Read the report from the BBC. (hat tip to Brady Campbell)
I’m not a fan of Wilders. His politics are basically the same as those of the neocons, e.g. Zionism, Islamophobia, and neoliberal economics. Nor do I agree with ideas like banning the Koran, minarets, headscarves, or burquas of the kind that some immigration restrictionists in Europe have proposed or enacted.
Murray Rothbard argued that it is the nature of the state to create a mess with its actions, which leads to calls for increased statism as a corrective measure, which creates more chaos, which leads to still more calls for state efforts at correction.
As I’ve argued before, mass immigration of the kind we see today is not naturally occurring but is the product of the state and of the economic arrangements imposed by the state. Sam Francis explained how this works a bit in this video. I also tried to explain the true relationship between the state, class theory, and immigration in this article for Lew Rockwell a few years ago. Most libertarians and anarchists are blind to this issue at present because, having drank the liberal Kool-Aid, they regard mass immigration as an ideal unto itself, irrespective of the role of the state or capitalism in fostering it.
Mass immigration has the effect of dramatically altering the host culture, which in turn leads to calls for state-imposed forms of cultural protectionism such as banning minarets, censorship of Islamic religious books and speech, banning burquas and headscarves, etc. But those things are only symptomatic of the real problem. Western civilization could certainly survive the presence of an occasional burqua or minaret. It’s when immigration becomes so massive as to amount to demographic overrun or fundamental civilizational alteration that it becomes a problem. Naturally, many will want to take action to prevent such a thing, but they will do so in superficial ways like banning burquas. Meanwhile, the cultural protectionists (so-called “xenophobes”) will come under the attacks of the proponents of multiculturalism, who instead of calling for bans on minarets, will attempt to censor and repress the “xenophobes.”
In essence, both Wilders and those who are putting him on trial represent two different strands of “totalitarian humanism.” Why does Wilders oppose Islamic cultural influences? Because he regards them as illiberal, sexist, and reactionary. He compares the Koran with Mein Kampf. Wilders, the supposed “fascist,” actually has much more in common with militant liberal anti-religionists like Christopher Hitchens. His opponents represent another thread of totalitarian humanism that regards denunciation of a non-European, predominantly Third World religion like Islam as racist, chauvinist, or colonialist. It’s a question of liberalism versus multiculturalism.
The proper solution to the problem of mass immigration is to eliminate the support it receives from the state (which would involve abolishing much of what the state does at present), followed by economic decentralization, and restoration of full freedom of association, property rights, and community sovereignty.
