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| Great White North |
| Propaganda film targets my faith |
| 2006-06-03 |
| Many years ago, an elderly rabbi (may he rest in peace) with whom I was having a panel discussion, shared with me his regret that some younger Jews are forgetting their history. "They are ignoring the fact that they have always found sanctuary with Muslims," he said, noting "our culture flourished under Muslim rule and our faith was respected and protected." He then leaned forward as if to whisper: "Don't be disheartened, be true to your faith. All of us have had to pay a price before being accepted in Canada and your community will also go through this trial." This was before 9/11. This wise man of God warned and yet empowered me at the same time. I write today neither to argue the merits and demerits of the propaganda film Obsession (I'd rather rely on the good sense of Winnipeggers to make their own informed judgment), nor as a response to John Gleeson's editorial (Film on radical Islam a wake-up call to the West, June 1). Rather I write as a Winnipegger reaching out to my fellow citizens to request: "enough already please." Why are we setting the Abrahamic faith communities against each other? The conflicts in the Middle East are not religious: they are about power and control of natural resources, the resulting geopolitical climate, disputes over occupation and how just, equal, coexistence can be achieved. More importantly these conflicts are not our conflicts. Why import these political agendas and interests to our city? We have enough to clean up in our own backyards. The pain of our First Nations people is falling on deaf ears. Why do they have to struggle for clean water while our armies are sent to "help" other nations rebuild? Why doesn't the Asper Foundation reach out to help the First Nation communities? Why are they wasting their money and energies on bringing foreign conflicts to our city? I do not know what purpose is served by parading "experts" like Ms. Darwish, who make no secret of their contempt for Islam (see http://www.noniedarwish.com/). How does sponsoring her (and others like her) promote mutual respect, understanding and build bridges between communities? If the objective is, as some claim, to expose the hatred, I am all for it. Yet why target my faith by relying on propaganda? Islam does not condone hatred of any people. In fact it is the greatest ally for anyone fighting injustice, hatred and violence. Why focus on the few extremist views we can find in any community? Why not promote the positive and the good: the majority of Muslims who hold dear to their faith values of justice, peace and mercy? Will this not defeat the extremist hate mongers at both ends of the spectrum? The most insidious citation taken from the film is that 10% to 15% of Muslims support radical Islam. Where is this figure coming from? Where is the evidence? This is blatant fear mongering. By not applying any ethical test to such speculations we have set the stage for lies and innuendo as the standard for public discourse. The editorial also states that the saturation of hate propaganda against the West is much more pervasive than we realize. The same can be said by the Muslim world about saturation of hate propaganda in the West against Islam and Muslims. Can anyone dispute that Western media is biased in its portrayal of Islam and that misinformation and outright lies are passed on as facts? The practice of rendition, secret trials, hateful attacks on the prophet of Islam, torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi and Afghani prisoners by Western troops, desecration of the Muslim holy book, war based on lies, massacres of civilians, sanctions that lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslim children: are these not acts of hate? And in response, what is the message of the film? That "these people" deserve all the death, mayhem, and destruction heaped on them because, according to the "experts" in this propaganda film, their faith is Nazism reborn? Since some of them live among us, and because we cannot tell a "radical" from a "moderate," to prevent another Holocaust we must "wake up" and destroy them? The editorial profoundly concludes: "lose the blinders." My response: "No kidding." |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #10 "Can anyone dispute that Western media is biased in its portrayal of Islam and that misinformation and outright lies are passed on as facts?" I dont' dispute this sentence at all, but I seriously think the bias is pro-Islam and I doubt that is what the author intended. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-06-03 16:36 |
| #9 In fact if you reread the article, like the parts about western soldiers raping Muslims or sanctions killing Muslim children it looks a lot like if it has been written either by a Chomskite-grade idiotarian or still more likely by an islamist trying to pass for a Jew since these are strong themes in the islamist propaganda. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-06-03 16:05 |
| #8 The elderly rabbi story reads like taquiyah at its finest. I call BS. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2006-06-03 15:26 |
