World of shit
March 25, 2008This weekend, Geert Wilders was publicly exposed for the xenophobic idiot that he is.
As the world knows by now, the guy has made an anti-Islam film - well, he says he has, but no one has ever seen it, for the simple reason that he has no venue for publication. Dutch broadcasting companies are not willing to broadcast the film, YouTube doesn’t want it either, and the announcement website has been taken down by Network Solutions.
Wilders always said that if a broadcasting company knocked on his door, they could broadcast the film the same day.
And that’s where the Dutch Muslim Broadcaster comes into play. This extremely small organisation, who gets a few moments of airtime on Sunday mornings, officially offered to broadcast the film. This organisation is not extremist at all - they have a history of allowing criticasters of Islam to have their say on their shows. Theo van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, they’ve all been there.
There were two conditions. One, they get to see the film prior to broadcasting, just to prevent any legal issues if it contains content against the law (racism, for instance). A perfectly acceptable condition, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find any broadcaster or network in the world who will broadcast anything without screening it first. The second condition is the more important one. They said, ok, we’ll air the film, but we do want you, Geert Wilders, to go into a televised discussion afterwards, with other people.
And this is the reason Wilders declined. Wilders has never gone into discussion with anyone; he never comes on debate shows on TV, he never accepts any invitations to public debates, he even always refuses to go into discussion with any other politician. This is the big point of criticism on Wilders, and it’s a very, very valid one.
The job of an elected representative of the people is to go into discussion with them. Not doing so just proves your arguments are weak.
And of course, they are weak. He claims that the Islam culture is inferior to ‘Western culture’, and that it is lightyears behind in development. According to him, it’s a retarded culture. This is the funny thing. If our culture really is so much better, so much more divine, so much more developed - then why is he so afraid all the time? If our culture is so strong, shouldn’t we consequently be able to withstand any influences quite easily?
Islam poses no real threat to our way of life. Sure, there are difficulties, but we’ll work them out. Our way of life survived two world wars, social change during the ’60s, and the cold war - I think we’ll survive a few religious nutjobs. I mean, let’s face it, we can handle the religious nutjobs in the Christian and Jewish worlds too.
What poses the real threat are those people willing to give up unconditional equality simply because they are insecure about their own culture. Unconditional equality is undebatable, and cannot be forfeit. It is the very building block of our society. Without it, we are no better than those Muslim extremists.
The last few times we decided to take away the rights of people based on race or religion (what people like Wilders want), we ended up in worlds of shit. Never forget that.
Politics | 
> Unconditional equality is undebatable, and cannot be forfeit.
Exactly. Agreed on this. The problem starts when some countries give free pass on some cultures in order to not “disrespect” them. That’s the part you don’t mention and that’s the part that some people have trouble with. When you BEND the law or specially treat specific people in order to “kiss and make up”, it’s downhill from then on. While this might not be happening in your country, it does happen on other western countries.
Examples:
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7204635.stm
- http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/27213/Nurses-told-to-turn-Muslims-beds-to-Mecca
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2258664.ece
Comment by Eugenia — March 25, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
And one more, as it wouldn’t let me include the last url:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23435519-details/Muslim+husbands+with+more+than+one+wife+to+get+extra+benefits+as+ministers+recognise+polygamy/article.do (otherwise illegal in UK)
Comment by Eugenia — March 25, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
Hey, if the muslims could survive our crusades I’m sure we’ll survive their jihad.
Comment by Soulbender — March 26, 2008 @ 2:39 am
[q]He claims that the Islam culture is inferior to ‘Western culture’, and that it is lightyears behind in development. According to him, it’s a retarded culture.[/q]
It is fascinating that back in the day, hundreds of years ago, when the western civilzation was enduring the dark ages, went on crusaed and did all kinds of barbaric things the muslim world was the undisputed leader of the sciences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
Here today, gone tomorrow. Then here again. ad infinitum.
Comment by Soulbender — March 26, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
Wilders, make it a torrent - it’ll soon spread with no worries.
