JLH sends his translation of a German-language TV review from Politically Incorrect. I am as amazed as the translator that the film described could have appeared on any Western state-sponsored TV network, and in Germany, of all places.
We certainly would never see anything like it on PBS here in the USA — much less on CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. Nor can I imagine that it would be aired in Canada, Australia, or the UK. This is a breakthrough:
ARD TV Film: “Inshallah” — As Allah Wills
by Michael Stürzenberger
June 16, 2011
Yesterday evening the ARD [National broadcasting, analogous to BBC, MPBN] offered a TV film in prime time, at 8:15 PM, and watching it made you rub your eyes, more amazed from minute to minute. So many political incorrectnesses massed together in educational television governed by public law have rarely been seen. The video “Inshallah” describes the elements of the “most peaceful of all religions” with such intensity that even the eyes of the most uninformed do-gooder idealist must have been opened wide.
Astonishingly, Islam’s full program was there to be seen: A shattered marriage between a German woman and a Muslim Iraqi, who in the end took his nine-year-old daughter, Dalia, back to his home country. When she returns to Cologne at seventeen — a believing Muslim, she prays in a mosque which is being surveilled by the BKA [FBI with more guttural initials], is in close contact with the radical Islamic woman, Halimah, who teaches her to internalize the concept “taqiyya” and induces her to commit a suicide attack on infidel kuffars.
At the same time, her father, Basim, comes to Cologne to fetch her back to Iraq. In the best Islamic tradition, her mother’s opinion, of course, counts for nothing. The showdown takes place in a church: The psychotherapist Bloch is attempting with a reading from the Bible to talk the veiled suicide bomber, who has her finger on the button of the bomb, out of mass murder in service of Allah. Now, if that is not a highly insensitive attempt at inter-religious dialogue. Dalia cries fervidly to him:
“But Allah has commanded, blasphemers and infidels are to be killed! Allah is taking me by the hand and showing me the way.”
This film deserves the sobriquet “absolutely worthwhile.”
By way of exception, the ARD this time has earned respectful and laudatory reviews. With such films, it may be possible to open the eyes of the populace to what is rapidly spreading among us.
19 comments:
WOW! Now THAT was unexpected!
I hope SBS (Australia's multicultural broadcaster) takes it. It's in a foreign language, so that should help.
This is one of those rare occasions where my usual qualms about piracy elude me. How can we get a copy of this to go viral?
To its eternal credit, feisty little Denmark led the way with their typically irreverent shot at ridiculing Islamic terrorism.
The Terror Cell
An important point is made here too: the fact that anyone can convert to Islam, or be brought up in an Islamic household, that 'race' (whatever that is anyway) has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, which is a set of teachings advocating certain behaviour.
And in theory, one could click on the link in the original article, and use one of the Firefox add-ons to capture the video stream there. Ant, or NetVideoHunter, or one could in theory use either of those add-ons to get the address of the uploaded flash video, & then use DownThemAll to download it in no time at all. So they tell me anyway ...
However it's in German, so it would be good if someone could come up with a set of subtitles. I realise that would be a good few hours of work, but it would also a very worthwhile project, I think.
So is the 'Bloch' character like Robbie Coltrane in 'Cracker' or what's the scene here? I think a few different versions of that programme have surfaced in different countries. Didn't they try to make an American version of it as well?
Spurred on by Nick's comments, I downloaded the ARD vid, skipped to view the last 10 minutes, and then..
I knew it, I just knew it. At the 01:23:01 mark, there's talk about a man who still needs protection by body-guards. Why?
Here's the explanation in German:
"Seit er bewiesen hat das einiges im Koran nun mahl falsch ausgelegt wird, bringt ihm das nun [nur?] immer Ärger mit den radikalen Islamisten ein."
Translation:
"Since he has proven that certain things in the Koran are interpreted the wrong way, he has reaped the wrath of radical Islamists."
My little transcript of the spoken German language might not be one hundred percent right (e.g. still in doubt about "nun" or "nur"), but the general message is very clear: violent Muslims are "misunderstanders" of Islam and the Koran.
Well, you can't have 'em all. Otherwise, a mildly refreshing and relatively PI tv-film, certainly for a public broadcaster.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
@Sagunto
LOL, so it's still paints the typical PC-MC picture of Islam!
