Ruben Hiddink

It'll surely be interesting to see what the Ron Paul voters are going to do when a candidate like this runs for the Libertarian Party. Does Root actually have a chance to become popular? Being from outside of America, I don't have a clue about how he's being perceived... Ruben

Thanks for the warm welcome Guess I'll have to adapt to the climate here, but I'll be fine either way ;) I'm absolutely supportive of your suggestion here. I'm afraid it's very unlikely to happen though - individual rights aren't exactly the measure in Europe these days. For example, in the very same opinion poll I posted somewhere above, at least 47% of the Dutch voting audience votes for political parties which are more left winged than the American Democrats. In fact even today 18% are still voting for communist parties... It's not very likely for a government to start campaigning for individual rights in a political climate which is all about altruistic doctrines. The first polling results after Fitna show a slight move towards the right, but only marginal. It'll take a hundred more Fitna's before people may start to take individual rights seriously... If, by then, they're not so shook by the suggestion of terrorism that they've given up all individual rights for the sake of national security... Isn't that exactly the problem - that the ones in powerful positions in the Islam, even those in western countries, are more radical than their actual following? The average European muslim has found his way in every day life, but the mosques keep importing radical imams from the Middle East who then proceed to spread fundamentalism through their Friday speeches... It's exactly these "top holy men" who are preventing the Islam from fully integrating in the west. Surely they're not going to neutralize their messages and their religion - that would be against Allah's will. There goes the blank check of religion again. So what can be done? Within Europe, it might be the every day muslims who need to take a stance. As soon as they massively take position in favor of the progressive freedom of the west, the imams will ultimately have to adapt to their audiences (unless they don't care about losing their power). Thing is, every day muslims aren't exactly loud about their opinions. It seems they're devoid of belief in individualism, thus they willingly hand over the power over their beliefs to these holy leaders, whom they are told are more qualified for judgement. Perhaps in Europe, people lack the moral strength to become role models for individualism and freedom. You can see it in the shattered political sphere, and you can see it in the lack of direction in the people: hardly anyone knows what he's doing, never mind why. There is no example to be set by a people without confidence, beliefs or direction. Isn't that what must be overcome first, before any Islamic threats can be neutralized? The Wilders film surely is making people on all sides feel uncomfortable, but people have been like that for a while now (remember that this has been a long process already), and things aren't exactly getting better by the looks of it. If anything, this film helps to strengthen the already polarized stereotypes. The nuance is gone, whereas it's precisely nuance that's needed to improve this situation. I don't think this'll bring us closer to a solution - if anything, a clash might become more real every minute, but perhaps that's just what we need? Ruben

Muslims with their utterly rotten and revolting religion are taking over Europe and Mr. Hiddink gives a factual exposition about democracy in Holland. He's either stupidly ignorant of the threat or hypocritical by covering it up with all this factual blather, for he would be honestly focused primarily on that threat and not educating us about Dutch politics for which I don't give a good God damn. And that goes for all those European appeasers wallowing in their wishy-washy politically correct politics. I'm not apologizing to him one little damn bit. --Brant Ah, a honest reply, I like that. Well, I did tell you why I think the movie is hardly worth discussing: because Wilders himself doesn't really care about the situation either; thus the film was not made as an attempt to stop what you call a revolting religion taking over Europe. The film is a simple piece of propaganda, to stir up gut feelings, through which he aims to obtain power. The Dutch political situation shows you exactly why you shouldn't expect an answer to the real issue any time soon. Did I fail to make my case clearly enough for you to grasp? I'm sorry if you couldn't destillate that from my story about the background of the movie. Now what is it that you wanted to say about the content of this movie? Ruben

