Fitna of the Mind
I was eagerly waiting for the release of Dutch Politician Geert Wilders’ anti-Koranic film titled “Fitna” (meaning chaos in Arabic) for sometime now and when I knew it had been finally released about two days ago, amidst a world full of turmoil, I initially searched for it all over the internet but in vain. Originally released on website LiveLeak.com, whose staff received death threats and as a result they had been forced to take it off the air. Eventually I found it here.
The lukewarm response it got, in stark contrast to the expectation of the world, was well deserved. The film, if you can hardly call it one, was merely a montage of low-grade internet videos of Islamic extremists preaching death and destruction upon the Western world (and especially Jews), stitched together with inserts of Koranic verses which seemed to (primarily) advocate violence against non-believers. I decided to promptly read independent translations of the quoted verses and was surprised that the meanings I found were relatively mild compared to what the film rendered. What conspired here probably relates to the nature of the Koranic text itself, which even without translation, is open to a staggering amount of self-interpretation.[1] After watching it a few times, my conclusion is that this film is nothing more than a few minutes of nonsensical hate propaganda and should have never been made. Anybody with half a brain knows mainstream Islam (despite its many other shortcomings) does neither advocate nor permit the travesties implored within the film’s duration.
The Islamic world did not thankfully respond to this film with violent retribution as they did with the Jyllands-Posten controversy a few years back. Strictly in hindsight, I thought about the cause of such violence and realized that there are two primary reasons of which the first one deals with the very western attitude of protecting freedom of speech, even at the cost of denying others of their freedom of veneration and sanctity. Most religious folk are deeply distraught when their religion is lampooned mercilessly so it is understandable that they react by taking personal offense, just like any rational person would if his parents or loved ones were ridiculed publicly, especially on baseless grounds. If only religion (and its sacred icons) too can be protected under defamation laws in these countries, then they wouldn’t be helpless to act against hate-mongers such as Wilders. The other problem is that the collective Muslim psyche is too temperamental as it keenly takes offense in anything that contradicts, negates or criticizes its faith. They need to understand that critical analysis and commentary should not be deterred and perhaps also learn to tolerate (if not appreciate) satire instead of maniacally focusing their pent up rage on sabotaging foreign property and harming foreign individuals. A disagreement can easily easily be resolved by fighting back, but only verbally.
Respect, understanding and tolerance are the keys to the viability of a world full of imperfect beings who are inherently different, both in appearance and thought. Only then could we rid ourselves of this “fitna of the mind” and regress back to the relative serenity of our prehistoric past.
[1]Sadly, this is not the first time the vagueness (or ambiguity) of both the original text and its dependent translations has been misused in this manner. Islamic fundamentalists do this all the time to inflict their own ideologies with regard to Islam.
Ali Antenna says...
(April 1, 2008 at 1:17 pm)
I saw it yesterday… for all the hype it got you’d think it would have something more substantial to say. Wilders’ should be stoned for crappy film making. oh wait…
alex m says...
(April 1, 2008 at 1:52 pm)
I saw it 3 day ago, this is crazy
hg says...
(April 1, 2008 at 1:55 pm)
there is another film on the way . Aisha and Muhammed depicted.
Nora says...
(April 1, 2008 at 4:54 pm)
I agree with you most part of your post.. however would have to say that the verses of the Qur’an in themselves are neither vague nor ambiguous. To capture their true meaning, all that is required is an examination of their correct context, be that historical, linguistic or otherwise.
Sometimes, all you need to do is read the preceding and succeeding verse to place it in context.
F says...
(April 2, 2008 at 9:19 am)
‘Fitna’ is such a weak effort and Wilders is now getting sued for being unoriginal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/28/wgert228.xml
Khady Hamid says...
(April 3, 2008 at 7:12 am)
I have not seen the movie, Fitna, but had read about it in the news. However, I do not necessarily want to spend my time watching something that makes reductive claims on Islam. Not necessarily because I am muslim, ( for that matter, I am not even that religious), but out of the respect that I have for any religion. On a more personal note, (again even though I am not deeply religious), I have great respect for religion in general, and would not tolerate reductive claims made on any religion in any manner.
For me, religion is not the problem. Religion is the just the sand covering the black hole. In other words, religion has been “used” by people of power and authority over and over for thier own personal gains. Religion and religions which inherently was a unifying force, is now being used to create divisions and impose realities of ” us” and ” others”.
To give a different perspective on the rising Islamic Fundamentalism:
If you look at the places in the world today, where muslims who fight back are constantly called terrorists, one thing you would notice about these places is that the majority of them are occupied lands. Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Whether you are a muslim or not, if your land is being occupied by external forces, if your independence, soveiregnty is being threatened, would you not fight back as well???
Even though I do not agree with the modes used by Hamas and other insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere, I do not necessarily blame them.
It is not even a matter of people fighting to follow a religion. But it is a matter of people challenging imperialism and colonialism.
One of the saddest facts when it comes to this is the media’s incapability to give a more complex understanding of the muslim of the 21st century. They do not care to show that the muslim of the 21st century has so much less to do with Islam than with challenging hegemonic power structures.
I do not know whether you have seen this yet, but I will highly reccomend, Steve Connors and Molly Bingham’s ” Meeting Resistance”. It is a movie made shortly after the fall of Bagdadh and is based on the insurgence in Iraq. While the later parts of the movie do talk about religion ( I did not like these parts), the movie will give you an insight into the things that I have talked about here.
