Douglas Murray points out some of the many, many absurdities of the Wilders free speech trial in the Netherlands. "The trial of Geert Wilders: why we won't be hearing about camel urine," by Douglas Murray in the Telegraph, February 4 (thanks to Pamela):
[...] When the trial opened a fortnight ago, Wilders asked for a rather sparky list of 18 expert witnesses. They included some noted experts on Islam and social cohesion. And also a few, ahem, practitioners of the same. They were to include Mohammed Bouyeri, who shot, stabbed and partly beheaded the film-maker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004. And also Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the jihadist cleric who was given the red-carpet treatment in London by former mayor Ken Livingstone a few years back.Sadly the Dutch court haven't allowed these witnesses or most of the others, leaving the defence with only three witnesses. They are expert Simon Admiraal and leading Dutch scholar Hans Jansen (author of numerous scholarly books and the hilariously titled recent Islam for Pigs, Donkeys, Monkeys and Other Beasts). Most interestingly the court has allowed Wilders to call as an expert witness the brave and eloquent Wafa Sultan.
Sultan made her name - and garnered her first fatwas - for a blinding hit-the-ball-out-of-the-stadium interview on Al Jazeera a few years ago viewable here. It caused terrible convulsions across the Muslim world, and also apparently in Sheikh al-Qaradawi who described her home-truths session as consisting of "unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end."
I much look forward to seeing Wafa Sultan take the stand. Though I slightly pity the prosecution for having to attempt to cross-examine her.
But I can't help feeling disappointed that Qaradawi won't be appearing. Although he believes talking about the contents of the Koran is "unbearable, ghastly and makes his hair stand on end", I have always thought it interesting that he doesn't find at all hair-raising - in fact he has even been quoted on his own website as defending - certain forms of female circumcision....
"unbearable, ghastly and makes his hair stand on end"
PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF koran, muhammad, and the narcissistic death cult called islam.
I do mean PERFECT!!!!
A great and very, very brave woman. The cleric answers her with "are you a heretic"? The Islamic medievalists will never get it.Their civilization was once (by historical medieval standards) advanced, but has not progressed in many centuries. They are now an inferior, backwards culture, and they are very proud of that fact, and wear it like a badge of honor
Though she'll indeed make a good witness, it seems utterly arbitrary that Wafa Sultan, who could hardly be called a scholar and whose knowledge of Islam stems mostly from the realm of personal experience, was accepted as a witness...while others seemingly more qualified were rejected. The whole process smacks of kangaroo-ism.
One of the sad by-products of this trial is that any Muslim who might be rational and intelligent enough to be internally pondering the relative merits of Western freedom...has to be looking at it quite skeptically at the moment.
There are those who say the trial of Geert Wilders is the most important event of the century. I find this attitude very disappointing. It's much more serious than that.
The trial of Geert Wilders is nothing less than a fulcrum upon which history will turn. The civilised world can only hope that his judges are aware of the magnitude of the judgement they are about to pass down.
This trial is the prime test case for the so-called 'hate speech' laws, which appear to be specifically designed to automatically criminalise Geert Wilders personally. They are tailor-made for the job. 'Hate speech' is a legislative catch-all term which covers everything from openly inciting violence to insulting the followers of a religion. If this comes down to hurt feelings then on paper they have him bang to rights, Wilders is guilty as charged. His defence lies in a somewhat hopeful appeal to the courts sympathy for the concept of free-speech and their attachment to the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law.
Whatever the outcome, the ripples will radiate far beyond the courtroom, because not only will new legal precedents be set, but new social and political climates will be triggered. The wider the ripples spread, the more profound becomes the sociological impact.
Having exploded in popularity over the last few years, the Freedom Party under Wilders' leadership is a political phenomenon in the Netherlands, topping the polls and winning seats at an exponential rate. If he wins this case he will emerge from court riding the crest of a wave of victorious publicity in a trajectory that will likely propel the Freedom Party into the winning seat at the next elections. Then he will begin the de-Islamification of the Netherlands. Rotterdam will become Shangri-La, Amsterdam become Camelot.
Seeing his star rise and encouraged by his success, the people of Europe will shout the house down, forcing their political leaders to begin listening to their constituents and follow suit, advancing similar policies, radically changing the future of Europe and reversing its long slide into demographic Muslim oblivion. Europe is saved.
However, if Wilders loses, the law stipulates that he must be fined or committed to prison. At the news of his sentencing, Muslim activists will be emboldened on all fronts and their lawyer allies will unleash a storm of follow-on legal actions to silence criticism of Islam across all the nations of the European Union. From Dublin to Bucharest and Naples to Helsinki, all of Europe will be nudged, case by case, towards a cultural event horizon, the point of no return, without a voice to speak out for fear of invoking the same fate as the felon Wilders.
Robbed of their birthright liberties, unable even to protest, 830 million people and 4 million square kilometres of Western civilisation will plunge inexorably towards submission under Islam.
When this trial is done and the ripples are riding out in the aftermath, Geert Wilders will either be the leader of his country or a numbered inmate within its prison system, but make no mistake, the entire future of Europe, possibly the world, rests on the outcome of this one single case.
http://newstime.co.nz/2009/female-circumcision-is-allowed-in-islam.html
Dr. Muhammad Al-Mussayar, Al-Azhar University justified Female Circumcision
There is some unsubstantiated blog info coming out this morning that the trial of Geert Wilders could be adjourned from 4 to 9 months. There is nothing factual reported on this yet that I know of.
