A Letter from a Scared Actress
journal.neilgaiman.com
journal.neilgaiman.com
I thought we didn't do great stories about current political issues on HN? I thought that by dragging in things like this, we only endlessly bicker about things NOT hacker-related.
Things that interest hackers? Sure. Things positioned to make hackers squabble? Not so much.
Surely some people there would recognise that you can't blame an entire nation for the acts of one or two individuals who hold no particular power in the country. Or do the media and authorities in these countries portray the movie as being instigated or supported by the American government and wider society? Of course, if the film was merely a convenient scapegoat in order to get some good anti-Western riots going, then it's a much deeper problem and there's little to say.
What's terrible is that there's no communication between the ground on both sides. No one likes the film, but the common citizen doesn't seem to know that. What happened to the social media networks that we saw playing a big role in the Arab Spring?
This case is not much different from the Danish cartoons, but it just feels to me that there should have been some improvements in social media relations since that time. And what are they saying over there that we aren't hearing from our media and social networks? I'd love to see more things like this:
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/295211_101513...
In the real world, Iran's in our crosshairs, and it turns out that the US and UK overthrew their secular parliamentary democracy, installing the brutal Shah. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%C3%A9tat) People notice this stuff.
I mean, it boggles the mind for us not to mention the US MILITARY which happens to be in the middle east. Are we handing out flowers? Or killing people, breaking stuff, and controlling them? Does anyone really think it's just about one film?
First, yes, Iranians are skeptical of the US and UK for good reason.
The UK was the major imperial power in the middle east. The collapse of the Ottoman and British Empires, World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union as a superpower transformed the region from British control to being a proxy front for the Cold War. US policy for the majority of the Cold War was generally unabashed toppling of left-leaning governments to maintain dominance vis a vis the Soviet Union. That, combined with strengthening of political Zionism post-Holocaust, the large amount of oil in the region and the expressly anti-Western Islamic Revolution have continued to make the region a hotbed.
However, I'm not sure why you pulled Iran into this discussion. The Shi'as in Iran don't particularly like the predominantly Sunni Arabs, where the majority of these protests have been going on. Their war against each other was far bloodier than any conflict they've had with the west, though the west (and the US especially) did help to intensify it.
The current protests are happening primarily in the northern African "Arab Spring" countries, where the US did come down on the side of the populist movements, if somewhat late. Most of the problems in that region at present are somewhat less connected to the US's Cold War neo-colonialism and are more related to general demographic pressure and instability following the recent regime changes. The bits of anti-American sentiment in northern Africa are more connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than to neo-colonialism or direct American military action.
Basically what I'm saying is that there isn't one "Muslim" opinion; Islam is spread across a wide range of countries (Hint: most Muslims aren't even in the Middle East; Indonesia has more than all of the Middle East combined.) and lumping in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Qatar and Morocco into one bag is fallacious.
Of course, at the time I'm sure it was politically incorrect to say that "Catholics are lazy," and even now that would be an astonishingly rude over-simplification -- nonetheless it is possible to make generalizations on the basis of aggregated data that are generally correct.
To chose a somewhat less politically sensitive example, if one were to look cross culturally at fundamentalists within monotheistic traditions, I suspect you would find that they support wife-beating at a much higher average than the general population -- of course, this is a much more politically correct way of going about things, insofar as you don't disturb things too much by pointing out the problems in people who are, generally speaking, quite far away from you -- nonetheless, we are able to make these sorts of generalizations accurately and there is no reason why we can not also do so for the Muslim world.
>>what would happen if a film came along and really rubbed in the humiliation?
Please don't make excuse for religious intolerance and murder. It is not racism to condemn that in other cultures -- it is normal when tyrants control a country.
By the way, this extremely NSFW cartoon is the funniest argument I've seen regarding this.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-...
In retrospect, that might have been short-sighted.
There are no societies wracked by protest over this. It's a handful of high visibility, orchestrated protests (which generally seem to be anti-America rather than anti-theActualFilm) scoring media attention while most people get on with their lives.
they host the anti-islam movie.
but in all seriousness, westerners overvalue the peaceful and democratic role of the internet. I recommend reading 'The Net Delusion' by Evgeny Morozov (http://fave.co/SwFks5).
