Who Is Behind the Persecution of Geert Wilders?
(Update: Watch Bruce Bawer's video interview with Wilders here.)
Freedom of speech in the West is threatened by the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders. But both within and beyond the Netherlands, few people have noticed the political origins of the most enthusiastic supporters of this political witch hunt.
On the website of the Verzetsmuseum in Amsterdam, devoted to the Dutch resistance in World War II, is a poster that found wide circulation in the spring of 2002. It is promotional material for a demonstration — “Stop de Hollandse Haider” (Stop the Dutch Jörg Haider) — that was planned for May 11, 2002, in the center of Rotterdam. “Don’t give racism a vote” was another slogan for the event, which was a rally against Pim Fortuyn, the leader of the anti-establishment party LPF.
Fortuyn was finding growing popularity among Dutch voters because of his outspoken opposition to multiculturalism, which was then and still is now the mainstream opinion among Dutch political and cultural elites. Politicians and journalists falsely branded Fortuyn as a Nazi or a fascist because of his critical statements about Islam. They compared him with European politicians like Jean-Marie le Pen (France) and Haider (Austria).
The most vicious attacks came from the “anti-racist” group Nederland Bekent Kleur (NBK, “Colorful Netherlands”) and the International Socialists (the Dutch offspring of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyite group from Britain). They were the main organizers of the demonstration in Rotterdam.
They started their campaign against Fortuyn in December 2001 with an article in Socialist, the monthly paper of the International Socialists. It bore the signature of their leader Pepijn Brandon, and René Danen — then on the Amsterdam city council for a left extremist party, and through the years the boss of NBK. This foundation started in 1992 as a broad coalition of churches, trade unions, and local committees. Over the years it became more Trotskyite, and in 2002 all their board members were connected with different “Trot” groups.
Danen spoke on March 5, 2002, with Trotskyite leader Miriyam Aouragh in Amsterdam, at a meeting titled “How dangerous is Pim Fortuyn?” The evening was staged by “Stop Racisme,” a front organization of the International Socialists. Aouragh also heads another front committee called “Samen Tegen Racisme” (Together Against Racism).
The big demonstration against Fortuyn never took place. On May 6, 2002, he was murdered by animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf. Danen and Aouragh didn’t need to consider the question of how dangerous Pim Fortuyn was any longer.
NBK went into hiding due to the anger of Dutch public opinion. It even canceled its yearly commemoration of Kristallnacht — a meeting that always drew a misguided parallel between the anti-Semitism of WWII and the so-called “Islamophobia” of our days.
The rise of Geert Wilders, who expresses even more critical opinions about Islam then Fortuyn did, spurred a revival of NBK. In March 2007 it staged, together with the International Socialists, a protest meeting in Amsterdam. One of the invited speakers was Ed van Thijn, the Jewish ex-mayor of Amsterdam. He claimed that the popularity of Wilders threatened to bring us back to the anti-Semitism of last century, as well.
Van Thijn was ill, so his speech was delivered by Miriyam Aouragh. This was rather painful, because she was the featured speaker in March 2004 at a commemoration of the killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin — the founder of a terrorist movement intent on … bringing back the murderous high-water point of anti-Semitism.
“Going Dutch” has just taken on a new meaning.
It appears that rather than each party paying for their own consumption, the new meaning is one that insists that the bill has already been charged to the credit card of all the other diners in the room.
Socialists and Islamic radicals team up to “invert the victim” of free speech and then make society foot the bill to boot.
It appears that the answer to principled dissent, is silence by trial or murder….whichever can be achieved first.
Totalitarianism makes strange bedfellows at first blush, but upon further examination, perhaps not so strange after all. When a society loses its moral underpinnings, relativism equates …then inverts…right and wrong.
Like a dog bitten by a rabid weasel, Dutch society has apparently gone mad. That’s sad for the dog and leaves the weasel to bite again.
islam and socialism have the same hate of free poeple persuing happyness. a happyness as defined by the individual.
