Islamdebate: From Wilders to United Smile
The NY Times has an interesting article about the islamdebate in Europe: Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center By DAN BILEFSKY and IAN FISHER. In this article the authors argue that questioning the compatibility of Islam with European values, has become mainstream and that (while quoting a Danish imam) is has become politically correct to attack Islam which makes the position of moderates on both sides more difficult.
The authors have considerable attention for the Dutch situation:
Some Dutch Muslims have expressed support for insurgents in Iraq over Dutch peacekeepers there, on the theory that their prime loyalty is to a Muslim country under invasion.
So strong is the fear that Dutch values of tolerance are under siege that the government last winter introduced a primer on those values for prospective newcomers to Dutch life: a DVD briefly showing topless women and two men kissing. The film does not explicitly mention Muslims, but its target audience is as clear as its message: embrace our culture or leave.
Perhaps most wrenching has been the issue of free speech and expression, and the growing fear that any criticism of Islam could provoke violence.
The people quoted in the article cannot certainly not be equated with fundamentalists or racists or other extremists; indeed they seem to belong to mainstream society. Related to this issue is debate about the right to offend or the freedom to insult people. The Dutch daily NRC (in dutch) has a report about a discussion meeting on the limits of the freedom of speech. According the report in the meeting (that was organized like a trial) one group argued that the freedom of speech is unlimited. The other group stated that there was a difference between offending people and useless offending people. The first should not be banned, the latter should according to them. The first group stated that religious people have more rights to offend because they are also protected by the freedom of religion when they legitimize their arguments with religious texts. And also the offending is a very subjective concept. The outcome (their was a sort of jury) stated that freedom of speech ends when it insults vulnerable groups.
While the outcome might seem to be a common sense rule, it is highly problematic of course. The NY Times articles shows that many non-Muslims are afraid that Muslims will take over society and that Islam will be detrimental for European values (to say the least). Within that frame, Muslims are not a weak vulnerable group, but a strong and powerful group: so insulting is ok. Some Muslims will think the other way around probably and see no harm in insulting Dutch non-Muslims since there is a worldwide attack against Islam. This makes the conclusion of the debate NRC reported about, not very useful.
And also with regard to that meeting: what the hell is useless offending?! On Peaktalk Pieter Dorsman, in a reaction on the NY Times article, states:
It is because of the open and now increasingly fashionable – rather than politically correct – attacks on Islam that a debate by moderates on both sides can now be waged in a productive manner. Silence used to be the norm, and the issue needed some revolutionary voices to get the discussion going.
There is no better example than The Netherlands which has been a frontrunner in all of this. The period of harsh and direct criticism is more or less over and now a new phase of trying to figure out how integration can be made to work is settling in. It is worthwhile to note that that is exactly what separates the two emerging parties on the right. Geert Wilders’ new party is still in reactionary mode, whereas Marco Pastors is putting the Fortuyn-legacy to work in a more pragmatic and solution driven way, focusing on integration. It is a shame that the larger parties have decided to pass on either option and prefer to avoid the debate altogether, for now.
The pragmatic question which is related to the difference between Pastors and Wilders and that is relevant for the Islamdebate is of course if a society indeed has problems with integrating with Muslims, does it make sense to offend those people you need to include into Dutch mainstream society? Pastors thinks not, Wilders obviously thinks otherwise. In a recent interview in the daily Volkskrant Wilders states (in Dutch, my translation):
We have to stop the tsunami of Islamization. That strikes our hart, our identity, our culture.
[…]
So, there is a connection between Islam and crime?
‘Obvious. The statistics show that. One in five Moroccan youngsters is registered at the police as suspects. Their behavious is the consequence of their culture and religion. You cannot separate that. The Pope was right: Islam is a violent religion. Islam means submission and prosylitizing non-Muslims, if necessary by means of war. That interpretation is prevalent in the living rooms of the problem youth, in the mosques. It lies in the community itself.
[…]Do you believe that in the Netherlands a moderate Islam can arise?
No. There is no moderate mainstream of religious leaders, imams and scholars. Not in the Netherlands, not in Europe, not in the Middle East. If there comes a process of moderation at all, it will take at least a 1000 years.
[…]
What drives you crazy?
That tsunami of a culture that is alien to us and that gets increasingly dominant. We have to stop that.
It is not entirely clear to me what Wilders had intended with his statements. If he wanted to provoke, he failed: the reactions were mostly negative but very quiet. It looks like people get immune for these kind of harsh statements. Nevertheless one of the readers of the Dutch blog Geencommentaar.nl (Nocomment), Obscura, filed charges against Wilders for incitement to hatred. The Dutch public prosecutor is looking into the matter, which could be another test for the freedom of speech with regard to the Islamdebate.
While we wait for the outcome, I don’t want to withold another initiative that actually shows that there is still room for moderate voices (and that gives me the possibility to refer to one of the most interesting Dutch Muslim weblogs, one that deserves more attention than it is received so far; this is the weblog of Najia Arrihani: Myrtus. I came across the initiative while reading it on that weblog). I’m talking about United Smile, an initiative of a group of students:
Even if you don’t have anything to give, you can always give a smile.
Usually these kind of initiatives, well let’s just say i’m too cynical to really believe in it, but hey let’s give it a chance and it makes a nice contrast with Wilders’ statements.
Hey thanks for the flowers Martijn. (:
Spread the love babyyyy! xoxox