Geert Wilders’ Danish connections also make interesting reading, writes Giles Scott-Smith on the Holland Bureau.

Amongst the reportage on the Wilders Ground Zero speech, the most interesting item – outside of GW’s reference to NY Mayor Bloomberg saying that “New York is ‘rooted in Dutch tolerance’” but tolerance should only go so far (there should be a sign on Wilders’ desk – ‘The Dutch Stop Here’), outside of Maurice de Hond’s opinion poll that showed 50% of those asked in the Netherlands were against the mosque proposal, outside of the comic contrast between statesman Verhagen declaring that Wilders was speaking as an individual and not as a representative of the government while Rutte would only say he was too busy tucking into some ravioli to bother with anything else, outside of the Dutch media’s wonderful put-down that Wilders’ spoke to ‘hundreds’ at the allegedly large-scale event in New York – outside of all of this, the best item is Tom-Jan Meeus in the NRC describing ‘The Danish Coup at Ground Zero’ (which is blocked via the NRC site but is reposted no problem by De Standaard).
As this blog has covered before [The US-Israel Lobby, 15 June 2010], Dutch media have done some interesting research into the international neoconservative fund-raising connections of Wilders and the PVV (see the ongoing research over on the Volkskrant-supported WLTR blog). Whereas the focus previously was on the US and Israel, Meeus has now turned the spotlight onto the link with Denmark, specifically the role of Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) and its initiator Anders Gravers.
SIOE led to other national branches (including for a while in the Netherlands), among them Stop the Islamisation of America (SIOA). Meeus, from a telephone interview with Gravers, learned that the Dane gave SIOA a boost by bringing in Atlas Shrugs neo-everything blog-babe Pamela Geller and American Freedom Alliance (AFA) theologian Robert Spencer.
The two already had contact with Wilders, Vlaams Belang, and the European Defence League (see their friendly Facebook page), but according to Meeus, it was the SIOA link that turned Geller and Spencer from marginal figures on the neocon circuit into activists with media pull. [Meanwhile the EDL’s English affiliate is preparing to come and demonstrate in Amsterdam on 30 October – three days before the Amsterdam court issues its verdict on the Wilders hate case.]
Meeus’ article is al the more interesting for two reasons. Firstly, he plays heavily with the Geller-Wilders attraction, littering the article with photos of the two and focusing on the obvious appeal of ‘lekker ding’ Geert for Geller, something which is pretty evident, as can be seen here.
Secondly, Meeus’ article is as much reporting as activism itself. Doing the rounds of various conservatives linked to the anti-jihad scene in the US – Jeffrey Imm of REAL, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, Avi Davis of AFA – the journalist seeks out and stirs up the divisions within the US scene between the anti-Islam fundamentalists and the Islamophobes like Geller. Davis reacts (apparently) surprised to hear Meeus tell him that the Stop the Mosque demo is organised from Europe.
Its a fine piece of agitprop journalism, with intellectual rivalries, right-wing clashes, implications of violence, and sex, sex, sex. A pity yet again that the NRC killed off their online English-language NRC International in June (cuts, cuts, cuts). Meeus’ article deserves some recognition outside of the Netherlands.