Fitna The Movie; Coming To No Screens Near You Soon

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Dutch authorities are in full scale panic mode after Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, pleaded that “there is no reason for panic”. Controversial politician, Geert Wilders, has made an anti-Islamic film called ‘Fitna’ (the Arab word for ‘discord’) and according to the Washington Post is threatening to show it on a special website, www.fitnathemovie.com, after all of Holland’s national broadcasters have refused to air the 15 minute film. The socialist Interior Minister, Guste Terhoorst, has even accused Wilders of ‘destabilising the entire country’.

Said Wilders, “The film will show that the Koran isn’t a dead work, but the face of Islam – a tremendous hazard”. He calls the Koran “the latest test to Western democracies since Nazism and communism”. The Iranian justice minister has requested his Dutch counterpart to ban the film, calling it “satanical and undermining”.

The Dutch government has thus far refused to act, citing the principle of free speech. The film is rumoured to be shown on Easter Sunday – the most important day of the year for Christians.

It is difficult to comment until the film is shown. However, i have mixed feelings about Wilders’ latest venture. It is one thing to be able to speak freely, but another altogether to make a film for the sole purpose of gratuitously insulting a billion people. Rumours abound that the film will show him burning a copy of the Koran.  The response from the Muslim world will be violent and people will die as a result.

Geert – what is the point of your film?

Some background on Geert Wilders and Holland’s turbulent relations with its Muslim community can be found here.  He is essentially a hypocrite as on the one hand he champions Holland’s proud history of tolerance and freedom, yet on the other, seeks to introduce discrimination back into the Constitution (by banning further immigration of Muslims), wishes to ban the Koran as a fascist book comparable to Mein Kampf, and wants a complete ban on the wearing of the headscarf.

Over at Catallaxy, Jason Soon reminded us that Karl Popper believed that we should not be tolerant of intolerance. What would he have made of Fitna? What should we make of Fitna?

52 thoughts on “Fitna The Movie; Coming To No Screens Near You Soon”

  1. Ironically, I think that many Muslims will die in rioting across the globe if it creates such a reaction as you predict Pommy.

    The film seems sensationalist. Do Dutch Muslims normally behave the way he expects them to react?

  2. Mark – the last time an anti-Islamic film was made in Holland, one of the writers was murdered and the other is still under a 24/ police guard (Ayaan Hirsi Ali).

    so, no, the omens are not good.

  3. Wilders is a hypocitical tool. He wants the Koran banned. I don’t think he should be regarded as some sort of liberal champion. Nonetheless needless to say I would not even consider restricting his film.

  4. “It is one thing to be able to speak freely, but another altogether to make a film for the sole purpose of gratuitously insulting a billion people.”

    I personally wouldn’t do it, but it is not ‘another thing’ than free speech to gratuitously insult people. Besides, he’s not doing it just to insult them, he’s doing it because he genuinely believes it is a seriously anti-social belief system. The whole reason why free speech is a value that should be defended is because otherwise people will ban it because they feel insulted by it. The Muslim religion, as with other religions, is daft and irrational. Every day they fill the airwaves as much as they can with how much better their belief system is than others, which is a similar grade of insult. But we have come to accept the place of the major religions in the intelllectual landscape, even though, for Christianity and Islam, that place was won in the first place largely through force and repression.

    “Rumours abound that the film will show him burning a copy of the Koran. The response from the Muslim world will be violent and people will die as a result.”

    If so, that is not because his film killed them; it is because violent people acting on their irrational anti-human religious beliefs have killed them. They are making his point for him.

    Anyway, why can’t we just split the difference and legalise polygamy?

  5. I am very impressed by Ayaan Ali.
    She is a big exponent of free speech and exposed the alarmingly high levels of Islamic “honour” killings in the Netherlands (it was previously considered politically incorrect to class a murder as motivated by religious belief – and therefore these killings were going unnoticed).

    She was born in Somalia and had a very strict Islamic upbringing. She was beaten for asking religious questions as a child and was circumcised (which for a women is mutilation). So for her to publicly condemn Islam and be a pro free speech campaigner is remarkable. It’s really inspiring that people like her exist and shows the power of a questioning mind even in a warped society.

