Posted by
Duffbert on Friday, March 28, 2008 5:17:09 PM
This week I heard about the controversial film Fitna, made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. So, being a curious guy, I watched it last night – via LiveLeak . I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about, so I took the 15 minutes to watch it and it easily held my attention. It was interesting, but nothing eartlh shattering - as many of the events were already published in the New Media already. At the end, I did find find myself asking one question.
What is the controversy? The film was a series of actual audio and video clippings from Islamic leaders and followers, no actors or re-enactments were protrayed, allowing for sensationalism. The film did provide translations from the Koran, citing chapter and verse, that are presumed to be the basis for radical Islamist ideology. There were many graphic visual images of death and destruction brought on by Islamic radicals, but the footage is inarguably real and no one is arguing their authenticity.
The only thing I can gather as being controversial is that it paints a fearful picture of Islam as a whole, and may therefore paint all muslims with a broad brush. However, the film does call out the fact that muslims who speak out against the radicals are subject to death - as well as muslim on muslim violence, so you could argue that the film also advocates for moderate muslims. If moderate muslims can’t speak out – who can?
Many muslim governments, such as Morocco and Jordan have comdemned the film, and the European Union's Slovenian presidency attacked the film, saying it served "no other purpose than inflaming hatred." But my question is, who are the “haters” here? Where is the evidence of violence against muslims due to these types of exposes? The only violence I’ve seen perpetrated, is by muslims, on anyone who dares speak out against Islamic extremism.
And now the UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution of condemnation of religious defamation, specifically Islamic religious defamation – a vote that was along religious lines. The resolution, put forth by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, urges governments to prohibit religious defamation and “notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001”. Those that abstained or voted against this resolution stated their reason being that while the resolution condemns all religious defamation, the only religion specifically mentioned by name in the resolution is Islam.
In this author's opinion, those trying to alert the world to the dangers of radical Islam are being purposely silenced.