Robbert de Witt of Elsevier reports that the Dutch Ambassador will go to Heathrow to see if he can assist Wilders when necessary [emphasis in original email].
VH also included a link to a Daily Mail report, ‘Let them arrest me’: Dutch MP vows to defy Home Office ban and fly to Britain to show anti-Islam film.
The newspaper’s take on the story is carefully even-handed, at least until it gets to the precedents set by Britain. They list some of the reprobates let into the country in the past, undesirables that the politicians didn’t seem to find problematic at all:
And just look at those we HAVE let in…
FIREBRAND CLERIC
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, 82
Visited London in 2004 at the invitation of Ken Livingstone, then the city’s mayor, who considered him a ‘progressive force for change’.
Egyptian-born spiritual leader of Muslim Brotherhood, which embraces the Hamas organisation that controls Gaza.
Has justified suicide bombing…
HOMOPHOBIC SINGER
Bounty Killer, real name Rodney Price, 36
Performed in East London in November despite appeals to the Home Secretary from gay activists who wanted him banned from the country.
[…]
One song, translated from the Jamaican patois, calls on listeners to ‘burn a fire on poofs and faggots’. Another claims: ‘We need no promo to rub out dem homo’.
BILLIONAIRE CULT LEADER
Reverend Sun Myung Moon, 89
Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke overturned a 27-year ban against the cult leader and allowed him 24 hours in Britain to address a rally in London, in 2005.
The Korean-born billionaire declares himself to be the Messiah.
His movement, famous for its mass weddings …
..has been a failure in Britain since 1981, when the Moonies lost a milestone libel case against the Daily Mail. The Mail had called Moon’s Unification Church ‘the church that breaks up families’.
SERIAL PAEDOPHILE
Raymond Horne, 62
A serial paedophile with a long jail history in Australia for offences against boys from 13.
Horne, who emigrated to Australia with his parents in 1952, when he was five, has a criminal record in Queensland stretching back 43 years.
[…]
British ministers made no objection when Australian authorities deported him to this country after he finished his sentence…
ANTI-SEMITIC AGITATOR
Ibrahim Moussawi, 43
Propagandist for Hezbollah cleared to enter the country by Jacqui Smith in November, despite fierce Tory objections.
He is the head of a TV station that routinely describes suicide bombers as ‘martyrs’ and which has broadcast a 30-part series on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion…
Moussawi is alleged to have said that Jews are ‘a lesion on the forehead of history’.
Apparently they had no problems with these scum de la scum, but a Dutch politician who takes freedom of speech to its limits is deemed an undesirable. These UK dhimmi politicians are so afraid of their home-grown Muslims that they want Wilders anywhere but there.
I don’t agree with Geert Wilders that the Koran should be banned. I don’t think Mein Kampf should be verboten, either. Nor do I think Holocaust deniers should be silenced. They may be lying or they may be delusional, but even deluded prevaricators with a loose grip on reality are entitled to speak.
Book banning is a slippery slope, as the Catholic Church can tell you…
- - - - - - - - -
Beginning in the 4th century, when the book bans started in order to quell heresies, the process decayed into rigorous bannings and burnings of both books and their authors. Finally, what had started with good intentions ended in an ignominious swamp of cultural irrelevance. The Index was finally put out of our misery in 1966 by Paul VI, and not one century too soon, if you ask me.
So although I agree with Wilders’ sentiments about the murderous intentions found within the covers of the Koran, I demur when it comes to banning the thing. Human nature being what it is, forbidding ideas can make them more attractive.
However, I stand behind his God-given right of free speech to say he wants it banned.
What is so difficult to understand about the categorical differences between speech and behavior? Beyond the classic “you can’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre”, and the common sense rules on slander and defamation of character, free speech ought to remain untouched.
It’s quite another matter when the mobs move from yelling epithets to throwing projectiles or otherwise physically assaulting people - or defacing buildings for that matter. Graffiti is not free speech, it is criminal behavior. Someone has to follow behind cleaning the messes of the graffiti “artistes” so admired on the left.
Melanie Phillips gets it right:
If anyone had doubted the extent to which Britain has capitulated to Islamic terror, the banning of Geert Wilders should surely open their eyes.
[…]
So let’s get this straight. The British government allows people to march through British streets screaming support for Hamas, it allows Hizb ut Tahrir to recruit on campus for the jihad against Britain and the west, it takes no action against a Muslim peer who threatens mass intimidation of Parliament, but it bans from the country a member of parliament of a European democracy who wishes to address the British Parliament on the threat to life and liberty in the west from religious fascism.
It is he, not them, who is considered a ‘serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society’. Why? Because the result of this stand for life and liberty against those who would destroy them might be an attack by violent thugs.
[…]
The response is not to face down such a threat of violence but to capitulate to it instead.
It was the same reasoning that led the police on those pro-Hamas marches to confiscate the Israeli flag, on the grounds that it would provoke violence, while those screaming support for genocide and incitement against the Jews were allowed to do so.