I can't help wondering how this 4 judge panel reached their conclusion to allow only 3 witnesses on behalf of Geert? Are they getting any outside influence from Dutch Dhimmi political hacks who think that if they successfully prosecute Wilders he will lose his constantly growing popular base with the Dutch People? Evidence shows that it is becoming a win win for Geert who stands to gain as many as 27 seats for his growing party at the Hague.
According to polls,Wilders' Freedom Party, is currently the most popular political party in the Netherlands. If elections were held today,Geert could be in a strong position for prime minister. Mr. Wilders' detractors are seriously mistaken if they think a conviction would hurt him politically.
If these 4 judges try and rule to restrict Mr. Wilders' rights to free speech, many Dutchmen will view this as an effort by the politically correct establishment to limit the growth of his Freedom Party, If, on the other hand, the prosecution fails to prove that Mr. Wilders has purposely insulted Muslims because of their religion, Mr. Wilders' views will be seen as vindicated. Again, he will gain politically among the Dutch people not to mention the rest of Western World that is watching this amazing parade of shame.
on the trial delay:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/015595.html
"The crooked judges of Amsterdam"
(by Pat Condell, 7 min video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ZUZ9CPZII&feature=player_embedded#
Pat Condell: The crooked judges of Amsterdam
This from Mackie who I think has another take on this issue
According to polls,Wilders' Freedom Party, is currently the most popular political party in the Netherlands. If elections were held today,Geert could be in a strong position for prime minister. Mr. Wilders' detractors are seriously mistaken if they think a conviction would hurt him politically.
If these 4 judges try and rule to restrict Mr. Wilders' rights to free speech, many Dutchmen will view this as an effort by the politically correct establishment to limit the growth of his Freedom Party, If, on the other hand, the prosecution fails to prove that Mr. Wilders has purposely insulted Muslims because of their religion, Mr. Wilders' views will be seen as vindicated. Again, he will gain politically among the Dutch people not to mention the rest of Western World that is watching this amazing parade of shame.
You have probably seen this already I concur with his contribution
"Wilders must be supported"
(by Oliver Kamm, 2 weeks ago)
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2009/01/wilders-must-be-supported/
From the poster Richard Franklin Carter on the indexoncensorship link...thought it should be repeated.
"The Dutch prosecutors are forgetting their nation’s history. In 1670, Benedictus de Spinoza wrote:
[G]overnment which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. All these questions fall within a man’s natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his own consent.
These words were true in the seventeenth century, and they are still true today."
As I read the Dutch statutes which are the basis of the charges against Wilders, they purport to criminalize language, writing, or imagery which either;
(1) insults a group of people because of their race, religion or belief, sexual tendencies or their physical, mental or intellectual abilities OR
(2) incites hatred against, or dicrimination of people, OR violent behavior against people or their property because of their race, religion/belief, gender or sexual nature, or their mental, physical or intellectual disabilities.
Nowhere in the Dutch statues is it provided that truth is a defense. To my knowledge (imperfect and stale as it is) in all US jurisdictions truth is an absolute defense to all civil defamation claims. There may be some US jurisdictions that attempt to criminalize hate speech, but if truth is a defense in a civil action, I find it incomprehensible that it would not be a complete defense in a criminal action owing to a couple of constitutional guarantees. Firstly, the requirement that a criminal statute must unequivocably and specifically define the prohibited conduct/speech and, secondly, the 1st amendment's prohibition of all laws that violate an individual's freedom of speech, etc.
I am ignorant of the content of the Dutch constitution or any applicable local/state consitutions that will be brought into focus by the language of the statutes summarized above, but taking into account only the language of the statutes, especially #1, it is clear Wilders is guilty. A skillful defender may be able to argue that statute #2 is impermissably vague. For example, does rational, fact-based disapproval constitute discrimination? There may even be vagueness about whether Wilders intended to cause hatred of the requisite "person", e.g., Muslims, or, as he maintains, only against the Koran per se.
However much one wishes to engage in that kind of debate clearly Wilders' remarks and film, Fitna, violate statute #1. They constitute insults to devout Muslims who believe the Koran is the compilation of the words of their god. Just as clearly, all societies everywhere will be better off for Wilders saying and doing these things for they are immutably true. The more people around the world learn the core principles promulgated by the Koran and related hadiths the less of a chance Islam will have of continuing to flourish and converting western societies away from their developing humanist value systems, systems based upon freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and equality of the sexes, all of which are absent from sharia law.
For the Dutch the question will then be - are these criminal statues violative of Dutch constitutional law? It's just a guess on my part, but I have to believe that is an open question because no sane prosecutor would bring this case if the statutes were clearly violative of some constitutional prohibition. The issue will then become whether the Netherlands will enact the necessary constitutional changes to prevent this kind of absurd prosecution from ever getting filed in the first place.
Whatever happens, free people and free thinking people owe Geert Wilders their admiration and gratitude.
Wilders trial: "I much look forward to seeing Wafa Sultan take the stand. Though I slightly pity the prosecution for having to attempt to cross-examine her."
