Fitna

Fitna, a short film by Geert Wilders, has been released online. Wilders had previously attempted to screen it on Dutch television, without success. After Fitna's official website, fitnathemovie.com, was deleted by its host company, the film was finally hosted by liveleak.com (though even they removed it for one day, due to security concerns). There have been demonstrations against the film in Islamic countries.

Fitna begins as an attack on the Koran. Passages from the book, which seem to incite violence, are followed by images of Islamic terrorism. Wilders presents Islam as a violent, intolerant religion; what he does not acknowledge, of course, is that there are some equally blood-thirsty passages in the Bible. Kurt Westergaard's Mohammed cartoon (reprinted in February) was originally featured as Fitna's first image, though it was later replaced by a new caricature of Mohammed carrying a bomb.

The second half of the film, however, degenerates into a racist anti-immigration polemic. Wilders directly condemns the rising Muslim population in Europe in general and Holland in particular, and is clearly resentful of the influences immigrant Muslims have in Dutch society.

Thus, while the first half is provocative and interesting, the second half is no better than the hysterical 'flood of immigrants' headlines in UK newspapers such as the Daily Express.