Ban the Koran?

Earlier in the week David wrote about the debate currently taking place in Germany as to whether Mein Kampf should continue to be banned. Now, I read that the Dutch politician Geert Wilders has precipitated a similar debate in his own country, after calling for a ban on the Koran, which he directly compared to Hitler's 'magnum opus'. Writing in the left-wing De Volkskrant newspaper, he said:

This book encourages murder and hatred, and therefore does not fit within our society. If Muslims want to participate in our society, they have to distance themselves from this Koran. I can see that would be too much to ask for, but we have to stop making concessions.

Predictably, the call for a ban has outraged Muslims, and their friends on the left. A lawyer and minor politician named Els Lucas has called for Wilders to be prosecuted for the ludicrous-sounding but apparently real crime of "insulting a section of the community", while De Volkskrant itself appeared to question Wilders' sanity. As the Dutch blogger Klein Verzet points out, the rhetoric now being employed by the left is similar to that which they formerly directed against Pim Fortuyn. And we all know what happened there...

So, should the Koran be banned? Personally, I think not. While I believe that a ban on the Koran would be more easily justified than a ban on Mein Kampf - after all, Mein Kampf is now only believed by a handful of sartorially-challenged lunatics, whereas the Koran is revered by a billion sartorially-challenged lunatics, many of whom are actively trying to destroy Western civilisation, rendering a ban on the Koran equivalent, not to banning Mein Kampf today, when it poses no threat, but to banning Mein Kampf at the height of World War Two - I think that the Koran is one of the great weapons against the Islamic threat, and banning it would prove counterproductive. After all, why would we want to deny people the chance to see the full, ugly reality of Islam, abundantly demonstrated in its holy book?

But Wilders is raising an important point, when he says that "we have to stop making concessions". As documented repeatedly on this blog and on others, Western governments seem to acquiesce to every demand that is made by a Muslim. Often, this results in the stifling of free speech. Threatening them with the banning of their holy book is rather a nice way of warning them that the ability to push others around with over-the-top demands cuts both ways. Maybe someone should try it here...

Originally posted at ATW.