Watch Fitna here (link opens in a new window / tab).

Now my opinions, in point form:

1. I don’t think Geert Wilders deserves to be killed. Seriously. And this is not just because I’m pretending to be a ‘moderate’ liberal-minded Muslim or I don’t want to earn the wrath of my non-Muslim friends. He deserves to be brainwashed - washed of all prejudice and paranoia. Nah, maybe that won’t work. He’s just an attention seeker.
2. The beheading video-makers, the bombers, the shooters, all will go to hell. Don’t worry.
3. “God Bless Hitler” is an insult to Islam as much as the Prophet cartoons. It is an insult to all humankind. Muslims who say, “God Bless Hitler” are akin to those who curse the Prophet.
4. The part that says, “Islam will rule the world” comes from the speech of some Iranian (presumably) Shiah scholar, then proceeds on to Ahmadinejad’s opinions on Islam dominating the world. Yes, we Shiahs, like most Muslims, believe Islam will eventually dominate the Earth. Deal with it. How? I won’t debate the How here. But just imagine this - if you were to go back in time to pre-democratic Europe and tell all the peace-loving peasants who were generally okay about living under a monarchy that eventually an idea and a system known as democracy will eventually dominate (most of) the world, or their continent for that matter, what would they think?
5. Geert Wilders somewhat wants to make Europeans feel threatened by the exponential growth of the Muslim population (of course he wants to elicit an emotional response, why would he show a statistic without a purpose?). Remember how Hitler used to blame the Jews (which were many in number back then) for all the problems Germany (or Europe for that matter) was facing.
6. What’s with the displays of news about Halal investment schemes (the Halal industry is a multi-billion perhaps coming close to a trillion-dollar industry anyway, why throw away this opportunity? I thought the capitalism-loving West should know better) or the non-banning of the Burqa (people want to ban the Burqa or the Hijab because they feel it is an ostentatious display of religious belief which the Muslims voluntarily don. Compare this to Nazi Germany making the Jews involuntarily put on the Star of David armband so that people can recognise who are the Jews. Both are opposites - one forcing, the other banning - but stem from the same source - paranoia and prejudice)?
7. The “you’re taking verses from the Quran out of context” argument from Muslims or apologists of Islam is the most cliched one even I, a Muslim, have ever heard. But how this film quotes from the Quran and links them to (real) instances of violence caused by (or allegedly caused by) Muslims; is like a kid shouting, “Mommy! Mommy! I learned from school that Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage and that we’re all actors! Wow! We’re famous!”
8. Any consumer of Noam Chomsky’s works on media and propaganda will see and know how paper thin Geert Wilder’s arguments are.
9. If the likes of Irshad Manji, or anyone who is influenced by this film, want to tear out pages from the Quran that have ‘violent’ verses, go ahead. It’s between you and Allah. I, a Muslim, who will harm no person, will not. Jews and Christians have not torn pages from the Old or New Testament (respectively), why should we?
10. I am always, always, always enraged whenever I view any media of some saliva-spewing, sword-shaking (only 1 instance in the film), ugly-bearded, Arabic-speaking Sheikh talking about beheading Jews and killing infidels. They are slaves of the religion that worships Abu Sofyan, Muawiyah and Yazid. The Prophet did lead battles against the non-Muslims of Arabia who had oppressed and massacred the early Muslims, yes, but he never, ever (even after reclaiming Mecca) talked about militant expansion or of massacring entire populations of civilisations that do not want to accept Islam. His so-called ‘companions’ started that tradition.

Lastly and most importantly, I would like to plead with the host of the above-linked video copy of Fitna to keep it online, so more (hopefully intelligent and discerning) people (both the godly and ungodly) will see how amateurish and immature this attention-philiac is; and also to dispel the myth that Muslims are afraid of ‘freedom of speech’.

“Freedom go to Hell”?

“Ignorance go to Hell!”

Other opinions:

Islamophobia and Racism on the Rise

A 29-Page Christian-Muslim Peace Manifesto

Fitna, Geert Wilders, Noam Chomsky, Irshad Manji

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Islam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.