We should not ignore ‘Fitna’ but use it
This is a guest post by Reem Maghribi
Society can only progress if it is allowed to question. This applies to issues concerning both science and faith. Regardless of whether or not Wilders’s intentions are based on assisting the progression of society by encouraging dialogue, I would invite his film – bland and poorly produced as it is – to become a tool for Muslims and non-Muslims in discussion of faith, freedom and difference.
The film offers footage of carnage at the hands of terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam and God.
What Wilders has done in this film is to directly associate lines in the Quran with acts of violence in recent times thus suggesting that these terrorist acts are justified and even encouraged by the Islamic holy text and refuting the argument of many of Europe’s Muslims that Islamist terrorists, such as al Quaida, do not represent the majority and do not represent the Quran.
The film may be poorly produced enough that it would not have received tv air time regardless of a decision on whether it should be banned, but its content is effective in giving Islamaphobes justification for their fears and hatred.
It is easy to dismiss Wilders film by claiming that all religious texts can be interpreted in many ways, but those who already hold negative views of Muslims and Islam – or worse, those who were undecided – may be affected by Wilders’ film and may only reconsider their views if someone offers them a rebuttal or alternative interpretations.
Wilders has put Muslims in a position to defend their religion and offer alternative explanations for the Quaranic verses which the film has quite dramatically and uncomfortably linked with heinous acts. Muslims must react accordingly. Not by being insulted and angered but by joining the discussion.
Although the Quran itself encourages open dialogue and interpretation of itself, there is often a sense of fear that encouraging interpretation will ultimately lead to a demise in the sacredness of the text, as is sometimes perceived to have been the case with Christianity.
Additionally, the questioning of the text is no longer encouraged by Imams in the East who take instruction from regimes who fear free-thinking will encourage social and political unrest and ultimately revolt.
It is these same regimes that did not control revolts against Danish embassies in 2006 or advise their people that the Danish government and people are not responsible for the acts of one newspaper. Ultimately it is in these regimes’ interests to encourage their people to see the West, or at least certain facets of it, as he enemy, just as some western regimes have an interest in encouraging their people to see Muslims or Islam as the enemy in order to justify their illegal invasions.
Conflict has only ever been resolved in one of two ways – violence and dialogue. Ultimately the process of communication and understanding which is necessary for Europe to overcome its woes in relation to immigrants and identity will be eternally ongoing.
Wilders wants all Muslims out of Europe. He feels that they have demanded too much from Europe and that European governments have bent too far, often at the expense of their citizens, in the name of social cohesion in order to appease immigrant Muslims. He has produced this film to prove his point.
If governments banned it from being aired on national television he would suggest they were being too cautious of the concerns of Europe’s Muslims. If they did not he would expect an uprising similar to the aftermath of the Danish cartoons and add clout to his belief that Islam is an intolerant religion that promotes violence against the enemy.
Hence, the existence of the film is as much a political tool in itself as its contents. I doubt, considering the lack of originality and poor production quality, the film would have received television air time in any case.
We should not simply shrug our shoulders and ignore Wilders’ film simply because it is produced by an Islamaphobe with a political agenda. Muslims in Europe, immigrant or otherwise, also have a political agenda – to be European citizens with equal rights.
Let us therefore respond to Wilders allegations, flesh out the issues at the root of his hatred and address them too. We may not be responsible for the actions of Islamist terrorists but we, Muslims in Europe, do have a responsibility to be part of the dialogue and solution to the unrest surrounding us, not because we or our beliefs are to blame for the unrest but because it is in our interests to do so.
————-
Reem Maghribi
Editor-in-Chief
Sharq magazine
Nice article and agree that Muslims need to open up more. I’ve said this for a while.
However would it be publicised - not that it shouldn’t be done if it isn’t.
The need to open up and do events is very important - exhibitions, outreach, more mosque open days.
