Show Trials 2010 - Geert Wilders quietly watches poor imitation of Maoists

Here is a highlight from Day 3 of the Geert Wilders "hate speech" trial in the Netherlands, sparked when the court was about to watch Wilders' film Fitna, and one audience member (a formal plaintiff?) puts on a show of asking permission to leave that she not have to see the horror. Have a good look at the vacant bureaucratic faces of the "judges". I haven't seen the like since attending show trials at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. (We previously discussed the judge's obvious bias here.)



Don't miss Dutch Blogger Klein Verzet for a full report on Day 3. Here is one of his interesting observations:

Then they started with the reading of the testimony of Hans Jansen (he can be seen in the court room sitting behind Geert Wilders). In their reading of the first Islam expert the court showed some ignorance. The court apparently had never heard of Qutub the founder of modern jihad ideology. The judge could not pronounce the name: Qutb and had to try several times to pronounce it.
[...]
Noteworthy was Hans Jansen his final statement in which he stated his surprise about the courts interest in so many religious details. It was against all he had learned about the separations of powers, the separation of church and state.

And of course, as often, he is right. He has said it before, with this trial, they have positioned the court as an arbiter of truth, truth about religion, truth about Islam, an impossible and unwanted situation.

Alas, that is a point about the study of religion, any religion, that lots of people don't quite appreciate, especially when it comes to consideration of Islam. With this religion, the resentment of insiders (according to this study, noted in Klein Verzet's most recent post, 64% of the Koranic text discusses - i.e. curses - the Un-believer) and the anti-Islam resentment of non-Muslims often trumps the scholarly desire to get closer to the inherently paradoxical nature of that truth, in any religion, which generates resentment, and love.