Most of the commentary concerning the release of Geert Wilder's film about Islam, Fitna, has focused on the potential of the film to educate an increasingly interested and sometimes alarmed public about the dangers of radical Islam, the potential backlash from enraged Islamists, and the continuing erosion of any ability to maintain a nuanced and textured differentiation between Islam and radical Islam.
Islam in Europe has an excellent summary of early reaction to Fitna and it is worth perusing. Thus far, the explosion has been limited in scope; whether the reaction builds will determine how significant this latest salvo in the war between Islamism and the modern world proves to be.
One major concern about the film is its reflection of an increasing polarization. As noted by Richard Fernandez, Wilders' film from the right insisting on an identity between Islam and Islamism, along with the left's attempts over the last several years to deny the link between Islam and Islamism, have combined to reinforce the tendency toward regressive splitting that occurs in every conflict:
By repeatedly invoking Islam as the cause or, alternatively, the justification, for violent behavior, both the Left and the Right have jointly undermined the strategy of forming political coalitions with certain elements in the Islamic world to prosecute other elements. This coalition strategy undergirds the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is implicit in US cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey. In those places the US associates itself with certain elements of the "religion of peace" (such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani) against other elements.
But this down-the-middle approach has earned itself many enemies. It is viewed on the Left as a persecution of Islam; or worse, as its corruption. And because a coalition approach takes a long time to succeed it is often rejected out of hand by pacifists, who would either simply deny that any War on Terror exists or insist that the Jihad is justified (as exemplified by Jeremiah Wright's theory that "America's chickens have come home to roost"). Conservatives have grown to distrust coalition warfare as a collection of half-measures. And there is little room between those who would regard the handling of a Koran with anything but white gloves as blasphemy and those who would criticize it as inherently evil. And there may be less room with every passing month.
Kamangir directs his comments to Wilders' conflation of Islam and Islamism and has concerns that the film does not helpfully advance the conversation:
Islam or Islamic Ideology, which one is the problem Mr. Wilders?
I am not a Muslim. Having said that, this video is not about Islam. Islam, like Christianity, Judaism, and other schools of thought, does not kill. Nor does it stone, amputate, or circumcise women. All this is carried out by a beast named man, one of whose most developed talents is to find phony justifications for his/her horrible actions.
Mr. Wilders shows us pictures of crimes carried out by Muslims, from the infamous 9/11 attacks to London bombings and executions in Iran and Afghanistan. I do agree with him that not only many Muslims commit disgusting actions these days, but also that the mainstream Islamic world fails in condemning these atrocities. Even worse than that, the average Muslim seems to have sympathy for murderess, or at least they are fast in condemnation when a fellow Muslim is attacked, but seem to forget to be fair when Muslims kill others. Greet Wilders’ video might make this more clear, as if we had any doubt about it, but does not present a solution. At its core, it merely makes racist remarks about the rise of Muslim population in Europe.
It is a fact that the conventional interpretations of Quran and Islam do lead to issuing death Fatwas against non-Muslims. As rational human beings, this is what we need to talk about. Wilder’s presentation, however, mixes up the faith with the actions of human beings and fails in telling us what we don’t know. At the middle of the carnage, we need to sit together, Muslims and non-Muslims, and make it clear that discussion is the only way. This video, and works similar to it, only stir up the fight.
In reality, Wilders' film, even if it is racist and over the top, must be considered part of the discussion between Islam and the West. Until Islam is willing to repudiate the radicals within Islam, which to their credit many Muslims are doing, the MSM will continue to maintain an approach to radical Islam that effectively conflates Islam and Islamism and inadvertently supports the type of splitting that makes conflict more likely.
Along with all of these issues there remains one more aspect worth noting for its insight into the depth of pathology that has infected mainstream Arab and Muslim thought. Al Manar has a report on the release of Fitna that could appear verbatim in the pages of the New York Times all the way until the last paragraph:
Not to agree with the teachings of Islam, with the Prophet of Islam, with the holy book of Islam is something; not to understand Islam and depend on Zionist controlled media outlets in the west to illustrate this religion of 1.4 billion people is another thing that can be addressed through mutual approach of civilizations, something that tolerant Islam calls for; but insulting The Almighty, as Wilders did in his film when he said that "Allah is happy when non-Muslims are killed", insulting the Koran and the Prophet along with hundreds of millions of his followers is unquestionably far from anything near freedom of expression because "My freedom ends where yours begins and your freedom ends where mine begins." [Emphasis mine-SW]
Al Manar is one of the mainstays of Arab MSM. It mentions "Zionist controlled media outlets in the west" as if this kind of paranoid delusion is a baseline assumption, unquestioned and barely noticed. In fact, believing and assuming that Jews, far less than one percent of the human race, can control international media, banking, etc, and oppress millions of Arabs, is, to use a highly sophisticated Psychiatric term, "crazy."
In my posts, Pity the Poor Anti-Semite and Conspiracy Theories and Victimization, among others, I pointed out the damage such delusions do to the deluded. Paranoid delusions can temporarily support one's self esteem ("I am not a failure, my culture has not failed, we are being kept down by supermen") but maintains the victim in a position of helpless rage unable to mobilize his resources to compete against his (unconsciously determined) superiors. The victim considers himself inferior and struggles mightily to maintain that position even when it is completely counter-productive and inappropriate.
The problem of Islam and Islamism will never be resolved until the Arab world accepts the reality of Israel, repudiates their own anti-Semitism, and begins the difficult process of harnessing their rage in more productive pursuits. Sublimated rage can build cities, devise life saving devices and treatments, and force inert matter to bend to the will of man; unsublimated rage can only destroy.
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