Anti-Islamic film fails to spark violent protests
By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin
Last Updated: 1:12am GMT 29/03/2008
The release of a provocative new film equating Islam with violence has failed to spark major unrest, despite the concerns voiced by Western security agencies.
Bruno Waterfield: No ban on Dutch MP's anti-Islam film
Dutch MP Geert Wilders's film Fitna, which translates as strife in Arabic, features images from the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and opens with a Danish cartoon of the prophet Mohammed which has prompted riots in the past.
Dutch Right-wing MP Geert Wilders claimed Islam sought world domination
In the run-up to the film's release Dutch intelligence agencies had raised the terror threat to "substantial".
But while Indonesia, Pakistan and Iran all strongly condemned the film in official statements, there appeared to be little widespread popular outrage in the Muslim world.
However, the violent reaction in the Middle East and beyond after the 2005 publication in Denmark of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam took months to develop.
The release of Fitna has come just days before Germany stages the first ever dramatised performance of British author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.
The book was condemned by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini on its release two decades ago, and Mr Rushdie was forced to live in hiding for nine years.
German authorities say there will be a heavy police presence at the theatre on Sunday night.
Like Mr Rushdie, the Danish artist who pictured Mohammed with a bomb nestling in his turban has also been forced into hiding.
advertisementBut Kurt Westergaard has distanced himself from the new film and has said he will sue for breach of copyright over the unauthorised use of his cartoon in it. He said his cartoon was a critique of terrorism, not a generalised attack on Islam.
"I will not accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one," he said.
The Dutch government has also acted swiftly to condemn ‘Fitna' and praised the calls for calm issued by an Islamic association in the Netherlands.
"We call on them [fellow Muslims] to follow our strategy and not react with attacks on Dutch embassies or tourists," said the head of the Dutch Moroccan National Council, Mohamed Rabbae.
"An attack on the Netherlands is an attack on us."
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, described the response of Muslim in the Netherlands as "dignified". The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon also attacked the film.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the airing of Geert Wilders' offensively anti-Islamic film," he said in a statement.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free speech is not at stake here."
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
Showing posts with label Holland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holland. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wilders anti-Islam film is pathetic & shallow
No ban on Dutch MP's anti-Islam film
Posted by Bruno Waterfield on 27 Mar 2008 at 23:50
Tags: Islam, Multiculturalism, Free Speech, Geert Wilders, fitna
Geert Wilders, an eccentric and right-wing Dutch MP, has posted his anti-Islam film on the internet. This childish attempt to shock should not be banned. His infantile film, which mutually flatters both Islamist extremists and the self-proclaimed defenders of Western civilisation, such as Mr Wilders, is pathetic, not dangerous.
Warning: do not take Geert Wilders too seriously
Mr Wilders has not set out to have a serious debate on Islam or Islamism or immigration or multiculturalism or the future of the West. All he wants to do is offend and shock. For some strange reason everyone seems to be playing into his hands.
With all its overblown imagery, Fitna, the 15-minute film made by Mr Wilders, is fundamentally about his own self-conceit. He, like many of the Islamic extremists and nutters he features, confuse his own hysterical tantrum with profundity. If his film, or rather the response to it, contains one message for Western societies it is simply: “Grow up.”
Free speech should remain free and it should be up to us as adults, not the state, to make up our own minds. Because we are grown up we can work out for ourselves that childish posturing, such as that in this film, is not serious enough to warrant a ban, or all the fuss.
Amongst other things, Mr Wilders uses his 15 minutes of fame to give much play to comparisons between Islamism and the Nazis. Intercut with images from July 7 bombings in London are pictures of the placards of protesting Islamist radicals. “Be prepared for the real holocaust,” is the slogan held by a woman in a black burqa. Another carries a placard saying “God bless Hitler.”
Other crazy clerics and cranks boast throughout the film about how Islam is going to rule the US, Europe and Britain. The film ends with a stark message. “In 1945 Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989 Communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.”
Does Mr Wilders really believe that these losers, misfits and swivel-eyed loons (dangerous and unpredictable as they can be) are going to achieve global domination? Or that they, as they themselves claim, represent one of the world religions, hundreds of millions of Muslims? Can these sad, marginalised bigots really be equated with the militarism and resources of the German state, one of the most powerful in the world, which in the 1930s unleashed the Holocaust?
Of course not, for to do so would make us as ludicrous and infantile as Mr Wilders and the Islamo-fantasists. This is all perverse and dangerous mutual flattery, a vicious spiral of self-conceited, self-centred claims for importance. The Islamo-nutters really believe they can topple Western civilisation with their nihilism. Mr Wilders is truly convinced he stands alone against the Muslim barbarian horde that is about to sweep through Europe. Similarly, the posting of this film on the internet is not the beginning of an Islamophobic movement comparable to the racism of the Nazis that led to the Holocaust, as some Muslims and Amsterdam’s Jewish mayor have claimed.
