The Netherlands is bracing itself for another storm of controversy ahead of the promised release of an anti-Islamic film by the firebrand politician Geert Wilders, head of the far-right Parti voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom). The film allegedly compares the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, describing the holy book as a "fascist" text. Wilders has long attacked Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands, warning of the "tsunami of Islamisation" threatening the country. The film controversy carries grim echoes of the furore around "Submission", directed by Theo van Gogh who was slain by an outraged Dutch-Moroccan. After van Gogh's murder, the country endured a spate of communal violence. Observers also fear that the film will spark protests and riots throughout the Muslim world.
Mohammad Rabae, chairman of the National Moroccan Council, has pleaded for cooler heads ahead of the film's release.
Wilders had proposed in the past for the Netherlands to ban the wearing of burqas in public. The government rejected the move, but has tabled a plan to prohibit the wearing of burqas in schools and government offices. Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.
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The toD verdict: At the time of writing, Wilders' film had yet to hit Dutch television screens or clog the bandwidth of YouTube. No matter where or when it appears, it'll be a shameless piece of agitprop, shrieking for attention and calculated for the crudest kind of provocation. Once again, Islam-alarmists in the Netherlands have got it wrong; instead of focusing attention on the parochial, patriarchal attitudes of some of the largely rural Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands, Wilders and Co. choose to drift into the realm of the abstract and specifically target Islam as scripture, as a faith. One should never confuse the practice of a religion with the religion itself.
Expect outrage amongst minority communities in Europe and on the streets across the Muslim world. And expect more of the tedious, tangential debate on "freedom of speech" and European values that we had to endure after the 2006 cartoon controversy.
Algeria's long insurgency
A suicide attack on police precinct in the northern Algerian province of Boumerdés has left four dead and injured twelve. Authorities blamed the blast on al-Qaida in the Maghreb, the heir to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now supposedly galvanised by trans-national zeal.
The former leader of the GSPC, Hassan Hettab, who split ranks with the group after it adopted the guise of al-Qaida, hopes he'll be granted an amnesty by Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Hettab has denounced the continued violence of his erstwhile colleagues and claimed commitment to a process of political reconciliation.
Algerian security officials are concerned that impoverished parents too readily allow their children to be taken by al-Qaida in the Maghreb recruiters. The rebels are thought to be training many youngsters to be suicide bombers.
The toD verdict: The prevailing wisdom that "poverty" and "terrorism" have little to do with each other looks a bit silly in the Algerian case. This "rebellion" - al-Qaida in the Maghreb, after all, mostly target police and army posts in the interior of the country - feeds off both the trauma of 1990s civil war and the grinding poverty of much of Algeria. In combating the movement, Bouteflika would be wise to pursue paths of engagement and compromise, as well as train a serious eye on the socio-economic dilapidation of the interior. With uncompromising pressure from Europe, his job is harder than most.
Lebanon's lingering crisis
A bomb blast in the Christian east of Beirut has killed five people, including Wisam Eid, a police captain of an intelligence unit close to the ruling government of Saad Hariri. In the last three years, at least thirty blasts have hit Lebanon, mostly targeting anti-Syrian leaders and their allies.
In the Daily Star, Michael Young slams Amr Moussa and the Arab League for bowing to Syrian pressure in failing to further the progress of an Arab plan for political reconciliation in Lebanon.
Basques to be banned?
Two Basque political parties, Accion Nacionalista Vasca (ANV) and Partido Comunista de la Tierra Vasca (PCTV), may be prevented from participating in 9 March elections after Spanish prosecutors accused them of links with the militant separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA).
