Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
By Mona Eltahawy
NEW YORK — As soon as I heard that right wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam film had been uploaded onto an internet site, I did what any self-respecting Muslim would do: I clicked on the link and prepared to be offended.
Talk about anti-climax! What happened, Geert? Like a magpie stringing cheap trinkets together, “Fitna” is a cut-and-paste affair. It tries to pass itself off as precious insight. It isn’t.
It’s not breaking news that Muslim radicals have abused the Quran to justify their violence. Just like Wilders, they cherry-pick their verses from the Muslim holy book to make their bloody point.
Most of us Muslims have long urged that we leave behind these verses referring to a very different time and place — just as most Christians and Jews have moved on from verses in their holy texts that extremists still use to justify violence, slavery, and misogyny.
Wilders has the right to make whatever film he wants. I defend his freedom of speech. It protects my freedom too. I would much rather err on the side of freedom than on the side of restraint, as Islamic countries recently did at the U.N. Human Rights Council.
At the urging of Egypt and Pakistan — hardly bastions of freedoms of any kind — the council adopted a measure that added monitoring religious prejudice to the duties of a U.N. free speech expert. Now, as well as reporting on repressive governments’ restriction of free speech, the U.N. investigator will report acts of “racial or religious discrimination” that constitute “abuse of the right of freedom of expression.”
When they pushed for the adoption of that measure, Egypt and Pakistan were going after Wilders’ film, and the 2005 Danish cartoons that upset many Muslims. I’m sure they weren’t concerned with their domestic discrimination against religious minorities, or how their media offend and insult religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’.
This perspective has Muslims as always the victims. It is concerned only with offense from abroad. It is not so concerned about the protestor holding up a “Death to Wilders” sign at a protest in Indonesia. Nor is it concerned with the Pakistani demonstrators chanting “kill the filmmaker.” (Exactly what Wilders wants to see and hear, because he wants to lay their careless threats of violence at the feet of all Muslims.)
So far the threats have come from militant groups whose agitation has thankfully been thus far ignored by the general public in Islamic countries. Unfortunately, that’s no guarantee that it will stay that way. After all, it was six months after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that 50 people — most, if not all, Muslim — were killed in riots in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
There is a good chance that “Fitna” will not spark the chaos of its name and we have Dutch Muslims to thank for that. They have learned from the Danish cartoon tragedy.
At the end of 2005, several weeks after publication, some Danish Muslim leaders took their grievances about the cartoons to the Muslim world and asked for help. In ways ever more disturbing, a bidding war seemed to break out between Muslim regimes and militant groups over who could be angrier at Denmark. (I’d say the mob who set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus won.)
How refreshing then to hear Mohammad Rabbea, head of the Dutch Moroccan National Council, urge Muslims around the world to stay calm and leave it to Dutch Muslims to determine how to react because they best knew the Netherlands and Wilders.
Displaying a mature grasp of lessons learned from the disastrous aftermath of the cartoon protests, Rabbea’s comments also hinted at a growing confidence that Dutch Muslims are willing to assert their roles as both Europeans and Muslims.
“We call on them to follow our strategy and not react with attacks on Dutch embassies or tourists,” said Rabbea, speaking at news conference of Muslim community leaders at an Amsterdam mosque.
“An attack on the Netherlands is an attack on us,” he said. “We feel offended by the link between violence and Islam, but we know this guy [Wilders]. The best response is a response in a responsible manner.”
European Muslims know they are caught between a rock — of right wing populists like Wilders — and a hard place — of radicals and terrorists responsible for the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the London bombings in 2005. The Netherlands’ own reckoning with Muslim terrorism came in 2004, when Dutch Muslim Mohammad Bouyeri shot and stabbed Theo van Gogh, who had directed a short film critical of Islam’s treatment of women.
They chose their venue well. Rabbea and other Muslim leaders held their news conference in the Elouma mosque in the largely immigrant Amsterdam neighborhood where Bouyeri grew up.
By standing up to Wilders and the right wing — and to Muslim radicals and terrorists — European Muslims are serving notice that they speak for themselves.
Copyright ©2008 Mona Eltahawy
Comments (6)
Dale said:
“Now, as well as reporting on repressive governments’ restriction of free speech, the U.N. investigator will report acts of “racial or religious discrimination” that constitute “abuse of the right of freedom of expression.””
I haven’t seen Wilders’ film yet. Probably I won’t bother… I have more important things to do than rehash old news.
The above quotation from Mona’s piece, will draw some commentary from me, however.
It never ceases to amaze me how much stock the governments of some countries put into the ability of the UN to do anything more difficult than to hire a third world child to perform some lewd act for its favorite despot of the week. The UN is the most corrupt and ineffective organization ever to have been formed… though other organizations, most notably religious organizations certainly come close.
