Boreal

Fitna and

The Seductive Sounds of Hatred and Cruelty

Lucette was mad about Julio Iglesias. He was not yet well known in Canada when she returned from a vacation in South America with one or more of his albums. The first time she played his songs for me—for us—I became a fan. I did not understand a word he sang, but his melodies were captivating and he had such a beautiful voice. She said his songs were all about love and I believed her. Years later when he started recording in English the same songs I had heard in Spanish, I believed her even more.

Geert Wilders, at this writing the Dutch leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), in the spirit of Theodoor van Gogh, also made a film about Islam.

***

“Theodoor van Gogh was a Dutch film director. He directed Submission: Part 1, a short film written by Somali writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which criticised the treatment of women in Islam in strong terms. On 2 November 2004, he was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Islamist who objected to the film's message.”Wiki

The twenty-six-year-old Bouyeri shot van Gogh before slitting his throat as he was pleading "Mercy, mercy; we can talk about this" and pinning a five-page condemnation of Western society to his body.

***

I have seen Wilders' film Fitna, and yes, it is provocative, but definitely not as offensive as 9/11, and other terrorist attacks it recalls using motivational verses from the Koran sung a cappella. What is most striking about the film is not the images of the dead and mutilated, but the lyrical and mesmerizing rendition of violent and hate-filled revelations calling for the murder of unbelievers. If you don’t understand Arabic, you can almost imagine yourself making love to Allah’s words except that, unlike those of Julio, most have next to nothing to do with love.

If the violence and hate that are contained in verses sung without instrumental accompaniment (playing musical instruments or listening to music is a grave sin punishable by an eternity on Fire in Allah’s Hell), broadcast to the Islamic community in Arabic, were broadcast in English on MTV for example, there would be an uproar. Non-Muslims would be appalled that impressionable young minds are subjected to so much sadistic violence and hate forcefully expressed in such a fashion in a language only insiders can understand.

Bernard Payeur