By now I imagine most readers of this site have seen Fitna – Dutch PM’s Geert Wilders’ controversial take on Islam and the Koran. If not, it’s here. I gather several million people have looked at it by now and it’s going viral.
I have watched it twice, once in Dutch (which I of course do not speak) and once in English. I found it better than I expected it to be, an effective fifteen minutes of propaganda. I don’t mean the pejoratively. Fifteen minutes on a subject as vast and complicated as the Koran could only be propaganda. But I found it powerful. Of course the statistics on the growth of Islam in Europe are alone enough to generate a strong reaction, even if you already know them, as most of us do.
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6 Comments
1. Jamie Irons:Roger,
To me the piece was powerful, but in an odd way almost restrained. Wilders’ seemed to be going out of his way to be fair to the jihadists; the muezzin’s chanting of the Koran verses sounded eerily beautiful juxtaposed with the ranting of imams and the hideous violence of the jihadis.
There certainly is nothing there that to my mind is in any way “controversial.”
Jamie Irons
Mar 27, 2008 - 11:18 pm 2. wayne:A fine production; very powerful. It is controversial only in the odd world of politics, where lying can get you in trouble, but telling the truth can get you into much greater trouble.
Mar 28, 2008 - 5:36 am 3. valjean:Roger,
Thank you for the link. Very well done, I think — on a fairly limited budget — and a good reminder what we in the West are facing.
I especially enjoyed the “cartoon” inclusion; I fully expect that’s what is upsetting the jihadists the most.
Mar 28, 2008 - 2:17 pm 4. ElMondo:And now it’s been taken down:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/28/fitna.reaction/index.html
Quote:
“LiveLeak.com said in a statement Friday that it decided to remove the film a day after it was posted “following threats to our staff of a very serious nature.”
That pisses me off in thousands of different ways. Make a film that truly insults any other religion – say, Catholicism – and you have practically no fears of general violence; maybe you have a small amount from a deranged individual somewhere, but not a general backlash.
Make one pointing out truths about Islam, and you don’t get dialogue in response, you get this crap.
Mar 28, 2008 - 7:59 pm 5. napy8gen:The understanding of Quran and when the certain verses and chapter revealed and overall meaning of it is important. not just cut and paste one verse, as such this movie fitna does. If you read an-nisa verse 89, then you should read verse 90 too.If you read an-nisa verse 56 you should read verse 55 too..so you get wider view.
Apr 1, 2008 - 10:05 am 6. napy8gen:The understanding of Quran and when the certain verses and chapter revealed and overall meaning of it is important. not just cut and paste one verse, as such this movie fitna does. If you read an-nisa verse 89, then you should read verse 90 too.If you read an-nisa verse 56 you should read verse 55 too..so you get wider view.
Apr 1, 2008 - 10:06 am