All Things Not Considered

A Sisyphean Challenge

The Danish cartoons are once again in the news along with the tumult of the sanctimonious harangues on one side and the ill-advised street riots on the other. This is a sequel that restarted when the Jyllands-Posten and 15 other Danish papers decided to reprint a denigrating. While the theme of the 2005 episode was ‘Freedom to Blasphemy’, this latest one was ‘Solidarity and Defiance.’ Personally, I think the underlying theme to both is simply naked provocation, guised racism, and a childish game of intellectual ‘fart-counter-fart.’ A game as old as time where the only useless result it engenders is a stench that wafts up to our noses and drives us away from where we need to be: The round-table of discourse, of joint understanding, and mutual respect.

I am a Moroccan nonbeliever and I don’t have of a ‘religious’ dog in this fight. However, out of a sense of fairness, social equity, and moral justice I just couldn’t sit it out. It is true that I was irked when I heard of the republication of the prints, but I was equally irate when I saw the riots and heard of the misplaced public comments that ensued. This behavior will only alienate the Muslim minorities at best and vilify them and their religion at worst.

This past week, true to form, the neo-cons and some members of the European far right wing punditry weren’t a bit derelict in their propagandist obligations to stoke the fire under this controversy. And so we had to endure their calls for ‘Freedom of speech’, ‘Freedom to Blasphemy’, ‘War of ideology’, ‘East vs. West’, and the proverbial ‘The Clash of Civilizations.’ However, these same experts were remiss in their duties to be fair and just when they conveniently and temporarily spurned their own laws to support their spurious arguments.

For the record, in France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and Austria it is against the law to deny that the Jewish or Armenian holocausts took place. On February 20, 2006, an Austrian court convicted British historian David Irving for making a speech where he claimed that some hitherto reported events about the holocaust didn’t actually take place thus breaking the law and getting a 3-year jail sentence for it. Here’s another rhetorical tidbit: How do you think the Jewish community would react if a newspaper in the US decides to print a caricature of an Israeli president drooling over few dollar bills? Well, there will be outrage, accusations, indignation, and all rightfully so. So why is it OK to protect the rights of some to desecrate while deny it to others? Why the double standard?

This is an absurd Tragicomedy, a progeny of some deep ethnic and religious differences that have since eroded the foundation of discourse and have widened and deepened the chasm between the ‘us’ and ‘them.’ To make matters worse, extremists in the Muslim world pull no punches in their senseless drive to galvanize the populist movement around their hateful, dogmatic, and acerbic message. They will do so even if they have to resort to unethical and morally outrageous deceptions. Equal to the task, the right-wingers in the West will resort to whichever means to drive their own ideological agenda or secure some profitable dividends. Freedom of speech is then decoupled from civic responsibility; moral decency and justice are replaced by xenophobia and hypocrisy.

It’s time to rethink these failed strategies and reconsider these fundamentally flawed preconceptions of each other. It’s time for the West to take an active role in the true enfranchisement of the Muslim minorities. It’s time to openly accept their cultural differences, learn and understand their ethnic and religious backgrounds, and allow them the benefit of the doubt. It is also time for the Muslim minorities to take a serious step toward a complete and genuine assimilation and integration within their host countries. It’s time to open up the intellectual sarcophagus where they have buried themselves for centuries and allow for some much needed fresh air to chase away a rather stale interpretation of the world. More importantly, we all need to revisit our respective definitions and interpretation of Tolerance. In his book “The Open Society and its Enemies Vol 1” Karl Popper convincingly proved that we couldn’t be tolerant of the intolerant. If we were, intolerance would invariably annihilate the tolerant as well as Tolerance itself. This is pretty much a call both sides need to seriously heed not just for the sake of human progress but also and more importantly for the sake and the future existence of humanity.

According to the Greek mythology, there was king by the name of Sisyphus who throughout his years had developed a reputation for being greedy, envious, and cunning. To punish him for his bad deeds, the Gods decided to put a curse on him. He was to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll all the way down. He was to endlessly repeat this futile endeavor Ad infinitum. Sometimes I feel that we, in a way, embody the myth of Sisyphus. In our quest to continually better each other and ourselves, we have been cursed with the apparent chimera of racial unity. We keep striving to climb the mount of human consonance and societal harmony, but over an over again we find ourselves at the bottom of it. But in the words of Albert Camus as they relate to our fateful Greek hero ‘…the struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’ Indeed, Hope is eternal.

The 'Don Imus Controversy' – A Circus of Inconsequence

When Don Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" this week, he seemed to think nothing of it. It was just another one of those lame jokes that has earned him the title of "equal opportunity offender."

I have never developed a liking for the Imus show. Although his political views and analysis are often spot on. His sophomoric humor, his tireless tirades, and his vitriolic remarks sap the validity and strength off the more serious comments.

Although his latest remarks were meant to be humorous, I am not here to defend him or condone his behavior. His remarks are simply thoughtless, unarguably objectionable, and utterly despicable. What I would like to focus on instead is the wave of protest that ensued. A wave that further exemplifies the underlying trend of glaring media sensationalism and blatant hypocrisy.

