Wilders on Trial – Part III and IV Wafa Sultan and Power, Freedom & Responsibility

UPDATE: Wilders Right to Remain Silent – below

Today the trial against Geert Wilders starts again. For more about its background, see Part 0, Update, Part III. This update starts with the third pre-trial hearing last July where Wafa Sultan gave her testimony. You can see an interview with her on Dutch TV:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-tfy2i3LM]
Wafa Sultan gained her more than 15 minutes of fame (or shame according to some) when she came on al-Jazeera and attacked Islam:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISNpOkpcWqg]
Like the other witnesses before her, Wafa Sultan claims Islam is essentially a violent religion striving to conquer and submit the free world. She is not against Muslims as she claims (like Wilders does as well) but the question of a particular Muslim is dangerous depends (in her view) about how deep their religiosity is. If, according to her, the person is very pious and so on, then (given the violent nature of Islamic teachings) the person is dangerous. If the person however appears not to be very pious, one still has to consider the possibility that he is playing tricks and deceives you with his moderate outlook.

Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci has explained quite clear why that argument does not add up:
Why Pastor Jones (together with similarly minded people) believes in tautological Islam « Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist

a perfect example of how many Americans, Australians, and Europeans today construct the discourse of Islam and form their epistemologies about it. If we analyze both the “International Burn a Quran Day” together with the many polemic arguments over the (not in) Ground Zero mosque in New York, we may find some strong epistemological similarities between the discourse of Islam these people propose and the discourse of Islam that some Muslim extremists propose. The people involved in these actions embrace the idea that Islam is a ‘thing’, or better, a conceptual phenomenon representing a material reality.

Consequently, these individuals think that attacking what they perceive as prominent symbols of Islam, such as the Qur’an, mosques and minarets, or protesting and parading with dogs and pigs, may have a nearly magical, exorcising and ‘desecrating ’ power against that ‘thing’ Islam, which in their minds symbolizes evil incarnate.

[…]

What Bateson, through this example, wished to emphasise is that ‘things’ do not have qualities per-se. They are not ‘agent’ in themselves, but rather they are produced within a dynamic of relationships, both internally and with other “things” of the same category, as well as with the actor or agent ‘making’ them in the process.

Islam, as a “thing”, does not have, of course, qualities and attributes, since it can only be produced (for Muslims of course, by God, and for others maybe by the devil or by humans). Islam is different from other realities (such as “peace”, “war”, “violence”, “terrorism” or even “shari’a”) and it is made ‘real’ only through the way in which people make sense of it, both in thought and action. This means that Pastor Jones and its followers become, in a certain sense, akin to Muslims themselves, albeit per negationem, since they engage in ‘making’ Islam, in believing that Islam is a ‘thing’, and thus ‘defining’ Islam.

But what kind of ‘Islam’ do these people make? To use prototypes to illustrate, both bin-Laden (the terrorist) and Pastor Jones (the Qur’an barbecuer) not only share the fact that they believe that Islam ‘has’ qualities and attributes in an active form, but they also express it through the same system: connecting description and explanation through tautology.

Tautology, in the simplest terms, states that ‘if P is true, then P is true’. In other words, as Bateson explains, ‘all that the tautology affords is connections between prepositions. The creator of the tautology stakes his reputation on the validity of those connections’ (Bateson, p. 77). Tautology contains no information whatever and the explanation which derives from it contains only information provided by the description.

If we look carefully on how, for instance, bin-Laden and Pastor Jones describe and explain Islam we can easily recognize a tautology. Indeed, the basis of what Pastor Jones says is, ‘If Islam is evil, then Islam is evil’ and for bin-Laden the message is ‘if Islam is Jihad, then Islam is jihad’. Logically we can consider both of them, alongside the many whom make Islam through the same epistemological processes, strong believers in tautological Islam.

