I have been aware of it since I first read about it on Klein Verzet (The Little Resistance) some time ago. Perhaps two years or more. Where to begin? I would say with the murder of Theo van Gogh, an event which was profoundly hurtful to a good size segment of the Dutch population, perhaps a segment that until then had been unaware of Islam and its true nature.
One man, a Rotterdam artist, Chris Ripke, (who's studio is right next door to the Mosque in the Insulindestraat [the Turkish Iskender Pasa Camii Mosque) decided to do a fairly innocuous protest. He went to Rotterdam, and painted a small mural of an Angel, some Koranic text about peace at the bottom, and the words:" Though Shalt Not Kill" in Dutch across the mural.
A man representing the nearby mosque was of course, offended by the Christian sentiment on the mural and called the city and demanded it be removed. In point form, the city obliged and perhaps most horrifying of all, the police told all media present for the removal of the mural they may not film it and had their film taken away in keeping with the Dutch police of 'non-escalation'. A few days ago, someone sent me a link to a video on youtube of this whole event. Apparently someone decided not to comply with the police request thankfully, and a group of us worked hard to translate and subtitle this as we feel as many people as humanly possible need to see this and understand its importance. Although this event is old, the presence of this tape is new to me and almost certainly new to the English speaking world. Here is the English subtitled video:
Please pass this link around to anyone who cares about freedom of the press, freedom from Government interference in what we may or may not know, and freedom from what is referred to in s video as 'The Political Police" something I bet very few Dutch people even know exist but clearly have a massive impact on what they may or may not know that takes place within their own nation and cities.
Here is a link to the Klein Verzet story on this. Below, a segment of it:
From Klein Verzet:
What a difference a few years make. When we started this blog, the Dutch had a reputation comparable to the Danes. But now it seems that the Netherlands has joined the madness of the UK, France, Sweden and Norway, in their mad dash to destroy the spirit of the native people, for diversity's sake. Or, as Mark Steyn puts it:
In the Netherlands even the most innocuous statement can get you into trouble. To express his disgust at Theo van Gogh's murder, the artist Chris Ripke put up a mural outside his studio showing an angel and the words "Thou shalt not kill". But the cops thought this was somehow a dig at the local mosque and so came round, destroyed the mural, arrested the TV news crew filming it, and wiped their tape. The Dutch have determined to commit societal euthanasia, and dislike fellows pointing out it might not be as painless as they've assumed.The staggering injustice of all of this is nicely put into words by Bruce Bawer, in a piece he concluded with these words:
In Dutch Muslim schools and mosques, incendiary rhetoric about the Netherlands, America, Jews, gays, democracy, and sexual equality is routine; a generation of Dutch Muslims are being brought up with toxic attitudes toward the society in which they live. And no one is ever prosecuted for any of this. Instead, a court in the Netherlands—a nation once famous for being an oasis of free speech—has now decided to prosecute a member of the national legislature for speaking his mind. By doing so, it proves exactly what Wilders has argued all along: that fear and “sensitivity” to a religion of submission are destroying Dutch freedom.
Well worth going over to Mark Steyn's article on it as well:
There is an interview with the man who was arrested. I hope to add that transcript in English to the rest of this post as well very soon. In the meantime, I am going to have to ask myself as a Canadian,
What is it I am not allowed to hear or know?
How is whatever law is being used to isolate me from reality being selectively enforced as Mark Steyn so clearly points out in his article related to this? Here is the original youtube link with more information on this incident and links to other interviews and information. This may not be spectacularly violent or sexy as fascist expose's go. But that is what makes this so important. We must familiarize ourselves with this and humiliate the Dutch government and thereby all western governments that would make it impossible for their own people to make healthy decisions for themselves by effectively blinding and deafening them. While the cop may not have been wearing jackboots, at least that would have gotten some people upset. With the Dutch policy of non-escalation, no one can know enough to be upset. But after all, isn't that is what 'non-escalation' means?
Huge thanks to V.H. for the amazingly fast and excellent work on the translation, and to a flu ridden Baron over at the gates who despite being bed ridden with the rotten flu that is going around, edited the work before I subtitled it. This gives some idea of the importance many of us feel this has. It also is an amazingly rare exception to the Frank Zappa rule of getting work done. 1. Good 2. Fast 3. Cheap. Pick any 2.
Typically this is really true. However our team did everything well fast and free. Thank you again guys and of course to Klein Verzet for sending me the links and to A Certain Amount of Evil for sending me the original Dutch video in the first place a few days ago. Something I did not know existed. But something that by coincidence, did come up in a recent interview a few weeks ago, between The International Free Speech Society and Morten Meserschmidt