To support my case about the questionable state of the democracy in The Netherlands, let me paint a quick picture of the political sphere (150 parliamental seats total) as it was over the past two elections and as it is now. You can pretty much say the political sphere is pretty much shattered, even more now than it had been in the past. CDA ("Christian Democratic Calling") - slightly conservative democratic centrum party May 2003: 44 [29%], Nov 2006: 41 [27%] (-7%), polling March 23, 2008: 31 [21%] (-24%) PvdA ("Party For Working") - social-democratic with watered down socialistic roots, slightly left from the center of the political sphere May 2003: 42 [28%], Nov 2006: 33 [22%] (-21%), polling March 23, 2008: 24 [16%] (-27%) SP ("Socialist Party") - neocommunistic and popularistic May 2003: 9 [6%], Nov 2006: 25 [17%] (+177%), polling March 23, 2008: 18 [12%] (-28%) VVD ("People's Party for Freedom and Democracy") - progressive liberals, right from the center of the political sphere May 2003: 28 [19%], Nov 2006: 22 [15%] (-21%), polling March 23, 2008: 17 [11%] (-23%) Geert Wilders' PVV ("Party For Freedom") - right winged one-issue party, fighting Islamic immigration (split off from VVD in 2004) May 2003: 0, Nov 2006: 9 [6%], polling March 23, 2008: 14 [9%] (+50%) GL ("Green Left") - neocommunistic and environmentalistic May 2003: 8 [5%], Nov 2006: 7 [5%] (-13%), polling March 23, 2008: 9 [6%] (+29%) CU ("Christian Union") - religious and conservative but slightly popular May 2003: 3 [2%], Nov 2006: 6 [4%] (+100%), polling March 23, 2008: 7 [5%] (+17%) D66 ("Democrats '66") - liberals, slightly left from the center of the political sphere May 2003: 6 [4%], Nov 2006: 3 [2%] (-50%), polling March 23, 2008: 10 [7%] (+233%) SGP ("Political Reformed Party") - extremely conservative, orthodox reformed Christians May 2003: 2 (1%), Nov 2006: 2 (1%), polling March 23, 2008: 2 (1%) PvdD ("Party For The Animals") - animal activist one-issue party May 2003: 0, Nov 2006: 2 (1%), polling March 23, 2008: 2 (1%) Rita Verdonk's ToN ("Proud of The Netherlands") - popularistic progressive right wing party (split off from VVD in 2007) May 2003: 0, Nov 2006: 0 (Rita Verdonk got enough preference votes for 9 seats of her own, while she was still part of the VVD), polling March 23, 2008: 16 (11%) Source: Maurice de Hond's weekly opinion poll on Sunday March 23, 2008 (four days before the release of Fitna) So what does all this tell you? The traditional big parties (CDA, PvdA, VVD and D66) are all failing to stabilize the political sphere and do something constructive with the uproar in society. They're providing plenty of space for populists to come up through the gut feelings in society. That's how the Socialist Party came up in 2006: through stressing the problems in nursing homes and the struggle to survive of those who are on welfare. That's how Geert Wilders' "Party For Freedom" came up in 2006: through stressing the problems with Islamic immigrants. Rita Verdonk's stunning come-up since 2007 is a spin-off of the very same theme, albeit in a less radical manner (she simply pleads for strictness and action). That's what people base their votes on: the stances of the parties on certain issues, which are put forward by populists. They don't even have to prove themselves through bringing up solutions - just the fact that they are able point out the crucial issues seems to be enough. Who even cares about ideology anymore? That's how the Christian Union managed to grow so well in 2006: people thought they had a very considerate stance on the issue of immigration and integration. Because of their new popularity, the Christian Union ended up in the coalition of the current cabinet, but now that they're banning smoking from the horeca, raising the taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, interfering with parenting issues, and putting forward plans to closing the shopping malls on Sundays, all of a sudden people are starting to grow dissatisfied. I wonder why... What did they expect from a conservative party? So back to the issue of Geert Wilders' Fitna... I think it is pretty obvious that he made this film merely for shock value, just to stay dominating the headlines and keep his name, as well as the issue, prominent. Remember that he's not one of the big shots in Dutch politics, but he sure is doing a great job in promotional issues. Fitna is all shock value, and I can even hardly disagree with the things he says in that movie, although I disagree with how he implies that all muslims are potential terrorists. The things he says in his movie are all factual though. It's pretty amazing to hear the Iranian president Ahmadinejad say that the views in Fitna are dispicable. Of course they are, but a part of it is coming from his own country! How much of a hypocrit can he be? Fitna was made to stir up gut feelings and create a critical atmosphere. As soon as any muslim gives in to feeling offended, Wilders can claim his victory and say he was right about the bad temper and close-mindedness the Islam supposedly feeds muslims with. It's a sad state of affairs. Ruben

Next time you make such statements, please do not refrain from stating your arguments. The way you put it, I can only guess about your reasons. What I intended to do with my post, was give some background information, so that it would become possible for 'outsiders' to put this film into context. I feel that is absolutely necessary, before you can even start discussing the subject. My statements are all based on observable facts - with the exception of Wilders' intentions, which leave little to guess after observing the facts. So please do state your claim, and we shall see if it holds any weight. Ruben

I think this movie by itself is hardly worth discussing. The fact is that Wilders has been purposely stirring up gut feelings in The Netherlands for a few years now. The more he keeps making random statements in crude words, the more politicians and the media get on his tail, the more attention he gets and the more votes he's getting in polls. Fitna is nothing more than just that. After having called the Minister of Integration and Housing "totally insane" in a debate and warning the people for "a tsunami of Islamisation", among a bunch of other radical outcries throughout time, he just had to take it one step further and make a statement through a movie, much like Van Gogh, who went out like a martyr. That's how you achieve a status of immortality. That's all that Fitna is: a promotional stunt. You can't say Wilders did a bad job at it either, having dominated the headlines for four consecutive months about a movie that no one had even seen yet. And all the while, he has kept the media and the entire parliament busy preparing responses to his actions and his film, about every new detail that leaked, about the possible consequences, about the nature of freedom of speech, about rights... It all worked out perfectly for him. He was the main subject of debate; he himself, and he didn't even have to respond to anyone's statements. The job was done for him. The movie itself doesn't even matter anymore. All of this painfully exposes modern democracy for what it is: you create a hype and you feed off it. The one with the loudest voice will be the one who gets all the attention. Politics isn't about ideology or progression; it's simply about being heard and making promises that a lot of people will identify with. And so it happens to be that it was the leader of a small opposition party, "Democrats 66", who most clearly went against Wilders in the past few months. He managed to get the number of votes for his party to triple in the opinion polls in just two months. So is that really how we decide who's the best to run the country for us - based off media dominance, about some non-issue? Let me add that Wilders never intended to bring a solution to any problem. He'll say close the borders and send all Muslims back to the Middle East. Start by closing all mosques, close Islamic schools, ban the burqa, and all of a sudden The Netherlands are supposed to be paradise on earth. His fellow politicians have addressed Wilders for not trying to come up with a constructive plan, but what did they expect when the voting audience - and thus more power - comes so easy? Ruben