Gibburt

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician and Mozart lookalike known primarily for an “Islamophobic stance” on right about everything, has made a film. It is a film to relay his views on the influence of Islam on Dutch society and The West as a whole. This is very old news already, but a few things about this film have kept me thinking. Actually, I should say: “a few things surrounding this film have kept me thinking.” Mostly, because I have – in fact – still not seen the film itself and (in all honesty) I can’t really be bothered.

What I have seen, however, is a slew of politicians and other types of public figures. All of these people had a great number of very explicit and elaborate opinions about the film, before it had been released. Especially the Dutch Prime Minister, the Potter-boy, has lingered at length on the fence considering censorship and finally – with much ado – has decided against it.

Why was he so up in arms? Well, because this film would obviously bring disaster to The Netherlands. We had seen it with the Danish cartoons and this would be so much more serious. The Dutch economy would grind to a halt, because it would lose all export to Islamic countries and the Dutch people would be scraping little children off of trees on a daily basis.

I am, of course, somewhat embellishing it, but I’m trying to condense dozens of hours of TV time and page after page of newspaper attention to a simple little blog recapitulation. The jest of it was there: Wilders was to bring a storm to the Dutch people and he was only doing this, because he was a populist, trying to milk votes by scaring the constituency cow.

The film came out and no one was very impressed. Not in The West, not in Islamia (or whatever fantastic notion we are making up to create a clear “us vs. them” distinction). What were the Potter-boy’s words the next day? “Reactions have been very mild, but we must remain vigilant.” Let me translate that for you: “No bomb has exploded yet, but someone who they think is one of us has said something that they may find offensive and when they take offence, they start killing people, because that is what they do.”

For all the accusing fingers the Potter-boy directs at Wilders for being an Islamophobe, he does make an effort to spread fear himself. The difference being that he goes for the more subliminal touch. A dignified man doesn’t say it; he lets it simmer through between the lines.

This kind of instigation of fear among the masses is by no means a New Thing. In any text coming from a major news outlet in The West, substitute “terrorism” for “communism” and try to find similar texts in history. This should not be too hard.

This rant (for ’tis for more seething than one would expect from my first blog post here) should be seen somewhat as an introduction into a series of posts that I want to do, concerning where I think the need for or the success of this fear comes from. I will always tag this series with (post-)humanism. Let’s hope there will be something constructive in the end.

Filed under: Politics by Philip Hölzenspies | Social tagging: common enemy > humanism