[…]
If British MPs do not raise hell about this banning order, if they go along with this spinelessness, if they fail to stand up for the principle that the British Parliament of all places must be free to hear what a fellow democratically elected politician has to say about one of the most difficult and urgent issues of our time, if they fail to hold the line against the threat of violence but capitulate to it instead, they will be signalling that Britain is no longer the cradle of freedom and democracy but its graveyard.
Our mother country is dying in a most unseemly way. Her passing is beyond sad or tragic. This unspeakable loss cannot be conveyed in words anymore.
Would the last one out please lower the Union Jack and read a short passage from the Book of Common Prayer?
10 comments:
Please take a read of this article on Jihad Watch that looks at what Geert really said about banning the koran.
Is Geert Wilders inconsistent in calling for banning the Qur'an and defending free speech?
Geert was trying to say that Dutch law must enforced equally, if Mein Kempf is banned as hate speech so should the koran and the imams that preach hate from the koran. It's the enforcement of law that was important, not the banning of any book.
Thanks for a great article.
Stuart
Wilders is telling the suicidally-legalistic Dutch ~who are attacking him for
"hate speech"~ to be consistent in their folly and to attack the dogmatic "hate speech of the Koran as well ...not that any book should be banned.
He's pulling their numb legs.
I don’t agree with Geert Wilders that the Koran should be banned. I don’t think Mein Kampf should be verboten, either. Nor do I think Holocaust deniers should be silenced. They may be lying or they may be delusional, but even deluded prevaricators with a loose grip on reality are entitled to speak.
I'm going to take a potentially unpopular stance here with respect to banning the Qu'ran.
NOTE: I am a dedicated bibliophile whose library embraces every single category of the Dewey Decimal System. More than one person has scanned my collection of cookbooks only to exclaim, "You have more cookbooks than I have books!"
That said, while I may detest book banning on sheer principal, it is time to ban the Qu'ran.
This ban should remain in place so long as Saudi Arabia and any other Muslim country makes it a legal offense to import or possess a Bible. Short of outright war, reciprocity is one of the few ways of dealing with Muslim intolerance. Should it wish to impose such archaic strictures on alternative viewpoints, then Islam must endure the sting of its own lash.
A ban can take many forms. Such as a temporary cessation of all printing or importation of the bound form of this document.
My sole point is that Muslims must be made to taste their own bitter fruit. The West is absolutely insane to think it can combat Islam without forcing it to confront the illogic and malice of its own aberrant legal code.
I don’t agree with Geert Wilders that the Koran should be banned. I don’t think Mein Kampf should be verboten, either. Nor do I think Holocaust deniers should be silenced. They may be lying or they may be delusional, but even deluded prevaricators with a loose grip on reality are entitled to speak.
Odd as it may sound, I could not agree with you more. Sadly, we are confronted with the most benighted force to strut this world's stage in many ages. The cartoonifada alone should have been sufficient indication to the West that things were not what they seemed. In light of recent Dutch and British actions, the message has been all but lost upon the monster raving loons who hold office in those nations.
However admirable it most certainly is, the pushback of Geert Wilders is but a fart in a windstorm compared to the sort of retaliation required to halt Islam's predation upon all virtues and things Western.
Shoving reciprocity up Islam's tailpipe is a top priority if we are to survive its withering embrace.
As far as I understand, Dutch law has a provision against "incitement of hatred and discrimination". If the law were applied consistently, Quran should be banned because it does precisely that meaning incitement of hatred and discrimination. If the law is not applied against Quran, it should not be applied at all, period.
The real problem is that incitement of hatred against a "group" is a crime. Hatred is a feeling and should not be against the law.
All in all, you should not create laws against abstract things such as "discrimination". By creating such laws society enables abuse of these laws, because discrimination can be created out of nothing.
While banning books is, in principle, inherently stupid, there's a good case for banning the Quran on grounds of 'racism', 'incitement to hatred', 'incitement to violence' etc.
It would be a very strong signal that something is inherently wrong in the book, deeply insulting to the status of Islam as a religion, and would help to identify exactly which suras are problematic (there are many!)
I believe that, while problematic in principle, it would be very useful in practice.
There was a publisher in CZ who published Mein Kampf in Czech some years ago for commercial reasons.
First it appeared in the bookshops, then it was confiscated. The thing looked like the Bible.
The solution is however publish the book and provide it with a large commentary and picture which dessacrate and neutre the original intent of the author.
A quran provided with statistics of human sufferings and pictures of executed persons in SA, Pakistan or Iran could never be used for "religious" activities. Even the paper might have barbed wire or beheadings as background.
Publishing it is therefore not a problem.
I agree with Stuart (ASI Utobia); the article on JihadWatch is spot on.
Wilders very successfully drew attention to Islamo-sensitive double standards, and that Dutch laws on 'hate speech' are selectively (not) applied.
