Fitna

You can go and watch Geert Wilder's Fitna here. I've just seen it.

As is to be expected, the rage in the Muslim world over this short film has nothing to do with any insults to their religion that Wilders has set out in the film- instead he merely reports what the Koran actually says and intercuts that with violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. Some of it is very graphic indeed.

If they were being honest or rational, the people protesting Fitna would also be protesting against every newspaper article or TV news broadcast which reports on Islamic terrorism- because that's really all Fitna does. But of course there's no rationality, logic or even a sense of proportion in their response to the film.

"This film is a direct attempt to incite violence from Muslims and help fan the flames of Islamophobia," Arsalan Iftikhar, a contributor to Washington-based Islamica Magazine, told CNN on Thursday. "Any reasonable person can see this is meant to spit in the face of Muslims and insult our religion."

So, let me get this straight- Muslims commit horrendous acts of violence in the name of their religion, Dutch politician reports on these self-same acts and the result is that he is inciting Muslims to commit more violence? What? I really don't know which is more troubling- the predictable response to Fitna or the fact that no one in the media is asking these deeply offended people exactly how reporting Islamic violence is an insult to Islam- but they are not offended by the Islamic terrorists committing these acts.

The only offensive thing about Fitna is the shocking, gruesome and barbaric violence committed in the name of Islam that it shows.