Who Is Still Free Not to Be Muslim?

Let’s begin by dispensing with the moot question of whether I agree with all that Geert Wilders has said. I don’t, and I specifically disagree with statements by Wilders, such as his call for the Koran to be banned, that are themselves incompatible with the freedom of speech Wilders now defends so articulately. But almost by definition, people who become the state’s first targets for censorship have inevitably expressed views that are controversial, even indefensible.

Wilders is now facing prosecution in The Netherlands, the historic refuge of Europe’s dissidents and free-thinkers, for his words criticizing the intolerance of Islam. Wilders, who I hope has learned a more consistent view of free speech from his own experience with petty despotism, answers a Dutch court this way:

A quote:

It is not only the right, but also the duty of free people to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, was right: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” I hope with all I have in me that freedom of expression will prevail in this trial. Not only that I will be acquitted, but that freedom of expression will continue to exist…. This trial, of course, is about freedom of expression, but this trial is also about finding the truth. The statements I have made — the comparisons I have drawn — are they true, as mentioned in the summons? Because if something is true, how can it be illegal?

It would be one thing if the state’s objective was to stultify all discussion of religion and theocracy, but it isn’t. The state is simply betting that it’s easier to silence critics of extremist Islam than it would be to expect Muslim extremists to tolerate free discourse. Wilders’s argument, which I believe paints with too broad a brush, is that Islam is fascist. The state, by prosecuting Wilders for the expression of his ideas, now means to confer protected status not over all religions, but only the one whose adherents — or rather, some of them — tend to react to free speech with stabbings, fatwas, and riots.

Sure, you say, but Europe is far away. Well, Canada isn’t:

That this could happen so close to us suggests that it could happen here, too.