Geert Wilders, “Fitna,” and the last refuge of the bigoted

Fitna (the Arabic word for ‘dissension’), a new film by Geert Wilders, a rightwing Dutch parliamentarian, should not be suppressed.

This isn’t because it has anything valuable or insightful to offer to the debates surrounding Islam, modernity, or the convulsions wracking much of the Middle East. No, it must be seen so that it can be shown up for the insipid propaganda video it is.

To suppress the film in the name of political correctness only underscores the seductive mystery its creators have cultivated. Wilders & Co released snippets of info here and there, whipping up a torrent of anticipation for a film that can only be described as banal.

“Fitna” is a propaganda piece whose ‘aesthetic’ is comparable to those made by radical Islamists. The burning of effigies, extremist placards, and threats to website staff undertaken by Muslim vigilantes as a reaction to this film are themselves myopic and morally bankrupt. When ‘Muslim indignation’ takes a violent turn it merely confirms the claims of provocateurs like Wilders.

The film itself is not a critique of Islamic fundamentalism or even the tribal vestiges of malign practices such as stoning and female circumcision. Wilders’ enterprise is rather the pathetic attempt to salvage a ‘nativist’ conception of Dutch, and, more generally, European identity.

In order to fashion a ‘pristine’ and ‘untarnished’ representation of this idea, Wilders is forced to place it in contradistinction to a clearly defined enemy, represented by the looming threat of a monolithic and omnipresent ‘Islam’. Fitna is therefore yet another variant of the discursively manufactured ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis first argued for by Samuel P. Huntington in the American journal Foreign Affairs over a decade ago.

Wilders’ strategy is simple and crude. He arbitrarily picks out a few decontextualized lines from the Quran, then juxtaposes them with footage of obscene violence committed by Muslim extremists. 9/11, 7/7, and the Madrid Bombings, are paraded across the screen in an orgy of mayhem.

The propaganda videos of al-Qaeda and those inspired by their message equally rely on publicizing violence in order to attract recruits.

The latter’s films use a myriad of clips documenting violence committed against Muslim civilians in order to wage their own propaganda campaign. Wilders’ strategy is entirely in keeping with such an ‘aesthetic’.

Implicit in Fitna’s narrative is the contention that the Muslim holy book is the sole and determining reason why violence is committed by members of the Islamic faith. The traces of textual violence within the Quran ‘compel’ the unchanging and immutable ‘Muslim’ essence to commit unspeakable acts of terror, Wilder claims.

A typical Orientalist, Wilders concludes that Muslims have no free will or ability to denounce violence, because it is intrinsic to their ontological constitution. The only solution, according to this narrative, is to do away once and for all with the ‘heinous book.’

Wilders rambled on quite a bit about having uncovered the ‘pure Islam’ when interviewed on the BBC’s Hardtalk. The ‘pure Islam’ is a holy grail also sought after by Islamic fundamentalists. We can guess both Wilders and Osama bin Laden agree that there is such a thing as a ‘pure Islam,’ since they both claim they are able to access it.

Extremism occurs a vacuum, according to Wilders and his precocious and ill-educated ally, Ehsan Jami. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the legacy of colonialism, the open and unabashed support of so-called ‘Arab Afghans’ by Charlie Wilson and the Reagan Administration, the backlash against globalization and cultural homogenization, the Iraq War, European racism and anxiety over the dramatic increase in migration, and decades upon decades of support for autocratic tyrants in the Middle East, all have little to do with modern Islamic fundamentalism.

The ‘filmmaker’ makes an essentialist claim predicated on a perverse, monistic and distorted reading of the Quran. One can do this with pretty much any holy book, it’s hardly a chore if one merely wants to arbitrarily pluck quotes with the objective of vindicating one’s prejudice.

From reading peoples’ comments on the web it seems that many of the less discerning and skeptical of viewers have bought into the film’s prognosis: ‘Islam’ is essentially and for all time a dangerous monolith, hell-bent on planetary conquest. There is no place for dialogue and discussion, only battle waged on the world stage, and ‘we’ have the bigger guns.

The film’s creators furthermore assert the kinship of ‘Islam’ tout court with the modern ideologies of Nazism and Stalinism. Even the Bush Administration had the sense to separate ‘Islam’ qua religion from the bastardized postmodern ideology advocated by the likes of al-Qaeda.

The Netherlands and Europe in general have undergone a marked increase in the number of Muslim immigrants and Fitna is a near perfect example of the reactionary manufacture of an ‘indigenous and native’ European identity in a world where identity politics has come to rule. Wilders’ efforts are far less concerned with freedom of expression than with the desire to vilify a section of Holland’s immigrant population.

