(Categories: Wzzup)
While we are on the subject of banning, let’s also pick-up the other big (inter)national debate about a subject I have prevented to argument on, the Wilders anti-islam homevideo (let’s not call it a movie since it’s not, its a video). While my personal opinion is that I dislike mr Wilders, that I think he is not acting as a professional member of parliament and that he is lacking any real(istic) contribution to solutions for problems that are indeed genuine (fear, integration, safety). Pfff. It is ridiculous that you first have to write a disclaimer like above before you can comment on this, but the only remark I wanted to make was triggered by my colleague Rob yesterday.
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The german SPIEGEL recently wrote how Wilders has already reached what he wanted: To show off all western european governments and media leaders as cowards. Without even knowing what would be in the film, promising to never show it. Giving in to every threat from the east.
I see a point there. The film should be judged on what is in it. That’s a discussion westerm-style. The internet will host this film somewhere, no question. And if there is no head chopped of in some scene, we all should see no big problem there.
(http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,541696,00.html)
Nicolas has a point when he says that Wilders and his movie or video are already judged while nobody has seen it yet. What’s even there to argue about? What I learned in my life is that if you do not like something, ignore it… That seems hard, but it’s not hard to ignore something that’s not even here…
And the other point is also true; Wilders proved something even if the movie doesn’t exist… The media, and politicians as well, are cowards in some way… Just plain scared! Is that part of democracy?
And Arjan, although it may not be your kind of democracy Wilders is a ‘chosen’ representative… He acts the same way as who he is chosen, so let’s live with that as well or as I said, just ignore him
On the coward part I totally agree… That’s what I meant… people are looking at technicalities to not have to share an opinion about Wilders or the video. I also agree that a video can’t be judged before it is seen… The point I tried to raise is indeed the cowardness of the politicians and media (they are still too much traumatized about how they dealt with Fortyun) and secondly I just tried to say that we are making a too big thing out of this… by this much attention and calling it a movie (as if it is a cinema production) we are totally looking the wrong way. I was wondering if the video will be distributed online and how (hosting it on his own site might cost him a lot of distribution-dollars do he will most likely try to host it on YouTube or so… will YouTube also seek for technicalities to do something about it??!?!) That was my real question. Especially since the internet is ‘famous’ for its anarchy… how ‘new’ media is the ‘new’ media… will they behave differently than the ‘old’ media… if it is hosted online, will the ‘old’ media ignore or hyperlink to the video (that would be the maximum of hypocrisy).
About the judgment part, my judgment is based on his role in parliament so far. Too my opinion (unthough) chosen he is not taking any responsibility. His remarks (and that of most PVV members) are meant to raise attention and to hurt, to create response but he is not willing to react on that respons/ to debate or act in any way as a member of parliamant. How do you deal with somebody who always shouts but never listens? I find that a shame…. but that’s my opinion… chosen or not chosen.
On the ignoring part, I totally disagree with you. That I find dangerous… for me democracy/ society is about engagement, even if you don’t like it… ignorance is everything but a democracy.
Sorry Arjan, that I could not read all this between the lines ;)
And I almost totally agree with you… When you say that Wilders isn’t taking any responsiblity, that he just shouts for attention and only hurts people and creates response I think he himself has the guts to say whatever he wants to… He has a cause in which he totally beliefs, although not a cause I and you stand for. A lot of what Wilders says is not worth the attention, so why give it to him? As if ‘we’ don’t have anything else to do
And with his movie he is not getting the attention he wanted or even expected or even demanded. That seems real democracy, to choose against showing the movie. But, on what grounds? There probably comes in the hypocricy part… Which is dangerous too.
Well, to answer your question, stop paying attention to someone who isn’t worth it OR do pay attention and stop being hypocritic.
(Ignorance and engagement aren’t counterparts. In fact, it is possible to be engaged and be ignorant (of a lot of things) at the same time. Ignoring is not all the time something negative. I don’t think it’s dangerous to sometimes ENGAGINGLY choose to ignore things or things people say because a lot of people say things that just are not worth it (like with Wilders and his buddies).)
The actual “Amsterdam Weekly” notes that mediamatic.nl plans a ‘disinformation campaign’, wherein everybody uploads a video to Youtube to say “Sorry” for Wilders film. By calling each video “Fitna”, his will be buried.
That is a nice idea (while I think it would not work since Youtubes search is not just a brute force one - it’s owned by Google).
Anyway, as I am new to the Netherlands: Please tell me the reason that everyone seems to be absolutely sure that this film will contain no truth at all (or something along that line). I really want to know.