It’s part of cultural Marxism and it’s not limited to the Dutch. It infects all of the West. Research Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.
There is an emotionally powerful but intellectually dim tendency of the liberal mind to paint others as extremists. This allows them to feel courageous for standing up to evil. It allows them to believe they are smarter because they detect the subtle fascism that the masses can’t. It allows them to believe they are more moral because they can show how much they really, really hate racism – much more than you do – because they won’t tolerate even the rumor of racism. So there.
The left refuses to be persuaded because these are all ultimately personal issues of self-honesty rather than intellectual conclusions. It is simply too expensive emotionally to face oneself and cheaper to project outward.
Before I get accusations about amateur psychologising, take a long breath. I’m not an amateur. I have not come to this conclusion quickly or without evidence.
I would have no doubt what so ever that we (USA) are a major player behind this persecution…
#5 Sally
Bingo.
The leftist “militants” are a tool of a much wider maneuvering.
Some idiots are helping the leftists who in turn support the jihadists.
The masters of this game are total idiots who think they can ride these kinds of tigers to realize their mega-plans.
The same forces that are behind the transformation of the democratic party in a socialist party and that are behind the election of Barack Hussein Obama are behind the prosecution of free speech worldwide.
Nihilists who think they know better and that they can RULE the world into a wonderful new order.
As a Dutch person myself, I must say the Dutch media (which is paid for and owned by our leftish government) often choses the side of the prosecutor. Here in Holland the trial is not as much about freedom of speech as it is about left-wing vs right-wing. And it’s rather scary to see that sharing your personal opinion is a crime.
Geert Wilders deserves our support. We should give him asylum, as we did for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. There is no point in helping his legal defense, since this is nothing more than a Stalinesque show trial, whose outcome is a foregone conclusion.
However, the Netherlands does NOT deserve our support. Its image of tolerance is a charade, a myth. One need only look at their pre-war sympathy for the Nazis, and their eager assistance in rounding up 80% of their Jews for extermination, to realize that this is a hopelessly racist country that deserves the new Dark Age of Sharia Law its Muslim denizens are bringing upon it.
What in the hell is wrong with these Leninists. Not only do they never stop, they never even get bored. How is that possible?
I do not understand how white progressives in the US, the Netherlands or wherever around the globe can delude themselves to think they are allies with Islamic jihadists. To what end do they think Islam and they are allied? Do they think Islam will welcome them into the fold? What has caused the mind of white progressives to hate their race so much?
White progressives and Islam are incompatible ideologies; in fact they are diametrically opposed when it comes to beliefs such as the freedoms the idiots here in the US take for granted.
I hope that as Islam grows in Europe especially in northern Europe and it turns on these white idiots that the white progressive idiots here in the US are watching.
eric R.
the Netherlands accepted German Jews before the Netherlands was invaded.
After the germany took over local governments the Jews were illiminated.
Please get your facts correct before you spout of such nonsense
Tricky.
It would appear the time is nigh upon the west for freedom lovers to go “Sons of Liberty” upon the neo-marxist in our midst. Perhaps a Nelson Mandela style necklace for them is in order.
If he were non-white, he could claim refugee status and apply for asylum like thousands have done in Canada. I used to live in a building beside a Somali family and I would watch the woman hang their laundry from the balcony. We later found out that her husband was a warlord who brought his wives and multiple children to live in Canada as refugees. He was back home, no doubt hacking off the limbs of hapless victims while the family was collecting welfare to fund him. Sickening.
Alaskan:
a) The Netherlands had the highest proportion of SS volunteers of any occupied nation.
b) The fact is that Dutch volunteers and Dutch police willingly helped to track down, hunt down and round up Jews. And they did so much more zealously than the Belgians next door, where about 35% of the Jews were rounded up, vs. 75-80% in the Netherlands.
