Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders is being prosecuted in the Netherlands for “the incitement to hatred and discrimination” because of his anti-Muslim views, including Fitna, his controversial 2008 anti-Muslim film in which he calls on Muslims to “rip out ‘hate-preaching’ verses from the Koran.” Wilders, who has claimed that Muslims are attempting to “colonize” his country, is seen as tilting Dutch politics to the right, even though his Freedom Party holds a small parliamentary minority.
Now, a new film about Wilders anti-Islam efforts is coming out and searching for a home in the United States. Islam Rising is produced by the Virginia-based Christian Action Network. They’re targeting South Carolina for the film’s debut, after a planned May 1 debut in Los Angeles was cancelled when a reporter from the Netherlands learned through Barry Lynn’s Americans United for the Separation of Church and State of the anti-gay past of CAN president Martin Mawyer.
Wilders, who supports same-sex marriage, since his country has allowed such unions since 2001, cancelled his appearance at the debut and distanced himself from CAN.
That has not deterred CAN from its mission of airing the film. Billboards already up along the highway to Charleston, featuring a menacing looking man with the star and crescent in his eye, and a sign reading “Be Prepared for the Real Holocaust.” According to the Charleston Post and Courier, Wilders hopes to debut the film in York, where there is apparently fertile ground for Wilders’ attempt at increasing Islamophobia among the locals:
Martin Mawyer, the group’s [CAN’s] president, said they chose South Carolina for the promotion because the state is home to Holy Islamville, a Muslim village in York founded by Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani.
Villagers say the settlement is a peaceful place of introspection and worship that welcomes people of all faiths. But Mawyer and other critics suspect the 34-acre village serves as a radical Islamic training ground stocked with weapons and cloaked in secrecy. Mawyer’s group featured Islamville in a 2009 documentary, Homegrown Jihad, which alleged the village and other Gilani compounds are terrorist training camps.
Mawyer said he hopes to debate the York County Sheriff after the film. I don’t know Sheriff Bruce Bryant’s personal feelings on Muslims, but according to the Post and Courier, Holy Islamville is a good neighbor in York and “law enforcement has found no signs of criminal activity at Islamville.”
That won’t deter those who hate Muslims simply for existing from turning up the volume on their hate machines. Here’s hoping that the good people of York County will rise to the defense of their Islamic neighbors. Then again, this is South Carolina…