As far as the Quran being open for interpretation. I do not think that it is such a bad thing. Infact I think God made the Quran that way for a reason. If it is open for interpretation, it means you will think about it. You will engage in the verse, intellectually, see what makes sense and what doesn’t and make your own sense of the verse. In the end, Islam or any religion for that matter is not about “being told” or spoon fed. It is about questioning, thinking, engaging, analysing, evaluating and making sense. The sad truth of the matter is that most of us have forgotten this and have gotten to blindly believing what the Mullah, Pope or Rabbi tells us.
fizan says...
(April 3, 2008 at 9:04 am)
Khady, in your own words “…religion has been “used” by people of power and authority over and over for their own personal gains” so divine intentions of bestowing religion on our corrupt minds aside, its truly apparent that in the modern day and age, religion is more detrimental than beneficial as it is (arguably) the number 1 instigator of violence, cruelty and division among mankind.
As for the conflicts in the Iraq and Afghanistan, if you remember correctly, their invasions were provoked by the unfortunate events of 9/11 which were probably caused by the Palestinian conflict fuelled by the Americans’ preferential treatment of Israel, which by the way, can probably be attributed by the Palestinians’ uncompromising stance of sharing their land with the Zionists and so on and so forth. My point is that this blame game can probably extend to biblical times when God duped the Israelites from their “promised land” so in essence, doing this is really futile. Understanding it isn’t though, and appreciate your mention here.
And why people continually fight powers of colonialism and imperialism is beyond me, as all they seem to do is to inflict suffering on themselves. Is the price of freedom (a vague concept in itself) so steep that you forget to make the distinction subsequent to the prioritization of national sovereignty from individual liberty? I know what I want, which simply is the freedom to do what I want, without limiting the freedom of someone else, and oh, my nation’s foreign policy and decisions to declare war are only of secondary concern.
But yes, I can’t agree more that the media has methodically failed to portray the true face of Islam, which I truly believe isn’t such a violent creed as is the general consensus in the West. Sure, there are a few crackpots her and there but they stand starkly contrasted by the rest of the lot. Maybe there is some ulterior motive for the media’s relative ignorance on this particular subject, as some people are too keen to suggest?
We sure seem to have detracted significantly from the topic of my post, but coming back to self interpretation of the Koran, at the very best, it can be considered a mixed blessing. Sure, it invites some people to actually think instead of wallowing in idiotic spoon-fed dogmas, but the lamentable truth is that the vast majority of people accustoms themselves the latter proving our own inherent passiveness. Conditions such as these enforces the existence of regimes such as the Taliban, the Mutaween and the whatnot, who are nothing but predators feeding on the submissiveness of their followers.
DrFreex says...
(April 17, 2008 at 5:50 pm)
A commendable reflection Contra-legem.
Waleed says...
(August 10, 2008 at 2:37 am)
Hello there,
You know, the english used to say “Little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Perhaps you know too little about religion. How does everything work without coordination? Do your research my friend. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Are all human beings crazy? It even grows in China where most of the people follow religions completely contradictory to islam. Anyway, don’t beleive anything just because someone said it. Don’t beleive anything just because I said so. Do your research and decide again. Get to know two sides of everything.
fizan says...
(August 10, 2008 at 8:02 am)
Hi Waleed,
I must (painfully) admit that I don’t know much about religion, nor about anything else but what I know is based on … guess what? Research. Turns out I don’t have to sit in a dusty corner of an ancient Babylonian library to do that nowadays.
And as for the English maxim you quoted… any detrimental effect my (what you coyly dub) “ignorance” , is limited on my own mind, as I really don’t advocate religious people to be “less” religious. I just invite lively discussion on these things, instead of preach about ramming airplanes into buildings, polygamy, patronizing women and stuff. So please, reconsider what kind of “little knowledge” is “dangerous”?
Speaking of limited knowledge, any particular reason why you decided to write that comment on the one post I wrote in defence of religion? Oh, sure, no doubt about the fact that Islam is spreading like wildfire, but so did Christianity, but does that one fact makes either of them any better with regard to the countless travesties in their combined histories?
hello says...
(August 10, 2008 at 9:13 am)
Interesting, these last two comments
Waleed says...
(August 10, 2008 at 1:09 pm)
Hello Fizan,
Know more about religion. Again, do your research. One who goes through Koran will know it. Cat Stevens spent a lot of money to disprove it, but he failed.
Go through the Koran, instead of criticizing it unknowingly. I’d say you’ve got a very powerful brain.
Cheers
Waleed
mellow says...
(August 10, 2008 at 8:09 pm)
hahaha aww, yes I will :)
Fareesha says...
(August 10, 2008 at 10:08 pm)
Hi Fizan,
I’d agree to Waleed, to some extent. I do not beleive that something has to be good just because it is growing at a fast pace. But it’s a good idea to know more about religion, yeah?
ambivalence says...
(August 11, 2008 at 12:12 am)
Waleed,
There is some amount of irony in your statement when you ask Fizan to “research” Koran and not criticize it.
Research, as I uderstand, means inquiry (scientific or otherwise) by scrutinising the subject without bias. You are asking him to research the Koran without subjecting the content to criticism and skepticism. Thats not research; that is essentially asking him to restrain his potential to view anything and everything from a 360-degree perspective before making a rational judgement.
Koran, like any other religious scripture, is poetry which can easily be interpreted in a thousand different ways that can then be interrelated to each and every scientific discovery ever made. Same goes to Bible and any other poetry out there.
What was that Cat Stevens tried to disprove and failed?
Leena says...
(August 11, 2008 at 2:13 pm)
One should not say not to criticize anything. I do beleive in Islam and Quran, but have some questions on the way people interpret it.
freethink-mv: says...
(September 18, 2008 at 2:07 am)
just visiting
Afsal says...
(September 10, 2009 at 3:09 pm)
What happened to Fizan? No responses to Waleed?