The absurd trial of Geert Wilders

The Dutch state is prosecuting the platform of the country’s most popular opposition party

by Mark Steyn on Thursday, February 18, 2010 7:00am - 185 Comments

There’s no shortage of volunteers. In the Low Countries, whenever anyone seeks to discuss Islam outside the very narrow bounds of multicultural political discourse, they wind up either banned (Belgium’s Vlaams Blok), forced into exile (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) or killed (Pim Fortuyn).

It’s remarkable how speedily “the most tolerant country in Europe,” in a peculiarly repellent strain of coercive appeasement, has adopted “shoot the messenger” as an all-purpose cure-all for “Islamophobia.” To some of us, the Netherlands means tulips, clogs, windmills, fingers in the dike. To others, it means marijuana cafés, long-haired soldiers, legalized hookers, fingers in the dike. But the contemporary reality is an increasingly incoherent polity where gays are bashed, uncovered women get jeered at, and you can’t do The Diary of Anne Frank as your school play lest the Gestapo walk-ons are greeted by audience cries of “She’s in the attic!” Speaking as a bona fide far-right nutcase, I rather resent the label’s export to Holland: Pim Fortuyn wasn’t “right-wing,” he was a gay hedonist; Theo van Gogh was an anti-monarchist coke-snorting nihilist; Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a secular liberal feminist; Geert Wilders says he’s opposed to Islam because of its hostility to gay equality, whereas the usual rap against us far-right extremists is that we want the godless sodomites to roast in hell.

It’s not “ironic” that the most liberal country in western Europe should be the most advanced in its descent into a profoundly illiberal hell. It was entirely foreseeable. Geert Wilders is stating the obvious: a society that becomes more Muslim will have fewer gays. Last year, the Rainbow Palace, formerly Amsterdam’s most popular homo-hotel (relax, that’s the Dutch word for it), announced it was renaming itself the Sharm and reorienting itself to Islamic tourism. Or as the website allah.eu put it: “Gay Hotel Turns Muslim.” As a headline in the impeccably non-far-right Spiegel wondered: “How much Allah can the Old Continent bear?” It’s an interesting question, albeit if an increasingly verboten one. The Wilders show trial is important because it will determine whether the subject can be discussed openly by mainstream politicians and public figures, or whether it will be forced underground and manifest itself in more violent ways.

Yet, despite its significance, the trial has received relatively little coverage in the Western media, in part because, for those of a multiculti bent, there’s no easy way to blur the reality—that this is a political prosecution by a thought police so stupid they don’t realize they’re delegitimizing the very institutions of the state. Still, the BBC gave it their best shot, concluding their report thus: “Correspondents say his Freedom Party (PVV), which has nine MPs in the lower house of parliament, has built its popularity largely by tapping into the fear and resentment of Muslim immigrants.”

Gotcha. This democracy business is all very well, but let’s face it, the people are saps, gullible boobs, racist morons, knuckle-dragging f–kwits. One-man-one-vote is fine in theory, but next thing you know some slicker’s “tapping into” the morons’ “fears and resentments” and cleaning up at the polls.

Strange how it always comes back to a contempt for the people. Whenever the electorate departs from the elite’s pieties, whether in the Netherlands or in Massachusetts last month, it’s because some wily demagogue like, er, Scott Brown has been playing on the impressionable hicks’ “fears and resentments.” To the statist bullies at Canada’s “Human Rights” Commissions, their powers to regulate speech are necessary to prevent hate-mongers like me tapping into the fears and resentments of the Dominion’s millions of birdbrained boobs. Yes, that would be you, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmoe of 22 Dufferin Gardens. Sure, you’ve voted for the Liberals every year since Expo, but c’mon, in your heart you know even you might be…susceptible…impressionable.

In the old days—divine right of kings, rule by patrician nobility—it was easier. But today’s establishment is obliged to pay at least lip service to popular sovereignty. So it has to behave more artfully. You’ll still have your vote; it’s just that the guy you wanted to give it to is on trial, and his platform’s been criminalized.

To return to where we came in, what does it mean when the Ministry of Justice proudly declares that the truth is no defence? When the law stands in explicit opposition to the truth, freeborn peoples should stand in opposition to the law. Because, as the British commentator Pat Condell says, “When the truth is no defence, there is no defence”—and what we are witnessing is a heresy trial. The good news is that the Openbaar Ministerie is doing such a grand job with its pilot program of apostasy prosecutions you’ll barely notice when sharia is formally adopted.

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  • Previous guest

    Thank you Captain Canuck,
    not being politiacally correct in this assinine society automatically makes us racist. Most liberal intelectuals will deride you and me for thinking the way we do. Many of these same people hold graduate degrees and PHd's but don't hold an ounce of basic common sense. Anyone who thinks arabs especially muslims are not racist are polyannas.
    I hope Geert Wilders makes it to the PMO!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/98Shadow 98Shadow

    Interesting comparison to the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"; the aliens arrive. They multiply. They dominate. When the time is right, the eggs all hatch so to speak, they hunt down & identify non-converts & either convert or eliminate them. Adolph would have loved it!
    I am a Scottish born Canadian. I am leery of strangers at the best of times by nature. This stinks.

