This is a guest post by Cyrus Spitama
Anyone interested in the worrying rise of the far right in Europe might have tuned into “Geert Wilders: Europe’s Most Dangerous Man?” (first shown on BBC Two, 7:00PM Mon, 14 Feb 2011) about the controversial and deeply divisive anti-Islam Dutch MP.
However, you would have been surprised by the content, the participants and the conclusions of the programme.
If you have a strong stomach, you can see it all here.
Your discomfort might start when the programme introduces Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra thus:
“He works for an organisation seeking to promote a distinct Muslim identity in tune with British cultural norms and values.”
No mention of that “organisation” being the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). The same MCB that, in March 2009, the last government severed all ties with in response to its deputy general secretary, Dr Daud Abdullah, signing the Istanbul declaration, a public declaration of support for Hamas and call for violence against the British Royal Navy and Jewish communities.
It gets worse. Much, much worse. The next ‘witness for the prosecution of Wilders’ featured is Sheikh Khalid Yasin. He is introduced thus:
“Sheikh Kalid Yasim is an American Muslim teacher extremely popular among young European Muslims, he has embarked on a mission to de radicalise them.”
He is subsequently deferred to at various points throughout the programme for comment and wisdom.
This would be the same Khalid Yasin who was featured in Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque exposé. In the DVD “Changing the World Through Da’wah” (IBC Ltd/1Islam Productions) he is seen preaching:
“We don’t need to go to the Christians or the Jews debating with them about the filth which they believe. We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing because the kuffaar they are doing brain defiling. You are watching the kaffir TV and your wife is watching it right now and your children are watching it and they are being polluted and they are being penetrated and they are being infected, so that you come out of the house and your children come out of the house as Muslims and come back as kaffirs.”
As reported in this documentary, Khalid Yasin is an extremist, a 9/11 troofer and a fraudster. This is what he makes of homosexuality:
“There’s no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend. If you prefer the clothing of the kafirs over the clothing of the Muslims, most of those names that’s on most of those clothings is faggots, homosexuals and lesbians. [opening of the documentary
The Koran gives a very clear position regarding homosexuality, lesbianism and bestiality – that these are aberrations, they are immoralities and if they are tried, convicted, they are punishable by death. [15:30]”
Yasin also “…accuses missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups of putting the ‘Aids virus’ in the medicine of African people, ‘which is a conspiracy’.”
Here Yasin praises the deterrent effect of public beheadings and amputations:
“Then people can see, people without hands, people can see in public heads rolling down the street, people got [sic] their hands and feet from opposite sides chopped off and they see them crucified…they see people put up against the pole and see them get lashed in public they see it, and because they see it, it acts as a deterrent for them because they say I don’t want that to happen to me.”
Yes, Yasin, the epitome of the intolerant, fascistic and dangerous Islamist ‘bogeyman’ that Wilders et al allege is representative of European Muslims in order to stoke-up fear that Muslims are a threat to European liberty and civilisation.
Further in, the point of the programme became clear. From the documentary:
“Looking up Geert Wilders and Israel on Google [WTF???] van der Valk* finds over half a million references.” Sinister Music, partial shot of Israeli Embassy zooms in on flag.
[*Joost van der Valk of Red Rebel Films (Sic), one of the filmmakers]
It continues: “Wilders was on the VVD’s foreign desk and specialised in Israel. He would visit their Embassy in the Hague on numerous occasions. Such was the regularity of his visits that they aroused suspicion.” The programme went on to say that according to the “widely read” magazine, Frei Netherland, although it “couldn’t be proved”, someone in the Dutch foreign office thought that Wilders was an Israeli spy.
Aha! So there we have it! Those Jews are behind Geert Wilders!
As well as featuring a swivel-eyed loon from the Jewish Task Force, the programme put in some other helpful background to drive home this conclusion:
“Wilders makes no secret of his affection for Israel and it’s people – he has a Jewish grandmother. He married a Hungarian Jewish diplomat. He has admirers in Israel and has access to the countries leading politicians.”
And so, the plot thinnens…
Before we receive the icing on the cake: This bit of wisdom from the filmmakers’ ‘special friend’, conspiracy theorist, homophobe, anti-Semitist and all-round Islamic extremist, Sheikh Kalid Yasim:
“I think that he has taken and embraced the idea of modern Zionism. And he is using the platform of modern Zionism to espouse the same concepts about Muslims in the world and the Koran, that the Jews cannot afford to say in Israel.”
Camera cuts to Israeli flag.
Yasim continues. “But Mr Wilders can do them a favour. He can go outside of Israel with those same feelings and he can characterise the way that the Zionists characterise the Palestinians to legitimise their power. Mr Wilders can characterise Islam in the same way. This is what is taking place.”
Finally, camera cuts to Hassidim, wailing wall, Jerusalem, all to sinister music.
So there you have it. A programme broadcast by the BBC that more resembles a contemptible bit of anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, anti Israeli and anti-American ‘Jewish conspiracy’ theorising that one would expect to find on an extremist far-left blog or radical Islamist website.
And what of the extremist far left? Oh, they were there too. Towards the end, the programme introduced “Martin Smith, leader of Britain’s Unite Against Fascism” before featuring a speech by him.
This is the same Martin Smith who is also National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party with their well-documented track record of supporting for extreme Islamist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
One of the most damning parts of this shocking trash was a clip of a man reading a text then crossing the road to sinister music. You can see it at 10:35 here.
Why would the filmmaker’s bother focusing on a seemingly irrelevant and anonymous pedestrian? Perhaps, the fact that he wore a black hat, black coat and had a big nose meant that he wasn’t so “irrelevant” after all.
Write to the BBC and complain about this disgusting and offensive conspiracy garbage.
Lucy Lips adds:
Martin Smith is a thug with a criminal conviction for assault. He also was the main champion of the antisemite Gilad Atzmon – who believes that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are ‘prophetic – with whom he appeared jointly at a number of events, and who the Socialist Workers Party repeatedly defended.
hasan pristina in the comments says:
This film is as lazy as it is crass and nasty. If they wanted to attack Wilders, they could have concentrated on the fact that the man he chose to defend consumers is a convicted fraudster, the man he chose to speak up for neighbourhoods has criminal convictions for anti-social behaviour and there are one or two other PVV representatives with their own troubles:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/11/pvv_parliamentarian_hero_brink.php
That the people of the Netherlands are as badly served by the PVV as they were by the LPF is not sexy because it doesn’t matter all that much to people outside the country. It may matter to some policy wonks that the PVV’s electorate may prove as fickle as that of the LPF, but it’s much easier and more profitable to sell fear and conspiracy theory, especially when it fits in with left-of-centre received opinion.
If you want Europe’s most dangerous man, try Minsk or Moscow.