Some of the myths of Dutch “tolerance” are nicely smashed by Claire Berlinski in her book “Menace in Europe.”
The Dutch also like to greatly exaggerate stories of their resistance to the Nazis. They are largely myths, like that of the French resistance.
Please do not pee on the tulips.
Eric R
Remember Anne Frank?
My parents survived the war in the Netherlands. They were staunchly anti kraut. Very few did anything to help the nazis.
There is a small fraction of wack jobs in the Netherlands, just like there is over here, that are running the show with the help of the LSM.
They can be beaten, but people have to stand up against them. Lets hope my relatives over there don’t wait until it is too late.
The same sort of movement is targeting the Tea Parties: http://www.breakdownofamerica.com/2010/02/09/foxnews-com-anti-tea-party-web-site-part-of-scheme-to-funnel-funds/
It’s no surprise they were charged with “toting swastica’s”. It’s the first stage of smearing opponents. Second is racism. Third is declaring them The Enemy and Morally beyond the pale. That’s usually enough to shut them up.
If Wilders were convicted and sent to jail this time, I bet he would say the same thing when he was released from jail. He would make the Dutch pc police look like a fool. Imagine that: they could not send him back to jail without another high profile trial. Would they convict him again making him a martyr, persecuted by the Dutch govt.? They have to because of the first conviction. Then what? Another 15 months in jail, another speech, another trial?
It would be fun to watch.
I think Wilders’ trial would do more harm than good to the Dutch pc laws.
On the other hand, the Dutch govt. could and would withdraw his police protection and let the Islamists or leftwing wackos do their jobs of silencing him.
Blotto #10 writes: “I do not understand how white progressives in the US, the Netherlands or wherever around the globe can delude themselves to think they are allies with Islamic jihadists. To what end do they think Islam and they are allied? Do they think Islam will welcome them into the fold? What has caused the mind of white progressives to hate their race so much?”
Progressives hate Catholic Christianity above all, because its insistence upon an objective and intrinsic moral order stands in rebuke to their desire to remake humanity in their own image. It’s an adolescent rebellion against Father God and Mother Church, as simple as that.
Islam, on the other hand, is merely the bad boy they run around with because he drives their parents to distress. Despite the fact that Islam beats them up on occasion and even threatens their parents, they won’t discuss it because doing so would be admitting their parents are right about him. Besides, he’s exotic and foreign, and they think they can domesticate him in the long run anyway. All their friends think he’s fresh and exciting, unlike that boy from the neighborhood their parents keep trying to introduce them to. Islam only hits when he’s stressed out about something, so if they show him enough affection and don’t talk back to him (he really hates that) everything will be fine. Right?
Anti-Free World Netherlands SHOCKING ATTACK on Western Civilization
Leaflets were distributed in major British cities which included slogans such as: “The final hour will not come until the Muslims kill the Jews.”
Britain’s response? “police appeared reluctant to prosecute because the calls to fight the Jews were carefully couched in quotes from the Koran.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1370900/Extremist-backs-%27kill-Jews%27-poster.html
Does Britain believe it’s acceptable to call for the Religious Murder of Jews and other innocents because it’s in the Koran? In a frightening violation of the Peoples’ right to protection, the UK showed respect for the public call to murder non-Muslims because it’s in the Koran!
In Europe & other countries, Muslim mobs shout in our streets: ‘Jews to the Ovens’, ‘All Jews to the Gas`.
What is the European response to this great evil? They are persecuting innocent Geert Wilders! A frightened European asks: “When can we expect Kristallnacht part 2?”
Wilders’ film, Fitna, is the words of the Koran and Muslims. Why is Geert Wilders being punished for the WORDS of the KORAN and MUSLIMS?
HAARETZ
“the umbrella group for Dutch Muslims said that the film does not insult their religion”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/969825.html
In prosecuting innocent Geert Wilders, the Netherlands is declaring non-Muslims have no human rights. No right to protest against the violent Islamic written and verbal calls for our murders. The Netherlands betrays all of innocent humanity.
