Wilders’s plea for freedom and truth

Here is the video of Geert Wilders’s statement in court at the opening last January of his now-delayed trial for anti-Islamic hate speech. With dignity and eloquence, he says that what is at stake is freedom; that Islam is a threat to freedom; that the truth of his statements about Islam are therefore central to the trial; and that he must be allowed to have expert witnesses testify as to the nature of Islam. Of course his request was largely denied and he was allowed only three expert witnesses instead of the 16 he asked for.

When the camera angle switches from the medium shot of Wilders to a larger view that takes in both Wilders and the judges, notice the cold, sterile, utilitarian design of the courtroom. It doesn’t look like a courtroom where justice is decided; it looks like a laboratory, or the lobby of a postmodern hotel. This is the way all legislative chambers and other official chambers look in today’s Europe. The Europeans have eliminated from their polities not only God, but any notion of tradition, any notion of anything higher or uplifting, any notion of the majesty of the law. Look at the three judges presiding (two short-haired women, one man), with their odd and sinister uniforms. Perhaps they are traditional judges’ robes in the Netherlands, but to me they look like something out of a sci-fi movie about some totalitarian regime of the future—except that it’s not the future. It is now, and Europe.

The present order of Europe is anti-Western. It is anti-human. It must be overthrown. There must be a rebirth of Western man.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 16, 2010 10:25 AM | Send
    


Email entry

Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):