Andy McCarthy on the barring of Geert Wilders from entering the UK....let's call it shooting the messenger.
Wilders is a lightning rod. In the great tradition of the Enlightenment, and to the consternation of post-sovereign Europe, he faithfully reports what his senses perceive. When he studies the Koran, he finds exhortations to violence. When he reads Allah’s command in Sura 9:5 that “when the sacred months have passed,†Muslims must “slay the idolaters wherever ye find them,†he entertains the outlandish idea that this means what it plainly says, and is understood by many Muslims as doing so. He has noticed, after all, that this passage is not singular, that its injunction is a recurrent theme in the Koran, and that the sentiment is even more pronounced in the Hadith and other Islamic scriptures, which elevate jihad—in its original, accurate, military sense: waging war against unbelievers—to the highest form of worship. He has noticed, moreover, that Muslim militants seem to slay the idolaters and other unbelievers with some regularity.So Wilders is not making this up. It is, in fact, a view of Muslim doctrine he shares with some of the world’s most renowned authorities on the subject.
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Fitna runs about 15 minutes long. It depicts a phenomenon familiar to Britons who witnessed July 7 and Americans who lived through September 11: The faithful rendition of verses from the Koran, often recited by influential Islamic clerics, followed by acts of terrorism committed by Muslim militants who profess that they are simply putting those scriptures into action. To be sure, this is not the dominant interpretation among the world’s billion-plus Muslims, most of whom do not so much interpret their creed as ignore those parts that would otherwise trouble them. But to deny that Fitna reflects an intellectually consistent construction of Islam, adhered to by an energetic minority, is to deny reality.
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Suspected al-Qaeda members are welcome in Parliament, but not a member of the Dutch parliament. Britain has a revolving door for Islamic radicals but a closed door for their democratic critics.
UPDATE 2/16: Roger Kimball with "The Full Muslim", which links to the latest Pat Condell video, and Condell's question...
“How much more of your freedom needs to be whittled away to defend this intolerant, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic ideology from the robust and frank and open criticism that it so richly deserves?â€
UPDATE 2/16: Bret Stephens frames the Wilders issue as a test for both liberals and conservatives. Here are a couple of remarkable paragraphs...
....irrespective of Mr. Wilders's politics -- and I wouldn't be the first to point out that his calls to ban the Quran square oddly with his sense of himself as a champion of free speech -- his travails are no less significant than Mr. Rushdie's. And they present a test for both liberals and conservatives.For liberals, the issue is straightforward. If routine mockery of Christianity and abuse of its symbols, both in the U.S. and Europe, is protected speech, why shouldn't the same standard apply to the mockery of Islam? And if the difference in these cases is that mockery of Islam has the tendency to lead to riots, death threats and murder, should committed Christians now seek a kind of parity with Islamists by resorting to violent tactics to express their sense of religious injury?
The notion that liberals can have it both ways -- champions of free speech on the one hand; defenders of multiculturalism's assorted sensitivities on the other -- was always intellectually flimsy. If liberals now want to speak for the "right" of this or that group not to be offended, the least they can do is stop calling themselves "liberals."
Amen, Mr. Stephens. Thank you.
In a bow toward equal time for conservatives, Stephens suggests the inconsistency of denouncing "Piss Christ" artist Serrano while defending Wilders. But conservatives never tried to silence Serrano's artistic expression, let alone advocate his murder. The conservative objection was to taxpayer funding of his particular brand of mockery.
For conservatives, especially of the cultural kind -- the kind of people who talk about defending Western Civ. -- Mr. Wilders's case should also provoke some reconsiderations. It may not be impossible to denounce the likes of Mr. Serrano while defending the likes of Mr. Wilders. But a defense of Mr. Wilders is made a lot easier if one can point to the vivid difference between a civilization that protects, even celebrates (and funds!), its cultural provocateurs and a civilization that seeks their murder.
Bat Yeor on the unique and unprecedented power of the OIC to influence public policy in the West, and to criminalize criticism of Islam.
Posted by dan at February 16, 2009 10:25 AM