Had to laugh at this remark. Nice wit from The Man, would love to see it - no one can wipe the floor with a Muslim apologist like super critic Wafa Sultan!
No nonsense Pat Condell hits all the right buttons (above)on this latest of his excellent monologues.
Indeed Condell has a way with words, I couldn't resist listening to this latest one twice. Be sure you take the time to listen to it.
A year ago most of my friends did not know who Geert Wilders was, but I can now say that they are all listening and keeping up on the pitiful travesty of justice that marks this Dutch Courts demented actions when it comes to free speech.
darmanad,
You're the only person I have seen not only here in comments threads on Wilders, but throughout the Blogosphere who has focused on the central legal point here.
This is not a "kangaroo court" as people are fond of parroting throughout the Blogosphere. A kangaroo court, properly defined, is a court proceeding that abuses the law. But the Dutch prosecution are not abusing their laws. They are simply choosing to uphold them against Wilders, who I agree can easily be construed as breaking statute #1 as you recounted it:
(1) insults a group of people because of their race, religion or belief, sexual tendencies or their physical, mental or intellectual abilities
Wilders may try to insist that he is not insulting Muslims -- that, indeed, is very likely why he regularly says "I have nothing against Muslims". Merely professing it, however, is one thing; engaging in large public projects, as he has been doing, that through their communications have the effect of insulting a group of people because of their religion is quite another. Of the latter, Wilders would face a formidably steep climb to try to extricate himself from that charge. I doubt that Dutch law allows someone an out due to their protestation that they never intended to have the effect which their speech actions otherwise massively and centrally create.
In addition, I think it would not take much for the prosecution to demonstrate that Wilders is guilty of the second statute --
(2) incites hatred against, or dicrimination of people, OR violent behavior against people or their property because of their race, religion/belief, gender or sexual nature, or their mental, physical or intellectual disabilities.
-- if, again, his protestations that he is not intending to incite are legally irrelevant, and if the effect of his speech actions in fact incites hatred against a people and/or their religion.
The Wilders trial is not a "kangaroo court". It is a normally and fully legal proceeding. The "hate speech" statutes on which this proceeding is based, however, can be characterized as "kangaroo laws". What is happening to Wilders is perfectly legal. What needs to be done, as darmanad points out, is to change the law.
These "hate speech" laws are common in Europe. They are an effect and reaction to the Holocaust and Hitler's madness that caused horrible destruction and war on European soil. Those two statutes are implicitly set up to prevent "another Holocaust" by bottling up, at the source, the kind of demonization of a people the Nazis generated. Those who have drafted and passed these types of "hate speech" laws throughout Europe sincerely believe that excessive criticism of Islam (not to mention of Muslims) is the nearest thing to generating racist hatred that could lead to horrible crimes against this People perceived to be an ethnic group -- Muslims.
That Leftist and PC MC Europeans cannot see that it is Muslims and Islam, in fact, who represent the closest thing to another Hitler (if not far worse than Hitler), is a supreme irony, and actually, strangely, repeats a trope that has bedevilled the modern history of Western warfare: when the First World War broke out, military strategists assumed that the war would be conducted as previous recent wars had; but their miscalculation of the radical changes new technology brought -- including railroad networks and most acutely the machine gun -- cost perhaps the bulk of the millions of lives lost as the war ground into a deadly stalemate of attrition lasting years.
As Europe was drifting toward war again in the decades after the First World War, again they thought of war as being like the preceding war and had little imagination to think outside the box. The European poverty of imagination in that context was two fold:
a) they could not imagine that an evil leader could arise and through his demagogic propaganda mobilize an entire nation to begin conquering neighboring nations and to begin mass internments, tortures and exterminations of whole classes of people -- and they persisted in stubborn denial even after Hitler's words and actions showed this was an all too real potential
b) in terms of military strategy, again -- once they finally (a few years too late) decided to fight Hitler -- thought this war was going to be fought like the last, and so Hitler's new tactics and tank technology caught them by surprise and gave him an advantage for the first two to three years after war was declared, prolonging his evil regime and expansion and costing millions of innocent lives.
The Third World War again was a war no one could have imagined, and which would not be fought like the last -- referring to the Cold War. In the late 40s and into the 50s and early 60s, the West developed a good handle on waging that unique war; but the devolution of the West into PC MC irrationality from the 60s forward seriously hampered our prosecution of that war, for PC MC promotes the view that there was no real international Communist threat and that anti-Communists were scare-mongers fabricating that threat in order to pursue their own wicked agendas. Just as with WW2 it took the nearly superhuman efforts of one man to guide the West to a proper response to the pertinent threat of the time, so PC MC America might never have provided the crucial guidance that led to the eventual collapse of the center of international Communism, the U.S.S.R., had it not been for that one man, President Reagan.
