21 februari 2013
Geert Wilders is in Australië om zijn islamofobe retoriek te verspreiden. Hij kan echter rekenen op flinke tegenwerking van een coalitie van anti-racisten.
Het Platform zond de volgende tekst aan het Comité Stop Geert Wilders Australië:
Dear friends,
We thank you for standing up against Geert Wilders and his message of intolerance, racism and hatred. And we want you to know that Wilders is not speaking in our names. You are, with your colorful protests, a message of solidarity and hope!
- Wilders and his supporters will tell you to end your protests because they are just “criticizing Islam.” But do not be fooled! We are used to this rhetorical trick. For Wilders “criticizing Islam” is a cover to propagate discrimination and exclusion on the basis of religion and ethnicity. It is a cover to poison society with hatred and fear. It is a cover to divide people in “them” and “us” and to put communities up against each other.
- Wilders and his supporters will tell you that they are talking about “religion” and “culture.” But do not be misled. These are new labels to dehumanize and exclude “the others.” The words and the policies of Wilders speak for themselves.
- Wilders wants to close the borders for all immigrants from “non-Western countries.”
- Wilders spreads fear by lying about a “tsunami of islamisation.”
- Wilders wants to send in the army to neighbourhoods with social problems and he says the police should give troublemakers at football matches a shot through their knees – but only if they are from “ethnic minorities.”
- Wilders demands that Muslim women pay a tax of 1,300 dollar (1000 euro) in order to wear a headscarf.
- For Wilders, even the age of your retirement depends on where your parents were born.
- Wilders says the state should no’t judge Muslim citizens by what they do individually, but by what they believe in.
- Wilders message of hate knows no national boundaries.
He says that Israel should deport all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Arab countries. This is nothing less than an outrageous plea for ethnic cleansing.
And now he has come to tell you Muslims have taken over Australia while you were asleep and that progressive and leftist movements are complicit in this conspiracy. Wilders wants you to treat Muslims with suspicion and to humiliate and marginalize them. What Wilders wants is nothing less than a clash between his phantasy civilizations of “the Christian West” and “the Muslims.” It is no wonder that Wilders served as a great inspiration for Anders Breivik who murdered 77 people in Norway to save his country from “Islamisation.”
Dear friends,
Wilders tour in Australia is part of his efforts to build an international movement of hate. But with your protests you have shown that we can build an international movement of hope that is based on the principles of solidarity, social justice and genuine freedom.
Dear friends,
It is very tempting to beg you to keep Wilders in Australia………. But we will ask you for a better favor.
Let Wilders know he is not welcome in Australia, because racists aren’t welcome anywhere in the world.
Let him know we won’t be divided. Christians and Muslims, people of faith and atheists, women and men, we will celebrate our diversity and fight against any form of injustice and discrimination on the basis of race, religion and gender.
Thank you for protesting and keep up the struggle,
Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion, Netherlands