    I haven’t heard of the above movie but if Wilders genuinely wants the Koran banned, then his approach to Islamic criticism may do more harm than good.
    Still, I’d be interested to see the film and make up my own mind about it content.
    Personally I do think Islam is a big threat to reason generally and to prosperity and safety in the western world.
    More people should stand up to these Islamic crazies and tell them that it is our right to draw cartoons of Mohammed (or make anti-Islamic movies etc) and that we won’t be scared into submission through violence.
    Imagine if whenever I said “Jesus titty f#ckin Christ” some Christian threatened to blow me up!

  9. Did Wilders notice that banning communism and nazism never stopped either of those causes, and besides the millions of normal, secular Muslims, that selectively targeting an unfavoured ideology can lead to terrible hysteria and injustice like the Mc Carthy era witch hunts (of which Ayn Rand said were “pointless”).

  10. “The socialist Interior Minister, Guste Terhoorst, has even accused Wilders of ‘destabilising the entire country’.”

    This sounds absurdly hysterical, I doubt there is any truth to it.

    (and if there is it only goes to prove Guste (partially) right)

    “I suspect this film will be popular.”

    Especially if it gets banned.

  11. This almost sounds like a cheap-blogshot but here goes anyway in the hope it isn’t.

    There is a chap named Andres Serrano who created a confronting piece of art he named “Piss Christ”. Now I do not exclude the risk that an aggrieved believer might have tried to knock this guy’s block off, but it would be illegal and unsanctioned. And the arts community rose in defence of this work because it was confronting, challenging etc etc.

    So in return, if Wilders makes a doco that is confronting and challenging, but not static art per se, arguably just ‘media’, where do we stand ?

    And yes – people will be offended, and yes the consequences may be a disproportionate and violent mass response which probably will receive official sanction in some quarters of the offended group. Which is maybe his intention in demonstrating his thesis ?

    Is there a dilemma here – I think so, but ….?

  13. He is essentially a hypocrite as on the one hand he champions Holland’s proud history of tolerance and freedom, yet on the other, seeks to introduce discrimination back into the Constitution (by banning further immigration of Muslims

    “Tolerance” has never meant tolerating those who wish you dead and your country’s institutions replaced with theocracy.

    Let’s be honest, the attitude towards muslims in Western Europe is not the result of a few racist agitators making them look bad. They actually are bad.

    Why anyone would accept Muslim immigrants when there are so many willing non-muslim immigrants is a mystery to me. Immigration is supposed to be in the best interests of a country, not the opposite.

  14. Kevo you don’t understand the importance of free speech in the Arts community. You need to stand up and be counted in defending free speech at all costs… unless there are actual costs involved IE: annoying people who have been known to use violence.

  15. Lets see – if the muslims riot over the film they make Wilders point for him. If they stay calm and rational, he’s shown to be an idiot who should be laughed at. Which do you reckon it’s gonna be?

    I’m sure the whole point of his work is not to have the Koran banned as such, but to trigger enough violence to cause a mass community backlash against Islam. And the fact that his plan will succeed wonderfully, perhaps shows that he has a point after all. Like when the pope called Islam violent and they protested by rioting and killing people. The ironing is delicious.

    Honestly I hope for peace and tolerance, but perhaps these conflicts need to be brought to a head, and everyone who riots/rampages/murders over issues of freedom of speech be locked up (or given a choice to renounce their citizenship and return to a sharia state or something). Then we’ll be left with the muslims who aren’t insane and all get on with our lives. (And if they’d take the fundamentalist Christians with them, that would make me even happier).

    Not an anti-muslim post, just an anti-insane-people-who-want-to-convert-me-at-gunpoint-post. The problem is not islam, the problem is crazy people. And sooner or later there is going to be a western backlash that will target all the nice, sane, hardworking muslims that live in our society. And when it comes to acts of mass-genocide, it’s not islamic countries that hold all the records.

    Hey, if those CEC clowns really happened to be right, and we were actually facing a global depression, I wouldn’t mind betting we’d see liberal democracies collapse all over the place and be replaced with facists who might then find Muslims made a good scapegoat to rally the popular support… Just sayin…

  16. I’m sure the whole point of his work is not to have the Koran banned as such, but to trigger enough violence to cause a mass community backlash against Islam.

    I think you overestimate the capacity of Europeans to fight for anything. they are so used to apologising to all and sundry that they just want to leave. A Dutch newspaper drew 12 cartoons mocking Muslims for their violent religion. They rioted. A film was made in Holland about how violent Islam is. The writer was murdered by an aggrieved Muslim.

