Wilders has helped create an ‘us against them’ attitude which does contribute to a climate in which violence and social tension are likely to surface, argues lawyer Felix Ronkes Agerbeek.

Across Europe, including in the Netherlands, right-wing political parties and anti-Muslim bloggers are clamouring to distance themselves from the heinous acts committed by Anders Breivik in Norway.
Shortly after the attacks in Oslo, Dutch politician Geert Wilders issued a statement on his party’s website condemning Breivik’s crime, calling him “insane”, and expressing sympathy for the Norwegian people.
Wilders said he was “disgusted” by the fact that he and his party were cited in Breivik’s writings. He emphasised that he believes in the force of the ballot box, and dismissed any suggestion that he or his party carried any responsibility for the violent ways of a “solitary, disturbed lunatic” who “abuses peaceful anti-Islamization ideals”.
Inconsistency
No doubt Wilders’ statements are sincere. But they also reveal a glaring inconsistency in his world view. Essentially, he does not want to be treated the same way he treats others.
From Wilders’ Twitter account and the speeches on his website it is readily visible that he has a proclivity to invoke stereotypes, employ xenophobic rhetoric, and propose sweeping and uncompromising political solutions.
He wastes no time on nuances. He routinely paints scores of people – especially Muslims – with the same brush. And when perpetrators of terrorist acts invoke Islam to justify their crimes, he does not hesitate to declare the world’s entire Muslim population guilty by association. For instance, after the Mumbai attacks, he asserted that “exactly which bunch of terrorists was responsible is irrelevant … the real problem is Islam”.
Illusion
Of course, it is an illusion to think that that you can simply lump people together on the basis of one common attribute and expect to find realistic solutions for the world’s most intractable problems, such as terrorism, repression of women, intolerance towards homosexuals, or other troubles in society.
In fact, the reliance on one defining characteristic to pigeonhole all of human population only makes matters worse.
In his book “Identity and Violence” Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen points out that every person has multiple loyalties and affiliations: “[A]ny real human being belongs to many different groups”. People can be classified “according to many systems of partitioning, each of which has some – often far-reaching – relevance in our lives: nationalities, occupations, social status, languages, politics, and many others.”
But none of these classifications necessarily overrides all others: “A person’s religion need not be his or her all-compassing and exclusive identity. In particular, Islam, as a religion, does not obliterate responsible choice for Muslims in many spheres of life.
Indeed, it is possible for one Muslim to take a confrontational view and another to be thoroughly tolerant of heterodoxy without either of them ceasing to be a Muslim for that reason alone.”
Fundamentalists

Politicians like Wilders have important traits in common with Islamic fundamentalists. They both have stubbornly fixed ideas of what it means to be Muslim. Moreover, underlying their thinking is what Sen describes as “the odd presumption that the people of the world can be uniquely categorized according to some singular and overarching system of partitioning … which sees human beings as members of exactly one group”.
The problem with this presumption is that it makes the world a more flammable place. The insistence, even implicitly, on a unique and dominating identity ignores the diversity and complexity of the real world.
It triggers the delusion that each person either belongs to “us” or to “them” – and that clashes between “us” and “them” are inevitable. It is precisely this kind of thinking that can lead to violence, as both the Mumbai and the Oslo attacks illustrate.
Both Breivik and Wilders consider themselves part of a “worldwide movement against Islam”. But there is more to their personalities than their fear of Islam. And while this fear has given them a common cause, that is not enough to treat them as two of a kind and hold each responsible for the acts of the other. To do so would be to commit the very mistake Wilders is guilty of.
Rhetoric
In the wake of the Oslo attacks, several politicians in the Netherlands have called upon Wilders to tone down his rhetoric. Such calls are ineffectual and ill-advised. A consummate demagogue, Wilders often chooses language that is provocative, tactless and immature. Yet, the real problem lies not in the style of his speech but in the premise of his politics (which prompts him to advocate measures such as an immigration ban on “all people from Muslim countries”).
Unfortunately, many Dutch politicians have started to accept this premise, either by espousing some of Wilders’ proposals, or by trying to substitute his sinister assessment of Islam for a more benign but equally one-dimensional vision of “the good Muslim”.
Although these attempts may be well-intended, to say that a “true Muslim” must be democratic, tolerant and peaceful is just as simplistic as saying that Islam requires all its followers to be oppressive, fanatical and belligerent.
Is Wilders partly responsible for each criminal act committed in the name of “the battle against Islamization”? No, he is not. Does Wilders, through his politics, contribute to a climate in which violence and social tension are more likely to surface? Yes, he does. But the only remedy against this is to point out the wrong-headedness of his ideas.
Felix Ronkes Agerbeek is a lawyer with the European Commission in Brussels. The ideas in ths column are his own personal opinions.