It's too bad the voices of those who have been and are being persecuted by Muslo-nazis is never heard on the MSM: Iranian Jews, Iraqi Christians, Coptic Christians, Pakistani or Bangladeshi Sikhs/Hindus, Iranian Bahais etc.
Cornholio -
Yes, it does. In fact it's all back to the "tiny minority" meme about radical Islamists and so on, we all know the drill.
I'm afraid that the German author of the original review is being somewhat wishful in his thinking here. Take the final scene inside the Church. The German reviewer interprets this as follows:
The psychotherapist Bloch is attempting with a reading from the Bible to talk the veiled suicide bomber, who has her finger on the button of the bomb, out of mass murder in service of Allah.
I also watched this scene. The arguments put forward by the psychotherapist [time stamp beginning at 01:24:50] are:
1) Do you really believe Allah to be so weak that he is easily belittled by some linguist?
2) For hundreds of years philologists have been interpreting the Bible in manifold ways; yet the faith of the people didn't suffer.
3) Abraham is used as an example: the order to sacrifice his son was a test of faith. Abraham showed his strength of faith, just like the jihadist woman has shown hers. Now there's no need to actually kill people, just like Abraham wasn't really supposed to kill his son in the first place.
4) This isn't really about the Bible or the Koran, it is about people you love, about your mother and she needs you alive.
My view as to why this German film, in the end, isn't really all that PI:
Ad 1) Here the Koran-wise woman could have answered: "Yes Allah really IS that weak, because his spokesperson Mohamed ordered the assassination of poets who were suspected of opposing him in their own verses."
Ad 2) This is a Christo-naive proposition: i.e. the Koran is exactly the same as the Bible; one can interpret it in countless different ways and have debates about it. In the end, that will not in the least influence those of real faith.
Ad 3) Caters to the Muslim Trojan-meme, used in da'wa activities like the interfaith dialogue, of the three "Abrahamic" traditions. Usually the dialogue goes like: "We [Christians] are guilty", to which the Muslim answer is: - "You're right".
Interestingly, the therapist is even playing God here, for he makes clear, as God did to Abraham, that there's no need for actual killing.
Ad 4) Paints a portrait of a radical Muslim who's a sucker for the psycho-babble of a therapist who argues that caring for your loved ones is more important than dying for the cause Allah. If only we'd had Herr Bloch handy for a real life showdown when Osama B.L. ran amock! A few well timed and touchy words about his mother from this mountain of a therapist and the big bearded O would have melted right before his eyes ;-)
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Sagunto seems to be correct in his assessment.
I.e., this is not an anti-Islam piece; it's an anti-TMOEWAHI piece (Tiny Minority of Extremists Who Are Hijacking Islam). It is reinforcing the TMOEWAHI meme. It is thus undermining the anti-Islam movement, and serving, effectively, to enable the continued infiltration of Muslims -- viz., of the assumed vast majority of non-"radical Islamist" Muslims -- into the West.
Therefore one needn't be surprised at all by its appearance in a mainstream venue. Many times, one does see PC MC types get anxiously trigger-happy and misinterpret things like this piece as anti-Islam and "bigoted"; but their hyper-sensitivity which may include collateral damage on their side does not detract from the more general principle -- namely, that pieces like this that seem superficially to be anti-Islam, are really pro-Islam.
Sagunto, thank you for the more detailed analysis.
I am obliged to agree with yourself and Hesperado. Anything, anything that perpetuates the "tiny minority" meme/lie is, essentially, pro-Islamic as it camouflages the inherently violent nature of Islam and provides an undeserved out by which Muslims can escape having to take responsibility for the basic fact that terrorism is in full accordance with Qur'anic doctrine.
Hesperado, I would be interested to see your own interpretation of how this film actually complies with the PCMC zeitgeist by finding the "clean end of the turd" by which Political Correctness can pick up the otherwise hot potato of anti-Islamism.
Hesp wrote:
"Therefore one needn't be surprised at all by its appearance in a mainstream venue. [..] pieces like this that seem superficially to be anti-Islam, are really pro-Islam."
My thoughts exactly.