Now, as the West is drifting toward a Fourth World War, we are once again making the colossal mistake of framing its future contours according to the template of the past -- in this case, envisioning that it would be like WW2, and that the enemy would be "another Hitler" -- i.e., a white racist demagogue. And who fits the bill in our time as an ethnic people who are potential victims of such racist demagoguery? Why, of course, Muslims! So in their anxiously sincere and sincerely benighted concern to prevent "another Hitler" and "another Holocaust", these Fighters of the Last War, thinking inside their self-limiting box, are ignoring the unique shape of this new war as it is shaping up: the very same "victims" they worry about are, in fact, our looming adversary. And this time, there will be no nation-states attacking others. This time, there is a trans-national diaspora of people who have infiltrated by the millions who carry their militant supremacism around in their heads through their guiding ideology we call their religion, who are able to deploy a myriad styles of guerilla warfare which their culture has been practicing for centuries, and who are inspired by a fanaticism frighteningly deadly, surpassing the suicidal-homicidal fanaticism of the Japanese Kamikazes not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively such that ordinary grassroots Muslims can be, and have been by the thousands all over the world, utilized to mass-murderously suicide-bomb. But the PC MCs, and most especially European ones who have built up an institutional and legal framework for misunderstanding the next war that looms up on us, do not see this, and in fact see any intimations of this -- any identification of Islam as the threat -- as a threat to the public order that has a stake in preventing "another Hitler".
Wilders, being a popular politician whose popularity could lead to demagogically inspired collective abuses against Muslims, fits the bill perfectly as a demonstration by the State of why it has these "hate speech" laws in the first place.
The focus of comments here has been on Wilders' prosecution for verbal and written statements. Does anyone here know if witnesses are protected from prosecution for statements they might make on the stand, i.e., could Wafa Sultan be at risk for anthing she might say in Wilders' defense?
Eastview:
The 4 judges have apparently decided to take witness testimony behind closed doors. No doubt this action is being taken as to not offend Muslims with the truth that this totalitarian ideology brings to the Netherlands.
Will this be a closed session? will there be a transcript of the court hearings made available to the public? Wafi Sultan, though an American will more than likely require a security detail while, and if she ends up testifying for the defense in the Netherlands.
But she would be invited to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help me God, well that was the way it always was in America.
imnokuffar
Yes, I think Mackie has a more optimistic take on the situation. All I can say is I hope I'm wrong and he's right. As I live and breathe, I hope he's right.
Hesperado
Your thought-provoking deconstruction of the PC mindset which leads to the demonising of figures like Geert Wilders is a triumph of insight and analysis.
Hesperado, you are really dope and sick, as my teenage kids would say (it's a compliment, honest - at least that's what they tell me).
Cornelius has pointed out the curiousness of Wafa Sultan being accepted as a defense witness but not someone like Bat Ye'or, who would be a better expert witness on Wilders' behalf. The thought occurred to me that the judges might be attempting to exploit Sultan by eliciting statements from her that could be judged offensive according to the same standards used to prosecute Wilders, in which case she would not be an effective defense witness. But, as Hesperado points out, it is the law being used to prosecute Wilders that is itself the real problem, and is effectively what is really on trial here.
Thanks Hard Rain, I appreciate it. I'm slightly retooling it as an essay for my blog, with a crucial addition that it is in fact Wilders who is the real "kangaroo" here -- in terms of brilliantly exploiting his own attackers and manipulating the proceedings against him by turning his own trial into a show trial calculated to show that the law itself, in terms of these "hate speech" statutes, is not only unfair and illiberal, but also crippling us in the face of a new enemy.
As for dope and sick, I prefer the retro "neato keeno".
That any law exists, criminalising 'insult' is itself the grossest insult to human intelligence I can think of
They never had a civilization and it was never advanced. The Greeks were more advanced 2,500 years ago and the Romans 2,000 years ago than what the Muslims were 1,000 years ago, or even today.
Thomas, thanks for the link to Pat Condell's spot-on commentary, about the outrageousness of Wilder's trial.
Eastview and Hesperado, and you too Cornelius
Hang on guys, we're bouncing off the walls here, let's all take a deep breath.
Ok, maybe Geert's using the trial to highlight the errors of the hate speech laws, but maybe he's just trying to get his ass off the line. Maybe Wafa Sultan's being exploited by cynical judges, but maybe there was just no legal objection to her testimony. We don't yet know what criteria the judges used for vetting the admissibility of evidence, and there's like a hundred tons of speculation getting shovelled into the mix here. Perhaps prudence and caution should be our watch-words at this point - and I know that applies to me too.
Far be it from me to pee on anyone's bonfire, but there are a lot of imponderables surrounding the case at this time. Let's stick to what we know, or of what we can be reasonably sure. If not we run the risk of losing our credibility by suddenly, apparently, transmogrifying into a bunch of conspiracy theorists, n'est pas?
I can't think of a single "Great" European country that did not become one by any other way than fighting for it. Freedom isn't protected by the blood you shed oversees, it is protected by the blood you shed in your own homeland. Either Western ideals are worth fighting for or they are not. Muslims are still less than 10% of the European population but look at the influence they assert! Europeans, once again, are strolling down the road of appeasement with forces that would destroy them if it could. Were not Georing, Mussolini, Geobbles, all legitimate targets in WWII? They didn't personally kill anyone. But they are still the enemy. If Europe is swallowed up by Islam it will be due to its own lack of willingness to fight for its belief systems. You can NOT tolerate the intolerance of ISLAM and remain free. Either fight or sit down, shut up and wait for the thugs to come knocking at your door. As far as I can see, Geert Wilders is the only man with a pair of stones left in Dutch society.
