Comments on: The real Fitna

By: George Carty

George Carty — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:59:44 +0000

Anyone here seen Schism?

By: iproctor

iproctor — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:20:36 +0000

Living in Amsterdam, I see that Wilders tends to be very good at manipulating the media, getting most journalists to think they've got a scoop, so they print his outrageous statements all the time. Go to http://www.nrc.nl/international/ for good-quality English language stories on the issues from a Dutch newspaper.

By: DrM

DrM — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:11:59 +0000

I see the usual suspects are at it again : zionists and like little shabbos goy neo-nazi underlings. Anybody using bogus words like “dhimmitude”(invented by the jewish extremist nutter Bat Yeor) obviously suffers from servile goyitude. Both groups support terrorism against Muslims, while their own war criminal storm troopers run rampant all over the world. Beheading are bad, killing 1000000 Iraqis is no big deal. Standard European logic 101. Too bad most Dutch and their supporters are too mentally deficient and xenophobic to see that self-described Mossad asset Wilders is talking them on a ride.

By: Shem the Penman

Shem the Penman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:26:23 +0000

I’m not Muslim, but my gut reaction to extreme Islamophobic propaganda is “better dhimmi than génocidaire”…

A false choice, and entirely dependent on your following a religion that islam allows to accept dhimmitude anyway. Otherwise the choice is génocidaire or génocidais.

By: Thersites

Thersites — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:17:31 +0000

Omar Bakri probably goes wherever he’d get most comfort and attention. Libya is probably a better bet than Lebanon now. Or perhaps the FT’s correspondents are geographically challenged. All the same, the violent interpretations of the quran are just as islamically valid as the peaceful ones and were dominant for much longer periods of history.

By: Indigo Jo

Indigo Jo — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:53:20 +0000

Last thing I heard, Omar Bakri is based in Lebanon, not Libya. Libya is a tightly-controlled country which does not tolerate Islamist radicals or any other serious challenge to Qaddafi’s regime.

Anyway, his comment is typical of him, but I am not writing to defend his so-called mujahideen anyway, but the Muslims generally.

By: Thersites

Thersites — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:58:19 +0000

The film does have muslim fans, however: "Omar Bakri, the Libyan-based radical Muslim cleric who is barred from Britain, did not think the film was very offensive. "On the contrary, if we leave out the first images and the sound of the page being torn, it could be a film by the [Islamist] Mujahideen," he said. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/98612766-fd33-11dc-961e-000077b07658.html

By: wlf

wlf — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:54:34 +0000

You condemn the film Fitna for showing muslims who believe in violent interpretations of the qur’an and commit senseless acts of violence. Yet all I see in the newspapers or on TV are muslims threatening senseless acts of violence over this film. You state, “For a start, only a small minority interpret the verses Wilders cites to justify the acts depicted; the majority of muslims in the world simply do not behave like this and mainstream scholars reject such interpretations.” Yet where are the hundreds of thousands or millions marching in the streets condemning the actions of this “small minority” and demanding that they be arrested and pay the penalty for obviously blaspheming the qur’an? Instead we hear is silence or words couched to make it sound to westerners that these actions make you feel uncomfortable.

“in the section on women there are images of girls who have just undergone genital mutilation, which most Muslims do not practise.” Why is it practiced at all? Are moslem men so afraid of female sexuality that they must mutilate a young girl to protect the men from it? Why are men who practice female genital mutilation not tried and condemned to stoning? Women who are raped or gang raped are condemned to death by stoning for adultery, by all accounts adultery is consensual, rape is not.

“but really risking one’s life is only virtuous if it is for something good.” Why should Wilders life be on the line? No one has shown specifically where Wilders is wrong, only vague generalities of insulting islam. The book and movie “The Da Vinci Code”, is grievously insulting to all christians, the very idea on writing a book or making a film totally lacking in any facts just vague assumptions calling into question the divinity of christ is far more insulting to christians then making some sophomoric cartoons of a prophet. Based on the reactions one would think mohammed was regarded more highly than allah. Yet the author and the producer of the film “The Da Vinci Code” are not living in fear of their lives afraid that a mob of howling christians will kill them.

It appears the point of the film was not to “just to bad-mouth an entire religion” but to shine a critical spotlight on islam and allow people to ask critical questions about islam (such as, why is sura 9:5 still believed by all moslems?). Once people (including moslems) can be as critical of the qur’an as they are of the bible then movies like Fitna will not have to be made.

By: Indigo Jo

Indigo Jo — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:49:25 +0000

In reply to Mo:

The point is that the film stereotyped Muslims by offering the worst examples of the behaviour of a minority, not that no Muslims ever behave like this. So, we all knew that this film would provoke anger and that there would be threats, but it does not mean that these people were right, Islamically, to issue them. (They could also have been idle threats, and some of them could have been from Wilders’s supporters trying to stir up sympathy.)

By: Jakester

Jakester — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:53:11 +0000

Funny Muslims all aroound the world should rally and condemn this film, but when state run TV networks and papers in Muslim countries run anti-Semitic propaganda worthy of Nazis, no protest at all. Or when the barbarians in the Sudan kill millions trying to impose sharia’h, Muslims band together in solidarity to protect the Sudan from “crusaders and zionists”. If you hate this kind of stuff so much, clean up your own houses before you lay your phony rap on us.