C L O S E R

Edien Bartels – Eén dochter is beter dan duizend zonen (incl. english summary)

Posted on January 27th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

In haar proefschrift uit 1993, “Eén dochter is beter dan duizend zonen’. Arabische vrouwen, symbolen en machtsverhoudingen tussen de sexen, betoogt antropologe Edien Bartels dat Arabische moslimvrouwen geen passieve slachtoffers van onderdrukking door mannen zijn, maar actieve individuen die vanuit hun eigen positie in de samenleving een eigen visie op de sociale realiteit ontwikkelen, eigen strategieën ontwikkelen en strategisch gebruik maken van allerlei symbolen om macht uit te oefenen.

Het proefschrift dat dus al enige tijd oud is, heeft aan actualiteit niets aan waarde ingeleverd. Het is inmiddels te downloaden van de VU repository HIER.

English Summary

This volume, made up of a collection of related articles, focuses upon three issues: how Arabic women experience the balance of power between the sexes, how they express these experiences in symbols, and which symbolic strategies they devise to deal with the differences in power. It is based on field work conducted between 1976 and 1991 in three locations: rural Tunisia, Morocco and in the Netherlands among migrant Moroccan women. Part 1 (‘Women, symbolism and strategy’) describes the research process (Chapter 2) and the theoretical framework for the study (Chapter 1). The theoretical exercise is based on two choices made during field work. The first important decision was to focus on women’s vision of the balance of power. This choice is based on the supposition that Arabic women are not passive victims of suppression, but acting individuals capable of developing their own vision of reality and asserting it. This conception appears self-evident – most anthropologists would characterize Arabic men in a similar vein. Discussions in scientific literature demonstrate, however, that the idea is not yet clear for Arabic women. In contrast to many studies, it is not my intention to refute the current stereotypes and ‘prove’ that Arabic women are in fact similar to the rest of mankind.

As women occupy a different social position than men, one can generally distinguish a women’s and a men’s perspective on society. Whether various groups of women have their own visions of reality is the subject of much research: in this study I elaborate on the specific viewpoints of Arabic village women.

The second part of the book, titled ‘Women and Men’, investigates the varying perspectives of Tunisian women and men. Chapter three (‘The boy’s mother resembles a fish bone’) describes how I was confronted with differences in vision between women and men during my field work, and later tried to interpret these theoretically. A theoretical foundation hinging on the concept of subculture is provided in Chapter 4, called ‘Women’s perspective and men’s perspective: a useful distinction?’ Thesubcultural perspective offers the opportunity to determine the visions of men and women separately, and also explore the relationship between both sexes in a broader cultural framework. In addition, it concretizes the proposition that a women’s vision can only be spoken of if there is structural coherence between their various notions and ideas.

The second important decision I made was to choose symbolism as a tool to order the chaos inherent to field material. For the reconstruction of the substance of women’s vision I lean on Eickelman (1976), who distinguishes perspectives in symbolism on two different levels. Eickelman first demarcates a ‘common-sense perspective’, which resides at what I call the subcultural level. I use this concept to reconstruct the experiences of women as a social category. Secondly, Eickelman distinguishes a ‘religious perspective’ at a higher level of analysis. I consider this as an inclusive cultural framework with elements from both the women’s and the men’s perspective. In order to reconstruct women’s vision I do not take the symbolism of women at the subcultural level but the broader cultural context as a point of departure. Part 3, titled ‘Women and saints’, looks into an item of symbolism wielded both by men and women: saints. According to Turner, saints are a dominant symbol with high durability and consistency within the whole symbolic system. They are fixed points in social as well as cultural structures and function as links between the two (Turner 1967: 31-32). Saints also act as connecting symbols between various subcultures as well as between subcultures and the enveloping cultural structure.

Chapter 5 (‘A village saint as binding agenf) demonstrates that women are not passive victims, and that they do not only move about in a female world. Women live in a village community and actively intercede in the lives of both men and women. They are also able to play an important role in political conflicts which apparently do not involve them at all, by manipulating symbolic conceptions and practices. The argument in this chapter is that reality does not accommodate a ‘submissive women’s culture’ and a ‘dominant men’s culture’, but two subcultures with subcultural differences. However strong sex segregation may appear to be, there is always a more inclusive cultural framework containing influences from the two subcultures.

In Chapter 6 (‘The two faces of saints in the Maghreb’) I commence with the more general cultural context and subsequently reconstruct a women’s and a men’s perspective on saints. Saints form a gender-related symbol employed by men and women alike. I demonstrate that its polysemic character allows for confirmations of and protest against gender representations and relations simultaneously. This is the reason women are able to identify with symbolic representations which, in the first instance, appear to belong to the dominant men’s perspective. Further examination also indicates that women in North Africa have what Ahmed (1982: 167-168) calls a ‘native tradition of feminism’, which is not the result of contact with the West. Analyses of the perceptions and rituals of the veneration of saints indicate that equality in gender relations is of great importance to women.

Part 4 (‘Women and children’) is devoted to an exploration of women’s vision at the subcultural level. As village men and women in Tunisia and Morocco persistently reduce social differences between the sexes to biological distinctions – fertility, reproduction and related physical characteristics, I focus on motherhood. ‘Motherhood is the fulfilment of a woman’s life’ (cf. Hache-al-Luch 1987), it makes up her identity (‘mere-avant-tout’, cf. Lacoste-Dujardin 1985). Motherhood constitutes woman’s most important power base (‘au royaume des meres’, cf. Boudhiba 1975) but also makes for her submission to the land patrilineal kinship system (‘des meres contre les femmes’, cf. Lacoste-Dujardin 1985). Chapter 7 (‘Virgins and mothers’) contains an overview of perceptions about pregnancy and childbirth among traditional Moroccan women and relates them to their social position. Chapter 8 (‘Young mothers are like cats’) describes spirit possessions and torments of young mothers in rural Tunisia. These conceptions of possession are presented to express the problems young mothers are likely to face, as well as their position within the family and their relationship with the baby. The manner in which rural Tunisian women utilize their symbolic perceptions to ‘adapt to’ or ‘fit in’ maledominated views of the reproductive process is also depicted. Although chapters 7 and 8 are written from the viewpoint of women, they are based on ‘shared concepts’ of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth and the post-delivery period. According to these concepts, male fertility plays the central and dominant role in human reproduction; motherhood mainly develops after childbirth. Men bring this view forward time and time again. In fact these perceptions are used as critical arguments to legitimize the patriarchal and patrilineal nature of society. In Chapter 9 (‘Whose baby is it really?’) the focus shifts back to the women’s perspective. I describe how rural women give their own interpretation to processes of fertility and procreation. The proposition that women are active members of society is elaborated in the fifth and last part of the book (‘Women and strategy’) which considers women’s actions. Although individual women appear to react quite differently to circumstances, patterns may be recognized when the social category is taken as a whole. The discussion goes beyond incidental efforts to achieve a goal, beyond tactics. It looks into the conscious and unconscious reactions of women to the balance of power between the sexes and to the way in which they, proceeding from the women’s perspective, utilize symbolism. Chapter 10 (‘1 can still bear a beating’) is devoted to the way Moroccan migrant women in the Netherlands make strategic use of the cultural concepts of honour, virtue and disgrace in the power relationship with Moroccan men. It is demonstrated that women are able to plot a strategy even in the most threatening circumstances. Chapter 11 (‘Reinfibulation and the battle against women’s circumcision’) describes how women use reinfibulation as a tactic to improve their position in the context of social and economic change. Such cultural notions are employed not only to survive the gender struggle, but also to improve their relative position with men vis-a-vis other women.

Which conclusions are drawn in this study with regard to the scientific and social goals as set out in the first paragraph? In the first place it has become clear that the reconstruction of women’s views on the basis of a subcultural perspective illuminates the cohesion of symbolic conceptions and practices exercised by women. It is shown that symbolic concepts are arranged in two manners: on the one hand there is structural coherence between notions held by women at the subcultural level; on the other hand these are again related to symbolism at the more inclusive cultural level. Eickelman’s approach to symbols proves to be useful. By distinguishing ‘levels’ of representation and action in the symbolism used by Arabic women in rural Tunisia, it is possible to identify differences and construct a hierarchic order. The central perception of gender equality, as reconstructed for the more inclusive cultural level, can also be found in women’s representations at the subcultural level. It is clear that women experience the notions of fertility and reproduction wielded by men to justify their social position as unjust. Village women repeatedly emphasize that they do not feel they should be subordinate.

Secondly, the study demonstrates how women experience the fact that men’s perspective dominates at the inclusive cultural level. It also shows that men’s views are buttressed by ‘assistants’ among women. Notable among these are the traditional midwives. Although midwives are the help and stay of women giving birth, an analysis of symbolic concepts reveals that they are also key figures in the Arabic social order and the hierarchic relationship between the sexes. Whereas older women in their position as mother-in-law can be viewed as ‘sergeants’ of men’s perspective, traditional midwives assist men in disseminating their vision of the process of fertility and procreation. Hereby they confirm the patriarchal and patrilinear structure of society.

Finally, the study proves the validity of supposing that Arabic women do not passively submit to power differentials. An approach in which ‘power’ is characterized as a process of interaction and negotiation is fruitful. By applying symbolism strategically, women try to change the balance of power between the sexes in their favour. The reconstruction of a women’s perspective also has social relevance. Female circumcision and women’s abuse are viewed as some of the worst expressions of male domination. However, well-intended campaigns against these practices are often ethnocentric. Women are not passive victims, even in the case of abuse and circumcision. In combatting these practices the women in question must be involved. This will only be realized if it is based on their own vision and experiences.

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Een wekelijks portie burgerschap 4 – De overheid

Posted on January 25th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Burgerschapserie 2010.

Uit de burgerschapskalender, voor deze week:

De overheid heeft het goed met ons voor. Maar mag zelf ook wel de handen uit de mouwen steken als het om burgerschap gaat. De overheid hoort bijvoorbeeld service te verlenen, integer te zijn en duidelijk antwoord te geven op vragen. Verder moet de overheid procedures tijdig afhandelen. Kom op, beste ambtenaren, doe je best.

Let op. De staat en haar intenties staan niet ter discussie: die heeft het immers goed met ‘ons’ voor. De service van de overheid en de procedures staan niet ter discussie. Weliswaar wordt gesuggereerd dat de handen uit de mouwen gestoken moeten worden en duidelijk moet zijn en integer moet zijn, maar dat wordt afgewenteld op een stel achterlijke ambtenaren die hier nogal infantiel als een stel kleuters worden aangespoord.
Zijn de intenties van de staat wel zo mooi? Het blinde navolgen van de VS en UK heeft geleid tot Nederlandse betrokkenheid bij een illegale oorlog. Mensen die zijn vrijgesproken van terrorisme gerelateerde zaken worden nog steeds lastig gevallen door politie en AIVD evenals hun familie, collega’s en vrienden. De ombudsman heeft recentelijk het optreden van het ministerie van Algemene Zaken en al veel eerder dat van het Ministerie van Defensie zeer ernstig bekritiseerd. De staat mag zich wel gelukkig prijzen want volgens mij denkt een groot deel van de bevolking inderdaad dat de overheid het goed met ons voor heeft. Dat is ook de basis voor haar legitimatie natuurlijk. Dat verklaart dan ook waarom burgers zo makkelijk allerlei privacy beperkende maatregelen accepteren onder het motto ‘Ik heb toch niks te verbergen’. Als je onschuldig bent heb je niks te vrezen toch? Vraag dat nog even na voor de zekerheid bij de Twee van Putten. Om maar even duidelijk te maken dat het niet de individuele burger is die bepaalt of je onschuldig bent, iets te verbergen hebt of iets te vrezen hebt. Die macht ligt bij de overheid en de overheid is bezig om die machtspositie te versterken. En dat zijn goede redenen om niet zomaar uit te gaan van de goede bedoelingen van de overheid.

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Radicalization Series – Part III The state, secularism and securitization

Posted on January 24th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Headline, ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization.

The second type of radical Islam emphasises the resistance against Western cultural oppression. The focus is primarily on the ‘baneful’ Western lifestyle, which is considered a threat to ‘pure Islam’. This type of radical Islam can be described as radical-Islamic puritanism. Its adherents loathe the way in which human relations are given shape in Western society. They despise Western views on equal rights of men and women (in particular the right of women to participate in public life on an equal footing as men), freedom of speech, respect for ideological multiformity, autonomy in privacy, the secular nature of society, et cetera.
From Dawah to Jihad – AIVD

In the Netherlands Islam has grown into a religion with a large constituency. Accepting this as a reality is not always easy for the strongly secularized native population. This is partly caused because of the much more manifest expressions of Islamic faith, than ‘we’ were used to from other religious groups during the last decades. In combination with a constant threat of radical currents within Islam, people experience the changed societal positions as a threat of their safety. When people are also confronted with criminal or intimidate behaviour or migrant youth groups, tensions arise.
Integration policy report 2007-2011 Make sure you belong!

Introduction

In this third part of the radicalization series, I will take up an issue raised in part II; the need for critically analyzing the role of the state in counter-radicalization. The above quotes are exemplary for the point I’m trying to make here. In the first quote radical Islam (mainly pertaining to Salafism) is contradicted with Western lifestyle and the ‘secular nature of society’. In the second Islam is treated as something from the outside and besides Islam also ‘radical currents’ and ‘more manifest expressions’ of Islam are noted. Since 9/11 and the murder on Dutch film director Van Gogh in 2004 by a young Muslim, radicalism among Muslim youthis perceived to threaten the security of a society based upon liberal, democratic and secular values (AIVD 2006; AIVD 2007). Such a dichotomy between the secular and (radical) Islam usually leaves the secular order uninvestigated and unquestioned. This post will contribute to ongoing efforts to problematize an unquestioned opposition between the secular and the religious by critically investigating the secularist assumptions of Dutch state’s counter-radicalization policy.

Secularism and the moral community
As Asad (2003, 25) argues the secular and the religious are not fixed categories. In secular societies particular modes of reasoning and argumentation, behaviours, knowledge and sensibilities are seen as the embodiment of a universal reason which religious people have to comply to, while only modestly expressing their religiosity (cf. Asad 2006, 515). This brings us to the notion of secularism as a political doctrine. Secularism is thought to create a neutral and objective arena where people with different religious viewpoints can meet on the basis of subscribing to the same political principles (cf. Taylor 1998). Secularism is also the product of a specific history and embedded in a complex of influences that reflect and influence national political and religious culture (Amiraux en Jonker 2006, 16). Different nation-state conceptions, different historical experiences with immigration and different models of church-state relations lead to different trajectories of secularism and (related to these different trajectories) differences in people in self-positioning and claiming recognition, and different modalities of the public sphere (Amir-Moazami 2005, 211). Secularism then is more than just a political stand about the place of religion in society or just the label for the alleged decline of religion. Secularism can be seen as a particular kind of a cultural repertoire with its own beliefs, practices and experiences that can be organized, activated and mobilised by social actors to defend their interests and give meaning to the social world (especially the state) surrounding them (Gorski en Alt?nordu 2008). Asad (2006) has been an important inspiration for research into the ‘cultures of secularism’ for example by Mahmood (2006, 327) who argues that secularism proffers a political solution. This solution lies not so much in a neutral state tolerating difference and diversity but in remaking certain kinds of religious subjectivities to render them compliant with prevailing liberal political rule. Research into the cultural repertoires of secularism and its uses by social actors is therefore important in appreciating the challenges posed by migrants and the second generation to the nation-state and its citizenship politics on the one side, and the debates about multiculturalism and the management of religion on the other side.

The central issue of the Dutch state in managing in its relation with religion in general and churches in particular has been an attempt to monitor, regulate and set the parameters for the participation of religious groups in public life; not by banning religion altogether from the public sphere but by creating a framework within which religious groups could work to construct and define their collective identities. The result has been an attempt to ‘change’ the development of a Muslim community into a ‘more liberal ‘Dutch’ direction that is according against orthodoxism, aimed at dialogue and organized in a manner that the Dutch were accustomed to. And this is exactly what has happened in the 1980s and 1990s. Most claims and demands by Muslims were (in particular because they fitted into the system) acculturative instead of dissociative and controversial and based upon a consensual style of politics instead of a politicization of culture and religion as occurred after 2000.

Furthermore, the idea of the Dutch nation-state was constituted by the idea that every member of society, irrespective of their background and religious affiliation, should subscribe to an imagined moral community; an imagined community based upon ideas about what constitutes a good and virtuous life. Rather than a strong sense of national pride, this idea of the moral community seems to be central in opting in the Dutch national project (cf. Sunier 2000). The Dutch public sphere, in particular since 2001, has partly been dominated by controversies about competing perspectives on moral citizenship and moral order, and about the need of educating and assimilating migrants to comply to an idealized vision of the Dutch moral community consisting of citizens who find virtue in secular freedoms and tolerance (cf. Mepschen 2009).

The Dutch Moral community
While in the time of pillarization (and before) nationalism was in part based upon belonging to a religious or ideological community (and vice versa), now belonging to the Dutch moral community seems to be more and more based upon the idea of a ‘shared culture’ in which sexual freedoms, emancipation of women and the freedom of expression are believed to be the hallmark. It is in particular Muslims who are feared because of the alleged opposition against these freedoms and because of their religiosity. They remind native Dutch people of the (religious) constraints of the past with regard to these freedoms (Van der Veer 2006).

The focus on ‘Dutch’ values is part of a trend emerged in the Netherlands and throughout Europe during 1990s as argued by Stolcke (1995). Stolcke (1995: 7-12), focusing on new rhetoric of exclusion and inclusion based upon cultural essentialism (a rhetoric she calls ‘cultural fundamentalism’) shows how in the process of building nation-states, national belonging and identity are interpreted as cultural singularity. Internal differences are homogenized and cultural identity and sameness become the prerequisite to access to citizenship rights. With this interpretation of citizenship, the need for migrants to accept ‘Dutch norms and values’ became central. Therefore the need to educate and mould migrants into assimilated citizens came about. Migrants should abide by the same ideas of virtuous citizenship and a good life as native Dutch citizens are believed to hold in high regard (see: Tonkens, Hurenkamp, en Duyvendak 2008; Verkaaik 2008; Mepschen 2009). The rhetoric of culture produces an homogenized and idealized vision of the national moral community and exclusion of migrants (Butler 2008). The ongoing emphasis on Muslims as outsiders who need to be adjusted to this unquestioned idea of a shared Dutch culture, has been maintained over the years and produced what Schinkel (2007) describes as ‘the paradox of integration’ This paradox of integration means that migrants are inevitably part of society but re-casted as outsiders who have to be transformed in order to fit into the moral community. At the same time they remain outsiders since even second and third generation are categorized as such.

Radicalization of secularism: liberal Islam vs. Radical Islam
After 9/11 the debate shifted to key themes as violence, fundamentalism, intolerance, hidden agendas, religious tensions, and an orientation on the Islamic world instead of the European world. This has led to a dual track approach in Dutch policies. On the one hand the emphasis on integration remains, albeit with an almost exclusive focus on Islam and Muslims. What is new since 9/11 and especially since the murder of Van Gogh is a radicalization of secularist discourses. In these discourses we see a changing focus: particular trends in Islam are not incorporated, changed and adjusted, but are deterred and fought against by a counter-radicalization policy.

Dutch counter-radicalization policy can be seen as an attempt to exclude those religious practices and beliefs (labelled under ‘radical islam’) that are deemed to be incompatible with liberal political rule (cf. Mahmood 2006). Both the debate and policy primarily target the Salafi movement. This movement aims to revitalize Islam based upon the life of the first Muslims and strives to live according to that idealized vision which its followers find more just and satisfying than the present (De Koning 2009). During the 1980s and 1990s the Salafi movement emerged in the Netherlands via transnational networks, mosques and Islamic schools. Although this movement initially remained quietist, after 2002 it became more visible after incidents with youth trying to go abroad to fight jihad, the murder of Theo van Gogh, Friday prayer sermons whereby imams attacked the Dutch government and politicians and stated that it is allowed to ‘correct’ women with force (De Koning 2009). For the Salafi movement and its participants religion is not and should not be private. Moreover particular modalities of going public as Muslim by Salafi participants are controversial, such as refusing to shake hands and wearing the niqab by women.

Before going into the construction of liberal vs. radical Islam, a few remarks concerning secularism and liberal Islam are in place. As Haddad and Balz (2008) explain: the overall tendency in Europe with regard to integration, security and secularism is a convergence towards the French model with a more rigid separation of church and state and a stricter approach of Islamic authorities. We should not forget however that the overall secularist outlook is shaped by compromises and remains contested because, at least in the Dutch case, there is no agreement over the management of (public) religion by the state. Orthodox Christian parties try to defend the status quo while the Christian-Democrats try to defend the status of religion in public by making the laws more apt to a pluralistic society. The Green Left, progressive and conservative liberals try to further limit the public appearance of religion. The conservative and progressive liberals seem to opt for a stricter separation of church and state while the right wing PVV seems to be mainly interested in banning Islam. The ideas about the correct secular outlook for Dutch society therefore differ and do not only pertain to Islam although Islam is the center of all debates. There is also no agreement on what liberal Islam is. With the exception of the PVV (for which there does not exist a moderate or liberal Islam) generally speaking we can argue that ‘liberal islam’ is perceived by most political parties as a social-cultural and religious phenomenon (much in the same way as Christianity is perceived as a Dutch cultural tradition) with no political aspirations, kept private or with only a modest public appearance.

The background of this debate about radical or liberal Islam involves the ethics of going public by religious groups. As Casanova (1994) has convincingly shown, secularization of a society does not necessarily lead to a decrease in religiosity nor does it necessarily lead to a privatization of religion. The emergence of groups that are unwilling to comply to the frame of liberal Islam and to the secular political culture has been labelled as radicalism (for example:AIVD 2006; AIVD 2007). An important characteristic of this labelling is categorizing and lumping together all (Islamic) ideologies that threaten the democratic order of Dutch society. The distinction liberal Islam and radical Islam pertains to ‘good Islam vs. bad Islam’, a distinction made by Mamdani (2004). ‘Good Islam’ can be relegated to specific areas in the public sphere, but when Islam is experienced as entering into in the public sphere in an assertive or even aggressive way it can be typified as ‘bad Islam’. ‘Radical’ Islam divides the Muslim community and separates them from their identity as an integrated, tolerant and liberal citizens (cf. Birt 2006: 294). As such in particular the Salafi imams are denounced. A well-known incident is that of Salafi imam Ahmad Salam refusing to shake hands with the then Minister of Integration Rita Verdonk. After his refusal she asked the imam “are we not equal?” and stated “well we have a lot to discuss then”. Later on the ministry explained that Minister Verdonk wanted to make clear shaking hands was a conventional Dutch habit. In her view it is important for imams to be aware of this and adjust to it. Refusing to shake hands but also for example wearing the niqab are seen by the Dutch government as symbols of a form of Islam that does not fit Dutch society (In: Moors 2009, 401). What is at stake here is not only rejection of a public display of religion or an Islam that is expressed in ways that people experience as strange and different. It is also a denunciation of what is felt as an assertive and intrusive expression of Islamic religiosity and as an ostentatious, provocative rejection of the Dutch moral community. While for the right wing PVV there is no thing as a moderate Islam, other parties (including the secular ones) tend to support the establishment of a ‘moderate’ or ‘liberal’ Islam, albeit this support is contested within their own ranks. With regard to radical Muslims however all parties oppose their practices out of a firm support for liberal principles or in order to neutralize the PVV and co-opt its constituency (cf. Moors 2009).

