(English)
Dutch MP posts Islam film on web
Geert Wilders has released a controversial film about Islam which no TV company would broadcast and some politicians in the Netherlands tried to ban.
(Dutch)
Film Wilders op internet verschenen:

(English & Dutch)
the movie Fitna
(Dutch)
De website van de PVV is nog geen kwartier nadat bekend werd dat 'Fitna' was uitgekomen, vastgelopen. Op de site stond een link naar liveleak.com waarop het filmpje van politicus Geert Wilders was geplaatst.

"Door technische redenen is de site op dit moment niet te bereiken. Probeert u het later nog een keer", zo luidt de korte mededeling. Uit de opmaak en het logo valt af te leiden dat de partij hier al op was voorbereid.

Martin:

All I can say is this will only get worse unles the Europeans decide to take back their Continent. From the information I get on this side of the big pond, German corts already appear to have acquiesced to allowing Islamists to operate under laws which are separate from the rest of Germany. England is being pushed to permit Sharia Law. The US is headed in much the same way, this has been developing for MANY years here and there with the ultimate goal of a silent take over, it is working.

I assume that you know about frogs and hot water. If you throw a frog into hot water he will jump out. If you throw him into room temperature and slowly increase the heat you will kill him. Time for both of us to wake up and let the Islamists know that, while we provide ourselves on tolerance, it is clear they do not and if they want to be here and co-exist they are welcome, otherwise go back they came from.

Do it now, Europe. Before it is too late

Skip

I have to say that I'm rather uncomfortable about some of the anti-Islamic statements in the latter parts of this thread. For centuries, Islam has been a very progressive religion and it is only in recent times that it has developed a recessive image. Sharia law takes a good deal of it's application directly from the old testament and has applied concepts of liberty, free speech, and fairness centuries before these concepts showed any real application in the West. Sharia law, as with the Islamic religion as a whole,  is very misunderstood and a lot of the comments that I'm hearing are what I would expect from the tabloid press.

Much of Sharia law involves methods of resolving disputes in an amicable and fair way through proper mediation. There is a perception that manipulation is actively encouraged in many Western legal processes (which are based upon a confrontational model)  and the concept of 'fairness' is very much secondary to process and box ticking - got to say I can sympathise with this view. Many Muslims want to see aspects of Sharia law become legally binding such that if someone chooses that route to resolve a dispute, they are bound by the decision rather than simply deciding that they don't like the outcome and resort to the often more manipulative Western systems.

It is not, as many would have you believe, a desire to ignore our rules or to impose Sharia law on people who do not wish be subjected by it.

A lot of the misinformation I'm reading is to do with certain cultural views rather than religious ones. A key example is where women are required to cover themselves with hijab / burqa - this is actually a cultural application of a number of passages from the Koran, which have been interpreted by different Muslim communities as widely as "women must totally cover themselves head to toe when in the company of men" to "don't act like a slut".

I think that it is important to understand and be clear about exactly what it is you're criticising - culture or religion. I think that there are a lot of comments from people that don't actually know what it is they're criticising, nor how representative some of their stereotypes really are (after all, all Christians are not Amish).

Make no mistake, I have no anti-Islamic feelings at all, I merely forwarded some links to show some reactions on the film Fitna made by Wilders. The things said in those links are not neseccarily my point of view on the matter.

Quoting DariusKyrak:

Quote:
I have to say that I'm rather uncomfortable about some of the anti-Islamic statements in the latter parts of this thread. For centuries, Islam has been a very progressive religion and it is only in recent times that it has developed a recessive image. Sharia law takes a good deal of it's application directly from the old testament and has applied concepts of liberty, free speech, and fairness centuries before these concepts showed any real application in the West. Sharia law, as with the Islamic religion as a whole,  is very misunderstood and a lot of the comments that I'm hearing are what I would expect from the tabloid press.

