We welcome
those who preach terror and
death. So why ban an idiotic
Dutch MP with noxious yet
non-violent views?
by Stephen Glover
Last updated at 2:39 AM on 12th February 2009
Refused
free speech: Geert
Wilders
Should we care that an apparently kooky Far-Right Dutch MP of whom we have never heard has been banned from entering this country? Much as we abhor his beliefs, I believe we should.
Geert
Wilders had been invited to
show his shocking 17-minute
film called Fitna at a small
gathering today at the House
of Lords, but has now been
prevented from doing so by
the Home Secretary, Jacqui
Smith.
It can, however, be easily viewed on YouTube — and has already been by hundreds of thousands of people.
His film links mainstream Islamic texts with the terrorist attacks on New York in September 2001. It begins with the hugely controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb as a turban. I must say that the film seems to me a crude — and pretty boring — piece of propaganda.
Its purpose
is to demonise the Muslim
faith by implying that it is
essentially violent. The
suggestion that the Koran is
‘a fascist book’ is bound to
be offensive to millions of
law-abiding and peaceful
Muslims.
For all that, Fitna does not incite violence, and I doubt it offends against any British laws.
Why, then, should Mr Wilders have been banned from coming here? The Home Office was evidently concerned that the film might be deemed provocative by British Muslims.
Lord Ahmed, a
supposedly moderate Labour
peer, had been reported as
saying that he would
mobilise 10,000 of his
coreligionists if Mr Wilders
were allowed to come here,
though he strongly denies he
ever said this.
The same Lord Ahmed invited an Al Qaeda terror suspect to visit Westminster three years ago.
The last thing the Home Office wanted was a confrontation between Mr Wilders and members of the British Muslim community.
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So an age-old
and cherished principle —
that of free speech — has
been torn up and thrown
away.
No sensible
person would suggest that a
person be allowed to say
whatever he wants in public.
The criminal
law recognises that there
should be limits to free
speech — for example, by
legislating against those
inciting violence.
But there is no evidence that Mr Wilders’ film falls foul of such laws, and the Home Office has not suggested that it does.
I’m afraid
the Government is guilty of
the most appalling double
standards.
Whatever we may think of Mr Wilders, he is an elected representative and the leader of a perfectly legal political organisation called the Party For Freedom, which holds nine out of 120 seats in the Dutch Parliament.
So far as I
am aware, he has never
broken the law or threatened
anyone with violence, though
he faces a trial in the
Netherlands for making
anti-Islamic statements.
The Dutch government, though not at all friendly towards Mr Wilders, is right to have protested so strongly to the British Government at the exclusion of one of its own parliamentarians from another European Union nation.
Yet our
Government has indulged and
protected a number of
extreme imams who have gone
far further than Mr Wilders
in preaching hate.
Incompetent: Jacqui
Smith
For example, the radical cleric Abu Hamza was allowed to rail against homosexuals and women in bikinis for years before he was finally sentenced for soliciting murder.
As Mayor of
London, Ken Livingstone
embraced a Muslim cleric
called Yusuf al-Qaradawi
when he visited City Hall in
2005 with the full
permission of HM Government.
Al-Qaradawi had been criticised for condoning suicide bombings and for having anti-Semitic and homophobic views.
Last
November, the same Jacqui
Smith, who now raises the
drawbridge against Mr
Wilders, granted a radical
propagandist called Ibrahim
Moussawi a six-month visa so
that he could speak at a
conference in London on
Islam.
Moussawi once allegedly described Jews as ‘a lesion on the forehead of history’.
There are
endless examples of the
Government turning a blind
eye to extreme Islamists so
that they are allowed to say
whatever they want in this
country.
Nor is it
above accepting people who
have been sentenced for
serious non-religious
offences, including a
61-year-old convicted
paedophile who had lived in
Australia for 56 years.
Many people would judge him a much greater threat than Mr Wilders.
The gay
activist and former Labour
MP Peter Tatchell yesterday
pointed out that Jacqui
Smith has regularly given
visas and work permits to
Jamaican reggae singers who
openly incite the murder of
lesbian and gay people.
Tatchell mentioned the granting of a visa last year to a Jamaican singer called Bounty Killer. T
Though he was allowed into this country, he had been banned from Guyana earlier in 2008 on account of his murderous lyrics.
All kinds of
undesirable people, some
potentially dangerous, are
welcomed to our shores,
while a Dutch MP who is
admittedly highly
controversial but does not
preach violence is told that
he can’t come here.
Mr Wilders, who clearly relishes the publicity, is likely to make an attempt today to defy the Home Secretary’s ban but will almost certainly be thwarted.
Jacqui Smith
— the most incompetent and
accident-prone of ministers
— has been cowed by a number
of Muslim leaders such as
Lord Ahmed who don’t want Mr
Wilders here.
Welcome:
Muslim hate cleric Dr
Yusuf al-Qaradawi with
Ken Livingstone
In fact, she
is not doing decent Muslims
any favour at all.
The tragedy is that Ms Smith’s decision will reinforce the view that Islam is an intolerant religion which will not allow its opponents to take part in public debate.
A more
sensible note was struck
yesterday by the Quilliam
foundation, which exists to
promote moderate Islam.
It believes that however obnoxious and offensive the opinions of the Dutch MP may be, it is better to engage directly with him and answer his points rather than trying to shut him up.
This is in
keeping with this country’s
tolerant traditions towards
free speech which Jacqui
Smith does not respect.
She does not
want open debate. She does
not value freedom. Again and
again since 9/11, this
Government has responded by
clamping down on ancient
liberties and restricting
freedoms which we once took
for granted.
The ban on Mr Wilders is one more turn of the screw.
What has
become of our once tolerant
country?
Earlier this
week, the Church of
England’s General Synod
voted in favour of banning
priests from belonging to
the British National Party
which, however disgusting
its views, is a legal
organisation.
Surely our established Church should be discouraging its priests from preaching anti-Christian or racist sermons — though I very much doubt that any of them do so — rather than setting out which organisations they may, or may not, belong to.
In the
banning of Mr Wilders there
is a collision of two
traditions — you could say a
clash of cultures.
One, which is
partly associated with the
more extreme forms of Islam,
opposes open debate and
seeks to ban its opponents,
or otherwise, to shut them
up.
The other, which is in the spirit of Western Enlightenment, accepts differences.
Voltaire famously said that he might not agree with his opponent’s beliefs, but he would fight to the death for his right to express them.
Needless to say, that cowardly chump Jacqui Smith does not understand any of this.
She bends her knee to the intolerant fanatics who will not take on the idiotic Geert Wilders, and in so doing she is guilty of further corrupting our precious values.
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