'Fitna' fits-up Islam

It is well known that the young British Muslims behind the July 2005 train bombings in London were recruited after being shown graphic images of Muslim victims of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were told that the West hates Islam and that their attack would be retaliatory. The Madrid train bombings too were a revenge attack, this time against Spain's involvement in Iraq.

At the 9-11 Commission hearing, FBI special agent James Fitzgerald stated that the motivation behind the attacks was because the perpetrators felt "a sense of outrage at the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem."

The 9-11 Commission Report notes that, "By his own account, [9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed's] animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences [in the US] as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel".

In Wilders' determination to place the blame squarely on Islam, he has completely overlooked the recent political history of the Middle East. The hijackers of the planes quite likely believed that there would be a heavenly reward for their actions, but the masterminds have admitted to being motivated by politics. The truth is the volatile situation in the Middle East is a deadly mix of religious devotion fuelled into fanaticism by political goals. It is not Islam itself which is to blame. Wilder's tactic of intercutting footage of the Koran's pages with footage of death and destruction is omitting vital information.

It may well be that Arab Muslims have more reasons to "hate us" than most Westerners are willing to admit. When questioned in 1996 on the US program 60 Minutes about the death of over 600,000 Muslim Iraqi children due to the sanctions against Iraq during Clinton's Presidency, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright responded "it's worth it". That's 600,000 reasons just there.

Wilders has taken the easy route. Yes, many atrocious acts have been committed in the name of religion with Theo Van Gogh's tragic fate a reminder of the lengths a religious fanatic will go to prove their devotion, but Muslims are not alone in this regard. In 2002 the Reverend Paul Hill was executed in Florida for the 1994 murder of abortion doctor John Britton. Like Mohammed B, Hill showed no remorse and believed "what he did was right". Hill was praised by other religious leaders, who did not consider his actions murder. While it is doubtful that Bin Laden and other terror masterminds would be able to recruit their suicide attackers were it not for the promised reward in the afterlife - after all they would not be receiving any in this one - what this means is that religion is being used as an excuse for attacking the West. It is a tool. It is not the reason in itself.

Propaganda is defined as information and/or images used to influence the opinions or actions of large groups of people. That is exactly what Fitna is. In its own context, this film gives us no other recourse but to believe its premise. That makes it good propaganda. It does not, however, make it a good film. Fitna has no story arc; we are not taken on a journey of any kind. We are simply fed image after image of slaughter and hatred.

The film offers only a superficial treatment of Islam. There are just as many passages in the Bible that call its followers to wage war against non-believers. The Old Testament frequently instructs the Israelites to murder and rape other tribes, but no one seriously blames the Bible every time an Israeli kills a Palestinian.

A good film also has some level of critical analysis and context. Fitna has neither of these. The images we see of Muslim clerics preaching hatred are not explained. Just who are these men? Who are they speaking to? In which country? Do they have terrorist links? Are they mainstream preachers or they are the Muslim equivalent of Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church? There are over 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Do they all subscribe to this point of view? Fitna makes no distinction between suicide bombers, extreme Muslim clerics and the Muslim women wearing hijabs it depicts strolling through the streets of The Netherlands.

Particularly guiling is the "interview" with the small Muslim girl who is asked what she thinks of Jews. She calls them "pigs", claiming that is what is stated in the Koran. But again, who is this girl? As a three-year-old, she obviously has not read this for herself. Someone has been feeding her this information. She could be reciting from a script, for all we know. Where is her family from? What is their history? A good film introduces us to its characters, and gives us a little back-story as to why the characters behave the way they do. It then assumes we have enough intelligence to form our own opinions about them. Again, Fitna does not do this.

The only interesting cinematic device employed is the final sequence where there is a blank screen with the audio of pages been torn from a book. We are led to believe that it is the Koran but titles inform us that the pages are actually being torn from a phone book - it is up to Islam itself to remove the hate from its pages.

But even here Fitna fails, as it is clearly contradicting itself. Throughout the film, the viewer is being told to fear Islam, to hate Islam, to "stop Islamisation" - in short to curb the immigration of Muslims to the West - then it turns around and places the ball squarely back in Islam's court by offering no real solutions to the questions its raises. It is up to Islam to reform itself. Don't expect help from us, we hate you, just stay out of our countries.