A number of Islamic scholars and leading political figures have called for a boycott of Dutch products in protest at the film by Dutch MP Geert Wilders which attacks the Qur’an and equates Islam with violence.
It is a revolting, blasphemous and deliberately insulting film. The desire not to let this abomination pass without response is wholly understandable. Nonetheless there is little logic to a boycott. It is not the Dutch who have committed this outrage. It is an individual — albeit an MP — but one who does not represent the Dutch mainstream. It would be different if the film had been made by the Dutch government or a member of the Dutch royal family or had been approved by the Dutch Parliament.
In fact, the Dutch government has resolutely condemned the film — Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende went on television to castigate it and its maker — while Dutch TV stations have refused to show it and there has been widespread public disapproval. Moreover, at the last election, Dutch voters specifically rejected the far right with its anti-Muslim agenda.
Moreover, if there were to be a boycott of Dutch products because one individual MP insults Islam, then there would have be boycotts of other countries. The Russian far-right leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky regularly attacks Islam. In France, the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has been just as vitriolic in his attacks on Islam. In the US, New York Republican Congressman Peter King has said that the vast majority of American mosques are run by extremists whom he calls “the enemy living among us.” So why not boycotts of those countries? Because no nation can be held responsible for the ravings of an individual not matter how malicious or evil they are. It is not fair. Nor do we target countries when entire political parties are overtly anti-Muslim, such as the case of India’s BJP — not even when it was in power. And what about the growing and flourishing Dutch Muslim community? To condemn the Netherlands because of the actions of one MP is to condemn Muslims as well because they are part of the Netherlands. Dutch Muslims do not want a boycott. It would undermine their position by implying that Islam and the Netherlands are in conflict and that Muslims are an alien implant.
There is, nevertheless, an important reservation in all this. In the Netherlands, as in other Western secular states, the freedom of speech, which permitted Wilders to make and publish the film, is relative, not absolute. Limitations apply. No one has the freedom to shout fire in a crowded cinema. That is what Wilders is effectively doing — trying to stir up communal hate and conflict.
That is not the voice of the Dutch mainstream. According to Bernard Wientjes, chairman of the Dutch Employers’ Organization VNO-NCW, Dutch businesses have already threatened to sue Wilder if his film led to a commercial boycott. The Dutch government too can, and should, pursue him through the courts on those grounds.