It may appear to be self-evident for a democratic country to fight against intolerant ideas or for a secular country to try to contain religion, but it is not. Much of the ideas among Salafists for example pertaining to homosexuality and the rights of women, do not differ very much from orthodox Protestants and members of churches as Pentecostals. Even ‘conservative’ Catholics in the Netherlands agree on this matter. Also the visibility of religion in society and public sphere is not seen in the same way for Muslims as for Christians. Among orthodox protestants there are also groups becoming more visible in the public sphere and refuting the secular contract (cf. Roeland 2009). But that is not labelled as radicalization nor is there any other policy trying to contain for example the Pentecostal movement or active migrant churches. Left wing, right wing and animal rights radicalization are recognized but there is no policy countering radicalization from these sides, albeit that there are some efforts to counter right wing radicalization among native Dutch youth. Schools and other institutions report more incidents about right wing radicalization than radicalization among Muslims, the operationalization of radicalization policy is clearly aimed at Muslim youth given the inclusion of imams, ‘moderate’ Islamic organizations, activities aimed at integration. In plans combating radicalization the dichotomy between ‘Western’ and ‘(radical) Islam’ is central. The dual track policy with regard to Muslims, combining integration policy and counter-radicalization policy, shows that the main difference between orthodox Christians and right wing youth on the one hand and (radicalizing) Muslim youth on the other hand is that the first is seen as part of Dutch moral community while the latter is not.

Conclusion
Lacking in much of the analyses is a critical reflection on the role of the state and its institutions, the ethical-normative aspects counter-radicalization policies, and the discursive foundations which make ‘radicalism studies’ and counter-radicalization policies possible in the first place. Why do states and their institutions label particular individuals, groups and movements as radical and what are the consequences in terms of rights, policies and the position and daily lives of the targeted groups? A more critical and reflexive approach is urgently needed, whether it is about issues of radicalization or secularism.The Netherlands has witnessed an increasing Islamization of the public debate in which Islam becomes a standard for integration and that is combined with policies trying to make Muslims abide by ‘typical Dutch’ values. In particular secular freedoms pertaining to sexuality, women and freedom of speech are instrumentalized into a cultural program of inclusion and citizenship producing a demarcation between a free secular society and Muslim immigrants. These freedoms work as a modality of the secular governance of Islam and the need to protect them is more compelling since 9/11 and the murder of Theo van Gogh by Muslims who adhere to a ‘bad Islam’. The distinction between ‘good Islam’ (that still has to be adjusted) and ‘bad Islam’ (that has to be excluded) reveals a paradox within Dutch secularism and integration policy. While Islam is regarded as coming from outside and therefore it has to be changed, it is also acknowledged as a religion already institutionalized in the Netherlands (therefore it is also inside). Furthermore, radical Islam or ‘bad Islam’ has to be banned. These representation of Islam vis a vis Dutch society reproduces and nurtures the image of the Netherlands as a homogenous secular country, based upon a Christian tradition threatened by radicals, as has been noted by several scholars (for example Butler 2008). It does however do more than that. This becomes clear by looking at the practices of creating a moral community. The distinction between liberal and radical Islam produces unity among different political factions in society and therefore unity within the moral community. The Dutch moral community is created by excluding radical Islam. All parties share the same idea of Muslims and Islam as being outside the moral community and the need to fight against ’radical’ Islam. The main difference between the right wing PVV and others is that the first is convinced that a moderate Islam doesn’t exist, while others do regard Islam as something that can be accommodated to Dutch political culture and its management of religion. Regarding Islam as something from outside and the distinction between ‘good and bad Islam’ allows political parties to criticize and focus on problems with Islam and Muslims, without the need to take up an extreme position as that of the PVV which is regarded as unethical and counterproductive (cf. Schinkel 2008).

References

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• Rath, J., R. Penninx, K. Groenendijk, en A. Meyer. 1999. The politics of Recognition of Religious Diversity in Europe. Social Reactions to the Institutionalizaton of Islam in the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain. The Netherlands’ Journal of Social Sciences 35, no. 1: 53-68.
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Radicalization Series
1. The slippery slope of ethnic profiling
2. What is it? A plea for critical radicalization studies

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Closing the week 3

Posted on January 23rd, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere.

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Gender & activism
gulfnews : Feminism in the Arab world

As the debate on feminism in the region gathers momentum, opinions on the matter are strongly divided. Some believe the so called Western concept of feminism has no place in the Arab world. Yet Arab women are still fighting for an equal place in society, academics and students argue.

Stress, quarrels and neglect: the ‘normal’ polygamous family | openDemocracy

A large-scale study currently underway across Malaysia uncovers proof that polygamy harms everyone involved: from emotionally scarred children, to wives who think they’d be better off as single-parent households, and even husbands who admit “I wouldn’t recommend it for my son; it’s quite stressful.”

Hijabtrendz | Hijab Styles | Hijab Fashion | Hijab Style Blog | Muslimah Fashion | Muslima | Abaya | Hijab How to | Hijab Blog | Hijab Style | Islamic Fashion » Blog Archive » Hijabi Mama: breastfeed in public without the worry

Hijabi Mama: breastfeed in public without the worry
January 21st, 2010

Most hijabis probably wonder if it’s possible to go out and about while breastfeeding without having to miss out on all the fun.

Contemporary Muslim Woman Series: “Love or Arranged Marriage?” by Naila Sheikh « GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali

GOATMILK continues its original and exclusive month long series entitled “The Contemporary Muslim Woman” featuring diverse Muslim women writers from around the world discussing a gamut of topics in their own unique, honest and eclectic voices.

By Naila Sheikh

‘The happily ever after’ moments are very well tattooed in our minds from the time we are kids reading fairy tales to the very reality of growing up and realizing that ‘happily ever after’ may take another route before reaching its destination.

You Know I Love You, Baby: Muslims in Secret “Urfi” Marriages – elan: The Guide to Global Muslim Culture

As if being young and jobless – trapped by the stagnant Egyptian economy – wasn’t bad enough, now young people are facing an unexpected social consequence of poverty. Young Egyptians can no longer afford to get married and are engaging in secret “urfi” marriages – essentially, a Sharia version of common law marriage. Now, you may be wondering why Egyptian couples don’t just put on their Friday best and go to town hall for a marriage certificate. If so, you obviously don’t know Arabs.

Weddings in Arab culture are slightly absurd in their extravagance and expense.

No religious justification for child marriage: Saudi cleric – Yahoo! News

A senior Saudi cleric said the Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl some 14 centuries ago cannot be used to justify child marriages today, a Saudi newspaper reported Thursday.

The comments by Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie, a member of the Council of Senior Ulema (scholars), followed the marriage of a 12-year-old girl to a man 68 years her senior.

Reuters AlertNet – Mauritanian Muslim imams initiate rare ban on female circumcision

Human rights campaigners who have been struggling for years to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) in West Africa got a boost this week as news emerged that a group of Muslim clerics and scholars in Mauritania had declared a fatwa, or religious decree, against the practice.

Women reject fatwa on hairstyles, ‘ojek’ | The Jakarta Post

Muslim women in Surabaya, East Java, have flatly rejected a fatwa recently issued by local clerics, who said women changing the color and form of their hair using the rebonding technique is haram (forbidden under Islam).

“Hair coloring and straightening are just a matter of fashion, and have nothing to do with one’s level faith,” university student Ulfa Damayanti, 19, told The Jakarta Post on the weekend, after undergoing a rebonding treatment at a stylist in Surabaya.

Women who wear the burka should be banned from benefits and public transport, claims French government spokesman | Mail Online

Women who wear the burka in France should be banned from using public transport or receiving state handouts, a government official says.

UMP party spokesman Frederic Lefebvre demanded that any woman breaking a proposed law making the garment illegal should be ‘deprived of her rights’.

His comments came the day after the head of president Nicolas Sarkozy’s party said Muslim women wearing full-face veils should not be granted French nationality.

Paris imam backs France’s proposed burqa ban – Yahoo! News

A French imam active in Muslim dialogue with Jews has backed a law against full face veils, parting ways with most Muslim leaders in France urging parliamentarians not to vote for a planned “burqa ban.”

Hassen Chalghoumi, whose mosque stands in a northern Paris suburb where many Muslims live, said women who wanted to cover their faces should move to Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries where that was a tradition.

Violence, resistance and counter-opposition
Al Jazeera English – Africa – Horror of Nigeria clashes uncovered

Hundreds of people have died in violence between Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria.

The clashes began on Sunday in the city of Jos, but later spread to the countryside.

Al Jazeera has obtained evidence that suggests the bloodshed from ethnic and religious violence could be greater than feared.

World Briefing – Africa – Kenya – Confusion Over Whereabouts of Radical Cleric – NYTimes.com

Government officials made contradictory statements on Thursday about whether a radical Muslim cleric had left the country. Kenyan authorities had detained the Jamaican-born cleric, Abdullah al-Faisal, who served four years in a British jail for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred, and were trying to deport him. In response to a lawsuit, the High Court ordered the government to produce Mr. Faisal in court on Thursday and state its reasons for holding him. A document filed by prosecutors said Mr. Faisal was trying to recruit Kenyan youths to fight for Al Shabab, an Islamist insurgency in Somalia. But at the hearing, a prosecutor said Mr. Faisal had left the country. An official confirmed that he was on a plane that was scheduled to refuel in Moscow before going on to Jamaica. But hours later, Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said that Mr. Faisal was still in the country.

tabsir.net » Greg Johnsen on al-Qaeda in Yemen

Yemen has so many dire problems that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Al Qaeda is growing in prominence, a Shiite rebellion is expanding in the north, and the threat of secession is renewed in the south. There’s a brewing fight over what comes after President Ali Abdullah Saleh, age 67, who has ruled Yemen for 31 years; the country’s elites are locked in a closed-door struggle to take power once he departs. Finally, and perhaps most intractably, Yemen is an environmental and resource catastrophe in the making. The country’s water table is nearly depleted from years of agricultural malpractice, and its oil reserves are rapidly dwindling. This comes just when unemployment is soaring and an explosive birthrate promises only more young, jobless citizens in the coming years.

Alan J. Singer: How I Almost Became a Terrorist

The survival of Israel as a Jewish state was important to my identity and the identity of my friends and family members. My friends, siblings, cousins, and I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and we had family members who were murdered. Jews had been victims for two thousand years but the survival of Israel meant we would be victims no more.

In Harmonium » Rethinking the role of Religious Conflict in Doctrine

A very interesting discussion is starting to heat up over at the Small Wars Council over a paper written by Matt Lauder called Religion and Resistance: Examining the Role of Religion in Irregular Warfare (March 2009, DRDC Toronto TN 2009-049; NB: originally posted by milNews.ca over at army.ca forums). I expect the discussion to expand quite a bit over the next few days. One of the reasons why the discussion is so interesting is that it is touching on some areas that are truly central to understanding the motivations and logics of people or, in other words, how people can “make sense” out of the weirdest things.

Radicalization Among Young Muslims in Aarhus : Euro-Islam: News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and the United States

The recently established Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalization has published its first research report entitled “Radicalization among Young Muslims in Aarhus”.

Protests Over Muslim Cleric in Kenyan Capital Turn Violent | Africa | English

A riot broke out in downtown Nairobi when a demonstration against the detention of a radical Muslim cleric from Jamaica turned into ongoing street clashes. Civilians on both sides attacked each other with rocks as Kenyan security forces fired tear gas and live bullets into the mass of protesters supporting the cleric. At least one person was killed and several others were wounded.

Wilders on Trial
Wilders on trial: who’s funding his defence? | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

The long-awaited trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders begins this week. Charged with inciting hatred, Wilders could be facing several months – or even years – of court hearings. But Wilders is not independently wealthy, so where will he get the money to pay for his defence?

nrc.nl – International – First day in Wilders trial

The lead judge of the court started off by addressing Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV party, directly. The judge said that while the media might have portrayed his case as foregone, his court “would not cast judgment before the last word has been spoken”.

Geert Wilders: ‘I want Muslim fanatic to speak in my defence’ – Times Online

Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-Right MP, has demanded that his race hate trial should hear evidence from the fanatic who used the Koran to justify killing the director of an anti-Islamic film.

Muslim in minor
altmuslimah.com – Book “Journey to the End of Islam”: Don’t homogenize my hajj!

Muslim American communities have undertaken many efforts to add nuance to the public’s impression of Muslims. The Brooklyn Arts Museum held their Muslim Voices series last summer, and Boston recently held a Muslim Film Festival, and Altmuslimah itself has established a regular photographic campaign. For good reason, much of the energy in these projects is used to show the beauty and diversity of Muslims; however, there is definitely room to show the messiness within the Muslim community, and Michael Muhammad Knight is one writer filling this gap.
In his new novel Journey to the End of Islam, Michael Muhammad Knight writes on the complex relationship between what he sees as cultural Islamic practices, a new wave of corporatized Islam. The book is provocative, disjointed all over the place, and ultimately satisfying.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Is the UK turning a blind eye to Muslim polygamy?

Reporter Sorious Samora, who was himself raised in a polygamous family in Sierra Leone, investigates the cultural sensitivities around polygamy and claims that polygamous marriages are on the rise in UK Muslim communities, but that the government is failing to tackle the issue.

Americans’ bias against Jews, Muslims linked, poll says – washingtonpost.com

A poll about Americans’ views on Islam concludes that the strongest predictor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person holds similar feelings about Jews.

The Gallup poll, released Thursday, also finds that people who report going to religious services more than once a week are less likely to harbor bias against Muslims.

U.S. State Department Ends Ban on 2 Prominent Muslim Scholars – Faculty – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders effectively reversing the Bush administration’s decisions to bar two prominent foreign Muslim scholars, Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan, from entry into the United States.

Most German Muslims don’t wear headscarves, says report on integration / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

The first representative study of Muslim life in Germany paints a portrait of a minority that is much more integrated, multifaceted, and secular than previously thought. The Nuremberg-based Federal Office of Migration surveyed 6,004 people age 16 and above by telephone. Based on data provided about other household members, the study evaluated almost 17,000 people and was released in June 2009.

Some findings: Half of Germany’s 4.3 million Muslims do quintessentially German things, such as join in soccer clubs or senior citizens’ groups. Only 4 percent belong to associations rooted in home countries. Most say they are religious, but 70 percent of women never wear a head scarf, 90 percent of girls go on school trips, and 93 percent attend swimming lessons. Integration into German society is helped through new pilot projects that offer Islam courses in public schools, in addition to already established classes on Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.

Divided Loyalties or Imagined Conflicts? Muslims in America | Yasir Qadhi | Baltimore | IlmFest 2009 | MuslimMatters.org

Al walaa wal baraa is the primary intellectual crisis of generation Islam. The essential question being asked is, “What do we do as practicing orthodox Muslims living in secular lands, when our religion demands one thing and the land demands something else?” In Qadhi’s opinion, the answer to this question has yet to be formulated properly. We do not have an answer. We cannot look up the answer in some medieval textbook because this situation has never existed before. Never before has there been no Islamic khilafah. Never before have there been 40-50 million Muslims living in western lands in “secular democracies.” Never before has there been a system of nation-states. Never before was there a concept of secularism. Previously, Europe was very Christian in nature.

Islam In The Balkans: Can One Be European And Be Muslim?

There is a debate raging in Europe over what it means to be European. The identity issue came to a head a few years ago during the voting on a European constitution – it failed. But it’s also been attached to discussions of Islam in Europe. The question often asked: Can one be European and be Muslim?

French leaders push for ban of Muslim dress in public places – washingtonpost.com

France, which regards itself as the cradle of human rights, is moving to impose legal restrictions on Muslim women who wear Afghan-style burqas or other full-face veils.

Misc.
Fatwa Against Muslim Prayer Ringtones: They’re ‘Demeaning,’ ‘Disrespectful,’ Top Cleric Says

Egypt’s top cleric wants Muslims to answer the call to prayer, but not when it’s ringing on their cellphones.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa issued a fatwa, or a religious edict, on Wednesday urging Muslims to do away with a popular fad – Quranic verses or the five daily calls to prayer as cellphone ringtones. The government-appointed cleric says such ringtones are inappropriate, misleading and demeaning to God’s words.

Messages from Paradise #1 Egypt: Austria A documentary film by Daniela Swarowsky and Samuli Schielke « Austrian Cultural Forum London

In a village in Egypt, young men dream of migrating to Europe where they hope to find money, freedom, and new horizons. In Vienna, Egyptian migrants long for home. Their tales of migration reveal that the realities of living in Europe are more complex and nuanced than they themselves might have dreamt. Paradise, for both sides of this fictional dialogue, is always elsewhere. And perhaps happiness lies not in making old dreams come true, but in finding new ones. The series of showings listed below include Q&A sessions with film-makers Daniela Swarowsky and Samuli Schielke.

Social Movements 2.0

On September 27, 2007, the world experienced its first virtual strike. In response to a wage dispute, IBM workers in Italy organized a picket outside their company’s “corporate campus” based in the 3-D virtual world of Second Life. According to a report in the Guardian, workers “marched and waved banners, gate-crashed a [virtual] staff meeting and forced the company to close its [virtual] business center to visitors…. The protest, by more than 9,000 workers and 1,850 supporting ‘avatars’ from thirty countries,” included a rowdy collection of pink triangles, “sentient” bananas and other bizarro avatars.

Digital Democracy or Increasing Returns? | Resilience Science

Thomas Slee reviews The Myth of Digital Democracy by ASU political scientist Matthew Hindman. Slee is the author of the popular economics book No One Makes You Shop at Walmart, which shows how game theory and increasing returns can eliminate much of the choice that some argue is found in markets. Hindman finds that the internet can amplify similar dynamics in politics.

altmuslimah.com – Life under occupation: Miss Palestine’s mistaken rebellion

One of the travesties of living in a colonized environment is that the inferior, or oppressed, aspire to win admittance to the Western world. There seems to be an emerging trend of this type of appeasement, where submission has replaced the revolution. The introduction to spectacles, like the breaking of a Guinness record for the largest plate of kanafeh and the search for a national beauty queen, are just two examples of how absurd practices are coming to be seen as normal in Palestinian cities.

Jose Antonio Vargas: The Web Is Flat — The World Responds to Haiti’s Earthquake Online

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The Web is flat. And in a world made smaller by the Internet and new technologies, we become each other’s witnesses — one text, one tweet, one Facebook status update, one YouTube video, one Wikipedia view and edit at a time.

VOA News – Margaret Mead, 1901-1978: A Public Face of Anthropology

Many consider her the most influential social science researcher of the 20th century. Yet some experts say her research depended too much on observation and local stories.

Dutch
Arabiste: de waarheid over islam bestaat niet – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

De waarheid over de islam bestaat niet. Er was vanaf het allervroegste begin verschil van mening over. Wetenschappers, publicisten en politici moeten hun statische beeld van de islam bijstellen, ‘of ze die nu interpreteren als serene volmaaktheid of als rigide onbuigzaamheid’. Dit zegt arabiste en papyrologe Petra Sijpesteijn in een interview met de Volkskrant.

Stoornis allochtone jongeren vaak niet behandeld – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

Allochtone jongeren belanden relatief vaak in de criminaliteit omdat psychische stoornissen bij hen niet of te laat worden behandeld. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van Stichting De Jutters, een instelling voor jeugd-GGZ in de regio Haaglanden.

Een moslim als gemeentelijk bruggenbouwer? | ZemZem

Het ontslag van Tariq Ramadan heeft veel ophef veroorzaakt. De doorslag gaf zijn werk voor Press TV. Gerard Wiegers en Nelleke van Zessen stellen, net zoals Ramadan zelf, dat de controverse rond zijn opvattingen over homoseksualiteit het kernprobleem vormde. Ramadan bleek niet de vrijzinnige moslim die de gemeente Rotterdam in hem had gezien. Kan een orthodoxe moslim als bruggenbouwer functioneren voor een gemeente?

De hervormingsagenda van Ramadan | ZemZem

Waar Tariq Ramadan in zijn vorige boeken nog vooral schreef over mogelijke ontwikkelingen van de islam in het Westen, presenteert hij in zijn nieuwste boek Radical Reform een hervormingsagenda die op de islam wereldwijd gericht is. Door een herbezinning op de fundamenten van de islamitische wet wil hij het islamitisch denken klaarmaken voor de uitdagingen van de moderniteit.

Gezichtsbedekking uit of aan? MedicalFacts vroeg het aan moslims en artsen | Medicalfacts

In navolging op eerdere artikelen op MedicalFacts komt de discussie op gang dat gezichtsbedekking de communicatie met zorgverleners niet zou mogen verstoren. V&VN vindt dat een verpleegkundige of verzorgende een patiënt mag vragen haar boerka af te doen. Gezichtsbedekkende kleding zoals een boerka, nicap, spiegelende zonnebril, helm of bivakmuts mogen de diagnose en behandeling van patiënten en daarmee de kwaliteit en veiligheid van de zorg niet in gevaar brengen. Alleen geeft V&VN geen handvat aan haar achterban. En ook met het artikel van V&VN blijkt dat er behoefte is aan richting voor interculturalisatie vraagstukken in de zorg. De KNMG reageerde al eerder. Maar stekelde dat als moslima’s na uitleg weigeren de boerka af te zetten toch zorg geleverd moet worden. Maar soms kan men ondanks de boerka de zorg niet leveren. Denk aan aandoeningen aan het gelaat maar ook geestelijke gezondheidszorg kan men niet goed leveren met gezichtsbedekking.’

