A moral victory

A Dutch politician and Islamophobe cancelled a blasphemous cartoon contest due to be held on 18th November

Pakistan can claim with some justification that it fought the good fight in respect of the proposed competition being held in the Netherlands that would have been offensive to every Muslim on the planet. A Dutch politician and Islamophobe announced early on Friday morning that he was cancelling the contest due to be held on 18^th November as a result of death threats that he had received from unspecified sources. Geert Wilders has for years run a rabidly Islamophobic campaign that has at various times advocated the closure of all Dutch mosques, the expulsion of all Muslims from the country and the rejection of any further Muslim immigration.

The proposed competition caused immediate outrage in Pakistan, and not for the first time on this issue. A political party took out a protest on the roads, and the Prime Minister made it clear that he would be raising the matter at the next session of the UN General Assembly. The Foreign Minister was quickly in action — both in front of house and working the diplomatic channels behind the scenes. We cannot know if either was instrumental in the decision to cancel the contest, but it was Pakistan that led the protests in the Muslim world against a background of decidedly muted responses from other Muslim states.

A major crisis has been averted in the here and now, but there can be no doubt that Geert Wilders, who enjoys considerable support among some sections of the Dutch public, is not going away any time soon. He and his ilk have gained considerable traction in recent years, and it is for the Muslim world to create and sustain a counter-narrative to the hatred that he peddles almost daily. It is for groups such as the OIC to be the standard bearers down the line and it is to them that we look now for a robust reponse. Whatever the scale of the moral victory in the last 36 hours, we can be sure that it is but one battle in a long conflict and Pakistan can be quietly proud that it stood its ground.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2018.

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