Fitna, a film of historic importance

Geert Wilders’s Fitna, which can be viewed here, is as good as it could possibly be, given its too-short length. In 15 minutes, it captures the very soul of Islam, at least as far as Islam relates to non-Muslims, which is, after all, the aspect of Islam that should chiefly matter to us. At the heart of Islam, for 1,400 years, has been the sacred call to slay the unbeliever—and not only to kill him in this life, but to torture him with ever renewed tortures in the next life. The Koran, every word of which is declared by the Koran to be the unchangeable word of Allah, is the most hate-filled, sadistic work ever conceived. Wilders takes exactly the right approach to his subject, showing the living connection between the Koran and actual Muslim violence. He shows on screen, in beautiful lettering, key Koranic passages, such as the horrific 4:56 which says that after the unbelievers’ skin is burned off in hell, Allah will give them a new skin so as to continue burning and scourging them, and intersperses these verses with footage of modern-day jihadists echoing the Koranic sentiments and carrying out the Koranic injunctions. Thus the movie begins with Allah’s command to “spread terror among them,” then shows United 175 approaching and slicing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. The film is carried out with chilling aesthetic aplomb.

It seems to me that there are two ways people can respond to Fitna. They can say that it is not true or fair because it doesn’t talk about all the Muslims who are not active jihadists. Or they can say that, despite the movie’s lack of nuance resulting from its short length, it is telling the essential truth about Islam. But if they take the latter view, as I do, how can they conclude other than that Islam is a deadly threat to our civilization, our liberties, and our very lives, and that its growth among us must be instantly stopped and reversed?

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Adela Gereth writes:

Given the advance hype surrounding Fitna, I found it surprisingly low-key. It was mainly suras from the Koran, followed by footage of Islamic terrorists’ attacks or imams speaking. The overall mood was hardly incendiary, more elegiac, though toward the end, it sounded a note of warning I’m sure Muslims and leftists alike will find it “Islamophobic.”

I’d anticipated being angered by images of the carnage and hectoring of the imams; instead, I felt saddened, which I think heightens the effectiveness of the piece. It’s a call to arms based not on hatred of Islam but on the fear of loss of Western freedom Islamization will entail.

I predict the left will try to minimize the film’s impact by ignoring it where possible. Otherwise, leftists will refuse to dignify its contents or message with any serious analysis and simply dismiss it as “Islamophobic.” They’ll be able to do this easily as they have already conveniently and disingenuously labelled Wilders an extreme rightwinger.

Paul Nachman writes:

I watched it yesterday before reading your review.

I think the film is disappointingly weak, given its build-up. The sound is nearly unintelligible at points. And the beheading scene is downplayed enough that, for example, you don’t mention it. While I think it’s quite appropriate that they didn’t show the bulk of the beheading, are most people even going to notice the severed head being hoisted at the end? It was off to the side of the picture, and I’m just dubious that what has transpired is going to register with most viewers.

Also, does the film make the points that Islam is a totalitarian organization of life that mustn’t be altered in the slightest without one becoming an apostate? Or that apostates must be killed? Etc. Yes, you can’t pack everything into 15 minutes, but I think it could have been far stronger.

LA replies:

I agree that the movie focused entirely on jihad and terrorism, not on Islam as a whole, meaning sharia, and that this was regrettable. The film should have been at least 30 minutes long, to give a fuller account of Islam. My praise of the movie assumes that the movie could be no more than 15 minutes.

My view is that the spread of even “peaceful” sharia represents the destruction of our society, of everything we have and everything we are. And therefore opposing sharia should be our bottom line, not opposing jihad and terrorism. But if you have just 15 minutes, focusing on jihad and terrorism is a reasonable choice. However, I agree with you that even within that 15 minutes, the movie could and should have included some of the main rules of sharia such as death to apostates.