Geen taboes – Home

Salaam, en welkom op de site Geentaboes.nl! Wat deze website anders maakt dan alle andere voorlichtingssites is dat Geentaboes.nl tot stand is gekomen in samenwerking met jonge mensen van Turkse en Marokkaanse afkomst. Zij durfden zich open te stellen en kwamen met veel vragen die leefden in hun omgeving en bij zichzelf. Sommige van hen hebben nauwelijks goede seksuele voorlichting gehad. Thuis wordt er niet of nauwelijks over seksualiteit gesproken of ze hebben onjuiste informatie gekregen via vrienden of internet. De islam was voor velen van hen een belangrijke leidraad in hun leven als het aankwam op seksualiteit. Hier is rekening mee gehouden en er is goed geluisterd naar de wensen van iedereen.

‘Democratie en vrijheid zijn waardeloos’ – Nederlands Dagblad

Democratie en vrijheid brengen niets goeds en integratie is een samenzwering om moslims hun geloof en identiteitte ontnemen. Rond de Dag van de Godsdienstvrijheid in de VS en het verbod op Islam4UK in Engeland is de vraag weer opgekomen, hoe ver radicale geestelijken die dit stellen hun gang mogen gaan in een samenleving die zewillen vernietigen.

Gemengde gevoelens over een moskee | Al het nieuws over Edam en Volendam

In Edam is de eerste steen gelegd voor een Moskee. De dominee en de burgemeester waren er getuige van. Dus is het een goede zaak, anders waren ze wel thuisgebleven. Ik gun die Marokkanen hun gebedsruimte. Wonen in een koud land zonder een huis voor je eigen god is pas echt bedakken. Maar ik heb er wel gemengde gevoelens over. In de berichtgeving noemen ze hun moskee voortdurend een ‘gebedshuis’ om het woord moskee te vermijden. Als je vervolgens leest wat ze daar gaan doen verschilt dat echter niet van een gewone moskee. Ik was ook niet verbaasd toen ik las dat ze er lessen in Arabisch gingen geven. Wie dat wereldje kent, weet dat het betekent dat ze koranlessen gaan geven en kinderen leren de koran in het Arabisch op te zeggen. Allemaal dus vrij traditioneel.

Geert Wilders staat voor niets met zijn vrijheid – Trouw

Ik heb niets tegen moslims. Ik heb een probleem met de islam en de islamisering van ons land, omdat de islam haaks op vrijheid staat. Aldus motiveerde het PVV-Kamerlid Wilders deze week voor de rechtbank in Amsterdam zijn ’soms harde, maar nooit onbesuisde’ woorden over de godsdienst die, met naar schatting 800.000 aanhangers, in betrekkelijk korte tijd de tweede religie van ons land is geworden. De verklaring doet denken aan de protestantse agitatie tegen het besluit van het eerste kabinet-Thorbecke het herstel van de katholieke kerkprovincie toe te staan.

Bas Heijne » Wilders op z’n retour

Wat opviel aan de regiezitting van het proces tegen Wilders, afgelopen woensdag, die ik vanaf de publieke tribune bijwoonde, waren de fluwelen handschoenen waarmee de verdachte werd aangepakt. Niemand wilde gezien worden als de vijand van het vrije woord, de voorzitter van de rechtbank niet, de officieren van justitie niet. Men benadrukte met klem dat Wilders bepaald nog niet veroordeeld was, dat hij ruim de gelegenheid zou krijgen zijn zegje te doen, dat hij genoeg „deskundigen” als getuigen moest kunnen oproepen om zijn harde beweringen over de aard van de islam te kunnen staven. Toen hij de rechtszaal uitliep, werd hij voor de verzamelde televisiejournalistiek ondervraagd alsof hij een zware beproeving had ondergaan. Keer op keer herhaalde hij dat de vrijheid van meningsuiting op het spel stond – geen journalist die hem vroeg waarom hij als kampioen van de vrije meningsuiting de Koran wilde verbieden en het dragen van een hoofddoek wilde beboeten.

Joost Niemöller » Grenzen aan de vrijheid van meningsuiting

Gaat het bij het proces tegen Wilders om de vrijheid van meningsuiting? Of staat eigenlijk de islam terecht? In onderstaand essay maakt Martien Pennings op hartstochtelijke wijze duidelijk dat voor hem de vrijheid van meningsuiting niet absoluut moet zijn als het de islam betreft. Dat heeft met de islam zelf te maken.

Getuige acht: Wilders is een held – DePers.nl

Als de PVV-leider zijn zin krijgt, zullen radicale moslims en glasharde islamcritici door de rechtszaal paraderen.

PVV-favoriet Peter R. de Vries onder vuur – HP/De Tijd

Dat waren stevige woorden van Peter R. de Vries gisteren in Pauw & Witteman en op zijn website. De Nationale Misdaadverslaggever: “Ik vind Geert W. zelf een gevaarlijk man, een demagoog met de potentie van een volksmenner. W. is ronduit kwaadaardig.” En dat kwam hem op stevige kritiek te staan. Maar wacht eens, Peter R. was toch de populairste man onder PVV’ers?

Wereldjournalisten Geert Wilders: ‘Ik zeg de waarheid en dat is niet strafbaar’

Onder luid applaus van vooral PVV-Kamerleden verliet Geert Wilders op 20 januari 2010 rond 17.00uur de rechtzaal. ‘Ik spreek de waarheid en dat is niet strafbaar. De deskundigen zullen dat laten zien als ze de kans krijgen om te getuigen.’

.god.voor.dommen » Blog Archive » Tariq’s tegenspraak: Homoseksualiteit en islam

De voormalige bruggenbouwer tussen moslims en niet-moslims is verschenen in een tweetal filmpjes op de website geentaboes.marokko.nl. Een website gevuld met vragen voor de nieuwsgierige moslim – waar Wilders klop krijgt Marokkanen onterecht op één hoop te gooien met moslims, lijken ze daar zelf helemaal geen probleem mee te hebben.

Maar terug naar Tariq, want zijn bijdrage aan de vraagbaak voor onze islamitische medemens handelt over homoseksualiteit. En u weet dat gelovigen nergens zoveel over te zeggen hebben als de seksuele voorkeur van andere mensen. Nu, Tariq staat er om bekend zijn toon aan te passen aan het publiek dat hij toespreekt, en schijnt dit voornamelijk het geval te zijn als het gaat om homoseksualiteit of het toepassen van de sharia.

Expertdiscussies » Het proces tegen Wilders is een politiek proces

Wat vindt u? Is het proces tegen PVV-leider Wilders, dat woensdag van start gaat, inderdaad een politiek proces? En levert dat gevaren op voor de stabiliteit van de maatschappij?

Nederlandse Islamitische Omroep » Archief » Suudi en de nieuwe moslim omroep

Stichting Moslim Omroep Nederland (SMON) gaat per 1 september dit jaar de zendtijd voor moslims verzorgen. Nioweb sprak met Radi Suudi over de plannen van deze nieuwe omroep en hoe hij eventuele problemen uit de weg wilt gaan.

De Derde Nationale Bekeerlingendag – Wij Blijven Hier!: Het schrijversplatform van moslims

Het begint alweer een beetje te kriebelen en, hoewel ik me er soms een beetje voor schaam, is het toch ook wel logisch uit te leggen dat ik me zo voel. De bekeerlingendag 2010 komt er aan, de derde alweer. Parbleu, ik heb er zin in, ouwe!

Maghreb Magazine » Islamic Single Event: speeddate voor moslims

Ben je moslim, single en op zoek naar een levenspartner? Islamic Single Event organiseert op 30 januari een speeddate in Rotterdam voor single moslims.

‘De tijd van koppelen of van het via via met elkaar trouwen, is niet meer van deze tijd. Moslimjongeren zijn kritischer geworden. De een wil een vrouw die carrière maakt, de ander een man met hetzelfde opleidingsniveau of juist niet’, zei Rachid El Hajoui al 2 jaar geleden tegen Wereldjournalisten.nl . Maar het is moeilijk voor moslimjongeren om elkaar te ontmoeten of met elkaar in contact te komen, nog altijd. Ontmoetingen zijn aan culturele en religieuze regels gebonden. Daarom organiseert El Hajoui speeddates voor moslims. El Hajoui houdt rekening met de culturele en religieuze omgangsvorrmen en zorgt daardoor voor een ‘veilige’ omgeving.

Allochtonenweblog: Het komende proces Wilders: wat er wezenlijk op het spel staat

Het proces tegen Wilders, dat op 20 januari a.s., na wat eerdere inhoudelijke schermutselingen, volop van start gaat, werpt zijn schaduw vooruit. Naarmate deze rechtszaak dichterbij kwam, hebben geluiden dat een dergelijk proces überhaupt niet zou mogen plaatsvinden steeds meer vrij baan gekregen. Die zijn dan merendeels afkomstig van dezelfde categorie maatschappijbeschouwers die vroeger nog het standpunt innamen dat ‘alles gezegd moest kunnen worden, zolang de rechter zich niet in afwijzende zin daarover had uitgesproken’. Een artikel van mr. N.M.P. Steijnen, M. Rabbae en mr. F. Ben-Saddek.

Milaad Festival 2010, Binnenkort Online

Het Mawlid Festival vindt dit jaar plaats op 14 maart in dr. Anton Philipzaal in Den Haag. Om dit wederom tot een succesvol evenement te maken, kunnen wij jouw financiële steun goed gebruiken.

Met het Mawlid Festival wordt de komst van de Profeet (vzmh) op een vreugdevolle wijze herdacht en proberen wij de diversiteit binnen de moslimgemeenschappen tentoon te stellen.

Evenals voorgaande jaren hebben we ook dit jaar weer een zeer bijzonder programma samengesteld, met: nasheed (lofliederen), comedy en geleerden uit binnen- en buitenland. Van inspiratie tot ontspanning, het zal er dit jaar insha-Allah allemaal zijn In Dr. Anton Phillips zaal (Den Haag) op zondag 14 maart. We verwachten ongeveer 1500 bezoekers.

Dawah-TV: Geweigerde moslima vertelt Dawah TV exclusief verhaal

De 23 jarige moslima die op een vrijdagavond (25 december 2009) geweigerd werd door de arts die werkzaam was bij de huisartsenpost in Utrecht. Zij vertelt Dawah TV het volledige verhaal.

Dawah-TV Column: Burka bashing

Vol verbazing las ik het artikel op de site over onze moslimzuster die geweigerd was door een arts van de huisartsenpost in Multi-culti Utrecht. Dat zoiets gebeurt in een land als Nederland! We leven toch in een zogenaamd ‘beschaafd’ land waar iedereen elkaar zogenaamd respecteert en accepteert?

0 comments.

WoT 3- Wilders' Bouyeri Defense

Posted on January 21st, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

Today was the first day of the trial against Wilders. It was a procedural hearing and it will be resumed on February 3 after the three judges having considered the opening arguments of both sides and decided upon when and which witnesses have to appear. The prosecution will only call Wilders to the stand. Moszkowicz, Wilders’ lawyer, wants to call 17 witnesses:
1) Professor Sackers, Radboud University
2) Professor Zwart, Utrecht University
3) Afshin Ellian, anti-islam columnist, Leiden University
4) Professor Theo de Roos,
5) Professor András Sajó, Judge of the EHMS
6) Professor Hans Jansen, anti-islam columnist
7) Simon Admiraal, Islamic studies
8) Wafaa Sultan
9) Professor Israeli
10)mr. Salomon
11)Andrew G. Bostom
12)Robert Spencer
13)Mohammed Bouyeri (murderer of Theo van Gogh 2004)
14)Mr. Jasdi (spiritual leader Iranian president)
15)Ahmad Jannati (chairman Council of
16)Imam Fawaz Jneid (imam of the Salafi mosque in The Hague)
17)Sheikh Al-Qardawi

Interesting names, in particular of Mohammed Bouyeri. This will most likely mean that Wilders we follow a line of defense we can call a Bouyeri defense. He takes up the position of the most notorious Dutch Muslim who killed film director Theo van Gogh and stated that this was what Islam expected from him. According to Wilders there is no such thing as a moderate Islam, there is only one Islam and that Islam is fundamentally at odds with the tenets of Dutch culture. Views of Islam different from those of Bouyeri are considered to be false, examples of whitewashing, lying or at least irrelevant and not to be taken seriously. Every other view of Islam is therefore false and, moreover, as such he (Wilders) must be telling the truth which in turn means that he cannot be convicted. The problem of course is that there is not single view of what Islam is and the fragmentization of Islamic authority renders such an image completely ridiculous. And Wilders is making up lies everywhere as I have shown in my analysis of Fitna and his speech in Denmark. Nevertheless, the image he wants to create is compelling for its simplicity and its capacity of making the world understandable for many people.

Source: Geenstijl.nl alternate text: 'Wildersfans'

Below you can read Wilders’ speech at the court but before that I want to share another observation of today. At the start of the trial today protesters were outside the courthouse. You can watch a film of that HERE. That of course is not very remarkable. Now for those who understand Dutch, it is very clear that the people in this film are not among the most eloquent part of the Dutch nation. This makes them of course very vulnerable for all kinds of mockery with names such as clowns, retards, fools, attention-gays, boldheads and so on. It seems that also for anti-Islam/pro-Wilders there are ethics of how to go public with your complaints, grievances and claims. If you do not comply you are rendered abnormal for example by a Dutch shocklog (of all sites). Of course there are ‘normal‘ people (read ‘people like us who are eloquent, civilized and look the same). I don’t know what is more troublesome, the constant lies by Wilders or the continuing denouncement of people who are in some way different in the way they go public. In all accounts, these people are not taken seriously; whether they are radical Muslims or Wilders’ supporters. It is therefore a particular modality of exclusion that, my impression, is becoming more and more dominant.

And now for Wilders’ speech:

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.

• Part 0 – Outlining the case
• Part 1 – Update on the Wilders trial
• Stay updated by subscribing HERE and you can also follow on Twitter.

2 comments.

WoT 3- Wilders’ Bouyeri Defense

Posted on January 21st, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

Today was the first day of the trial against Wilders. It was a procedural hearing and it will be resumed on February 3 after the three judges having considered the opening arguments of both sides and decided upon when and which witnesses have to appear. The prosecution will only call Wilders to the stand. Moszkowicz, Wilders’ lawyer, wants to call 17 witnesses:
1) Professor Sackers, Radboud University
2) Professor Zwart, Utrecht University
3) Afshin Ellian, anti-islam columnist, Leiden University
4) Professor Theo de Roos,
5) Professor András Sajó, Judge of the EHMS
6) Professor Hans Jansen, anti-islam columnist
7) Simon Admiraal, Islamic studies
8) Wafaa Sultan
9) Professor Israeli
10)mr. Salomon
11)Andrew G. Bostom
12)Robert Spencer
13)Mohammed Bouyeri (murderer of Theo van Gogh 2004)
14)Mr. Jasdi (spiritual leader Iranian president)
15)Ahmad Jannati (chairman Council of
16)Imam Fawaz Jneid (imam of the Salafi mosque in The Hague)
17)Sheikh Al-Qardawi

Interesting names, in particular of Mohammed Bouyeri. This will most likely mean that Wilders we follow a line of defense we can call a Bouyeri defense. He takes up the position of the most notorious Dutch Muslim who killed film director Theo van Gogh and stated that this was what Islam expected from him. According to Wilders there is no such thing as a moderate Islam, there is only one Islam and that Islam is fundamentally at odds with the tenets of Dutch culture. Views of Islam different from those of Bouyeri are considered to be false, examples of whitewashing, lying or at least irrelevant and not to be taken seriously. Every other view of Islam is therefore false and, moreover, as such he (Wilders) must be telling the truth which in turn means that he cannot be convicted. The problem of course is that there is not single view of what Islam is and the fragmentization of Islamic authority renders such an image completely ridiculous. And Wilders is making up lies everywhere as I have shown in my analysis of Fitna and his speech in Denmark. Nevertheless, the image he wants to create is compelling for its simplicity and its capacity of making the world understandable for many people.

Source: Geenstijl.nl alternate text: 'Wildersfans'

Below you can read Wilders’ speech at the court but before that I want to share another observation of today. At the start of the trial today protesters were outside the courthouse. You can watch a film of that HERE. That of course is not very remarkable. Now for those who understand Dutch, it is very clear that the people in this film are not among the most eloquent part of the Dutch nation. This makes them of course very vulnerable for all kinds of mockery with names such as clowns, retards, fools, attention-gays, boldheads and so on. It seems that also for anti-Islam/pro-Wilders there are ethics of how to go public with your complaints, grievances and claims. If you do not comply you are rendered abnormal for example by a Dutch shocklog (of all sites). Of course there are ‘normal‘ people (read ‘people like us who are eloquent, civilized and look the same). I don’t know what is more troublesome, the constant lies by Wilders or the continuing denouncement of people who are in some way different in the way they go public. In all accounts, these people are not taken seriously; whether they are radical Muslims or Wilders’ supporters. It is therefore a particular modality of exclusion that, my impression, is becoming more and more dominant.

And now for Wilders’ speech:

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.

• Part 0 – Outlining the case
• Part 1 – Update on the Wilders trial
• Stay updated by subscribing HERE and you can also follow on Twitter.

2 comments.

Een wekelijks portie burgerschap 3 | Iqra – Lees!

Posted on January 20th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Burgerschapserie 2010.

Uit de burgerschapskalender, voor deze week:

Er was eens een kind dat werd voorgelezen. Dat was goed voor zijn taalgevoel en fantasie. Later werd hij geholpen met lezen door een leeshulp van een bedrijf in de buurt. Door het hele land oefenen werknemers van bedrijven en overheden in hun lunchpauze op scholen het technisch lezen met kinderen die daarbij hulp kunnen gebruiken. En de kinderen? Die lezen nog lang en gelukkig.
Vanaf 20-1 De Nationale Voorleesdagen
www.nationalevoorleesdagen.nl

Iqra’ naar verluidt het eerste woord van de Koran en het is te zien als een gebod: Lees!

Natuurlijk lezen is mooi. Lezen opent hele nieuwe werelden voor mensen, kan mensen aan het denken zetten en nog meer van die mooie zaken. Lezen dient zeker gestimuleerd te worden. Ook voor de zelfredzaamheid van mensen. Mensen die (functioneel) analfabeet zijn in de Nederlandse taal (en vaak overigens opmerkelijk creatief zijn in het verbergen daarvan) komen vroeg of laat tegen problemen aan. De roman Der Vorleser (prachtig verfilmd als The Reader) is misschien wel één van de mooiste en aangrijpendste verbeeldingen daarvan.

Het is daarom wel jammer dat het taalonderwijs in Nederland achteruit is gegaan. Leerlingen krijgen minder uren in taal. In ieder geval in vreemde talen. En wanneer een school voorstelt om Turks en Arabisch op te nemen als moderne vreemde taal (net als Spaans, Engels, Frans, Duits en Chinees) is het land te klein. Dat zou niet goed zijn voor de integratie en ‘we’ spreken toch Nederlands met elkaar? Inderdaad, op dit kleine aanslibsel spreken we Nederlands met elkaar en lezen we in het Nederlands; moeten we vooral ook zo houden. Maar we zijn geen eiland en een kleine open economie als Nederland lijkt mij gebaat met een gedegen talenkennis. Daarbij staat ook de Turkse en Arabische literatuur op een voldoende hoog niveau om taalgevoel en fantasie te stimuleren. Lees bijvoorbeeld Sneeuw of Het Yacoubian.

En wat betekent hier de nadruk op het elkaar voorlezen? Is dat een manier om de onderlinge cohesie te bevorderen? Of om taken die voorheen bij de overheid lagen in het onderwijs af te wentelen op individuele burgers die als vrijwilliger (voor een dubbeltje op de eerste rang) moeten gaan optreden? Maar goed, lezen, samen lezen en voorlezen is natuurlijk ook wel erg leuk en het is ook geen wonder dat dat in brede lagen van de bevolking is doorgedrongen.

0 comments.

Een wekelijks portie burgerschap 3 | Iqra – Lees!

Posted on January 20th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Burgerschapserie 2010.

Uit de burgerschapskalender, voor deze week:

Er was eens een kind dat werd voorgelezen. Dat was goed voor zijn taalgevoel en fantasie. Later werd hij geholpen met lezen door een leeshulp van een bedrijf in de buurt. Door het hele land oefenen werknemers van bedrijven en overheden in hun lunchpauze op scholen het technisch lezen met kinderen die daarbij hulp kunnen gebruiken. En de kinderen? Die lezen nog lang en gelukkig.
Vanaf 20-1 De Nationale Voorleesdagen
www.nationalevoorleesdagen.nl

Iqra’ naar verluidt het eerste woord van de Koran en het is te zien als een gebod: Lees!

Natuurlijk lezen is mooi. Lezen opent hele nieuwe werelden voor mensen, kan mensen aan het denken zetten en nog meer van die mooie zaken. Lezen dient zeker gestimuleerd te worden. Ook voor de zelfredzaamheid van mensen. Mensen die (functioneel) analfabeet zijn in de Nederlandse taal (en vaak overigens opmerkelijk creatief zijn in het verbergen daarvan) komen vroeg of laat tegen problemen aan. De roman Der Vorleser (prachtig verfilmd als The Reader) is misschien wel één van de mooiste en aangrijpendste verbeeldingen daarvan.

Het is daarom wel jammer dat het taalonderwijs in Nederland achteruit is gegaan. Leerlingen krijgen minder uren in taal. In ieder geval in vreemde talen. En wanneer een school voorstelt om Turks en Arabisch op te nemen als moderne vreemde taal (net als Spaans, Engels, Frans, Duits en Chinees) is het land te klein. Dat zou niet goed zijn voor de integratie en ‘we’ spreken toch Nederlands met elkaar? Inderdaad, op dit kleine aanslibsel spreken we Nederlands met elkaar en lezen we in het Nederlands; moeten we vooral ook zo houden. Maar we zijn geen eiland en een kleine open economie als Nederland lijkt mij gebaat met een gedegen talenkennis. Daarbij staat ook de Turkse en Arabische literatuur op een voldoende hoog niveau om taalgevoel en fantasie te stimuleren. Lees bijvoorbeeld Sneeuw of Het Yacoubian.

En wat betekent hier de nadruk op het elkaar voorlezen? Is dat een manier om de onderlinge cohesie te bevorderen? Of om taken die voorheen bij de overheid lagen in het onderwijs af te wentelen op individuele burgers die als vrijwilliger (voor een dubbeltje op de eerste rang) moeten gaan optreden? Maar goed, lezen, samen lezen en voorlezen is natuurlijk ook wel erg leuk en het is ook geen wonder dat dat in brede lagen van de bevolking is doorgedrongen.

0 comments.