While the Koran-Mein Kampf analogy was mainly a vehicle to start the political debate, Wilders also knew full well that his statements would also draw attention to the actual content of the Koran. Again he succeeded, not only by instigating intense debate throughout Dutch society, but also in spreading knowledge about the Koran itself among the populace. Sales really zoomed after Wilders had called for an even-handed implementation of Dutch hate speech Laws (media-dumbed as a "call for a ban on the Koran"). So it's a slippery slope indeed, but perhaps the tilt isn't always in the presumed direction ;-)
Though in principle it's never a waste of words to declare yourself in favour of a total freedom of expression, and against any bookbanning, -burning or -indexing (catholic, protestant, liberal, socialist, et cetera), in practice there will always be this inclination to set limits on absolute freedom of expression, for whatever good reason is at hand. Wilders has an uncanny talent for exposing some of the downright hypocrisy that accompanies some of those who desire to be "purists" in that respect. It is true that after the War and the Holocaust, Hitler's "red book" was partially banned in Holland. No one protested in the name of freedom of expression, as the ban wasn't perceived as a threat to it. But no sooner had Wilders linked Mein Kampf to a possible ban of the Koran, or his progressive opponents suddenly awoke and became self-styled heroes of free speech almost overnight. For anything goes to defend Islam against that evil Wilders, even when it demanded of the chattering classes that they zealously advocated the re-"release" of Mein Kampf from the jail of censorship.
Chattering along in the Amsterdam scene, I've asked many of these born-again freespeechers if they actually would welcome the rapid spread of Mein Kampf in our nation's capital, considering the numerous Islamic bookshops already bursting with impatience to spread the word. Would they welcome huge advertising campaigns for Hitler's prelude to mass genocide, in full knowledge that the rising tide of Islamic antisemitism all over Europe is only just "gaining momentum"? You could see the hesitation in the eye, when actual consequences appeared on their radar. Little inconvenient dots of doubt.
"Well, of course," the usual answer would be, "if one is against banning the Koran, then one must also oppose the ban on Mein Kampf, one has to think along straight lines in such principal matters, you see?".
To me it seems, that the "principal" matter in a lot of this is the gradual adaptation to Islamic sensibilities, dressed up as basic moral thinking. A few decades ago, when the revolution in Iran had only just started, not one of these liberal, gentle people considered the ban on Mein Kampf a threat to freedom. Now, the fact of the matter is that the ongoing state-sponsored and media-mediated Islamization seems to have changed everything.
All I'm sayin', I guess, is that there are some pretty slippery slopes to be reckoned with, for sure, when the desire to set limits on genocidal propaganda meets with day to day reality, but i.m.o. the same caveat applies when I hear this "thinking in straight lines" advocated in the name of absolute freedom.
First and foremost, kudos to Geert of course, for leaving unobscured the vast darkness of the subject. No doubt he will continue to expose the failings of large "well-educated" contingents within Western society, to honestly come to grips with an enemy that will use whatever is left of our freedom, to spread their unconditional hate.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Mein Kampf versus quran:
Our wounds are still sore from WWII.
There are still no adaquate wounds from quran....here in the West.
But! There are such adaquate wounds outside the Western world...and using the wording of our leftists...these people are "racists", since for reasons unknown they think the wounds under quran somewhere else do no count.
Read this:
The Times, Monday, Oct 03, 1921; pg. 9
DEATH OR ISLAM
MOPLAH'S CRUELTY TO HINDUS.
CALICUT, Sept. 30.-The situation at Melattur is becoming very serious.
The rebels are offering Hindus the alternative of death or Islam. If they hesitate, the victims are ordered to dig graves, and then, if they still refuse to embrace Islam, they are shot dead and dropped into them. Complete Home Rule has been declared. Crops belonging to Hindus have been confiscated. The Hindus are fleeing; there are over 2,000 refugees at Perintalmanna. They are mostly destitute, and among them are woman who gave birth to children en route.
See - our leftists are racists and non-islamic holocaust deniers.
Now I too dont agree with banning a book simply because I do not agree with its contents.
However, the main threat we have is the increasing demographics of Muslims. If suppose we banned the Koran, or parts of it, making a good legal case, that parts of the Koran contravene European hate speech laws- which they most certainly do. Then we give signal to Muslims that their most holy book is a little unholy. Now they can leave, or start an open Jihad in Europe. Many will leave. Either way we are in a better situation then now.
I agree with the above suggestions to get creative in ways to make Muslims want to leave our benighted shores. Depriving them of the book they use as a manual to order their lives is a good idea.
The Koran clearly incites hate (as defined by all our human rights legislation) toward non-Muslims, especially the identifiable group of Jews.
Also, how can Muslims logically object to our banning their holy book as they ban ours? Zenster is right about demanding reciprocity.
There has been zero co-operation so far, just one way submission, with minarets rising in every western country and not a single church or other non-Islamic place of worship allowed to be built in Islamic lands. The few existing are not even allowed repairs.
It is idiotic apologizing for near non-existent Islamophobia considering the terrorist provocation while ignoring blatant kuffir-phobia in word and DEED of thousands killed.
This insane bowing and scraping to barbarians needs to cease. Why do we have fools negotiating for us who give in to all demands and in return get bupkus? Where are the West's hard headed traders and businessmen?
Obama's grovelling apology to his Arab/Muslim masters was nausea inducing.
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