Dutch Islamophobe arrives in London

Geert Wilders, for those of us who are fortunate enough not to have come across this lovely character, is a Dutch Member of Parliament who shot into the international limelight in 2008 due to the release of his film Fitna which criticizes Islam using excerpts from the Qur'an.
Having previously been denied entry into the United Kingdom, he was last week granted the right to enter and thus began his political pilgrimage.
Wilders held a press conference in London on 16 October, amid protests by his critics. When asked to justify his previous claim that “Islam is retarded”, he stated, “I believe that our culture, which is based humanism, Christianity, Judaism, is indeed better than the Islamic culture,” adding that “it is not racist to say that we want our own countries to adhere to our own culture.” The folly of these statements is that he speaks in complete contradiction of his own beliefs, aiming to check as many demographic boxes whilst still being proficiently fascist. How can one single culture be simultaneously humanist, Christian and Jewish?
Wilders continued to state that “In many countries where the Islamic culture is dominant, homosexuals are beaten up or even killed, journalists …are often jailed for saying the wrong words, according to the regime, apostates are often killed.” However, if Wilders has a problem with the “Islamic culture” and not Muslims, as he so professes, then why does he criticize the un-Islamic actions of a few Muslims? Unfortunately Muslims also face horrific treatment by other Muslims a recent example being the five Muslim women who were paraded naked, beaten and forced to eat human excrement by villagers after being branded as witches the Jharkhand province, India. A practice that is entirely un-Islamic and based upon a skewed “tradition”. In reality, such horrific acts are nothing to do with religion, despite how firmly such people might want to believe it.
Wilders’ main beef (non-halal beef, naturally) with Islam is that he believes it to have led directly to the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings; yet the mistake he makes is that such attacks (along with witch-hunting, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, amongst many others) do not reflect Islam, but rather power in the wrong, ignorant hands, which just so happen to be Muslim ones.
Not only this, but last I checked Muslims, Asians, Arabs… and, frankly, anyone who is a little bit brown are often “beaten up” in the United Kingdom, a non-Muslim country. I’m pretty sure that homosexuals aren’t to welcome in the deep south of America either, which has a supposedly Christian culture. The reality is that humans can be awful creatures- Muslims or Christians; white or brown and the sooner that people like Wilders realise this, the sooner we can all start working together to fix it. Fitna that.
Geert Wilders commented on his joy to have finally been granted entry to the UK, stating that “Today is a victory for freedom of speech and I hope the UK government will never, never turn back someone for political reasons because they don’t like what they are saying.” So by his reckoning should we open the floodgates to Osama? Nice theory. I’m in danger of quoting Spiderman here but the thing about freedom of speech is that it comes with a disclaimer that is clear to anyone who can exercise little bit of logic; with great liberty comes great responsibility. Just because you have a freedom, it doesn’t mean you must exhaust it completely; in fact it is because you are blessed with it that you should exercise restraint.
“I am not extremist, I am not a racist either” added Wilders, stating that if he were, he would never have been voted in by the Netherlands and that his would be a marginalized party. What he is saying then, is that an extremist party can never be voted in. Anyone ever heard of Hitler? I’m not equating his actions to those of the Nazi party, but Wilders’ assertion that an extremist party can never come to power is pitiful.  Also, regarding his non-extremist, non-racist character, well, his speech is published on the British National Party website- need I say more?
In Wilders’ own words Muslims believe that the Qur'an “is literally the word of Allah”. This statement serves as evidence that Wilders must understand the magnitude of his criticisms. If he understands the importance of the Quran to Muslims, then he understands that insulting the religion of Islam is worse than insulting its followers.
Admittedly Muslims don’t exactly help their cause much of the time by distorting Islam into nothing more than placards reading “Freedom go to hell” and “Islam will be superior” (as some Muslims did upon Wilders’ arrival in the UK) which is exactly the kind of apocalyptic language that perpetuates the cycle and leads delightful characters such as Geert Wilders to think that “The more Islam [in] our societies … the less freedom [they will have]”. Doesn’t it seem deliciously ironic that someone who loves freedom of speech so much he practically fathered its child is the one who is calling for a book to be prohibited? You guessed it; Wilders the freedom of speech ambassador wants the Quran to be banned. Now that’s just cute.
BM