Fitna (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Fitna
Country of production Netherlands
original language Dutch
Publishing year 2008
length 17 minutes
Rod
Director "Scarlet Pimpernel"
script Geert Wilder's
"Scarlet Pimpernel"
cut "Scarlet Pimpernel"

Fitna is an Islamophobic short and compilation film by the right-wing populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders . The film is a collage of quotes from various suras of the Koran in visual and acoustic connection with Islamist- motivated scenes of violence at the beginning of the 21st century documented in print media and film and television recordings .

content

The Arabic Fitna (فتنة) means something like " temptation " or " discord ", but also "war between Muslims". The seventeen-minute film begins with an - unauthorized - take on Kurt Westergaard's cartoon from The Face of Muhammad , which depicts Mohammed with a bomb as a turban; a clock counts down from 15'00 ”. In the first part of the film, verses of the Koran are quoted (8:60, 4:56, 47: 4, 4:89, 8:39). In addition, images of Islamist- motivated acts of violence, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the Madrid train attacks and the underground train attacks in London are shown and combined with selected images of Islamist agitators. The second part deals with the alleged Islamization of Europe: As a result, the rights of minorities such as homosexuals and Jews, but also women and children, would be endangered. At the end of the film there is a written request to fight “the Islamic ideology”. The counter from the beginning has now reached zero, followed by a cut to a thunderstorm with thunder and lightning.

history

Wilders had been known for his anti-Islamic initiatives for several years. In October 2005 he introduced a bill to ban the wearing of a burqa in the Netherlands in the Tweede Kamer of the Staten-Generaal . In 2007, in an opinion article in De Volkskrant, he described the Koran as a “ fascist book” that, like Mein Kampf , must be banned.

announcement

Fitna was introduced to the public debate on November 28, 2007 through an article on the front page of De Telegraaf . This was the prelude to an initial phase of deliberation, and not just in the Netherlands .

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer saw in the film a danger for NATO in Afghanistan . The police in Amsterdam and Rotterdam were put on heightened alert and embassies, organizations and companies were warned by the government. In a speech to the European Parliament , the Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmed Badr al-Din al-Hassoun warned against “bloodshed” that the film could trigger. The Malaysian ambassador Noor Farida Ariffin said in an interview with De Volkskrant that there would be "dozens of deaths" and recalled The Face of Muhammad .

With the effect of the film, the Dutch anti-terrorist agency justified an increase in the national threat level. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende sees the danger of boycotting the Dutch economy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali , screenwriter of the Islam-critical film Submission , sees provocation as the motif of the film and calls for the immigration debate not to be left to extremes.

The film's website was shut down on March 23, 2008 by US Internet service provider Network Solutions . The site had previously shown the title of the film “Fitna” and the information about its imminent release. Network Solutions has now said there have been numerous complaints that are currently being investigated. Network Solutions announced that it closed the website after requesting a preview version of the film from Wilders for review but receiving no response. Leon de Winter criticized the shutdown of the site as premature censorship. On the part of German opponents of Islam, the fact that the Hezbollah website, which is managed by the same company, does not violate the terms of use, was taken as an indication of the company's sympathy for Hezbollah. Network Solutions responded to the criticism by shutting down the Hezbollah side.

publication

On March 27, 2008 at around 7 pm, the film was published in a Dutch and an English language version on the Internet video portal LiveLeak after no television station was ready to broadcast.

However, LiveLeak removed the film on March 28, 2008 with a reference to death threats against employees of the company. However, by that time the film had already spread on the Internet and had been copied to other sites. LiveLeak discontinued Fitna on March 31, 2008. They have taken security precautions and do not want to be put under pressure by threats to censor legal and compliant material just because some do not like the content.

consequences

The Dutch government distanced itself from the film. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende stated that he did not realize that the film had anything other than the purpose of hurting feelings. Regardless of this, the Iranian government handed protest notes to the Dutch and - as a representative of the then EU Council Presidency - the Slovenian ambassador to the Tehran Foreign Ministry. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a prominent Iranian clergyman, suspected the "Zionist regime" (Israel) and undefined powers of oppression as the driving forces behind Wilders' film.

UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon called for the film to be stopped from being distributed. Incitement and incitement to violence are not a question of freedom of expression.

Responses from predominantly Islamic states were mostly prudent. Ambassadors from 26 countries called on the Dutch government to take legal action against Fitna. Some individuals and organizations have filed criminal charges against Wilders. There were state-organized protests in Pakistan and Indonesia . In Karachi , for example, more than 25,000 people demonstrated against the film.