Or are all these people just trying to avoid any conflict whatsoever?
In Germnay, we call these people “Gutmenschen” - people who try to be good at any cost and fail at that, and we have plenty. I found the discussion here a bit more alive, but it seems there is plenty I can learn.
‘Gutmenschen’ is a very nice typical concept of how a lot of people act in this matter. As Wilders himself said, and I am not pro-Wilders to be sure, it’s not a movie against Islamic people in particular it’s against the extremities of Islamic belief and ideology.
And, if you look at the threats that already have been made against Wilders and not to forget, also against ‘our’ country as a whole (while the actual contents of the movie are not known yet) than Wilders has some right to say and mean what he says.
Isn’t acting as a ‘gutmensch’ in this case ignorance with a capital ‘I’? ;-)
As of yesterday the website that Wilders wanted to use to publish his movie has been taken offline by the provider. Apparently they didn’t want to wait to see the contents and are investigating whether the website would be against the policy of the povider. So it seems they are taking a stand here… Have you ever heard of an ‘empty’ website to be against the rules?
If I claim to publish a video tomorrow where I show someone’s head being chopped off, I understand some providers would also take measures.
That was my question: What exactly has Wilders claimed to show? The way everyone talks about him, I expect he has been staying rather vague.
For instance, did he claim to burn a qouran?
Just watched Wilders’ movie Fitna… Just what I expected; facts! (And what you do with it is up to you, thank God ;-) )
Of course, not all Muslims are like the ones Wilders claims, but still, it’s a lot of bullshit some influential Muslims portray… And why? That is what I’m wondering about… Think of the possibility that only one other person takes the tellings of the shown examples seriously? Even one person convinced of this is in my opinion many too many…
Indeed… its a crappy selection of existing video’s and some known WIlders texts and news facts… whether all the fuzz was of any influence on him and the story we will never know, I don’t care about that… BUT have you seen the NOS-news… how pathetic… they were so not prepared on the video being disappointing that all their experts and news were bullshit… nobody (so far) dares to claim that the clip is nothing like they expected… in this case the context is clearly of more interest than the content. The NOS was still waiting for a announcement of the Premier… but there is nothing to comment about ;-)
As I said before: He reached all his goals before the release. He might as well have released a text file saying “You Fools!” or a RickRoll
IMHO you have to see it otherwise.
First was the contradiction against his plan to make a film, and afterwards he run into troubles, hiding ff.
The show the cowardness of european governments (exception: denmark) is IMHO an unplanned goal, in the beginning wilders (who sincerly seems to know the case much better, than his opponents) was honestly intending to show a signal against islamic violence.
To finally stop the discussion he had to revoke or release something.
EROI 1:1 Milion:
Every average pupil is able to collect wellknown and easy to find pieces of videoclips with islamic violence and put it in a row with a little amount of text. The making of such a clip shouldn`t take more than some hours, the only creative idee is the (stolen) caricature of mohemmed with the burning fuze.
Compared to estimated 5 mill. downloads each 15 min (waiting time neglected) this is supposed to be the best EROI (or the worst, seen from the other side) of any video forever, at least within the top ten.
So…now that we’ve all seen it, if it would have been possible should you have wanted to prohibit the movie for being published or shown anywhere?
And…looking ahead….now what? (or should I rephrase that in: “so what?”)
What does the ‘wrong image’ of Mohammed B, do to this movie?
The original question in this post was the fact that I wondered how the online world would react?
First the URL was blocked, than the distrubuted via LeveLeak which blocked the site after a day, now Indonesia is threatening YouTube a total country-ban if Fitna is not removed… wonder how that will end.
See the Dutch Telegraaf:
“Indonesië blokkeert de Amerikaanse videowebsite YouTube aan het eind van de week als de Fitna-film van parlementariër Geert Wilders dan nog niet van de site is verwijderd. Dat heeft de regering donderdag laten weten.”
You`re right, the original question was this,
well - if it were a better clip, this question would be interesting.
But this question now is indifferent, because you don`t know, wether people just don`t like it and therefore don`t react.
What the heck - it is a more than poorly made video. Not worth any reaction.
In fact, the only interesting point is the reaction before the release nearly all over europe, and now - afterwards - the mad campaign against wilders. But that`s a politically problem.
Beside - you can still download it from a lot of other servers, and neither liveleak nor youtube will risk any problems emerging out of this lousy video - there are sincerely more important problems especially in islamic dominated regions.