Differing latent biases prevalent in different cultures

I recently received the following message from a StumbleUpon contact, and felt that my reply warrants wider dissemination, given that the misperception in the original message is sadly quite widespread:

Hi,

nearly all the racist and right-wing parties;
leaders from all over the world have Jewish
origins. does this mean anything to you?

“Wilders Of Indonesian Descent” – News – The Hague Online

My reply:

Thanks for the link. I don’t consider Wilders to be racist at all — he’s a bit provocative in his anti-Islamist stance, but unfortunately it is the case that Western European countries often adopted a laissez-faire approach to integrating their immigrants, to the point that the younger generation in the UK is more anti-British than their parents! A lot of Islamic preachers in the West are blatantly jihadists, and their followers very radicalized — see the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” for example.

He’s a bit excessive in denigrating an entire religion, but being a non-Muslim who have lived for an extended period in a Muslim-majority country myself, I must say the reverse is also true: there is this perverse fascination with Israel and Jewish people, and to a lesser extent, Christians, seeing them as a monolithic bloc. FYI, most far-right parties in the West are /anti/-Jewish, not led by Jewish people — if Jews dominated a certain type of politics at all, it would be communist parties of the early 20th century, because of their egalitarian nature that appealed to a people trying to escape from anti-Semitic prosecutions.

On the other hand, if Wilders is indeed of Indonesian descent, I welcome Wilders to the club of Indos, joining the rank of Multatuli, Ernest Douwes Dekker, Eddie Van Halen and Keren Ann!