Comment by Use The Internet! — March 26, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
I definitely agree with the general idea of what you’re saying Thom, but my inner free-speech American must disagree with you when you say that his movie shouldn’t be broadcast. It absolutely should, but it should be done in a forum where it will be discussed in depth by somewhat rational minds, kind of like in the terms the DMB presented. No should be forced to broadcast any individual’s message, but I don’t like the idea that it shouldn’t be presented because it would make people upset, or because it’s racist. I think youtube should carry it if youtube wants to be a “platform for democratic media engagment.”
I do agree with you that this guy Wilders sounds like a whackjob, but I say let fools expose themselves so others can learn what is foolish.
Comment by thebackwash — March 26, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Yeah, he’s a retard.
My god, what a fuckup.
And what about the amazing arrogance: the only network that he would have broadcast his piece of probable crap film would be a network that would air it without having f**king *seen* it beforhand.
That’s absolutely ridiculous. No network *ever* has done the incredibly stupid thing of airing something made by a complete outsider without ever having seen it. It shows he’s completely out of touch with reality. Get the guy a shrink.
What’s he got to thinking? He’s the pope on Vatican TV?
Hulk Hogan on WWF? The crash of the dollar on CNN? Geez, this guy annoys me to death.
Comment by herman — March 26, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
You have to be living in a fantasy land to not view mainstream Islam as a social retardant. All you have to look at the countries where it’s the predominate religion. With the exception of Turkey — which treads the line — there is no Islamic country that truly supports religious freedom, most tolerate ethnic minorities and foreigners, but do not tolerate, both socially and in law, conversion from Islam. Womens rights are inconsistent, some are worse than others. Rights for homosexuals are virtually non-existent, outright persecution is common. Fairly certain abortion is not tolerated either. Retard economic practises which were discarded by us long ago are actually a part of the religion.
Now, obviously I don’t advocate the persecution of Muslims, and I don’t blame them for the trains not being on time. However, I think it makes sense to adopt a conservative immigration policy, and long-term study of integration. Without it, well, let’s just look at what the overtly conservative / religious have done to the United States.
Comment by Andrew — March 27, 2008 @ 12:08 am
Since I first heard of this controversy I was hoping that someone should broadcast his movie. Suppressing such a thing gives more ammunition to such ranters. In my opinion Dutch Muslim Broadcaster’s offer and conditions are pretty reasonable. Off course now he does not want to play because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I hope sanity prevails and insanity fades away.
Khalid
Comment by Mohammad Khalid Khan — March 27, 2008 @ 4:01 am
If people knew better what Islam really preaches most people would be so outreaged they wouldn’t accept to live alongside with Moslems and the Moslems would be made to leave Europe once for good.
I was so much attracted to Islam when I was a student, but as soon as I realised how preposterous and deplorable the dogmas of that fake religion were, I became an overt atheist. And I’m talking of a fake religion, because Islam is nothing more than an ideology with some metaphysical foundations: it’s fascism with Allah’s blessing and a personality cult built around a man whose existence is at least very dubitable, but whose heroic deeds, though possibly fictional, were undoubtedly gory and infamous crimes against both his own people and mankind. But Muhammad’s deeds were holy and divinely guided. Frankly, there’s no meaning of the word respect in a dictionary that can convince me such views should be tolerated. I don’t believe in the holiness of war and crime and I don’t believe any deity worthy of this name would bless or recommend them.
There’s one thing the Moslems will not understand: the fact that no-one was born to flatter them and that if they want to live among others they will have to cope with criticism. And that’s not because criticism is what our societies are founded on, but because reason is a value with us, not a tabu or a crime or a sin as with them. Freedom of speech is inexistent in any islamic country: it barely exists in Turkey, where, however, some Turks still do kill in the name of Allah, but officially nobody admits the truth and the shahid is slyly called a disturbed young man. I’m not just talking of the murder of a catholic priest, but of the murders of apostates from Islam. Perhaps Thom Holwerda should go through the testimonies of people who have left Islam and realise that if this world is made of shit it’s not because someone, actually too rarely, dares to attack Islam publicly.