Taking this stuff too seriously is the real danger. Even before this film was aired there was a tantrum of protests from Muslim groups and grim opining from Mr Wilders about the Islamic threat. Playing into the hands of the provocateurs, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, last month warned of a “national crisis”. Security services, the Foreign ministry and police have drawn up secret plans, including the evacuation of Dutch nationals from Islamic countries, amid fears of violent protests at home and abroad. At an EU summit two weeks ago, leaders, including Gordon Brown, were told of preparations for a repeat of the global anti-Western backlash that followed the publication of Danish cartoons mocking the Islamic prophet Mohammed two years ago.
Now, this is the kind of febrile climate which really is dangerous, and in all of the over-hyped reaction and counter-reaction that could follow Mr Wilders' movie we should not lose our grip on reality. None of the heat surrounding this film will shed light on the important questions. All of the hysterics are a distraction from facing up to the real threats to tolerance and a free society today. It is time to have a grown-up debate.
Posted by Bruno Waterfield on 27 Mar 2008 at 23:50
Tags: Islam, Multiculturalism, Free Speech, Geert Wilders, fitna
Geert Wilders, an eccentric and right-wing Dutch MP, has posted his anti-Islam film on the internet. This childish attempt to shock should not be banned. His infantile film, which mutually flatters both Islamist extremists and the self-proclaimed defenders of Western civilisation, such as Mr Wilders, is pathetic, not dangerous.
Warning: do not take Geert Wilders too seriously
Mr Wilders has not set out to have a serious debate on Islam or Islamism or immigration or multiculturalism or the future of the West. All he wants to do is offend and shock. For some strange reason everyone seems to be playing into his hands.
With all its overblown imagery, Fitna, the 15-minute film made by Mr Wilders, is fundamentally about his own self-conceit. He, like many of the Islamic extremists and nutters he features, confuse his own hysterical tantrum with profundity. If his film, or rather the response to it, contains one message for Western societies it is simply: “Grow up.”
Free speech should remain free and it should be up to us as adults, not the state, to make up our own minds. Because we are grown up we can work out for ourselves that childish posturing, such as that in this film, is not serious enough to warrant a ban, or all the fuss.
Amongst other things, Mr Wilders uses his 15 minutes of fame to give much play to comparisons between Islamism and the Nazis. Intercut with images from July 7 bombings in London are pictures of the placards of protesting Islamist radicals. “Be prepared for the real holocaust,” is the slogan held by a woman in a black burqa. Another carries a placard saying “God bless Hitler.”
Other crazy clerics and cranks boast throughout the film about how Islam is going to rule the US, Europe and Britain. The film ends with a stark message. “In 1945 Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989 Communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.”
Does Mr Wilders really believe that these losers, misfits and swivel-eyed loons (dangerous and unpredictable as they can be) are going to achieve global domination? Or that they, as they themselves claim, represent one of the world religions, hundreds of millions of Muslims? Can these sad, marginalised bigots really be equated with the militarism and resources of the German state, one of the most powerful in the world, which in the 1930s unleashed the Holocaust?
Of course not, for to do so would make us as ludicrous and infantile as Mr Wilders and the Islamo-fantasists. This is all perverse and dangerous mutual flattery, a vicious spiral of self-conceited, self-centred claims for importance. The Islamo-nutters really believe they can topple Western civilisation with their nihilism. Mr Wilders is truly convinced he stands alone against the Muslim barbarian horde that is about to sweep through Europe. Similarly, the posting of this film on the internet is not the beginning of an Islamophobic movement comparable to the racism of the Nazis that led to the Holocaust, as some Muslims and Amsterdam’s Jewish mayor have claimed.
Taking this stuff too seriously is the real danger. Even before this film was aired there was a tantrum of protests from Muslim groups and grim opining from Mr Wilders about the Islamic threat. Playing into the hands of the provocateurs, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, last month warned of a “national crisis”. Security services, the Foreign ministry and police have drawn up secret plans, including the evacuation of Dutch nationals from Islamic countries, amid fears of violent protests at home and abroad. At an EU summit two weeks ago, leaders, including Gordon Brown, were told of preparations for a repeat of the global anti-Western backlash that followed the publication of Danish cartoons mocking the Islamic prophet Mohammed two years ago.
Now, this is the kind of febrile climate which really is dangerous, and in all of the over-hyped reaction and counter-reaction that could follow Mr Wilders' movie we should not lose our grip on reality. None of the heat surrounding this film will shed light on the important questions. All of the hysterics are a distraction from facing up to the real threats to tolerance and a free society today. It is time to have a grown-up debate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
