Context of the editorial is the Dutch political landscape, where Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom has become the third largest party in parliament by playing on Islamophobia after film director Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist Dutch-Moroccan in 2004.
My attempt at an English translation follows below the fold.
Dossier: Domino revolution
In the Mideast, Al Qaeda and Wilders don't know which way to turn
by Geert Somsen, historian with ties to the University of Maastricht
Opinion: Now that Muslims want to be democrats, September 11, 2001 is passé. The idea of the time that the two are antithetical appears to have been a figment of extremists' imagination.
The Internet has been shut down in Libya and Egypt, but in the West on the websites of Islam's critics a deafening silence prevails as well. While masses of people in the Middle East are standing up for freedom and democracy, the self-proclaimed freedom fighter [Dutch politician Geert] Wilders is staying aloof — as are Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Henryk Broder, Alain Finkelkraut, and many others who tend not to be shy about expressing their opinion of the Muslim world. [The French newspaper] Le Monde writes of l'intelligentsia du silence, whereby the only thing occasionally breaking their silence is a few fearful cries of consternation over Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood.
But then again, right-wing publicists find themselves in a tight spot. Since September 11, 2001 their assumption that Islam and the West are antithetical has framed public debate. They have continually contrasted our democracy and freedom with Muslim faith and jihad. But recent events in the Middle East no longer square with either side of this dichotomy. Who represents freedom and democracy here, after all? Obviously the protesters, in Tahrir Square for example, 80 to 90 percent of them Muslim. And who is threatening their liberal aspirations with violence and terror? Western-backed regimes like Mubarak of Egypt, or Bahrain.
Who there is calling for Sharia law and an Islamic state? Actually, no one—although it should be mentioned that the Egyptian legal system has been based on the Koran for a long time, and that the previous regime had already made Islam the state religion back in 1980. And who was afraid that precisely this regime would fall? Critics of Islam like Afshin Ellian.
Because the post-September 11 dichotomy simply no longer holds, the confusion is total. Muslims turn out to be democrats; the West appears to support terror. The earlier, simple division into two opposing sides now seems to have been a figment of extremists' imagination. For not only Islam's critics but also Muslim fundamentalists have been confounded by the Egyptian revolution. Al Qaeda is as speechless as Wilders. And the Iranian regime supports the revolution, yet represses its own citizens who have aspirations like those of Tahrir Square.
In public perception the opposing-poles framing has been broken as well. Since the attacks on the Twin Towers, Muslims have been stereotyped as long-robed religious fanatics—what George Luyendyk has called "evil beards." Yet in the current live images the people we see are very different—types we easily recognize, from hip young people to businessmen in three-piece suits, from headscarf-wearing housewives to lawyers in robes. As an icon Bin Laden has been replaced by Wael Ghonim, the Google manager posting on Facebook, who resembles so many real Arabs today.
Not just the image of Muslims, that of the West itself has been irretrievably altered. For if we didn’t already know that Western powers don’t always genuinely promote freedom and democracy, it has now been made obvious in the most shameful way.
That America—as the Dutch TV news put it—held a "[protecting] hand over Mubarak's head" seems a blatant understatement. The United States financed and armed him, even when he had long since given up trying to maintain even the pretense of democracy. And Americans not only tolerated torture cells, they themselves employed them to torture suspects as part of the infamous rendition program.
History is now being hastily rewritten, and it is already being made to look as if America and Europe were always eager to see democracy in the Middle East. But we must not allow ourselves to forget. We must not forget that the U.S. and the E.U. supported coups against displeasing election results in Algeria and Palestine. And we must not forget that one American administration after another continued to work together with torture regimes like that of Mubarak, or fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, or anyone else who served the strategic purpose.
Those who are for freedom and democracy would therefore be well advised to start at home and call upon their own governments to change, rather than demonize Muslim immigrants. That too is one of the lessons to be drawn from the current uprisings. September 11 is passé.