So now their investigator will “report acts of “racial or religious discrimination” that constitute “abuse of the right of freedom of expression”". Big harry deal! So the Hell what? Let ‘em report on anything they want. Despots do not care what anyone else thinks… that’s part of being a despot.
The only things despots understand is force of arms and brutality. When they find an American tank driving up the front driveway, then suddenly they are all about protecting the rights of the oppressed and all that rot. Prior to that its a matter of not bothering to pay for a prostitute’s services already rendered because she has not the might to enforce collection.
When the downtrodden masses are all given rifles, the rulers will respond to their concerns. Until then, they will simply thumb their noses at the toothless UN and other peacenik ideas.
April 2nd, 2008, 11:14 am
Rob Wagner said:
Not only are Dutch Muslims taking a more mature approach to dealing with the Wilders film, but it appears that Muslims worldwide generally have taken a more nuanced and sober attitude to the whole affair. It seems to me that many lessons have been learned from the Danish cartoon debacle and reasoned debate and diplomacy have trumped the radicals and terrorists. There’s been attempt this past week or so from the right wingers in the West to bait Muslims into violence over the film. The attempts have failed largely, as you point out, because of the growing confidence of Dutch Muslims engage in the European political process.
Another reason for the lack of outrage is simply that Wilders’ film is an amateur effort that provides no insight or coherent argument. It’s the Greatest Hits of terrorists and we’ve seen it all before.
April 3rd, 2008, 6:02 am
Mona Eltahawy said:
Dale
Thanks as always for your colourful and sharp comments! I still think the UN has a role to play though. The organisation could definitely do with more belt-tightening and I agree the sexual assaults of refugees by “peacekeepers” is outrageous. But if it didn’t symbolise anything, its various member states wouldn’t keep pushing their agenda on it.
Rob
Yes, Muslim reaction worldwide has been very different this time around, thank God.
I chose to focus on Dutch Muslims because I wanted to salute their efforts. But it’s also important to compare how the various governments have behaved too.
In 2006, various Muslim governments found it opportune to jump onto the cartoon crisis bandwagon only to find what a tinderbox they sat upon (if I can mix my metaphors!) and struggled at times to rein in the anger.
The Dutch government has also learned from what the Danish government did and didn’t do in 2006. Earlier this week, the Dutch foreign minister published an oped in a pan-Arab paper explaining that Wilders film didn’t express the views of the Dutch government and the Dutch prime minister has said that Wilders was free to express himself but that again he spoke just for himself.
It’s very interesting to watch western Muslims coming into their own. They no longer have to follow the “Muslim world”. In this instance, they clearly told the Muslim world to follow them. I hope they build on that and continue to grow in confidence and politicial maturity. It’s the best way to stand up to the right wing and the radicals.
April 3rd, 2008, 7:52 am
dreamessence said:
I think that it is crucial for Muslims at this time to stand up for individual freedom of speech rather than suppress it, because intolerance will make the image of Islam and Muslims seem even more freakish than it already does thanks to these rageful Muslims. As a Muslim, I believe that instead of fueling more anger and opposition to such movies and cartoons, we should instead facilitate interfaith dialogue and help to dispel common myths about our faith and customs. Rather than violence and loathsome attitudes towards such opposition to our faith in the form of movies, books, and cartoons, we should release movies, book, and cartoons that directly respond to anti-Islam claims in an intellectually productive manner.
April 4th, 2008, 5:36 pm
Zvi said:
“Now, as well as reporting on repressive governments’ restriction of free speech, the U.N. investigator will report acts of “racial or religious discrimination” that constitute “abuse of the right of freedom of expression.””
The most cynical members of these regimes probably have several things in mind here:
1. Use the UN for propaganda purposes. Use it as a lens to focus anger on something other than themselves. International organizations lead to international media coverage that gets a lot of people in different countries angry about the same things at the same time. Different populations feed off each other’s anger, and in this particular example, the result could be described as encouragement to lynch.
2. Waste the time of the UN free speech expert. He can chase after bigots all day, because there are billions of them in the world; then he’ll have much less time to report on the repressive activities of the dictatorships that sponsored this measure.
3. Discredit the UNHRC further, since most repressive regimes clearly see a strong, properly functioning UNHRC as a threat to themselves.
While anti-Islamism, like racism and anti-Semitism, should be opposed, this particular way of doing so is totally backward and very destructive.
April 5th, 2008, 1:40 am
abdlsalam said:
Mona, you were wonderful on the presentation at the U of Delaware. I commend you on all the ideas you have raised regarding dictators, women and general middle east issues.
I have one comment regarding the Obama Shirt from Syria.
I would like to tell you why we printed the Obama name on the Shirt, it is because we do not have election in our country and we only have to say yes to ruler during re-election (actually it is not election it is referendum on the same person), printing those shirts was great chance for us to express ourselves in choosing other world leaders.
Thank you
March 5th, 2009, 4:15 pm
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