"Dutch right-wing politician..."
-- from the article above

Would the author of that article care to tell us Geert Wilder's views on, inter alia, taxation? The splendors and miseries of the free market? Global warming, perhaps? Education policy, and grants for students? What about on subsidies for mass transit? On the use of fossil fuels? On the regulation of sexual behavior by the state? On the use of public funds to support artists in the Netherlands? On health insurance, and the kind of health care made available to Dutch citizens that will be paid for by the state? On the relationship of the Dutch broadcasting networks to the government? On the monarchy, perhaps? On the relations of the judiciary to legislation? On anything at all, for god's sake?

No. The author of that article, and all other similar articles that use formualically the Homeric epithet "right-wing," need to explain to us what they mean by this.

Or is "right-wing" merely an all-purpose denigrating epithet in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, and possibly in North America too, designed to tell us what we must think about, the stance we must assume toward, the heroic, and as far as any of us knows, entirely admirable Geert Wilders, whose other views, whose other policies, remain as unknown to you and to me as they do to the author of the article above, with its vicious little adjective slipped in, as always, to influence the unaware.

Posted by: Hugh at March 28, 2008 2:25 PM

Yeah, like Churchill was "right-wing"...

Posted by: LazarOfSerbia at March 28, 2008 2:32 PM

"The Dutch, enemy of Allah, has done what he threatened to do and distributed his film," said a banner in an Islamist website.

Funny, I don't recall Geert ever threatening to do anything. He said only that he would show it.

Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at March 28, 2008 2:48 PM

The Dutch, enemy of Allah, has done what he threatened to do and distributed his film

Posted by: US_infidel at March 28, 2008 2:49 PM

Mr. Wilders courage is certainly admirable but this film is almost embarrassingly poor, it comes across as a piece of badly composed propaganda. It looks like a compilation of youtube clips.

The film falls far behind the accepted standards set for a documentary by not providing time, date, location, context of photographic images/video. Further more, even the lamest of documentaries tries to give an iota of an idea of what the other side thinks. It's good in terms of "preaching for the believers", that is, confirming the worldview of anti-jihadists, but if a person who has not yet formed his opinion about this subject watches it, I'm afraid he's not going to be convinced that Islam is dangerous by seeing this film. It's quite clearly made by an amateur.

I'm not saying these things out of disrespect for Mr. Wilders, I'm just saying; Let's be realistic here. A film against Islam could be much, much better than this.

Posted by: seville844 at March 28, 2008 3:02 PM

"I'm not saying these things out of disrespect for Mr. Wilders, I'm just saying; Let's be realistic here. A film against Islam could be much, much better than this."
Posted by: seville844

Hey......it's a start. And it's getting the message out to millions of people who may have been ignorant of the danger up until now.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at March 28, 2008 3:08 PM

I wonder if Al-Qaeda is willing to post "Fitna" on their site? Surely there is nothing in the film that they would object to? I didn't see any thing that they haven't said themselves.

Posted by: tanstaafl at March 28, 2008 3:21 PM

Remember what happened to Sharon?????

Now they're taking credit for strokes??

idiots.

Posted by: gymgal at March 28, 2008 3:45 PM

Bizarre finding: Go to Google News, and you will see that every story has 100s or 1000s related stories; however, they listed the ABC news item about Fitna ("Uproar Over Anti-Islam Film Falls Flat") with NO additional links.

And why is this an "Anti-Islam" film? From whose point of view?

Even stranger: I just checked it, and now Google has NO items at all on this. Too hot. Radioactive. Better to ignore it! Wusses.

Posted by: ReligionofPeas at March 28, 2008 3:59 PM

I haven't seen Mr. Wilders' film, so am unable to comment on the quality or its artistic merits, but even if it was a polished computer enhanced Hollywood (never happen, but you know what I mean) produced film, it would still anger these thin skinned muslims.

Besided us JW posters, does anyone else in the real world recognize the hypocrisy of these muslims screaming and foaming at the mouths about some percieved slight to their precious religion while they alternately scream Death to infidels?

You've got peaceful Tibetan Buddhist monks being arrested (and?) by the Chinese for literally crying about the lack of freedom in their country and the collective world shrugs its shoulders. But oh these muslims and the insults heaped upon them. How disgusting and shameful the West's cowardice with very few exceptions.

Posted by: HOV Dummy at March 28, 2008 4:20 PM

HOV Dummy;

Sure it's easy to enrage the muslims, but the point I'm trying to make is that this film is aimed at the western worlds population, not the muslims in particular. A more well crafted film about this subject could make a massive impact. Right now I think the usual hysteria from the muslim camp is going to drown some of the message of the film, unfortunately. That would be more difficult if it was good production.

Posted by: seville844 at March 28, 2008 5:59 PM

"Wilders' 17-minute film entitled Fitna, criticised Islam's holy book, the Koran."

I thought he was just sharing the Koran, and letting it speak for itself.

Posted by: BunrattyBill at March 28, 2008 6:03 PM

"Wilders' 17-minute film entitled Fitna, criticised Islam's holy book, the Koran."

Rather than criticising the koran, Geert Eilder's film shows it for what it is and what its desired effects are.

No critique there. Critique would discuss the text and the ideological contents. Nothing such as that was done. Accurate representation in the original Arabic in writing and chanted/shouted exhortations is shown and sounded.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at March 29, 2008 2:09 AM

Incredible. This flick is mild in it's content. All that is done is to reveal a few truths about Islam, and it's viewed as a threat. Truth=threat to Islam. I love it.

And they protest and threaten death for having the truth about their religion spotlighted.

We get the same message, over and over from the most holy and righteous of all worshipers on the planet...Muslims.

"Ours is a religion of peace dammit, and if you don't stop revealing the truth, and thereby insulting our most peaceful of all religions, we're gonna have to cut your stupid head off!"

Of course we here know that they need no such provocation, or any incitement at all to begin cutting throats. The need to cut our heads off is made clear in the Koran.

The film is available for download through bittorrent. I have it in my collection and am sharing it through bittorrent and sending via e-mail to everyone I know. I've put it on DVDs and am handing them out to everyone I meet who shows an interest.

Posted by: Alaskan at March 29, 2008 5:00 AM