"Fitna was much better than I'd thought. In fact I found Geert Wilders' anti-Islam film wonderfully subtle, with a rich and unexpected sense of irony," says columnist Perro de Jong.

Editor's note: this column was published just a few hours before Dutch MP Geert Wilders article released his anti-Islam film on the Internet.

This column refers to the film About Fitna, the Netherlands and Wilders, which was made by Radio Netherlands to inform Muslims in Arab countries about Fitna the Movie.

Take the idea of asking someone to play an angry Muslim, who comes to the Netherlands to find out what kind of people would insult Islam. Yet during his whole visit, the poor dear doesn't get to meet a single one of them. That's because he only talks to other Muslims. Immigrants, both first and second generation, who've lived in the Netherlands long enough to be academics, filmmakers and politicians. Yet whose view of Dutch culture hasn't developed beyond clogs, the Queen and the form of musical waterboarding known as 'Frans Bauer'.

Free speech

Oh, and this frustrating phenomenon called 'free speech'. For instance, when Islamic rage boy asks why Mr Wilders isn't simply arrested, the answer he gets is: "It's not that easy, it's complicated, it's the Netherlands." Right. Just imagine if the Netherlands were a decent, simple country. Like Zimbabwe.

Honestly, I couldn't think of a deadlier way to depict the Dutch Muslim community as a fifth column of Wilders-bashing, freedom-hating fundamentalists who sponge off the Dutch state without bothering to engage with Dutch society at large. After seeing this little masterpiece, I was almost ready to join Mr Wilders' party myself.

Radio Netherlands

What do you mean: 'that wasn't Fitna'? What do you mean it was a film about Fitna made by my colleagues here at Radio Netherlands, with the specific purpose of informing Muslims in Arab countries? Oops!

Thing is, I don't think I'm the only one who's confused by now. About the film. About the debate about the film. About the reactions to the debate about the film. About the film about the reactions to the debate about the film. About the debate about the film about the reactions to the debate about the film. And about the reactions to the debate about the film about the reactions to the debate about the film.

Which haven't all been favourable, let me tell you. I mean, the reactions to the educational film that Radio Netherlands made about the ongoing debate here in the Netherlands about the much-publicized Geert Wilders film.

Snarky column

So should Radio Netherlands have got itself involved in this particular nest of worms in the first place? Please! Give my poor fried brains a break! I will say, though, that if I decide to write a snarky column about the way our noble intentions seem to have backfired, I won't have to be afraid that our editor Wim Jansen will immediately come down to drag me off to a damp cell somewhere in the Radio Netherlands basement.

Now that, my friends, is free speech. Although you'll have to watch this space of course to see if I'm not out of a job by next week. To further enmesh you in paradox - we're not an easy country, remember, we're 'complicated' - the most vocal critic of the Radio Netherlands film about the Geert Wilders film has been Geert Wilders' media spokesman, Martin Bosma. Who happens to be a former Radio Netherlands employee.

He even met his wife here, the ungrateful little you-know-what. Yet now he's calling for the immediate termination of Radio Netherlands. Because the Radio Netherlands film about the Geert Wilders film says that Geert Wilders is 'against foreigners'. Which I have to agree isn't what I was taught to regard as objective journalism. Then again, if I agree with Martin Bosma's critique I'm basically arguing myself out of a job. Oh dear. As Gilbert and Sullivan would put it: 'how quaint the ways of paradox, at common sense she gaily mocks'.

Submission

View the movie Submission.

Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that Theo van Gogh's ex-wife was fined because her son missed school the day after the murder. Even Gilbert and Sullivan couldn't rhyme their way out of that one.

 28 March 2008 

[Copyright Radio Netherlands]