  • sage

    Mike Miller —I,m only 63 so I,ll fight mentally or physically in your place for human dignity,human rights and truth and to hell with politically correct. Mark Steyn /Ayann Hirsi Ali/ Geert Wilders are todays heros

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    that is really absurd I agree thanks for the post .

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    This has to be a joke, doesnt matter if his observations are correct? Seriously do we have anymore rights?

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    This has to be a joke, doesnt matter if his observations are correct? Seriously do we have anymore rights?

  • Anna D

    This is the depths the shameless appeasers will go to.I hope Geert Wilders Isn't silenced.

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    Mark Steyn – Amazing image. I can see whole expression of Geert Wilders in the image you have posted.

    I think the image itself enough to say all your writing.

    Thanks for such a great work.

  • Colin

    Bravo Mr. Steyn! The story of Geert Wilders must be told. The tragic story of the Netherlands being slowly rotted from within must be told. All freedom-loving citizens of the West must wake up to the reality that the Islam is fundamentally intolerant of our values. Islam is different than other religions. It is not just a religion. It comes with its own political and legal system based on a book written over 1000 years ago! Sharia Law treats women as property, is intolerant of homosexuality, views infidels as requiring tax, defends female genetic mutilation, etc. We need not fear standing up to this threat. We need not fear labels. We need not fear being intolerant of such intolerance! We must stand up and protect our own country's ideals before we find ourselves in a similar situation as the Dutch do currently.

  • RON DENHAM

    …alas we haven't the likes of Mr Wilders in Canada….but then he'd just wind up in the same pickle as Mr Steyn did for expressing a journalistic opinion….Human Rights Commissions have declared war on ''the truth''.
    None of our politicians have the ''moxy'' necessary to call all of this ''political correctness'' what it really is….A PILE OF CRAP.

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    I very much like the pose and Great comment by Rittersport

    "We've told so many lies, young scientists are totally confused"
    http://climaterealists.com/?id=4960
    (a video spoof of climate science)

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  • thooghun

    What is it with people that think that being offended affords them some kind of priviledge? Not only is there no basis for coddling a beilef as macro-destructive as most religion is, they want to use the secular courts to be the cherry on top. Disgusting! social site

  • Anna Black

    p.s.On October 22nd they ordered a re-trial for Geert Wilders because one of the appeal court judges who ordered Wilders to stand trial had dinner in May with a potential witness, a Dutch expert on Islam, and that the judge had sought to convince the professor of Arabic studies why Wilders had to be prosecuted.

    Wilders’s lawyer formally protested that the judges were biased against Wilders, a complaint that was upheld by another judges’ panel, which ordered a retrial with a new bench.

    It is likely to be months before a new trial can be held.

  • Ryan

    How cowardly the leadership of Europe has become. Some have finally declared that multicuturalism is a failure yet do nothing. I see little but the incredible stupidity of the elite, buying just a little more time in their ivory towers at the cost of selling out the "little people", until their own throats are finally in jeopardy from Fundamental Islam.

    From an American perspective, I can't even fathom a civilized country that won't allow its citizens to speak freely. How can any muzzled society be dynamic and able to work out solutions to their problems? Has Europe already capitulated to Islam in practice, just not in name?

    I don't want to see civil war in Europe, but if these problems aren't addressed for PC reasons, it will come to this when the citizens run out of patience and push government aside. It's hard to imagine the leadership is unable to see it coming or believes it can stop it by persecuting the messengers.

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  • B. Roozendaal

    Mark Steyn’s piece on Geert Wilders could bear some updating.
    Commanding 24 seats in Dutch parliament makes Wilders effectively kingmaker in the Dutch power arena..
    Christian Democrats, halved in last year's elections, fear that if and when Wilders manages to curb preferential treatment of Muslims, they might be next. Add to this his anti-EU stance – direct taxation by Brussels looms large – and his refusal to deny tiny Israel a fair shake, and you have a man the political élite loves to hate.
    Meanwhile, his defence lawyer – who last year successfully demanded a retrial because of judicial bias – wants the case thrown out on formal grounds: none of the charges against Wilders apply to the man’s actions or utterances. But even if Wilders should be convicted: he can’t buy publicity like this. Not he, but the powers that be are in the dock, and his grip on Dutch politics can only increase, regardless of the outcome.
    Not bad for a guy who in 2004 refused to toe the liberal party line on Turkey’s admission to the EU and started his own show.

  • http://mediaplayerstreaming.com Bobby Jona

    Wilders has actually called for is for highly offensive passages in the Koran (calling for the torture and death of infidels, etc.) to be removed by Muslims themselves, in an act of reformation of their faith.

  • http://twitter.com/a_amin18 A Amin

    I
    don’t understand what’s so absurd about this trial. If a person is being racist
    and discriminatory, it’s the government’s responsibility to try and change
    that. The entire platform of the party is based on something that isn’t true. I
    don’t think freedom of expression should extend to something like that. Why
    would you allow something that many believe is a total lie to be the basis of a
    party.

    • Anthony

      It’s a lie that Muslims have lots of babies? You’re seriously suggesting that because he has an unpopular view (even if it’s logically true) he should be IMPRISONED??

      That’s some real human rights, right there.

    • JPVV

      Before you go into the name calling… is he lying?

      Did you even think about it before you launched into that diatribe of absurdities?

      I know you didn’t think.

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