Muslim protesters hold signs reading ‘Death Sentence for Humiliating Islam’ and showing Dutch politician Geert Wilders during a protest outside the Dutch embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, this week.

By Harry van Versendaal

Nicknamed “Mozart” because of his mane of platinum blond hair, Geert Wilders has a cult following in his native Netherlands and a wig bearing his name was a big hit at this year’s carnival.

But the Dutch MP’s attacks on Islam are anything but music to the ears of Muslims at home and abroad. A much-heralded anti-Islam film by Wilders finally appeared on liveleak.com, a British-based Internet site, last week but was taken down after alleged threats to staff. The 17-minute film named “Fitna” (Arabic for strife), setting verses of the Quran against images of terror attacks by Islamic extremists, was back on the website by Monday before being taken up by a bunch of other video-sharing networks.

Most would agree that Wilders is an abrasive, over-the-top figure. His harsh anti-immigrant posturing and scornful sound bites find little sympathy among rational liberals. That said, regardless of the content of his film, free speech advocates in the Netherlands and the rest of the liberal West ought to have defended his right to release the movie.

In fact even before the movie was released, there were calls for it to be banned, coupled with vitriolic verbal attacks on its author.

Iran threatened to cut diplomatic ties, while the Grand Mufti of Syria warned of war and bloodshed. And if reactions from this part of the world were predicted and predictable, the same cannot be said about the western world, the world of Voltaire.

In the Netherlands, the government of Jan Peter Balkenende, that has slammed Wilders as a liability to Dutch interests, tried to distance itself from the movie. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said it would be “irresponsible to broadcast this film. That’s because Dutch companies, Dutch soldiers and Dutch residents could and will be in danger.”

When the film was eventually launched, it failed to live up to the hype, proving instead to be an amateurish YouTube-like video featuring images of the 9/11 terror attacks, the bombings in London and Madrid, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, beheadings, calls to violence against western infidels by radical imams and the killing of homosexuals in Iran.

The left-leaning Volkskrant newspaper said the movie “was not as over the top as expected.” Far from denouncing the content, Omar Bakri, a radical Muslim cleric in Libya, actually said that this “could be a film by the Mujahedeen.”

Verhagen’s predictions proved, of course, to be correct. A boycott of Dutch products by a Malaysian supermarket chain was the mildest of responses as protesters across the Muslim world called on fellow Muslims to kill Wilders. “The correct Sharia response is to cut (off) his head and let him follow his predecessor, van Gogh, to hell,” the Al-Ekhlaas Islamic website said. The Taliban said that two raids on Dutch forces in Afghanistan were in retaliation for the film. True to form, Iran’s Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said the “satanic” film was the work of “oppressive powers and the Zionist regime.”

Muslim critics of Wilders should abhor the fact that even before launching the movie, the Dutch lawmaker had already scored a point against them: He made a movie to demonstrate the violence in Islam and many of his enemies rushed to condemn the film by issuing death threats against its maker.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “offensively anti-Islamic” but fell short of defending Wilders’s right to make the movie. The EU’s Slovenian presidency slammed the movie for serving “no other purpose than inflaming hatred,” but issued a statement that “feeling offended is no excuse for aggression or threats.”

Back in the Netherlands, the reaction to the film was also rather muted. The movie’s sole purpose is to offend, the government said, adding however that Wilders had a constitutional right to make the movie. “We know the worries and the feelings that surround this film in the international Muslim community, but hurt feelings should not be an excuse for aggression and threats,” said a statement from the foreign ministry.

The subdued response of the Netherlands is not hard to explain. In 2005 the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in Denmark sparked violent demonstrations across the world, while the last time a Dutchman made a film critical of Islam, he was slaughtered. Van Gogh, author of a short film about the abuse of women in Muslim families called “Submission,” was in 2004 shot and stabbed in a busy Amsterdam street by a radical Islamist now serving life in prison. It was a great shock that changed Dutch perceptions.

Wilders’s movie is legal in the Netherlands. Also, the EU charter of fundamental rights guarantees all European citizens the freedom of expression. Preventing Wilders from releasing his movie runs counter to the core of Europe’s legal and political system. It suggests that the threat of protests and riots is graver than the rule of law. And the reason behind the refusal of Dutch broadcasters to show the movie was exactly that: fear. Is Holland bowing to the bullies? Are we in for a self-censored future?

Like Pim Fortuyn, the populist right-wing politician who was murdered by a deranged environmentalist, Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party that has nine seats in Parliament, is often admired for his outspokenness even by people who don’t share his extreme political opinions. Some in the increasingly intolerant Netherlands actually agree with what he says on Islam but are afraid to openly say so for fear of retaliation.

The Netherlands has about 1 million Muslims, mostly Turkish and Moroccan, and minarets can often be seen next to church towers and synagogues. But after the two high-profile murders, a growing number of Dutch people are backing out of the once-cherished multicultural consensus, expressing concerns over the newcomers’ ignorance or, in some cases, outright rejection of Dutch sensibilities.

In a recent survey, 43 percent said Islam was a serious threat to the country in the long run, although only 12 percent thought the film provided an accurate depiction of Islam.

In a quite astonishing reversal pointed out among others by Ian Buruma, writer of “Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance,” the defense of Enlightenment values – religious and sexual tolerance or gender equality – has become the property of the Right. In its bid to avoid being identified with the Right, the Left fails to defend the right to free expression.

To be sure, not all Muslims reach for the knife when their world-view is under pressure. Only a small percentage of Muslims in the Netherlands are considered by the authorities as potential extremists. More worrying rather is the passive role of the moderate majority.

Speaking on television recently, the Dutch-Moroccan Social Affairs Minister Ahmed Aboutaleb said that “Muslims must think about the fear generated by their religion. The majority remain silent and that is not good. We have chosen the Netherlands, precisely because of the freedom here. This has to be said. I miss the (Muslim) voice that distances itself from extremism.”

For its part, the Dutch government should explain to its Muslim population why the movie – and similar films, publications or artworks – is legal in the country. Of course, Muslims living in Europe may never get to enjoy a Muslim equivalent of “The Life of Brian.” But they should be better informed and accommodate themselves with the mores and, most importantly, the laws of the western, liberal societies they have chosen to live in. One of these is the freedom to satirize religion. In fact, the Christian God is lampooned all the time (and, of course, Muslim and Arab newspapers are full of anti-Jewish commentary and caricatures). Next time they are faced with an irreverent film, the offended should send the maker a summons to appear in court rather than a death note.