Wednesday, March 28, 2007

...on "Submission"

Prior to viewing the short film of "Submission" by Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali I had prepared myself for something particlarly provocative or appalling and yet my initial reaction once finishing the film was far from one of shock. A man was killed just for that? Clearly Ali is using the film in order to show what she sees as a negative aspect of Islam (stemming I can only assume from her personal experiences with the religion), but it seems as though there is much more offensive material about religion including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc. out in the realm of media. This film in particular seems to equate the men who follow the Qu'ran to wife beaters or rapists of women which could be the case, but these instances of abuse do not occur only within followers of Islam. As a strong feminist Ali must realize that inequality between the sexes exists throughout all societies and religions. Admittedly I am not a person of religion, I know little of the Qu'ran or the Islamic faith, yet the larger issue in this film seems to be the oppression of women in this culture. It seems much less about the actual religion, but in general about the views of a community of people that maybe legitimized by the teachings of the Qu'ran but even more so are legitimized by the members of the society. Is it really the teachings of the religion that are the problem, or is it simply how certain individuals misconstrue religious texts to suit their needs. From background readings I know that Ali considers the entire religion to be a means of oppresion, but I am a little unclear about what point Ali and van Gogh are really trying to make here with the film. If just to bring an important issue to light, then they have definitely succeeded, but I don't feel this video is all that affective at changing people's views of Islam. I certaintly haven't now decided to equate the religion completely with violence and opression of women. Perhaps it is simply because van Gogh was murdered before the final portions of the series were created, and that all together would tell a more complete and convincing story.

I found many expected viewpoints in responses to the video. In opinionjournal.com Leon de Winter, a novelist discusses his critiques to the film. He believes that "people offended by this film have a big problem." He discusses some of the same ideas I noticed, such as that the nudity in the film isn't really there. He also goes on to talk about some of the issues we brought about in our discussions, such as the idea that liberal multiculturalists could live peacefully with radical Muslims was perhaps not ever going to be a reality, and that it was an issue the politically correct Dutch media tried not to ever address. Other responses I found were many short ones reflecting the view of the Muslim communities, people made statements about how the film was a product of Ali's ignorance about Islam or a creation based only on the teachings of her misguided parents. There was of course a lot of support for the film, one of the first responses on the Youtube.com site is one in excitement about the 2nd part of the film. Many people discussed similar view points to Ali and van Gogh's about the evil of Islam and it's use as a way to oppress women in society.