The Geert Wilders trial

[Fragony]

I am even friends with a few of them. Painting all muslims as rabid animals is pretty dirty to do, as what you argue is the "left" is trying to say that this minority isn't an excuse to discriminate against all muslims and arabs.

So do I (yy bring it on), and Wilders doesn't do that, we are talking about different things, he clearly makes the distinction between the Islam and individual muslims.

[Beskar]

So do I (yy bring it on), and Wilders doesn't do that, we are talking about different things, he clearly makes the distinction between the Islam and individual muslims.

Yet there is two big branches of Islam (Shi'ite and Sunni), and on-top of that, the belief of Western Muslims, which do things like drink alcohol, the females not wearing burkas and other various things.

The newsreader actually makes some good counterpoints in that video you linked, where Geert Wilders stumbles about trying to counter-them.

I can fully understand there are fundamentalist muslims which want to bomb the world and want to make the world muslim, however, I fully understand that they are a minority and the best way is not to label all muslims as these and discriminate against them. That is a big crucial difference.

[Fragony]

I can fully understand there are fundamentalist muslims which want to bomb the world and want to make the world muslim, however, I fully understand that they are a minority and the best way is not to label all muslims as these and discriminate against them. That is a big crucial difference.

Again, he doesn't do that, that's a leftist reflex.

[HoreTore]

He's not being charged with blasphemy laws... he's being charged with discriminating against groups based on their beliefs and heritage.

Unless he has caused some physical damage, I don't really see the difference.

Hating people shouldn't make you a criminal.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hating someone doesn't. Actively promoting hatred towards others does. Did Wilders do that?

[Beskar]

Hating someone doesn't. Actively promoting hatred towards others does. Did Wilders do that?

That is why there is this court case.

[Fragony]

That is why there is this court case.

Nah, this case is just the fatal mistake they had to make at some point, this is no trial it's a ritual dance, whatever comes out of it it has already been decided. They didn't expect the commotion, and they certainly didn't expect public opinion would turn against them, even most of Wilders most rapid enemies draw the line just like Horetore does, they find freedom of speech more important then political capital.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Netherlands is still governed by the rule of law. This is not a political trail, this is a trail with political implications.

Other democracies have laws against defamation too. In this very thread there have been links to similar cases in both the Netherlands and Belgium.

The court case is interesting. It revolves around the issue where defamation of a religion ends, and defamation of a people and incitement to hatred begins.


In a clever move, Wilders bases his defense on the insistence that his statements aren't merely not an incitement to hatred, but are simply true as well. He might force the court in this manner into an outright polical verdict - which is what he seeks.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Geert Wilders: 'I want Muslim fanatic to speak in my defence' donderdag, 21 januari 2010 Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-Right MP, has demanded that his race hate trial should hear evidence from the fanatic who used the Koran to justify killing the director of an anti-Islamic film.
It marked an incendiary opening to the landmark case that has divided the Netherlands over the limits of freedom. Mr Wilders, 46, who is accused of incitement and discrimination, asked for 18 witnesses to be called in his defence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who stabbed and shot Theo Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street in 2004.
The Van Gogh murder left a deep scar on the national conscience. It helped to change the mood of tolerance of Islam, and boosted Mr Wilders’s popularity.
Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom came second in the European elections last summer, faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law in more than 100 public statements — for example, by likening the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the “Islamic invasion”. He could be fined or jailed if convicted.
The alleged offences include Mr Wilders’s film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a clip of the controversial Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the opening day of the trial the prosecution objected to the request to hear from Bouyeri, and the panel of four judges adjourned until February 3 to consider which witnesses to call. “This case is about more than Mr Wilders,” Bram Moszkowicz, his lawyer, told the court. “It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences.”
Mr Moszkowicz argued that the witnesses Mr Wilders wanted to call would prove that what he said was not simply inoffensive but true. He suggested that Bouyeri, a dual Moroccan-Dutch national, would be key to the case because he was a fervent Muslim who carried a Koran during his trial and defended his crime by claiming that Islam permitted violence against unbelievers.
The prosecution countered that, unlike the other witnesses — mostly academics and theologians — Bouyeri was not an authority and should not be called.
About 200 supporters of Mr Wilders travelled to Amsterdam District Court from as far as Germany to hold up placards declaring that free speech was under attack by Islam and political correctness. Eighty packed into the public gallery, applauding Mr Wilders and his lawyer.
Ulrich Rosendahl, 46, an engineer who took the day off work to travel from Cologne to support Mr Wilders, held up a banner outside the court which read: “Wilders does as \ Chaplin did. He attacks fascism — Islamo.”
Mr Rosendahl said: “I support what he says and I know he has lived under police protection for many years and I think that he pays a high price to fight for freedom of speech.”
Mr Moszkowicz said that Mr Wilders had a mandate as an MP to speak out against what he saw as the Islamisation of the Netherlands. Birgit van Roessel, for the prosecution, said that “expressing his opinion in the media or through other channels is not part of an MP’s duties.” She said that MPs had immunity for only what they said inside parliament.

