PrintJanuary 24, 2009
Geert Wilders, European Islam and Fitna
"The film equates Islam with violence. We reject that interpretation,"
- The Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
When Geert Wilders released the film FITNA it terrified the government of the Netherlands who hoped to minimize any violent reaction by its restive Muslim immigrants and refugees by loudly condemning it. The film is a 15-minute indictment of Islamic radicalism intended as a warning of the unchecked radicalism infecting European Islam. Now Mr. Wilders is being prosecuted for "inciting hate" a charge unlikely to be leveled at the Imams that preach hatred and violence in that small country.
The many terror attacks the world has suffered in the years since 9-11 were not perpetrated by Lutherans, Catholics or members of the Dutch Reformed Church. The politically correct stubbornness found in western democracies insists it is not Islam, just a tiny minority of misguided radicals that perpetrate violence. However, saying something does not make it so, no matter how endlessly it is repeated. It is not a matter of "interpretation," of the Koran, it is a matter of evidence and truth; Islam too often brings violence.
Holland is a case in point. Decades of naïve multiculturalism, generous handouts and easy asylum for "Muslim refugees" has made Holland a land of two incompatible belief systems, Islam and 21st century socialist humanism. Islam has become the largest active religion in Holland, its churches draw a fraction of the attendance that its mosques do. Its timid government is held hostage by the threat of violence, implicit in its Muslim citizens' reaction to any criticism, however mild. Native Dutch birthrates are low compared to Muslim immigrants, who do not encourage abortion and do not start families late in life.
The Dutch Prime Minister and its judiciary reject free speech, which is not surprising; the Netherlands may be the first European country to allow Shari'a law to compete with national courts. They may not have a choice if all the voices of dissent are silenced. While the Dutch see themselves as eminently civilized and able to negotiate and appease conflict away, their country is stolen from under them, Muslim immigrant populations have skyrocketed and Imams increasing call for the beating of women and the killing of gays and all the 7th century brutality that is Islamic orthodoxy.
Last October a Muslim radical attacked and seriously wounded two police officers with a knife in the city of Amsterdam. One officer was able to get off a shot, which killed the attacker. That officer nearly died. The event touched off days of riots and car burnings. Moroccan residents, blind to the irony claimed they were upset at being "stigmatized" as violent. The attacker, a member of a radical group with a long criminal record shouted "Allah Akbar" as he attacked. The fact that he was shot by a female officer did not help matters. The Dutch press avoided any mention of Islamic radicalism. The government-spun tales of disadvantaged youth, mental illness and economic inequities to distract the citizenry and like the French, deftly side stepped an increasingly insurmountable problem.
Islam has been eating away at the Netherlands for decades. Its sway is far out of proportion to its population. It demands special treatment and gets it. The government fears them, they know it, and exploit that fear at every turn. Influential Dutchmen who speak out against Muslim violence toward women, such as Theo Van Gogh or Pim Fortuyn are murdered in the street. Outspoken critics of Islam such as parliamentarian Ayan Hirsi Ali are hounded out of the country by a combination of intimidation and government cowardice. Residents in her apartment building asked for her to move after death threats were made. They did not feel safe. Perhaps the cowardice is cultural.
Europe is being methodically Islamicized. The steady undermining of the rule of law and democratic institutions by Islamic supremacists attempts to create two separate societies, with Islam preeminent. The intrinsic multicultural tolerance of nations like Holland and Belgium is turned against them. Islam is a bully, and the endless concessions to its hypersensitive self-image inevitably go unrewarded. The naive tolerance of Holland's government is seen as a weakness, one gleefully exploited. Islam does not share the Dutch humanist ideology, an ideology that has transformed from a primrose path to utopia into a suicidal pathology.
The holy book of Islam calls for violence on many of its pages, it does not matter that words on other pages do not. The chapter and verse debates with apologists is a waste of time, context and nuance do not change the obvious problem. Misogyny, pedophilia and genocidal hatred can also be found in Muslim scriptures. They are not considered metaphors. Too many Muslims act on them.
"I condemn, in the strongest terms, the airing of Geert Wilders' offensively anti-Islamic film. There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here. I acknowledge the efforts of the Government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of this film, and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the film FITNA
The UN General Secretary, as usual, had it exactly backwards. His muddle-headed leftism supports censorship to appease a violent minority, with no expectation of social responsibility. When does the accusation of "incitement" translate into intimidation and extortion? At the point where free speech is silenced by threats, when incitement is defined as any criticism, however logical. When our standards of freedom, free expression and reason are overturned, how then can free nations survive?
Wilders film does not incite violence, the Dutch are eminently peaceful, he merely points out the root cause of violence and Islam provides the rest. The insistence that the Koran does not encourage violence is absurd. Of course it does, one merely has to tally the recorded acts of terror worldwide since 9-11 to see that unfortunate fact. The numbers do not lie. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim is the harsh reality that has to be addressed, not ignored.
The outrage about this film is an inarticulate shout born of a belief system trying to disguise its innate depravity and hide its hypocrisy. We cannot fight what we do not understand, and we cannot understand unless we examine more than the propaganda of Islamic apologists and their useful idiots. The film asks us to see a truth too many people, and too many governments simply ignore. It starts an important discussion, it demands debate, it holds Islam up to standards we once thought universal for a civilized people.
Geert Wilders says nothing in the film that is not true, nor does he make any unsupportable accusation. He is a man watching his nation and his culture slowly strangled. Making FITNA was an act of bravery and love of country, which has put Geert Wilders in mortal peril. It is a desperate rallying cry that may well be too late.
"So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam." - Qur'an 8:39
