My enemies and me
Israelis have been flocking to see the Iranian academy award winning film - everyone has to show how cool they are. But of course, the Israeli entry into the prize competition
won't be seen anywhere in Iran.
So let’s start with the obvious: “Undemocratic” countries don’t show films produced by their worst enemies in theaters throughout the country; they ban them. You won’t, for instance, be able to see “Footnote” at a movie theater in Tehran. That this even needs saying is a disgrace. But given the frequency with which Israel’s critics have been hurling the “undemocratic” label at it, it’s clear many self-proclaimed Western liberals need a refresher course in the basics of democracy.
What’s equally true, however, is that “anti-peace” regimes generally don’t want their citizens to learn about their neighbors’ culture, for very good reason: If a regime really seeks to prevent peace, dehumanization of the enemy is vital. Thus, it’s important to shield the public from anything that might cause it to view enemy nationals as people more or less like themselves. That’s precisely why, for instance, Israeli books are almost never translated into Arabic, nor are Israeli movies shown almost anywhere in the Arab world.
In contrast, a country that seeks peace is intensely interested in getting to know its neighbors’ human side, because humanization enhances the prospects for peace. That is why, for instance, you can easily find translated Arabic literature in Israel, and it’s also why “A Separation” has been such a hit. It’s not just that it’s an award-winning movie, though that obviously helps. It’s because Israelis, to quote AP again, were intrigued “by the rare glimpse it offered into the living rooms of a country they regard as a threat.”
Read the whole thing. And be grateful that you have the right to do so.
Labels: freedom of speech, Iranian films, Oscars
Trailer of Newly-Released Antisemitic Iranian Feature Film in Which Jews Build War Machine to Take Over the World
Here's the trailer for a new Iranian anti-Semitic film in which Jews build a war machine to take over the world (Hat Tip:
Will).
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Iranian films, Islamic anti-Semitism
HSBC loses its moral compass; UPDATED
Anyone who has traveled by plane over the last few years has seen ads like this one, usually in the jetways as you board and disembark from the plane.
But sometimes, that kind of multicultural view of the world can go too far. With HSBC, which also used the ad above, multiculturalism has gone overboard with the ad below.
Just like that, the banking behemoth reveals the danger of bubble-gum corporate cosmopolitanism: Every now and then, you might suggest that a murderous theocracy is actually a progressive place.
One wonders what Jafar Panahi would make of the suggestion that Iran's filmmaking environment compares favorably to America's. We can't know, however, because the acclaimed director and his colleague Mahmoud Rasoulof were just sentenced to six years in prison. There they'll join, among others, the filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, who news reports say is on a hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison.
"The assassination of ideas and sterilizing artists of a society has only one result: killing the roots of art and creativity," Mr. Panahi said at his trial. "You are putting on trial not just me, but Iranian social, humanist and artistic cinema."
A theme of Mr. Panahi's movies is the Iranian regime's subjugation of women. Whereas the HSBC ad implies that women in Iran are particularly empowered or liberated, Mr. Panahi's works—including "The Circle" (2000), about female prisoners, and "Offside" (2006), about young women detained for trying to attend a soccer match—demonstrate otherwise.
So do news reports about Sakineh Ashtiani and other Iranian women sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery. In Iran, girls can be married at age 13 (it was age nine in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution), women don't have the right to divorce their husbands or to seek custody of their children in the event of divorce, and a woman's court testimony is accorded half the weight of a man's.
In an environment like this, is it possible that 25% of movies are made by women? Perhaps, although when I asked HSBC spokesman Robert Sherman, he wouldn't say where the bank got its information (either about Iran or Hollywood). Iran does have an active domestic film industry, with women among its major players. One is Tahmineh Milani, a feminist who still works in the country despite having been imprisoned in 2001 on charges—"supporting factions waging war against God"—that could have warranted the death penalty.
In any case, the numbers in the ad are not what matters. Let's say that HSBC's factoids are true. They still convey a hollow, misleading message about the Islamic Republic. Imagine a 1939 ad pointing to Leni Riefenstahl—Hitler's court filmmaker and a pioneering female artist—as evidence of the Third Reich's unexpected "potential." The company behind any such ad would have immediately impugned its perceptiveness and reliability—even its worldview.
Read the whole thing. HSBC has lost its moral compass and ought to try to find it in a hurry. Shutting down its Iran operations, whether or not they are permitted under any sanctions regime, would be one way to start.
UPDATE 8:19 PMHSBC has apparently gone dhimmi altogether. This picture was taken on the New York City subways this morning (Hat Tip:
Jeremy K).
Multiculturalism run rampant? Or just plain foolishness?
Labels: HSBC, Iranian films, Iranian treatment of women
Israelis have been flocking to see the Iranian academy award winning film - everyone has to show how cool they are. But of course, the Israeli entry into the prize competition won't be seen anywhere in Iran. 
