This interview was
published on 7 March 2009 in AD Weekend, the weekend section of the national daily newspaper
AD (Netherlands)
Standup-comedian Pat Condell not amazed about big support for Wilders
By Carel Brendel
“It’s good news, but not entirely surprising. People aren’t stupid. They can see what’s going on, and they’re beginning to realise that if things don’t change radically and quickly then western culture and its values are in big trouble.”
That’s what the British stand-up comedian Pat Condell answered, when I asked him for the weekend section of the daily newspaper AD about the first place of Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) in the Dutch opinion polls. Atheïst Condell with his monologues on YouTube and other websites has become quite a cult figure with an international audience of millions of people. In Great-Britain he is involved in a campaign against the recognition of sharia courts for family law. With his support for the right of free speech of Dutch MP Geert Wilders and the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard he is now popular in the Netherlands. You’ll find his fans among the supporters of the Freedom Party, but also among freethinkers who have nothing to do with Wilders.
Condells advice to the other parties: “They should take off their multicultural spectacles and read the mood of the country. Maybe some of the politicians in those parties will now start saying what they really think, and not what they think they’re supposed to think.”
Condell is against a ban of the Koran. He thinks Fitna, Wilders’ film about Islam ‘is a rather sensationalist way of drawing attention to the problem of European Islamisation. But the problem is real, and if it had been more honestly acknowledged and more frankly discussed in the first place there would be no need for a film like this.”
The interview was published in AD Weekend (9 March 2009). Here is an English translation. Due to lack of space I could not use all the material for the interview. Pat Condell has published the whole list of questions and answers on his own website.
Weekend interview
Millions of people devore on inter
Champion of free speech
By Carel Brendel, Staff Editor of AD Weekend
“Well, what a wonderful publicity coup for mister Geert Wilders. The whole thing has been a magnificent success, hasn’t it? Millions of people who didn’t even know that this film existed have now made a point of seeking it out on the inter
With this words starts Freedom go to hell, the latest video of stand-up-comedian Pat Condell. In biting sarcastic sentences he wipes the floor with Nazir Ahmed, the Labour Member of the House of Lords, who threatened to bring a crowd of angry muslims on the streets against the visit of Dutch MP Wilders. This time the ‘spineless’ Labour government is the target: “You know, maybe I am naive but I am actually astonished that in 21th century Europe we find ourselves having to defend our freedom in our own countries, not only from religious fascists who want to take it away, but from those among us who want to help them do it.”
As champion of free speech Condell has reached a cult status. The videos on his website Godless Comedy and elsewhere has had more than 20 million hits. The Danish cartoon affair and the Wilders-film Fitna have given Condell a big audience outside Britain.
The Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (the Dutch government institute for social and cultural research) recently observed that freedom of speech has become a topic of growing importance since 11 September and the murders of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and the film-maker/freethinker Theo van Gogh. “Muslims put emphasis on their religious identity and make demands on society because of their religion. This causes resentment”, is the opinion of Erik Borgman, theologian at Tilburg University.
The resentment is expressed by projects for godless slogans on urban buses, counteractions against creationist door-to-door leaflets, and growing atheïstic support for Wilders. The popularity of Condell is another sign of growing assertivity amongst unbelievers.
Condell doesn’t like to be profiled in interviews. “I prefer to let the videos speak for themselves.” But he was willing to answer some questions by e-mail.
Are they trying to silence you?
“I've had hundreds of death threats by e-mail and I've posted some of them on my website, but people who have recognised me in the street have been very warm and supportive. Welcome to Saudi Britain was removed from YouTube after a flagging campaign by Islamic activists, but it backfired because hundreds of YouTube users uploaded it to their own accounts in protest and spread it all over the site like a rash. Then the National Secular Society and Professor Dawkins got involved and the press picked up the story, whereupon YouTube backed down and reinstated it.”
Why are you supporting
the petition against sharia courts?
“Because sharia justice deals in crooked measures that are weighted against women in clear violation of their basic human rights. Isn't that a good enough reason? The fact that it's the thin end of a theocratic wedge is another reason. The original petition was restricted to people in Britain, but now there's a global petition that anyone in the world can sign”
http://www.shariapetition.com/
Who is reponsible for those sharia courts?
“It's Labour's sop to the imams. The Conservatives have promised to abolish them (the courts, not the imams, although some of them should be banned as well). The Labour Party is the party of multiculturalism in the UK, though lately they've backtracked on some of the diversity’ rhetoric because it's beginning to dawn on them what a disaster it's been. But they depend heavily on the Muslim vote, and they'll do anything to get it, even sinking so low as to install a buffoon like Nazir Ahmed in the House of Lords.”
What is there against sharia courts if people go there from
their own free choice?