However the concept of free speech doesn’t always allow Muslims to speak freely:
“They [the Muslim community] are afraid. They have been told by the Dutch government to keep quiet and be wise about this issue, and that’s what they want to do,” Naftaniel told Haaretz on Monday in CIDI’s four-story headquarters near the American embassy.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/970768.html
I think all religions need to open up and welcome debate.
I think Muslims can achieve a great deal by reacting well to this nasty man’s film and so far he is being shown as the intolerant nasty man he is.
I think mosques need to do more and open doors to the public. The media will keep beating on them but they need to do this. We also need to show support by at least willing to listen.
I question how many people would actually listen to the Muslim point of view.
Sorry Avi, your comment was accidently deleted. Bloody wordpress update.
Reem:
Good closing remarks. I always get annoyed when people say that Muslims have to stand up and take responsibility for terrorism committed in their religion’s name. Why? It was not anything to do with them, so why are people lumping them together in one basket? At the same time it is in the interests of other Muslims to try and combat these sort of extreme attitudes, not least because Muslims are overwhelmingly the victims of Islamist terrorism. Extremists make life worse for ordinary Muslims, especially women.
excellent article, if you ask me.
b’shalom
bananabrain
that is a very positive ( and generous!) attitude Reem, and very good points.
I would say there is a problem that we need to get mull over - which is the lack of acknowledgement of material that is difficult ( or other objectionable material) - and this is not discussed very openly or easily by Muslims. It’s not something parents and teachers talk about with you when they encourage you to read the Quran as a child or as a teenager, and then by the time you’re an adult its too difficult, possibly too late. Then it is easy to be attacked as glossing over unpleasantness. The fact that there are equally unpleasant items in the Bible is something we all know, it has been acknowledged and talked about. (imho people who still remain defensive about that are clearly suspect in some way..e.g. evangelical types)
Until society and people who are expected to believe are able to ask questions without fearing social ostracisation and worse, and point to problematic aspects of religion, its going to function as skeletons in the closet and used as such. Plus when people are honest about problems rather than denying them strongly, there is much less conflict and nothing to ‘hide’. what’s freaky is how so many people can keep repeating parrot fashion that there is only ‘Beauty’ in the Quran when you can clearly see with your own two eyes, its not all sweetness and light, it makes you wonder about those people’s honesty and intentions. If people said oh look alright there’s some unpleasant stuff in there but we try not to think about that and focus on the good, i think that would have quite a lot of impact. As the lack of fit between what one is told about the Quran, and what can actually be found within it freaks a lot of folk out. You wonder why other people haven’t been open about their questions/doubts/feelings toward particular phrases. Or if they have and they just haven’t said anything. It makes life very insecure I think.
A link which some people might find interesting and worth reading- these guys are blogging their thoughts on the Quran and what they think about Verse 4:34 - one of the particularly controversial ones.
Fitna is the Zionist’s ‘The Eternal Jew’. You have to understand that ‘Free speech’ is Zionists criticising anyone they like, and ‘Hate speech’ is anyone criticising Zionists.
It has already been shown that Geert Wilders is a crypto-zionist working directly for the Israeli embassy.
I’m sorry, but Fitna provoked a big yawn from me. Does it add anything at all to the discourse?
I think it’s makers and the Islamophobes are somewhat deflated by the complete lack of BloodLettingTeethGnashingHairTearingFlagBuriningEmbassyStorming offence from our friends, The Usual Muslims.
“It has already been shown that Geert Wilders is a crypto-zionist working directly for the Israeli embassy.”
Chris - Do you have any evidence for what you say?
That is a big accusation.
The movie was a yawn Sid but it is the first time i am aware of that a film has directly linked phrases from the Quran itself, not from ranting Imams or the like, with bad intentions and actions. That is what Wilders meant in his interviews before the films launch when he said he’d studied and discovered the true Islam - after years of bigotry he was shocked, and no doubt delighted, to actually find something concrete to back up his arguments against Muslims and Islam. The fact that he recently praised the Muslims of the Netherlands for their intellectual and non-violent reaction to the film is very encouraging, though the lack of media attention this achievement received compared to the violence witnessed post Danish cartoons in ‘06 is disappointing.