The German reviewer, Mr Stürzenberger, also seems a bit optimistic about the laudatory reviews in the MSM. There is no further mention of these reviews, and in the comments section, I found only one reference to a MSM appraisal of this tv-movie. It says:
"Der Film erhielt in der Kritik der FAZ von gestern wegen fehlender politischer Correctness und pädagogischer Volkserziehung eine so negative Bewertung, dass mir sofort klar war, der Film muss gut sein."
Trnsl:
"This film got such a bad press in the FAZ* yesterday, therefore I instantly knew that this film had to be good."
Maybe some of the German commenters on PI thought the film to be genuinely critical of Islam because the film actually wasn't that much praised by the MSM at all.
The only remarkable choice in this German film probably was for a Jewish actress (Adriana Altaras) to star as a Muslim woman. That - with a fair measure of wishful thinking and fantasy - might be construed as a daring politically incorrect move on the part of the film makers. But then again, maybe not ;-)
I have seen the entire film now, and as much as I really wished to see it as actual "Counter-jihad TV", it never even came close. All in all, there's precious little counter to be found in this piece, that in spite of appearances (for some) is actually rather more pro-jihad. Stealth jihad, that is.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
* Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, large and influential, not exactly leftist German newspaper
N.b.: part of my English translation suffered from my clumsy ctrl x/v actions.
You probably know where to place it:
[..] due to a lack of political correctness and proper education of the populace [..]
Sag.
Luckily, Germans (at least those in positions of power) still have some spine when it comes to Islam. They were indoctrinated to treat anything "right-wing" and "patriotic" as "Nazi" - but were also encouraged to develop their Christianity - as a way of discouraging "Nazi-style" violent behaviour - so religion is a slightly different matter...
If this was on English TV...
"Astonishingly, Christianity’s full program was there to be seen: A shattered marriage between a British woman and an American Baptist, who in the end took his nine-year-old daughter back to his home country.
When she returns to London at seventeen — a fanatical Christian, she prays in a radical evangelical Christian Church and is in close contact with a fundamentalist preacher, who induces her to take part in a "Suicide Crusade" - planting a bomb outside the Guardian offices, and blowing herself up outside the headquarters of the moderate Muslim Council of Britain..."
Sagunto: "I also watched this scene. The arguments put forward by the psychotherapist [time stamp beginning at 01:24:50] are:
1) Do you really believe Allah to be so weak that he is easily belittled by some linguist?"
Sagunto:
It's more like:
If God is so OMINPOTENT - creting all Life...do you really think God needs a Human Being, Its own creation TO DEFEND IT!? REALLY!
A little - b itty Human?
God needs us? Heheheh."
But I suppose no one has thought of that...certainly NOT islamics!
What a laugh!
Islam is hardly unique in this regard. The human devotees of all religions, from the polytheistic ones to the monotheistic ones, assume a need to defend their gods, implying in turn that their gods need such a defense. There need be nothing wrong with such a view, insofar as the theology in question also contains in its culture a sense of the necessary human medium for the divine's pneumatic relation to the human.
An orthodox Christian can make a case, through his religious tradition and founding texts, for such a divine-human synergy (even if many Christians may seem obtusely illiterate of their own tradition in this regard); the Mohammedan cannot, without a self-contradiction that reaches its apogee in the effective -- and simultaneously vehemently denied -- divinization of Mohammed.
Hesperado -
"The human devotees of all religions, from the polytheistic ones to the monotheistic ones, assume a need to defend their gods, implying in turn that their gods need such a defense."
I for one would also like to include the Gnostic devotees with their political "religion of humanity" and its artificial Ersatz-deity, the sanctified modern welfare state. They seem to think that the gods of all favoured "minorities" are in need of their all encompassing protection, and that Western aboriginals are somehow obliged to pay a decent protection fee.
Sag.
Sagunto,
I'm not sure the proper correspondence for the welfare state is an Ersatz-deity, but rather what could be called "Marxian Paradise Lite".
Per Voegelin, I think the deity in the equation of the killers of God is the self which, of course, since insupportable in that function, must be propped up in myriad ways.
At any rate, we've seen massively political instances of such Gnostics who went merrily along constructing their Second Realities without any need for immigrants-on-a-pedestal or welfare states per se (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler); indeed, quite the reverse, in their massacres and displacements of same.
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