Fitna

Even as their already large numbers grow Muslims across Europe are facing increased marginalization and restrictions on the most visible aspects of their transplanted culture. The Swiss government banned construction of minarets. A movement in France seeks to deny public benefits to Muslim women wearing veils over their faces. And a prominent Dutch politician is now on trial for religious discrimination after comparing the Quran to Mein Kampf for its anti-Jewish rhetoric and its incitements to violence.

The latter of these cases, especially, typifies the tensions escalating across the continent. The outspoken anti-Islamism of a leading member of the Netherlands' popular libertarian-conservative Freedom Party is emblematic of the anxieties that appear to be pervasive in Europe's elite circles.

In his 2008 film, "Fitna," Geert Wilders gave full expression to his views, calling for the Quran to be banned on the same grounds as Mein Kampf. Amsterdam's district attorney initially ruled that there were no grounds on which to prosecute. It took Wilders by surprise, then, when an appeals court noted for its activism ordered his prosecution last year. "It is surreal that I sit in a courtroom, in a criminal court," he said. "I never had any idea this would happen."

At stake here is far more than the future of a single politician. Because he is being prosecuted for discrimination, it is incumbent upon Wilders to prove the verity of his statements. In order to do so, he will call to the stand as many as 17 expert witnesses, from renowned academics to infamous Islamists. His attorneys will attempt to weave their testimony into a cogent picture of the Quran as a pamphlet of hateful and violent propaganda. In prosecuting Wilders, Muslim and leftist activists have actually set the stage for official condemnation of the very foundation of Islam under Dutch law.

This case is reminiscent of the 1996 libel suit brought in British court by the prominent - and Nazi sympathizing - WWII historian David Irving against the Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt. Lipstadt, an expert on Holocaust denial, had accused Irving of manipulating statistics in order to swing the moral pendulum toward the Nazis. There is no absolute protection of free speech under British law (or in the Netherlands), which left Lipstadt with the singular defense of proving the accuracy of her accusations. The resulting examination of Irving's research methods uncovered egregious and intentional obfuscation of historical fact for his own propagandic purposes. Irving's attempt to clear his name actually accomplished quite the opposite.

The same potential exists in the Wilders case. By challenging his claims about the Quran, his opponents have placed it under a very public microscope. But while in Irving's case the outcome - the discrediting of an influential liar about World War II and Holocaust history - was entirely positive, the implications of the Wilders case threaten much less desirable results: increased Muslim resentment of Western culture; radicalization of Muslim youth; official endorsement of slippery anti-religious rhetoric.

It is certainly understandable that millions of Europeans seek to counteract the threat to their way of life posed by rapidly increasing Muslim populations. Americans would feel much the same if Muslims, taking extreme care not to integrate into mainstream society, constituted a quarter of the population of our major cities as they do in Amsterdam and Marseilles (Stockholm, London and Brussels are not far behind). We would undoubtedly be concerned if numerous graduates of top American universities joined radical Islamist groups and some were implicated in terrorist attacks, as has been the case with such institutions as Kings College London and the London School of Economics.

Despite the logic of the sentiment, however, it may not be prudent to act on it. The uniquely inclusive and malleable nature of democracy is such that fundamental changes are not necessary for a sufficiently populous immigrant group to effectively hijack a society and its political cockpit (to use an apt, if uncomfortable, metaphor). We could be witnessing the precursors to a democratic coup which would drastically change European society even without the infiltration of Sharia onto the continent.

If this is the case, and demographic statistics certainly suggest the possibility, then using legal means to repress Islamic culture in Europe is an extremely risky proposition. Rather than inculcating in them Western ideals of pluralism and tolerance, persecuting the Muslim minority only makes them less likely to value egalitarianism and to respect heterogeneous - and heterodox - elements in European society. Obviously, it will be too late to change course if and when they become a substantial enough portion of the electorate to exert their influence. In 2010, ethnic Europeans are providing Muslim Europeans not only with motivation, but with legal precedent for their eventual retribution.