Geert Wilders' personal speech at pre-trial hearing woensdag, 20 januari 2010 Mister Speaker, judges of the court,
I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.
Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.
I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.
I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but neither do I intend to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.
Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.
Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.
Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.
In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.
This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be a fair trial.

'Europe's most persecuted man': http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php...tpage&Itemid=1

[Fragony]

In a clever move, Wilders bases his defense on the insistence that his statements aren't merely not an incitement to hatred, but are simply true as well. He might force the court in this manner into an outright polical verdict - which is what he seeks.

He never asked for this, but can't blame him for making the most out of it. Never stop your enemy if they are making a mistake a famous Frenchman once said. What he did is put the Islam itself on trial, and his prosecutors will now have to defend it, that is a pretty nasty position to be in, Wilders can just take the Quran and they will have to put it into the proper historical context, which is totally unclear as there is still plenty of debate among muslims themselves on how and what, impossible task. They should have seen that coming, Wilders is a very handy politician and a clever bloke, although I suspect he has flown in some spin-doctors from the USA who understand the game a little better.

[Furunculus]

In a clever move, Wilders bases his defense on the insistence that his statements aren't merely not an incitement to hatred, but are simply true as well. He might force the court in this manner into an outright polical verdict - which is what he seeks.

i don't like incitement-to-hatred laws, but if one is going to have them then a case like this is perfect as it will crystallise the limit of the application of the law insomuch as a statement can be truthful, and yet be perceived as hateful by the affronted party, and where one precept must bow to the other.

i will laugh if he is not convicted of inciting hatred
i will laugh if he is not found to have stated untruths
i will cry if he is not found to have stated untruths, but he is still convicted of inciting hatred

[Fragony]

I'll let the man speak for himself, not a word of Spanish in it so to say.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f71_1205515340

[HoreTore]

Hating someone doesn't. Actively promoting hatred towards others does. Did Wilders do that?

And that shouldn't be illegal either, IMO. It serves no purpose.

[Fragony]

And that shouldn't be illegal either, IMO. It serves no purpose.

Well that is where I draw the line, that should certainly be illegal.

[HoreTore]

Well that is where I draw the line, that should certainly be illegal.

Nonsense. Free speech means free speech. I draw the line when something other than talking goes on. Of course, planning violent acts would go under that.

But incitement to violence and such should be met with arguments and debate, using the courts is counter-productive, it won't solve anything. Also, these arguments should be encouraged to come out into the public, they only represent a danger when people hide away with their grumbles. That's when violent acts can happen.

When they are brought into the public light, they will be ridiculed and shunned, which is what we want.