I have gone past speculating about whether Wilders will win or lose. He has offended Muslims and helped make people hate the religion and despise its practitioners - and justifiably so. But this kind of law was not brought in for any other reason than to protect Muslims, and more, to protect Islam. This court is complicit in actively Islamising Europe: we can no longer comfort ourselves by thinking they are naive or stupid or whatever. Wilders is in their way and has to be stopped.
And nothing can prevent the commencement of civil wars all over the Western world. The Western world has some very hard lessons to learn, such as that each generation must struggle on behalf of the next, not simply enjoy itself. This generation has put its energy into being "cool", and has rendered the next horribly vulnerable.
Now,I am wondering what his punishment will be. A fine might not be enough for the triumphant winners, and jail will put him out of the way, silenced. But they have to let him out eventually, and then what?
The biggest question is WHY? I suspect Bat Ye'or is right and there have been deals made decades ago for the handing over of Europe to the Islamic world, but that doesn't explain the US or Australia, who have signed up to political correctness big-time.
It is hellishly unnerving, this trying out of feeble writing and protests, while the Muslims make big gains daily, and the planeloads (and boatloads)just keep coming.
There is just one hope I have. Muslims say they are insulted. What if Wilders says in his defence that they are only PRETENDING to be insulted, and that this pretence is itself vexatious? After all, they should know what is in their "holy" book and be able to quite easily connect it with certain events. If they don't know, what are they doing calling themselves "Muslims"?
That's better. I feel hopeful again.
I Wish Dr Forood Fouladvand was here in Britain as he would be enough to Crush Islam as he did before he was Abducted by The Terrorist Ayatollahs of Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_xhPdTHW0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS4QPVeOdX4&feature=email
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b31dlMR-PrQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlIWomMkNxU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27YUrVFkKE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a5kNVaNFwk&feature=related
If Wilders is imprisoned, he will be killed soon after by a Muslim inmate.
Hard Rain,
"...but maybe he's just trying to get his ass off the line."
If that were so, he'd just apologize and retract his positions.
"...we run the risk of losing our credibility by suddenly, apparently, transmogrifying into a bunch of conspiracy theorists, n'est pas?"
I don't think it's conspiracy-theory to speculate that Wilders is exploiting the spectacle of his own trial. That doesn't mean the trial isn't a serious attack on him by his own government, but why not make lemonade out of lemons? My speculation has the advantage of explaining why Wilders persists in maintaining an incoherent position ("I'm against the Koran, which is evil and dangerous, but not Islam necessarily, and I have nothing against Muslims") -- he's isolating his "crime" to merely criticizing the Koran and by implication those Muslims who are preaching & practicing an Islam based on the bad parts of the Koran; while he is insisting that his focus does not widen out to anything beyond that -- not to Islam in general, nor to Muslims in general. This is an untenable and unstable focus, for the focus logically widens out to those wider boundaries. His focus thus, following my speculation, is not intended to be a coherent intellectual position, but is only intended to cast a spotlight on the Koran and to show that that part of his critique is true; and if the government admits it or denies it and punishes him, Wilders will have succeeded in bringing this to light, with that much more trust that the wider logical implications will have a better chance of unfolding more broadly in the West.
My blog essay on this:
Who's the real kangaroo?
Relished the Pat Condell video. Perhaps his best so far. When the law diverges from common sense and ethics, which it occasionally will even in the most advanced of polities, you have a dire situation for any free society which desires to remain free. The law and what is right and sensible should correspond with one another. But this doesn't always happen. As Pat Condell rightly noted (Hesperado too), the law in The Netherlands is presently an abomination and opposed to real justice and truth (but still the law).
William Seward observed the same in the 1850s, when slavery was still legal in many American states. He asserted that there is a higher law than what man decrees is law, and when the two are out of sync the higher law must be deferred to. My strong hunch is that the Amsterdam judges in charge of the Geert Wilders trial are clueless of this timeless truth.
Someone should tell MR. Berlusconi to go set the record straight with those Dutch Judges, GO get the Wilders!
The land of B. Spinoza
Fears free inquiry
Into religious tradition
If it too militant be.
Hate speech gets condemnation
If from a native mouth
But not if its a mutation
From the sacred global "South".
Again, to be sung to the tune of "Het Wilhelmus"
"He [Seward] asserted that there is a higher law than what man decrees is law, and when the two are out of sync the higher law must be deferred to."
Up until recently most in the West wouldn't have had any problem with this. However, isn't this essentially the same concept invoked by Muslims who insist that sharia law, being inspired by Allah, must be deferred to in cases of conflict with secular, i.e. Western, law? A way needs to be found to refine this concept in such a way that it is cleansed of the means by which Islamic leeches can attach themselves.
As Geert Wilders goes to trial we can still reflect on what The Prosecutor General’s Office said: Geert Wilder's didn’t make any discriminatory remarks or incite hatred in his movie Fitna. They came to that conclusion after what was supposed to have been a thorough investigation
The Prosecutors office said a number of Wilders’ statements where insulting to Muslims, but they were made within the context of a debate. .