The Taliban announced retaliation against Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

The cartoonist from the initial setting emphasizes that he did not authorize Wilders to use his cartoon and is opposed to the fact that his drawing is “taken out of its original context”. He criticizes the fact that Wilders generalize strongly and generally perceive Muslims as potential terrorists. His caricature, on the other hand, is "not directed against Muslim society as such", but "aimed at fanatical Islamist terrorists". The Danish Journalists 'Union applies for an injunction against Wilders' film. Wilders announced a corrected version of his film, in which both the caricature will be dispensed with and the photo of the rapper Salah Edin will be replaced, which is inadvertently displayed instead of a picture of the van Gogh murderer. The revised version was published on April 6, 2008 on LiveLeak.

Wilders was fined for violating rapper Salah Edin's copyright and personal rights . A process due to hate speech , however, was decided in his favor.

The Saudi Arabian blogger Raid al-Saed published on April 1st with “Schism” (for example “Teilung”) a parody of “Fitna”. According to the author, his aim was "to show that it is easy to generate prejudice and hatred if you - like Wilders - illustrate arbitrarily quotations from a holy book with images of violence". However, critics complain that the acts of violence shown are not religiously motivated.

A close friend of Geert Wilders and one of the film's producers, Arnoud van Doorn converted to Islam in 2013.

Reviews

After its release, the film received mostly negative ratings in the media:

In his article on Spiegel Online, Gerald Traufetter describes the film as a “ pamphlet , a wild collage of horror and distorted images of Islam”. The Süddeutsche Zeitung criticizes that the film does not enlighten, but "counter terrorism with agitation that will provoke further terrorism". The time judges: "Judging by this" pamphlet ", Hirsi Ali's and van Gogh's controversial Koran-critical film against the oppression of women in Islam ( submission ) is downright an artistically demanding film essay". Focus Online describes Wilders as a "blond agitator with an anti-Islam mission".

However, some commentators also felt that the film was far less provocative or offensive than expected. The FAZ writes, for example: “Geert Wilders has not degraded or belittled any symbol of Islam. In Fitna - if one disregards a motif used Danish caricature (the turban bomb) - there is no despicability of the prophet, the Koran or the faithful. Rather, it is a very clever, suggestive collage of the hatred of the Islamists for the rest of humanity. "

Thorsten Dörting said in Spiegel Online “Why the fuss? The Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders will encounter incomprehension with his anti-Islam video. Because his cinematic pamphlet uses exactly those images and methods that otherwise only Islamists use. "

The Muslim Fatma Aykut reviewed in Spiegel Online: “The film title“ Fitna ”means“ chaos ”- and that is the film up to the tenth minute. A loose string of film sequences […]. What is the knowledge gained from this film? What does the author want? But then, after the tenth minute of the film, his goal becomes crystal clear. Wilders does not have the Islamists from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq in his sights, but the Muslims in Europe. […] The tricky thing about this film is: It shows one aspect of the Muslim reality in Europe - and that is stupidly documentary. [...] He just deliberately withholds some important information. The high unemployment among migrants, the low educational opportunities, the everyday racism to which many, especially male migrant children, are exposed. "

The Islam-critical journalist and writer Henryk Broder criticized in an article in Spiegel Online that the Dutch government apologized for the film and the Dutch television stations refused to broadcast it. In the criticism of the film, he sees a hasty appeasement policy . He also criticizes the designation Wilders as a “ right-wing populist ” as defamatory.

Imam Mohammad Al-Hayek addressed ABC News with the Koran verses cited in Fitna and advocates the following interpretations: Verses 8: 6 [0], as well as 47: 4, refer to defense in war; a war of aggression against people of different faiths is excluded. The following verse 8:61 explicitly urges to make peace if the opponents want it too. 8:39 urge Muslims to stand up against religious persecution. The film uses the word “dissension” where “persecution” would be a better translation. Verse 4:56 describe the torments of hell in the hereafter. Finally, verse 4:89 refers to traitors during the battle of Uhud .

In an interview on the website of the Humanist Press Service , the chairman of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims , Mina Ahadi , took the view that Fitna “is not a right film” because advocating for the human rights of women and homosexuals is not an expression of (politically) right-wing sentiments be. Ahadi went on to say: "Those who want to push the film into the right corner so easily are either ignorant, that is, do not want to see the problem of political Islam, or are just cowards". Rather, the film uncovered "the close connection between Islamic faith and political Islamism" and shows the inhumane side of political Islam. However, equating the latter with the positions of moderate Muslims is problematic.

