Ayaan Hirsi Ali is targeting the Dutch government for its incompetent handling of Geert Wilder’s documentary Fitna.
In an interview with Jyllands-Posten she criticizes the government for having tried to stop a movie that it hadn’t seen, a movie that it denounced without knowing its content and a movie that had the government prepare evacuation plans for its citizens in the Muslim world.
”The Dutch government is behaving as if it thinks Muslims are wild animals out of control. The movie doesn’t expose Muslims, it exposes a government that is patronizing all Muslims. What kind of message does that send to Muslims?” asks Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
”After having heard about the film the government should have said: We do not have an opinion until the movie is released, and then left it at that.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali doesn’t expect strong reactions among Muslims in Europe because it’s difficult to find new blasphemeous images in the film. The majority of Muslims know about Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban that is featured in the film.
”The film will provoke and challenge many Muslims, but provocations are for the good. They move things. Personally, I am relieved that he didn’t burn the Koran or tear it apart. I disagree with Wilders politically. He wants to ban the Koran, but that’s the worst you can do. I want to fight for his right to make this movive, but he himself ought to fight for other people’s right to say and believe in something different.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali thinks that a far more controversial cartoon animation is in the making in the Netherlands. The apostate and former member of the Social Democratic party Ehsan Jami is preparing an animation about the violent and oppressive character of the prophet Muhammed. According to reports from the Netherlands the movie will depict Muhammed with an erection in the company of a six year old girl.
”If the Dutch government wants to concern itself with movies, this should be it. It may cause a tsunami of reactions in Europe and the rest of the world.”
Geert Wilder’s 15 minutes movie about violence committed in the name of Islam is out. It’s like a home video or oped in the newspaper. Due to intimidation Denmark’s Public tv refused to show any pictures from the film.
Fitna is made of documentary shots from 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, threatening, discriminating and racist claims by Muslims and all episodes are linked by quotes from the Koran.
A lot of people have been up in arms because Wilders is making the point that the Koran contains fascist passages. What’s so controversial about that?
In 1939 Karen Blixen, the celebrated Danish author publishing under the pseudonym Isaak Dinesen in English, compared Islam to Nazism. During a visit to Berlin she wrote in Letters from a Country at War:
”Has there ever been anything like The Third Reich? Of the phenomena I have encountered through my life Islam, the Muslim world and the Muslim world view come closest. The word Islam means submission and appearently that’s what the Third Reich is saying by its show of hands: I am Yours in life and death.”
And later:
”Like Nazism the Muslim world view is informed by an immense arrogance and pride: The orthodox believer is above all infidels, one orthodox soul is of more value than all the gold in the world. Islam in its essense destroys all classes as the Third Reich does. Muslims no matter if they are emirs or second-ranking people are equally good. There’s a strong team spirit and readiness to help one another – one has to give up 10 pct. of his fortune to Muslims in need, and it’s not charity, it’s a debt you pay. The rituals of Islam are similar to The Third Reich: Orthodox believers do not have time to turn into strangers to one another. Some things in (Hitler’s) Mein Kampf are similar to chapters in the Koran.”
(Karen Blixen: Collected Essays)
Is that controversial?
What’s really controversial is that Wilders as an elected member of parliament is being threatened because he is critical of a religious ideology.
Rangin Dadfar Spantan , Afghanistan’s minister of foreign affairs, didn’t mince words at a press conference in Copenhagen this week.
”Killder-pictures! Killer-words!” he said on Monday about the republishing of the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammed by 17 Danish papers after Danish police had foiled a plot to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb fuse in his turban.
”I condemn in every possible way that the right to free speech is being used to insult one billion Muslims. It’s a result of islamophobia. Instead we need to use our right to free speech to enlighten our people and promote cultural dialogue that is being threathenend by two kinds of extremists: Those fighting on the battle field and those who are sitting behind their desks.”
He was comparing the Taleban to me and other editors in the Danish press and sounded like a commissar from a Soviet puppet regime. What does he know about a billion Muslims’ feelings?
Let me remind you that Mr. Spantan spent 20 years in Germany as a refugee from the Soviet occupation. He was a professor of political science at the university of Achen, and used to be an active member of the Green Party before he returned to his native country three years ago. So this is a man who should know better.
