Index on What?
The comments by Juan Golblado on the ‘Paying Too Much Attention’ Comment have prompted me to hurry up and do what I’ve been meaning to do, which is to say a word or two about this bizarre article at Index on Censorship. It is, as Mr Golblado says, a striking case of the fox being invited into the henhouse. Unless of course the Index on Censorship is supposed to be an organization that sings the virtues of censorship, but I kind of thought it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of organization.
Van Gogh’s juvenile shock-horror art finally led him to build an exploitative working relationship with Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse has driven her to a traumatizing loss of her Muslim faith.
Why is the relationship exploitative? And how does Jayasekera know? And note the way he makes her abuse sound like an aberration, a terrible but singular experience, as opposed to being the experience of many women under Islam. Then note the idea that what is traumatizing is the loss of her Muslim ‘faith’. Seems to me that keeping it would have been more traumatic in the circumstances – it would have meant accepting the rightness, the godliness, of what was done to her.
Together they made a furiously provocative film that featured actresses portraying battered Muslim women, naked under transparent Islamic-style shawls, their bodies marked with texts from the Koran that supposedly justify their repression. Van Gogh then roared his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities. An abuse of his right to free speech, it added injury to insult by effectively censorsing their moderate views as well.
‘Supposedly.’ Because there are no such texts in the Koran? And then what does that stuff about roaring his critics into silence mean? His critics had no way to roar back? Why? How? He doesn’t say, just asserts something that sounds pretty unlikely. And in essnce says van Gogh asked for what he got. And this is on the Index on Censorship site? Not good. Not encouraging.
Another interesting item from a reader: in the Letters today, expressing admiration for Azar Majedi (who wrote the article protesting van Gogh’s murder you’ll find on our front page) and adding this quotation from I don’t know what but it looks like a newspaper account:
‘the Rotterdam police were destroying a mural by Chris Ripke that he’d created to express his disgust at the murder of Theo van Gogh by Islamist crazies. Ripke’s painting showed an angel and the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Unfortunately, his workshop is next to a mosque, and the imam complained that the mural was “racist”, so the cops arrived, destroyed it, arrested the television journalists filming it and wiped their tape’
Peachy. The imam complained. If the mural is described accurately, it doesn’t sound racist. Maybe the imam should be agreeing instead of complaining. Sigh.
The mural is described accurately (saw a photograph, forgot where – but it was quite beautiful). Thanks to you for continuing to publish on this issue.
M.
Ah, thank you, Merlijn. Lucky for us having correspondents and contributors in the Netherlands.
I remembered where I found a link to the picture of the mural, on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Anyway, a picture of the now sandblasted painting is here:
http://maarten.typepad.com/brusselsblog/2004/11/thou_shalt_not_.html
I agree by and large with Mr. Golblado’s opinion on the Index of Censorship piece – it’s probably accurate to say that Van Gogh was a free speech fundamentalist, but if there’s one thing one should be fundamentalist about, it’s free speech. The comments about “abuse of free speech” pretty much make me doubt whether the writer of the article should be writing for an anti-censorship outfit.
M.
BTW: Not living in the Netherlands currently, but in Sweden. And based on the news I’m hearing from the homeland, I’m in no hurry to go back.
Ah, thanks for the link.
I’m not a free speech fundamentalist myself. I don’t think incitement to murder should be protected. I think Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines should have been shut down; I think the way radio was used to promote ethnic cleansing in the Balkans should have been prevented by whatever forceable means were available (tricky, since it was state radio!). But from everything I’ve read, van Gogh wasn’t doing any inciting to murder, or anything much like it. So Jayasekera’s point still seems very wrong-headed.
Ah, Sweden. But you have the inside knowledge, sort of thing. No, your homeland sounds quite distressing right now, doesn’t it. Like so many places. (Ontario. Who would have thought – Ontario.)
