Daily Times

For the kind of people who spearhead chaos and hatred among societies, selective propaganda is the only tool. Once they follow the track of selective marketing, they become Hitler-like forces who submerge in the defeat of their own acts, but never bow down to true knowledge that might save them from the darkness of ignorance.

One of such propagandas can be witnessed in Dutch politicians, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom in Netherlands. His ignorance, was seen in his short film Fitna, demonstrating how he chose to be selective to not only blindfold himself but the world too.

In his interview, on an Indian television channel in 2012, he showed his acceptance for other religions including Christianity and Hinduism. It is mandatory to mention here that he fears another Holocaust from Muslims, while he is not afraid of the ideology of Hitler resurfacing.

For the kind of people who spearhead chaos and hatred among societies, selective propaganda is the only tool. Once they follow the track of selective marketing, they become Hitler-like forces who submerge in the defeat of their own acts, but never bow down to true knowledge that might save them from the darkness of ignorance

He talks about liberating Netherlands from Islam, as he fears that religion will become a predominant force. He presents a chilling picture by displaying selective parts of the religion, picking Quranic verses and distorting their meaning. He also points out innocent Muslims who are fighting for their rights and labels them as a threat to world peace. Moreover, he chooses extremist organisations and links them with Islamic teachings. However, other religions have the same view on some subjects as Islam, which Wilder wilfully ignores. Capital punishment, homosexuality, adultery are considered unacceptable in most religions.

The Dutch opposition leader, not only fears Islam because of Hitler’s Holocaust, but also finds it too forceful of a religion because it favours capital punishment. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a Hindu mystic in his interview with the journalist, Sheikhur Gupta on NDTV, also openly favoured capital punishment. A number of Hindu scholars favour the same but to the Dutch politician, the threat imposed to humanity from Islam is overshadowed by the real facts. There are 371 who been given the death sentence in India, while the last three hanged were Muslims.

Netherlands politicians are against Islam because it opposes homosexuality. Again, they ignore the fact that so are Christians and Jews.

The Dutch opposition leader, not only fears Islam because of Hitler’s Holocaust, but also finds it too forceful of a religion because it favours capital punishment. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a Hindu mystic in his interview with the journalist, Sheikhur Gupta on NDTV, also openly favoured capital punishment. A number of Hindu scholars favour the same but to the Dutch politician, the threat imposed to humanity from Islam is overshadowed by the real facts. There are 371 people who been given the death sentence in India, while the last three hanged were Muslims

People who indulge in such selective propaganda, remain a topic of contention. The biggest issue we as Muslims face, is our lack of unity to address problematic situations. Before the cancellation of blasphemous caricatures, Pakistan looked forward to pushing a case against Wilders in UN. Unfortunately, UN’s stance on blasphemy is not as stringent as expected. Countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Middle East and South Asia have blasphemy laws of a different nature but misuse of these laws has tainted the true spirit behind it.

The option left to Muslim nations is to unite under Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and unanimously agree on important topics. OIC nations should then negotiate with the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, which aims to ‘Combat intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatisation of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief’. But this law still has grey areas which need to be addressed.

Muslims need to understand that merely blocking roads and protesting is not enough. We need to address this in a civilised manner, otherwise we will continue to face more Wilders in the future.

The writer is a freelance writer and a researcher for a human rights organisation. She can be reached at iayeszha@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 4^th 2018.