The Dutch? As a whole? All 16+ million of them? All of them are giving up their principles? If there’s anything that has been brought forward in this thread, it’s that this case is highly controversial, that the political branch of the system is NOT happy about it, that it was forced on the prosecution after it initially wanted to back off. This is not a ‘political case’ in any relevant sense of the term, and no one is watching with glee - if only because this can only serve to increase Wilders’s following, which by now is sizeable (for Dutch terms, which means he stands to win around 15 to 20 per cent of the vote if elections were held today).
This is not a case of a collective abandonment of principles in the face of terrorism (I’ll note that this is not about free speech per se, which is firmly grounded in both law and practice and is not under fire no matter what Wilders says, or any of his sycophants like those exaggerating fools in the OP’s article. Some very specific limitations on free speech are being considered here). If anything, it’s a case of judicial activism on the part of the court of Amsterdam, but most presumably it’s just a case of the law* being applied to everyone equally, regardless of their standing as parliamentarians. That said, given the current political situation in The Netherlands, I’m hoping for an acquittal, because even if the court finds that Wilders is guilty of inciting hatred and (potentially) violence against other religious and ethnic groups, I don’t see how a conviction (which might amount to a fine of around 10,000 euros but most presumably nothing beyond that) would solve anything, which is what I’m more interested in than actually prosecuting the law in this particular case.
*You say that law is vague? Huh. Tell me, I’m no expert on the Wetboek van Strafrecht, what you think is vague about article 137d and its recent jurisprudence.
Neither of your examples are racist in nature. Wilder’s deal with muslims is tied up with his hatred of “non-Western” immigrants. He actively promotes an atmosphere where immigrants’ rights would be curtailed, supports policies that make immigrants feel unwelcome despite following legal avenues into the country, and constantly discusses this problem in terms of battle and warfare. The key to his rhetoric is that he makes the link from immigrant to Muslim then to criticism and inciting hatred. He is adept at hiding his hate just like so many who hate homosexuals try to disguise their language.
That said, after reading some of the replies here and this blog postI am not sure I agree with the basis for the case, because it sounds pretty weak. I don’t intend to see this film of his so I am not sure how severe it is, or how far it goes beyond criticizing Islam and jumping into outright racism.
So it’s OK to hate and incite violence against groups of people, as long as they are not racial groups? And “Muslims” are a race?
Undoubtedly so, but by bringing this up you are just proving that the whole case is based on making it a crime to be an unpleasant or bigoted person. Unpopular speech is exactly what free speech protections are for; nobody is ever going to pass a law against saying that rainbows are pretty, and we don’t need principles and constitutions to defend the right to do so.
And, of course, Muslims who preach that their religion is correct and all others are dogs who may be killed are making non-Muslims unwelcome and unsafe, but it would be equally wrong to put them in jail for it.
Actually, Wilders’s deal with Muslims is tied up with his hatred for Muslims. Other non-western immigrants - or immigrants at all, for that matter - have nothing to do with it. Wilders argues 1) that Islam is an intolerant religion; 2) that it says so in the Quran, which a fascist book; 3) that all those who call themselves Muslims necessarily share these beliefs that Wilders imputes in the Quran; 4) that there is no such thing as liberal Islam or liberal Muslims. Also, he is not adept at hiding his hatred, he’s not beating about the bush but he’s very clear about what he thinks - part of the reason he’s so popular. In September, when the 2010 budget was presented in parliament, he called for a ‘headrag tax’ to be paid by the wearers of headscarves. This guy is not about ‘reading between the lines’…
One more thing about the blog post: as most of the foreign commentary on this case, it loosely and inaccurately connects some aspects of the Dutch situation to make a case for some political point that has nothing to do with Holland. This article incorrectly assumes that Wilders is prosecuted for his Fitna film, which is not the case. Also, it is not the case that Wilders is tried for racism beyond criticizing the Islam; it is not about racism or about criticism, but about inciting to hatred and violence against ‘groups in the population’, which in the more recent subpoena issued against Wilders extends to both religiously defined groups (Muslims) and ethnically defined groups (Moroccans).
As I indicated above, in a political context, I think there is a net benefit in curtailing freedom of speech when it is used to incite hatred or promote racism. I don’t know about this in a religious context and am fairly sure I wouldn’t want freedom of speech to be regulated outside of these two contexts. This amounts to a very small difference in opinion concerning the extent of an individual’s freedom of speech and is really not worth getting uptight about unless you see slippery slopes everywhere.