But I understand we all love a quiet and peaceful life: live and let live. This may be true for most of us, but the grim reality shows the Molsems’ world-outlook is different and when you go to a mosque and find yourself before a niche in a wall those people pray to and call mihrab you should ask yourself why they call it like that: the place of war.
Comment by Iblis al Hanif — March 27, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
Don’t be such a fool, Iblis.
You pretend that islam is something absolute in stead of something that can be manipulated politically. Of course one will use islam as a tool to subdue or to divide and conquer if one lives in a country with lots of muslims. What does that mean? The same applies to all religions. Jewish extremists in the West Bank claim to read in the Torah that they have the right to kill Arabs because “God gave them” the land. GW Bush claims to talk to Jesus and invades countries and kills hundreds of thousands of people for oil. Etc.
You may or may not know this Wilders guy. He’s a retard. The stuff he says is openly fascist. “No more muslim immigration.” “No more mosques built.” “Qur’an must be forbidden”. All crap from the nazi gutters, same stuff they used to say about Jews and the Talmud. This is not about “legitimate criticism”. It’s about pure unadulterated hatred.
FWIW, I know quite a lot of muslims for several reasons (place I live, friends, co-students, etc.) and no, they do not have a “very different world-outlook”.
If you claim, for example, the background of the word mihrab has directly something to do with the root حرب which is related to “war”, “sword”, etc., you obviously disregard the fact that not every word with a certain root is related in meaning to every other word with that root. I can give you dozens of examples of that; ‘mihrab’ has been used in Arabic in the sense of niche well before the age of islam, so what are you talking about.
You’re just pulling a trick.
Comment by herman — March 27, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Do you know what you’re talking about, Herman? Have you ever read the Qoran to see if what Wilders says is the truth or just a lie? Do you know what it means to live among Muslims who think they have some divine right to persecute non-Muslims? So Wilders is a nazi and Iblis is a trickster… Is that your best argument? I’m afraid Iblis was right about what he said and it doesn’t matter how much words change over time, because Islam IS a violent religion. It’s a fact and again I’m afraid for you Wilders’ Fitna quotes the Qoran accurately.
Can a man who speaks for freedom against the danger of islamization be called a fascist or a nazi? What kind of absurd world do you live in, Herman? Have you ever heard one of those fiery mosque sermons against all non-Muslims? They’re broadcast on TV and are undertitled. Have you ever been warned to steer clear of mosques on fridays? Is it true or not that the Muslims kill in Allah’s name? Is it true or not they killed Theo van Gogh? Wasn’t he murdered by a Muslim? Do you think he had it coming? Would it be right if I shot you in the head because I don’t like what you say or even what you are? Would it be fine if I threatened everybody who has a different opinion than mine and dares to speak it? I don’t think so. Do you know the murderer of Theo is a hero and a saintly man to many more Muslims than you could ever imagine?
I’m so sorry you mentioned a tiny community of Jews in Israel as an example of fundamentalism. You must have a very distorted perspective of reality, because the point is about the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are everywhere, and in the Netherlands, and want Islam to dominate everywhere. It’s not about a score of Jews who may be swept away by a rocket at any moment. The Muslims count on tolerant people like you to do their job. Provided you’re not a Muslim yourself, in which case they can probably count directly on your help.
Do you know what it means for a Copt to live in Egypt? Or for a Jew in Iran? Or a for Hindu in Pakistan or even Malaysia? I know quite a few Muslims myself, but they’re just nominal Muslims. It doesn’t matter if there are a few tolerant Muslims in this world, because they don’t represent Islam and are seen as apostates by the religious Muslims. Do you know what the Muslims do to the apostates? I’m sure you do. You know what? I begin to think I have the right to hate Muslims, because their book tells them they have to kill me or convert me. I have the right to hate fascists and it’s the Muslims who are fascists, not the people who warn you against them and their murderous religious lunacy.
Comment by M Z — March 30, 2008 @ 11:17 am