After the story broke, Imus went on a damage control campaign. He took advantage of every opportunity he was given to express his regrets and earnestly apologize for his faux pas. Almost every show or program he attended, featured Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jesse Jackson to represent the views or comments of the black community. Neither one of them accepted the apology and both were adamant that Imus needed be fired for what he said.

What I find rather hypocritical is for the media to consider Sharpton and Jackson as the purveyors of wisdom and arbiters of decency. This is the same Jesse Jackson who referred to New York City as "Hymietown" and the same Reverend Sharpton who stood by the side of Tawana Brawley as she lied about her racist story and sold it to the rest of America. Moreover, What have both men done to stop the black rappers from denigrating and demeaning black women with their lyrics and video clips? If Sharpton, Jackson, and other black leaders want to address this issue in a credible manner, they ought to turn their attention to where the problem originates. Don Imus was wrong, but he was thoughtlessly aping black rappers who continue to be glorified for their insidious ‘poetry’ towards women.

Imus is getting his deserved punishment through a fierce public flogging, but like everybody else; he too deserves a second chance. He has repeatedly apologized and has sounded and looked contrite. It’s time to turn the page and move on, there are bigger and more important issues facing this country today.

Pay Per Cheat

What if there was a way that would absolve you of any guilt if you happen to slip and cheat on your partner? Well, if you are the cheating type, you can rejoice. There’s a website that will actually "help you because you can’t help yourself." When you happen to fall to temptation and commit a bad deed, you increase jealousy, hate, and ill will in the world. But don’t feel bad, because when you pay a small fee to this website, you, in a way, atone for your sin and you indirectly reward someone else for being honest and faithful.

This concept made me think of other ways where it could surely make a difference. Imagine if we had a website for the corrupt government officials they can use to expunge their guilt by paying for all their nefarious decisions that caused human despair in and outside of their countries. I will bet you that the atonement money from this current administration alone would feed millions of people and alleviate much duress off many innocent people all over this world.

I know this is a utopian dream for neither one of them thinks they have done anything wrong. They are wrapped up in their imperialistic ambitions and any action they take is duly justified in light of their ‘noble’ and ‘idealistic’ goals. But as McNamara has showed recently, exceptions, or you might term them miracles, do happen. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will get to a certain age where their guilty conscience will drive them to make amends and atone for their costly blunders.

Faith, Citizenship, and Identity

This is the result of a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. Based on the question, it seems like Moslems, regardless of where they reside, identify with their religion more than their countries’ citizenship. Conversely, the Christians consider themselves more of citizens than members of their religion.

Many Christians in the US identify more with their religion than with their country. This distribution is rather skewed when compared to the European countries. One is left to wonder as to the reasons behind this and to the relationships between secularism, secularization, modernism, and of course, religion.

• Why is it that invariably, Moslems identify with Islam more than their country of residence?
• Why is it that the US numbers are statistically different than other countries in the West?
• Why is the Moslems distribution in France more balanced than any other place?
• What does this tell us about the Moslem/Christian dialog around current and future issues?

These and other questions will be addressed in a future article on this blog. Stay tuned.

Babel - A Review

Aside from the allegory to the Biblical story of "The Tower of Babel", this movie was an amalgam of subjects and issues and a collage of human drama framed around confusion, lack of understanding, and lack of communication. True to the Biblical parable, the common theme that wove the 3 stories together is one of human despair and tragedy emanating from cultural bias, miscommunication, and misconstrued perceptions. Inarritu, the movie director, adopted the same style of cinematography, story telling, and underlying premise as in his previous movies, ‘Amores Perros’ and ‘21 Grams.’ This leads me to believe that ‘Babel’ is in fact, the 3^rd installment of the trilogy.

It didn't seem like there was one actor you could label as principal in the movie. All of them were as important in the roles they respectively played. Moreover, I thought they all did an incredible job; although, in my opinion, Barraza (the Spanish nanny) was a tad better because of the way she handled the harrowing experience she was put thru and how she made every human emotion come out to life on the screen.

As a Moroccan, I didn't have a lot of objections to how they portrayed Morocco thru the movie. The village was chosen carefully and deliberately to accentuate the desolation and the poverty of a desert when compared to the desert of our cities and desolation of our cosmopolitan hearts. This is very much repeated with the artificial and plastic-like landscape of Tokyo and the dusty and windy village in Mexico. The Tazarine village is pretty much typical of many small villages in Morocco. They are dusty, infrastructure poor, but full of goodhearted, decent, and generous people.

I didn't object to the nakedness of the teenage Japanese girl, which I actually found to be more sad and heartrending than sexual. However, I thought the whole episode of voyeurism, masturbation, and incest was misguided and inappropriate. First, it sends an erroneous message to viewers who don’t know the people in that region of the world. Second, it has no place in the context of the movie theme or its direction.

There was however a scene at the end of the movie that depicts the real nature of the true Moroccan. It took place when Richard (Brad Pitt) handed some money to Anwar (Mohamed Akhzam - the guide) to thank him for standing by him and his wife and helping them thru their horrific ordeal. Anwar politely rejects the generous offer. The camera zooms in as his face fills the white screen. His facial expression conveys a sense of duty to lend a hand and an inappropriateness to take financial advantage of a dreadful incident. Regardless of what one might surmise from that particular scene, I thought it was one of redemption for anything I could have found objectionable with the movie.

3 out of 4 stars.