The Danish cartoon could be dismissed quite easily as being provocative racism. But Wilder’s film drew directly on phrases in the Quran so Muslim can no longer hide behind the usual ‘Isalm is all about peace’ argument suggesting the West have it in for us. As Sonia rightly says we always refuse to address or even acknowledge that there are peculiar phrases in the Quran that we quite frankly do not agree with. We are not taught about them growing up and when i was old enough to be aware of them myself no one wanted to discuss it. Young Moroccan men in Holland were asked last week about the verses Wilders used. they said they didn’t exist and that Wilders manipulated the translation. They probably believe what they are saying but they are wrong. The phrases do exist and until Muslims agree that questioning the Quran and studying it on an individual level - as opposed to the Imam and herd approach adopted in recent centuries - is a good thing we will continue to defend what is often not defendable and look worse for it.
It’s an admirable attempt by Reem Maghribi.
“Although the Quran itself encourages open dialogue and interpretation of itself, there is often a sense of fear that encouraging interpretation will ultimately lead to a demise in the sacredness of the text, as is sometimes perceived to have been the case with Christianity.”
Yeah, welcome to the real world!
And why do Arabs and Muslims fear scrutiny? Exactly because when one discovers the historical development of Islam, one is more than likely to discard it (psychologists might make an exception with a self-deceptive personality).
sonia @ 6
the link to verse 4:34 is hardly elucidating. If Allah/God/TheGreatJujuUpTheMountain is flawless, then, why would it need an interpreter?
Sorry, I ain’t buying it. [And that's from someone who finished reading the Koran at the age of 8].
All Abrahamic religions have dubious, deranged and somewhat sinister sections within them. The problem is that Muslims have not addressed theirs in the cold, hard light of modernity. But now, Muslims have had a full two hundred years of exposure to modernity and it is incumbent on them to deal with it.
And if they were to do so, muslims would come face to face with the realisation that the scandalous sections the Quran contains can and should be ignored by all right-thinking muslims. Just as Jews and Christians have learnt to ignore the dubious tracts from their sacred texts.
If a sacred text suggests that the universe is a giant turtle with four elephants standing at each of the cardinal points of it’s shell, joining their trunks to the apex to hold a plate on which rests a golden globe, all of which is floating through space then we have two choices:
1. Believe it literally
2. Regard it as an ancient and somewhat laboured allegory and reject it to the recycle bin of “spiritual truth”.
This applies to verses which call for murdering non-muslims and calls jews pigs and donkeys.
It has already been shown that Geert Wilders is a crypto-zionist working directly for the Israeli embassy.
If that were so, then his insiduous propaganda techniques would have scored another victory by getting you to post that crap.
Just as the purpose of terrorism is to try and induce a repressive reaction to prepare the ground for a revolution, the purpose of provocation is to try and induce an unthinking reaction.
The actions aren’t morally equivalent, but the reactions to them can be equivalently stupid.
Bravo!
A psychologist would have a field day with you Sid.
“If a sacred text suggests that the universe is a giant turtle with four elephants standing at each of the cardinal points of it’s shell, joining their trunks to the apex to hold a plate on which rests a golden globe, all of which is floating through space then we have two choices…”
So, as long as it’s an abstracted notion of godhood (abrahamic), it’s fine? The Hindus are the real idiots. Look at them with their Hanumans! Laughable! Right?