[Fragony]

But incitement to violence and such should be met with arguments and debate

What is there to discus, nothing if you ask me. Freedom of speech is protection from the government not a permission to say what you want about anybody, there is a difference. Wilders never crossed that line, nor did his voters. Is there any incident we caused? Did we beat somebody up? Treat anybody badly? Anything at all, most of all anything that is bad. Hate is not an opinion so it has no place in politics, they can have it at their local bar, or tea-house.

[Meneldil]

Guy's right. I hope this nonsense trial will put an end to the pathetic little self censorship imposed on anything that somehow looks like a criticism of islam.

And that's coming from a leftist.

[CrossLOPER]

I love how everyone keeps using this image. I'm really glad you like it, Frag.

[Fragony]

Also have our president for....... I dunno

[HoreTore]

What is there to discus, nothing if you ask me. Freedom of speech is protection from the government not a permission to say what you want about anybody, there is a difference. Wilders never crossed that line, nor did his voters. Is there any incident we caused? Did we beat somebody up? Treat anybody badly? Anything at all, most of all anything that is bad. Hate is not an opinion so it has no place in politics, they can have it at their local bar, or tea-house.

Everything can be discussed! You should know that after these years in the backroom, Frags...

But I don't think you understood what I meant.... For example, let's say you have an old Nazi somewhere. He himself won't be a physical threat to anyone, the threat lies in his ability to recruit others. However, he will only be able to convince others if he isn't met with any resistance, any reasonably read man will tear his logic apart, so it'll only work in private. If his arguments are brought before us all in public, he will of course be ridiculed and shunned, and he won't be able to recruit people...

Like what happened to the norwegian nazi's when they ran for election last year; they got some 5 votes and are now all disbanded.

[Fragony]

But I don't think you understood what I meant.... For example, let's say you have an old Nazi somewhere. He himself won't be a physical threat to anyone, the threat lies in his ability to recruit others. However, he will only be able to convince others if he isn't met with any resistance, any reasonably read man will tear his logic apart, so it'll only work in private. If his arguments are brought before us all in public, he will of course be ridiculed and shunned, and he won't be able to recruit people...

You are making the mistake of arguing from what you consider to be an already established position, it is not.

[HoreTore]

You are making the mistake of arguing from what you consider to be an already established position, it is not.

No, I'm arguing on a general basis, unrelated to Wilders...

[The Wizard]

I am happy to learn that by some as of yet unknown mechanism, the Dutch are uniquely in Europe completely free from any post-colonial trauma, revanchism or displacedness.
I am also happy to learn that despite what every anthropologist or political scientist says, there is no Indo community in the Netherlands, these non-existing people have no post-colonial trauma, and unlike each and every other repatriated colonial group in Europe, their integration into the society of the motherland has left not a single scar.

You learn something new every day. In particular, the depths to which taboo and a culture of silence may have a stranglehold on even modern 21st century European societies.
If only Adrian were here, I could rub in how right I was when I said that 'silence' is the Dutch way of dealing with the past. I've hit the same brick wall when stating obvious truths about the Dutch past that are commonly accepted throughout the world, but remain stubbornly denied, or even more worryingly, as is also the case with Wilders' origin here, completely unknown in the Netherlands.



Look, unease about immigration and anti-Islamic sentiment is common throughout Europe, and not less common in countries and cultures that do not have any displaced former colonials in the first place. This is blisteringly obvious, so it should be equally obvious that an exploration of Wilders' origins is not meant as a complete explanation of his thought, nor of that of his followers. To dismiss it as such is a strawman at best, and painful anti-intellectualism at worst.

Let me ask you a simple question: do you know any Indo's? No? I do. None of them froth at the mouth when the subject of Muslims comes up. In fact, some of our best mutual friends are Muslims. Moluccans, perhaps, are a different matter, but even they usually aren't raging PVV-voting Islam haters. That is, perhaps, only a small and bitter element of the Moluccan minority -- and even then that segment of Moluccans is probably a lot more bitter at the Dutch majority and the Dutch state for lying to them, not delivering on their promises and putting them in concentration camps.

