Meet the man behind Islamophobia
By Alexandra Hudson
Amsterdam - The last time a high-profile Dutchman made a film critical of
Islam he paid for it
with his life.
Three and a half years on the Netherlands is bracing for another film on
Islam, made by a
right-wing Dutch lawmaker who says multiple death threats could not deter
him from his mission
to expose the "dangers" of Islam.
Long contentious at home for his anti-Muslim populism, 44-year-old Geert
Wilders has now
generated global uproar, triggering a fury among Muslims thousands of
miles away that has seen
the Dutch flag join the Danish on protesters' fires.
In the months before the film's release, Wilders has sat back and watched
as protests spread
and temperatures rose, to the alarm of the Dutch government.
Meanwhile sup****t for his Freedom party has grown among an electorate wary
of the consequences
of the film but largely sup****tive of his right to free expression.
"Wilders sets the agenda and has others eating out of his hand," said
political scientist Andre
Krouwel of Amsterdam's Free University. "He is a very clever politician."
Having first appealed to Wilders not to show the film, then considered
banning it, the Dutch
government has been forced to marshal European sup****t for the likely
fall-out, and plan both
an overseas charm offensive and campaign of damage limitation.
While the government braces for a repeat of the violence sparked in 2006
by the Danish cartoons
of the Prophet Mohammad, an indignant Wilders has washed his hands of all
responsibility and
blamed the prime minister for his panicked response.
Wilders, who has warned of a "tsunami of Islamisation" in a country which
is home to almost a
million Muslims, is expected to air the film at the end of the month on a
website, making it
available to audiences worldwide.
He has given few details about the content of his 15-minute film, which no
television
broadcaster is prepared to air, leaving people to infer it will take a
similar tone to his
earlier pronouncements on Islam.
Wilders' love of the limelight and appetite for political controversy
first brought him to
prominence at home five years ago as he tapped into unease in Dutch
society about Muslim
integration and slammed the impotence of the political elite.
Stepping into the shoes of anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn, killed
by a leftist
activist in 2002, the strikingly tall man with a shock of dyed-blond hair
rapidly found a
following as he began a series of audacious campaigns.
These included calls to ban the burqa and halt Muslim immigration and the
building of mosques,
and Wilders questioned the loyalties of the Netherlands' first Muslim
ministers, suggesting
they be forced to relinquish their dual nationality.
Over the last year the Koran has become Wilders' particular bugbear - he
has compared it to
"Mein Kampf", urged Dutch Muslims to ditch it, and suggested it be banned
because it is an
incitement to violence.
The film is just a logical next step for a man seeking to gain political
capital and raise his
international profile by exploiting liberal anxiety over the boundaries of
free speech, his
critics say.
It also stirs painful memories in the Netherlands of the 2004 murder of
Theo van Gogh, who
together with Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a film critical of
Islam's treatment of
women.
That murder unleashed an unprecedented period of violence and social
tension in the country
traditionally viewed as a paradigm of tolerance.
Although calm was swiftly restored, Wilders has kept tapping away at
latent anti-Muslim
sentiment, timing his announcements and campaigns to reap maximum media
exposure.
What motivates him, he says, is his desire to uphold traditional Dutch
freedoms such as freedom
of speech and to shake-up political culture, although he does not wish to
enter government himself.
"He is transforming Dutch politics and it is fascinating to watch. The
traditional parties are
flabbergasted and they don't have an answer which is the most dangerous
thing," said Krouwel.
Clearly Wilders' message has struck home. The public voted him "Politician
of the year" in 2007.
In the last general election in 2006, his newly created Freedom party took
nine seats of the
150 available - according to latest opinion polls he could now take 15.
Wilders' political roots are on the moderate right. He entered parliament
in 1998 for the VVD
Liberals, also the former party of Hirsi Ali, but left in 2004 after
repeated clashes over his
opposition to Turkey's bid to join the European Union (EU).
He continued in parliament as an independent before forming the Freedom
party.
Little is known about the private life of the man who hails from the
Catholic South of the
Netherlands, and who has been subject to life under close guard since
2004. He was even forced
to live in a prison cell when he first went into hiding.
Dutch media say his wife is of dual Dutch-Hungarian citizen****p and he
lists his hobbies only
as "reading and writing".
Reuters
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20080319100924808C228638
Published on the Web by IOL on 2008-03-19 10:09:24
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