Their tautology is based upon a particular treatment of Islam and the Quran that produces more or less the same effects as the tautology:
“Islam is evil”. “No! Islam is peace”: The fallacy of the ‘scripturegnosis’ argument « Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist

Let me say that the reason may be found in a fallacy that I have started to call scripturegnosis. It sounds a bit like the name of a disease, and although it is not, it is still very pernicious and has been with us for a very long time. It is linked to strong forms of ‘culturalism’, in which the culture, as a symbolic object, is supposed to be capable of shaping and controlling the human mind. Scripturegnosis refers to the idea that a text may be able to control the individual and collective behavior of those whom see it as an inspirational or holy text. In our case, scripturegnosists will hold that something called “Islam” exists per-se as a result of its texts, particularly the Qur’an in this case. Indeed, it is not a surprise that Wilders asked for the ban of the Qur’an (compared to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf).

[…]Our brain, memory and sensory system interpret and alter the reality around us. Emotions, feelings and personal Self modify and make one’s own the circumstantial realities, and among these realities are texts, particularly ‘holy’ ones. Indeed, to illustrate, a person needs only to have some particular parts of his or her brain damaged, and depending upon the area affected, interpretations of texts (both the ‘holy’ and the ordinary) may be significantly altered. Whoever has had the sad experience of knowing somebody affected by Alzheimer’s knows this fact all too well.

Muslims, as any other believers, read (presuming those who read beyond passive recitation) and understand the Qur’an according to their individual psychological and environmental realities that fully influence, together with local traditions and superstitions, their understanding of the text. Even within the same tradition, there exist as many interpretations of the Qur’an as there are readers. Indeed, if the Qur’an were to exert any ‘influence’ upon people, it could only be by means of the trust placed in a religious leader or theologian rather than in the book itself – influence, then, can only ever be purely mediated.

This line of reasoning is far from innocent when we look at how conflicts emerge. Rhetoric such as this reduces the multidimensionality of the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims, making one dimension all-encompassing and primordial while obscuring other dimensions and their mutual influences. A collective action frame, aimed at mobilizing people is constructed in order to influence people’s perception of particular events and meanings attributed to those events. If one applies it often enough and when it resonates among people because it appears to be logical and self-evident given particular processes and events people have experienced, such framing works as a mental shortcut that provides people with an effective and efficient way to deal with information. It is a form of persuasive communication used by political and religious elites prior to and during conflicts attempting to mobilize people for collective action. In this case the idea of Islam as a threat is the central organizing idea by which particular incidents and statements are qualified as examples of Islamization. Wilders’ statement last Thursday was very important in this regard. The new government backed by Wilders’ PVV, wanted to build bridges and has as a motto: Freedom and Responsibility. Wilders stated that this motto was not has and ‘I’m not really a building-bridges-type-of-guy’. The other central organizing idea is ‘freedom’ but he talks about a particular kind of freedom. A striking example is his last statement about the upcoming trial:

A terrible day tomorrow: start of the actual political trial. With me the freedom of speech of at least 1,5 million people is on trial

A trial like this however has much more consequences than his own freedom of speech and that of his followers (the at least 1,5 million people according to him, based upon the last elections). It is about the limits of freedom of speech for 17 million people (all inhabitants of the Netherlands, including Muslims and migrants) and, more in particular, the limits for politicians. He only stands up for the freedom of speech of himself and his followers while trying to curtail the freedom of others: Muslims and migrants.

The tautological and culturalist line of reasoning is highly relevant for the trial that will start again today. As Marranci explained those people using this particular frame are in fact becoming theologians trying to interpret and explain Islamic doctrines. One particular line of defense Wilders’ lawyer will use is trying to establish the truthfullness of Wilders’ statements. The idea behind this strategy is is (based upon earlier Dutch and European cases) that a statement that is true cannot easily be banned as (for example) incitement to hatred. But this defense would also mean that the court has to decide if a particular interpretation of Islam is true or at least holds some truth. This will be mean that the judges become theologians as well. In the past most judges have refrained from doing that or only did that very superficially. I’m not a legal expert but I see some difficulties for the judges here.