“What free choice? Many women will be coerced into using these courts and everybody knows it. Their basic premise violates fundamental civilised values, and there is absolutely no excuse for allowing them. Would we tolerate a legal code where people of a certain colour are treated unequally and their word is worth half that of someone of another colour? Then why the double standards when it comes to women?”
What went wrong with Labour?
“The Labour Party was established to emancipate ordinary people from economic hardship, but nowadays it's dominated by a political class, a quasi-aristocracy preoccupied with imposing their own ‘enlightened’ values on society against the will of the people and consolidating their own power. In other words, the same kind of people who run your country and most of western Europe.”
Why are christian
churches treating Islam as
their ally?
“The two fascist dogmas have a common enemy in secularism, which they rightly see as a threat. That's why the Archbishop of Canterbury disgraced himself last year by advocating sharia law in Britain, and it's why we're hearing a lot more about interfaith dialogue between the two, where they agree to put aside their differences and focus on things they have in common, like prejudice against women and homosexuals, hatred of freedom, and a pathological fear of knowledge. In other words the basics. Of course this co-operation will only go so far. There will be no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia, while mosques will continue to be built all over Europe.”
England not only bans Wilders but also Muslim Brother
Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
“I'm not in favour of banning anyone. If somebody enters the country and breaks the law they should be arrested and tried. If found guilty they should be deported. The British government caved in to an implied threat of public disorder, and there's no honour in pretending otherwise.”
Many people in the Netherlands think Fitna is an amateuristic, hatemongering film insulting Muslims.
“I'd ask what happened to the Dutch reputation for tolerance and open-mindedness. Are you only open-minded about things you agree with? And do you ban everything that offends anyone, or is it just Muslims who mustn't be offended? There's more hate expressed in the Koran than in the film, which simply makes the point that Islamic scripture is used by terrorists to justify mass murder. That's a fact and nobody can deny it. A literal reading of the Koran gives Muslims permission to kill people, and those who do so have repeatedly used it as justification. This stuff needs to be acknowledged and discussed, not banned.”
What do you think about Wilders’
proposal to ban the Koran. He compares
it to Mein Kampf?
“I think Fitna is a rather sensationalist way of drawing attention to the problem of European Islamisation. But the problem is real, and if it had been more honestly acknowledged and more frankly discussed in the first place there would be no need for a film like this. As for the Koran, I don't think any book should be banned. I didn't know Hitler's book was banned in the Netherlands. I think that's childish. Nobody's opinion should be silenced, even those who would deny the Holocaust. I think everyone should be free to make a public idiot of themselves if they want to.”
In ‘Freedom go to hell’ you target the Christian parties in the Dutch
government coalition. Didn’t you forget the Dutch Labour Party?
In Shame on Holland I actually blamed the multicultural left, but several Dutch people e-mailed me to say that Christian politicians are also an important part of the problem, so I made that point in the subsequent video Freedom go to hell.”
People will say you suffer from islamophobia.
“Islamophobia is not a real word. It's a crude attempt by multiculturalists and Islamists to play on people's liberal guilt and demonise their legitimate concerns about the direction our society is going. If you dislike something bad it doesn't mean you have a phobia. Islam is more than just a religion. In the guise of Islamism it's an aggressive political movement, and for this reason it is a bigger threat to our freedom than other religions.”
Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
“I'm optimistic, but it won't happen by itself. Firstly, we still have a vote. If we vote again for the people who created this situation we deserve everything we get. Secondly, we can only defend freedom of speech if we use it. If we keep backing away from Islam, if we keep retreating into silence to keep the peace in the face of unreasonable demands, we're in real danger of bequeathing our children the kind of world that we wouldn't want to be born into; a world where ideas are banned and where feelings and dogma are more important than truth; where women have fewer rights, and where homosexuals and Jews have more to fear. Those of us who care about this prospect need to examine our consciences and make a decision to start speaking out before it's too late, because once it is too late, it will be too late forever.”
PASSPORT
Born: 1st of November 1949 in London. Son of a compulsive gambler working in a betting shop.
Education: He visited several Church of England schools across South London.
Career: Several jobs including six years logging in Canada. His first stage performance is at the age of 32 in a comedy sketch. Since 1980s he performs as poet and stand up-comedian.
In the 1990’s he is regular panelist on BBC Radio 1. In 2006 he tours Britain with the solo show Faith, Hope and Sanity subtitled A few jokes about religion before it kills us all. Because it is impossible at the BBC to make jokes about religion or to say anything about Islam, he starts to post his videos on internet.
His website is:
Carel Brendel is Editor of AD Weekend. He is also author of Het verraad van links (The Treason of The Left ). In his book (2007) he criticizes the Dutch Labour Party and other left wing parties in the Netherlands for neglecting secular and liberal values, and for accepting and promoting religious intolerance. Brendel has his own website.
|
|