Assalamualaikum ww

Kebetulan ambo baco di Koran Int'l Herald Tribune 2 hari lalu di Paris. Tapi 
jangan 'capek paneh' dulu. Reaksinya di Eropah kayaknya kok dingin-dingin sajo 
thd politisi nan ciek iko. Rasanya banyak kepentingan dibalik ybs utk membuat 
sensasi ini. Dan bukan merupakan ekspresi Pemerintah Kerajaan Bld. Mungkin 
dunsanak Lies Suryadi nan di Balando bisa bantu manjalehkan saketek 
posisinyo... Mudah2an bisuak sore ambo ka Amsterdam indak dijegal pulo dek 
mem-forward berita iko ka milis RN he..he...

Wassalam,
Nofrins/48


http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/21/europe/profile.php

Dutch politician minces no words about Islam


By Gregory Crouch Published: March 24, 2008




THE HAGUE: Geert Wilders's bleached-blond hair goes to the root of his 
character.
For more than two decades, the controversial, anti-Islamic member of the Dutch 
Parliament has dyed his hair a provocative - some say extreme - platinum blond.
The color makes him stand out in a crowd, not terribly practical for someone 
who faces periodic death threats from Muslim extremists.

But Wilders has built a career, and a new political party, on a risky and 
defiant outlandishness that encompasses everything from his hairstyle to his 
rhetoric about Islam. Days away from releasing a much-anticipated short film 
said to be critical of the Koran, Wilders recalled in an interview the advice 
he said he received years ago from political leaders about how to get ahead.
 
"First, you have to moderate your voice about Islam," he remembered them 
telling him. "Second, change your stupid hair."
He has refused to do either.
"If people push me, I do exactly the opposite," he said.

Wilders, 44, is in the news these days for a 10- to 15-minute film he says he 
has made about the Koran as an inspiration for terrorist attacks and other 
violence. Having failed to convince a single Dutch television network to 
broadcast the film in its entirety, he said he plans to release it on the 
Internet by the end of this month.
He routinely equates the Koran with Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf," saying it 
should be banned in the Netherlands, and he declared in an interview that the 
Prophet Muhammad could be compared to the German dictator. "In his Medina time, 
if he would be alive today, Muhammad would be treated as a war criminal, being 
sent out of the country, being sent to jail," Wilders said.

Moderate Dutch Muslim leaders like Mohamed Rabbae, chairman of the Dutch 
Moroccan Council, are exasperated by Wilders's standpoint on Islam and its 
prophet.
"Wilders is a little bit crazy, if I may say it in this way, because he is 
fighting against somebody who has been living in the sixth century, not in our 
time, " Rabbae said.
Virtually no one knows exactly what is in Wilders's film - even the 
Netherlands' worried prime minister has not been granted a screening - but the 
mere fact that he is its creator makes people here and in parts of the Islamic 
world nervous about it.

Wilders said he made the film to show that "Islam and the Koran are part of a 
fascist ideology that wants to kill everything we stand for in a modern Western 
democracy."
Some here see Wilders's film - titled "Fitna," Arabic for civil strife - as a 
potential hate crime and have already filed police complaints in various Dutch 
cities, concerned that it will polarize religious groups and foster 
discrimination.
His supporters say he protects traditional Dutch values. His critics - and 
there are many - say he is an out-of-control, right-wing extremist risking his 
country's good name for his own political gain. Others are even tougher, with 
one former trade union leader calling Wilders "evil."
"Of course I am not evil," Wilders responded, looking a little annoyed. "Do I 
look evil to you? Maybe I do, but I'm not."
Wilders, who lives under constant police protection in an undisclosed location, 
is undeterred by threats from the Taliban to ratchet up attacks against Dutch 
soldiers in Afghanistan if the film is released.

Nor is he moved by Dutch living abroad who, remembering the fallout over the 
publication of cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, 
worry that the film may make their lives difficult or even dangerous.
Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, told a television reporter that he 
found it "irresponsible to broadcast this film. That's because Dutch companies, 
Dutch soldiers and Dutch residents could and will be in danger."

Such statements spur Wilders on, unintentionally proving, in his opinion, that 
Islam is a rigid, intolerant religion whose followers try to muffle criticism, 
often violently. Framing himself as a defender of free speech, Wilders said 
there would not be such a fuss about his film if it were about the Bible.
"We can never allow people who use nondemocratic means, people who use violence 
instead of arguments, people who use knives instead of debates, we can never 
allow them to set the agenda," he said.

After the 2004 release of a film here that graphically depicted the abuse of 
women in the Islamic world, the director, Theo van Gogh, was killed by a Muslim 
extremist.
Wilders, who had been in the Dutch Parliament for six years at that point, was 
not associated with that film, but he was forced to briefly go into hiding as 
government security forces feared he might become the next target.
Two years later, memories of the Van Gogh slaying - coupled with concerns about 
Muslim immigration - helped Wilders and his newly formed Party for Freedom 
capture 6 percent of the seats in the Dutch Parliament.

Of the Netherlands' 16 million residents, one million are either Muslim or of 
Muslim descent. Many of them are so-called guest workers from Morocco, Turkey 
and other Islamic countries who came here decades ago to work in factories and 
stayed to raise families.
Occasionally, conflicts arise between mainstream Dutch society, with its 
generally liberal views on, for instance, gay marriage and the legalization of 
prostitution, and the often more conservative Muslim minority. Wilders has 
successfully mined the unease between the two.
"Ten to fifteen percent of the Dutch voters more or less see him as a new 
leader. One who dares to say what he thinks," said Hugo van der Parre, deputy 
editor of the Dutch television news program "Nova." But "many people see him 
as, well, as a nut case," he said.

For his part, Wilders says he detests Islam but not Muslims.
"I believe the Islamic ideology is a retarded, dangerous one, but I make a 
distinction," Wilders said. "I don't hate people. I don't hate Muslims."
He added: "I am not saying all Muslims are wrong or are terrorists or 
criminals. You will never hear me say that."
Wilders, who was raised Roman Catholic but is no longer religious, is the 
youngest of four children born to a businessman and his wife in the southern 
Dutch city of Venlo.

He traveled and worked his way through the Middle East for two years after 
graduating from high school. Since then, he says, he has visited Israel at 
least 40 times and maintains close contacts there. But he admits he does not 
have any Muslim friends.
His claims to the contrary, some Muslims believe that Wilders's animosity 
toward Islam extends to them.
"If you say the Prophet is a war criminal, you say, 'I hate Muslims,' " a Dutch 
newspaper columnist, Youssef Azghari, said in an interview. "Because the 
Prophet is a symbol. He was the one who invented the Islam."

Since almost no one has actually seen Wilders's film, some have started 
wondering if it is as fake as his hair color, a cleverly coordinated publicity 
stunt designed to prove his point that Islam and freedom of speech cannot 
coexist.
Wilders insists the film is as real as his long-held belief that Islam is a 
danger to Dutch and other Western societies.
"I get in so much trouble, both privately and politically, that if I would do 
it for publicity reasons, I would be a fool," he said.


      
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