The Dutch MP Geert Wilders who recently called for the Koran to be banned in the Netherlands, will soon be releasing a film on the internet which insults the Koran, and which is reported to show the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.
The extreme right wing politician has made the ten minute film promoting his belief that the Koran inspires people ‘to do the worst things’. His views have inspired him to talk about a ‘Tsunami of Islamisation’ in Europe, for the Koran to be banned, and for Dutch Muslims to either give up their religion or leave the country.
Dutch embassies around the world are beefing up their security ahead of the release of the film. Most politicians in the Netherlands believe Wilders is being inflammatory and insulting, but are sticking to the principle of freedom of expression.
I think there is a big difference between ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom to insult’!
Where are the freedom, rights and law in an official disrespecting the beliefs of a whole group of the country’s citizens, wanting to ban their holy book and even threatening them to give up their beliefs or be thrown out of their country??
And what’s even worse is that this guy’s party gained nine seats in the parliament because of his anti-Islamic remarks.
If this MP said a tenth of the stuff he’s saying now about Jews instead of Muslims for example, would the reaction have been the same? Would it still be freedom of expression? Would it still be so acceptable?
Of course not; He’d be framed as anti-semitic, thrown out of the government, maybe even prosecuted, and his public life would be totally buried forever.
I personally think this has nothing to do with freedom of expression, I think it is staunch bigotry, very insulting and something that should be totally unacceptable from a state official.
I believe it should be illegal for anyone to threaten legal citizens to throw them out of their country for any reason, let alone their religious beliefs.
I think this bigot should be thrown out of office and prosecuted for his attacks and actions.
And regarding the possibility of a violent reaction in the Muslim world to the release of this movie; nobody should expect a ‘civilized’ reaction to such an uncivilized attack! Every action has an equal and opposite reaction!
But still, I really hope violence is avoided and that people show their protest and anger in a more effective way.
Lawrence Lessig and his publisher Random House have released another one of his books “The Future of Ideas” under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
American singer-songwriter