“If the mural is described accurately, it doesn’t sound racist. Maybe the imam should be agreeing instead of complaining. Sigh.“
As Paul Belien describes the event at VDARE’s blog (here: Ten Commandments Banned In Alabama, But Even One Is Illegal In Holland . Apparently the fuzz didn’t manage to destroy all the filming, since Paul’s comment links to a (lengthy) video-recording of the totalitarians in action.
(Of course, that jibe about the ten commandments is completely ridiculous. They’re not banned – to put it mildly. The separation of church and state rules out posting them in state buildings such as court houses – but that is not repeat not tantamount to banning them in all of Alabama – unless every atom of Alabama is state property? I don’t think so.)
As for free speech fundamentalism – of course specific threats or serious slander (of the kind that could incite a lynching) should be banned. Non-specific threats against less specific groups of people would be a borderline case, in my opinion. As you point out, all too often it may be the state authorities themselves engaging in such things.
It pretty much depends on how big the chance is that this incitement is successful. Some months ago, a few sixteen-year old Neanderthalers from The Hague wrote an anti-Hirschi Ali rap song. To call the lyrics “crude” would be a hell of an understatement. Anyway, Van Gogh at the time, if I recall, took the line that these kids were a bunch of cowards (since they went to great lengths not to be identifiable when interviewed on TV) but that at the same time the song, tasteless as it was, constituted free speech. I’d agree in this case – the song could be taken literally as a death threat, but by no means as a serious one (unlike many others, unfortunately).
Anyway, just reading on the news that an islamic primary school in Uden was set on fire by white racists. A primary school, for christ’s sake. Also, there have been arson attempts at four churches or so (possibly in retaliation for the arson attempts as Mosques. Apparently they remained attempts: we’re not talking about the intellectual cream of the crop of the Netherlands here).
M.
I’ve been arguing that for months. Some people argue that it is useful to treat Muslims as a race – but I must say, I think it’s the opposite of useful. Just for one thing it perpetuates the silly and harmful idea that a religion is something you’re born and can’t/shouldn’t/won’t want to escape or leave or reject. This is especially bad with respect to Islam because Islam is already so very severe on people who leave. In some countries it’s a capital offense.
Well, maybe your correspondent from the other low country should draw attention to, a far less dramatic, event, this time in Belgium.
Our extreme right party (at 25% of total Flemish popular vote) has been condemned in court as a racist party. The party is now forced to disband & will do so in an enormous marketing campaign only to have itself reformed under another name & with statutes that are no longer at adds with our anti-racism laws.
They recover Van Gogh´s dead body under the guise of both being victims of same repression of freedom of speech. That´s obviously inaccurate – & I doubt whether Van Gogh would have been pleased – but it seems to work OK, for them.
The conclusion by most here is that the extreme right won by loosing the case – that a rather broad anti-racism law with effective prosecution of one major party only improves the latters success, & not just in votes but also by allowing them to change their appearance without some typical secession of the “true” extreme right against the “establishment” extreme right. All this without any “real” change.
On the other hand – whilst I think the law is indeed too broad (Theo Van Gogh would have been convicted a great many times under it) even if its definition of racism is quite to the point – I am surprised, as usual, at such negativism. In the end, the programme did change, & is one of the most extreme left of the extreme right (they went on the record that they don´t want to abolish the gay marriage). So, the law worked. The rest is a matter of voters voting. I may be a bit pissed off that they win elections – but in the end, if their appearance is OK, what right do I have to impute the worst thoughts & condemn them on that basis?
True, the issue may be whether they are not going to the NSDAP trick after being really in power. But I deem that highly unlikely – they are smart enough to know that they would not have grown in voters if they would not have abandoned their initial rhetoric & policies.
Anyway, I thought this might be quite an interesting development.
JoB writes:
“Our extreme right party (at 25% of total Flemish popular vote) has been condemned in court as a racist party. The party is now forced to disband & will do so in an enormous marketing campaign only to have itself reformed under another name & with statutes that are no longer at odds with our anti-racism laws.
Extreme right = anything to the right of the Christian Democrats?
