One cannot feel but sadness and sympathy for the courageous Dutch.  Having been under the yoke of the brutal inquisition of the Spaniard, they rebelled, formed the Protestant movement and eventually expelled the Spanish from their soil.  This small country stood by the English during their many wars with the Spanish Catholic fanatics and lost many a son and daughter to the cause of freedom.

Over 40 years ago, they opened their doors to immigrants and the downtrodden of the world.  The Dutch allowed their pristine land to be invaded by the hordes of foreign people who knew little about their laws and religions and cared even less about their culture.  The liberal Dutch with their tendency to be charitable to their neighbors and the poor were soon pushed to the limit. 

About fifteen years ago, the Moslem immigrants and their offsprings became radicalized by what is called the Neo-Islam and started throwing their weight around. Those people, because of their beliefs in an afterlife in Paradise, were not afraid of dying or being killed in their service of their God.  The Moslems gradually managed to intimidate the mainstream Dutch and gained additional rights to practice their religion the way that their fanatic imams saw fit.  Let us not forget that most of the Dutch Moslems did not come from the Middle East.   A similar thing happened in Belgium, the Dutch neighbor to the south.  In this very Catholic country, there are probably more mosques going up and even more churches closing.

In England and France, only the inhabitants of their former colonies were allowed to visit and work.   The Dutch opened the doors wide to every one.   Masses of people from Africa and the Turks from Asia Minor with little knowledge of language, the customs or the basic tenets of the Dutch love for freedom settled in.  Good and bad came from Africa and Asia Minor.

The movie is a pseudo documentary.  It has scenes of rioting Moslems interspersed with readings of passages of the Moslem Holy book, the Koran.  The passages sound incendiary, seeming to encourage killing all non Moslems.

Those clips are followed by scene of beheading, throats being cut on camera and pitiful women being stoned while the jubilant crowd cheers them on. As a whole the movie, rather unjustly, portrays the whole Islamic world as blood thirsty barbarians.  What disturbed us more was near the end when people are carrying a banner which said “Freedom Go to Hell.”   Why would anybody in their right prefer slavery to freedom?  That is where the director/producer Geert Wilders makes his strongest statement. 

To be fair, this movie is not even handed about Moslems and Islam. Its quotes from their holy book are not fair since there are many passages in the Koran that preach forgiveness and love of God for his children.  As a religion with its roots in Judaism and Christianity, the Moslems always respected the people of the book which always meant Jews and Christians.  In fact, during most of last millennium, Jews and Christians were treated with respect in Moslem countries since both Moses and Jesus are mentioned in the Koran as holy messengers of God.  In fact, the Christians were the antagonists against both Moslems and Jews until quite recently.

Despite all that there are certain elements of truth in the movie.  We do not think that the next threat to the world peace will come from Saudi Arabia or Iran.  For one thing, Saudis are too rich and corrupted and the Iranians are, on the whole too civilized to try to force people to accept Islam when they know there is no chance of that ever happening.  It is just hot air and wishful thinking by nut heads like Ahmadinejad and co. 

Many people agree that the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan.  With its population of many fanatic Moslems and their stockpiles of Atomic weapons, they could present a real danger to the world.   Let us just think rationally for a moment.  The US with all its might and technology has not yet been able to capture real culprits of the 9/11 attacks, the tallest man in Afghanistan Ben Laden nor his second in command the Egyptian doctor al Zawahiri.  Could you imagine that?

Fitna is graphic with scenes of violence against defenseless women, and beheading and cutting the throats of Christians and Jews by cowards who cover their faces while performing their dastardly acts, just like Ku Klux Klan men did many years ago when they lynched innocent Blacks.  Yet those masked men remain dangerous because they can still foment terror and violence in the mind of the gullible.

Geert Wilders does not offer any solution to the problem of global terrorism other than sending those immigrants back to where they came from. That is easier said than done, since these people are the children and the grand children of immigrants who were brought in as guest workers.  They were born in Europe.  We, as the inheritors of Roman based civilization, in our quest for freedom of thought and perhaps because of sanguine idealism, allowed them to practice their religion, flawed though it maybe, and become radicalized to a dangerous degree by fanatic Imams who were imported from the Sunni lands of Arabia and Africa. 

We are often reminded of the words of one of the pioneers of American Revolution, a humble book binder by the name of Patrick Henry who when threatened by the British colonizers and their allies said “Give me Freedom or give me Death.”  It was that statement that resonated throughout the land and with that spirit that the United States was born and prospered through the last two centuries.

It is unfortunate that people in charge in Washington are playing on the basic survival instincts of men and try to curtail our freedoms by scaring us from the danger of fanatics.  By doing so, we will be changing our ways and, in effect, succumbing to the fanatics of the Moslem world who try to intimidate us by threatening us with acts of violence.

We give this movie  1/2.  This movie may make you feel uncomfortable but no movie or book or any other work of art should be stifled because a small minority of people feel offended by it.  Our precious freedoms which were bought and paid for by the blood of millions of men, women and children during the countless centuries should not be surrendered so easily by the threat of violence and intimidation.