Investigating Prosecutors factored in that Wilders has talked about Islam as a religion and not about individual Muslims in their judgment. They found that Wilders’ statements and remarks were limited to Islam as a religious organization only.”- - - - - - - - -
The movie Fitna was posted almost 3 years ago on the internet. Wilders made his production “to show the dangers of the Koran and Islam”. But the Dutch Government criticized the film shortly after its release and felt it was made purely to insult Muslims. A strange fact was found at the time the political hacks where condemning Fitna that very few had actually viewed the 15 minute film?
The investigation made by the justice department took several months to complete. This was due to the fact that Dutch investigators used national and European regulations against discrimination to come to their conclusions.
Prosecuting investigators also asked for external advice from the highest levels of university professors to reach their view that Geert Wilders should not be prosecuted.
So the question is what forces in the Netherlands decided to Prosecute Geert Wilders anyway?
Spirit of 1683- Please note that I said advanced at least by MEDIEVAL standards, not classical standards. And of course my point was that they have not progressed one bit in the last 800 years, not that they should be admired for their past culture.
Seward was indeed referring to what Thomas Aquinas some six hundred years before Seward had referred to as natural law. And, of course, Aquinas, being the devout Christian that he was, meant that natural law was God-inspired, God-created, law. (And even if this isn't so, and I'm inclined to think it isn't so, it is still best to assume that it is. It's all part of Voltaire's sapient approach which maintained that if God doesn't exist we'll have to invent Him.)
So far this appears to be, as you noted, Eastview, very similar to what Muslims aver about Sharia. But here's the difference I would argue: Islamic religious law represents a bastardization of natuarl law. In effect, we see what an enlightend religion, i.e. Christianity (Judaism too), can accomplish in conjunction with enlightened man-made legal systems; one becomes very supportive of the other. But when a religion is as fundamentally flawed as Islam is (not addressing here the ultimate truth of a religion but rather its features as to be applied here on earth), then appealing to it over decent man-made legal systems (e.g., Common Law or Roman Law) will make everything go askew and thus get most everything wrong, including no appreciation for true liberty.
Thanks Hesperado, for that great illuminating explanation about the PC-MC-mentality. I learned and enjoyed!
What struck me in the 2 Dutch laws that you showed:
They talk about insulting and inciting to hatred and discrimination on the one hand for;
People who are born or afflicted into a race or a disability or sexual tendencies (assuming that it is genetical and not just a choice)
and on the other hand for:
People with certain religions/ beliefs. But these are chosen, people can change these, so can be held accountable for these, can't they?
Lately I was speculating; there now are many ex-muslims who also should be respected as a group with certain beliefs, feelings, aren't there? Or maybe the beliefs, feelings of Democratic people should also be respected?
And I was thinking, can't it be that we still view most humans as good, nice, warm etc, but only in some cases "connected" with a religion and a section of its followers that are abhorrent, and hostile-dangerous to our culture and freedom? So only partly objectionable?
And we may even throw in that it is not all of this religion and only a part of its followers we are objecting to, with still very valid objections. And still very valid grounds for opposing and attacking that faith and hold its followers accountable?
PhotoFuck
http://thewestistheverybest.punt.nl/?id=501265&r=1&tbl_archief=&
Islam itself insults many, many humans by making them believe they are 'muslims' who have a holy duty to discriminate against all others as less-than-humans, based on 'religion.'
;-)
Islame has never been superior to the west, in any way. Dracul had cannons before the Sultan had even heard of gunpowder.
As for: "When the law diverges from common sense and ethics, which it occasionally will even in the most advanced of polities..."
...and:
"William Seward... in the 1850s... asserted that there is a higher law than what man decrees is law, and when the two are out of sync the higher law must be deferred to.
ALL 'Western' civilization is based on THE Law (originally coined by a wholly Eastern, Chinese gentleman named Cong Fuzi, aka Confucius) known to us today as The Golden Rule.
It was phrased in the negative, and, later, allegedly by Jesus, in the positive:
Said Rule (sans the thees and thous) boils down to where, when we crazy-monkey humans meet The Other, we generally usually kinda mostly all agree - TO NOT ATTACK FIRST.
ALL sub-sequent Laws are based on this rule, which even small children instinctively know as the "BUT MOM! THEY STARTED IT! Rule"...
The Hippocratic oath is: "First - Do No Harm" and the UN's founding Charter defines THE #1 War-Crime as being to be 'The Aggressor' in War.
Ethics, on the other hand, are for people (like Muhammad and Hitler, for instance) entirely without morals: for those who have *already* decided to break that One Rule, and attack first - in "certain, officially-prescribed instances" i.e: in this case, but not that one; when this 'i' is not dotted, but that 't' is crossed... and it is in this way, that all Laws, by defining crimes, in fact create them.
There is no morality in Islam, which clearly commands that they *will always* attack first - so there!
IN Islam, there is no morality; there is only 'allowed' and 'disallowed,' based on a very shallow and pessimistic, shit-happens, merely observational and descriptive bit of rhetoric, and of course upon the same ages-old 'evolutionary' law of the jungle, of might-makes-right, appended with "Because God Says So!"
;-(
'Ethics' is only: Honour among thieves.
;-)
Hesperado
Yes, I read the full piece and I see what you're driving at. Hopefully he's as smart as you think he might be and is looking at all the levels on which this trial might offer us a 'win'. Or maybe he'll get the chance to read your blog and take note.
