Chapter 6. Free speech, hate speech, and hate beards

This paper explores the discourse and verbal strategies of the Dutch ‘Freedom Party’ (PVV), an islamophobic populist party that emerged in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In particular, it focuses on the linguistic ideologies implicit in PVV discourse, arguing that PVV spokespersons systematically construe their own utterances as mere words, and hence as deserving state protection; and the utterances of others as acts, and more specifically as acts of violence, deserving repression or prosecution. This asymmetric linguistic ideology may help us to explore empirical and normative questions concerning violence in language. In particular, the question of violence and responsibility is discussed on the basis of Norwegian Anders Breivik’s 2011 murderous assault on Norwegian social democrats, which explicitly appealed to PVV leader Wilders and his views on Islam.