As we all know by now, the movie 'Fitna' was taken down from LiveLeak after some threats to their staff today, and is now available on Google Video (watch out Brin and Page).
I was truly disappointed after watching the movie (yes, I watched it, out of curiosity) – it had the same old arguments, partial ayaat, cherry-picked and quoted out of context, mixed with music and select imagery mixed with the beheading videos that have already been milked for all their worth – in an attempt to associate 'terrorist' with 'Islamist'. I was expecting something phenomenal but all I got was 15 minutes of boredom… guess I'm just jaded. I was also looking forward to the debates that the movie was supposed to have elicited, but I guess that isn't going to happen either.
What I don't understand is, why can't the defenders of Islam (extremists or whatchamacallum) realize that nothing better can happen to further their cause than movies like Fitna?!
We keep complaining about how the Western culture is slowly taking over and changing our muslim values… but when a western producer actually stands up and tells the world "honestly" about what he and his supporters think of the jew-hating, brainwashed killing machines that we Muslims are, and that too in a video that is somehow getting world-wide media coverage and can potentially serve to alienate and estrange the muslim population from the rest of the world (something which is a top priority of our 'Islamist' brothers) … our religious superheros miss this golden opportunity by threatening and removing the videos from the internet. That just does not make any business sense, at least to me! I wouldn't be surprised if the threats were a stunt by Gert Wilder himself, just to prove his point.
Like every other muslim, I don't want anyone to draw the prophet's image – either with love or in ridicule, but every time some such incident happens, I can mark the person/entity/group of people as 'bad', 'wrong' or 'evil', depending on my level of faith. This makes hate movies like Fitna excellent tools – wedges that the 'Islamists' can use very effectively to widen the chasm between 'us' and 'them'. Any muslim who watches the video (and is frustrated by the distorted and skewed picture that Wilders paints) and cares enough to research the quotes from the video is bound to become a little less "tolerant" and a little more "extremist" – which is exactly what AlQaida wants. Our terrorist brothers should appreciate Gert Wilders for this honest and public broadcast of his true feelings instead of doing it the KKK way.
To borrow a concept from Richard Dawkin's "The God Illusion", if we are really right and they are really wrong, they are going to hell anyway, and if hell really is all that it is purported to be, isn't that enough of a punishment for them already?
Actually, if I were an AlQaida media representative of some sort, I would have gone one step further and would have sent ALL the Taliban propaganda movies that I could buy from Hall Road, Lahore (they must be in dozens, if not hundreds) to Mr. Wilder as a gift. He surely won't be able to find better raw material for his next "documentary" – or better – a whole TV series. Your infidel enemies bearing the cost of your PR campaigns, and earning some more sins in the process – it can't get any better than this, AlQaida!
If you have come this far in reading this, do also check out the comments here about the pictures of our prophet. I like the way these average 'ferangis' make fun of my religion/ideology, it helps me 'stay awake'. So Al Qaida, please let Wilders make more movies like Fitna, and Mr. Wilders , the next time you make a documentary, please tear a page from the Quran and not some telephone book – we know you want to.