On February 12th 2009, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was prevented from entering our country, following a campaign by Lord Nazir Ahmed. Wilders had been invited by Lord Pearson to show his movie, “Fitna” at the House of Lords, and to discuss it afterwards.
One need not agree with every word that Geert Wilders has ever uttered throughout his political career to recognise the value of hearing his point of view in this instance. John Stuart Mill wrote that, “… every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see. [...] Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of reconciling and combining of opposites that very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners.” (Mill, “On Liberty,” Penguin Classics, pp. 109-111.)
It seems to me that the prevailing opinion in the United Kingdom is that “infidels” aren’t supposed to say anything at all about the Islamic religion. On the other hand, practitioners of that religion can say anything they want about Western values. Not only are Muslims allowed to directly incite hatred and threaten public order, should any members of that minority group wish to do so, some have expressed a profound hatred of the UK in the most terrible and inexcusable manner by murdering, and attempting to murder, other people.
Now we are told that a Dutch MP’s heretical opinion that those terrorists justified their barbarity in religious terms cannot be examined, because the idea itself is verboten! There are double standards at work here. When those doctors tried to drive a jeep into Glasgow Airport and blow it up, they did not shout, “Do something about poverty!” Or “Give youths more opportunity!” They were shouting out the takbir: “Allahu Akbar!” That is an undeniable fact. Are we supposed to ignore it? Geert Wilders’ “Fitna” is not a fictional movie. It consists of fifteen minutes of clips taken from news programmes, which is footage which we have all seen before, and stills from newspaper articles, which we were all free to read when those papers were first published. One can hardly say then, that British citizens should be forbidden to see the images in Wilders’ movie, without also seeking to censor the media outlets from which the stills and footage came.
Wilders says explicitly in his movie that it is not up to him, but to Muslims themselves, to denounce the hateful verses in the Koran. And yes, there are hateful verses in the Koran, as anyone who has studied it will know. Lord Pearson asked Lord Ahmed on Sky News yesterday for his opinion on the Islamic principle of abrogation, which says that the more violent and warlike passages of the Koran, which deal with Mohammad’s life in Medina, take precedence over other passages. Lord Ahmed claimed that all verses in the Koran are equal, and carry exactly the same weight. A very poor answer. But an excellent question by Lord Pearson.
We really do need to have this debate. But more importantly, we must not be afraid to have this debate. Never mind what some uninformed people, like Keith Vaz, say the movie is about. (Obviously, if he hasn’t even seen it, then he’s in no position to say anything about it.) We should all be asking if this short film contains “suppressed and neglected truths” which, if “Fitna” had not been made, would not have come to light.
That too, is an excellent question. If any of our current political leaders had even a passing knowledge of why freedom of speech is so valuable to our society, then they would know that they need to ask it. And not only must the question be asked.
It must be answered.
