Wilders endangers his fellow countrymen all over the world

YOGYAKARTA, 22 January 2008 - Many are waiting for the moment - unfortunately a big part of the people is only waiting for it for negative reasons - the short move made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders about the Koran, the holy book for Muslims. He wants to show the world that Islam is a religion of violence and that 'their book' - the Koran indeed - is a source of fascism in the religion. That is the very short story and I'm sure other aspects of Islam will be highlighted as well. It is expected that that won't be too positive as well, which is causing that negative feeling. Such a kind of straight-forwarded attack on Islam - or any other religion for that matter - will provoke strong reactions and these will not be limited to the area that we know as The Netherlands.

We all remember the so-called 'cartoon riots', which were caused by a set of drawings of a man with a beard and turban - which is seen by most Moslems as being Muhammad, caused a stir in a number of Islamic countries and countries with an Islamic minority across the globe. It has been some two years now and still every once in a while this subject floats back to the surface again. From one side it was a cartoon that hit target straight on and the man in the picture merely was 'just a person with a beard and a turban and not per se Muhammad'. On the other side a small group of Moslems didn't want to let it go that easy and started to organize protests, only six months after the cartoons were first published.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders on the Binnenhof in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Protests of course have since stopped. It is of no use obviously to demonstrate against something for two years. You will get tired in the first place and in the second place you don't get anything positive generally spoken. Yeah, you will get a half-hearted excuse, but that's about it. Furthermore the demonstrators did mainly cause damage to property that is not theirs, but not property that belongs to the Danish person that drew the cartoons in the first place. That is what we cal useless, completely useless. It might just be frustration that is building over time. Some are waiting for the next 'provocation' to show themselves again. And that provocation is coming as it seems.

The difference with this earlier provocation - which totally wasn't meant to be one in the first place - is that the pending publication of the next one, a complete short movie in which the Holy Book is earmarked as fascist and completely trashed, has been announces several months ago already. How easy do you want to have it and how stupid can you be. By announcing that you are working on such a plan, it will be clear that you were preparing to insult people in a deep way. Then it is to be expected that the reaction on that will be a prepared one as well.

When I am talking about counter-reactions I am not talking about actions against the person who is the mastermind of this movie - carefully written down because many fear and hope how this chapter in history will end; not too good for Wilders, and that is still a strong understatement. The situation will be bad for Dutch people living abroad as well; an example is Indonesia, with it's largest Muslim population. Fortunately most of them are very moderate with their religion. That is something which I see as very positive every time I read about the stupid plans of Wilders.

A picture of a piece of a page from the holy book for Muslims, the Holy Koran.

That I see this kind of provocation as simply stupid has nothing to do with the fact that The Netherlands is an issue that is far away, or that I happen to live in Indonesia. No, it has to do with the fact that people with some form of education at least have the decency to have a fair discussion in a normal way. It is not needed to provoke a war to directly aim at the so-called 'fascist book', which is the fundament of a religion.

I see myself in a pretty safe environment in Indonesia however. Yes, there are some crazy persons that love to see everything other than Islamic disappear from the earths' surface into some kind of hell as soon as possible, but that group is a fairly small one and also reasonably well mapped out now, so it seems there is not too much danger from that side anymore. The vast majority of people here will probably feel offended in one way or another but will continue with his or her life soon afterwards, because they realize it is something that took place on the other side of the world. A Dutch person who is about to tell the world how everything should be. Not many people are waiting for that here, so most people will not even listen in the first place.

More fear most likely for Dutch people - when you are Dutch you will be seen as 'a friend of that person', so you will get questions about it for sure even if you have never seen that person - which are living in some other countries in the world. Some regimes in this world will exploit the coming situation to the utmost to stage organized demonstrations. Mainly a strong rejection of everything that smells Western will be the target of these demonstrations. Group behavior is different than that of individuals, so these groups will become world news once again. Meanwhile I will be observing how the situation is here.