    Despite this, the streets of Amsterdam have not exactly been full of rioting Dutch demanding that Muslims leave.

  19. I haven’t posted on Geert Wilders in a while because of reservations I feel about him. I will be interested in seeing the film to see whether it is fair comment, or gratuitously provocative.

    It seems that the current waves of Islamic migration are not prepared to respect the culture or traditions of the host countries, and this is causing a great deal of resentment, of which Wilders is taking a leadership role. At the same time they demand respect for their values, which under normal circumstances would be fair, but they ignore the fact that to get respect you have to give respect.

    In the past we and other countries have had Muslim Migration which has worked well. The Afghans in the pioneering days are a classic example, and they were well respected. However in these days of militant Islam and islamofascism I am beginning to feel that the the current crop are incompatible with our values.

  20. Jim and Yobbo

    you’re right that the recent waves of Muslims settling in Europe have caused a disproportionate amount of trouble. That they choose to live in Muslim enclaves and refuse to assimilate with the host country is not helping. But what is the alternative? Banning further immigration of Muslims? How is that practically achieved? what would that do to the relationship between those Muslims already in the country and the host country? Would the next logical step be? To ban the practice of islam? then what?

    So whilst i share your concerns about the effects of mass immigration of Muslims, i don’t think discrimination is the answer. It’s far more important to ensure that those who come here are encouraged to integrate, that access to welfare is curtailed so they must seek work, that separate schooling is halted and that all calls for separate legal codes and cultural practices are ignored.

  21. Pommy,

    I don’t see why you are so enthralled by “assimilation” versus staying within the law or even staying within local social norms. Who cares if people refuse to assimilate? A good example here are orthodox Jews — there are lots of these where I live, and no-one minds (excluding the occasional moron), because they don’t hassle other people. So what people are really worrying about is conflicting social norms (which may have nothing to do with religion — many of the Africans in France are Christians, and probably most of the the young Arabs are about as religious as the average Australian), and not being assimilated. What annoys most people in many places in Europe as far as I can tell (you probably have a better idea than me) is basically young males hanging around in gangs harassing other people, but this is essentially true of many poor social groups, and it really has nothing to do with their original culture or religion (its not people would like that behavior in their own countries). In addition, its no surprise that they hang out together — which marginalized social groups don’t?

  22. Conrad

    Assimilation is important. I am a Brit recently emigrated to Sydney. I chose to come to Australia. No-one forced me to come here. If i just hung out with other Brit expats and watched soccer on the cable channels all day, what was the point in coming? I will always support England but i hope my children support Australia in sporting events.

    Orthodox Jews dont hang out in gangs and commit crime. Hence policing is a vital tool in making sure immigration works.

    Also, why are just Muslims marginalised in Europe? why not the dirt poor Hindhus and Sikhs that emigrated from India along with the Muslims from Pakistan? Why not Britain’s growing Chinese community? Or its Eastern europeans? They didnt have a pot to piss in when they arrived. But they were willing to work and now they are doing well. Who keeps Muslims marginalised? The host country’s inherent racism or their ‘cult of the victim’?

  23. Pommy
    Actually there is a class element to a lot of this. A lot of the more employable Muslims from the Middle East went to the US first. I suspect these were the elites from places like Lebanon who followed the Christian Lebanese out when that place went to hell. In places like Germany you get all the guest workers. In the UK you get the village hicks from Pakistan. There is a high degree of cousin marriage among this lot. So it is a mixture of all this factors and not just the Muslim category – in short the Europeans and Brits aren’t getting the brightest of the lot who tend to move to the more free market meritocratic places like the US.

  24. Jim
    The Afghans are a classic confirmation of Pommy’s hypothesis in a way. This lot came over when Australia barely had a welfare state, much less any multi-culti bureaucracy. They had to scrabble for a living in the outback as I understand back when there was a wild wild west element in where they settled. They didn’t have the luxury of lying around stewing about the West.

  26. How can a nation’s laws “discriminate” against those who are not bound by that nation’s laws? Every single nation on earth runs a discriminatory immigration policy; otherwise there would be open borders.

  27. John

    Every single nation on earth runs a discriminatory immigration policy

    Yes, they do. But none (in the West) yet discriminate against a person’s religious beliefs. Principally, as i argued to Jim and Yobbo, because it would be impossible to enforce (people would just lie on their application forms).

