You've been quoted as saying between five and 15 per cent of Muslims in the Netherlands are radical Islamists. By my calculations, that makes between 85 and 95 per cent who aren't. That strikes me as a pretty broad base to talk to. Have you tried?
I have a basic problem, I suppose, in that I never take any scripture at its most literal. The interesting conversations start when you ask people to go deeper into their sacred texts, because then they're impressed that you care. As you admit, Geert, you don't care for religion at all. Those Catholic days are long behind you. Which is fine - most of my friends are cheerfully irreligious. But you seem devoutly so, and that bothers me as much as this mish-mash of old news clips you've put together.
The sweaty guy who wanted to behead Jews (and couldn't get his sword out of the scabbard properly) didn't scare me, because I know the Koran says he shouldn't do that to a believing Jew. Nor the fat imams putting the narrowest construction possible on the suras from the Koran that you quote, nor the guy saying Muslims who become Christian must die. Ignorance is a terrible thing, but not all Muslims are ignorant. In fact, I've never actually spoken with one that was. And you could at least have sorted out the Shia clerics from the Sunnis, because those guys really don't exchange greeting cards at Ramadan, y'know?.
The worst thing, of course, is that your ignorance will be matched by Muslims who demand your death. Like KKK spokesmen who love being “exposed” on network TV, and stirring up the city-slicker liberals, you feel this is your finest hour.
Dude, after all the build-up, it's a lame effort. I could barely read Oriana Fallaci's anti-Islamic rant (The Force of Reason) but she did a better job than you did. You have old footage, old information, old thinking. Find a new cause, please, because the preservation of western openness is not your strong suit.
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As the verses from the Koran came on the screen in English, I was not enraged or upset, but oddly soothed. I still find that the Koran speaks from a sacred place, though it has to be read with an openness to that. And I admit that I find too much of it is like too much of anything. I take it best in small amounts. But behind the words, behind the sweeping commands and roaring condemnations, there's still a serene majesty. In my mind, there is a chasm between that and the hideous socio-political attitudes that persist in many Muslim countries. We pay too little attention to this in our rush to hate the demagogues.
I don't know exactly how we are going to find the way out of the secular West's conflict with Islam, but I'm fairly certain it will be people who can see that serenity who will talk best to the Muslim world. That way, the sense of massive injustice in Muslim countries, so ably exploited by the scoundrels who run a lot of them, can eventually be by-passed.
And we might just find ourselves in a viable future with the fanatical nut-jobs on all sides wishing they'd never given up their day-jobs.