Sid, your suggestion is very suspect.
to be precise, we jews have learnt that they don’t apply to the situations that christian evangelists seem to think they apply to. take for example the biblical (and therefore eternal, unchangeable etc) commandment to exterminate the amalekites and the “seven nations of canaan” - the caananites, amorites, hivites, jebusites, girgashites, hittites and perizzites, if you’re interested - the commandment still stands, but we can’t carry it out any more because the sages decided 2000 years ago that “sennacherib mixed up all the nations” (tosefta kiddushin 5:6) so we can’t spot a girgashite any more. i certainly wouldn’t know what one looks like even if he danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing “girgashites are here again”. so actually, it’s still literal, but it has been, if you like “disarmed” using hermeneutics.
b’shalom
bananabrain
LMAO @ 15
meant @ 14
:-))
So, as long as it’s an abstracted notion of godhood (abrahamic), it’s fine? The Hindus are the real idiots. Look at them with their Hanumans! Laughable! Right?
Perhaps I should add that the only sacred text I ever read and respected immediately, deeply and unconditionally is a Hindu text, a treatise of the Veda called the Vedanta by Sankaracharjya.
and this, too, is something we attribute to G!D - when a famous rabbi came up with a clinching argument why the Divine should not be allowed to use the Voice From The Sky gambit to settle arguments, we are given to understand (via an appearance of the prophet elijah) that G!D ROFLMAO-ed and said “My children have defeated Me.” (talmud, bava metzia 59b) - so nowadays, we tend to look upon difficult or challenging texts as opportunities to exercise our creative ingenuity to come up with an appropriate response. unfortunately, most muslims have not been living in a diaspora for long enough to develop a discourse which covers other situations than “we should be the boss of you because, like, we’re muslims, m’kay?” although there are many theologians and activists who are busily working on this very issue at present. nonetheless, this hasn’t reached the average british madrassa as yet, that’s for damsure.
b’shalom
bananabrain
muhammad, sure you don’t have to buy it, i personally don’t buy it either. but its easier for me to not accept it when i see other people having some questions, rather than when people deny vehemently deny there is a problem. well i find i have more sanity this way!
Jeeh whizz chaps!
I didn’t realise there was this amount of religious discourse going around in the 21st Century
We have bananabrain, who I enjoy debating with, coming away with stuff like this:
which is hilariously funny, and witty. But the tail end of it isn’t.
Identified, true Girgashites would indeed be fair game, even now. The failure to identify these folk - I ask you, Girgashites - is actually a deliberate attempt to turn a blind eye. Sadly, any sort of racial extermination, including the Girgashites, is probably proto Nazi. Call me for the Godwin, Bananabrain, but you know it it true. That is no more acceptable than calling for Jewish extermination, and you have the brains to know it.
Continuing elsewhere.
Then of course we have Muhamad {peace be upon me}
Personally, I wouldn’t have thought so.
I’d have thought it was all you god swallowers who ought to get together, support each other and check the marks on Monica Lewinski’s dress. There may, indeed be the face of the sweet little baby Jesus! In other words, you are being a tad hypocritical.
that’s the bloody point, douglas! we *know* that sort of thing isn’t on any more, so we’ve taken steps to defang the legislation - and we did it 2000 years ago! moreover, G!D is down as *approving* of our having done so!
more to the point, it was never about *racial* extermination. if you look at *any* halakhic source on this, it talks about post-sennacherib, eliminating the *characteristics* of these people, ie idol worship, sexual immorality/slavery, child sacrifice and so on. now i consider that nazis should be eliminated as well, annihilated and wiped from the face of the earth. does that make me a genocidal maniac? no, it doesn’t, because it is only nazi *actions* that can be penalised. i can’t do anything about someone’s beliefs, nor do their beliefs have anything to do with their ethnicity.
is that sufficiently clear?
b’shalom
bananabrain
Johnny Girgashite had better watch out.
Douglas,
Actually, I think Muhamad {peace be upon me} had misinterpreted Sid’s point ( I believe Sid is more or less a Spinozan when it comes to matters deistic)rather than having a pop at Hinduism.