    John – one of the core principles of libertarianism is tolerance of private religious belief.

    As Conrad and Jason have shown, better policing and less welfare would sort 90% of the problems out.

  28. Pommy

    The problem here is that Islam is not just a religion. Islam proudly, loudly, and explosively rejects the notion of religion and civil society being separate. I do not think of Sunni Muslims as “people of faith.” I consider them political agitators like Trotskyists.

    It is absolutely not impossible to run a discriminatory immigration policy. In the late 1980s and until 1996, the ALP tilted our immigration towards illiterate families of Lebanese Sunni Muslims, particularly from the Bekka Valley. Why? It suited ALP branchstacking dynamics. This has been reversed over the past decade to favour Asians particularly from India and China. This is a very wise adjustment.

  29. Actually I think India has largely open borders.

    I think the LDP immigration approach is pretty spot on. Open immigration with nations that are compatible (as we already have with New Zealand). The criteria for “compatible” should hinge around economic development, liberal democratic traditions and reciprocal access. For peoples from all other nations we should have a medical test, a criminal background check and a flat immigration tariff that is high enough to moderate the flow but low enough to let the talent in.

    I agree with Jason and Pommys comments about welfare. However I think Australia is handling welfare better than Europe. We also seem to rely less on public housing and we don’t create entire suburbs of public housing.

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  31. Jason I have just been going through some of this stuff, especially in relation to the relative success of the US in integrating Muslims as opposed to the European experience. Welfare seems to be a prominent factor.

    An immigrant to the States has to be prepared to make a go of it while in Europe there is the welfare state.

    One interesting reference I found was from The Council on Foreign Relations titled Europe’s Angry Muslims by Robert S. Leiken: –
    “the Netherlands welcomed tens of thousands of Muslim asylum seekers allegedly escaping persecution. Immigrants availed themselves of generous welfare and housing benefits, an affirmative-action hiring policy, and free language courses. Dutch taxpayers funded Muslim religious schools and mosques, and public television broadcast programs in Moroccan Arabic. Mohammed Bouyeri was collecting unemployment benefits when he murdered van Gogh.

    The van Gogh slaying rocked the Netherlands and neighboring countries not only because the victim, a provocative filmmaker, was a descendant of the painter Vincent, the Dutch’s most cherished icon, but also because Bouyeri was “an average second-generation immigrant,” according to Stef Blok, the chairman of the parliamentary commission reviewing Bouyeri’s immigration record.“

  32. I’m in favour of open immigration policies. Obviously security checks still need to be done and records still need to be kept.

    I really dislike Islamic culture, more than most people but I still am strongly in favour of open immigration.
    There are people such as Ali and others who are highly valuable to a country. People such as her may be shut out, if immigration towards Islamic people is reduced. People should be treated as individuals and not denied entry based on race/religious statistics on crime.

    Basically, I’d like to see governments give people the opportunity to make up their own mind on what’s the best place to live and work. This requires open immigration policies.

  33. Dear John G @ #28.

    I strongly agree with your view of how the immigration intake was skewed to service short term vested political agendas.

    I would simply make the observation from personal experience that many of the intake from the hills of Lebanon after the shambles of the civil war of whatever religious persuasion where clannish, ill suited rural folk minded to create ghettos of their own choice, and we are facing the consequences of this to this day.

  34. Pommy,

    I think some of the groups you are talking about who have done well but were poor to start off with support my view –since many of them essentially still hang out in their community and cause no-one any trouble (say, not unlike the Brits that go to Aus/HK/NZ and still try and be Brits — evidentally unlike you) — or at least some proportion do (obviously some assimilate. I assumue this is because it makes their life more enjoyable). I think therefore think that you are worrying about people that bother others, but it isn’t clear to me that is related to religion versus being a bunch of hicks as Jason points out (it’s easy to think of Muslim groups that don’t bother people). Similarly, in the case of France (somewhat different to the UK) its the second generation kids that are the bother, not the older religious adults, who tend to mind their own business. The probable reason they are marginalized is that they were poor start with, and they don’t have a hard work and high education culture like the groups that succeed. On this note I doubt if looked at poor whites (at least in Aus) and compared their children it would be much different — we just don’t notice this because they get distributed into the normal population. As a comparison, even dumb Chinese hicks would like their children to be doctors.