Of course, Britain has it's own equivalent of the Dutch hate-speech laws. The government first proposed them a few years ago at the time when Omar Bakri Mohammed and 'hooky' Abu Hamza were making the same kinds of confrontational statements we're now having to put with from Anjem Choudary.
In the mainstream media these laws were presented to the British public in such a way that everyone assumed their purpose was to gag the Muslim supremacists, and public feeling was running so strongly against Bakri & co. that the laws were quickly adopted with widespread popular approval. It didn't occur to many at the time that these same laws could also be used to close down free-speech or legitimate analysis and criticism.
The purpose of any government, of course, is to maintain peace and good order. In order to live within British society you must agree to abide by our social contract and enter into the 'Queen's peace'. Loud Muslim voices calling for the overthrow of the government, and Infidel voices answering with loud condemnations of aggressive Islamic doctrine, upset Britain's time-honoured image of a settled, peaceful society and create an atmosphere of unrest which the government feels duty-bound to rectify.
Unable or unwilling to address the Muslim supremacist ideology which is the real root of the problem, the government is using the hate-speech laws to silence any strident voices on both sides of the Muslim/Infidel confrontation, and thus present at least the impression of public order and peaceful co-existence. If they can make us all just shut up and stop rocking the boat they will at least appear to have the problem under control.
Unfortunately for them, the silencing of voices won't make the problem go away. The squashing of public debate and open argument may lend an impression that all is well, but its appearance is purely superficial and its effect is strictly short-term. The debates, arguments and demonstrations, angry letters to the press and our MPs, or even shouting our heads off at Hyde Park corner, are just some of the many avenues of free expression that we, as a people, have come to view as our birthright. More importantly, from the point of view of social cohesion, they act as pressure valves for the public to 'let off steam' and help to dissipate public anguish over contentious issues. You don't feel as bad about a problem if you've had the chance to shout about it. Using the hate-speech laws to suppress debate means sealing off the pressure valve, but what happens then? The real problem hasn't been addressed so the pressure continues to build, but without any safety valves through which to vent, the lid will eventually blow off. When it does, the government, by opting for a short-term fix for the sake of appearances, will be complicit in any horror that follows.
There's a certain grim inevitability to the road we're on. We all know where it's leading but we're all being carried along nevertheless, marching in lock-step towards it. Ours are the only voices shouting a warning that we're actually heading towards the edge of a precipice. Too many of us know too much about our own wars of religion for it not to weigh heavily on our minds. The hate-speech laws are merely accelerating our thunderous march towards the inevitable.
"And nothing can prevent the commencement of civil wars all over the Western world."
Just a matter of when (It will brew for years though). The sad thing is that if there was not so much post ww2 scarring and collective guilt (PCMC included), the issues could have at least be discussed and acted on.
Monocultures work for a reason - they are unified, not split in to various ethnic enclaves.
A house divided against itself cannot stand (AL - or Mat 12:25).
Does anybody know if there is an appeal process available to Geert if the court rules against him. Here in the USA such a denial of material witnesses would be grounds for a mistrial or appeal.
Good question (the same one I posed here a couple of days ago). I hope someone is familiar enough with the Dutch/EU legal system to comment on this.
Interesting comment about Confucius. The injunction of "don't do to anyone else what you wouldn't want done to you" is sometimes cited as the equivalent of the Golden Rule "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." They two aren't exactly equivalent, of course, as a Venn representation of the logic readily reveals. But I wonder if they could be combined into something like "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, unless they object in which case don't do it."
WAFA SULTAN IS A BRAVE ,HONEST,AND WONDERFUL WOMAN.GOD BLESS HER.WEST MUST PROTECT HER FROM PSYCHOTICS AND FANATICS MUSLIMS.SHE S IN DANGER,PLEASE PROTECT HER.
Demsci, you wrote:
"And we may even throw in that it is not all of this religion and only a part of its followers we are objecting to, with still very valid objections. And still very valid grounds for opposing and attacking that faith and hold its followers accountable?"
As an abstract principle, this may apply in some cases. But in my estimation it doesn't apply concretely to Islam. There are no salvageable benign parts to Islam (contrary to what Robert Spencer, among others in the still inchoate anti-Islam movement who should know better, maintain), and there is no workable way to winnow out the harmless Muslims (if they exist) from the dangerous ones.
Hard Rain, I'm not familiar with Great Britain's evolution of hate speech laws, but although there was that proposal in 2006 to tighten up the nuts and bolts, I believe the general principle goes back many years before that, though perhaps GB has pursued this less zealously than some European countries.
I found this interesting quote from an article about the general evolution of European hate speech laws:
"the European Union, April 30, 2004 2 Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia... Though this proposal was submitted approximately two months after the 9-11 attacks, the focus was not on hate speech by Islamic radicals, but on far-right groups and neo-Nazis, as can be seen in the proposal (the discussion of which started before 9-11). The issue of hate speech was originally conceived at the EU level as being basically a problem of the far-right (interview with MEP A of Justice and Home Affairs). 4 Interviews with MEP A and MEP B on the Justice and Home Affairs, interview with the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) director."
