Wilders hates Islam, not Muslims?

The provocative Dutch politician Geert Wilders says he hates Islam, not Muslims. Excerpt:

But he does want to create a stir. 'Islam is something we can't afford any more in the Netherlands. I want the fascist Koran banned. We need to stop the Islamisation of the Netherlands. That means no more mosques, no more Islamic schools, no more imams... Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims.'

Free speech or hate speech? 'I don't create hate. I want to be honest. I don't hate people. I don't hate Muslims. I hate their book and their ideology.'

For more than three years, Wilders has been paying for his 'honesty' by living under permanent police guard as the internet bristles with threats on his life. He has lived in army barracks, in prisons, under guard at home. 'There's no freedom, no privacy. If I said I was not afraid, I would be lying.'

There is little doubt that if Wilders's film exists - and it's shrouded in secrecy - and is broadcast, it will be construed as blasphemy in large parts of the world and may spark a new bloody crisis in relations between the West and the Muslim world.

He does not seem to care. 'People ask why don't you moderate your voice and not make this movie. If I do that and not say what I think, then the extremists who threaten me would win.'

The film in question is a short attack on the Koran, which Wilders says he's going to release in March. The government of Iran today asked the Dutch government to ban the Wilders film in advance of its showing. "We must not allow the freedom of speech ... to be used as a cover for assaulting the sensibilities and exalted moral and religious values which are respected by all of humanity," said the spokesman for the Iranian government, which is known the world over for its devotion to exalted moral and religious values. In Iran, they can publicly hang two teenagers for being gay, and that's fine; but a Dutch politician threatens to release a film critical of the Koran, and suddenly the Muslim world is threatening to come unglued, and the Dutch government feels compelled to plan the evacuation of its people from overseas postings out of fear of the Islamic mob. Gosh, can't imagine why anybody would fear or loathe Islam.

Anyway, what do you make of the claim that someone can hate a religion or an ideology without hating the people who hold that religion or ideology? I can see it as theoretically possible, and practically necessary. If you walked around with active hatred of people who believed in things you found baleful, you'd find it difficult to get through life. Still, Wilders' claim does seem to come very close to being a distinction without a difference, and that's troubling. I can't honestly say that I "hate Islam," and I absolutely can and will say that I do not hate Muslims, nor do I want anything to do with a political movement that teaches hatred of Muslims, or anybody else.

That said, what do you think about his releasing this film? Do you think it ought to be suppressed for the sake of stability and comity? Or is the trouble it will cause worth the truths it will uncover? Me, I honestly don't know. I'm strongly inclined to support Wilders' right to say what he wants to say, even if in the end I disapprove of his film itself. But something holds me back. Something about prudence, but I can't say precisely what. Something to do with Wilders' showboating personality. Something to do with the idea that it's wrong to set out deliberately to insult people's religion. Then again, if the right to free speech means anything, it's got to entail the right to insult someone's religion, which seems to be precisely the point Wilders is attempting to make: that Islam in Europe represents a clear and present danger to liberty.

(And I can tell you that I spent an afternoon in suburban Amsterdam five years ago interviewing Iranian Pentecostals who had left Islam for Christianity, and who told me their safety was constantly being threatened in Holland by Dutch Muslims, who despised them as apostates. You look someone square in the eye who has had his or her life threatened for their religious beliefs, even though they live in a free Western nation, and tell me that it's better to pretend this threat doesn't exist for the sake of avoiding trouble).

Still, I'm torn. What say you?