Much of Sharia law involves methods of resolving disputes in an amicable and fair way through proper mediation. There is a perception that manipulation is actively encouraged in many Western legal processes (which are based upon a confrontational model)  and the concept of 'fairness' is very much secondary to process and box ticking - got to say I can sympathise with this view. Many Muslims want to see aspects of Sharia law become legally binding such that if someone chooses that route to resolve a dispute, they are bound by the decision rather than simply deciding that they don't like the outcome and resort to the often more manipulative Western systems.

It is not, as many would have you believe, a desire to ignore our rules or to impose Sharia law on people who do not wish be subjected by it.

A lot of the misinformation I'm reading is to do with certain cultural views rather than religious ones. A key example is where women are required to cover themselves with hijab / burqa - this is actually a cultural application of a number of passages from the Koran, which have been interpreted by different Muslim communities as widely as "women must totally cover themselves head to toe when in the company of men" to "don't act like a slut".

I think that it is important to understand and be clear about exactly what it is you're criticising - culture or religion. I think that there are a lot of comments from people that don't actually know what it is they're criticising, nor how representative some of their stereotypes really are (after all, all Christians are not Amish).

Stuart:

My feelings about Sharia law is simple. There is ONE set of law, wherever it is you live. If I move to the UK I follow the laws of the UK, I do not have the right to demand of them to allow ME to follow American laws. If they want to follow Sharia law then they should return from whence they came. The gentleman in the video has one thing VERY right about Islam, it is a religion, culture and race depending upon which they wish to exercise at any given moment.

Relative to your comments about the hijab / burga, yes the interpretations are varied, and in their most extreme application I view it as "Woman cover yourself because I am a weak a male and I can't control myself if I can see your form in any way". Which as a man I find that to be very insulting, simply don't act like a slut is a much more appropriate interpretation.

Skip

Many of the Sharia laws that Muslims want the see implemented are more like a morally stronger version of native laws. It's not that they are incompatible with the native laws, they are the individuals willingly applying a more stringent form of rules to their own conduct and making themselves subject to it. It's more akin to signing up to a code of conduct with an employer than it is a separate set of laws. Indeed, this is exactly what contract law was created to enable - voluntary, self-imposed 'laws' which have support in the legal system. What many are calling for is a viable mechanism to legally recognise these additional rules, many of which are already being applied very positively to resolve many issues in an amicable way.

Admittedly, this doesn't apply to everything that's happening, and in many ways a lot of people are taking the Michael, but I think we need to be a bit more careful about tarring everything with the same brush. To me, some of what I've been reading really didn't come across well.

Not that it's wholly relevant, but doesn't the US have at least three sets of laws? I know that my country has at least four (English, UK, European, and international - not always complementary) and I can't remember how many different courts we have (a good few).

Stuart

Stuart,

I want to start by saying, like others have before me, that I am not anti-Islamic. I personally believe that many (probaly even most) Muslims are kind, decent, and nice people. Many of those that are not nice people are simply products of a propagandistic educational system that teaches hate and intolerance.

However I disagree with the general tenor of your remarks about the comments in this thread. I don't agree that the statements in this thread are of a tabloid press quality or that they should be construed as prejudiced. I think the version of Sharia law you are selling is a bit distanced from the reality of the situation in the real world. Maybe in some limited circumstances Sharia is imposed and implemented in the fairly benign way you describe it but not often. I also object to the condescending nature of your post -- I can assure you that I at least am familiar enough with the subject matter to have an opinion -- the fact that it maybe different from yours does not make it ill-informed.

I would agree that in a purely academic sense your description of sharia may be accurate but the same could be said of Communism which when given a spiffy academic definition doesn't come across as an automatically vicious, cruel, violent, coercive, totalitarian dictatorship that it always did in real life.