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/1/7/4/pages201745/p201745-3.php
More from that article:
"Once discussion commenced in the European Council, many Member States expressed concern over the limiting of freedom of speech and the UK also expressed concern over the addition of religion as a protected category. In an attempt to reach an agreement, numerous concessions were made, including allowing for making hate speech based on religion illegal only if it was a pretext for racial hatred..."
"...the Racial Equality Directive, passed in 2000, was passed in part because of the “Austrian situation”, in which the far-right Freedom party came to power. This was used by lobbyists to push through the law, as Austria would not oppose it out of fear of further ostracization and the other Member States would pass the law out of horror of election of the Freedom party (Niessen and Chopin 2004). This “policy window” (Kindon 1985) and fear of ostracization appears to have passed. 15 Council of the European Union, Interinstitutional File 2001/0270 (CNS), interviews with MEP A of Justice and Home Affairs and ENAR director 16 EU Observer, 2-24-2005 7..."
We can see in the above quotes glimpses in the European context of the nexus between anti-racism, Rightwing-phobia, and Islam (i.e., the only "religion" that is of concern here, and furthermore the only "religion" whose members are regarded as an ethnic people hence vulnerable to "racism" if criticized).
And for the link between the European response to the Holocaust and all this, more glimpses:
On the development of the EU proposal to try to stem if not ban "racism", the article goes on:
"In general, the first hate speech legislation in European nations in the 20th century was aimed at stopping political racism, specifically fascism and generally (though not always) was enacted after World War II (Rosenfeld 2003; Fennema 2000). Those early laws used racism and anti-Semitism as proxies for fascism to stop fascist parties (Fennema 2000).
"After the war, the United Nations, through various declarations and treaties, sought to fight racist regimes in Africa and the United States (Fennema 2000; Banton 1998). In its International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (IECRD) the UN linked racial discrimination with racism, in an effort to outlaw not only discriminatory treatment but also hate speech and other elements of racism that might not fall under the definition of racial discrimination.
"However, while the UN was seeking to eliminate racism by governments, in Western Europe the ICERD was used against racism by individual citizens and political movements—it was interpreted to mean that individuals should not be racist (Fennema 2000). This was especially true after 1970, when anti-immigrant parties did not always have a link with fascism, and could therefore not be easily charged under anti-fascist legislation."
With that last bolded statement we could add that, as with Vlaams Belang, a "link to fascism" was zealously sought even with flimsy evidence of its existence, if such evidence was not manufactured, in order to marginalize, ostracise and/or criminalize parties that were only anti-immigrant (with special or sometimes sole emphasis on Muslim immigrants).
Another glimpse into the European mindset that links racism to a response to the Holocaust:
"As noted earlier, the EU conceives of the problem of hate as stemming mainly from right-wing racist and xenophobic parties, and as a majority-on-minority problem. Aside from ignoring the increasing problem on minority-on-minority violence and hate 17 , this view focuses often on restricting political speech, the results of which may have unintended consequences... Other categories, such as sex and sexuality, were not included in the proposal. When asked if there was an interest in adding these groups [i.e., crimes against women], a representative from an EU funded anti-racism group replied that “women aren’t killed because they are women”, and she then referenced the Holocaust. "
As the article notes (albeit with a characteristic Islam-less reference):
"This Euro-centric view ignores the somewhat recently discovered phenomenon of “honor-killings” among some immigrant populations."
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/1/7/4/pages201745/p201745-8.php
Simple solution for Geert is to open the Koran and let the hate speech and offensive language out of the 'Pandora's box'. This book justifies practically all criminal acts against non-Muhammadens.
Geert has an amazing opportunity to put hatefilled Muhammaden suicidal terror texts on trial. If he is able to do this while gaining enough publicity, the whole sleeping world will see that Muhammad went and Muhammadens after him go beyond 'hate speech' into 'hate filled actions'.
Hesperado wrote:
"...but maybe he's just trying to get his ass off the line."
If that were so, he'd just apologize and retract his positions.
.....................
Excellent point, Hesperado. Geert Wilders is sticking to his principles.
Here's my tribute to both Geert Wilders and Wafa Sultan (and a few other brave Heroes Against Jihad):
http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr144/gravenimageartist/?action=view¤t=JWHGW.jpg&newest=1
kiphamilton wrote:
Please note that I said advanced at least by MEDIEVAL standards, not classical standards. And of course my point was that they have not progressed one bit in the last 800 years, not that they should be admired for their past culture.
.....................
I think if you look into this history, kip, you will find that much of what is lauded as the "Islamic Golden Age" generally involved territories recently conquered by Muslims.
Many of the historical figures thus lauded turn out to be Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, or very recent converts—as well as those considered heretics or apostates.
Most of these "Golden Ages" were short-lived, as the brightest lights fled, were murdered, or found their demoralized descendants either crushed under dhimmitude if they didn't convert to Islam, or succumbing to inshallah-fatalism if they did.
If—God forbid—Islam ever does conquer the West, I believe will will witness another "Islamic Golden Age", as all Westerners—Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists, what have you—will have their great work assumed to be "Islamic".
But eventually, the same process would occur, where creative people of all sorts would either flee, be murdered or censored, or disappear under the strictures of Islamic law.
In no time, we would see what we see in so much of the Muslim world today—violent, backward and inert cultures.