A rare facial tumour caused Chantal Sébire to suffer unimaginably. She died this week, after reopening the debate in France on euthanasia. The tumour also made her look like a frog. Am I being disrespectful when I point this out? Not at all. I have nothing but the deepest respect for Mme Sébire. By Perro de Jong

But that she died only days after a French court rejected her plea for euthanasia tells me two things. First, that finding an easy and hopefully painless way to die was never going to be a problem, even without a legal stamp of approval. And second, that she must have been so convinced that she could open people's eyes about euthanasia with her condition, that she went ahead with the court case even if it meant protracting her suffering.
 
So when I call her the frog lady, it's not out of disrespect but because she had the courage to use her deformity as a kind of visual shorthand that requires no further explanation. Just like looking at a picture of the Eiffel Tower is enough to send the message 'Paris' to the brain, one look at Chantal Sébire's face would convince most people of the need to tear up a bad law and replace it with a better one. Which may yet happen in France now that she's dead.
 
Kilts
Of course saying this also means admitting that hundreds or thousands of people who're suffering as badly inside, yet who don't look like Chantal Sébire on the outside, would probably have done little to reopen the euthanasia debate. I guess that's what they mean when they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
 
Two people who also realised the truth of that old cliché this week were Brendan Fay and Thomas Moulton from New York. To their considerable surprise, pictures of them getting married in Canada last year - wearing traditional Scottish kilts - were used by Polish president Lech Kaczynski on national television. To warn about the dangers of the European Union, which Mr Kaczynski believes could impose gay marriage on the Poles any minute now.
 
But why choose a couple from all the way across the Atlantic, when the president could have easily picked one from the Netherlands? Which is after all part of the dreaded EU, and which pioneered gay marriage. Personally I think it's those kilts. If you ask me, the Polish video isn't so much an anti-gay slur as an anti-Scottish one. Men in skirts, that's what Mr Kaczynski is really afraid of.
 
Fitna
What Geert Wilders is afraid of I probably don't have to repeat here. But it's interesting that we expect Dutch Muslims to realise that a picture is just a picture - and not to react to Mr Wilders' anti-Islam film Fitna like a bull to a red rag - when so many other Europeans find the distinction equally difficult to make. Although to be fair, there's a subtle difference between letting a dramatic image persuade you to say 'yes' or 'no' to euthanasia or the European Union and letting it persuade you to go around burning down embassies.
 
Still, I'm fascinated by the way Fitna has already succeeded in turning around the normal relationship between filmmaker and audience. Instead of trying to give the audience something, it seems Mr Wilders is taking something from the audience. Something without which his film would be incomplete.
 
Suffering
It reminds me of one of the few Dutch novels of recent decades that have been successfully exported in translation, The Laws by Connie Palmen. In it, she describes how a woman clearly modelled after Connie Palmen has relationships with various men before realising she'll only find true happiness by striking out on her own. Which she does with great success by becoming a famous writer.
 
The thing is that The Laws was Ms Palmen's very first novel, and that it actually made her a famous writer after she wrote it. In other words, without the real world success of Ms Palmen as a novelist, her book's point about the rewards of independence would have remained mere wishful thinking. The same is true for Geert Wilders and Fitna. If the film doesn't result in embassies being burned down, its point that Islam is dangerous and unreasonable will not be quite as convincing.
 
Although I will continue to defend Geert Wilders' right to say what he is saying - in words or pictures - I think that's what ultimately fails to endear me to Fitna. Mentioning Fitna and Chantal Sébire in the same sentence might seem flippant. But I can't help but notice that where Ms Sébire made her point about the need for a better euthanasia law with her own suffering as collateral, Geert Wilders' point about the dangers of Islam relies on others to do the suffering for him.

25 March 2008

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Expatica.
 

[Copyright Radio Netherlands 2008]