However, I do stand amazed at the vast expense of human intelligence and scholarship which has been spent on reconciling passages which are clearly political expediencies to fit very local and time-specific squabbles with the idea that these are the revealed communications from the Creator of the Universe, and as such eternally true - one way or another.
If that much brain power had been directed elsewhere we would probably have decoded the genome by the fourteenth century and would currently be terra-forming the outer planets of Arcturus. (Or not, I have nothing to back that up with.)
If a piece of text is clearly long outmoded, factually incorrect or morally abhorrent (or all three), isn’t the obvious conclusion that it did not derive from a benevolent divinity? Just someone making stuff up to get an edge on the opposition?
Rumbold,
I can hear the mobs baying even now,
‘You’re Girgashite and you know you are.’
Or rather, “you’re Girg-a-shite and you know you are,”
and “we canaan and we kicked yer arse”
bananabrain,
I realise that that is the bloody point. Oh, I can’t stop laughing over Girgashites.
Look, I realise you have to rationalise your beliefs, and, frankly I admire you for that. I also admire your pragmatism.
But what if there were a Girgashite, perhaps pretending to be a Chelsea supporter - it fits, don’t it - well what would you do?
I’ll answer the question for you. You would assume that he wasn’t a Girgashite, you’d assume Girgashite’s were not Chelsea supporter, and you’d walk away from this obvious nonsense. You do realise that rationalisim is not necessarily sense?
Just don’t assume that a straight on atheist is ever, ever, going to be convinced!
I respect you Bananabrain, I really do. I just feel you’ve been missing a beat recently…..
don (and douglas),
perhaps the amount of mental discipline we have developed from doing this has contributed to our influence on human society? and besides, we’ve hardly been prevented from directing our brain power into other fields - without judaism you get no maimonides, spinoza, marx, freud or einstein - or leonard cohen, woody allen, groucho marx, etc. more to the point, we are hardly short of jewish scientists, even believing ones. i take your point about brain power, but, as one of my old bosses once said, “you can’t make a baby in one month by putting nine women on the job”; i don’t think scientists have done a particularly great job of coming to terms with the moral issues needed to deal with the capabilities science gives us; look at GM food, or climate change. we need moral (and spiritual) maturity in order to make the most of our raw potential, i’d have thought.
it’s *one* conclusion. the fact that it may be obvious to *you* does not make it correct. (jews aren’t lawyers for nothing!) it may refer, for example, to an allegorical or symbolic interpretation, a hint to go and investigate something else, or indeed a mystical and esoteric tradition based on coded references.
the fact is that what someone thought was “outmoded” in the C19th with their infatuation with progress (like, say, “backward” tribal societies) may upon contingent understanding by, say, a social anthropologist reveal a wisdom that has been forgotten by people who are in a hurry to terraform the outer planets of arcturus.
as for “factually incorrect”, what appears to be a fact at one point may change over time, as any scientist will tell you about, say, newtonian physics or the ptolemaic cosmological model. not so long ago we thought people in the middle ages thought the world was flat and that certainly turned out to be bollocks.
as for “morally abhorrent”, it should be obvious from the case of how moderns view homosexuality that sociomorality too changes over time.
you may find this trite, but as a parent i treat my child very differently as a 2-year old than i expect to treat him when he is a teenager or an adult. i pick him up when he falls over, change his nappy, prevent him from running into the road, tell him things in terms of “good” and “bad”, make him sit on the “naughty step” etc. as he develops a more nuanced set of understandings over time, i will have to intervene less and less in his affairs - he’ll be able to do everything from cross a road to wipe his own arse. i can’t stop him sticking his fingers in the electric sockets indefinitely or he’ll never learn anything. what makes you think G!D Views humans differently? back then we couldn’t be trusted to know good from bad - it is, as i think you would all agree, more complex nowadays and to a certain extent much improved. that doesn’t mean good and bad don’t exist any more, but G!D as Divine Parent has a more complex relationship with us. what i am saying, essentially, is that G!D, in the jewish view, expects us to improve ourselves, to challenge each other and the Divine itself, to test our limits and to grow. it is our challenge, for example, to not assume we know whether the denizens of stamford bridge are girgashites or indeed any other sort of shite.
in short, wearing a t-shirt with “i’m a big fat purple girgashite” on it doesn’t make you a girgashite any more than john cleese dressing up as hitler makes him a nazi. it is our job as human beings to develop that sort of critical intelligence and discriminatory faculties.
