[Peace-discuss] DI Column and my response

[David Green]

The Daily Illini - Opinions 
Issue: 3/4/05 
 

Column: The Academy avoids
By David Johnson 

     I usually find the Oscars insulting to my
intelligence and moral sensibilities. But this year's
Academy Awards were especially offensive and guilty of
omission - there was no mention of slain Dutch
filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. 

Last year, Van Gogh teamed with Dutch politician Ayaan
Hirsi Ali to produce the short film Submission. Ali's
experiences growing up in Muslim Somalia led to her
prominence as a vocal critic of the atrocious
treatment of women under certain strict
interpretations of Islam. Submission highlights many
of the barbaric practices that practically enslave
women in hard-line Muslim society. Ali has received
death threats throughout her political career, but it
was Van Gogh who paid with his life when he was
murdered by a suspect of Muslim origin.

The treatment of women that Van Gogh exposes seems
distant to us in America, but it is not in Europe.
These practices include so called "honor killings,"
wherein a male relative murders a woman who has
"disgraced" the family, perhaps by committing
adultery, or even by merely deciding to divorce. Honor
killings are widespread throughout Europe - the city
of Berlin alone has seen six in the last four months.
Under certain interpretations of Islamic law, women
are considered property of men and have decisions such
as marriage forced upon them. Other practices include
forcing women to stay fully covered in public, a
practice many Muslim women around the world are free
to choose whether or not to follow. But many women in
Europe are not so lucky.

According to CBS news and the New York Times,
emergency personnel such as police, fire and medical
won't dare venture into the immigrant ghettos in
cities such as Paris and Malmo, Sweden. Such
communities aren't ruled by liberal European laws, but
rather by those forcefully imposed by the ruling
immigrant gangs.

The Muslim communities of Malmo, Paris and Berlin are
hardly isolated. Immigrants in the Netherlands form 10
percent of the population. The vast majority of
immigrants are Muslim. If this seems small, imagine if
a particular United States' immigrant population were
twice as large, showed little interest in assimilating
into broader society and were overrepresented in
violent and sexual crime. Furthermore, imagine if 40
percent of it were receiving welfare benefits from the
government, as is the case of the Muslim population in
the Netherlands.

This Islamization of Europe is leading to alarming
backlashes - opinion polls suggest 75 percent of
Swedes "dislike" Muslims, joining 35 percent of Dutch
who harbor negative feelings towards Muslim
immigrants. And this brings us back to Theo Van Gogh -
the treatment of women in many Muslim communities in
Europe is an anathema to Europe's liberal ideals and
is thus strikingly representative of the disconnect
that exists between Europe and its new immigrant
population. Van Gogh's murder shocked many on the
continent - emigration rates of native Dutch middle
class have skyrocketed since, yet anecdotal evidence
suggests that throughout the Muslim communities of
Europe, the belief is that Van Gogh got what he
deserved for criticizing certain Islamic practices.
That Van Gogh lost his life over his views signifies
the importance of this conflict and forces us to
realize that we in America, and especially our friends
across the pond, can't sweep the issue under the table
much longer.

And sweep under the table is exactly what Hollywood
did to Theo Van Gogh. One might argue that such
matters aren't within the scope of the awards. Yet
last year, while honoring prominent figures in film
who died the year prior, the Academy Awards
commemorated the achievements of Leni Riefenstahl,
director of famed Nazi propaganda such as Triumph of
the Will. As I see it, they either feared bringing the
subject up for safety concerns (seeing where it got
Theo) or are uncomfortable going near a story that
violates a cardinal rule of political correctness:
don't criticize Islam. Either way, it demonstrates
that the entertainment industry is either morally
depraved or morally bankrupt - something I could have
told you before this year's Academy Awards. They honor
a peacefully deceased Nazi, but ignore a filmmaker who
died for his beliefs. Next year, I'll just skip this
abomination. 
 

Editor:

     David Johnson (3/4), has written about a topic
that he may know something about, rather than one he
knows nothing about (global warming). But a little
knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and Johnson spins
his knowledge of Muslims in European cultures with the
same racism that has characterized the treatment of
immigrants in this country, from the 19th century to
the present. If 75% of Swedes “dislike Muslims,” how
does Johnson know that this is not the standard
religion/race/class bigotry applied to recent Jewish
immigrants in this country in 1900—even by more
established German Jews?

	Does Johnson really care about Muslim women? Not when
they are Palestinian women waiting at Israeli
checkpoints, on their way to give birth, or to live
their harassed, occupied lives. Does Johnson care
about the treatment of Arabs in movies? Jack Shaheen,
author of “Reel Bad Arabs,” describes the stereotype:
“Subhuman--Arab Muslims are fanatics who believe in a
different god, who don't value human life as much as
we do; they are intent on destroying us (the west)
with their oil or with their terrorism; the men seek
to abduct and brutally seduce our women; they are
without family and reside in a primitive place. The
women are subservient--resembling black crows, or we
see them portrayed as mute, somewhat exotic harem
maidens.”

	No, Johnson shares a bizarre Zionist frontpagemag
fantasy of a Hollywood that prohibits itself from
criticizing Islam. The reality is that Hollywood never
criticizes Israel, for obvious reasons. The same is
true for the DI and U of I institutions, Jewish or
otherwise, as well as our “sensitive” Chancellors.
What culture does Johnson think he’s in? And what
culture do Jewish students think they’re in, when
their views are implicitly represented by the ignorant
likes of Johnson and Elie Dvorin?