In a guest article in Spiegel Online, the Islam dissident , who wrote under the pseudonym Ibn Warraq , described the film author Geert Wilders as a “hero of our time” who dares to stand up against “Islamofascism”. The criticism that Wilders' film tears quotations out of context is unjustified: The Koran quotations used in the film are used by Muslims themselves to develop their theory of holy war. It is precisely the suppression of criticism of Islam that will lead to “toxic, racist populism”.

In Die Weltwoche , an author who uses the pseudonym "René Marcus" for security reasons and who, according to the magazine, is a professor at a renowned European university, wrote that the allegations that the film incites hatred and tears quotations out of context are wrong, like A study of the Koran proves: "The Koran, the holy book of Muslims, is a book in which the verbal root qtl," kill ", occurs 187 times, 25 of them in the imperative (e.g. Sura 4, 89 and 91; Sura 9, 4 and 14 and 29). ”In this context, the author asks why not those Muslims who view violence in the name of Islam as a perversion of their religion, position themselves more clearly against the atrocities:“ Is Osama bin Laden a devout Muslim? Or is he perverting the prophet's message? If he perverts them, he must be expelled from the community of believers by fatwa . "

Irshad Manji wrote on washingtonpost.com that the film was boorish and boring ( "boorish and boring" ) and that Wilders had done a disservice to freedom of expression because the film was predictable and uncreative, and Wilders was little more than a mediocre moral sermon ( "A garden-variety harangue" ), the result of freedom in this case was banality. In her review, Manji suggested that Wilders should have thwarted the images used in the film with positive excerpts from the Koran in order to show the contradiction between the extremist part of Islam and the more liberal parts of the Koran.

The social scientist Hartmut Krauss regards the film as neither manipulative nor demagogic. The film deals exclusively with the violence legitimized by Islam in the Koran in the scenes of verses of the Koran that call for violence and legitimize them, related excerpts from "hate sermons" and finally the jihadist practice in the form of specific Islamist acts of violence, in a justified and consequent logical context. The film in no way represents an undifferentiated, defamatory insult to all Muslims, as often falsely suggested by the media.

See also

literature

  • André Krause: Geert Wilders in the mirror of his weblog. Freedom fighter or hate preacher? , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86931-725-0 , pp. 95-107

