RESPECTING THE QUR’AN, AS WELL AS OTHER HOLY BOOKS

Ingrid Mattson, PhD
President
The Islamic Society of North America

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who broke with a mainstream national party to form his own extreme-right, anti-immigrant platform. Wilders has directed most of his hatred in recent years at Muslims. Wilders has called for the Qur’an to be banned and in the last few months has been promoting his “documentary” attacking the Qur’an. Wilders has intimated that the documentary will show a copy of the Qur’an being desecrated or destroyed.

Geert Wilders wants the Qur’an to be banned. Many Muslims want Wilders’ film to be banned. Wilders wants Muslims out of “his country” and to be denied the rights of other citizens to practice their faith. No doubt, many Dutch Muslims wish that Wilders would just go away (and Wilders has received threats of violence from some). Neither Wilders nor these Muslims will (or should) get what they want. Now what?

Many have looked to this situation only through the lense of the law. News articles have focused on threats made to Wilders’ life and the calls to ban his film. Of course, the threats are unacceptable and criminal. Wilders should be afforded the full protection of the law and those threatening violence against his person should be prosecuted.

As for the right of freedom of speech, Wilders’ film should be treated like other statements within Dutch law. The Netherlands, like most other countries, has certain restrictions on speech that is defamatory, libelous or insults a group of people based on their race or religion. The Dutch Prime Minister has publicly stated that if the film, once released, is judged to have violated the law, then his government has the duty to enforce their legislation. This treatment of Dutch Muslims as equal citizens under the law shows to the Muslim world that the Netherlands is not an enemy to Islam.

My plea is that we also need to look at this issue more broadly so we can find better ways of living together in a world in which there will always be people whose views and beliefs we find odd or even obnoxious. We should not justify or excuse extremism of any kind, whether they are racist and hateful attacks on the Muslim community or vigilante violence by Muslims against those who make such statements. What we should try to understand is why some otherwise ordinary people feel caught in the middle, and are sometimes attracted, in part, to the emotional appeals of the extremists.

READ MORE HERE