Submission to what?

Films are supposed to inform, educate or entertain, but one film did kill.

It is “Submission,” a 12-minute-long film performed by only one actress and shot in an incredibly simple setting. It agitated a fatal assassination of the film’s director and from then on tore apart the welcoming image of the Dutch society, which is historically known for its tolerance.

The screenplay of Submission was written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a dissident Muslim woman who withdrew her faith in Islam and lived up to her “American dream” by climbing the social ladder from a political asylum to a member of the Dutch Parliament. The director of the film, Theo van Gogh, was an outspoken atheist and controversial filmmaker who attacked all religions through his work.

Maybe such a combination could predict the outcome of Submission. The short film tells the stories of four Muslim women through one naked actress dressing in a transparent chador while wearing a veil. On her body, verses from the Koran are painted. The actress questions Allah why Muslim women should be beaten by their husbands and raped by their uncles even though they sincerely submit their preys and wills to him. She questions why theses violent actions against Muslim women are in fact doctrines of the Koran. Ultimately, she questions the point of “submission” – the direct translation of the word “Islam.”

Morley Safer from the CBS 60 Minutes reexamines the whole story of Submission. He starts from the most dramatic moment – van Gogh’s death – by taking his audience to the scene where the film director was shot, stabbed and pinned a letter of hatred onto his chest with a knife in November 2004.

Then, by presenting a series of interviews with the screenwriter Hirsi Ali, van Gogh’s good friend and colleague Theodor Holman, scholar Paul Scheffer as well as a Dutch Muslim community leader, Nabil Marmouch, Safer tells the stories behind Submission from a number of perspectives.

It is noticeable how differently the above characters interpret van Gogh’s death. For Hirsi Ali, the assassination is the evidence of how a smilingly tolerant society, in which Muslim men indeed abuse and murder women, exercises terrorism. But for Marmouch, van Gogh’s ending is predetermined, not because he insulted Islam, but because insulted all religions. Although this Muslim community leader is critical of the suppression of Muslim women, he accuses Hirsi Ali for politicizing van Gogh’s death.

Equally noticeable is how the interviewer, Safer, provides his audience an in-depth look of the issue by challenging his interviewees. For instance, when Scheffer says: “You can’t live here with a holy book that is above or beyond our democracy,” Safer questions him: “But it’s not easy, because what you are asking these families to do is give up your tradition and become one of us.”

This is in fact where the problem is. While Muslim communities in the Dutch society are marginalized worse and worse, Hirsi Ali, who is often seen as heroic by the western world, leads no easy life. She has to hide herself and accept the fact that Submission is not going to be exhibited in a film festival, because the organizers are afraid of violence caused by both sides – the Muslims and the anti-Muslims.

Van Gogh’s death is no longer about a film that has made many people angry. It poses some serious questions to the Dutch society, or, perhaps to the contemporary world: How tolerant is our society? What are we going to submit to? Democracy? Faith? Or ideology?

60 Minutes dose not give us a conclusion or resolution, but maybe stating the fact that Hirsi Ali is not going to submit to threats by producing “Submission Part II” is a silent answer given by the American media.