What really angered me when watching Geert Wilders on Newsnight, last night, was his hypocritical attempts to justify his desire to ban the Koran in the Netherlands. This is the man who we wrongly banned from coming into the UK. Whilst his views should not be endorsed, banning him has only led to the BNP and the EDL using him as a hero to promote their fascist right-wing ideology. Banning him was also a serious attack of our civil rights. However, whilst after protest within the UK and from political parties such as the Libdems he was rightly granted access to the UK and was allowed to play his video condemning Islam as a fascist ideology, in the Lords yesterday.
How can he argue on one level that it is against freedom of speech not to allow him into the country and then abuse freedom of speech by wanting to ban the Koran and to arrest any Muslim who does not conform to what he thinks is a ‘true’ citizen? He seems to believe that the Koran is different to other religious texts because it is an ideology. Well if I am not mistaken, all religions to some extent have ideological aspects to them. Furthermore, each religion has different aspects that can be interpreted wrongly – such as within the Bible women are seen as the originator of sin, and impairment is seen as the punishment of sin. Thus, what Geert is practicing is censorship reflecting his prejudice.
He can huff and puff all he wants in his attempts to distance himself from fascists but when it comes down to it, he is just as racist as the BNP and the EDL. He is an abuser of freedom of speech. He should have learnt from his own banning that undermining civil liberties is a fundamental problem within politics and that he is only furthering it with his own hypocritical attitude towards the Koran.
March 6, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Wilders’ “Freedom Party” does not take members and it’s a one-man show for Wilders’ own Islamophobic agenda.
How can one call his party a “freedom party” that wants to take away the religious freedom of one million of its own people?
They also argue “freedom of speech” – but they tried to say that a party calling itself “Stop Wilders Nu (now)” was an implied threat against Wilders!
Wilders is an admired of Thatcher – and it is now wonder!
March 7, 2010 at 12:01 am
Speaking on BBC newsnight on 5th March 2010, Wilder advocated banning the Koran as it condones violence. Given that only a few thousand at best understand it’s original Arabic text among the Muslims in Europe who hardly comprise between 3% and 4% of Europe’s total population, isn’t there a need to look at scriptures that affect the pre-dominant majority of Europeans?
Thus, for example, the Exodus mentions “God tells Moses and Aaron to smite the river and turn it into blood.” 7:17-24
Moreover, the Old Testament contains some graphic descriptions of violence. Some Christians are disturbed by the thought that God commanded his people to totally annihilate the people of Canaan.
If Wilder applies this principle on other scriptures where will we end up with all this?
March 7, 2010 at 9:42 am
Eslaporte,
I totally agree with you. There is nothing about Wilder’s politics that makes him a supporter of freedom.
Really? I didn’t know they tried to do that! That is really bad, there is no democracy there!
And yes, there are major similarities between the two.
Jeffrey,
I totally agree, and is something I acknowledged in my blog. It is really interesting when looking at other religious texts to see that they all contain the possibility of having subjective interpretations. He has no justification for his belief in banning except that he is a very racist, and an abuser of civil rights.
March 14, 2010 at 9:40 pm
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