VOLTAIRE ARRESTEREN, DAT DOE JE NIET.

Ayaangate in het Engelands:

Leon de Winter voor Die Welt:

In May '68, during the Paris riots, the French police planned to arrest Jean-Paul Sartre. When De Gaulle was informed about the plan, he reacted: 'On n'arrete pas un Voltaire.' One does not arrest a Voltaire.

One does not strip a Voltaire from his citizenship.

The Guardian, precies een jaar geleden:

It is painfully moving to think of this smart, quiet Somali woman, who looks so small walking away between her bodyguards, believing herself to be dangerous. But she is.

Slate:

At all costs, it seems, others must be allowed "their culture" and—what is more—must be allowed the freedom not to be offended by the smallest criticism of it. If they do feel offended, their very first resort is to violence and intimidation, sometimes with the support of the embassies of foreign states. (How interesting it is that the two European states most recently attacked in this way—Holland and Denmark—should be the ones that have made the greatest effort to be welcoming to immigrants.)

Metafilter:

"The way she helped 'liberate' muslim women will have caught the attention of the [American Enterprise Institute] who have a similar definition of liberation (Iraq, anyone?) I'm certain she won't last long there, once they find out she's not only anti-Islam, but also pro-gay, anti-religion, and pro-insult." - Zombie Dreams

Expatica:

Hirsi Ali has bettered her life, and has championed causes that need determined champions. But one nagging question remains. Why is this former asylum seeker a member of the same party as Verdonk? This is the minister who wants to deport gays and Christian converts back to Iran. This is the minister who has vowed to keep economic migrants masquerading as refugees from getting into the country.

FITZMAS!

Wat wilt u hebben voor Fitzmas?

Ik weet het wel.

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(UPDATE: Fitzmas voor dummies)

IK ZEG: GOD'S ONTLASTING.

Als iemand niet in God gelooft, kan er dan wel van lastering worden gesproken?

Over dit dilemma boog de Tweede Kamer zich in 1932, toen minister van Justitie Donner een wet voorstelde die smalende godslastering strafbaar zou stellen. Donner? Jawel, de opa van de huidige minister. Liberalen en socialisten stemden uiteraard tegen, maar met een beetje hulp van het excentrieke kamerlid Eerdmans - zonder designbril maar met designhoed - werd de wet aangenomen.

Vandaag doet kleinzoon Piet Hein verwoede pogingen de dikke lagen stof van het artikel te blazen, in de hoop zijn wijlen grootvader een eer te bewijzen. Smalend? Herhalend, eerder. Misschien heeft Donner Jr. baat bij wat film- en boekentips.

02-11.

Ik heb op dit moment even heel weinig te zeggen. Sprakeloos.

Thomas Schlijper en Fokke & Sukke ook niet.

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Met de verschrikkelijke gebeurtenis in Amsterdam vanochtend en deze belangrijke dag voor de VS in het achterhoofd word ik herinnerd aan de prachtige woorden van Bill Clinton in het kader van de Dimbleby Lecture voor de BBC in 2001:

When I was my daughter's age, just about to embark on my great adventure in England, just before that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, two of the heroes of my youth, were murdered by their fellow Americans for trying to reconcile the American people to each other. Gandhi, the greatest spirit of the age, murdered, not by an angry Muslim but by a fellow Hindu because he wanted India for the Muslims and the Jains and the Sikhs. And the Jews and the Christians. Sadat - murdered not by an Israeli commando, but by a very angry Egyptian - a member of the organization now headed by Bin Laden's number two guy - an angry Egyptian. Because how could he be a good Egyptian or a good Muslim because he wanted secular government in Egypt and peace with Israel, though he got the desert back. And one of the people I have loved most in my increasingly long life, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered not by a Palestinian terrorist, but by a very angry young Israeli Jew who thought he was not a good Jew or a good Israeli because he wanted lasting peace for Israel through the recognition of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for a homeland. And that guy who murdered him got exactly what he wanted - he derailed and delayed the peace process and let it be swarmed and mauled by all those people who were under the foolish illusions that their differences matter more than the fact that they are all the children of Abraham.

So that's what I want you to think about. It's great that your kids will live to be ninety years old but I don't want it to be behind barbed wire. It's great that we're going to have all these benefits of the modern world, but I don't want you to feel like you're emotional prisoners. And I don't want you to look at people who look different from you and see a potential enemy instead of a fellow traveler. We can make the world of our dreams for our children, but since it's a world without walls, it will have to be a home for all our children.

(Cursivering van mij, natuurlijk.) Zo was het ook in mei 2002, toen iedereen over elkaar heen buitelde om te zeggen: "Laat het alsjeblieft geen moslim zijn!" Het bleek een oerhollandse, blanke milieuactivist uit Harderwijk. Vandaag lijkt dat anders. Iemand die niet begrijpt dat Theo geen vijand was, maar een medereiziger.

VRAAGJE.

Can we stop beating around the bush now and just kerry on?

Please?

VOSSENJACHT.

Kijken dus, vanavond.


En ook deze en deze. Maar da's niet vanavond.