As I was watching it, I didn’t feel that that the portrayals of beheadings and executions needed to be more graphic. I personally have never watched any of the beheading videos available on the Web, even that of poor Nick Berg, the young American working in Iraq who was captured and beheaded by Zarqawi. He was the victim of whom I knew the most and whose evil torture-murder affected me the most. I’ve always felt an obligation to watch the tape of his beheading, but had kept putting it off. For me, to see his head held up at the side of the screen, in less than fully graphic manner, was enough. But I take your point that it could have been more clear so that viewers would see exactly what happened. The way it’s shown, it’s a little too abstract.

LA continues:

Also, we do hear Nick Berg screaming as the fiends saw through his neck.

A reader writes:

The Wilder film does have someone saying that anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity should be killed, but of course that could go by pretty quickly in one viewing and with all the other horrors shown.

Paul K. writes:

I watched it and was disappointed. For the VFR reader, this is Islam 101, though it may be illuminating to someone who has never given the matter any thought.

LA replies:

The movie was not produced for VFR readers!

Max L. writes:

I was highly disappointed by Fitna. All the film promotes is the standard neocon garbage—trying to weed out the “extremists”, i.e. Muslims who use violence for political means. For a 15 minute movie with such possibilities, it should have focused SOLELY on the extremism inherent in Sharia law and Muslims who use peaceful means to promote the same agenda as the radicalists, just in a different form. What a waste.

LA replies:

I disagree strongly with your statement that this movie is neocon. Neocons do NOT point to the Koran as the proximate cause of jihadism. That is the very thing that they do not do. They say the cause of jihadism is Muslims being left behind and getting angry and vengeful, or European fascism infecting Islam, and on and on, pointing to every possible explanation for jihadism except for the sacred words of the Koran itself.

When one starts swinging so wildly at “neocons,” one is bound to miss.

At the same time, I agree with you, and I said in a previous comment, that my own preferred approach is to make the “extremism inherent in Sharia law” our bottom line. But that doesn’t mean that someone who focuses on the terrorist aspect of Islam is ipso facto taking a neocon approach.

Derek C. writes:

Count me among those impressed by the film. As with Jeremiah Wright, it’s one thing to read about these sorts of things, but it’s another to see and hear the words from the people involved. Unfortunately, most of the people who need to see this sort of thing probably never will, due mainly to their own refusal to accept the very hard truth that our friends in the Islamic world take their religion quite seriously.

Max L. replies:

Neocons believe that violent, extremist Muslims are the problem, and that they distort the Koran by picking and choosing which passages to believe in—just like, as you hear them say as points of reference, there are some pretty violent passages in the Old Testimate but they’re interpreted figuratively. Here’s Bush on Islam right after 9/11:

“The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics—a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.”

I hear that Wilder’s next film is on Christianity. Do you think it will be positive or negative?

Fitna does nothing to show that these violent Koranic passages, and Sharia law, are core elements of the religion. Instead, he extols Muslims to excise these passages from their beliefs—which, to an inexperienced eye, seem like a handful of passages that wouldn’t be too hard to do. It’s hardcore neocon, Lawrence, and it’s argument is about getting Muslims to change their religion instead of cutting off Islamic immigration.

LA replies:

You are truly off base in your thinking. Fitna says that THIS is Islam, and it’s coming, and getting stronger and will destroy us. It does not say that this is a fringe phenomenon. Please get the neocons out of your skull and look at what’s in front of you.

Philip M. writes:

Fitna of “historic importance”? Seemed rather like a million other anti-Islam videos off youtube to me. Rather boring, and rather disappointing. I can’t believe he spent months making the thing. If Muslims really are interested in peace they will let this thing sink without a trace. Which probably means we should start setting up that Dutch flag stall in Islamabad somewhere.

LA replies:

I haven’t seen anti-Islam videos, so maybe Philip is correct that there are many aesthetically produced videos that connect the words of the Koran to actual jihadist aggression and violence the way Fitna does.

LA writes (April 2):

Scott B. protests the luke-warm response to Fitna from some commenters that he perceives in this thread.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 28, 2008 10:24 AM | Send