Friday, May 08, 2009

The Unwanted

Below is an editorial from today’s Jyllands-Posten, as translated by our Danish correspondent TB:

The Unwanted

In February of this year, when the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was denied access to Great Britain, the announcement asserted that his planned speech and presentation of an Islam-critical movie were a threat to public order and could provoke violence among groups in the British community.

Wilders had not threatened anyone, nor had he done anything which could be interpreted as a an incitement of violence. He had said something about Islam and Muslims in Europe which some people did not want to hear. A British imam threatened riots if Wilders were allowed to show his film in Great Britain. The British government’s reason for rejecting Wilders, in other words, was not rooted in something he had done or threatened to do, but was motivated solely by what other people might do to him.

It was pathetic to hear the British foreign minister David Miliband defend the decision, and the Orwellian behavior of the British government was underlined by Jacqui Smith’s request that — in the future — Islamic terror be described as ‘anti-Islamic activity’. It aroused some unpleasant memories of the rejection by communist regimes of critical foreigners whose critical manifestations could be interpreted as threats against public order and undermining society.
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Acknowledging that the Wilders case was not good for the government, Jacqui Smith has just published a list of sixteen so-called “extremists” who have been forbidden entrance to Great Britain. The announcement refers to the fact that the government wants to show the rest of the world what kind of behavior Great Britain refuses to tolerate. The list includes an American radio host who says stupid things (but then again, who doesn’t?), an obscure Christian preacher and his daughter who condemn abortion and homosexuality, a Jewish extremist from the West Bank, two neo-Nazis from Russia who are serving prison terms for violence against immigrants, a former member of Ku Klux Klan, and a group of Islamic preachers and militants including one who has served thirty years in prison for killing four Israeli soldiers and a four-year-old girl.

The list is problematic. First, it shows a lack of differentiation between words and actions. In a democracy there has to be a difference between criminal acts and utterances by which some people might feel offended. There is a difference between pleading for a return to the caliphate and encouraging Muslims to kill Jews. It is for dictatorships only to criminalize opinions, not democracies. Unfortunately, in recent years we can observe in Europe a slide towards a situation where there is no longer any differentiation between incitement to violence and so-called “hate-speech”, which has become a comfortable tool in the hands of the politically correct to close the mouths of people with whom they disagree. Secondly, the list is an indication of a dangerous tendency in which the British government sees it as their task to decide which opinions the country’s voters are capable of hearing and which opinions they cannot bear to listen to. It can never be the government’s task to behave as an arbiter of taste. The government’s job is to see that the law is being followed. Thirdly, the list is a bizarre example of political correctness disguised as a consideration for the security of Great Britain. One would think, when seeing the list, that the enforcement carried out by European secret services in recent years is caused by the danger of Jewish, Russian, and Christian terror and extremism in general. This is not the case, however; but the British government has not got the guts to call a spade a spade. That’s why they end up in absurdities like this list, which is a disgrace for an open society.

6 comments:

laine said...

It's like one of those "which one does not belong" questions on standard IQ tests but Jackie Smith and the British government can't differentiate.

They are P.C. dhimmis who dressed up their list of those whose ideology has proven a real threat inciting thousands of fatal attacks CARRIED OUT around the world with a cornucopia of isolated cranks who have no worldwide megaphone and have harmed no one.

They should have named only the Islamists and answered the predictable BS about racial profiling by calmly stating that as soon as there are worldwide movements with hundreds of thousands of deaths by people preaching against abortion, gays, Muslims etc. then their spokesmen will also go on the list.

Actually, by the criteria of actual harm done to living beings, it's arguably pro-abortionists who should be the next group barred.

Daniel Greenfield said...

"It was pathetic to hear the British foreign minister David Miliband defend the decision, and the Orwellian behavior of the British government was underlined by Jacqui Smith’s request that — in the future — Islamic terror be described as ‘anti-Islamic activity’. It aroused some unpleasant memories of the rejection by communist regimes of critical foreigners whose critical manifestations could be interpreted as threats against public order and undermining society."


Of course the more ideologically stratified a political system becomes, the more need it has to keep people with dissenting opinions out. But the question here is not merely one of ideological stratification, but furthermore is an acknowledgment of the inherent instability within the system itself.

Talk of incitement to violence is a transparent admission of how unstable a system based on denial and dhimmism really is.

gxm said...

Trenchard and Gordon (Cato’s Letters) are turning over in their graves.

Vladtepesblog.com said...

The discussion in the western world all too often these past years is, 'who should be banned' and not 'If we should ban' or, 'what reasonable criteria should we use to ban'. The same can be said of more than people. Ottawa Canada's city council has been on a ban rampage as has Ontario for years now banning everything from circus's to pesticides and herbicides, smoking in bars and restaurants (Unless you are Arab then you can smoke tobacco in a hookah indoors anywhere you like while you enjoy a kebab) and the discussion is never about whether or not to ban, but what how much and by what means. When Canada prevented George Galloway from entering Galloway predictably lied his face off as to the reasons. The fact was, ONE border guard decided that as he had given money to Hamas directly he clearly violated Canada's anti terrorism bill of 2001 created by the former government. However he was not prevented from meeting all his speaking engagements within Canada by teleconference. So it was never a freedom of speech thing but an anti terrorist thing. The UK clearly has crossed all reasonable lines seemingly arbitrarily banning various people in order to cover for capitulation to Islamic threats over Wilders. The fact that talk show host Savage had no intention of visiting the UK proves out the utter farcical nature of this list.

Czechmade said...

Galloway appears regularly on Iranian mullah English language PressTV.

Watch it. There are some other Western collaboraters to be exposed publically. Also islamTV in English
also with Ridley and Galloway. Also occasionally Fisk on al-Jazeera and others every other day.

It would be interesting to discover their "life stories".

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...

Since tax funded public service institutionens like the Beeb in Britain and SVT in my country are perfect megaphones for the power elite since they are controlled by the politicians. Maybe we should gather information country by country on how they are continously trying to whitewash islam? My guess any country which such tv-channels is brainwashing their citizens with all these numerous programmes showing islam and muslims in a more favourable light.