WoT – Update on the Wilders trial

Posted on January 20th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

Earlier I posted an outline of the court case against Dutch radical politician Geert Wilders. Tomorrow the trial will begin. A few notes are in place to update you:

1. The trial may go on for a long time. Last week Wilders’ lawyer Moszkowicz objected to his client being on trial and stated that the prosecution was false. The court has rejected this. Wednesday 20 january is the first day of the trial. At this day the content of the accusations is not at issue. This day is a day of procedures. The public prosecutor and Wilders can call for experts and witnesses. Then it will take several months for the trial to start. After that Wilders can still appeal if he is convicted and if he is convicted then again, he can go the the Supreme Court and if that does not work out he can go the European Court of Human Rights.
2. The search for the ‘truth’ in these cases is not solely done by the public prosecutor, but is done during the court case. This means that it is not by definition so that the public prosecutor will declare a guilty verdict at the end of the case. Today the public prosecutors office stated that it may possible ask for acquittal in this case.
3. The trial yields much debate on the internet. IFPS has an online symposium featuring for example Bat Ye’or. Global Voices looks at two Egyptian blogs (one of them Ramblings of a Fool for Life) and Daniel Pipes explains why he stands behind Geert Wilders. An earlier statement by The American Muslim features on a Facebook group Muslims response to Geert Wilders (The Dutch Parliament Member). Also several news sources provide some information: The Times, TAZ.de, Libération.fr, and Deutsche Welle. The Dutch NRC International has a brief but adequate overview of the case Has Wilders broken the law? and Radio Netherlands asks who is funding Wilders’ defence.
4. On his Dutch Twitter channel Wilders has stated that he is ready and confident that the case can only lead to acquittal. Freedom of expression has to win, according to him. Also a Dutch language website What Wilders Wants has been setup left wing activists summarizing the case against Wilders as Wilders discriminates against Muslims and migrants, Wilders incites to hatred and fear, Wilders wants racism, insults groups, and refuses debates.
5. Stay updated by subscribing HERE and you can also follow on Twitter.

Wilders Trial
Part Zero – Outlining the case

Related articles by Zemanta:

2 comments.

Closing the Week 2

Posted on January 16th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere.

Most popular on Closer this week:

1. Avatar
2. Islamizing Europe – Muslim Demographics
3. Tourism, leisure and violence in Israel

• If you want to stay updated and did not subscribe yet, you can do so HERE
• You can follow Closer on Twitter now (trying the find out what the use of it is): Martijn5155

Gender, fashion & police
Status of face-covering veils Muslim around Europe – washingtonpost.com

NETHERLANDS: The Dutch government considered but abandoned legislation in 2006 for a total ban on Muslim veils, after lawyers said it would likely be unconstitutional. Instead, it said it would seek a ban on face-covering veils in all schools and prevent government employees from wearing them. No legislation has yet been passed.

France’s ban on the burqa: The war of French dressing | The Economist

FOR American commentators who like to denounce European complacency in the face of an increasingly assertive Islam, France is an intriguing test-case. It is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, numbering some 5m-6m, and it unapologetically expects Muslims to adapt to French ways. In 1994 the government began clamping down on religious symbols, including the Muslim headscarf, in state schools. Ten years later it banned all “ostentatious” religious signs, including the veil, from state schools and other public buildings. Now yet another tightening is in the works: a proposed ban on wearing the burqa in any public places.

Grazia Talking Points: Are the fashion police going too far?

Can you imagine being fined a week’s salary for wearing the ‘wrong’ item of clothing on the street? Well, that’s what could happen in a few weeks time, because the French government is voting on a proposal to ban burkas and niqabs, full-body cloaks with eye slits. Jean-Francois Copé, leader of the majority party UMP, revealed the law would levy a €750 fine on anyone whose face is ‘fully covered in public’. That’s £675 in today’s exchange rate – ouch.

A B O U T – F A C E — blog » Attention t.v. shows, chick flicks, and magazines: stop pitting women against women!

The other day my friend and I were flipping through a recent Cosmopolitan magazine, and I was shocked by the comments coming out of my mouth:

The caged and the saved: finding feminism in the Islamic world – The National Newspaper

Like most ideas, this one did not have a single genesis. I’ve been thinking, and to some extent writing, about feminism for many years and in many guises.

The word itself is controversial, with some damning it as the force that destroyed the family and others defending it as the movement that freed a gender.

It is one of those terms that starts simply and rapidly gets tangled: if you look around the world and think there are inequalities between the genders, and that those inequalities are not biological and are unfair, you are probably a feminist. And that’s where the arguments begin.

War and Terror
Dutch PM backs away from criticizing Iraq report – Yahoo! News

HE HAGUE, Netherlands – Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende conceded Wednesday, “with the knowledge of now,” that a stronger legal mandate was needed for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 — and his decision to support it.

Newsweek

Defne Bayrak, the wife of the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees, tells Adem Demir what motivated her husband, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.

The Role of Women in Al Qaeda – Christopher Dickey – Newsweek.com

What role do women play in Al Qaeda? A few are suicide bombers; others may encourage their men to become one.

Generation Abdulmutallab | Foreign Policy

Generation Abdulmutallab
Young Africans have been failed by their governments and are increasingly turning to extremism.
BY GEORGE AYITTEY | JANUARY 15, 2010

The foiled attempt by young Nigerian extremist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day has baffled many Africans and sent them scrambling for an explanation. This is not the stereotypical poor and desperate young man usually associated with violence on the continent.

nrc.nl – International – Dutch government misrepresented case for Iraq war

The Dutch government was less than truthful in presenting its case for the invasion of Iraq to parliament, a report released on Tuesday noted.

Britain Moves to Ban Islamic Group – NYTimes.com

Britain said Tuesday it was outlawing a radical Islamic group that had incited outrage by planning a protest march through the streets of a town made famous for its somber ceremonies honoring British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

“Jihad For Dummies”: Shaykh Abdullah al-Faisal « JARRET BRACHMAN

Over the past few weeks, in the aftermath of the Anwar al-Awlaki’s rise to mainstream media prominence, I’ve been asked by several journalists to identify and discuss the role of the influential ‘online celebrity shaykhs.’ At the top of my list of Western jihadist clerics has been a guy known as Shaykh Abdullah al-Faisal. Well, turns out, he’s not just at the top of my list.

Al Jazeera English – Focus – The $30bn pair of underpants

Almost immediately after it was learned that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a US airliner using explosives concealed in his underpants, received training in Yemen, US politicians called for Barack Obama, the US president, to expand the ‘war on terror’ – which remains very much a war despite the administration’s official ban of such vocabulary – to that country.

Middle East Online

Many recent terrorism cases have not resulted from a top down process of recruitment and radicalization initiated by al-Qaeda and its affiliates or radical preachers but rather from a bottom up dynamic. Today, individuals initiate. They become alienated and radicalized due to their own experiences and perceptions. They are profoundly affected and changed by what they see as endless oppression, corruption and injustice, notes John L. Esposito.

Authority
UK Muslim TV channel linked to al-Qaida cleric al-Awlaki | World news | The Observer

A London-based satellite broadcaster that describes itself as “the voice of authority for Muslims in the UK” has been accused of giving a platform to Anwar al-Awlaki, the extremist cleric with alleged links to al-Qaida and to the man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic jet on Christmas Day.

The Islam Channel, a free-to-air English-language channel that claims to be “a trustworthy source to the two million-plus population of Muslims in the UK”, last year carried adverts for a box set of DVDs of Awlaki’s sermons and for at least two events at which the cleric was due to be the star speaker via a video link.

Metro – Social media gives rise to the new iMuslims

You’ve seen their mugshots: A Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day; five young American Muslims detained in Pakistan, apparently desperately seeking jihad.
You’ve heard they went online in search of radical imams ready to recruit every Muslim within a foot of an Internet connection.

I bet you haven’t heard of these mugshots: Iranian men in chadors and headscarves.

Muslim religious guides only men? Think again by Moha Ennaji – Common Ground News Service

In recent years, Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey have trained and appointed a new group to the ranks of religious guides: women. Women religious guides, referred to as murshidat in Arabic, reach a demographic that might otherwise not be available–or receptive – to male imams, such as women and children, particularly those in poorer neighbourhoods. The efforts are an attempt by these countries’ governments to democratise and to curb extremism by reaching out to women, who can be a moderating voice in their families, and to youth, who are introduced to a tolerant and mainstream version of Islam at a young age.

altmuslimah.com – Female imams: Searching for American “nu ahongs”

A quiet Muslim community known as the Hui that has long been buried among China’s Buddhist majority has recently been receiving attention for its nu ahong – female spiritual leaders. While the spotlight is new, the concept is not. As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), the faithful set up Muslim schools catering exclusively to young females and by the arrival of the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, these schools had transformed into mosques operated by and serving women. In the coming decades, the practice of female Imams, if you will, permeated all Chinese Muslim societies.

Misc.
Roger Davidson – Jihad jokes | New Humanist

Imagine a sitcom featuring a Muslim community which has settled in a small prairie town where white locals suspect them of terrorism and fundamentalism. It has jokes about suicide bombing, polygamy and inter-religious sex; it has a love triangle involving a young Muslim woman, and an Imam whose ludicrous sermons make him a figure of fun even among his congregation; and it can also boast a range of comic references to 9/11. And yet Little Mosque on the Prairie has for the past two years been one of the most popular comedies on Canadian television.

2009 for Netherlands’ Muslims – IslamOnline.net – European Muslims

With the arrival of the hopefully better new year, Euro-Muslims team thought of displaying slideshows of Muslims’ harvest of the year in some European countries. In the series of “2009 harvest,” all prominent Muslim-related events are highlighted with their impact on the Muslim communities on all levels. Some of the countries covered in this series are France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Greece. Here we present the harvest of the year for the Netherlands with all hope it will appeal to you.

The Americanization of Mental Illness – NYTimes.com

For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world. We have done this in the name of science, believing that our approaches reveal the biological basis of psychic suffering and dispel prescientific myths and harmful stigma. There is now good evidence to suggest that in the process of teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we’ve been exporting our Western “symptom repertoire” as well. That is, we’ve been changing not only the treatments but also the expression of mental illness in other cultures. Indeed, a handful of mental-health disorders — depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia among them — now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases. These symptom clusters are becoming the lingua franca of human suffering, replacing indigenous forms of mental illness.

Teaching Anthropology: Unteaching: its what we do

I think I spend most of my time unteaching–I suppose that gets labeled as “critical thinking” or the “reexamination of our own cultural biases”. In many respects, a good cultural anthropology class just provides the safe environment to ask those questions and rethink how to find the answers. But first, students need to find their way back to those questions and like Walmart, we have to roll back those preconceived notions.

anthropologyworks » Recent sources on Haitian culture and social change

This list is intended to provide a guide to recent resources on culture and society in Haiti for people who wish to be better informed themselves about the context in which the recent earthquake and its devastation are occurring. With apologies, most of the journal articles are not public access.

Upsurge in gay Muslims fleeing forced marriage | Lesbilicious – the web’s tastiest lesbian magazine

UK charity The Albert Kennedy Trust has reported an upsurge in young gay Muslims becoming homeless after fleeing forced marriages and so-called honour violence.

LRB · Henry Siegman · Israel’s Lies

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

DutchNews.nl – Dutch children are again the happiest

Dutch children have the best lives of all children living in industrialised countries, according to new research by Unicef Germany, quoted by news agency ANP.

40 Dutch Innovations – Finding Netherland, from Used Napkin Chairs to Triplet Skyscrapers (CLUSTER)

40 Dutch Innovations Edit
Finding Netherland, from Used Napkin Chairs to Triplet Skyscrapers

No easy riding for Gaza bikers – Yahoo! News

When Munzer Diyya wants to get away from it all, he sits astride his motorcycle and takes to the open road — all 45 kilometres of it.

Diyya has the misfortune of being an open road enthusiast living in the Gaza Strip, a tiny territory sandwiched between Israel and Egypt and blockaded by both.

Anjem Choudary on the Islam4UK ban | EuropeNews

Anjem Choudary, the former leader of the now-banned organisation Islam4UK defends his actions as Andrew Neil asks him about the group and its origins and its possible reincarnation, as well as allegations over Mr Choudary’s benefit claims.

Dutch
Stiekem is de PVV doodnormaal | nu.nl/column zaterdag | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl

Psssst, niet verder vertellen. De PVV is helemaal niet bijzonder, anders of vernieuwend. Ze zijn net als alle andere politieke partijen: ambitieus, geobsedeerd met media-aandacht en een tikkeltje amateuristisch. Door Remy Chavannes

Eutopia.nl | Artikelen | Minister Wilders…

Het zinderend nostalgische ‘ik had u lief, en leerde u verachten, Nederland’ zou de lijfspreuk kunnen zijn van al die mensen die nu zo graag Geert Wilders in de regering zien.

Wat als ze hun zin kregen?

Biep Biep » ‘Hoi, ik ben Marokkaans en wie ben jij?’

het deed me weer denken aan één van mijn grootste ergernissen. Als je mij op de kast wil jagen, dan moet je allereerste vraag aan mij zijn: ‘Waar kom je vandaan?’ Als het je tweede vraag is, dan ben ik overigens ook niet heel blij met je. Af en toe, dan heb ik zin om lekker te klieren en geef ik de naam van de plaats waar ik woon. ‘Néé! Dat bedoelde ik niet!’ Goh, echt? Nou fijn dan: ‘Mijn ouders komen uit Marokko, maar zelf ben ik hier geboren.’ Dat is tegenwoordig mijn standaard antwoord, want als je antwoordt met ‘Marokko’ gaat men er meteen van uit dat je daar geboren bent.

Tilburgse imam Salam stoorde gsm’s om rustig te kunnen bidden – Binnenland – Algemeen – bndestem

De Islamitische Stichting voor Opvoeding en Overdracht van de Tilburgse imam Salam is door de Bredase rechter veroordeeld tot een boete van 650 euro wegens het verstoren van het gsm-verkeer.

Allochtonenweblog: Mijn salafistische vrienden

Pleiters voor waakzaamheid jegens de islam houden ons voor dat alle moslims die hun geloof serieus nemen vroeg of laat voor geweld tegen ongelovigen zullen kiezen. Ze suggereren dat aan die conclusie een redenering ten grondslag ligt. Een blog van Bart Voorzanger.

De angst voor radicale moslims zit er bij velen stevig in. Nu ken ik mensen, die door anderen als radicale moslim worden beschouwd omdat ze wel eens naar de Al-Tawheedmoskee gaan, omdat ze omgaan met mensen die dat doen, of omdat ze een baard, een kalotje en een djellaba dragen. Als hun diagnose deugt, koester ik heel wat slangen aan mijn borst.

Toon lef in de zaak Wilders – Opinie – de Volkskrant

Het gaat erom dat iemand een visie mag geven op de islam, op de positie van migranten en op de multiculturele samenleving en dat een ieder die visie mag ondersteunen door de opvattingen van anderen instemmend aan te halen. Het gaat daarmee om het voortbestaan van het publieke debat want als uitwisseling van meningen strafbaar wordt, is dat debat niet langer mogelijk.

Toon lef in de zaak Wilders – Opinie – de Volkskrant

Het gaat erom dat iemand een visie mag geven op de islam, op de positie van migranten en op de multiculturele samenleving en dat een ieder die visie mag ondersteunen door de opvattingen van anderen instemmend aan te halen. Het gaat daarmee om het voortbestaan van het publieke debat want als uitwisseling van meningen strafbaar wordt, is dat debat niet langer mogelijk.

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The Dutch Iraq Report – No Mandate, No Introspection

Posted on January 15th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization.

The Netherlands joined the US as part of the Iraq Stabilization Force (SFIR) in the province of Al-Muthanna in Southern Iraq until March 2005. From the start there were requests for an official inquiry into the government’s decision to support the US during the invasion (politically, not military). These requests were based upon doubts about the legal basis for the war. The report was published this week and more or less destroys the Dutch argument for supporting the invasion. This support was based upon Saddam Hussein’s refusal to comply with UN resolutions and because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. This argument was flawed from the onset since the objective of the US and the UK was regime change; as a small country it makes no sense to have other aims and arguments for an invasion of which you do not support its main objective.

Chairman David’s presentation of the report is very clear (download it here, it has a large English summary). The Dutch loyalty with the US and UK took precedence over the need to ensure the legality of the invasion. There was no UN mandate for the attack according to the committee:
BBC News – Dutch inquiry says Iraq war had no mandate

It said “the wording of [UN Security Council] Resolution 1441 cannot reasonably be interpreted as authorising individual member states to use military force”.

Iraq’s alleged breach of Resolution 1441, which gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”, was used by the coalition, and the Netherlands, to justify its invasion.

However, a memo from the time by Dutch foreign ministry lawyers, subsequently leaked, suggested the war was in fact illegal under international law.

The inquiry said there was no evidence to support rumours that the Dutch military took part in the invasion.

Dutch PM Balkenende initially refuted all the main (negative) conclusions of the report and supported the positive ones, but later had to back away.
The alliance and loyalty with the US and UK led to a political tunnelvision in which information that countered their goals and intentions was ignored and (as importantly) not shared with parliament.

Not part of the inquiry, but part of my research has been the role of the invasion in Iraq (and the whole trajectory leading up to it) in the identification of Muslim youth with the idea of global Muslim ummah and Jihad in Iraq. The invasion was important in at least two ways:
1) Jihadi propagandists published texts, leaflets and videos about atrocities against Iraqi’s, Afghani’s and other Muslims elsewhere and, moreover, linked them with perceived injustice against Muslims in Europe for example by Dutch politicians attacking Islam (Hirsi Ali, Wilders, Van Gogh). In strong compelling images and words they connected seemingly different cases to eachother under the header of War against Islam (see also Nesser, subs).
2) The attack on Iraq took place from March 20 to 1 May 2003. Also in the period the Arab European League (AEL), a militant Belgian organization of ‘angry’ and ‘proud’ Muslim youth (see here Van der Welle), trying to set up shop in the Netherlands, failed to appoint a leader in April 2003. The intended leader refused after a controversy of his alledged radical views and the newly appointed board wasn’t strong enough to cope with the external pressure by press and security agencies. The failure of this democratic, albeit controversial and militant, organization combined with the (then already) flawed democratic process leading up to the invasion, led to two related conclusions among Dutch radicals about democracy: 1) Democracy is not an effective way for Muslims to claim compensation for their grievances and, even worse b) the democratic process is detrimental for Islam and Muslims.

See also Muqtedar Khan and John L. Esposito. Part of this is rhetoric, but rhetoric doesn’t mean it is any less ‘real’. The anger and disillusionment among parts of the Muslim youth at that time in 2003 can not be overemphasized; it laid the foundation for a trajectory of radicalization leading up to the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004. Interestingly, but not suprising, is that the Dutch decision of going to Iraq and Afghanistan and its support for the US is hardly ever considered in counter-radicalization reports and plans rendering the Dutch state blind for all kinds of transnational aspects of Muslim youth’s lifeworlds. You don’t have to be a Muslim radical, or a radical or a Muslim to criticize the state of affairs in the past. But that almost 7 years after still no introspection takes place shows most of all that the tunnelvision still exists: the whole Iraq war is reduced to a matter of international laws and agreements.

1 comment.

Islam and Media & Islam in the Media

Posted on January 15th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

It is really impossible to attend all conferences and sometimes you have to skip the really interesting ones. This was the case with the Islam and The Media conference organized by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. In the past I have written several things about Dutch Muslim youth on the Internet focussing on the period between 2001 and 2005. I focused their on internet practices and attempted to connect their online and offline practices (you can read the ISET Working Paper HERE). In my current research on Salafi youth internet plays a role but I have tried to integrate it in the whole research approach (including methodology) while my colleague Carmen (who did attend the conference) focuses on knowledge practices and user genres in relation to activism and internet.

One of the interesting aspects of the conference was the use of Twitter at #IMC. I haven’t been on Twitter that long (a few weeks…) and I still have hard time finding out what the use of it is. Keeping up with breaking news is certainly one of the benefits, but I also found out another one. One of the participants, Linda Duits, was twittering about the conference and mentioned the presentation of Wilders’ movie Fitna (see my analysis HERE). I asked her about it (she was not the presenter) and one hour later I had the presentation in my email box. So maybe Twitter and me will work out in the end after all.

From another colleague I heard about the lack of attention by journalists (and policy makers?) for this conference. This is not new although I keep being surprised about it. Given the attention in media circles and policy circles for the internet in relation to radicalization of Muslim youth (see Huffington Post, CBS 60 minutes and Reuters) one would expect media would be interested in a conference such as IMC. Stewart Hoover (Director of the Center for Media, Religion and Culture and author of several publications on media and religion, including the very inspiring Mass Media Religion, The Social Sources of the Electronic Church and Religion in the Media Age) picks up the same issue at his blog responding to a NPR’s Morning Edition story on online Jihadism:

Islam and the Media « StewartHoover’s Blog

So you can see how I might find it ironic that, just a few days after it concluded, NPR chose to give major attention to Islam and the media with no reference either to our meeting or to the kind of scholarship presented there. Now, of course I am not naive about news processes and news values, so am not really surprised. But there is a lesson in this.

What was the NPR story about? It was about “online jihadism” and referred specifically to the recent CIA assassination in Afghanistan and the way the perpetrator is being remembered in some places online. This means that, in spite of all the good scholarship out there that is helping us understand the range of ways that media and mediation are inflecting Islam, the primary media framing is still around terror and security. That, we continue to learn, is the “real story.” If they had attended the meeting, they would have received a much deeper understanding of many of the questions they asked in their story (and that their interviewee could only speculate about). They wanted to know a lot about both the production and reception of online jihadist material. Scholars present at our conference brought important insights into these matters and could have helped broaden and deepen public understanding of the implications of what is happening online.

Hoover argues that the security angle is important but that that is only part of the story. One of the things lacking in media (and among policy makers) is an analysis of the reception of online messages. Much of the analyses seems to be based on the assumption that the internet (and the texts and videos on it) are contagious and that radicalization is contagious too; combined the constitue an ‘explosive’ mixture. This is usually based on written statements of (former) Jihadis. An analysis that takes up the issue of reception by the audience and that also includes facts from lifestories of the people behind the online nicknames is important because otherwise online statements are (partly) taken out of (offline) context but also out of an online context because usually there is an online history behind these messages (of the arguments my colleague Carmen makes). A next step of course is how to convince journalists (looking for stories that makes sense to the public) that an interdisciplinary view is necessary, as Hoover correctly argues? Certainly blogging is one thing as I have stated before. This will be one of the issues that will be explored during an international workshop later this year (if everything works out). Will be continued…

4 comments.

Portie Burgerschap 2: Respect!

Posted on January 11th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Burgerschapserie 2010.

