Friday, March 28, 2008

Fitna

Well, Dutch Members of Parliament did it again. Another anti Islam movie created by one of them, this time: Geert Wilders. Founder of PVV who wants to ban the Quran.

Unlike Submission by Hirsi Ali & van Gogh, the 15 minutes film is very lame. The message Wilders tried to bring is Islam is anti-gay, anti-women, anti-liberal. He's afraid the Dutch way of life to diminish if the Moslem, 1 million strong at this moment in the country of 16 millions people getting their way. All the previous commotion of him wanting to put a scene of burning the Quran, it's all hoopla, in the film he didnt even tear it up! He practically linking all moslem with the deed that some extremists, who justified their behavior with the Quran, did. There are lots of very graphic images bearing them taken from various media outlets. By that standard, people all over the world would think of America as a society where kids go to school and start killing their school mates & teachers on regular basis, as part of their curriculum.

Just like in Submission, he put several verses from the Quran, mostly with connection with Infidels (in after life, in a battle). I haven't check it, but I heard he twisted some wording. I also heard that he used the picture of a Moroccan/Dutch hiphop singer as picture of van Gogh's killer, dont know if it was true. I dont recall both guys and I am not going to google for them.

While van Gogh did Submission artistically (the whole painting verses on the body in Submission is plagiated from Shirin Neshat's works tho), one cant say the same about Fitna. The whole thing is very bland. The quality of editing is amateurish, only good enough for Youtube.

I found the film is as scary as those lunatic fundamentalists, as it is nothing more than unoriginal, irrational propaganda of hatred, which sadly has enough believers in the western society.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Greetings!

It was last Sunday when I realized that today is rather special. Not only it's Good Friday for the Christian, and Purim for the Jewish faith, but also it's Gaura Purnima for the Hare Krishna, the day the Lord Krishna becomes Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Turns out, according to this article on Time Magazine, it's even more special as practically all major organized religions have something to celebrate.

Ed Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, co-authors of the books Calendrical Calculations and Calendrical Tabulations, determined how often in the period between 1600 and 2400 A.D. Good Friday, Purim, Narouz and the Eid would occur in the same week. The answer is nine times in 800 years. Then they tackled the odds that they would converge on a two-day period. And the total is ... only once: tomorrow. And that's not even counting Magha Puja and Small Holi.
What a special day to celebrate!