Coming soon…Fitna I
Wilders movie Fitna is widely discussed on Dutch blogs. A Fist full of euros has made an interesting overview of it. One of the interesting links they have is to an Iranian Shia webforum where people discuss the freedom of expression in the Netherlands and in Iran. There are also several bloggers discussing the issue. I will leave out the usual suspects here and concentrate on few of the smaller blogs that I have found via Global Voices.
Indonesia Matters has a lot of attention for Dutch politics and Geert Wilders as well.
Where does the freedom of speech crosses the line and turns into discrimination thus violating article 1 of the Dutch Constitution where discrimination of people on their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, political view or any other ground is prohibited? This is the same article Wilders is referring to by branding Al-Quran as fascist.
The questions asked seem to be leading in one way or the other on many of the other blogs. Consider for example Israpundit where an article of Spengle is published:
The erring spiritual leader of the Church of England persuades me that Europe’s Man of Destiny is the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who for two years has lived in hiding under constant police protection for the crime of criticizing Islam. It is a measure of the degradation of Europe’s body politic that is only one means to expose the motives of Williams and his ilk, namely to draw fire from Muslims who overtly threaten violence against any public figure who questions the authority of Islam.
Contrary to his critics, Wilders is not provoking violence. The violence is already there, a matter of workaday fact in Muslim enclaves throughout Europe. In an act of great personal courage, Wilders is enticing violent elements out of the tall grass in order to expose them to public opprobrium.
(Spengle refers to Williams’ comments on the shari’a. For a well informed take on that issue see Indigo Jo and Yahya Birt). Another article on Israpundit from Andrew Bostom shows a speech Wilders earlier held on Islam and violence and refers to a quote of Churchill:
While we await the release of Dutch MP Geert Wilders 15 minute documentary on the Koran and Violence, it is worth recalling (hat tip Daniel Pipes) that Winston Churchill on p. 50 of From War to War, the first part of the first volume of his 6-part Second World War, proclaimed Hitler’s Mein Kampf to be,
“…the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”
Sanjar writes about the protests in Afghanistan against the re-publication of the Danish cartoons and the Fitna movie.
I think the publication of cartoon shows how reconcilable Islam is with western secular values. In the west its seen as gesture to reemphasize western commitment to freedom of expression. In the muslim world its not about freedom of expression. It’s about the way of life. Afghanistan’s Religious Affairs Ministry has called the reprinting of the cartoon as an attack against Islam. Several other Islamic countries have demanded that the film by the Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders must not be released.
It is clear that the two events (the film and the cartoons) each of their own trigger the hostile situations and debates and together make the issue of freedom of speech even stronger. The sometimes hostile reactions led View from Iran to the following commentIn the end, the best response to Wilders is the cold shoulder or humor.
If there is a violent response, doesn’t that just make his point? It’s like fuel for him and even for people who might not agree with him but who see his vindication in a violent response. Who am I to tell people what to do? But if you are a Muslim who is offended by Wilders, then the most effective protest you can offer is to ignore him completely .
I prefer Eutopia’s response to the mania. It’s generous and humorous.
They refer to Europia’s initiative Holland loves Muslims. Sour reactions by Dutch weblogs such as Geenstijl.nl resulted however in a stream of negative and sometimes hateful comments which led Eutopia to end their project.
Subzero is one of the websites we can find an entirely different reaction but still taking issue with the freedom of speech:
I personally think this has nothing to do with freedom of expression, I think it is staunch bigotry, very insulting and something that should be totally unacceptable from a state official.
I believe it should be illegal for anyone to threaten legal citizens to throw them out of their country for any reason, let alone their religious beliefs.
I think this bigot should be thrown out of office and prosecuted for his attacks and actions.And regarding the possibility of a violent reaction in the Muslim world to the release of this movie; nobody should expect a ‘civilized’ reaction to such an uncivilized attack! Every action has an equal and opposite reaction!
But still, I really hope violence is avoided and that people show their protest and anger in a more effective way.
Subzero also refers what would happen if someone did the same with the Jews as Wilders is doing with Muslims. A similar take can be found on Islamophobia in Europe pointing to what seems to be a double standard:
Offending Islam and Islamophobia is considered in most of the European countries as free speech, but don’t try to raise any issue regarding the Jewish community because you might risk a ban and end up in jail.
I am not sure if I would agree with this issue of double standards although, as I have explained earlier, the issue of how far freedom of speech goes is something that is heavily debated. And Muslims are not the only groups trying to ban sacrilegeous items from the public domain.
Islam is a complete fraud
Salam to every body.
I just want to know from this forum that what make you sure that muslims r terrorists n islamic peaching to spread terror……. all of u are depressed by th wrong media efforts, which can prove enery bad thing a virtue. none of you have history knowlede of islam. how peace fully islam was spread n how trribly any other religion. how peace full the conditions had been in islamic states n how terrible in any other country. islam really gave freedom of speech to the zipped lips but gave a limit not to disgrace any Prophet not to forbid any non-muslim from his or her religious activities. But Islam n muslims only asked the states n governments to stop killing humanity which is really a human and humanity friendly action……….. but when th emperors n the king did’t stop killing innocent ppl………. Muslim came between cruel kings n the people…….. islam was the relogion which taught humanity to live with peace . islam n muslims got the people out of the cruel circles by teaching or killing the cruel emperors…………. so i request you people not to try to prove islam i terrorist religion……….. oftenly it is stated that islamic bombers or islamic suicide attackers…………. but you will your self believe that any religion can excite a person to go for a suicide attack……….. if there is 1 muslim bomber than 1 suicide bomber should be from every religion of the earth…… i dont believe that bombers in Pakistan are from any Muslim org…….. but they r from some other org which has two aims……… 1… to kill innocent ppl 2….. to try to prove that islam n muslims r one how r responsible for the suicides……… you are all wise ppl dont write to disgrace islam, Muhammad PBUH , Holy Quran
if any body want to contact me he or she can………. uetian_usman@yahoo.com
I wonder why Muslims don’t discuss wilders movie instead of claiming it is offending Muslims. Actually Wilders didn’t include his inputs or did we see any actors claiming things been committed by Muslims. The movie is a documentary with just verses from Koran and provocations by Muslim Clerks and applicatios of violence against innocent and guilty people (in Muslim’s eyes)
We never understood why Muslim governments let those clerks show up on public media freely to spread hatred unless what they did is really Koranic. We never heard any of them was criticized or prosecuted for misleading young Muslims. I think all these terrorist got the blessings from Moderate Muslims as well from political Muslim leaders and Wilders presentation in this movie proves he is right