Van de burgerschapskalender:

“Respect? Daar wordt ongelofelijk veel over gesproken. Het woord komt me de neus uit. Stoppen met dat woord uit te spreken, maar gewoon doen. Niet alleen zeggen, maar ook werkelijk laten zien. En niet alleen voor
mensen, maar ook voor het milieu en alles om je heen”, aldus een deelnemer aan de discussiebijeenkomst in
Nieuwegein.

Er zijn meer mensen die dit de strot uitkomt. Om precies dezelfde reden als de deelnemer vermelde, maar ook omdat het een beetje een leeg begrip lijkt te zijn. Respect is te zien als een aspect van een cultureel repertoire van mensen en wordt ook beinvloed door dat cultureel repertoire. Dat zien we vooral als we kijken naar de grenzen van respect. Verdient iedereen respect? Per definitie om het een mens is? Kunnen we respect ook claimen om het eigen gezag te versterken? Of claimen we respect om een eigen persoonlijke ruimte te scheppen die vooral bedoeld is om te zorgen dat anderen ons met rust laten? Wat is dan de relatie met tolerantie? Moeten we respect hebben voor alle religieuze en culturele uitingen?

De overheid vindt het schijnbaar noodzakelijk om respect te stimuleren. Dat zou betekenen dat er mensen in de samenleving zijn die alle respect voor anderen en de basiswaarden van de samenleving ontberen. Dat is bijvoorbeeld te zien wanneer mensen de politie en hulpverleners aanvallen. De straffen daarvoor worden dan ook hoger; vanuit de gedachte dat dit zeer specifieke beroepen zijn die extra bescherming nodig hebben. Hetgeen uiteindelijk toch vooral een poging van de staat is om te controle over haar burgers te krijgen. In die zin kunnen we ons ook afvragen of de nadruk op respect niet vooral een poging is om gedisciplineerde burgers te scheppen.

Net als met veel dingen is het volkomen onduidelijk hoe je respect in de praktijk moet brengen op enkele elementaire omgangsvormen na. Wat respect is, maar nog meer wie dat bepaalt, wordt vooral duidelijk wanneer bepaalde grenzen worden overschreden. Bijvoorbeeld wanneer vrouwen met niqab over straat lopen of wanneer mensen weigeren handen te schudden. Voor de één is het gebrek aan respect voor mensen en voor de Nederlandse cultuur. Voor de ander is het juist een uiting van respect voor God en de ander. Wie bepaalt nu wat de doorslag geeft? Met andere woorden, hoe zit het met macht en respect? Zo’n vraag kunnen we nog wel vaker stellen met betrekking tot de kalender, want die geeft toch een beeld van een samenleving waar macht er niet toe doet.

0 comments.

Clifford Geertz in Morocco

Posted on January 10th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

The Journal of North African Studies

The Journal of North African Studies, Volume 14 Issue 3 & 4 2009
CLIFFORD GEERTZ IN MOROCCO
Publication of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies and the Centre of North African Studies

Articles
Introduction to Clifford Geertz in Morocco: ‘Why Sefrou? Why anthropology? Why me?’
Susan Slyomovics
Pages 317 – 325

Islam re-observed
Introduction to Islam Observed (Hebrew Translation, 2007)
Clifford Geertz
Pages 327 – 330

Islam re-observed: sanctity, Salafism, and Islamism
Lahouari Addi

How religion turns into ideology
Hassan Rachik
Pages 347 – 358

Religious act, public space: reflections on some Geertzian concepts
Mondher Kilani
Pages 359 – 368

Interpretation and the limits of interpretability: on rethinking Clifford Geertz’s semiotics of religious experience
C. Jason Throop
Pages 369 – 384

Translation, metaphor, humour
Not lost in translation: the influence of Clifford Geertz’s work and life on anthropology in Morocco
Dale F. Eickelman
Pages 385 – 395

Geertz, humour and Morocco
Kevin Dwyer
Pages 397 – 415

Culture as text: hazards and possibilities of Geertz’s literary/literacy metaphor
Katherine E. Hoffman
Pages 417 – 430

Photography, Paul Hyman, and Clifford Geertz
A (fashion) photographer’s reflections on fieldwork
Paul Hyman
Pages 431 – 443

Perceptions, not illustrations, of Sefrou, Morocco: Paul Hyman’s images and the work of ethnographic photography
Susan Slyomovics
Pages 445 – 465

Chicken or glass: in the vicinity of Clifford Geertz and Paul Hyman
Paul Rabinow
Pages 467 – 477

Urban space and Sefrou
Of time and the city: Clifford Geertz on urban history
Susan Gilson Miller
Pages 479 – 490

Observing Islam observed: the family resemblance and the pun
Lawrence Rosen
Pages 491 – 502

Sidi Lahcen blues
Aziz Abbassi
Pages 503 – 521

Modernism, meaning, and order
How life is hard: visceral notes on meaning, order, and Morocco
David Crawford
Pages 523 – 541

Are we there yet? Geertz, Morocco, and modernization
Thomas Dichter
Pages 543 – 557

Welcome message from the Mayor of Sefrou
Hafid Ouchchak
Pages 559 – 562

0 comments.

Tourism, leisure and violence in Israel

Posted on January 9th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

I always have problems because I mix up the words ‘toerism’ and ‘terrorism’ in English. No wonder, look at the next report from Dutch newspaper Telegraaf:
[flashvideo filename=http://static.telegraaf.nl/telegraaf/video/200911231025.buitenland.00017429.flv /]

According to correspondent Brandsma Israël is exporting its knowledge from years of war and terrorism. The training (for example by Top Secure) is developed by former soldiers and others who still ‘like their jobs so much’ and about 2000 tourists a year make use of it. In particular anti-terrorism courses in which you can shoot (among others) Arabs with guns (not the Arabs with the keffiyah!). Such a course is for example developed by Security Consulting and Training. Now if you don’t have a criminal record and you are not mentally unstable, you can follow these courses.

Is this a form of tourism that has experiencing violence as one of its ultimate pleasures? We already have tourism in which people are visiting slums watching teen-age drug dealers with guns in Brazil and tourist visiting the killing fields of Rwanda and tourists visiting the sites struck by Katrina (read Erika M. Robb). It brings together leisure, education and violence; not the most obvious relation. Shooting Arab terrorists is also only a next step in what can be considered as the Israeli occupation as a tourist event.
?????? ?? ????? Views from the Occident: Souvenirs of Conquest: Israeli Occupations as Tourist Events

It is perhaps self-evident to suggest that military conquest shares something with tourism because both involve encounters with “strange” landscapes and people. Thus it may not surprise that the former sometimes borrows rhetorical strategies from the latter—strategies for rendering the strange familiar or for translating threatening images into benign ones. There have been numerous studies of this history of borrowing. Scholars have considered how scenes of battle draw tourist crowds, how soldiers’ ways of seeing can resemble those of leisure travelers, how televised wars have been visually structured as tourist events (e.g., the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq), and how the spoils of war can function as a body of souvenirs. These lines of inquiry expand our understanding of tourism as a field of cultural practices and help us to rethink the parameters of militarism and warfare by suggesting ways they are entangled with everyday leisure practices.

So now to make the issue a little more complicated (or should I write ironic?). A few months ago four Dutch youngsters were arrested in Kenya for alledgedly trying to join the Somali Al Shabab network in order to wage Jihad. According to themselves however they were ‘only tourists’. That is not entirely impossible although there story seems to be a little strange and copied from a similar incident a few years ago (of which one of the boys was part of as well). Young Dutch going abroad to fight for justice (as they would have it) is nothing new, it happened during the Spanish civil war, with Muslim youth going to Bosnia in the 1990s and Jewish youth going to Israel to join the Israelian army. The romantic ideas, the encounter with the ‘other’ and sensationalism are as much part of these practices as they are of ‘dark tourism’. But when these Muslim boys would have gone to Israel to join these fighting courses, would they have been arrested as well? I know a few other young Muslims aspiring to go abroad for Jihad, maybe I should recommend them to follow these courses first?

0 comments.

Closing the week 1 – Featuring Contested Islamization

Posted on January 9th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere.

Most popular on Closer this week

1. Fitna – Analyse van de politieke propaganda
2. Iraanse Rechtspraak of Hosselen
3. Islamizing Europe – Muslim Demographics

If you want to stay updated and did not subscribe yet, you can do so HERE

Featuring Contested Islamization
The church fights back against Islamification – Telegraph

We have had to wait decades for this moment, but it has finally happened. A leading British clergyman has said something sensible about immigration.

Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, this week signed a declaration by the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration calling for an urgent tightening of borders to stop the British population reaching 70 million by 2029. He also gave an interview yesterday in which he called for a tougher Church. “We Christians are very often so soft that we allow other people to walk over us, and we are not as tough in what we want, in expressing our beliefs, because we do not want to upset other people,” he said.

Migration threatens the DNA of our nation | George Carey – Times Online

The sheer numbers of migrants from within Europe and elsewhere put the resources of Britain under enormous pressure, but also threaten the very ethos or DNA of our nation.

Cardinal says Christian Europe is to blame for Islamisation – Telegraph

“The Muslims definitely have many reasons to be heading here. They also have a religious one – to bring the spiritual values of faith in God to the pagan environment of Europe, to its atheistic style of life.

“Unless the Christians wake up, life may be Islamised and Christianity will not have the strength to imprint its character on the life of people, not to say society.”

Universities don’t create extremists | Sunny Hundal | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The attempted terrorist attack on 24 December has brought out a familiar line from the previously subdued neocons: British universities are to blame. The Telegraph’s foreign editor Con Coughlin led the attack last week by thundering over the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “allowed to be elected” president of the Islamic Society at UCL

Assoluta Tranquillita: The threat of Islam: The days are short

Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament who has been vilified for his views on the very real, insidious, threat of Islam. He was banned from Britain last year. What follows is a speech he gave a speech in the US. Some may call Wilders an alarmist, but daily reports of terrorist acts thwarted around the world strongly support his position.

Will America Be The Last Man Standing? | Bible-Religion.com

This email is being sent so that you can consider Geert Wilders’ speech and its content and become more aware of the atmosphere in Europe and the possible cost to America. As Christians we do not want to give way to fear or rash reaction, only to be alert and use our great, powerful, and spiritual weapons. These weapons include prayer, faith, a knowledge of our salvation and the word of God, and most importantly, knowing the Mighty Lord and God that we represent and serve.

The Salvation of our ‘enemies’ is the best outcome.

A look into the future? The Danish Civil War

In a pattern seen in the UK after the 7/7 bombings there, Muslim groups became more confident than ever in pressing their demands for concessions of various sorts. Insisting that, however terrible the bombings might have been, they would not stop until Muslims felt their grievances against the Danish state had been addressed, Muslim advocacy groups pushed forward with a series of initiatives designed to drive foreign and domestic policies in directions considered more amenable to Islamic mores.

In response to these challenges, the Danish government adopted a policy of granting key concessions in what can only be considered an attempt at appeasement. During this initiative, which lasted from early 2009 until July 2012, the Danish government introduced a raft of measures to try to placate Muslim opinion in Denmark.

Europe’s looming demise – Washington Times

“Islamophobia,” “discrimination” and “racism” are all terms Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Mr. Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands, instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting against. It has to be this way, to increase harmony among the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Euro-Med Partnership.

This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Mr. Obama seems to want to do the same to America.

While Europe Sneered by Bruce Bawer, City Journal 5 January 2010

Hege suggested that if all the influential newspapers in Europe had published the Danish cartoons, “it would have been much more difficult to build up the increasingly brutal climate we see now all over Europe: the fact that people are not just the subjects of attacks, and of attempted murder, but are denied virtually all personal freedom in their daily lives, so that Westergaard cannot set foot outside his home without the police on his heels, just as Robert Redeker is living underground in the homeland of Voltaire.” And she asked: “Will Europe manage to set its foot down strongly enough . . . that there will be no doubt that the continent never will give up its founding values? Or will the commentariat and political elite continue to give way, inch by inch . . . ?” Any of us, she warned, can end up a Kurt Westergaard if we dare to speak our minds. But don’t tell that to the “experts” at Foreign Policy.

What the “Eurabia” Authors Get Wrong About Islam in Europe – By Justin Vaïsse | Foreign Policy

By 2050, Europe will be unrecognizable. Instead of romantic cafes, Paris’s Boulevard Saint-Germain will be lined with halal butcheries and hookah bars; the street signs in Berlin will be written in Turkish. School-children from Oslo to Naples will read Quranic verses in class, and women will be veiled.

At least, that’s what the authors of the strange new genre of “Eurabia” literature want you to believe. Not all books of this alarmist Europe-is-dying category, which received its most intellectually hefty treatment yet with the recent release of Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, offer such dire and colorful predictions. But they all make the case that low fertility rates among natives, massive immigration from Muslim countries, and the fateful encounter between an assertive Islamic culture and a self-effacing European one will lead to a Europe devoid of all Western identity.

Gender politics
Sex and the city of Beirut – Books – Entertainment – theage.com.au

JOUMANA Haddad, the Lebanese poet, author and critic, recently had a tattoo of a tulip imprinted on the lowest section of her back. She pulls down her waistband to indicate the area in question. ”My kids and my partner, they are not shocked that I have a tattoo, but by the fact that the guy tattooed my arse.” She roars with laughter.

Mideast Youth – Thinking Ahead » Iraqi women: A story of unjustice through decades

The Arab communities and even non-Arab Islamic had left us a legacy of customs and traditions against the female, and had subsequently generated a series of consequences of the process of discrimination between human beings on the basis of gender, ie, discrimination between women and men because of masculinity and femininity, both in pregnancy, adoption or name. The division went further to roles in jobs and to benefit from civil and political rights.

A new frontier in civil liberties — The Dawn Blog » Blog Archive

Transgender rights represent a relatively new frontier in civil liberties activism. In Pakistan, eunuchs have historically been disregarded and marginalised by mainstream issue advocates. The discriminations against eunuchs reveal our petty-bourgeois mentality that is mostly reluctant to recognise gender deviance.

AFP: French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women

French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women

(AFP) – 1 day ago

PARIS — Muslim women who wear the full Islamic veil in France will face a possible 750-euro (1,000-dollar) fine, according to a draft bill unveiled Thursday by the leader of the parliamentary majority.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: They are right to ban the burka, even if it is for the wrong reasons – Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Commentators – The Independent

Muslims have the right to be free and equal but what they do not have the right to do is promote practices that violate the fundamentals of good societies anywhere, not just in the West.

The use of the burka has grown like a virus across the continent. Children as young as four are now dressed in hijab. It is time for us as a continent to rethink a garment which is more a statement about the position of women and the threat of men who apparently cannot control themselves if they see a woman’s face, hair, hand or ankles, than an item of clothing. It also physically cuts women off from other citizens. Last autumn I was in Canada, a very free and equal society, and saw not a single burka.

The Mythical European Umma : Muslim Media Network

Most projections that foresee a massive increase in Europe’s Muslim population are based on certain assumptions which are hard to justify. They assume that recent immigration trends will continue indefinitely for decades to come, but this is unlikely as Europe continuously raises the immigration bar for non-EU citizens, and it is not far-fetched to expect that many European countries may call a halt to immigration or draw their future immigrants from certain more “desirable” countries. The projections also assume that European Muslims will continue to have a significantly higher fertility rate than the population at large. But evidence suggests that the fertility rates of Muslim women are gradually converging with those of the wider population. And there are signs that the fertility rate among the white population of some European countries, such as France, is recovering.

France moves to outlaw the burka and niqab citing égalité – Europe, World – The Independent

The parliamentary leader of the ruling French party is to put forward a draft law within two weeks to ban the full-body veil from French streets and all other public places.

Muslim veil will not be banned in Zurich schools. – swissinfo

Veil will not be banned in Zurich schools
Zurich cantonal authorities have decided not to ban the wearing of veils in schools during the Muslim month of Ramadan.

Hamas encourages Gaza women to follow Islamic code _English_Xinhua

Aya Rachi, a 11-year-old girl from Gaza, did not pay much attention to the female preacher’s speech. Wearing a worn-out sweater, she seems to be only interested in receiving robes and headscarf for free.

“I want to receive a veil just like all the other girls, and I will wear a Hijab (headscarf) with it,” said Rachi, one of the girls and women who get veils and robes for free under the Hamas Islamic veil project.

A Muslim woman’s battle against American bigotry – The National Newspaper

Fatima Shama worries about a rising climate of bigotry directed towards American Muslims. As New York’s commissioner for immigrant affairs, her job is to oversee the welfare of the city’s 2.9 million immigrants, but as a Muslim herself, she is particularly aware of the plight of her co-religionists.

Recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings by an American-Muslim doctor and the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner by a Nigerian Muslim have again shifted the focus on to Muslims. Many are concerned that the trial expected in the next year or so of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the attacks of September 11, could lead to greater persecution and hate crimes.

AFP: Egypt court upholds niqab ban

Egypt court upholds niqab ban

(AFP) – 5 days ago

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Sunday upheld a ruling by the education ministry to ban women from wearing the full face veil in university examination halls, judicial sources said.

The ministry took the decision in October to ban the niqab, a veil covering the entire face usually worn by devout Muslims, for security reasons.

Arabic Fiction Prize Shortlist Comes Up Way Short for Women – elan: The Guide to Global Muslim Culture

Last month, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) , which has been called the Arab Booker, announced their short list for the 2010 award. Although the recognition of Arab literary accomplishments is of course great, you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that only one woman was shortlisted for the prestigious prize this year, and that the same has been happening since the inception of the prize in 2007. Here are the nominees (female gets the gold star asterisk for making the cut):

Muhammad Al Mansi Qindeel – A Cloudy Day on the West Side
*Mansoura Ez Eidin – Beyond Paradise
Rabee Jabir – America
Abdo Khal – She Throws Sparks
Raba’l Madhoun -The Lady From Tel Aviv
Jamal Naji – When The Wolves Grow Old

The lack of female representation on this list is surprising considering how many great, contemporary, female, Arab authors are out there. The Beirut39, for example, shortlisted 12 females during their selection of the 39 best Arab writers under the age of 39. So what’s going on, IPAF?

Anthropology

Why Do They Do It? Portrayals of Alcohol on Facebook and MySpace « Neuroanthropology

Why do they do it? Why do otherwise smart and savvy college and high school student post photos of themselves drinking and partying on Facebook and MySpace? To the right is just one. There are many more, some of them a lot more, um… revealing than this one.

Essentialist animals?

Is essentialism restricted to humans, or does it also occur in other species? Obviously, the experimental procedures I just discussed all rely on language, so experimental design should be radically adapted to probe psychological essentialism in other animalleibniz3s.

In Harmonium » Real Cultural Relativism isn’t warm and fuzzy

A friend and colleague over at the SWC, Beezebubalicious (what a handle!), just posted a link to a BBC story on the rise of human sacrifice in Uganda. What sparked some of my interest was that he said he found this “hard to understand from a cultural (or a relativist) point of view.” Why?

Making Sense of Sudan » Blog Archive » “Making Sense of Sudan”

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and one year before the scheduled date of the referendum on unity or secession in southern Sudan, this blog is renamed “Making Sense of Sudan.” This reflects both the way in which the center of gravity of Sudan’s problems has shifted to the CPA rather than Darfur, and the fact that the Darfur crisis was, all along, the Sudanese national crisis as manifest in Darfur.

Misc.
2009 in Review: The European Muslim Perspective

In recent times Europe has generally been seen as a successful melting pot of cultures, communities and faiths. But is this really the case in 2009?

It Hit Home: Netherlands Politics Update 2010

Politics in the Netherlands is complicated, really a world of its own. It’s when I try to write something in English about it, I realize it’s not that easy to communicate about it without losing nuance and context. Regardless, there are three important developments that may change the relative quietness as of late:

Privacy vs. Security: How to draw the line

A national Muslim civil rights group is asking the Transportation Security Administration for clarification on whether Muslim women wearing Islamic head scarves, or hijabs, will be singled out for additional security checks after a traveler said she was targeted for a “humiliating” full-body search at an airport Tuesday.

The noughties are defined by fakery | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | The Guardian

Yet perhaps the most embarrassing, not to mention damaging, fakery has been the rise of “fake science”, which stems entirely from a fear of science and leads inexorably to no science at all.

CBC News – Canada – Attack on Canada, U.S is attack on Muslims: imams

A group of Canadian and U.S. Islamic leaders on Friday issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring that an attack by extremists on the two countries would constitute an attack on the 10 million Muslims living in North America.

The 20 imams associated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada said this marked the first fatwa by the Muslim clergy declaring attacks on Canada and the U.S. to be attacks on Muslims.

Dutch
FION-moskee in Slotervaart gefinancieerd door Qatar Foundation

FION-moskee in Slotervaart gefinancieerd door Qatar Foundation

De Qatar Foundation is de schenker van twee miljoen euro voor de bouw van een moskee in Slotervaart. Deze stichting financiert ook de leerstoel van Tariq Ramadan in Oxford. De omstreden sjeik Yusuf al Qaradawi speelt een hoofdrol in de religieuze onderwijstak van deze stichting. Moskeebouwer Yahia Bouyafa blijft desondanks ontkennen dat hij in een orthodox moslimnet zit.

Wereldjournalisten ‘Een Nederlandse islam, niet een islamitisch Nederland’

Yahia Bouyafa antwoordt op de suggestie in het Volkskrant-artikel van 21 december jl. dat hij een wolf in schaapskleren zou zijn en dat hij relaties onderhoudt met het Moslimbroederschap. Het artikel werpt de vraag op: Bouyafa lijkt zich in te zetten voor de Nederlandse moslims. Maar is dat ook zo?

Frontaal Naakt. Ongesluierde opinies, interviews & achtergronden » Zelfverdediging

Wanneer valt nou eindelijk eens het kwartje? Overal, waar Marokkanen wonen, is mot met de andere buurtbewoners. Dat komt door de opgroeiende zoons. Die krijgen door niemand een strobreed in de weg gelegd. Niet door hun ouders, niet door de buurtvaders, niet door de politie, niet door de overheid.

Wolven in schaapskleren – MSV-Blog

Het zal wel duidelijk zijn dat de zogenaamde integratie niet de belangen van de te integreren groep dient. Om maar een eufemisme te gebruiken: het is je reinste cultureel imperialisme. Het ‘integratieproces’ is vooral goed voor Nederlanders die niet kunnen verkroppen dat er andersdenkenden, -culturelen en -religieuzen in deze samenleving rondlopen.