Racist = opposed to mass immigration of unassimilable cultures (such as Islam)?
Who’s next? Will the Belgian kangaroo courts next seek the extradition of the B&W masterminds on the grounds of their objectively ‘fostering divisiveness’ and ‘hate mongering’ between Muslims and non-Muslims?
Here’s what I wrote in the European Commission’s Intranet site this morning, one of my employer’s few remaining zones of ‘repressive tolerance’:
“Welcome to the totalitarian club
The Belgian Supreme Court has just upheld the verdict of a lower court declaring the Vlaams Blok to be a criminal organisation and de facto forcing this secessionist and free-market oriented party to disband. As Frank Vanhecke, the Vlaams Blok Party Leader, has just said “What happened in Brussels today is unique in the Western world: never has a so-called democratic regime outlawed the country’s largest political party.”
The European Union now has 24 democratic Member States and one formerly democratic one.
So long Belgium, your days are truly numbered.
If I were a Walloon, I would hang my head in shame; if I were a Fleming, I would prepare for battle.”
The point is that although it admittedly has a somewhat murky brackish-brown past, the Vlaams Blok has over the years morphed into a perfectly reasonable, ultraconservative political party in favour of limited government that (quite sensibly) wants Flanders to secede from what it (quite sensibly) perceives to be the oppressive, collectivist Belgian state – while many Walloons are desperate to retain their exploitative hegemony and ensure that the Flemings foot their welfare bills until kingdom come, so that they can remain the monolingual, culturally retrograde francophones they always have been. Hence the Walloons’ xenophobic hatred of their unwilling Flemish benefactors. The Walloons don’t want the Flemings to leave because they can’t afford it.
The Vlaams Blok — have some of its party members been corrupted by B&W?
From today’s online Daily Telegraph:
“
One of [Vlaams Blok’s] tracts, denouncing female circumcision in Islamic countries, was written by a Turkish-born woman member of the Vlaams Blok but the court ruled that the arguments were intended to foment anti-Muslim feeling.”
I’m ever so sorry, Cathal, if your feelins is hurt by the Belgian courts but even the VB realized that its not the fault of this court if a law was passed &, quite rightly I’d say, have opted for taking on the law, & not the democratic system as such.
I´m Flemish & I´m not ashamed.
I´m against female circumcision, but that doesn’t make me sympathetic to the points of the VB. Conversely, I don´t think that the VB in opposing female circumcision is because of that more sympathetic to Kerry.
Nor does being against the war on Iraq imply that you support of terrorism no matter what some people might think of it.
Anyway, check your sources, read actual trasncript of the verdict & you can see for yourself (instead of taking a Daily Telegraph as the Supreme Truth) that the judges were not that moronic. By the way the judges of yesterday only dealth with the procedural issues so gave no opinion on the substance of the prior verdict (I can tell ya that the VB hasn’t been able to highlight a single piece of the prior ruling as anywhere near farfetched.
Oh, I have nothing against the VB being called racist, or ultraright. Similarly with the various, fortunately hitherto vain Dutch attempts to emulate their success. If the recent Belgian court decision (which I would oppose – see below) really forces them to change their ways, we’ll see. Until the very recent past, the VB has sought cooperation with about any neo-nazi skinhead group that reared its head north of the Belgian border, and vice versa.
This said, I would oppose banning them on principle. Merely espousing views, objectionable as I may find them, should not be a matter for the courts and state to intervene in. Also practically: the cordon sanitaire-policy to ignore and snub the Blok as much as possible in Flanders obviously hasn’t worked. Banning them will have the VB merely change their name and probably get even more votes, as JoB points out. I’m not sure whether the Flemish have any option but to wait and see what happens. Similarly we Dutch are now confronted with a problem that has been brewing over the years blowing up in our faces.
