Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Who wants to make a movie depicting Judasim as a cancer?

I saw maybe half of Sasha Baron Cohen's movie ' Borat', I thought it was ignorant and stupid. When his latest movie, `The Dictator' was released I watched the trailers and took a pass. 

Jokes and gags about racial, religious and cultural stereotypes aimed at marginalized segments of our society don't hold much appeal. 

Do you know how copper wire was invented? Two Jews were fighting over a penny. Ha ha, I bet that went over big in Germany seventy or eighty years ago. 

Given Jewish history of the past hundred or so years I would have hoped that members of the Hebrew faith might have some sensitivity over such things. 

Well, those hopes appear to have been wasted with likes of Mr. Cohen. And also with Sam Bacile who is in the news because of his film "Innocence of Muslims'', which he wrote and directed. It depicts Islam's prophet Mohammad as a fraud with insulting claims that he approved of sexually abusing children. Violent reaction to the film is being blamed for the murder of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens as well as three other Americans. 

You can read the full story here: Vancouver Sun Story

I wonder what the reaction would be if an American Muslim film maker wrote and directed a film claiming that Moses was a pedophile who faked the whole scene at Mount Sinai to gain political power over the Hebrew people and then used that power to make himself and his closest friends rich. 

Imagine the reaction if this film maker then gave interviews claiming he was merely exposing the evils of Judaism and expressed a belief that the Jewish faith is a cancer that needs to be exposed and eradicated. 

We've already seen how some Christians reacted to Martin Scorsese's `The last temptation of Christ'. And that movie was pretty tame in my view. How much stronger would that reaction have been if it portrayed Jesus as advocating sodomy among his disciples? 

Personally I don't think any one faith has all the answers. But I know many Muslims, Christians and Jews regard their faith as the one and only path to God and heaven. Still, I will pray that fervent Muslims will borrow from a teaching of Jesus, regarded is Islam as a prophet, and turn the other cheek. 

Gandhi put it best, when you fight fire with fire, all you end up with is more fire. Or even better, taking an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

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