    Also, I think the government agrees with you — Australia does run a discrimantory immigration policy, as it deliberately skews the intake towards people “of our region” which suddenly became more skewed once people noted that some of the African groups were starting to bother people too much. In addition, most of the people come in on work visas, and no group of them have ended up as a bother group (not surprisingly).

  35. Aside from America being first choice for the best and brightest mohammedans, the US also has a strong culture of assimilation, expecting migrants to make the effort to fit in and adjust.
    I think Australia should do the same, being prepared to treat others as equals only if they do the same.

  36. I think thatAmerica being first choice for the best and brightest mohammedans Is because those who go there are those with a greater sense of initiative who are prepared to work to succeed. The ‘culture of assimilation’ doesn’t hurt either.

    Europe on the other hand will attract the sort of dropkicks who can expect to live better there without having to work for it owing to the welfare state.

    On Australia doing the same, yes I totally agree with you.

    Have a great and safe Easter mate.

  37. Jason

    Actually there is a class element to a lot of this.

    This observation is spot on. We must never discrimate according to culture/religion, but its open season on the poor. 😉 Of course discriminating on class grounds achieves the same ends of those who advocate discrimination on culture/religious grounds. 😉

  38. As Jason said, there is certainly a class element to it. The Muslim community in the United States, for example, is completely different, in every respect, to the community in the UK, Europe or, for that matter, Australia.

    The problem isn’t really the people though so much as that the entire system in these socialist European countries conspires to keep these ethnic and religious minorities poor, alienated and angry. Maybe if they dumped the welfare state and abolished their ridiculously rigid labour market policies that keep new entrants excluded, they might not have so many problems now or in the future.

  40. Is Wilders Movie Website, Network Solutions, Caving into Radical Islam?

    Website http://www.fitnathemovie.com/ is down: “This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation. For more information about Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy visit the following URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/aup.jsp“. Read more: http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-wilders-movie-website-network.html

    Muslims Against Sharia neither endorse nor condemn “Fitna”; we have not seen the film. However, we find it disturbing that Network Solution suspended “Fitna” website while hosting a multitude of radical Islamic websites, some of which belong to (or are closely affiliated with) terrorist groups.

  41. So… does this movie actually exist?

    Is there no movie? Is all the hype just to demonstrate how Muslims intimidate and threaten everyone who criticizes their creed, and how various institutions like the Dutch government and Network Solutions behave like the spineless cowards they are?

    If so… good job. You couldn’t have made a better example of the ugly reality that Western nations with Mohammedan populations face.

    Now that we know that Islam deals with us at the point of a gun… are we ready to make them our masters, or our enemies? (They leave us no third choice.)

  42. For all you folks commenting about the US… as an American, let me tell you why we don’t have the same Mohammedan problem you have.

    One, we simply don’t have as many. They act real nice up until they have the numbers to impose their will.

    But the big reason – and the big difference between us and you guys in Europe – is that we have 200 million firearms in private hands. They don’t fear your words or your human rights commissions, but they sure are familiar with the business end of a gun.

  47. freedom of xpression and freedom of speech is not at all
    bad but one should consider others emotions and feelings also bfor writing or creating anything

  49. Because geert wilder is a liar.

    Micheal van der exposes geert wilder video “Fitna” as a propaganda lie, a one sided war stirring stupid video.

    Please read.

    http://poligazette.com/2008/03/28/two-reviews-of-fitna/#more-3853

    It shows how geert wilders is a liar and deceieving people with this one sided video that only narrow minded people would be gullible enough to fall for it.

    Can you blame muslims for getting annoyed with this idiot stirring and using our quran out of context, using hand picked verses misinterperating them on purpose and twisting thier true meaning to incite hatred towards muslims?

    Not all of us muslims are terrorists we are meant to be about peaceful. Funny how geert wilder forgot to quote our peaceful passages and only quotes our passages where we are merely given the option to kill non muslims in SELF DEFENCE. Yeah Funny he forgot to mention that we are only allowed to kill non muslim in self defence.

    The video is bull and geert wilders is a war monger.
    (If anybody disagrres with me then please read the link I posted it shows the video in great detail on how it is a scam and lie.

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  52. i just logged in and saw comments of folks on my post FITNA:THE MOVIE(ACTION & REACTION)
    i appreciate all of your comments but i would like to answer one question by that yes muslims do take ownership of propagating wrong customs that are not at all part of islam and this is one of the biggest reason why people in the world are unable to view muslims abd their holy book in their original context

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