| #7 The editorial also states that the saturation of hate propaganda against the West is much more pervasive than we realize. The same can be said by the Muslim world about saturation of hate propaganda in the West against Islam and Muslims. Can anyone dispute that Western media is biased in its portrayal of Islam and that misinformation and outright lies are passed on as facts? The practice of rendition, secret trials, hateful attacks on the prophet of Islam, torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi and Afghani prisoners by Western troops, desecration of the Muslim holy book, war based on lies, massacres of civilians, sanctions that lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslim children: are these not acts of hate? No, they are not. Because most of the "acts" are lies and distortion of truth. And you fail to mention that muslims are killing muslims in far greater numbers than we can accomplish. The film strips your lies. The propoganda of your faith is what's killing people. Your faith chooses to set itself against the rest of the world. And you faith chooses not to eliminate the extremist faction among you, but embrace, submit and fund them while denying they represent you. You have never rejected them. Not in action or speech. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-06-03 12:01 |
| #6 I'm not sure the Jews were particularly "well treated" by many people with whom they were living. Their history has made them extremely tough however, kind of an evolutionary thing. Now they're in an excellent postion to protect themselves as they really NEVER have been. |
| Posted by: bk 2006-06-03 11:14 |
| #5 "They are ignoring the fact that they have always found sanctuary with Muslims," he said, noting "our culture flourished under Muslim rule and our faith was respected and protected." That simply not true. In fact it was a myth fabricated by Jews of Chritsian lands in order to shame Christains (source Bath Yeor). Shariah has much stronger discrimantions against Jews (and Christinas) that anything enforced in Christianity. Also there was never a Muslim ruler calling himself King of the Three Faiths like Alfonso X of Castilia. Never a Muslim king who deprived himself of critically needed reinforcements because those were attacking his Jewish subjects (Spanish kings before Navas de Tolosa). The pogroms were as common in Muslim land than in Christianity. Persian Jews had to feign conversion to Islam (like Spanish marranos). Finally, if Jews were so well treated under Islam where are the Sepharad Disraelis (prime minister) and Rotschilds? There aren't. The Jews of islamic countries in Islamic countries barely managed to be shopkeepers. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-06-03 10:22 |
| #4 Islam does not condone hatred of any people. Enslavement, humiliation, slaughter -- but not hatred. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-06-03 09:35 |
| #3 "They are ignoring the fact that they have always found sanctuary with Muslims," he said, noting "our culture flourished under Muslim rule and our faith was respected and protected." And herein lies a huge problem. This old man is so comfortable with the demons and bogeymen of his youth that he feels the need to excuse what is now, in our time, the TRUE threat to his people and their religion and culture. He wilfully puts on the rose colored glasses about Muslims (who cannot by any stretch be viewed as well disposed towards Jews) because, I suspect, he has come to buy into the automatic fear of things Christian that pervades in his generation. There is a deep generational divide amongst people living in America - all around, but amongst Catholics and Jews in particular - where people born in the '40's and before have an ingrained sense that the greatest evil possible is the devout White Christian, who is often conflated reflexively with Nazis and the KKK. These elderly folks grew up at a time when there was widespread bigotry and groups like the KKK were powerful. So strong was the (justified!) imagery around this particular form of evil during that period that many, Jews and Catholics in particular, refuse to accept that anything in the world could ever become a greater threat or evil. To folks of a certain era, the greatest evil in the world will ALWAYS be southern Christians, evidence to the otherwise notwithstanding. 9/11 didn't change that. Nothing will probably ever change that. Changing this ideology would require a fundamental redo of their entire worldview and values. People get comfortable with their bogeymen just as they get comfortable with anything else. It's a lot easier to just go along thinking that a bunch of nitwits in Idaho waving Nazi flags pose the greatest threat to life and limb than it is to tear down your world view and build it up again with new data. Data which forces you to come to a very different conclusion about which threats are worst. And so, one sees the effort by this old rabbi to push away thoughts of problems caused by the Muslims because it would interrupt the easy refrain of "Christians - BAD!!!" that is the underpinning of his life. Fortunately for everyone involved, younger Americans of all stripes have begun to realize that there has been a major change in what threats exist in the world. Ther are still a few racist supremacist jerks who need watching. But to those who observe ALL the data, the idea that they, and not Islamicists, are still the thing to be most feared is a sad and dangerous anachronism that is really a product of mental laziness, and perhaps not without a bit of bigotry itself. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-06-03 08:45 |
| #2 they have always found sanctuary with Muslims That's why Jewish people are streameing from New York and Miami to get back to Babylon. I guess once they get the wheat in the ground they go sort of loopy in Winnipeg |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-06-03 08:20 |
| #1 capo |
| Posted by: 6 2006-06-03 07:21 |