But you probably don't know what Moluccans are, or do you? And you don't know what I mean when I say the Dutch state lied to them, do you? 'Cause you aren't exactly showing much knowledge of our society and our (colonial) history in this thread. In fact, because of your posts, I'm having a hard time not flying into a screaming rage about overbearing, know-it-all Frenchmen.

If anybody in this country has a problem with bitterness and nationalism (and there is), it's the ethnic Dutch majority, primarily those concentrated on the countryside and in well-off neighborhoods bordering crappy immigrant boroughs (the main PVV constituency). And that's what many people do not know or wish to admit.

[Fragony]

In fact, because of your posts, I'm having a hard time not flying into a screaming rage about overbearing, know-it-all Frenchmen.

In a way you do prove one of his points though, cause he isn't the only one who has a rather poor knowledge of our colonial history. We are much more guilty of ignorance, Louis probably knows more about it then the average Dutchman, probably just by even knowing something happened.

[The Wizard]

That would be a rather twisted and malformed bit of proof, then.

[Fragony]

That would be a rather twisted and malformed bit of proof, then.

It it's a rather twisted and malformed sentiment to rule it out altogether, Louis didn't just make our colonial history up. He is wrong, but he isn't stupid.

[Kralizec]

But incitement to violence and such should be met with arguments and debate, using the courts is counter-productive, it won't solve anything. Also, these arguments should be encouraged to come out into the public, they only represent a danger when people hide away with their grumbles. That's when violent acts can happen.

I think laws against incitement of hatred are ridiculous (seeing as how "hating someone" itself is not a crime) but incitement against violence should be very illegal and punished accordingly.

Ask yourself this: A hires a bunch of thugs to beat up minorities. B encourages his followers to beat up minorities. Wich of them should be punished? Both?

Moluccans, perhaps, are a different matter, but even they usually aren't raging PVV-voting Islam haters. That is, perhaps, only a small and bitter element of the Moluccan minority -- and even then that segment of Moluccans is probably a lot more bitter at the Dutch majority and the Dutch state for lying to them, not delivering on their promises and putting them in concentration camps.

Very true.
A few years back I had a job/internship in Assen, where there's a sizable Mollucan community. One morning I arrived on the trainstation and came across dozens of cops and ME personel (=riot cops) on the way to work. Wich is not usually the case in Assen.
Turns out, that day was an anniversery of something (the 30th of the train crisis near De Punt I think, but I'm not sure) and the police, for some reason, feared there'd be riots.
As far as I know nothing serious happened that day, though.

[The Wizard]

It it's a rather twisted and malformed sentiment to rule it out altogether, Louis didn't just make our colonial history up. He is wrong, but he isn't stupid.

He's making stuff up if he's claiming there's a widespread pied-noir sentiment that Geert Wilders supposedly draws from amongst our Indo minority which simply is not there.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Let me ask you a simple question: do you know any Indo's? No? I do. None of them froth at the mouth when the subject of Muslims comes up. In fact, some of our best mutual friends are Muslims. Moluccans, perhaps, are a different matter, but even they usually aren't raging PVV-voting Islam haters. That is, perhaps, only a small and bitter element of the Moluccan minority -- and even then that segment of Moluccans is probably a lot more bitter at the Dutch majority and the Dutch state for lying to them, not delivering on their promises and putting them in concentration camps.

But you probably don't know what Moluccans are, or do you? And you don't know what I mean when I say the Dutch state lied to them, do you? 'Cause you aren't exactly showing much knowledge of our society and our (colonial) history in this thread. In fact, because of your posts, I'm having a hard time not flying into a screaming rage about overbearing, know-it-all Frenchmen.

A) Moluccans are not relevant.
B) Of course I know what Moluccans are. 'Louis VI' is only a forum name. We, 'Louis', are a group of experts with knowledge encompassing everything under the sun.