The problems in the Netherlands, and probably mutatis mutandis in Flanders as well, have nothing to do with immigration policy as such. The guy that murdered Van Gogh was not an immigrant – he was born and bred in the Netherlands. Most of the current anti-semitism and sympathy from radical islam in the Netherlands if found among young second-generation immigrants with Dutch passports. There’s no use crying over past spilt milk – the problems must be solved within our borders.
I am distressed by the sometimes rather mealy-mouthed “yes, but…” condemnations of Van Gogh’s murder from Moroccan groups and (part of) the political left. But I regard the probably inevitable resurgence of the radical right in the Netherlands as as much a threat to civil liberties as political islam.
M.
Merlijn,
Yes it is annoying this “yes, but” type of condemnation. Makes you empathize with the Israëli reactions to the typical Palestine condemnations of suicide bombings. It goes from Beslan over Theo Van Gogh to God know what next.
Anyway, I´d have voted against the Belgian anti-racism law (I´d draw the line further i.e. where people are encouraged to act in violent ways or to actively engage in discrimination). This being said, reading the original verdict shows quite a number of speeches that go in that direction.
Theo Van Gogh is only now posthumously known in Flanders & I´m not informed enough to judge on what he said although I suppose he was well “in bounds”. That being as it may from what I did hear, I would vehemently oppose the stuff he did say (not by banning it). It´s not merely because he´s murdered that he was right, just like it´s not because he was wrong that he should be hurt (let alone that other thing).
Whether we did badly with the cordon & the anti-racism law is a matter of much debate. I don´t particularly like either of them but as it’s now fasionable to be against both maybe the case “for” should be made. To me, both were efficient in a channeling of the VB “within the flock”, in the meantime we did have a channel in the popular vote for the frustrations as was & is not available in NL.
Maybe we still have to see the fascist reality rearing its ugly head in the VB but it’s just not very democratic to be condemning them on feelings only, or on their history only. Meanwhile, we don’t have in Flanders the kind of atmosphere that has arisen in NL. I´m just saying, let´s not jump to the “high principled” conclusions too soon.
“Even the VB realized that it’s not the fault of this court if a law was passed … “
Come off it — to interpret a condemnation of female genital mutilation as ‘incitement to hatred’ is casuistry, pure and simple. Do you seriously believe that the quisling judges of the Supreme Kangaroo Court of the Former Belgian Democracy really sort of perused the anti-racism act and said to themselves ‘Well, that’s what the text says and like it or not we have to apply it as it stands?’
The schizophrenic pseudo-country that gave us Paul de Man can do better than that.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,” it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
Thanks for telling us about VB, JoB – thanks for being our correspondent in the other low country.
Cathal,
“to interpret a condemnation of female genital mutilation as ‘incitement to hatred’ is casuistry, pure and simple.”
It would if it were the case, which it’s not.
JoB,
Here’s the citation from today’s Daily Telegraph again:
“One of the [Vlaams Blok’s] tracts, denouncing female circumcision in Islamic countries, was written by a Turkish-born woman member of the Vlaams Blok but the court ruled that the arguments were intended to foment anti-Muslim feeling.“
foment anti-Muslim feeling = incitement to hatred, more or less
What do you think the Belgian high court judges did?
This is what they did: first they put the death sentence in their pockets, then they made up the ‘grounds’ for their verdict as they went along.
Only in this case they made it a bit too obvious.
Cathal,
The court de cassation said the procedure was fine.
The supreme court was not involved as the constituionality of the law had been the subject of challenge before.
The court of appeal delivered a verdict a few months ago that does not align with a Daily Telegraph reading. Probably you read a quote by somebody that did not even read the verdict.
JoB
Cathal asked: “Do you seriously believe that any more than the top centile or decile of the Muslim population can be integrated into Western society?”
Sure. It will have to, there is no alternative. The question is basically whether the islamic minority in the Netherlands can secularize in a few generations, and, more urgently, whether islam in the Netherlands can lose its political edge. A particular Dutch problem is that we need to (re)define a liberal Dutch culture on a multiethnic basis (note that I did not say multicultural). As the IHT article B&W linked to perceptively noted, such a cultural basis has never been effectively articulated in the Netherlands.
