“Fitna”: the “religious illiteracy”
By Megatrambai

The film”Fitna” has become controversial and it sparked a religious and political storm all over the world, especially in the Muslim countries. It is obvious that the film reflect the deeply hate on Islam.

The maker of the film, Geert Wilders make a negative assumption against Islam that has been prevailing among western society. Wilders phenomena reflected the “religious illiteracy” among western society.

However, we cannot deny that Muslim society also has the same perception on Christian and the West. The only different, the Muslim does not despicable the Christian religious like western did.

In general and in order to be fair, Muslim should realize that this incident does not reflect the position of western society. In western there are people like Cardinal Rowan William, the Archbishop of Canterbury who support the Islamic law to be implemented in Britain. The cardinal raised the prospect of Islamic law to be recognized within British family law.

In addition, Muslim should look on the positive side of the western society. Today, in some degree, Islam has place in Europe. Readers might agree with me that, today the western society have positive outlook upon the religion. Of course, the negative predisposition will always be.

Historically, the European reformation and enlightenment in 16th, 17th and 18th century is closely correlated with Islam. The dynamism of the Islamic practice and teaching during the “golden era” of the Islamic civilization inspired the European towards changes and reformation. In these contexts, several Muslim thinkers had even been the inspirations for the European humanists in 16th and 17th century.

As conclusion, Wilders understand Islam apart from its context and he did not obtain sufficient information about Islam in a correct perspective.