Your description of Wilders’ line of reasoning leads to only one conclusion: all non-Christian immigrants are a problem. He’s making them a scapegoat and deriving political power from it. It’s a sad state of affairs that a guy who talks like this is becoming more popular and not being sidelined as a loon, but maybe that is what the law is for.
The court case will make clear if he is violating the law. Thanks for the clarification on what is the nature of the law he is violating. It is difficult to find a clear report on the subject.
Yes there are. I wouldn’t call them riots, but there are a few if you care to look for them.
But that’s not relevant to the case. The exact articles that Wilders is supposedly violating are:
art 137c (Insults):
Deliberately and publicly (words, writing etc) insulting groups of people on the basis of race, religion, life-belief (“levensovertuiging”, this means something on the order of “strongly held world view”), sexual preference, mental or physical handicap. Max 1 year in prison or a 3rd category fine.
If 1. is done regularly or in an organization, Max 2 years or a 4th category fine.
art 137d (Incitement):
Deliberately and publicly (words, writing etc) inciting hatred or discrimination or violence against persons or groups of people on the basis of … (same as above). Max, again, 1 year in prison or 3rd category fine.
If 1. is done regularly or in an organization, Max 2 years or a 4th category fine.
So no riots or violence are strictly necessary to be convicted of all four paragraphs.
ETA: 3rd category fines are €7.400. 4th category are €18.500.
Bigots (small groups or individuals) attacking individuals or mosks. It’s not very common, but it does happen. Of course, the same kind of thing also happens w/r/t homosexuals and jews/synagogues.
To be specific, a number of mosques and Islamic schools got torched after Van Gogh was killed. I can’t recall other incidents since - I mean, there’s been conflicts between muslims and non-Muslims (in Culemborg, recently), but none that can reasonably be attributed to Wilders, I think, or that should even be reasonably seen as politically motivated conflicts. I’m not sure what **superfluous **is alluding to if it’s not the incidents immediately after 2 November 2004 when Van Gogh was killed. Not that it matters, though - if you yell out ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre, and for some reason no one believes you, or they do believe you but proceed to leave the premises in an orderly fashion, that does not mean that you are not a jerk for yelling ‘fire’.
As we’ve been informed in this thread, free speech is not a value and sometimes you need to use coercive power to silence people who are saying upsetting things. The guy who stabbed Van Gogh was just defending Dutch pluralism. He should get a medal.
As you’ve been informed in this thread, free speech is less of an absolute in the Netherlands than in the US - both culturally and legally.
My take: Pluralism used to be a highly regarded goal in much of Dutch society. In the last 10 or 15 years it’s become increasingly obvious that the way Dutch politics dealt with integration issues didn’t produce the expected or desired results**. Since the rise and death of Fortuyn, pretty much all political parties take a much stronger course with regards to integration (enforced language and integration tests are one example). In many other aspects, there is still a lot of discontent, much but not all connected to Muslims (usually young males of the 2nd or 3rd generation).
At the same time, something else is happening:
Fortuyn and Wilders both are political examples of a cultural shift in attitude towards free speech - meaning it’s become acceptable to publicly express opinions in a way that 25 years ago would get you shunned from “polite society” - or potentially jailed; and it’s not just Wilders - he’s just the one who keeps at it and states it the harshest. This is not a universal shift in any way: the Christian parties especially seem to have huge problems with this and probably see it as a sign of moral decay or something. But the Christian parties aren’t the significant fraction that they used to be.
In any case the law has not at all kept up with this. We’re currently stuck with laws that can be (and have historically been) interpreted as making punishable all kinds of statements that currently really are pretty common.
** WRT to Muslims (which in the Netherlands means mostly Turks and Moroccans) one opinion piece I read lately claimed that the biggest problem with their integration were probably caused by a policy of organizing the official channels to the Moroccan and Turkish communities via religious or semi-religious organizations. There may be some truth in that.
Some societies take free speech seriously or at least more seriously. The problem with restricting it based on someone’s opinion is a slippery slope of censorship. In this case, it gives the appearance of using censorship as an appeasement for fear of reprisal.