The trial also will make something clear about the issue of power. In a great entry anthropologist Kerim Friedman wrote about a the #twitterjoketrial in which a man tweeted about an airport and his tweet was seen as a threat. He claimed he meant it as joke (Dutch readers will inevitably think at #brussengate in which a Dutch blogger was questioned by the police because he re-tweeted a statement on twitter that was deemed threatening as well. The original writer claimed it was meant to see what kind of reactions such a threat what yield. The blogger wanted to show what kind of statements people make on twitter in a post with the headline ‘this is how to threaten Wilders’. Kerim states that the twitter case he blogs about raises questions about the nature of language:
The Joke’s on You – Society for Linguistic Anthropology

Just as the printing press blurred the boundary between public and private with the mass publication of diaries and letters, so too have web services like Facebook and Twitter made public discourse which authors originally intended for a small group of “friends” and “followers.”[…]It is also one about the very nature of meaning. Many people seem to believe that meaning resides in our heads and is merely expressed through language, which operates as a transparent medium communicating our thoughts to the outside world. Linguistic anthropologists view the construction of meaning very differently. For us the construction of meaning is a social process. It is something that is negotiated through the very act of discourse. A joke is only a joke to the extent that your audience accepts it as such. If, instead, they choose to get offended, or take it seriously, it requires a lot of work on the part of the speaker to explain that the statement was meant as a joke. In such a case there are a range of possible outcomes: the audience might accept that it was a “bad joke” and leave it at that, or they might refuse to except the claim that the statement was intended as a joke.

There are two relevant points for the Wilders trial. First of all it seems self-evident that Wilders makes his statements in public. But it also is very telling. Years ago politicians would not dare to make the statements he uttered in public out of fear of becoming labelled as racist and xenophobic and being relegated to the lunatic fringes of politics. Now they have become more mainstream, but still they are remarkable. What Wilders does with such statements is to produce an event, a debate about him and his statements, making sure he will be on top or even deciding the public agenda. The ensuing public debates about his statements, plans and strategies are as much part of the Wilders’ spectacle as Wilders’ and his actions.

The second relevant point is that Friedman makes clear that not everyone has equal power in deciding what particular words mean. Wilders claims that his freedom his attacked by the trial; for the people who started the trial with their complaints (Muslims and non-Muslims) it is a strategy to have a stronger position in the negotiations over what is allowed in contemporary society and what is not. For Wilders it is a (forced) attempt to remain master over his own words. Ultimately, as Friedman also makes clear, it is the state who decides in the trial. The fact that many, even those opposing Wilders, deplored that Muslims and others went to trial (and forced the state to do this) is very interesting in this regard. For some it is about warding off the power of the state for others it is concerning that Muslims can actually have power by exercising their rights or by what has been a called a ‘legal jihad‘. That debate also occurred but mostly on the internet only during the AEL-trial. When the Muhammad cartoons affair occurred a few years ago the Belgian Arab-European League (AEL) came up with cartoons that, for example, depicted Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank in bed together. They wanted to show the double standard that was being applied according to them with regard to cartoons referring to Islam and those referring to the Holocaust and the Jews. According to the appellate court however they (after initially a lower court saw no problem in the cartoons)the cartoons were more grieving than necessary for the public debate over the issue of double standards and they had to pay a fine. Unlike the Wilders trial the AEL trial wasn’t a major public and political event. In the current Wilders case the Dutch state was reluctant to excecise its power but was forced to do showing that the state of course is not a monolithic entity but consists of several institutions that do not always cooperate and that exists in a mutually enforced balance of power. Since Wilders most likely will back the new government of the Netherlands it remains to be seen how that works out for the balance of power. This doesn’t have much influence on this trial, but this trial also exposes that balance of power already which makes it interesting to follow.

Wilders Right to Remain Silent – In Court Today:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6zzdNRysgs]