Allochtonenweblog: Wolven in schaapskleren, een koekje van eigen deeg! (Nazima Shaikh)

Aangezien ik word weggezet als “meefeestende moslima op de Gay Parade” “ wolf in schaapskleren” en “huurlingen van de anti-Islambrigade” in ons land, hier mijn koekje van eigen deeg!
Ik houd van feestjes en als het goed is, is het elke dag een feest! Wolf in schaapskleren, ervaar ik als compliment.
De wolf kent een grote verscheidenheid aan expressies en geluiden. Het bekende huilen is vooral bedoeld om te communiceren over langere afstanden. Afhankelijk van de omstandigheden kunnen wolven het gehuil van andere wolven op afstanden van zes tot tien kilometer horen. Het afbakenen van het territorium, door middel van te urineren met een opgetilde achterpoot, is voorbehouden aan dominante dieren. De wolven begroeten anderen door onderwerping te laten zien, met neergeslagen ogen en een zacht gejank. Als wolven boos of bang zijn laten ze dat meestal zien met ontblote tanden en gegrom. Aldus Wikipedia.

Prima dat jij mij bestempelt als Wolf, ik krijg meteen de associatie met Wolverine uit X-Men die het opneemt tegen het “Kwaad”. Daarnaast is acteur Hugh Jackman een lekker ding, oooh sorry dat mag ik natuurlijk niet zeggen, ik spoel mijn mond meteen!
Iemand die er ongevaarlijk uitziet, maar wel gevaarlijk is deze letterlijke vertaling laat ik aan jou en de jouwen van je clubbie! Maar bij mij is het nou net andersom, ik zie er gevaarlijk uit, maar ben ongevaarlijk….

hoeiboei: Lurkende wolven

Nu hoort u het ook eens van een moslim. En nu alsjeblieft nooit meer beweren dat moslims geen gevoel voor humor hebben. Wat is onze student toch eerlijk! Hij gaat nog even door over cultureel imperialisme en waarom de Nederlandse cultuur niet relevant is

Ik ben (g)een nieuwe Nederlander – Wij Blijven Hier!: Het schrijversplatform van moslims

Ik zal de ‘Nieuwe Nederlander’ daarom voorlopig in mijn vocabulaire opslaan, maar alleen tot we een beter alternatief hebben ontwikkeld, want ik blijf geen Nieuwe Nederlander.

nrc.nl – Buitenland – Koptische kerkleiding wil geen problemen

Kopten zijn vaak doelwit van geweld in Egypte, en bekeerlingen zijn al helemaal hun leven niet zeker. Maar de kerkleiding beschermt hen niet of nauwelijks.

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Chart Wars: The Political Power of Data Visualization

Posted on January 6th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Method.

Via Huub Bellemakers: What everybody needs to know about data, pictures and their political influence.
Chart Wars: The Political Power of Data Visualization – information aesthetics

A great, short talk by TargetPoint’s VP and Director of Research, Alex Lundry, at DC Ignite. He addresses the issues of subjective messaging through visualization, the emergence of open data, some ideal data visualization tools, a set of quick lessons in graphic literacy, and a short list of recommended visualization books, all within the time span of 5 minutes.

Watch the movie below.

See also Political Chart Wars for more information about the subject. Via Sunlight Foundation Blog.

We could probably apply the same approach to Geert Wilders’ short film Fitna (Dutch) and of course Muslim Demographics. Political leaders, social movements and opinion leaders use visual rhetoric for the public representation and manipulation of their ideological messages by means of culturally recognizable symbols but (and this is the interesting part of chart wars) also by more abstract images conveying the message of chaos or order.

[flashvideo filename=http://blip.tv/file/get/Ignitedc-AlexLundryChartWarsThePoliticalPowerOfDataVisualization438.flv /]

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Wekelijks portie burgerschap – Week 1: Maak eens een praatje met een ander

Posted on January 5th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Burgerschapserie 2010.

Uit de burgerschapskalender van het Handvest Burgerschap:

Geschreven wetten en regels zijn hard nodig in een maatschappij als de onze. Maar net zo noodzakelijk zijn de ongeschreven regels en opvattingen waarmee we met elkaar de samenleving maken. Het zijn de regels die zijn ontstaan uit een behoefte om op een prettige manier met elkaar te leven. Al deze ongeschreven regels zou je kunnen samenvatten onder de noemer ‘verantwoordelijk burgerschap’. En dat beperkt zich niet tot gehoorzaamheid en braafheid. Integendeel. Een kritische houding en een gezonde tegendraadsheid horen daar net zo goed bij. Verantwoordelijk burgerschap is belangrijk bij het versterken van de kwaliteit van onze samenleving. Maar wat houdt het concreet in? Wat kun je doen en laten als verantwoordelijk burger? En wat is de rol van de overheid zelf? Het kabinet heeft het voortouw genomen in de discussie over wat in Nederland onder verantwoordelijk burgerschap wordt verstaan. Er zijn in het hele land discussiebijeenkomsten georganiseerd waar mensen mee konden praten over het idee van burgerschap.

Op onze website www.handvestburgerschap.nl is ook uitgebreid meegediscussieerd. De 53 thema’s van deze kalender vormen een weerslag van die discussie en laten soms letterlijk zien wat mensen over dit onderwerp hebben gezegd. Hiermee is de kalender vooral een product van u geworden. Uit de wekelijkse thema’s kunt u inspiratie halen voor uw eigen burgerschap. Vanuit het idee: samen voor de samenleving.

We gaan dus ongeschreven regels vastleggen in een document dat ons week, maand en jaarritme oplegt: de burgerschapskalender. Inderdaad niemand zal betwijfelen dat burgerschap een goed idee is. Burgerschap wordt als vanzelfsprekend en goed gezien door iedereen. Tegelijkertijd echter lijkt er ook een gebrek aan belangstelling ervoor te zijn, misschien een uiting van een gebrek aan burgerschap. Is burgerschap niet een nieuwe poging van de overheid om de natie-staat te definiëren als iets dat boven het wettelijke uitgaat, maar als een gemeenschap waarbij burgers zich betrokken voelen (of zelfs actief inzetten) bij de samenleving? Waarom heten mensen die die visie op de een of andere manier delen liberalen, neo-republikeinen of communautaristen, terwijl mensen die daar niet bijhoren ‘asociale hufters‘ zouden zijn? Dat geeft natuurlijk al aan dat burgerschap een sterk normatief en moraliserend vertoog is, waar bepaalde aannames aan ten grondslag liggen. Het verspreiden en uitdragen van die aannames via zo’n kalender geeft aan dat het niet alleen gaat om actief burgerschap, maar ook om een gedeeld en gezamenlijk burgerschap voornamelijk op basis van bepaalde normen en waarden. Voldoe je daar niet aan, dan ben je volgens sommigen dus een asociale hufter en dat schijnt slecht te zijn.

Dit leent zich dus uitstekend voor een wekelijks kort stukje over het normatieve en moraliserende burgerschap, tegelijkertijd ook een goede manier om de week mee te beginnen. Deze week de eerste

Goede voornemens waarmaken is eigenlijk helemaal niet moeilijk. De truc is: neem je iets voor dat niet te veel moeite kost. Je sociaal opstellen bijvoorbeeld, eens een praatje maken met een ander. Of, zoals een deelnemer aan de discussiebijeenkomst in Nieuwegein het zei: “Mensen ontmoeten buiten je eigen sfeer. Bieren bitterballen en het komt allemaal goed.”

Een beter bewijs dat burgerschap iets goeds zou zijn dan het te zien als een goed voornemen is er niet zou je zeggen. En sinds wanneer kost je sociaal opstellen niet veel moeite? Als je dat nou eens moet doen bij mensen die je niet mag (waar veel mensen hun portie al van hebben gehad met de feestdagen)? Of je stelt je ook eens sociaal en open op, en je komt tot de ontdekking dat je die ander echt, maar dan ook echt helemaal niet mag? OF andersom…ik ga binnenkort weer naar enkele bijeenkomsten met moslims die niet drinken en geen voedsel tot zich nemen dat niet halal is. Ik zal wat bier en bitterballen meenemen, vinden ze vast leuk.

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Closing the week 53 – Featuring the Detroit terror

Posted on January 3rd, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere.

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The Detroit terror
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: Why are we surprised? – NigeriansTalk

It is itself a surprise to me that we are responding to the issue of the alleged Nigerian suicide bomber/terrorist if it was totally unpredictable. We want to condemn it, we are disappointed by what Umar is alleged to have done and the added shame and disrepute that has brought upon Nigeria, but it would be wrong to suggest that there are no fundamentalist strains in Nigeria. They abound.

Jasper Schuringa subdued alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Airlines 253

The passenger who tackled a suspected terrorist on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 said Saturday that he’s “happy” to be alive.

Jasper Schuringa, a video director and producer from Amsterdam, told CNN how he helped the cabin crew to subdue Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old who reportedly ignited a small explosive device on board the plane Friday as it prepared to land in Detroit.

I’m the first of many, warns airline ‘bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – Times Online

A global search for accomplices in the Detroit airliner plot was under way yesterday after an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the operation and the would-be bomber was reported to have said that more attacks were being planned.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a terrorist cell led by a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden, issued a statement saying that the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a response to American-backed airstrikes on the group in Yemen this month.

MELANIE PHILLIPS: To our eternal shame, Britain is STILL a hub for Islamic terror | Mail Online

So here we go again. Another international Islamic terrorist plot – and yet another British connection.

The attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an American plane was averted only by luck and courage.

The incident obviously raises alarming questions about gross lapses in security. In particular, how did Abdulmutallab obtain a U.S. visa when he had been on an American watch-list of people with known terrorist connections?

Mel P regurgitates her ‘Londonistan’ theory

It is characteristic of Phillips’ style and motives to favour a pseudo-intellectual analysis and proffer crude solutions over and above a rational, objective critique advancing focused and nuanced recommendations. Were she rather more sensible and sensitive she would see that Muslims do seek to live in Britain on ‘exactly the same basis as all other religious minorities’.

Detroit terror attack: British university ‘complicit’ in radicalisation – Telegraph

University College London, where Abdulmutallab was recently president of the Islamic Society, has been criticised for “failing grotesquely” to prevent extremists from giving lectures on campus.

UCL has been heavily criticised in the past for its relaxed attitude to radical preachers, and security agencies are investigating whether it was there that Detroit bomber Abdulmutallab was recruited by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

Dozens killed in Yemen air strike on al-Qaeda suspects, al-Awlaki may have been amongst them UPDATE: Awlaki is reported to be alive and well | MR’s Blog

UPDATE: According to this article Anwar al-Awlaki is alive and well.

On Anwar Al-Awlaki « Ginny’s Thoughts & Things

But regarding the reports of the death of Anwar Al-Awlaki, just wanted to say that despite the fact that I don’t know much about him, can’t say I’ve ever listened to any of his lectures, and that some of his recent blog posts/statements that I’ve read/heard about I have found to be shocking to say the least… I also would not wish for his death or rejoice at his death. One rule that I always try to live by is “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”. Which means pretty much that no matter how much he may have advocated for the deaths of innocent civilians, or called Nidal Hasan a hero or may or may not advocate for the death and murder of Muslims who don’t follow his line of thinking or whatever, I’m still not going to rejoice upon his death. Why? Because quite simply, I’d not want him or anyone else to rejoice upon my death. I would want people to make dua for me, to pray for me, that Allah forgives me of my sins, makes my grave spacious for me, makes the questioning easy for me, and admits me, Inshallah, to the highest place in Jannah. And this is even assuming he was killed, which we don’t know for sure. And he may actually still be alive according to some reports.

The thing is, though, I also don’t think I’d go so far as to put him on a pedestal either, being that he’s supposedly said (if his blog posts are/were to be believed) some pretty shocking things an advocated positions that don’t seem Islamic to me. Because advocating for the deaths of innocent people, who’ve not as yet committed a crime, calling people heroes who’ve killed as yet innocent people, are just not positions that I feel that I can follow or even take seriously for that matter, and this is by no means “diminishing the position of jihad inIslam”, because quite simply, this is not jihad.

Political Correctness Gone Mad — Crooked Timber

A strong country has a strong culture that it is willing to defend against the enemy – and a willingness to ignore the natterers of multiculturalism when its citizens’ lives are in danger. We were lucky this time. We may not be so lucky the next.

Discussion » Body scans or body searches on airports?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday failed, but he did succeed in taking 80 grammes of explosive PETN powder on board. The question being raised in the Netherlands is whether he should have been subjected to a so-called millimetre wave scan before boarding at Schiphol airport. The Amsterdam airport bought equipment that uses waves to scan the outlines of passengers’ bodies in 2007.

Gender & relations
Polygamy for Chicks: Saving Spinster Men Everywhere – elan: The Guide to Global Muslim Culture

I’m no religious scholar, but I basically do not understand the rationale for contemporary polygamy. I really don’t think single women need to be rescued anymore. If a woman remains unmarried at 30, I think she’ll survive. And if a man is so bored by one woman, then maybe he shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.

Saudi television journalist Nadine al-Bedair feels the ridiculousness of modern-day polygamy just as acutely. She even wrote an article in the independent Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, entitled “My Four Husbands and I.” In it, she argues that if men have the right to marry up to four women, then women should have the right to marry up to four men. It’s a little something called gender equality, she says.

“A man would say, ‘I am bored. She has become like a sister to me. I am no longer sexually attracted to her.’…” al-Bedair writes (as translated in an Al Arabiya article). Then she asks what happens when a woman gets bored of her husband or if she has never enjoyed her married life. Men are allowed to escape from unfulfilling marriages while women remain trapped in them. Al-Bedair proposes that either polygamy be allowed for both men and women or “a new map for marriage be drawn to defeat men’s ‘lame’ excuses,” says the Al Arabiya article”>Al Arabiya article.

Of course, clerics across Egypt have not taken kindly to al-Bedair’s article, calling it blasphemous and filing complaints against the newspaper.

altmuslimah.com – Relationships: There are just no good Muslim women out there

I shouldn’t take this any further. Apart from not being true, it’s a diatribe that obfuscates something deeper (just as the parallel, but unnervingly more standard retreat, “Where are all the good Muslim men?” does). The degree of intelligent, sincere, socially conscious, and admirable Muslim women I meet is staggering, many of whom in a previous life I wouldn’t have hesitated asking out to dinner to get to know better. Yet, I find myself simply put off by Muslim women.

Organica: Muslim Dating: The Reality of Our Ummah

When people ask “do Muslims date?” A big chunk of Muslims will quickly respond with a “Hell No!” Because remember that Hadeeth about Shaytaan being the third? Ya, so of course Muslims don’t date, commit adultery or drink alcohol or have gay sex or break any other Quranic tenet. Muslims are perfect angels with no faults.

But if you’ve lived among a large Muslim population, befriended Muslims or visited a Muslim majority country, you will learn that things are not very different than what we see here (in America) among the mainstream culture. Muslims indulge in all of these acts, but the only difference is all is done in secrecy, in a hush-hush secret alternative reality where it’s better to sweep your shame under the carpet than dreadfully advertise your sins.

One doesn’t need to travel to the Middle East to witness the phenomenon. Take a short trip to the beautiful city of Toronto and its neighboring suburbs where a Muslim majority is present in the high school scene. You will find the percentages of Muslim individuals involved in dating, sex, drinking, drugs, etc is high, which is no different than a school with a Judeo-Christian majority.

If you’ve ever visited fatwa sites like Islam QA or Islamonline cyber counseling/fatwa section you will learn that our Muslim youth aren’t living a sin-free life. I remember a young man once wrote the site asking for advice about his ‘problem.’ You see this young man, an aspiring Sheikh, was attracted to men and he didn’t know how to keep his faith and battle his desires. Another girl wrote asking what to do with a man she loves and is on the verge of committing adultery with because her practicing beautiful Muslim family won’t allow her to marry him.

Organica: Part 2: Muslim Dating

When parents eventually learn about their child’s alternate reality their reaction is of one of two: 1) Overreact the situation, curse and damn child to hell, take away worldly possessions such as a phone while spitting out every Quranic verse to guilt the child to stop; 2) Deny the situation entirely and never address it. Astonishingly, the latter occurs at a much higher frequency.

Doctor turns away woman wearing veil | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

On Christmas day, a family doctor in Utrecht refused to allow a woman into his surgery because she was wearing a niqab, or burqa.

The 23-year-old woman had brought her baby to see the doctor. The three-month-old child had diarrhoea and had not drunk for several hours, a situation which is potentially dangerous in young baby. However, the doctor refused to see the woman because she was wearing Islamic dress, with her face covered.

Sveriges Radio International – English — Engelska

The introduction of a dress code for students at the University of Gothenburg has raised suspicion that the new policy might be aimed at Muslims. Swedish Radio news reports that lecturers now have the right to demand their students be dressed in a certain way during certain activities.

Hijabtrendz | Hijab Style | Hijab Fashion | Hijab Style Blog | Muslimah Fashion | Muslima | Abaya | Hijab How to | Hijab Blog | Hijab Styles | Islamic Fashion » Blog Archive » Hijabtrendz Exclusive: Hanan Turk

Hanan Turk is a famous Egyptian actress who started off her entertainment career as a professional ballerina. In 2006 she decided to wear hijab and shocked her fans by taking a break from the spotlight for a few years. She’s been back recently in the Arab cinema and television scene and has surprised naysayers with her success as a serious actress who just happens to don a headscarf.

Hijabtrendz recently interviewed Turk to learn more about what it’s like to be a Hijabi in a field that traditionally doesn’t support women who wear hijab.

Man jailed for life for ‘honour killing’

A 50-year-old Turkish man was jailed for life in Germany on Tuesday over the brutal “honour killing” of his 20-year-old daughter, a murder carried out together with the victim’s twin brother.

The National – People of the Decade: Sheikha Mozah of Qatar

Arab women who fight to end the practice of child marriages, or encourage the education of girls, or for women’s right to vote are often accused of importing a western feminism that is at odds with the values of conservative Muslim societies.

Over the years, particularly in the past decade, the Arab world has become increasingly religious. Partially as a result, there are fewer women in public life. If prominent Arab women are rare, then prominent Gulf Arab women are rarer still.

Which is why, when Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned arrived in Paris with her husband, the Emir of Qatar, for a state dinner at the Elysée Palace last June, traditionalists gasped. She also upstaged her hostess, that scary glamazon Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. In a floor-length, long-sleeved fuchsia gown cinched at the waist with a diamond and pearl belt, her hair wrapped in an elegant matching turban, the sheikha projected a retro glamour. Bruni-Sarkozy almost looked mousy by comparison.

Misc.
The End – Mujahideen Ryder’s Blog (2000 to 2009) | MR’s Blog

It’s been a long time with lots of fun, educational, spiritual, controversial and outrageous posts over an entire decade. The blog was bound to come to an end as do everything.

Cameron and the Muslim Vote (Part IV)

In addition to the choreography augmenting Muslim stigma, Michael Gove’s uneducated declarations, Douglas Murray’s fabrications and Paul Goodman’s bluster, there was another group of individuals lending support to the edifice of this intrigue. Although these individuals were not mentioned by name, there is strong evidence to suggest that they are the usual suspects whose latest incarnation as “Christmas tree activists” is consistent with their history as opportunists who will turn their heads in whichever direction the wind happens to be blowing. They are of course Ed and Co at the government-funded Quilliam Foundation.

Who Have Been Your Heroes and Villains of 2009? | MPACUK – Empowerment through political participation

As 2009 draws to a close and the Islamic year begins, let’s ponder on the happenings of the past year and reflect who have been our heroes and villains of 2009.

Mosque in Germany to Honor Marwa El Sherbini | Bikya Masr

A group of Islamic and Arab leaders, as well as a group from the Egyptian community in Germany, have asked the German government to grant them a license to build a mosque in Dresden in honor of the Egyptian woman killed in a courtroom in the same city. The original incident raised wide feelings of anger among Muslims,many of whom described the crime as a “hate crime” and have called Marwa El Sherbini, the victim, a “Martyr of veil”.

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

We’re currently at various forms of war in five different Muslim countries, so it’s not surprising that some of the violence directed at us is from Muslims. But to claim that “100 percent of attempted terrorist attacks on the U.S. (and [other than Spain], terrorists attacks on all Western nations)” since 1995 are by “people claiming to act in the name of Islam” is so blatantly, demonstrably, obviously false that you really have to wonder about a person who would utter such a thing. And while most don’t veer quite as deep into the falsehood department as Weiss did, one would get the sense from listening to our standard political discourse that “Terrorism” and “Islamic-inspired Terrorism” are synonymous. It’s the kind of myth-based demonization that is as familiar as it is false, dangerous and repugnant.

Informed Comment: Top Ten Good News Stories from the Muslim World in 2009 that You Never Heard About

Top Ten Good News Stories from the Muslim World in 2009 that You Never Heard About

Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion

The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas, not a rejection of Muslims.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali / December 5, 2009
Washington

The recent Swiss referendum that bans construction of minarets has caused controversy across the world. There are two ways to interpret the vote. First, as a rejection of political Islam, not a rejection of Muslims. In this sense it was a vote for tolerance and inclusion, which political Islam rejects. Second, the vote was a revelation of the big gap between how the Swiss people and the Swiss elite judge political Islam.

Al Jazeera English – Europe – Danish cartoonist attacker charged

A Danish court has charged a Somali man with the attempted murder of a cartoonist whose 2005 drawings of Prophet Muhammad outraged Muslims around the world.

Dutch

Maghreb Magazine » Moslimomroep krijgt zendmachtiging

Stichting Moslim Omroep Nederland (SMON) heeft van het Commissariaat voor de Media (CvdM) de nieuwe zendmachtiging gekregen voor de hoofdstroom islam. De vergunning gaat in september 2010 in en geldt voor vijf jaar. Dit heeft het CvdM donderdag bekend gemaakt.

.god.voor.dommen » Blog Archive » Onze Judeo-Christelijke cultuur. Geen oplossing maar onderdeel van het probleem.

Het is opvallend hoe vaak we de laatste jaren geconfronteerd worden met het vermelden van onze veronderstelde ‘christelijke wortels’ als het gaat om een beschouwing van onze ‘Westerse cultuur’. In menig politiek debat wordt erover gesproken alsof het een onbetwistbaar feit is en ook in het debat rondom religie is het een faux pas om kanttekeningen te plaatsen.

CAPRICIO ITALIANO: PETITIE VOOR GEERT WILDERS

Onlangs stond in “bij de buren” een link naar een petitie tegen de vervolging van Geert Wilders. Dit zorgde voor een aanzienlijke toename van het aantal ondertekenaars. Daarom wijden we er nu een artikel aan.

Nederlandse tolerantie | Justice

Er wordt vaak gesproken over moslims die zeer gevaarlijk zijn, ze zouden radicale gedachtes en idealen hebben. Ondertussen heb je ook nog een Wilders, die de Islam de grond in boort, de moslims zouden volgens totaal niet in de maatschappij passen, rellen om cartoons die hun profeet keihard beledigen, en niet te vergeten Theo van Gogh, de Islam zou de oorzaak hiervan zijn, dit terwijl het in werkelijkheid maar een persoon was met psychische problemen.

