Update: Wilders' film has been removed from its original host's server
stating: "Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill-informed reports from some corners of the British media that could directly affect the safety of some staff members, Liveleak has been left with no choice but to remove Fitna from our servers."

For the rest of Liveleak's statement, see here.

Geert Wilders' film is a well-produced, nauseating, fury-inducing assault on reason. In attempting to scare us out of our wits, this piece of Islamophobic propaganda incites us not only to hate, but to eradicate Muslims. Wilders sets up a false distinction. He says he doesn't hate Muslims, he hates "their book and their ideology". So he hates Islam - but what becomes of a Muslim if you take away her Islam?

Wilders has a warped idea of Muslim ideology. His film contains only preachers and perpetrators of violence in the name of Islam, acts of violence and the victims of violence. It deals selectively with the Koran. It's very slick and very scarey. It challenges us to "defeat" the "Islamic ideology" as Nazism was defeated. It turns Islam into an uncontested, homogenous monolith of jihad. There are no moderate Muslims in this film because they don't suit its purposes.

The diversity revealed by the recent report of the Gallup World Poll of the Muslim World is ignored, as is the internationally important work of academics and theologians coordinated by the University of Ankara to define a new modern Islam. There are only horrific images of decapitations, raving preachers, and scorched, shattered bodies.

Once filth like this has reached the mass media, it incites the most reactionary and unreflective proportion of its viewers to attack Muslims - verbally and almost certainly physically and materially. Far right Britons are already boycotting Muslim businesses and this film will help them push British Muslims further into poverty. Forces for understanding and co-existence, moderate Muslims and interfaith workers will have to fight just to hold the ground they have gained up till now.

Wilders hopes to dominate the public debate with this film, and he has achieved his aim. Millions are watching it and talking about it. But if there are any constructive outcomes to this debate they won't be attributable to him. Once something as poisonous as this is released you cannot avoid giving it your energies. You can't leave it to stick undebated. But, as UCU consistently fails to acknowledge, some debates are damaging; some debates legitimise racist, stereotypical ways of thinking about Muslims and Jews. This trigger of Wilders' should be seen as a deliberate provocation against Muslims rather than another opportunity to enlighten ourselves. It shouldn't have come to this - the necessity of defending Muslims against the charge that Islam in general - because Wilders' film does not give us the tools to distinguish between hard, militant Islam and Islam in general - is evil. But this is how low we have sunk.

HT: Mikey.