The term ‘Dutch Muslim’ is an oxymoron as far as Wilders is concerned, and he has openly advocated the mass deportation of dual-nationals and various others he brands a threat to Holland’s ‘indigenous values’. Let’s quote the man directly:

“Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!”

Dutch Muslims are to be a priori excluded from Wilders’ vision of what the Netherlands ought to be, as he presents them with what is tantamount to a single uncompromising choice, ‘abandon your Muslim identity or go back to where you came from!’ Such an ultimatum hardly sits well with the long-established image of tolerance hitherto associated with Holland.

In “Fitna,” a graph depicts the precipitous increase of Muslim immigrants entering the Netherlands. The subtext of this display casts the influx of immigrants as an ongoing process of contamination of the Netherlands’ ‘native purity’. Muslims are microbes and bacteria sowing the seeds of disease and malaise, inducing a ‘cultural epidemic’. Wilders forecasts the ruination of Europe from within and in this his discourse is reminiscent of European anti-Semitism.

According to Wilders, Muslims are incapable of assimilation and their fidelity to European nation-states is always potentially compromised because of their allegiance to Allah. Yet this can be alleged against a believer of any faith. English Catholics during the seventeenth century were similarly subject to suspicion and abuse, because it was claimed their allegiance to the Papacy superseded their loyalty to the English crown. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is in large part an exposition and proffered solution to just such a ‘dilemma’.

It is true that resentment felt towards immigrants and the changing composition of European civil societies is also based upon some legitimate grievances. The issue of community integration and a refusal to participate in civic life on the part of some exists, and it should be addressed. It is Wilders’ representation of the issue which is objectionable and must be protested, exactly because it depicts the problem as insoluble as long as Muslims are Muslims.

No single individual, group or nation can claim to define the truth as relayed in the Quran, Bible, Torah, Bhagavad Gita or other holy book. Apparent calls for unremitting violence are evident in all the holy scriptures of the great world religions and there are extremists and intolerant elements amongst their respective followers. Even a significant constituency of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist monks has in recent years been engaging in violence in the hope of realizing its political aims, itself a product of still unresolved ethnic strife.

The sheer number of disparate and often irreconcilable interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah demonstrates the limitations of any particular exegesis made in a specific time and place. In the postmodern world within which we have all come to live, the Islamic concept of ijtihad has expanded its domain of application and the parameters of its traditional meaning, and has become almost compulsively employed by nearly all those who choose to turn to the Quran for spiritual guidance. It is exactly the pervasiveness of this new ijtihad, or individualized method of reading, as the American lawyer and activist, Ali Eteraz, has pointed out, which permits one to read the Quran as either a literalist or in terms of allegory and metaphor. This is something which has in a roundabout way been even noted by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

There’s the added fact that the cultural, linguistic and historical diversity of the Islamic world itself has produced thinkers, poets and philosophers as variegated as Rumi, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Laleh Bakhtiar and Tariq Ramadan. ‘Islam’ as we know it is indissociable from the myriad of socio-historical and cultural renderings to which is has been subject since its inception.

It was at one time argued that African-Americans were biologically incapable of democratic practice, while the ghettoization, alienation and disenfranchisement of peoples along racial lines was ignored as the determining reason for the absence of widespread civic participation. The riots of October and November 2005 in Paris largely by first and second generation North African immigrants can be seen as a further illustration of how discontent and revolt are sown by socio-economic disenfranchisement and alienation.

Right-wing politicians and pundits have resorted to ‘Islamicizing’ social and economic issues, because they refuse to consider the underlying socio-economic factors which induce segregation along ethnic and, thus often, along religious lines. Various Muslim communities however, cannot divest themselves of all responsibility and must engage in more concerted efforts to nurture relations within civil society.

The preachers featured in the film are hate-mongers, of course. Their vitriol is of course pathological and emanates from a plurality of disparate maladies; from sexual repression to the nihilistic urge to negate the mundane and phenomenal world. Extremists such as these of course need to be confronted by the moderate elements within their communities; they of course need be undermined from within by individuals willing to speak out against their vituperative drivel.

Yet the process of criticism and self-reflection is both gradual and intricate, and is only stultified by the inarticulate celluloid slander and obfuscation of bigots such as Wilders. Both extremes of the ideological spectrum believe a ‘clash of civilizations’ is in the offing and each hopes to spark the final countdown to confrontation and conflagration they espy on the horizon.

This discourse has reached mythic proportions and its adherents prefer to will it into becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is up to moderates of all persuasions to inject reason and a modicum of responsibility into this debate, as it will continue to affect us all in the years to come.