Dutch politician Geert Wilders, released his Islam-critic short-film Fitna, on the Internet earlier today. I finished watching it about an hour ago, and I just watched a TV debate about the film. One of the people on there, essentially called it a very very mediocre clip show. I won’t go so far as to call it very very mediocre, but it’s definitely a clipshow and not that great a clipshow.
OK, so I’ve seen the film, watched some debates, and thought a little bit about it. So what do I think? Well, it’s very easy to state a clear opinion with very few words, and I think I have found something which former dictator of People’s Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong have said, that I can agree with: “Religion is poison”.
People will probably accuse Geert Wilders for inciting hate or racism (You’re an idiot if you see racism in what he says!), however I don’t quite agree. Based on interviews with him that i have watched, I’d say he simply demonstrates how dangerous the Islamic ideology is, when it’s interpreted literally, which a fairly vocal minority seems to do. An argument against the film, which I heard on TV, was that the verse of the Quran being show are taken out of context. But you know, THAT is irrelevant, the fact that hateful words are in there, makes it dangerous, I have read other sources for awful verses in the Quran, so Geert Wilders is not making this up. I don’t really care whether Geert Wilders is taking things out of context, because saying that you should kill an enemy, is definitely violent words no matter how you shape it. So I agree with Wilders that the Quran is a dangerous book, because it does have violent messages that can interpreted, and ARE being interpreted as to “I should do something violent, against XYTZ person, if they do ABC, because the Quran tells me to!”. When you interpret the Quran like that, well you almost certainly become a an extremist terrorist.
So do I think the Quran is a dangerous book? Yes! Should it be banned? No. I don’t support limiting freedom of speech and expression in ether way, unless specific death threats are directly being made.
Now, I don’t want this to sound like I am speaking against Islam, but I am not really (You can apply everything I have said here to the bible of Judaism and Christianity as well), what I’m speaking against is violence in religions.
I am a fairly staunch atheist, and I believe the bible is very bad as well. One of my classmates, who once stated that he himself would probably be classified as Christian fundamentalist (Which I could only shake my head about), argued that that was just the Old Testament. But that’s really bullshit argument, because if the Old Testament is irrelevant, the why the fuck is it included in that darn book!?!?! People would say that Genesis, as described in the Old Testament needs to be taken literally (Even though the bible itself contains two different versions of it), but then turn around and say that other parts of the Old Testament are irrelevant, are being extremely hypocritical in my opinion.
Yeah, like Chairman Mao Zedong said: “Religion is poison”.
I share a different view of the case on that point. I admit though that I haven’t seen it, but from the several articles and blog posts I have read about the movie, I have heard that Wilders specifically selected the most controversial quotes from the Qu’ran with the single purpose of humiliating Islam or telling people that it is dangerous and threatens our oh-so-lovely Western values. But if your analyze would have been the fact, why didn’t he make a general movie about all theistic religions? Why Islam? I think one should look upon the author first and conclude what kind of a person he is, before your judge his works. And Geert Wilders is constantly cited in the Danish press as “islam-critic”, so it doesn’t surprise me if his true purposes was to make a propaganda film similar to the Nazi ones.
“But if your analyze would have been the fact, why didn’t he make a general movie about all theistic religions? Why Islam? I think one should look upon the author first and conclude what kind of a person he is, before your judge his works. And Geert Wilders is constantly cited in the Danish press as “islam-critic”, so it doesn’t surprise me if his true purposes was to make a propaganda film similar to the Nazi ones.”
That’s a good point, I made a similar point on my blog about this.
http://www.allixdavis.eu/blog/?p=7