“missing a beat”, forsooth. sometimes it seems to me that what really upsets people here is that a traditionally-minded monotheist can be as reasonable and pragmatic as a socialist atheist. and that, quite often, feels a leetle bit chauvinist to me, with a C19th eurocentric flava. you have to take the long view. we have survived the girgashites, assyrians, babylonians, persians, greeks, romans, catholics, muslims, philosophers, mongols, psychologists, communists, nazis and americans and we’re still here, a mote in the eye of history. it would seem to me that perhaps we have a perspective on human potential that is worth investigating as well as some valuable experience.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Cheers bananabrain,
What an excellent riposte.
Your lot also ’saw off’ Osiris and Horus did you not?
More seriously, the problem would seem to be down to religious texts where an extant group - Jews usually - are seen as the bad guys. I’d kind of hoped that in my lifetime that could have been pushed into a historical past, but it seems to me to be a tad unlikely. Folk seem very wedded to even the most ridiculous bits of their holy books.
Although your point about the flexibility of sociomorality does give me some hope. As long as it is a ratchet effect towards a more liberal society, at least. For which there is, obviously, no guarantee.
23. Don - good points.
oops, sorry didn’t close my tag!
I think what is really interesting about the whole god thing is what it reveals about us humans and our deepest desires and fears.
thank you douglas, charming as usual. i suppose we did see off osiris and horus, at least in our version of events, although the historians, archaeologists and academics seem determined to prove that none of our sacred texts describe anything that actually happened…
b’shalom
bananabrain
“that there are peculiar phrases in the Quran that we quite frankly do not agree with”
If that is the case,how can you even be muslim ?
If you do not believe that the Quran is not Word of Allah ,it is problem with you not Allah’s Word
in response to null’s comments (no.33 - 4 April):
I believe it is not your right to determine who is Muslim and who is not.
I believe God offers guidance and encourages us to think for ourselves both as individuals and collectivelly.
I believe that we do Islam a disservice to insist on finding interpretations for Quaranic verses we are uncomfortable with rather than embracing the spirit of the Quran as a whole.
very good points from Reem
I think the title of the film is apt…’Fitna’ which seeks to cause discord. Ironically, what anecdotal evidence suggests is that such ‘dramas’ actually further drives more Muslims to read scripture and derive meaning and understanding according to the early generations, and not, simply ape Islam rooted in tradition.
My only concern with the film is the type of reaction it is trying to exact upon the general public, by scaring them of their Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens. A few days ago, I had a BNP leaflet posted in my letterbox, and most of its points used the ‘Muslim’ issue to create a sense of fear.
Reem:
‘I believe that we do Islam a disservice to insist on finding interpretations for Quaranic verses we are uncomfortable with rather than embracing the spirit of the Quran as a whole.’
But this was even the case during the time of the prophet (pbuh) himself..if he and his companions would have simply embraced the ’spirit of the day’ many practices and attitudes which we rightly feel to be distasteful would have continued. In fact, this opens the door to cultural relativism; in a society ravaged by war ‘the spirit of Islam’ could be understand in a totally different manner.
I feel this is a rather facile argument, no?
[...] Frankly, one of the reasons I don’t blog about nice religious people more often is that I have trouble finding things to say about stuff I agree with. But I tire of being called a racist bitch when really, I’m just an argumentative bitch. So, Muslims (and everyone else), go read. [...]