Moluccans are 'Harkis', Indos are 'Pieds-noirs'. The former are indigenous peoples. The latter are colonists, sometimes of mixed race. Predominantly mixed in the case of Indo, mostly European in the case of the Pieds-noirs, unless one considers the Mezzogiorno to be Africa and
Each group has its own history, and lingering sensitivities.

Harkis/Moluccans are indigenous people who sided with the colonisers.
After the independence war was lost, the Harkis/Moluccans could no longer remain in the colony, which didn't want them anymore and where they were not safe. For having served militarily for the cause of the motherland, they were shipped to Europe. There they were unwelcome too, for being indiginous peoples, non-Europeans. This, and the sense of betrayal by the motherland for whom they fought harder than the motherland fought for them, caused a lot of resentment, which lingers on to this day.

See? It is not hard at all to understand Moluccans.
Nor Indos. The Dutch claim to uniqueness does not hold up. The difference between the Netherlands and the rest of Europe is not the past itself, but a willingness to deal with this past. Ireland has suffered from too much historical awareness. Poland suffers from too much historical navelgazing. The Netherlands, for its part, deals with its past by silence.
On the upside, silence is an excellent means of forgetting, persist in it for long enough and history vanishes indeed.


The Dutch, both the Europeans and those repatriated from Indonesia, have chosen to forget. But this is difficult for the repatriated. People tend to ask themselves questions, to wonder where they came from. They see old family pictures. The family home in that other land. They remember with bitter fondness the colony - which was their natural home, where they had lived for as long as Europeans have lived in the US.
There is the trauma of the motherland - cold, unhospitable and alien. In both people and climate. There is the cold shoulder from their 'European' neighbours. The allegations levelled at them of colonialism, of exploitation. The lost family belongings, sometimes even wealth.
The climate, the food, the family home - none of which were ever experienced again for most. There was never full acceptance in the motherland, the displaced colonial remains more foreign in the motherland than in the homeland from which history had driven him away. So foreign, so cold, that many moved on, emigrated to a new future altogether -America, Canada, Australia

Ask your Indo friends. Ask your friends' parents, grandparents. Yes, dig deep enough and you will find the traumas, they will be there.



Displaced peoples, diaspora, forced relocation - it is nothing new. These are intensely studied fields of 20th century history. Just why the Pieds-noirs in France are a bulwark of the FN, why the Vertriebene in Germany are far more to the right than the German population at large, or why the Indos of the Netherlands tend towards the hardright must remain a subject for another post. I shall gladly oblige should people be at all interested in discussing this.

[Louis VI the Fat]

He's making stuff up if he's claiming there's a widespread pied-noir sentiment that Geert Wilders supposedly draws from amongst our Indo minority which simply is not there.

I have given you Van Leeuwen. Herself an Indo. An antropologist, and a polical scientist. She states that the Indo community historically had a very large number of fascists back in the colony, have strong anti-immigration feelings in the motherland, widely share anti-Islamic sentiment ('the Muslims drove us out of Indonesia'), and have a very large support for Wilders, who is one of their own*.

You have given me 'some of my Indo-friends' best friends are Muslim'....







I would be interested in numbers of political parties this demography voted for, is a member of. A study, a link, which shows Van Leeuwen is wrong in her assertment of the political preference of many Indos.



*Kralizec just taught us that not only Wilders, but his political mentor as well is Indo. Kralizec uses this to relegate into the bin the claim that Wilders personal background is relevant. Me, it bolsters me in the belief that one should not a priori exclude the possibility that Wilders background is not entirely irrelevant for a deeper understanding of this man.

[HoreTore]

I think laws against incitement of hatred are ridiculous (seeing as how "hating someone" itself is not a crime) but incitement against violence should be very illegal and punished accordingly.

Ask yourself this: A hires a bunch of thugs to beat up minorities. B encourages his followers to beat up minorities. Wich of them should be punished? Both?

That would be planning to commit violence, wouldn't it?