RELIGION: Dutch Anti-Islam Film Goes Public

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Irene de Vette

ROTTERDAM, Mar 28 2008 (IPS) - Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders finally posted his 16-minute film against Islam on the web Thursday evening. The film ‘Fitna’, long controversial ahead of its release, appears less incendiary than expected, commentators say, but can be seen as provocation nonetheless.

Wilders said his film posted on the site Liveleak was not intended as provocation but as “final warning”. After refusing all debate before the release of the film, Wilders said he hoped it would lead to a discussion “about the harms and dangers of Islam.”

To dramatic music, the film quotes ‘suras’, verses from the Quran, in sequence with harrowing images of terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid, and the murder scene of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. There are also shots of radical Muslims making a call to violence against non-Muslims.

The second part is about the Netherlands, and projects Wilders’ scenario for the country’s future, with images of gays being hanged, women being executed, and of children smeared in blood.

The film approaches its end with the shot of a hand turning a page of the Quran, followed by a black screen, with the sound of paper being ripped. Words appear saying: “The sound you heard was a page being removed from the phonebook. For it is not up to me, but for Muslims themselves to tear out the hateful verses from the Quran.”

The film ends with the words “Stop Islamisation. Defend our freedom.”

Fitna, which can be translated as ‘strife’, begins and ends with the Danish cartoon depicting the head of prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The last images imply an explosion of this bomb.

Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has complained about copyright infringement. He doesn’t want his cartoon used for right-wing political ends, he wrote in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

On behalf of the Dutch government, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said “the film equates Islam with violence. We reject this interpretation. The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence. In fact, the victims are often also Muslims.”

Balkenende said the government regretted the film’s release, because he said its sole purpose is to offend. He also said the government was pleased with the restrained reactions of Dutch Muslim organisations.

Before the film’s release, the government had issued serious warnings about possible repercussions. Ambassadors in Islamic countries were on alert, and national safety precautions had been taken. “We wanted to be prepared for any possible scenario,” Balkenende said in reply to a question whether these worries may have been too grave.

The government’s National Crisis Centre reported a calm situation Thursday evening and through the night. Foreign newspapers reported matter-of-factly, and with restraint. Dutch mosques opened to the public as usual Friday.

After the U.S. provider for the film’s official website decided against the release, Wilders was able to show ‘Fitna’ through LiveLeak, a website that aims to be an unbiased platform for freedom of speech, even for previously unseen material.

“There are undoubtedly better ways to spark a discussion, but this film is now out there and we believe we should all grasp this opportunity to create an open dialogue and discussion on this subject,” a statement on the website says.

LiveLeak was down for a while right after the release, but soon after millions of people accessed the film, which has both a Dutch and an English version. Hackers keep attempting to attack LiveLeak’s content.

The Public Prosecution Department is currently investigating whether the film contains unlawful material. Wilders has called Fitna a “decent” film that stays within the law.

In a reaction to the film, Islamologist Rinske Boersma told IPS, “Wilders has been stigmatising Islam and Muslims, and does so again in this film. By using text, images and citations, he creates a very shocking image that does not match the reality.

“At some point the film shows a little child who seems to be covered in blood, in the arms of his smiling mother. This is a scene in a religious ritual to commemorate the death of a saint. But without knowledge about this ritual it can be easily used to portray this negative image of Islam that Wilders seeks.”

Also, she said, the quotations from the Quran Wilders uses “are isolated from the broader context, and manipulated to illustrate his message. For example, Wilders uses ‘to strike terror’ in his translation of Sura 8:60, whereas the translation ‘to scare’ is more widely used. This choice gives the words an entirely different charge in our time, which agrees better with Wilders’ message.

“Continue reading these Suras, and you’ll see it also talks about peace,” she added.

“The film is a compilation of familiar images. It brings us nothing new and it certainly doesn’t bring us a step forward,” said Mohammed Essafi, a manager at a consultancy company and initiator of a network of Dutch-Moroccan young professionals.

“You would expect a politician to come with solutions. We don’t deny that there are certain problems with Muslims here. But we’re working on a future in which we all work together to solve them.”

“This film doesn’t depict our Islam. These are terrible images that any right-minded Muslim denounces,” Fouad Sidali, chair of the National Council for the Moroccan Community in the Netherlands told IPS. “It is awful how it implies that the one million Dutch Muslims here are no better than extremists.”

“Let’s not talk only about this film, but about how we all responded to it,” Salima Belhaj, chairwoman of political party D66 in the Rotterdam city council told IPS. “If there is unrest in society, and there is someone who wants to raise this, let’s really see if that person has another interest than just an opportunistic one. The whole debate is now about players and groups, and not about real people any more.”

“Average Muslims don’t recognise themselves at all in this film,” said Job Cohen, mayor of Amsterdam on the news programme NOVA. “It’s not about stopping Islam, it’s about stopping the extremes in Islam. We didn’t need this film for that.”