Last week, Dutch right-wing extremist politician Geert Wilders was acquitted of inciting hatred against Muslims after a long and eventful trial. Of course, Mr. Wilders instantly claimed his victory as a victory for free speech, and maybe it is. The ruling, however, raises some interesting questions about the ontological status of beliefs.
One of the arguments of the court was that although Mr. Wilder’s statements had been derogatory and rude, he had always addressed Islam as a religion or political ideology, and not the Muslims themselves, and could therefore not be found guilty of insulting people, or inciting hatred against people. Apparently, according to this reasoning, one can insult a belief without implicating the people holding this belief, which seems to imply that this belief has its own existence, separate from its holders. This raises all kinds of interesting issues, especially from a methodological-individualism point of view. Can a belief still be insulted, even if there is no-one who actually believes it? What is the practical value of criticizing a belief, if it does not ultimately refer to the actions by certain people? When Mr. Wilders talked about a “tsunami of Islamization” threatening the Netherlands, did he not mean that the actions of actual people are threatening? If not, what did he mean?
Well, at least it means that supporters of the PVV (Mr. Wilders’ party, which official purpose is to promote Mr. Wilders’ ideas) have no longer reason to complain when people call their ideology pseudo-fascist (as some politcal scientists have). After all, it’s not them who are insulted, it’s just their ideology!