Fortunately, Denmark’s minister of foreign affairs Per Stig Moeller, didn’t let this kind of stupidity pass unnoticed.
”It’s difficult for me to put Danish soldiers’ life in danger in order to support a government where one is at risk to be condemned to death for values that we believe to be an inseparate part of democracy and the modern world.”
Denmark has several hundred soldiers in Afghanistan and a few have lost their life.
Erik Abild Soerensen, one of the 12 cartoonists that back in 2005 contributed to Jyllands-Postens cartoons of the prophet Muhammed has died at the age of 89.
Mr. Soerensen worked for Jyllands-Posten from 1938 until 1985. He was educated at an private art school and became a staff cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten in 1956. The Muhammed cartoon was the last published work in a career that spanned half a century. It was published under the caption: “Prophet! Daft and dumb. Keeping women under thumb.”
As a consequence of the death threats against the cartoonists Danish police showed up at Mr. Soerensen’s apartment in Aarhus offering security instructions. Soerensen replied:
”I have passed the age of 85, I am sick and I have just lost my wife. Can it get worse? I don’t think so.”
Last Friday the authorities in Berlin closed an exhibition showing posters by the Danish art group Surrend after angry Muslims had made their way into Gallery North in Berlin and threatened violence if one of the 21 posters wasn’t removed.
The poster shows the sacred stone of Mecca, the Kaaba, with the inscription Stupid Stone It’s part of an art project titled Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) referring to the wide spread conspiracy theory saying that Zionists are in control of everything in the world from politics to economics. The exhibition carries two posters commenting on the Muslim World.
Let me add on a personal note: It’s widely believed in the Muslim world that I am Jewish and that the publication of the Muhammed cartoons was part of a conspiracy involving myself and Daniel Pipes. The imams driving the protests in Denmark against the cartoons are convinced that Jyllands-Posten is owned by Jewish interest.
None of this is actually true.
Says Jan Egesborg, the male half of the artistic duo Surrend:
”Zog is a theory that is very much alive in the Arab world.”
Commenting on the threat of violence he added to Der Spiegel on line:
”It was an explosive situation. We don’t want to be part of the current Islamophobic tendency in Europe. We weren’t trying to provoke Muslims.”
”We could not make good satirical art about the ZOG theme without making fun of radical Islam.”
Using the term ”Islamophobic” wasn’t smart. The word means fear of Islam, and to express dislike and fear of a set of ideas one don’t like or want to challenge has nothing to do with discrimination.
The exhibition that is scheduled to run until the end of March reopens tomorrow at 2 pm.
”We have just received information about the reopening and we are very happy,” said Jan Egesborg.
Earlier today he was furious. Contrary to promises by the authorities it wasn’t clear at all whether the exhibition would reopen.
”It’s a scandal and a huge defeat for artistic freedom in Germany and Europe. It sends the scary message that a mob of angry people has the power to close down an exhibition,” Surrend said.
In 2006 the Deutsche Oper in Berlin cancelled Mozart’s opera Idomeneo out of fear for protests against a scene showing the chopped off head of Muhammed side by side with heads of Jesus and Buddha.
Surrend has a record of satirical stunts directed at authoritarian leaders like Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
The Kaaba is the Black Stone, also called al-Hajar-ul-Aswad, which is believed by some Muslims to date back to the time of Adam and Eva. It is about 30 cm (12 inches) in diameter, is located on the Eastern corner of the Kaaba, and is surrounded by a silver frame. When Muslims come to Mecca to perform the Hajj, one of the tasks which they try to accomplish is to kiss the Black Stone, as Muhammad once kissed it. Tradition has it that the Black Stone was white when it came to earth, subsequently turning black under the burden of peoples’ sins. According to the Qur’an, the Kaaba was built by Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ismail (Ishmael). Islamic traditions assert that the Kaaba “reflects” a house in heaven that was first built by the first man, Adam.
When Muhammad conquered Mecca, he destroyed the 360 idols around Kaaba which the Meccan pagans possessed. There was one god for each day of the year. While destroying each idol, Muhammad recited which says “Truth has arrived and falsehood has perished for falsehood is by its nature bound to perish.” Muhammad then entered the Kaaba and ordered all the pictures to be destroyed.