Dat laatste heeft ons laten zien hoe tolerant de Nederlanders zijn, hoe zij zich gedragen als er iets gebeurd.

Christendom tolerant? Integendeel – Opinie – de Volkskrant

De Europese beschaving zou nu ver voorliggen op de islam. Maar die demarrage is nog maar net ingezet

Met zijn stuk ‘Hoe Europa zijn zelfvertrouwen verloor’ heeft Frits Bolkestein zich opnieuw geschaard onder wat de filosoof Daniel Dennett heeft omschreven als de believers in belief. Dat zijn mensen die zelf niet geloven, die de inhoud van het geloof vaak als onhoudbaar of zelfs als onzinnig afwijzen, maar die het toch heilzaam vinden dat anderen wel geloven.

Bidruimte moslims in Edam – Waterland – Noordhollands Dagblad

Bidruimte moslims in Edam

Marokkaanse moslims in Edam bouwen volgend jaar hun eigen gebedsruimte. Het gebouw, zonder minaretten, komt achter het sociaalcultureel centrum De Singel. Begin januari wordt de eerste paal geslagen.

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0 comments.

Wilders on Trial (WoT) – part zero: outlining the case

Posted on January 1st, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

On January 20 Dutch politician Wilders has to stand on trial. I will keep you updated by a series of reports.

If you want to stay updated and did not subscribe yet, you can do so HERE

Peering into RNW’s Crystal Ball | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Fireworks for The Hague
[…]but our Dutch political editor John Tyler is predicting plenty in The Hague, kicking off in January with the trial of controversial anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders for inciting hatred. Even if he’s found guilty, he’s still on a winning streak in the court of public opinion. His Freedom Party just keeps doing better and better in the opinion polls – something not to be ignored with elections due in the spring of 2011. But his chance may come even sooner according to Tyler.

“None of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s three cabinets have made it the full four years. And just look at the coalition – it’s a marriage of convenience, a divorce for the sake of the kids is making more and more sense. And the fun has yet to begin. In 2010, the government’s going to propose ways to cut 20 percent from the national budget – one fifth of total spending gone in a flash. I don’t think the government’s going to make it to Christmas.”

So who knows, before the year is out John could be interviewing Prime Minister Geert Wilders – and he could be the first Dutch leader with a criminal record.

What are the charges?
SUMMONS OF THE ACCUSED – Hudson New York

he, on one or more dates in or about the period from 8 August 2007 up to and including 27 March 2008, in The Hague and/or Amsterdam and/or (elsewhere in) the Netherlands, on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion, by (each time) intentionally in

* De Volkskrant and/or
* on the internet on the website www.liveleak.com (in the film Fitna)

placing (having placed) and/or showing (having showed) and/or having heard one or more texts and/or images and/or footage and/or audio fragments with the following content:

(De Volkskrant of 8 August 2007, ‘Enough is enough: prohibit the Quran’)

‘A moderate Islam does not exist. It does not exist because there is no distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam. There is Islam and that is it. And Islam means the Quran and nothing but the Quran. And the Quran is the Mein Kampf of a religion that intends to eliminate others and that refers to those others – non-Muslims – as unfaithful dogs, inferior beings. Read the Quran, this Mein Kampf, again. In whatever version, you will see that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit to us and themselves originates from this book (Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason, post-script, page 305, February 2006).’

and/or

‘The core of the problem is the fascist Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Quran. The texts from the Quran leave little to imagination.’

and/or

‘Prohibit this miserable book the way Mein Kampf was also prohibited!’

and/or

‘I have enough of the Quran in the Netherlands: prohibit this fascist book.’

and/or

(The film Fitna, placed on www.liveleak.com on 27 March 2008)

‘Islam wants to control, subdue and is out for the destruction of our Western civilisation. In 1945 Nazism was beaten in Europe. In 1989 communism was beaten in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology must be beaten. Stop the Islamisation. Defend our freedom.’

(Article 137c of the Dutch Criminal Code)

2.

he, on one or more dates in or about the period from 7 October 2006 up to and including 27 March 2008, in The Hague and/or Amsterdam and/or (elsewhere in) the Netherlands, on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, incited to hatred of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion, by (each time) in

* De Volkskrant and/or
* De Pers and/or
* Dagblad De Limburger-Limburgs Dagblad and/or on the internet
* on the website www.geenstijl.nl and/or www.pvv.nl and/or
* on the website of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep and/or the Wereldomroep and/or
* on the website www.liveleak.com (in the film Fitna)

placing (having placed) and/or showing (having showed) and/or having heard one or more texts and/or images and/or footage and/or audio fragments with the following content:

(De Volkskrant of 7 October 2006, ‘The Pope is completely right’)

‘The borders are closed to all non-Western immigrants the same day.’

and/or

‘The demographic composition of the population is the biggest problem of the Netherlands. I am talking about what comes to the Netherlands and what reproduces here. If you look at the figures and the development therein* Muslims will move from the big cities to the country. We must stop the tsunami of the Islamisation. This hits us in the heart, in our identity, in our culture. If we do not defend ourselves all other points from my programme will appear to be useless.’

and/or

‘Of course. 99 percent of the people who came to live there are of an Islamic origin.’

and/or

‘Absolutely. The figures show this. One out of five Moroccan youngsters is registered with the police as a suspect. Their behaviour derives from their religion and culture. You cannot consider these two facts separately. The other day the Pope was completely right: the Islam is a violent religion. Islam means submission and conversion of non-Muslims. This interpretation rules in the living rooms of these problematic youngsters, in the mosques. It has been embedded in this community itself.’

and/or

‘Everybody adapts to our dominant culture. Who does not do so will no longer be here in twenty years time. They will be deported.’

and/or

‘We have a gigantic problem with Muslims, in every respect it is going too far, and we present solutions that cannot even get a mouse to come out of its hole.’

and/or

‘Those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation. I have never used violence.’

and/or

‘Of this tsunami of a culture foreign to us that becomes ever more dominant here. This must be stopped.’

and/or

(Internet column ‘Mohammed (part II): the Islamic invasion’ of 6 February 2007, on the website of www.geenstijl.nl and/or the website www.pvv.nl)

‘In the Nederlands Dagblad of last Saturday Professor Ralphael Israeli is also quoted who predicts a “Third Islamic Invasion of Europe” by means of “penetration, propaganda, conversion and demographic changes”. In his eyes the Europeans are even committing “demographic suicide” with the advancing Islam. The first Islamic invasion was stopped at Poitiers in the year 732 after the conquest of Spain, Portugal and the south of France and the second invasion attempt by the Ottoman Turks as stopped before the gates of Vienna where they were, fortunately, beaten in 1683. According to Prof. Israeli the third invasion attempt that is now going on in Europe has a much bigger change of success.

The man is absolutely right. The Muslim population doubles with every generation – 25 years – and the number of Islamics in each and every European country is taking disturbing forms.’

and/or

‘The Netherlands as Islamic mission country. If a terrorist like Mohammed B. could yet not be stopped, the tactics of penetration, propaganda, conversion and demographic change will indeed prove to be successful if the cowardly political elite from VVD to PvdA and from SP to CDA and their European equivalents continue to remain silent about it and denounce and demonise those who are not. There is enough Islam in Europe and in the Netherlands. The PVV will oppose this third Islamic invasion attempt with man and might.’

and/or

(De Pers of 13 February 2007, ‘What is driving Geert Wilders?’)

‘We want enough. Close the borders, no more Islamics in the Netherlands, many Muslims deported from the Netherlands, denaturalisation of Islamic criminals.’

and/or

‘It is the facts. The Islam is a violent religion. If Mohammed would be alive here today the Lower House would immediately agree to hunt him out of the country.’

and/or

‘Former chief of the Mossad Efraim Halevy says that the Third World War has already started. I am not putting these words in my mouth, but it is correct though.’

and/or

‘I have good intentions. We let something happen as a result of which this becomes a totally different society. I am well aware that in a few decades there will not be an Islamic majority yet. But it is growing. With aggressive elements, imperialism. Just take a walk down the street and look what it is bringing us. You feel that you are no longer living in your own country. A fight is going on and we must defend ourselves. Soon there will be more mosques than churches!’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 8 August 2007, ‘Wilders: prohibit the Quran, also in mosque’)

‘A prohibition is a prohibition. Hence not only the sale but also the use in mosques and possession at home must be punished. If this is not possible in the current legislation then a new prohibitory provision must be created.’

and/or

‘This book incites to hatred and murder, and does therefore not fit in our legal system. If Muslims want to participate they must renounce this Quran. I understand this is much to ask, but we must stop making concessions.’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 8 August 2007, ‘Enough is enough: prohibit the Quran’)

‘A moderate Islam does not exist. It does not exist because there is no distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam. There is Islam and that is it. And Islam means the Quran and nothing but the Quran. And the Quran is the Mein Kampf of a religion that intends to eliminate others and that refers to those others – non-Muslims – as unfaithful dogs, inferior beings. Read the Quran, this Mein Kampf, again. In whatever version, you will see that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit to us and themselves originates from this book (Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason, post-script, page 305, February 2006).’

and/or

‘The core of the problem is the fascist Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Quran. The texts from the Quran leave little to imagination.’

and/or

‘Prohibit this miserable book the way Mein Kampf was also prohibited!’

and/or

‘I am so ashamed of all those in- and outside of the government and the Lower House who refuse to stop the Islamic invasion of the Netherlands. I am so ashamed of Dutch politics where the overrepresentation of members of ethnic minorities in crime and criminality is accepted day in day out without an answer to it.’

and/or

‘The Hague is filled with cowardly folks. Scared people who were born cowardly and will die cowardly. Who feel and stimulate that the Dutch culture is founded on a Jewish-Christian-Islamic tradition. Who issue a general pardon to liars and criminals.’

and/or

‘Who do not give a damn about the interests of the Dutch citizens and cooperate in the transformation of the Netherlands into Netherabia as a province of the Islamic super state Eurabia.’

and/or

‘I have had enough of the Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrants. I have had enough of the adoration of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosques. I have had enough of the Quran in the Netherlands: prohibit this fascist book.

Enough is enough.’

and/or

(‘Wilders wants a renewed mini Quran’ of 7 September 2007 on the website of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep and/or the Wereldomroep via the link: http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.wereldomroep.nl/actua/nl/nederlandsepolitiek/070909wildersintvw-redirected)

‘This kind of renewed version would be desirable, according to the PVV leader; a Quran deprived of all vindictive verses. “It should actually have the format of a Donald Duck”, according to Wilders.’

and/or

(De Limburger of 9 February 2008, ‘Islam is my Fitna’)

‘I point to the role which the horrible Quran plays in the Islamisation of our society.’

and/or

‘In the film I illustrate texts and verses from the Quran with documentary images that demonstrate that the Quran is not a dead letter but the face of the Islam: a huge threat.’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 11 February 2008, ‘It no longer has any use, but The Film will be there’)

‘In the GPD interview he explains that he will illustrate texts and verses from the Quran with documentary images. He wants to, by way of example, demonstrate that the Quran is not “ a dead letter but the face of the Islam: a huge threat”.’

and/or

(The film Fitna, placed on www.liveleak.com on 27 March 2008)

The film starts with a black image with the text: “Warning: this film contains very shocking material”. Then the sound of a match being lighted can be heard and a book with oriental looking symbols is opened up that looks like the Quran. On the first page a cartoon can be seen of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. The sound of a burning fuse can be heard. A clock appears that starts counting down from 15:00.

A page of the book is turned over. Two open pages can be seen. On the page on the right the following text appears: “Quran, Surah 8, verse 60”. Then on the page on the left appears: “Surah 8. Verse 60: Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering, to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies”. A voice can also be heard which (most likely) sings this text in the Arabic language. On the page on the right, next to the text, footage of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York (09/11/2001) are shown as well as of the attacks by Muslim extremists in Madrid and London with footage of the victims. This footage is alternated with footage of apparent imams who say: “What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy if non-Muslims are being killed” and “Destroy the unbelievers and polytheists, your (Allah’s) enemies and the enemies of the religion. Allah, count them and kill them up to the very last of them. And do not spare a single one”.

The page is turned. Now the page on the right states: “Quran, Surah 4, verse 56” and on the page on the left: “Surah 4, verse 56: Those who reject our signs, we shall soon cast into the fire: as often as their skins are roasted through, we shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise”. Then footage follows of a man who yells: “If Allah permits us, oh nation of Mohammed, even the stone will say Oh Muslim. A Jew is hiding behind me, come and cut off his head. And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut it off! Oh Jews! Allah Akbar! (Allah is Great!). Jihad for the sake of Allah! Jihad for the sake of Allah! Victory to Allah! Allah Akbar! (Allah is Great!)”.

Then footage is shown of a young girl wearing a headscarf who is asked by a person off-screen who the Jews are. The little girl answers: “They are apes and pigs”. The voice says: “Are they apes and pigs? Says who?” The little girl says: “Allah”. The voice asks: “Where did he say this?” The little girl answers: “In the Quran”. The following footage shows a mass of people who are dragging corpses behind them. The following footage again shows images of the attacks in London showing, among other things, an exploded red double-decker bus. Then footage follows of apparently an imam who calls outs: “The Jews are Jews. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed”. These stills are intertwined with stills of Muslims (as follows from the headscarves and facial covering worn by one of the female persons) who show texts on signs: “Be prepared for the real Holocaust” and “God bless Hitler”. Then footage of a group of people in uniform who are lined up follows, apparently fighters who are standing with extended right arm (apparently bringing the Hitler salute).

A page is turned. On the new page the following text appears: “Quran, Surah 47, verse 4” and then: “Surah 47, verse 4: Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them”. A voice can also be heard which (probably) presents this text in the Arabic language. Then a newspaper article is shown of the murder of Theo van Gogh. A fragment of an interview with Theo van Gogh can be heard where he says, among other things: “I do not think that bullet will come for me!”. A picture of a male person appears who looks like Mohammed B. who has been convicted of the murder of Theo van Gogh. On screen appears: Mohammed B. Immediately thereafter an audio fragment in which the voice of Mohammed B. can be heard who says: “If I had the opportunity, if I would be free, and I had the opportunity to do it again, what I did on 2 November, I would have done exactly the same”. Footage appears of people who yell: “Learn from Theo van Gogh. Learn from the examples you can see! Because you pay with your blood!” and also footage of people with bloody knives. A newspaper article is shown with the header: “Hirsi Ali and Wilders into hiding. Death list. Targets in letter of Mohammed B.”. A fragment can also be seen of, as can be seen on screen, a Saudi TV station, Iqra TV, where a person says: “Houses and young men must be sacrificed, throats must be cut and skulls must be crushed. This is the road to victory”. Stills are shown of people wearing balaclavas and holding firearms. In between them they hold a man who is apparently their prisoner. The person wearing a balaclava in the middle reads a statement out loud. Then the masked men move to cut off the head of the prisoner. The beheading itself can (barely) not be seen. Yet the audio of the fragment remains audible. Sounds can be heard that apparently point to the beheading. After a few seconds the footage returns and one of the masked men can be seen holding the cut-off head of the prisoner up.

A page is turned again. On the new page can be read: “Quran, Surah 4, verse 89” and then: “Surah 4, verse 89: They but wish that ye should reject faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing as they, so take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. But if they turn renegades, seize them and kill them wherever ye find them, and take no friends or helpers from their ranks”. A voice can also be heard which (probably) presents the text in the Arabic language. The text is followed by footage of Arabic looking people who state the following: “The Islam is a sacred religion. The best religion there is. If somebody converts to Christianity he deserves the death penalty”. Another person says: “The Islam is superior compared to the Jews, the Christians, the Buddhists and the Hindus. The only law recognised by Allah is the Islam. And he who pursues anything other but the Islam shall never be accepted”. The following newspaper headlines appear on screen: “Former Muslim Jami molested”, “Islamic witch hunt again threatens”, “Death to Rushdie” and “Letter on body Theo van Gogh disclosed. Hirsi Ali also receiving death threats”.

The page is turned. It says: “Quran, Surah 8, verse 39” and then: “Surah 8, verse 39: Fight them until there is no dissension, and the religion is entirely Allah’s”. Moreover, a voice can be heard which (probably) presents this text in the Arabic language. An Ayatollah appears who says: “The Islam is a religion that wants to control the world. It did so before and shall eventually do so again”. Followed by President Ahmadinejad who says: “The message of the Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. Have no doubt… Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world”.

Then a number of apparently Arabic men appears on screen that make the following statements:

“We have ruled the world before. And Allah willing the day shall come that we will again rule the whole world. The day shall come that we will rule over America! The day shall come that we will rule over Great Britain and the whole world!”.

“Allah ordered us to spread this religion all over the world”.

“Thou shall take over the United States! Thou shall take over the United Kingdom! Thou shall take over Europe! Thou shall conquer them all. Thou shall be victorious! Thou shall take over Egypt. We have faith in Allah!”.

Then apparently Arabic people with signs are shown. The following texts can be read: “Islam will dominate the world” and “Freedom go to hell”.

Then the following text appears: “The Netherlands is under the spell of the Islam”. Stills are shown of mosques that are most likely situated in the Netherlands. A voice can also be heard which says: “These mosques are all part of the Dutch government system”. Footage is shown of a woman dressed in a burka combined with the newspaper header “Government: no burka prohibition” as also with satellite dishes and apartment buildings. Graphs are shown of the increase of the number of Muslims in the Netherlands in the course of the years. In the graphs the years 1909, 1960, 1990 and 2004 are shown with, respectively, the following numbers: 54, 1399, 458,000 and 944,000. Next to these graphs the number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 appears. The graph increases up to 54,000,000 and continues beyond the top of the screen. In the background stills can be seen of women with headscarves, satellite dishes and Dutch police officers in uniform taking off their shoes when they apparently enter a mosque. An apparent Muslim says: “If my sister or my mother has sex with another person I will also kill them”. The interviewer asks: “Then you commit blood vengeance!” The man answers: “Absolutely”. Another apparent Muslim says: “For example, in the Netherlands you can be adulterous or gay. But I do not wish to be part of that because the Islam considers that to be a crime”. A still appears of a postcard with the text: “Greetings from the Netherlands” where you can only see mosques. Then a preach can be heard, on screen the following appears: “Said in Dutch mosques”: “They must renounce political parties and worldly bodies of thought like liberalism, democracy, socialism and everything that smells of it and originates from the human brain” and (according to the text on screen pronounced in the El Tawheed mosque): “If a married man, by the grace of Allah, commits adultery, or a married woman commits adultery, she will be stoned”.

On screen the following question is shown: “The Netherlands in the future!?”. Stills are shown of apparently homosexual men (on screen it reads: “Gays”) who are hanged, children smothered in blood (on screen it reads: “Children”), stills of a woman with a bloody knife in her hand with a child smothered in blood on her lap, a woman (on screen it reads: “Women”) with a naked lower torso tied down to a bed and then a lot of blood (she is apparently being circumcised), a chopped off head of apparently a Muslim woman (she wears a headscarf), a woman dressed in a burka at a noose and a veiled woman who is shot through her head. These scenes are concluded with a large number of newspaper headlines. An enumeration of the headlines is provided below:

Islamists seek control, politically driven Muslims gain influence in Europe
Spanish Court examines ties. Laakkwartier with Madrid in terror web
Sudanese demand execution of British ‘teddy bear lady’
Three people suspected of planning attack
Hell will break loose. “What you need is a heavy bomb attack”. “We do not agree with the freedom of speech, because we renounce democracy”, “Our alternative is the Islam”
Explosive increase blood vengeance in Amsterdam
School closes on Muslim holidays
AIVD investigation: Jihad lessons at primary school
Minister reports Rotterdam abuse cases. Free trip to Mecca via Islam school
Ankara wants Turkish in classroom here
Donner eases the rules. Foreign imams can enter country more quickly
Murderer Theo van Gogh predicts terrorist acts. Mohammed B.: “My followers are ready”
Van Gogh murdered after Fatwa announcement
Almost half of the young Moroccans anti-Western
Mosques under spell of radical Muslim group
Suicide commandos in the Netherlands
Hamas meets in Rotterdam
Alexander must swim for hours. Moroccans throw gay into the water
Imams do not like gays
‘Imam legitimises violence against gays’
‘Throw gays of high buildings’
Mosque: “Turn the Netherlands into a Muslim state”
Girls still being circumcised
‘Muslims prevent doctors from providing care to women’
Halal fund: sliced meat for Muslims. New on Amsterdam Stock Exchange
Al Qaeda issues death sentence. Jihad against Wilders
‘Quran game licence’ Arabic Specialist Hans Jansen: “You already offend the Islam by not becoming a Muslim”

Then a hand can be seen that takes up a page of the Quran. The screen then turns black and the sound of paper being torn can be heard. On screen the text appears: “The sound you just heard was a page from the telephone directory. Because it is not up to me but up to the Muslims themselves to tear the vindictive verses from the Quran. Muslims want you to give room to the Islam, but the Islam does not offer room to you.

The government wants you to respect the Islam, yet the Islam has no respect at all for you. The Islam wants to control, subdue and is out for the destruction of our Western civilisation. In 1945 Nazism was beaten in Europe. In 1989 communism was beaten in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology must be beaten. Stop the Islamisation. Defend our freedom”.

The film again concludes with the image of the cartoon of Mohammed with the turban. It can be seen that the fuse in his turban is almost near the end. A ticking clock can be heard. The clock appears on screen and counts down from 00:03 to zero. A flash of lightning can be seen and a bolt of lightning can be heard. Then the Quran is closed, the word “Fitna” is shown which flows into the word “Fin” and then the credits of the film are shown.

