.
Dismiss it as simple bigotry if you like, but there are an awful lot of burning cars in Europe these days, hatred and violence toward Jews, soft censorship...and Wilders' barring from Britain rather says a lot in itself it seems to me. Just how many hecklers do there have to be to achieve such a veto? Europe has them. Wilders wants to take back the stage.
Wilders' description of Islam is the description of a politician, intended for serious but broadly conceived social/political consumption. It contrasts and competes, for example, with the simplistic description that it's simply one more "religion," among other (read inherently retrograde) religions. There are ample numbers who accept that latter description uncritically, while being hyper-critical of Wilders' portrayal.
Spengler's treatment of Franz Rosenzweig's views in Christian, Muslim, Jew: Franz Rosenzweig and the Abrahamic Religions is a solid exploration, highly recommended.
Britain's hypocrisy in this matter is appalling - regardless of where on stands vis a vis Wilders. Nothing he says is more offensive than common day to day antisemitism which we have to deal with constantly and which finds political expression against an entire people:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/06/labour-goverment-to-allow-hezbollahs-moussawi-into-the-united-kingdom/
Sophia,
Going by Andy Bostom's post
Freedom of Speech: Wilders, Orwell, and the “Koran Ban”
Earlier, while calling the Koran hate speech with specific reference to the Dutch Penal Code, Wilders was simply asking for consistent application of the Dutch law. And, like Winston Churchill (who wrote that Mein Kampf was “…the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message”), Wilders compared the Koran to Mein Kampf, and called it hate speech according to the Dutch Penal Code.
it seems that what Wilders said was hysterically taken out of context and used much in the same way that all comments on Muslims and their culture is considered hate speech.
Cynic, et.al.,
Post-Holocaust I think people are extremely careful not to demonize "The Other", and rightly so - look what happened to the Jewish people (repeatedly) because of stereotyping, fear of "differentness" and rumors - blood libels - and religious or ethnic bias.
This is the basis for the caution and unease many of us feel when it appears Muslims are all being portrayed as jihadists or people who want to impose a religious dictatorship on Western peoples and states, or who are universally violent or backwards.
Similarly we have had to overcome the stereotyping of Black people here in the US because we held them as slaves and regarded them as subhuman; eventually this morphed into "inferior human" (like the Jews in Europe). This also applies to the way many people out West in particular continue to see Native Americans and Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants - the bigotry out there has to be heard to be believed. I can't even repeat some of what I've been told over the years, it is too disgusting.
The dangers of reacting against others with fear and suspicion simply because they're different are obvious and manifold.
This is why some of us are nervous about Wilders.
You make a good case though about the apparent lack of context; the subtlety of his argument is lost in oversimplistic reports about his intent.
In any case I think it's stupid to ignore obvious attacks on our culture. Did the West suffer through centuries of war between theological and state factions to find ourselves once again with religious laws or enclaves of people who can't or won't assimilate or who would indeed impose their own religious laws or biases on the rest of us? Look what's happened in Malmo now - real ugliness has erupted there against Israeli athletes!
That's not surprising considering the rhetoric that's been coming out of Sweden in recent years. Is everyone there asleep? Where is the government, the papers, where are the progressives?
I don't get it. I thought Sweden was a haven for free thinkers - not bigots with a violent agenda!
I fear the opposite too - a backlash that would harm innocents and destroy diversity - what if violent all white political parties gained power again in Europe?
But, it's high time people took the blinders off about supposed "moderates" like these:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/08/moderates-turn-out-to-be-extremists/
"The dangers of reacting against others with fear and suspicion simply because they're different are obvious and manifold."
Who's re-acting "simply because they're different"? No one.
To draw this out a bit, for purposes of emphasizing some basics, the following:
Firstly, politics is the very arena of re-action, or, the arena of action and re-action. Simply put, that's what the political arena is all about, certainly so in any democratic republic.
Secondly, any re-action in the political arena should, certainly and obviously, be based upon soundly reasoned and empirically/historically based information - and not "simply because they're different".
Finally, accepting or not accepting someone like Wilders is too often cast in either/or terms by his detractors and "dismissers" when in fact people are more simply willing to listen to what he has to say and digest and consider it, etc. Likewise, Wilders is not remotely some wild-eyed demagogue, inciter or reactionary who targets people "simply because they're different." He's not the type of person who attracts blackshirts or brownshirts or any type of mob-like presense whatsoever. To the contrary and decidedly so. He speaks to individuals and groups in a deliberate and deliberative manner, using suasion, not any type of demagogic or inciting rhetoric, not remotely so. The very fact so many of his detractors misrepresent what he stands for should, minimally, be a cautionary, yellow flag to those very detractors.
And of course there is a short list of notables who can be configured within a Wilders or Wilders-like rubric, from Rushdie and other literary figures to Hirsi-Ali to Theo van Gogh to Robert Redeker to others still, which figures reflect some of that empirical/historical evidence previously referred to.
Should someone like a Wilders be accepted unthinkingly? Of course not. Then again, no one is suggesting anyone be accepted unthinkingly, which in part is why the Rosenzweig exploration by Spengler was linked, which itself is a type of theoretical template in the best sense of the term, not something to be accepted unthinkingly itself.
No one is detracting from or targeting anyone "simply because they're different."
(The irony is - to admittedly indulge a wide ranging generalization - it's the multi-culti, pomo invested, derivative left that is suggesting "the other" be accepted with little or no critical or discriminatory review whatsoever "simply because they're different." That type of un-critical acceptance is the heritage left us by the now long habituated forms of "thought" resulting from Derrida's differance and leveling deconstructions, by Edward Said's "Orientalism," by Rorty's leveling of distinctions, etc., etc.)