It’s “mission accomplished” for Dutch populist Geert Wilders. How a Film Triggered a Global Panic — before it got made or shown:
In the November 2006 elections, the Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid), which liberal politician Geert Wilders, 45, had established two years earlier, won nine of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. Not unlike van Gogh, Wilders seems to gravitate toward conflict. He is as popular as he is controversial. His friends value him for his directness, while his enemies disparage him as a populist walking in the footsteps of murdered politician Pim Fortuyn.Wilders, who believes that the Netherlands has been “taken hostage” by well-intentioned people on the left, wants to see the country “returned to the people.” He wants both the Koran and Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” to be banned in the Netherlands, because, as he claims, they incite people to commit acts of hate and violence. He also wants the country to deport criminals with dual citizenship to their countries of origin. Wilders was voted “politician of the year” by Dutch public broadcaster NOS in December 2007.
Wilders isn’t exactly free to enjoy the tribute, though. He is under 24-hour police protection and has slept in a different place every night since Islamic Web sites first began calling for his beheading. While the police take the death threats seriously, Wilders is more relaxed. “You don’t get used to it,” he said in an interview, “but you learn to live with the threat.”
In late November 2007, Wilders announced that he was working on a film that would depict “the intolerant and fascist nature of the Koran.” Spokespeople from the Dutch interior and justice ministries expressed their concern about the project, but they also stressed that they had no power to dissuade the parliamentarian from going through with his plan or to prevent the film from being broadcast.
Since then, a film that no one has seen and of which no one can say that it will ever exist has become a daily topic of discussion and speculation in the Netherlands. Wilders is fueling the debate by occasionally announcing how far along the project is. In an article he wrote for the newspaper De Telegraaf in late January 2008, he announced that the film would be released in March. According to Wilders, it would be shown on a split screen, with verses and suras from the Koran on one side and examples of Sharia law being carried out on the other, including a beheading and a stoning. If Dutch television networks are unwilling to broadcast the film, Wilders said he would show it on YouTube.
This triggered a panic in the Netherlands that could only be likened to the dread leading up to a massive storm. The Dutch ambassador in Malaysia warned that protests could lead to “dozens of deaths.” Dutch ambassadors in Islamic countries were instructed to increase security measures and distance themselves from the Wilders film, while counterterrorism experts at home began making preparations for the day of the broadcast. These included meetings with representatives of Muslim congregations, who Dutch officials hoped would have a moderating effect on their brothers and sisters.
It didn’t help when the Grand Mufti of Syria, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, pointed out the dangers that the Dutch and the rest of the world could face. “If Wilders tears up or burns a Koran in his film, it will mean, quite simply, that he is encouraging war and bloodshed. If there is unrest, bloodshed and violence after the broadcast of the Koran film, Wilders will be responsible.” Instead of reprimanding the Syrian grand mufti for his words, European Union parliamentarians celebrated him as an ambassador of peace, tolerance and “intercultural dialogue.”
Whatever its intent, his message was heard. In early March, a few hundred Afghans demonstrated against the Wilders film in the northern Afghani city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where they burned Dutch flags and called for the withdrawal of Dutch NATO units from Afghanistan. This prompted NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to express his concern that broadcasting the film could have an “impact” on the troops stationed in Afghanistan.
A few days later, the Dutch foreign minister asked the EU to support the Dutch position. He said that the Dutch believe in freedom of expression, but are against portraying all Muslims as extremists. At the same time, the “terror alarm” in the Netherlands was raised to its second-highest level. The government of Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende appealed to Wilders to abandon his plan to broadcast the film. On the one hand, Balkenende said, “constitutional freedoms must be defended, while extremism and terrorism must be fought.” On the other hand, he continued, “we must consider the consequences of our actions and may not endanger the things that are valuable to us all.”
Wilders reaction was clear. “The cabinet is falling onto its knees before Islam and capitulating,” he said, characterizing Balkenende as “an anxious man who has chosen the side of the Taliban.”