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ronald Vecht: Fitna schendt het Auteursrecht . In: NRC Handelsblad , March 29, 2008, p. 7. Retrieved May 5, 2009. 
  2. ↑ a b c d Jean-Christophe Ploquin: Les réactions au film de Geert Wilders sont mesurées . In: La Croix , March 30, 2008. Accessed on May 6, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.la-croix.com  
  3. ^ Scott Long: Unbearable witness: How Western activists (mis) recognize sexuality in Iran . In: Contemporary Politics . 15, March 2009, pp. 119-136, p. 127. doi : 10.1080 / 13569770802698054 .
  4. ↑ Savitri Saharso, Doutje Lettinga: Contentious Citizenship: Policies and Debates on the Veil in the Netherlands . In: Social Politics . 15, No. 4, December 1, 2008, pp. 455-480, p. 464.
  5. ↑ Geert Wilders: Genoeg is genoeg: verbied de Koran. In: De Volkskrant. August 8, 2007, accessed March 25, 2008 (Dutch).
  6. ↑ Scholten, Otto, Nel Ruigrok, Martijn Krijt, Joep Schaper, and Hester Paanakker. 2008. “Fitna en de media: Een onderzoek naar aandacht en rolpatronen”, p. 2 Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed April 29, 2009). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nieuwsmonitor.net
  7. ^ A b Mark Tran: Dutch government could ban anti-Islam film. In: The Guardian . January 21, 2008, accessed March 9, 2008 .
  8. ^ Rob Savelberg: Right-wing populist wants to provoke Muslims. In: The world . January 17, 2008, accessed March 9, 2008 .
  9. ↑ Security level increased due to anti-Koran film. (No longer available online.) In: 3sat.de. March 7, 2008, archived from the original on April 1, 2008 ; Retrieved March 9, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.3sat.de
  10. ↑ Werner Perger: When madness prevails. In: The time . January 21, 2008, accessed March 9, 2008 .
  11. ^ The film website of Islam critic Wilders closed. (No longer available online.) In: Yahoo News . March 23, 2008, archived from the original on April 2, 2008 ; Retrieved March 24, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.news.yahoo.com
  12. ↑ heise.de: US provider blocks website for anti-Islam film
  13. ↑ networksolutions.com: Network Solutions' Statement Regarding the Suspension of Fitnathemovie.com
  14. ^ Anna Reimann: Czech Party Offers to Show Anti-Islam Film. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  15. ↑ WHOIS information for hizbollah.org . In: mirahost . February 6, 1998. Accessed on March 24, 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / my.mirahost.com  
  16. ↑ Florian Rötzer: Wilder's website for anti-Islam film offline. In: Telepolis . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  17. ^ Brian Krebs: Network Solutions Pre-Censors Anti-Islam Site. In: Security Fix. March 26, 2008, accessed March 31, 2008 .
  18. ^ Spiegel Online: "Right-wing populist Wilders publishes anti-Koran film" , March 27, 2008
  19. ^ Anti-Islam propaganda: Wilders film is online again. (No longer available online.) In: Die Zeit . March 31, 2008, archived from the original on April 1, 2008 ; accessed on March 31, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  20. ↑ n-tv : Ambassador appointed March 30, 2008
  21. ↑ Ynetnews: Iran cleric says Israel behind anti-Islam Dutch film April 4, 2008
  22. ↑ Lewis Krauskopf, Mohammad Zargham: UN's Ban condemns Dutch movie as anti-Islamic. In: Reuters . March 28, 2008, accessed March 31, 2008 .
  23. ↑ Legal steps against anti-Koran film required. In: 3sat.de. March 31, 2008, accessed March 31, 2008 .
  24. ^ Spiegel Online: 25,000 people protested against Wilders film
  25. ^ Robert Marquand: 'Fitna': Dutch leader's anti-Islam film brings strife . March 26, 2008, p. 1. Retrieved May 6, 2009. 
  26. ↑ "My caricature has to get out of Wilders' film". In: spiegel.de . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  27. ↑ Wilders past anti-Koran film Fitna aan. In: De Volkskrant . March 31, 2008, accessed March 31, 2008 (Dutch).
  28. ^ Right-wing populist Wilders. In: Spiegel Online. Retrieved May 5, 2009 .
  29. ^ Spiegel Online: The court dismisses the lawsuit for sedition
  30. ↑ Saudi blogger publishes anti-Bible film. In: netzeitung.de . Archived from the original on March 14, 2012 ; Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  31. ↑ Welt.de: Blogger puts anti-Christian film online. In: welt.de . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  32. ^ Arnoud van Doorn converts to Islam . In: Loonwatch.com . October 10, 2013. Retrieved October 10, 2013.
  33. ↑ https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article114187628/Vom-Islamhasser-zum-glaeubigen-Muslim.html
  34. ↑ Gerald Traufetter: Video hostile to the Koran published - Protest against right-wing populist Wilders. In: spiegel.de . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  35. ↑ Gokalp Babayigit: 15 minutes hate. In: sueddeutsche.de . Retrieved May 19, 2015 .
  36. ↑ Werner A. Perger: Hetzer or freedom fighter? In: zeit.de . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  37. ↑ Helena Kysela: Blond agitator with anti-Islam mission. In: Focus Online. March 28, 2008, accessed April 30, 2009 .
  38. ^ Nils Minkmar: Right-wing populist Wilders against the Islamists. In: FAZ.NET . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  39. ↑ Spiegel Online: Do you want total boredom?
  40. ↑ Fatma Aykut in Spiegel Online: "I don't feel hurt in the least"
  41. ↑ Interview with Broder on Deutschlandfunk from March 28, 2008 (MP3)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / ondemand-mp3.dradio.de  
  42. ↑ Henryk M. Broder: The populist who isn't. In: spiegel.de . Retrieved May 3, 2009 .
  43. ^ Rehab el-Buri: Uproar Over Anti-Islam Film Falls Flat. In: ABC News. March 28, 2008, accessed March 29, 2008 .
  44. ↑ Humanistic press service: We have to discuss Fitna! ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. March 29, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hpd-online.de
  45. ^ Spiegel Online: "Geert Wilders is a hero of our time" April 2nd, 2008
  46. ↑ Die Weltwoche: “Kill them!” Edition 14/2008
  47. ↑ Irshad Manji , " Anti-Muslim Film Boorish and Boring, " on washingtonpost.com, April 2, 2008.
  48. ↑ Fitna - about Geert Wilder's Islam-critical short film (PDF; 69 kB) Article in Critique Network - Journal for Critical Theory of Society ISSN  1866-4105