Geert Wilders and the fundamentalist reaction to fundamentalist Islam

Posted by Olly Robinson on 13 February 2009 | 2 Comments

Tags: Religion

Yesterday, Britain refused entry to Geert Wilders, a far right Dutch MP. He was turned away at Heathrow. My initial reaction was that by doing this the government created a media storm and huge publicity for this man when there needn't have been any serious coverage. I read that he had created a film called Fitna about Islam and that it was on the internet. So wondering what all the fuss was about, I did a quick Google search and started watching it. What I saw was exactly the response that the West does not want to islamic fundamentalism - a twisted, propogandising, fundamentalist piece of video. It interspersed passages from the Koran with shocking images of people being beheaded by terrorists, children of fundamentalist muslims saying on camera that they thought Jews were pigs, and the de facto shots of planes and towers. This is then paraded as evidence that Islam is an evil religion.

This is, unfortunately, exactly what fundamentalist islamists do to draw people to their cause - making videos and propoganda materials that selectively pick the darkest habits and points of Western and Christian history; the masssacre of Jerusalem in 1099 when Christians slaughtered 40,000 muslim men, women and children in cold blood. The huge death toll and violence in Iraq. The binge drinking and gang culture on our cities' streets. And a quick flick through the Old Testament books such as Leviticus will remind one that the Bible is no less bellicose than the Koran.

A wonderful counterpoint to Wilders' piece of right wing filth was the fantastic series on the BBC recently called Science and Islam. The professor who wrote this series, also wrote a piece for the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3323462/Science-Islam%27s-forgotten-geniuses.html

He reminds us that it was in the Arab world that Greek philosophy was maintained up to the renaissance in Europe, that it was in this Golden Age that early theories of medicine, optics, the number system we use now, algebra, algorithms, alcohol, alkali, and a host of other ideas and inventions were founded.

Now I am the first to say that religion can lead down a dark path, but to paint Islam as an inherently evil religion is to miss the fact that all viewpoints if held dogmatically; secular, religious and pagan, can lead to violence, bigotry and rage. Islam has its fair share of problems at the moment, but if we allow ourselves to be dragged in the direction of Wilders' scaremongeing, there is then no chance of reaching across the divide the separates Muslim, Christian and atheist, and of exploring our common humanity and our common desire for peace, respect and love.

Dr Olly Robinson