(Article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code)

3.

he, on one or more dates in or about the period from 7 October 2006 up to and including 27 March 2008, in The Hague and/or Amsterdam and/or (elsewhere in) the Netherlands, on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, incited to discrimination, within the meaning of article 90 quarter of the Dutch Criminal Code, against people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion, by (each time) in

* De Volkskrant and/or
* De Pers and/or
* Dagblad De Limburger-Limburgs Dagblad and/or on the internet
* on the website www.geenstijl.nl and/or www.pvv.nl and/or
* on the website of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep and/or the Wereldomroep and/or
* on the website www.liveleak.com (in the film Fitna)

placing (having placed) and/or showing (having showed) and/or having heard one or more texts and/or images and/or footage and/or audio fragments with the following content:

(De Volkskrant of 7 October 2006, ‘The Pope is completely right’)

‘The borders are closed to all non-Western immigrants the same day.’

and/or

‘The demographic composition of the population is the biggest problem of the Netherlands. I am talking about what comes to the Netherlands and what reproduces here. If you look at the figures and the development therein* Muslims will move from the big cities to the country. We must stop the tsunami of the Islamisation. This hits us in the heart, in our identity, in our culture. If we do not defend ourselves all other points from my programme will appear to be useless.’

and/or

‘Of course. 99 percent of the people who came to live there are of an Islamic origin.’

and/or

‘Absolutely. The figures show this. One out of five Moroccan youngsters is registered with the police as a suspect. Their behaviour derives from their religion and culture. You cannot consider these two facts separately. The other day the Pope was completely right: the Islam is a violent religion. Islam means submission and conversion of non-Muslims. This interpretation rules in the living rooms of these problematic youngsters, in the mosques. It has been embedded in this community itself.’

and/or

‘Everybody adapts to our dominant culture. Who does not do so will no longer be here in twenty years time. They will be deported.’

and/or

‘We have a gigantic problem with Muslims, in every respect it is going too far, and we present solutions that cannot even get a mouse to come out of its hole.’

and/or

‘Those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation. I have never used violence.’

and/or

‘Of this tsunami of a culture foreign to us that becomes ever more dominant here. This must be stopped.’

and/or

(Internet column ‘Mohammed (part II): the Islamic invasion’ of 6 February 2007, on the website of www.geenstijl.nl and/or the website www.pvv.nl)

‘In the Nederlands Dagblad of last Saturday Professor Ralphael Israeli is also quoted who predicts a “Third Islamic Invasion of Europe” by means of “penetration, propaganda, conversion and demographic changes”. In his eyes the Europeans are even committing “demographic suicide” with the advancing Islam. The first Islamic invasion was stopped at Poitiers in the year 732 after the conquest of Spain, Portugal and the south of France and the second invasion attempt by the Ottoman Turks as stopped before the gates of Vienna where they were, fortunately, beaten in 1683. According to Prof. Israeli the third invasion attempt that is now going on in Europe has a much bigger change of success.

The man is absolutely right. The Muslim population doubles with every generation – 25 years – and the number of Islamics in each and every European country is taking disturbing forms.’

and/or

‘The Netherlands as Islamic mission country. If a terrorist like Mohammed B. could yet not be stopped, the tactics of penetration, propaganda, conversion and demographic change will indeed prove to be successful if the cowardly political elite from VVD to PvdA and from SP to CDA and their European equivalents continue to remain silent about it and denounce and demonise those who are not. There is enough Islam in Europe and in the Netherlands. The PVV will oppose this third Islamic invasion attempt with man and might.’

and/or

(De Pers of 13 February 2007, ‘What is driving Geert Wilders?’)

‘We want enough. Close the borders, no more Islamics in the Netherlands, many Muslims deported from the Netherlands, denaturalisation of Islamic criminals.’

and/or

‘It is the facts. The Islam is a violent religion. If Mohammed would be alive here today the Lower House would immediately agree to hunt him out of the country.’

and/or

‘Former chief of the Mossad Efraim Halevy says that the Third World War has already started. I am not putting these words in my mouth, but it is correct though.’

and/or

‘I have good intentions. We let something happen as a result of which this becomes a totally different society. I am well aware that in a few decades there will not be an Islamic majority yet. But it is growing. With aggressive elements, imperialism. Just take a walk down the street and look what it is bringing us. You feel that you are no longer living in your own country. A fight is going on and we must defend ourselves. Soon there will be more mosques than churches!’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 8 August 2007, ‘Wilders: prohibit the Quran, also in mosque’)

‘A prohibition is a prohibition. Hence not only the sale but also the use in mosques and possession at home must be punished. If this is not possible in the current legislation then a new prohibitory provision must be created.’

and/or

‘This book incites to hatred and murder, and does therefore not fit in our legal system. If Muslims want to participate they must renounce this Quran. I understand this is much to ask, but we must stop making concessions.’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 8 August 2007, ‘Enough is enough: prohibit the Quran’)

‘A moderate Islam does not exist. It does not exist because there is no distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam. There is Islam and that is it. And Islam means the Quran and nothing but the Quran. And the Quran is the Mein Kampf of a religion that intends to eliminate others and that refers to those others – non-Muslims – as unfaithful dogs, inferior beings. Read the Quran, this Mein Kampf, again. In whatever version, you will see that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit to us and themselves originates from this book (Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason, post-script, page 305, February 2006).’

and/or

‘The core of the problem is the fascist Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Quran. The texts from the Quran leave little to imagination.’

and/or

‘Prohibit this miserable book the way Mein Kampf was also prohibited!’

and/or

‘I am so ashamed of all those in- and outside of the government and the Lower House who refuse to stop the Islamic invasion of the Netherlands. I am so ashamed of Dutch politics where the overrepresentation of members of ethnic minorities in crime and criminality is accepted day in day out without an answer to it.’

and/or

‘The Hague is filled with cowardly folks. Scared people who were born cowardly and will die cowardly. Who feel and stimulate that the Dutch culture is founded on a Jewish-Christian-Islamic tradition. Who issue a general pardon to liars and criminals.’

and/or

‘Who do not give a damn about the interests of the Dutch citizens and cooperate in the transformation of the Netherlands into Netherabia as a province of the Islamic super state Eurabia.’

and/or

‘I have had enough of the Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrants. I have had enough of the adoration of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosques. I have had enough of the Quran in the Netherlands: prohibit this fascist book.

Enough is enough.’

and/or

(‘Wilders wants a renewed mini Quran’ of 7 September 2007 on the website of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep and/or the Wereldomroep via the link: http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.wereldomroep.nl/actua/nl/nederlandsepolitiek/070909wildersintvw-redirected)

‘This kind of renewed version would be desirable, according to the PVV leader; a Quran deprived of all vindictive verses. “It should actually have the format of a Donald Duck”, according to Wilders.’

and/or

(De Limburger of 9 February 2008, ‘Islam is my Fitna’)

‘I point to the role which the horrible Quran plays in the Islamisation of our society.’

and/or

‘In the film I illustrate texts and verses from the Quran with documentary images that demonstrate that the Quran is not a dead letter but the face of the Islam: a huge threat.’

and/or

(De Volkskrant of 11 February 2008, ‘It no longer has any use, but The Film will be there’)

‘In the GPD interview he explains that he will illustrate texts and verses from the Quran with documentary images. He wants to, by way of example, demonstrate that the Quran is not “a dead letter but the face of the Islam: a huge threat”.’

and/or

(The film Fitna, placed on www.liveleak.com on 27 March 2008)

The film starts with a black image with the text: “Warning: this film contains very shocking material”. Then the sound of a match being lighted can be heard and a book with oriental looking symbols is opened up that looks like the Quran. On the first page a cartoon can be seen of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. The sound of a burning fuse can be heard. A clock appears that starts counting down from 15:00.

A page of the book is turned over. Two open pages can be seen. On the page on the right the following text appears: “Quran, Surah 8, verse 60”. Then on the page on the left appears: “Surah 8. Verse 60: Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering, to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies”. A voice can also be heard which (most likely) sings this text in the Arabic language. On the page on the right, next to the text, footage of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York (09/11/2001) are shown as well as of the attacks by Muslim extremists in Madrid and London with footage of the victims. This footage is alternated with footage of apparent imams who say: “What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy if non-Muslims are being killed” and “Destroy the unbelievers and polytheists, your (Allah’s) enemies and the enemies of the religion. Allah, count them and kill them up to the very last of them. And do not spare a single one”.

The page is turned. Now the page on the right states: “Quran, Surah 4, verse 56” and on the page on the left: “Surah 4, verse 56: Those who reject our signs, we shall soon cast into the fire: as often as their skins are roasted through, we shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the penalty: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise”. Then footage follows of a man who yells: “If Allah permits us, oh nation of Mohammed, even the stone will say Oh Muslim. A Jew is hiding behind me, come and cut off his head. And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut it off! Oh Jews! Allah Akbar! (Allah is Great!). Jihad for the sake of Allah! Jihad for the sake of Allah! Victory to Allah! Allah Akbar! (Allah is Great!)”.

Then footage is shown of a young girl wearing a headscarf who is asked by a person off-screen who the Jews are. The little girl answers: “They are apes and pigs”. The voice says: “Are they apes and pigs? Says who?” The little girl says: “Allah”. The voice asks: “Where did he say this?” The little girl answers: “In the Quran”. The following footage shows a mass of people who are dragging corpses behind them. The following footage again shows images of the attacks in London showing, among other things, an exploded red double-decker bus. Then footage follows of apparently an imam who calls outs: “The Jews are Jews. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed”. These stills are intertwined with stills of Muslims (as follows from the headscarves and facial covering worn by one of the female persons) who show texts on signs: “Be prepared for the real Holocaust” and “God bless Hitler”. Then footage of a group of people in uniform who are lined up follows, apparently fighters who are standing with extended right arm (apparently bringing the Hitler salute).

A page is turned. On the new page the following text appears: “Quran, Surah 47, verse 4” and then: “Surah 47, verse 4: Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them”. A voice can also be heard which (probably) presents this text in the Arabic language. Then a newspaper article is shown of the murder of Theo van Gogh. A fragment of an interview with Theo van Gogh can be heard where he says, among other things: “I do not think that bullet will come for me!”. A picture of a male person appears who looks like Mohammed B. who has been convicted of the murder of Theo van Gogh. On screen appears: Mohammed B. Immediately thereafter an audio fragment in which the voice of Mohammed B. can be heard who says: “If I had the opportunity, if I would be free, and I had the opportunity to do it again, what I did on 2 November, I would have done exactly the same”. Footage appears of people who yell: “Learn from Theo van Gogh. Learn from the examples you can see! Because you pay with your blood!” and also footage of people with bloody knives. A newspaper article is shown with the header: “Hirsi Ali and Wilders into hiding. Death list. Targets in letter of Mohammed B.” A fragment can also be seen of, as can be seen on screen, a Saudi TV station, Iqra TV, where a person says: “Houses and young men must be sacrificed, throats must be cut and skulls must be crushed. This is the road to victory”. Stills are shown of people wearing balaclavas and holding firearms. In between them they hold a man who is apparently their prisoner. The person wearing a balaclava in the middle reads a statement out loud. Then the masked men move to cut off the head of the prisoner. The beheading itself can (barely) not be seen. Yet the audio of the fragment remains audible. Sounds can be heard that apparently point to the beheading. After a few seconds the footage returns and one of the masked men can be seen holding the cut-off head of the prisoner up.

A page is turned again. On the new page can be read: “Quran, Surah 4, verse 89” and then: “Surah 4, verse 89: They but wish that ye should reject faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing as they, so take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. But if they turn renegades, seize them and kill them wherever ye find them, and take no friends or helpers from their ranks”. A voice can also be heard which (probably) presents the text in the Arabic language. The text is followed by footage of Arabic looking people who state the following: “The Islam is a sacred religion. The best religion there is. If somebody converts to Christianity he deserves the death penalty”. Another person says: “The Islam is superior compared to the Jews, the Christians, the Buddhists and the Hindus. The only law recognised by Allah is the Islam. And he who pursues anything other but the Islam shall never be accepted”. The following newspaper headlines appear on screen: “Former Muslim Jami molested”, “Islamic witch hunt again threatens”, “Death to Rushdie” and “Letter on body Theo van Gogh disclosed. Hirsi Ali also receiving death threats”.

The page is turned. It says: “Quran, Surah 8, verse 39” and then: “Surah 8, verse 39: Fight them until there is no dissension, and the religion is entirely Allah’s”. Moreover, a voice can be heard which (probably) presents this text in the Arabic language. An Ayatollah appears who says: “The Islam is a religion that wants to control the world. It did so before and shall eventually do so again”. Followed by President Ahmadinejad who says: “The message of the Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. Have no doubt… Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world”.

Then a number of apparently Arabic men appears on screen that make the following statements:

“We have ruled the world before. And Allah willing the day shall come that we will again rule the whole world. The day shall come that we will rule over America! The day shall come that we will rule over Great Britain and the whole world!”.

“Allah ordered us to spread this religion all over the world”.

“Thou shall take over the United States! Thou shall take over the United Kingdom! Thou shall take over Europe! Thou shall conquer them all. Thou shall be victorious! Thou shall take over Egypt. We have faith in Allah!”.

Then apparently Arabic people with signs are shown. The following texts can be read: “Islam will dominate the world” and “Freedom go to hell”.

Then the following text appears: “The Netherlands is under the spell of the Islam”. Stills are shown of mosques that are most likely situated in the Netherlands. A voice can also be heard which says: “These mosques are all part of the Dutch government system”. Footage is shown of a woman dressed in a burka combined with the newspaper header “Government: no burka prohibition” as also with satellite dishes and apartment buildings. Graphs are shown of the increase of the number of Muslims in the Netherlands in the course of the years. In the graphs the years 1909, 1960, 1990 and 2004 are shown with, respectively, the following numbers: 54, 1399, 458,000 an 944,000. Next to these graphs the number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 appears. The graph increases up to 54,000,000 and continues beyond the top of the screen. In the background stills can be seen of women with headscarves, satellite dishes and Dutch police officers in uniform taking off their shoes when they apparently enter a mosque. An apparent Muslim says: “If my sister or my mother has sex with another person I will also kill them”. The interviewer asks: “Then you commit blood vengeance!” The man answers: “Absolutely”. Another apparent Muslim says: “For example, in the Netherlands you can be adulterous or gay. But I do not wish to be part of that because the Islam considers that to be a crime”. A still appears of a postcard with the text: “Greetings from the Netherlands” where you can only see mosques. Then a preach can be heard, on screen the following appears: “Said in Dutch mosques”: “They must renounce political parties and worldly bodies of thought like liberalism, democracy, socialism and everything that smells of it and originates from the human brain” and (according to the text on screen pronounced in the El Tawheed mosque): “If a married man, by the grace of Allah, commits adultery, or a married woman commits adultery, she will be stoned”.

On screen the following question is shown: “The Netherlands in the future!?”. Stills are shown of apparently homosexual men (on screen it reads: “Gays”) who are hanged, children smothered in blood (on screen it reads: “Children”), stills of a woman with a bloody knife in her hand with a child smothered in blood on her lap, a woman (on screen it reads: “Women”) with a naked lower torso tied down to a bed and then a lot of blood (she is apparently being circumcised), a chopped off head of apparently a Muslim woman (she wears a headscarf), a woman dressed in a burka at a noose and a veiled woman who is shot through her head. These scenes are concluded with a large number of newspaper headlines. An enumeration of the headlines is provided below:

Islamists seek control, politically driven Muslims gain influence in Europe
Spanish Court examines ties. Laakkwartier with Madrid in terror web
Sudanese demand execution of British ‘teddy bear lady’
Three people suspected of planning attack
Hell will break loose. “What you need is a heavy bomb attack”. “We do not agree with the freedom of speech, because we renounce democracy”, “Our alternative is the Islam”
Explosive increase blood vengeance in Amsterdam
School closes on Muslim holidays
AIVD investigation: Jihad lessons at primary school
Minister reports Rotterdam abuse cases. Free trip to Mecca via Islam school
Ankara wants Turkish in classroom here
Donner eases the rules. Foreign imams can enter country more quickly
Murderer Theo van Gogh predicts terrorist acts. Mohammed B.: “My followers are ready”
Van Gogh murdered after Fatwa announcement
Almost half of the young Moroccans anti-Western
Mosques under spell of radical Muslim group
Suicide commandos in the Netherlands
Hamas meets in Rotterdam
Alexander must swim for hours. Moroccans throw gay into the water
Imams do not like gays
‘Imam legitimises violence against gays’
‘Throw gays of high buildings’
Mosque: “Turn the Netherlands into a Muslim state”
Girls still being circumcised
‘Muslims prevent doctors from providing care to women’
Halal fund: sliced meat for Muslims. New on Amsterdam Stock Exchange
Al Qaeda issues death sentence. Jihad against Wilders
‘Quran game licence’ Arabic Specialist Hans Jansen: “You already offend the Islam by not becoming a Muslim”

Then a hand can be seen that takes up a page of the Quran. The screen then turns black and the sound of paper being torn can be heard. On screen the text appears: “The sound you just heard was a page from the telephone directory. Because it is not up to me but up to the Muslims themselves to tear the vindictive verses from the Quran. Muslims want you to give room to the Islam, but the Islam does not offer room to you.

The government wants you to respect the Islam, yet the Islam has no respect at all for you. The Islam wants to control, subdue and is out for the destruction of our Western civilisation. In 1945 Nazism was beaten in Europe. In 1989 communism was beaten in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology must be beaten. Stop the Islamisation. Defend our freedom”.

The film again concludes with the image of the cartoon of Mohammed with the turban. It can be seen that the fuse in his turban is almost near the end. A ticking clock can be heard. The clock appears on screen and counts down from 00:03 to zero. A flash of lightning can be seen and a bolt of lightning can be heard. Then the Quran is closed, the word “Fitna” is shown which flows into the word “Fin” and then the credits of the film are shown.

(Article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code)

4.

he, on one or more dates on or about 7 October 2006, in The Hague and/or Amsterdam and/or (elsewhere in) the Netherlands, on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, incited to hatred of people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race, by (each time) in De Volkskrant placing (having placed) one or more texts with the following content:

(De Volkskrant of 7 October 2006, ‘The Pope is completely right’)

‘The borders are closed to all non-Western immigrants the same day.’

and/or

‘Of course. 99 percent of the people who came to live there are of an Islamic origin.’

and/or

‘Absolutely. The figures show this. One out of five Moroccan youngsters is registered with the police as a suspect. Their behaviour derives from their religion and culture. You cannot consider these two facts separately. The other day the Pope was completely right: the Islam is a violent religion. Islam means submission and conversion of non-Muslims. This interpretation rules in the living rooms of these problematic youngsters, in the mosques. It has been embedded in this community itself.’

and/or

‘Those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation. I have never used violence.’

(Article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code)

5.

he, on one or more dates on or about 7 October 2006, in The Hague and/or Amsterdam and/or (elsewhere in) the Netherlands, on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, incited to discrimination, within the meaning of article 90 quarter of the Dutch Criminal Code, against people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race, by (each time) in De Volkskrant placing (having placed) one or more texts with the following content:

What happened?
The charges pertain to incitement to hatred and discrimination. What has led to these charges. Of course the abovementioned statements, but there is a little more that is important. It al started with the announcement of the movie Fitna in November 2007. According to Wilders to movie intendend to show to violent nature of Islam and the Quran (a license to kill). The police and the public prosecutor made it relatively easy to file a complaint against the movie. Immediately after its release the first complaint was filed and the forms necessary were already there. In June 2008 the public prosecutor decided however not to proceed with the prosecution because there were no unlawful elements in the movie. A strange decision. First one stimulates (before seeing the movie) people filing complaints, and then refuse to go on with it. Strange on behalf of the public prosecutor and one might add not very good for keeping confidence in the judiciary system because it stirs up things and leads people into a dead end. In January 2009 the Amsterdam appeals court orderded prosecutors to put Wilders on trial since ‘in a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to draw a clear line’.
Framing the trial
How is the trial sold to the public? As said above, the authorities view the general in terms of ‘general interest to draw a clear line’. It appears to be self-evident that drawing a clear line is a good thing. One can wonder about that. The decision not to prosecute was made because of the context of the public debate in which the film was made which (needs to) leave room for people to make strong statements. In both cases we can see the reaction of the authorities as an attempt to de-politicize the whole issue by bringing it in and out and in again in the judicial system. This of course does not work. Wilders frames it different and contrary to the views of the authorities:
Wilders loses appeal, will go on trial | MediaWatchWatch

It is a political trial. I am being prosecuted for saying about Islam what millions of Dutch people think. Freedom of speech is in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of Islam.

Is it? When one views freedom of speech as an absolute inalienable right, yes that this is correct. Note however that there have been other people wanting to trial Wilders for his film as well. Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists of the infamous Muhammad Cartoons, claimed that Wilders was wrong in using the cartoon of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb-turban and that this infringed Westergaard’s copyright. Dutch director Rob Muntz announced to do the same because Wilders used fragments of Muntz’s interview with the late Theo van Gogh without crediting him. Of course these are complaints based upon secular regulations and not on religious feelings and convictions. Freedom of speech therefore is never absolute but always regulated and one’s freedom of speech should not damage another person. The court’s decision to prosecute is also in line with a previous decision in which a particular statement was not seen as inciting on its own, but it did within the particular context it was made. Other groups (including the people who made the complaints, a wide range of actors ranging from lawyers to one of the Salafi mosques in the Netherlands) have tried to frame it as incitement to hatred, insulting a religious group AND blashpemy. The latter however was turned down. The law on blasphemy is very strict and it is not even clear if making insulting comments about the prophet Muhammad is liable. See for more juridical details the brief by my Radboud University colleague Ybo Buruma. Framing it as blasphemy can be seen as attempt by religious status quo the protect the existing status quo, while making a movie bound to be experienced as blasphemous can be seen as an attack on that status quo. The same line of reasoning can be made with regard to incitement to hatred and discrimination and insulting a religious group. In both cases people want to defend their group from attacks that might be disruptive and threatening to the integrity of the group.
Questions for analysis
One of the things that matter to me in my analysis is what this trial means for the religious-secular divide in this country. How are religious arguments viewed and how do religious group adjust to secular language in order to defend their claims. The other thing is how secularism plays a role here. The freedom of speech is a secular freedom, but how is it politically used by groups to mobilise people and legitimate their political actions. What does the politicization of the freedom of speech mean and what disciplining aspects play a role. And how does all of this more specific to (debates about) Islam in society? A next issue pertains to ‘group’. A group is not a thing in and of itself, groups are created for example by speaking about offending a ‘religious group’. The group is constructed on the basis of adherence to a religion, notwithstanding the fact that many people who filed complaints are not Muslim or religious at all. How does the notion of freedom of speech play a role in construction of a group as a coherent, cleary defined category of people.  Another thing I have been asking myself is also whether or not it makes a difference in the court case that Wilders is lying and cheating about Islam and Muslims as I have shown in my analysis of Fitna? Another issue is, and I think this makes the case of the people who filed the complaints and the public prosecutor weaker, is that Wilders is often quoting and/or referring to statements made by others? Can you be convicted for that even if it leads to a chain of falseness and hatred? Probably only (and I think that is a general weak point in these cases) if you take a person’s intentions into the decision-making process. But a person’s intentions are always hidden, you can never know a person’s real intentions and even so, thoughts about wanting kill someone or hate someone are not illegal. Many more questions will come up of course and if you have additional questions let me know. I will try to cover the trial day by day and take these questions into account as well as accounts of experiences by those who support Wilders and those support the complaints against him and others.

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