Creating the moral panic: Join the Caravan of Wilders
Wilders film Fitna has once again focused our attention on the significance of religious beliefs and practices in conflict. Conflicts, has been shown abundantly in all kinds of studies, rarely only have an ethnic or religious origin alone. The religious and ethnic ties vary infinitely and have to be considered together with other potential bases for collective origins such as neighbourliness, national origins, and race, religion, and financial and political interest. The potential for mobilisation is therefore usually not only ethnicity or religion but the underlying processes are common to many other kinds of mobilisation. The appearance of a conflict that is primarily religiously or ethnically determined is based upon the interplay between those other relations and ethnic sentiment in a cause-and-effect-relationship. The importance of political entrepreneurs with regard to the relation between Muslims and non-Muslims is shown in various researches.
A political entrepreneur such as Wilders can call upon people to transcend their individual interests and instead move for a more shared interest based upon group solidarity. What happens is that people like Wilders but also others try to reduce the multidimensionality of relations by making one dimension (for example religion or ethnicity) appear all-important (and all-encompassing). Wilders does this for example in Fitna by claiming to expose the fascist nature of this book (and therefore of Islam).
Once us vs. them dichotomies are formed they usually reproduce themselves since their are costs in terms of vulnerability, loss of strength, loss of sense of belonging, anomie, weakness, when leaving the ingroup while staying provides a sense of safety and belonging, and social capital. People who have defined their group as civilized, free and superior will not easily blur the boundaries with the outgroup by attributing value to other qualities. Even successful attempts to minimize communal conflict may as a byproduct reproduce community solidarity.
The mechanism of reproducing communal conflict is exactly what is going on now in all of the debates leading up to the release of Fitna somewhere this month. People (although many of them certainly do not agree with all of Wilders views and practices) defending the ‘Dutch’ freedom of speech as an absolute value against the intolerant and fanatic Muslims. There is certainly a conflict going on about symbols in the public sphere but this conflict does not only pertain to Muslims. For example a Jewish special interest group advocated (and succeeded) in banning Anne Frank pictures in which she wore a kaffiya. A young man who found an art work containing the Dutch flag with the word Jihad on it offensive, took the flag down. He had to appear before a court but was acquitted of wantonness (!) after supporters of the monarchy even suggested to pay the fine if necessary.
One example of this is the scoop of the Dutch Telegraaf that Al Qaeda has called for a Jihad against the Netherlands on the website al-Ekhlaas on 28 January after an interview of Wilders in that same newspaper on the same day. Now, although al-Ekhlaas is certainly a meeting point for Al Qaeda supporters and Al Qaeda has indeed used the forum for spreading messages and calls, it is highly questionable if this indeed is an Al Qaeda call. One of my colleagues looked at the call which is saying that the crusaders will not stop with their assaults unless they see flying heads and rivers of blood. The big question, that remains unanswered is: Where is the true follower of Mohamed Bouyeri (“the lion”)? Al-Qa’ida is not mentioned in the call, only later reference is made to ‘our beloved Shaykh al-Jihad Osama bin Laden.’ Abu Omar al-Faruq (the writer of the call) mentions an incident where Sikhs and Hindus threatened to attack Dutch cinemas showing movies with sex scenes in Hindi temples. The text mentions that they have been successful in defending their religion against these assaults by taking to the streets. Although Sikhs and Hinuds are “heathens” this incident is put forward as an example for Muslims to follow. Not necessarily a call for violence (although it can be understood that way) but may also be a call for civil disobedience.
People air their anger and delve into fantasies in what could be possible in order to hurt Wilders, quite violent ideas like posting his head or abducting his wife/girl-friend and threatening everybody close to him. If the Telegraaf and other Dutch media would have done a little bit of research they would have found out that the same message appeared on another website as well and that the reactions there were quite moderate such as an advice (or can we see that as a ‘call’ as well?) for Muslims to remain quiet. Although there are serious threats they don’t mean that Al Qaeda is threatening. Such an allegation also shows a strange understanding of Al Qaeda since these messages never work as simple orders that should be excuted on the spot. That is not how Al Qaeda works or what Al Qaeda is.
Also calling this Jihad is highly questionable even when it would be an Al Qaeda statement. It has been acknowledged numerous times that Al Qaedas jihad doctrine is a gross distortion of the jihad doctrine in mainstream Islamic tradition. Calling it a Jihad nevertheless legitimizes their stance as the one and only true ‘Islamic’ vision. But of course mentioning the name of Al Qaeda taps nicely into already existing meta-narratives about Islam and Jihad; in fact the same ones as Wilders is trying to expose.
The scoop about the Jihad against Wilders is nevertheless copied on many Dutch language newsites, International newsites, Dutch blogs and international blogs. An interesting third player here is the Dutch government, trying to downplay the ‘crisis’, trying to persuade Wilders not to release his film and condemning the threats made against him. According to the logic of the current conflict for the ‘true’ defenders of the freedom of speech this means ‘surrender to Jihad‘. In fact since the Dutch government is talking openly about repurcussions in the Middle East for Dutch citizens, crisis situations and so on, they only strenghten the image of the fanatic Muslim before the movie has even been released and therefore also contribute to Wilders political propaganda (because that is what the movie in fact is).
This means that media, websites, politicians (even those against Wilders) are providing the necessary feedback mechanisms in order to reproduce the dichotomy of us (free, tolerant, committed to freedom of expression) vs. them (radical, backward, fanatic Muslims) and thereby contributing to Wilders’ political propaganda, contributing to the hype and also contributing to whatever consequences. This does not mean that Wilders or the media is directly responsible for whatever action comes from a Muslim country, individual Muslim or whoever. People are not robots who act in a mechanic way after given a particular sting. On the other hand however just as individuals who respond to the Dutch government in this case are being formed by the us vs. them dichotomy, other individuals are formed as well and it would be a severe mistake to attribute or even reduce their actions to actions out of free will only or symptoms of individual pathology, ‘evil’ or fanaticsm.
Academics have always found an intellectual argument to subvert the reality expressed by people that don not agree with their agenda[political or otherwise]
They are very good at finding justifications for their point of view and will manipulate facts in a way to support their theoretically based views.The facts are very simple with what the UK faces today.Home grown terrorism from a population group that is the breeding ground for radicalism and violence.The target of these miscreants are not political or military.The targets are ANYONE and with maximum devastation if possible.The UK and the western world have been caught out by their own liberal immigration policies.
The other unasailable fact is that “multi-culturalism” hasn’t and isn’t working very well because of problems of intergration ,and that this politically correct driven agenda was rammed down the British voters throats without a mandate ,by mainstream politicians.So much for democracy of “government for the people by the people”.The people weren’t asked the question.
I also suffer from panic attacks and i can manage it by deep and slow breathing. i also practice meditation.. *