Second point in case. Last week Mr. Wilders offered to allow the administration to preview the movie. A very wise decision in my opinion. He had however one condition: That the administration would not ban the movie based on that preview. Again this seems reasonable, until you consider that any Dutch civil servant (including members of the administration) have a duty to report a suspected criminal offence. In the case of this particular movie this could (but probably wouldn't) lead to a court order surpressing the release of said movie pending legal proceedings. Considering the fact that Mr. Wilders himself is a civil servant he must have been aware of this fact and that as a consequence the administration could not agree to his terms. You can imagine however that this fact was not reflected in his public statements regarding this matter and that he merely played the underdog.
I hadn't looked at it that way -- with the duty to report. Now would it really matter, in practice? You can upload the movie on youtube or wherever anyhow; if he wants to spread the movie he can do so anyhow and no-one can stop him in this day and age.
The story I had picked up from the news was that our National Terrorism Coordinator (*) had asked Wilders for a preview so he could assess the security risk posed by the film and take appropriate measures before release of the movie. And that Wilders then made a whole lot of fuss about this very reasonable request. To note, Wilders himself is constantly accompanied by two bodyguards due to threats he has received.
(*) Yes, that's his job title
As another story I could mention that Wilders complained last week that our PM had made a lot of fuss about the movie, and that it otherwise would not have been known in the world. But it's Wilders himself who has been shouting from last November that he was making this movie. Only last week, he mentioned that he was negotiating with the public broadcasting associations about airing it on national TV within a couple of days. Otherwise, he'd release it on the internet, but that would take another two weeks. Huh? He already has a
website, so what problem is it uploading one avi-file???
My take on his machinations is that he does everything to stay in the picture. But he has definitely miscalculated the time span. It's still 2.5 years to the next elections
and after this movie, I wouldn't know what new things he'd have to stay in the news.
Transcripts of the meetings of the Dutch Parliament are available online but they are in Dutch (obviously), so unless you are proficient in Dutch it won't help you. If you are:
http://www.tweedekamer.nl
His own website has some translations too, e.g.,
this one.
I am in complete agreement with you here, an insult (singular) can engender very meaningful discussions and be ultimately fruitful. There is a tipping point however when continuous insults start to sound like (or become) persecution.
And Wilders is continuously repeating insults, without wanting to go in debate. Muslims have asked him to have a live debate, e.g.,
here, where eight highly-educated muslims of Moroccan ancestry invited him for debate and he declined; or
here, where he declines to have a debate with the Dutch Muslim Council, saying such a debate is pointless.
As it is, Wilders' continuous insults do drown and stifle, unfortunately, any meaningful debate on integration of (muslim) immigrants.
Now I am not saying that Muslims around the world should go around rioting in response to this, this is also not conducive to a constructive debate and I do not believe that giving in to intimidation is the way to go. It is the fact that I am a big fan of freedom of speech that Mr. Wilders' bullying behavior rubs me the wrong way: It's bad publicity for freedom of speech.
In the "freedom of speech" department, Wilders is a big contradiction: on the one hand, he claims freedom of speech for his own utterances, and praises it as a big Western accomplishment, but on the other hand, he wants to ban the Quran. And he does so in Parliament, as if it should be enacted as law, and in public, but not in front of the DA or a judge who could rule within the existing bounds on freedom of speech.
Mr. Wilders is that playground bully who, when confronted with the reckoning, ran crying home to hide behind his mother's skirts. [But I guess I am projecting
]
This is basically also what Dutch journalist Francisco van Jole mentioned last Friday: journalists who might ask critical questions, are not allowed an interview with Wilders. On the other hand, when it suits him, he throws some sound bite at the press.