Sign petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/wilders/petition.html
Protect Wilders/Free World: We must have global street demonstrations for Wilders and FREEDOM!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k
PA Muslims CELEBRATE Murder of Americans 9/11
As a Catholic allow me to give the Dutch some advice…to beat Islam you need to find your roots and get back into church. That may anger many posters in here, but you cannot fight Islam until you have a strong belief in God. Fight Fire with Fire or lay down and be burned….
To the POS left-wingers going after Geert, I promise you radical islam will not have mercy on you if Sharia Law is passed.
Ladies and Gentleman,
It truly is a fight for the freedom..
Geert has hit the nail on the head and we
in the USA are taking notice.. BIG TIME.
Conservative Sweep in November
Andrew #17:
If the Dutch wanted to beat this back, they would. The problem is that those who would have the guts to beat this back have chosen to deal with the problem by emigrating to Australia or Canada.
You have mostly the leftist sheeple remaining. They either genuinely buy into this multi-culti garbage, or are too timid and passive to stop the train wreck. They probably believe they will die before the deluge.
Oh, and Anne Frank? She was betrayed by neighbors.
I am Dutch. It pains me our people were for the most part collaborators with Nazis. So it is same today. The good part is that the fascists are only the elites and politicians. People support Geert and hate the fascists.
The ten Boom (Corrie ten Boom)family was ratted out by other Dutchmen for helping to hide and transport Jews to safety during Nazi occupation.
Corrie ten Boom was the first female watchmaker licensed in Holland.
To understand the ‘LIBERALS’ you should read Oscar Wilde and G.K.Chesterton.
Chesterton commented how ordinary evil men eventually tired of their vices but the extreme moral reformer would never rest(because his consince would never let him rest)and was the worst form of tyrant. (Think of the excesses of Oliver Cromwell. The ‘LIBERAL’ and the Jihadi are cut from the same bolt of moral cloth.)
Wilde said about the same thing moral reformers.
As a Jewish Guy myself I could care less about the past ! Geert Wilders is a Man of Great Honor and courage ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I would sponser him in America in a Second : He is a Hero and the People that are trying to throw him uder the Bus are Lap Dogs for Islam — Just rembember folks today Geert ,After that you : We need men like Geert and for the idiot that said let Geert be un protectedand let the crazy Muslims get Geert I hope you rot in Hell you Pig . I am a American and I would gladly protect Geert !
Long Live Mr.Wilders ————
I believe they are going after him because he represents everything the left disagrees with. He started his own political party the political party of freedom because he did not like what those in the political system were doing and where they were taking the Netherlands. One could make them same arguement about the U.S. and many could say it won’t happen here but it can and it will happen if people don’t stand up against socialism. If every country had a Geert Wilders maybe the world would be a better place.
Why do we care about the ridiculous Europeans? They gave us mass slaughter in the last century: WWI, WWII, Hitler, Stalin. They gave us communism, they gave of leftist socialism, they gave us Nazism, fascism, they gave us all the garbage thought that has spilled over into this great land (Obama, Ayers, Alinsky, etc…). Why do we care for these retards any longer (yes, I said “retards”)? I’m sick of American blood, treasure, and money going to save the European “children” from themselves. The Dutch want to become a bunch of slaves to Islam and communists? So be it, I say! Let them rot in their own disease! Let them kill each other! Animals!
As usual, the convoluted duplicity, contradicting itself, is impressive. And it continues to impress the self-absorbed intellectuals of the left, spoiling for a fight, that will ultimately put their own heads through a noose. It’s left to a HS graduate to explain that Nazi’s were allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. Sigh… I want a new drug.
