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Who's The Fascist? Uses Of The Nazi Past At The Geert Wilders Trial, Robert Kahn

Robert Kahn

ABSTRACT: This essay looks at how, during his trial, Geert Wilders and his opponents used references to the Nazi era – including but not limited to the Holocaust – to frame debates over Muslim immigration, Wilders himself, and the acceptability of hate speech trials. The Wilders trial is especially interesting because each side sought to call the other a “fascist.” For Wilders, the Quran was a fascist book, an Islamic Mein Kampf. To his opponents, Wilders was a “prototypical” fascist, one who spoke to the gut not the mind. But perhaps the strongest use of the Nazi past involved victims. …