The notion that too much is being made of the strong elements of totalitarianism, misogynism, and fascism that are a major part of modern Islamic culture and religion as it is predominantly practiced. The fact is that religion and culture are very closely linked in many Muslim nations (more so than they are elsewhere particularly in the west when the "popular" culture is often decidedly at odds with most religious traditions)  -- and the predominant application of that culture is a very similar across the many Muslim countries of the world. Your comment actually makes this point.

quoting DariusKyrak:

Quote:
this is actually a cultural application of a number of passages from the Koran

The "cultural" norm is based almost entirely on a the content of a religious book -- which you are correct can be (and has) been the subject of widely divergent interpreations. Are we to allow each Muslim faction within the US or Britain to enforce its own version of this prohibition? That would lead to a further Balkanization (borrowing from Skip) of our already isolated Muslim societies.

As an aside I would argue that in the west the popular culture has gotten to a low enough point where many young women feel pressure to act like a slut (or at least dress like one).

The notion that western secular nations should allow a seperate and enforceable system of jurisprudence to exist alongside their normal courts is a very bad idea. Are we to let a woman "voluntarily" allow herself to submit to death by stoning for adultery or to be beaten by her husbands (although extreme these examples have plenty of precedent in Muslim countries). These behaviors are anethema to western values. Often sharia law provides few of meaningful safeguards like those we consider imperative in our system -- right to counsel, right to question witnesses against you, right to jury trial etc.

The notion that sharia law is in any way comparable to contract law is also kind of weak. There are many widely supported limitations on contracting ability in our law -- children cannot contract, you can't sell your organs, you can't agree to let someone kill you for money, there is a minimum wage etc. There is also a requirement that contracts contain "consideration" for both parties to be enforceable -- i.e. both sides have to give something -- this is not the case in an individual agreeing to be bound by a sharia court. Even arbitration agreements (which allow the often lengthy normal court process to be bypassed and then the decision of the arbitrator enforced by the courts - a parallel to this) between employer and employee require the arbitration process to be meet certain standards of fairness and apply the current law of the state or country to the dispute. i.e. they can't agree to their own law as part of the process.

If someone wants to submit voluntarily and non-enforceably to the rules of Sharia as defined by whatever group they're in that's fine but making the decisions of such a religious court enforceable by the nation's courts would be going too far and that's exactly what many Muslim groups are pushing for -- they want to enforce their standards against those who don't want to be bound by them. The rules of a christian church are not enforceable at law either -- if someone violates them their only recourse is to kick them out. This is also the way the Amish handle things -- they exile people who choose not to abide by their rules. Muslims have the same option -- but that's not good enough for many of their leaders -- they want legally binding authority to mete out punishment.

I would argue if they want the laws of their home (adopted or otherwise) to be changed to suit their likes (as does everyone else) then do so through the political processes in place in the west (democratic processes which I hasten to add are not in place in any meaningful way almost anywhere Sharia is actually in place). If Muslims living in the west want women to be required to wear burquas then pass a law requiring it in the legislature. You might point out that this is not likely to happen, the word impossible comes to mind, but that is my point we all have to live with laws and decisions we don't like and are at odds with our personal morality or religious tenets so should they if they want to live here (the west) and enjoy the benefits of our properity. That's the cost of freedom and democracy.

The notion that western confrontational legal systems are less equipped to dispense justice than sharia courts is also in my opinion a false comparison. The failings of our legal system (and they are numerous) are largely due to the human element -- the desire to win at any cost, judges ill-suited to their role, etc. -- and are not due to the system itself. If judges and attorneys strive to do their jobs in the manner they are supposed to it would solve many of the problems that exist with the system but that's the nature of any system that involves people. The ultimate goal of our system is to enforce the law as it is written with the notion being that when done so consistently it is "fair" to everyone. There is also built in to our systems opportunities for a sense of "fairness" as you characterize it (I would call it common sense but same difference) to be a part of the system -- the prosecutor can decline to charge a crime that may have technically been committed if they decide it's in the interest of justice, jusges have leeway to sentence defendants differently for the same offense, etc.

In any case I could go on by I need to eat and I've made my point(s).

Brian

Very well done, Brian.

Skip