The left is going after Geert Wilders because they are bad people who subscribe to a bad philosophy. We really don’t need to know much more than that. C.S. Lewis said something to the effect of this: A moderately bad man knows he is not very good, a thoroughly bad man thinks he is just fine.
Muslims and progressives not only think that they are just fine, they think they are superior to the rest of us. They are thoroughly evil.
When we look at our adversaries, however, we must determine if there is anything that we can learn from them. There is one thing about the Muslims and the progressives that I think we should emulate,and that is their passion.
They take to the streets by the tens of thousands over something as trivial as cartoons, but for those of us in the West, when a real hero is being unjustly persecuted the best we can do is talk, as if we were trying to score points in a debating society! I would even wager that a significant portion of the populace in the U.S. has never even heard of Geert Wilders.
Every man, woman, and child in the world who loves freedom, or even has a passing interest in it should know who Geert Wilders is.
He is standing up for all of us. We should be standing up for him!
If there was truly a passion for freedom in the West there would be thousands if not millions of freedom-loving people gathering in spontaneous demonstrations in support of Geert Wilders. I wish I knew how to get it started.
We need to advance the cause and the concept of freedom; to Hell with wasting time analyzing why the enemies of liberty do what they do. Does any one really think that they give a damn about why we do what we do? They only want to destroy western civilization. They, not us, have set the standard: Islam and Western Civilization will not both survive. We must show some passion, and we can start by giving Geert Wilders our utmost support.
at least the dutch can claim geert wilders. we have no one.
Excellent journalistic research! Mr. Brendel’s work makes the other so-called journalists look like the idiot and suicidal slaves to the Socialists that they are. The International Socialists (ISO) are very active in the U.S. They are amongst the leaders who oppose amnesty for 40 million illegal alien invaders and physically attack anyone who peacefully assembles to oppose them. They travel with their own lawyers to bail out those gang-bangers and other recruited dupes who do their dirty work when urged on by the furious beat of the drums they also carry with them. This is a first hand account of their intolerance and hate from Fremont, California. Wake Up America, Stand up for your rights and your country. Stand up, speak out and support FREE SPEECH!
Typical:Carel Brendel is one of the few serious journalists in Holland who UNDERSTANDS and digs deep.
You all can’t imagine how Geert wilders is being herrassed here.
Yesterday there was a TV show on the public channel (paid by all of the taxpayers), it was called SOOO Right (not left)
How people like me are being spotted on is rediculous..
sorry for the bad english..
Geert and this author Carel Brendel are the only ones put up to the msm…we also did have a person who draws pictures, he was lifted bi 15 policemen and now everyone knows who he is in real life..also our muslim friends.
Really people, I fear for my 2 daughters…what is it gonna be?
From Wikipedia:
Volkert van der Graaf (born July 9, 1969) is notable for confessing to the murder of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (Driehuis, February 19, 1948 – “Hilversum, 6 May 2002).” “… when he was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.”
Zowie! The next time I commit 1st degree murder, I’ll do it in Holland. Only 18 years for that? Hey, those Dutch really know how to punish a guy.
In the past we had Dutch Disease, Dutch Courage, Double Dutch.
Now, sadly enough, we have the Dutch Dhimmitude raging in the Lowlands.
Christopher (#7):
This is precisely why they are fighting Wilders and other “enemies of the people” so ferociously. The statists (mostly “leftists”) myopically insist on concentrating power in the hands of the government, convinced that said power will be wielded only by proper-thinking people. When the hoi polloi seem prepared to hand this power to someone like Fortuyn or Wilders, they then panic, and try to destroy him by any means necessary. Any.
#33 Yes you do Judy, you have the awakening of millions of people who have forgotten the founding ideals of America and what she stands for. Call them Tea Partiers, Libertarians, disgruntled Democrats, Independents, etc. They are millions of Geert Wilders. It took a bunch of spoiled rejects from the 60′s in the White House to do it, but they have awakened from their hibernation and are angry at having been poked.
Oriana Fallaci have said it even before 9/11.
