This film may not have deserved the hullabaloo that preceded it, but I fail to see why it evokes such irate response from a lot of people. The film documents actual atrocities committed by certified religious fanatics from the videotaped butchering of innocent captives through executions of homosexuals and women to 9/11, all actual events and it crosscuts this documentary footage with verses from the Quran, inferring that such actions may be sanctioned by the Quran, but I can't see Wilders claiming that reading the Quran necessarily leads to terrorism. I can't see him lashing out at ordinary, decent Muslims. Where Wilders may be wrong or perhaps misconstrued is at the end of the film where he tricks us into thinking that he rips out a page of the Quran, only to inform us that he in fact tore out a page of the telephone directory, and that it is up to the individual Muslim to edit his own scriptures. This may not have to be taken literally, of course, as I'm certain the Quran contains a clause prohibiting editing, as the Bible does (in Revelations, although it's uncertain whether that biblical passage refers to the Bible as such, to the New Testament or only Revelations). The Bible contains reprehensible passages too I have always found it hard to stomach the story of Sikem and Dina in Genesis 34 and several of the rules of the Leviticus are certainly out of date but Wilders' point may of course be that Muslims need to distance themselves from the atrocities that take Islam hostage, and that the Islamic faith is being hi-jacked by murderous fanatics. And this may be what Wilders is trying to provoke (as indeed have many others before him, with only minor results): a substantial protest from Muslims to that they take acception to the horrors committed in the name of their religion. After the secularization of the western world, Christians are hard to scandalize. There may be some protests when an artist submerges a crucifix into urine, but Andres Serrano never became the subject of persecution, his life was never endangered, he has no Fatwa on him western civilization abandoned such with the era of enlightenment, to the regret of only a few pockets of staunch fundamentalists. In between the film's 15 minute montage of holy verse and bloodshed may lie a certain amount of fear, but it can hardly be called phobia irrational fear since several of Wilders' acquaintances have in fact been assassinated, and since the Archbishop of Canterbury recently muttered something along the lines of admonishing the introduction of Sharia law in England (an event which will go down in history as the oddest controversy since Thomas a Becket). Wilders is worried, I'm sure, that western civilization will cave in to relativist thinking and militant Islamism, since the majority of resident Muslims apparently (note!) are more worried about Islam getting a bad press in harmless cartoons and short documentaries than about murderous martyrs, female circumcision, honour killings, terrorism and the like. Therefore he advocates a clear manifestation from European Muslims concerning where they stand.
The film itself is far more conciliatory than the statements Wilders made before releasing it some of his comments seemed truly Islamophobic, granted but as it turns out, the film is in fact a rallying cry for moderate Muslims.
The film itself is far more conciliatory than the statements Wilders made before releasing it some of his comments seemed truly Islamophobic, granted but as it turns out, the film is in fact a rallying cry for moderate Muslims.