My personal opinion is that Van Gogh’s death is an indication that Islam is a broken religion that is intolerant of criticism in an extreme manner. It is broken in a way that is not easily fixed and Geert Wilder is trying to point out the reality of the violence that results from it. The religion, as practiced by immigrants to Western nations, poses a cultural threat in the literal and physical sense of the word. Immigration is being used as a tool of war making it impossible to judge friend from foe.
Wilder may be overly nationalistic in his views. But it is his nation and it’s citizens he wishes to protect from those who are intolerant of public dissemination of ideas. A nation shouldn’t have to cower under cover of political correctness when those expressing themselves in the form of cartoons or movies are hunted down and killed for the crime of free speech.
I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate the concept of free speech and this trial will define the direction taken in the future to defend it.
Atheist, liberal, Obama voter here. It’s amazing that your authoritarianism has taken over your mind to the extent that you think only a Christian supremacist could possibly take offense at Muslims killing or jailing people for saying mean things to them.
Can I just point out that most of Wilders’s (his name is Wilders, not Wilder) ‘nation’ fundamentally and vehemently disagrees with his views on most of this - and this includes at least three posters in this very thread. Speaking for myself, I will point out that, unlike whatever Wilders says, there’s no such thing as a ‘broken religion’, and that Mohammed Bouyeri killing Van Gogh is certainly no indication of that, much less of all Muslims in the Netherlands (the vast, vast majority of whom are as much members of Wilders’s nation as I am, seeing as they were often born in the Netherlands and grew up there just like I did) sharing a set of beliefs even remotely similar to that of Bouyeri. It is Wilders who is intolerant of them and not the other way around, for it is Wilders who has argued on numerous occasions that regardless of a persons actual beliefs, they should be made to leave Europe. Asked by a Danish interviewer what number of Muslims would actually have to leave Europe, he came up with a number of several millions (I’m looking for a cite and for the exact number but I can’t seem to find it).
That said, it’s Wilders’s every right to express his opinion even if it’s stupid, and I personally do tend towards hoping that he’ll be acquitted (and I think he might be). Also, the Dutch democracy has taken a sad turn for the worse now that prominent politicians such as Wilders (but not only him, to be sure) need round the clock protection to make sure they’re not gutted like Van Gogh (who didn’t believe he needed protection) was.
Finally, however, it’s important to see this trial in perspective. As I stressed above, not much good can come from it, but it certainly does not spell the downfall of free speech in The Netherlands, which is very well embedded in both our culture and our laws (I’ll repeat that this trial concerns a very specific implication of free speech and hate speech laws). It’s not indicative of some sort of large Muslim conspiracy (far from it) or of some sort of left wing or government thing. If anything, this shows that the Dutch judicial branch acts independently, without taking political things such as the fact that Wilders leads an important political party into concern, and without caring about the fact that this trial is awkward, can be used politically and might make us look bad abroad, if only in this thread on the dope.
I don’t know though. There were trials in the fifties and sixties, when Hermans said Catholics were the worst part of the Netherlands, procreating like bunnies (in I’m always right), and when Reve (In Nearer to You) compared the lord to a mouse-grey donkey which he would let into his house, and after pushing Him up two flights of stairs, would proceed to have sex with (‘possess him in his most secret of openings’ I believe the phrase goes). Both were acquitted. The laws on blasphemy are much older than that and have fallen into disuse before the war, until finally the Christian Democrats seem to have rediscovered them over the past decade. To be honest, I’m not so sure whether it is not really more true that it’s this new ethos of norms and values and thou shalt not offend that is new (and may be the reason for the revival of the CDA, which in the 90s seemed on its way out, and which now is not as big as it used to be, but continues to be the largest party), rather than Fortuyn’s and Wilders’s offensiveness. What do you think?
As I indicated above, the laws have been here for quite some time. There’s a reason Reve was AFAIK the last man prosecuted under the blasphemy laws (in the 70s) and there’s also a reason that the Christian right has (fairly unsuccessfully) tried to strengthen those same laws in the last few years.
As far as I can see, the Christians are just as much taking advantage of the real and perceived problems with integration as Wilders does; though they tend to highlight societal depravity in general - look at the queen’s speech about internet communications and its supposedly damaging effect on society - it’s a tactic of fear. Highten the fear and people will crowd around you. That is what makes for a strong political block.