“I find it shameful that, …
…and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a new nazism. A fascism, a nazism, that much more grim and revolting because it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who screams the truth. I see it, yes, …”
Oriana Fallaci(29 June 1929[1] – 15 September 2006) was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II she had a long and successful journalistic career.
She interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Deng Xiaoping, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Alexandros Panagoulis, Archbishop Makarios III, Golda Meir, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, Haile Selassie, Sean Connery and Lech Wałęsa.
After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books critical of Islam and Arabs that aroused both support as well as controversy and accusations of racism and intolerance.
LET’S GET A MONEY BOMB GOING FOR GERT WILDERS!
HE NEEDS FREEDOMS HELP!!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly what part of what Mr. Wilders warns about it inaccurate? Fear of bringing forth the facts and showing the truth of his arguement is keeping Mr. Wilders from a “fair” hearing/trial.
Loss of free speech in one more step toward being dominated by the hateful faction within Islam.
Re: the Dutch, the Jews, and WWII; yes, some Dutch were collaborators. Others (like the recently decreased Miep Gies, who sheltered Anne Frank and her family) were heroes. Certainly, the Dutch had a better track record with the Jews pre-WWII than many European countries. The number one reason for the extremely high number of Dutch Jews who died in the Holocaust has to do, first and foremost, with the extreme efficiency and ruthlessness of the Nazi regime in the Low Countries and, secondly, with the geography and location of those countries, which made them natural traps when the Nazis invaded.
First of all, the Jews were concentrated in the urban areas and the rural parts are flat – no mountains or isolated areas to hide in. In order to escape the Jews had to make it to Switzerland or Spain – that meant a very hazardous trip through occupied and Vichy France.
Anyway, the unfortunate thing is that the left uses the Holocaust as a tool to justify today’s insane indulgence of barbarians. Call the Islamonuts what they are, and you’re accused of being a Nazi. The European Jews, who were only a threat to society in the diseased minds of anti-semites and in fact made many valuable contributions to Western culture, were slaughtered. The radical Islamists, who really are a threat and wish to destroy Western culture, are pampered and shielded and excused. What a world!
Geert Wilders is to be respected. Born in 1928 in the Netherlands and migrated to Australia in 1950 and since 1959 naturalised Aussie! I lived through Nazi occupation. The BS herebefore written about the Dutch co-opting with the Germans is untrue! Please take note:on May 10th, 1940 The little war of the Dutch lasted five long days and that sounds like a short battle.
Yet it was not until Leningrad that any German army was stopped for three days.
The Dutch had been able to destroy or capture most of the paratroops that landed between Rotterdam and The Hague. And the German plans to capture the seat of government had totally failed.
The Germans lost about two thirds of their transport fleet and many of their elite paratroops. It was another reason why they could not invade England in 1940. But 2332 Dutch soldiers had died for their country.
Their government may be socialistic where green is actualy “red”.
But to be sure the mayority of Dutchmen and women still have the same mentality as those that have gone before. God save the Netherlands and all those who speak up for Geert Wilders.
Greetings to my Dutch brethren!i have not been to your wonderful country in over a decade,but I hopefully will be able to return soon.
Do any of you reside in Amsterdam,and if so,is the “Old man” knife store still operating?
Gert Wilders is indeed a patriot,it is almost comical-if it weren’t so serious-how he is portrayed by the media .Naturally,they focus on the fringe kooks instead of his overall message. It is the same playbook that is being employed against the tea party movement right now.
That tactic will prove to be an epic failure in your country as it is in ours. My main concern is whether your leaders will recognize this before the inevitable backlash happens. Signs abound that this is already taking place,and I see no other recourse if the will of the people is continually ignored-but a bloody,violent correction.
The leaders of the western European nations might want to pick up a history book once in a while, instead of believing their own multicultural nonsense. They might have a chance of staving off the day of reckoning.