Until roughly the 1960s, the NL were divided up very much into religious factions which formed their own mini-societies, with their own economical basis, educational instutions, trade unions, political parties, etc. within society. It worked after a fashion since they mainly left each other alone. The old Christian factions have largely dissolved with Christianity pretty much marginal except in the Catholic south and some Bible-belt rural areas. But what we lack is a societal foundation akin to, say, the US constitution which transcends ethnic and religious identities.
That does not mean pandering in any way to religious sensitivities. I’m very much in favour of public nudity regardless of whether it offends the Christians, the Muslims, or whoever. I’d also like to see Islamic schools go (but not firebombed!). Just as I’d like to see Christian schools go. And in the Netherlands, religious educational institutions have been very well entrenched for more than a century (just like religious political parties, religious trade unions, religious football clubs, etc.). Getting out of here means a very major overhaul.
I’m not optimistic, though. Probably the political agenda will be set by radical islam and the Dutch radical right for some time to come.
M.
JoB,
Well, obviously you’re a pro when it comes to the Netherlands legal system (whatever about your opinion on the VB).
Thanks for the corrections — if I get round to it I’ll check if I can find the origin of the DT’s citation.
Merlijn:
You write: “I’m not optimistic, though ..”
Look, if the Flemings and the Walloons can hardly live together, how can the ethnic Dutch and the Muslims manage?
Today I drove from Luxembourg to Brussels Airport and back to collect my wife. The airport is located in a Flemish area so you have to know that ‘Namen’ means ‘Namur’ or otherwise you’re liable to take the Ring Road in the wrong direction on the way back.
But, until now even within this Flemish-speaking area ‘Luxembourg’ had always been spelt with an ‘o’ between the ‘b’ and the ‘u’ (at least on the motorway and ring road), as in French.
Driving back this afternoon I noticed that some inspired Flemish patriot or local official had neatly pasted a black rectangle over the ‘o’ on the two road signs for Luxembourg prior to the Namur ring road exit. So I headed neither for ‘Luxembourg’, nor ‘Luxemburg’ but for ‘Luxemb urg’. This world-historical event must have occurred within the past few months, since the last time I went to the airport the sign for Luxembourg was NOT gap-toothed as it is now.
You may look on this as a Belgian joke — ethnic consciousness at its most pathetic. But if two relatively civilised European ethnies like the Flemings and Walloons can start tearing one another’s hair out about trivia like this, and if Fleming employees will pretend not to understand French (at the airport today my wife was snubbed for ordering a sandwich in French and treated by the Neanderthal barmen like something the cat brought in — unbe-fucking-lievable, I’m not exaggerating, perhaps these guys were reacting to the judgment of the Belgian kangaroo courts by taking it out on any unfortunate francophone they encountered), then what hope is there that the Dutch and the Muslims will ever be able to live together under the same roof?
It’s not optimism that springs to my mind — it’s ‘Rivers of Blood’.
Oh dear. Sounds exactly like Quebec. Quebec is one of the many things that have helped to sour me on the whole idea of identity, separatism, ‘ethnic pride’ and all the rest of the bollocks over the last few years. (Of course, rather more dramatic examples of the idiocy such as the Balkand and Rwanda helped more.)
Cathal, Ophelia,
Before you go off generalizing the Dutch legal system to the one giving a verdict on the VB or comparing Canada to Belgium you might want to think (if you think yet another time again, you will have maybe thought twice).
Not a single shot has been fired between Flemish & Walloons because of language & nobody would expect Brussel or Bruxelles to be spelt like that in either US or UK so, before simplicity kills the cat, I´m suggesting you do not judge multilingual countries generally by mentioning – even obliquely – Rwanda.
JoB
Merlijn,
It´s not because people like you are not heard in the Dutch public noise nowadays that you won´t prevail.
Optimism is the cure to all evils.
JoB