I also imagine there is a fair bit of manipulating going on, by there religious leaders.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/douthat-its...
Where all that turns hacker news is that quite often it's "hackers" (read anonymous etc.) that are dragging truth out. Up to now, the story behind this video was never in news I read or watched. All we've got over here in Germany are some pseudo discussions about freedom of speech and art with some undertones of general freedom in the internet.
Not one word about the fact that some terrorists used an apparently made-up movie to stage attacks at western embassies and causing civil unrest. Which is, by the way, also helping all the western "islam is evil EVIL" sayers. As always the radicals on both sides of the line are profiting and mainstream media is playing the game along the whole way down.
So yes, upvoted the post to promote a different view and new bit of information about this whole mess.
Seems to overlap with HN audience interests. Hence the front page.
(Unless you know of something he's done? I mean, there's that one poem about alien abductions, but I don't feel like that counts.)
The majority of the people who will be protesting violently out there are the ones who don't look for the facts. These are mostly brainwashed people who don't act on logic, they would not care if the actors knew anything about the movie or not. They would most probably just protest until the guy who made the movie is caught. But some of the people would actually want the whole cast taken down. And anyone who would try to reason with them (that they din't know anything about the movie) would get publicly humiliated and will be called a Zionist-agent.
If you were going to make a movie, with professional actors playing the roles, and your final goal was to create something that would be considered slanderous of Islam, there's are arguments in favor of keeping the actors in the dark about your actual intent.
Assuming that this fact would be easily discovered (and the actors could plausibly deny all accountability publicly), that does protect them quite a bit from most backlash; so you'd mostly be risking your own neck, not theirs.
In theory, anyway... in reality, the people who suffer the backlash will be, for example, IT workers at a US embassy with no connection to the film whatsoever.
And the actors, yes, will be protected somewhat, but not completely; and they'd probably prefer to be able to make the decision on whether they'd like that (reduced) backlash or not.
I suspect the theoretical protection is what the film creator had in mind, though.
http://www.inquisitr.com/333944/some-libyans-tried-to-save-a...
Considering the outburst of the voilence actually is because of interpretation of the some people. As the education system is bad maybe worse since the education does not have progressive values(i have not seen their education system and this is my guess). May be they are not at all educated or literate at all. Then the interpretation is then made for the general people by some dude who wants voilence . Also the media through which the information is distributed may be another set of idiots who distort or interpret things falsely .
A very example of a bad media can be seen in India where the news channel itself promotes superstition . I think America cannot win the war against terrorism unless it fights the roots of it -- education and media.
I think unless they stop sending soldiers and start sending teachers and administrators , there is no hope of freedom from religious fanatism .
In fact, I was discussing the situation with my fellow Muslims and Arabs (fyi I'm Muslim and Egyptian) and we're completely disgusted with the situation in Libya. I've called my family in Egypt and they expressed the same sentiment of disgust at protesters for a film that most have never seen. I'm also saddened by the complete ignorance of some of the Muslims protesting, yet I understand that the issue at hand is not entirely about this movie, it's more about United States' foreign policy, among other things.
No idea how that works - but I assume you and your fellow muslims also wouldn't murder Salman Rushdie if he happened to walk down your street? So unfortunately just because there are reasonable muslims doesn't mean that actress is out of trouble (I presume).
If I were involved in the production of that movie (even unintentionally, like that actress), I'd be very careful now.
People have been killed before. There have been attacks on the Danish cartoonists, too (I know of one attack, not sure if there were more).
Of course it is complete bullshit.
I have been in Indonesia when there were clerics issuing fattwas saying that killing Americans was ok. I just think it's tragic they get listened to.
I am not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that if no Muslim fanatics were out to kill Salman Rushdie, then surely somebody else would be out to kill him (maybe somebody who had a beer beforehand), so the involvement of Islamic faith in the case is completely irrelevant?
The thing is that I can't think of any religion or non-religion that hasn't had extremely violent organizations use their ideology as a basis for this sort of thing.
I was attending a Christian church in Jakarta once (no I am not really a Christian, and partly because of this), and the preacher recommended trying to convert Buddhist children as practice for converting Muslims. The thing is though that this wasn't well received by the Congregation even though it fit in perfectly well with their worldview. They chose to do something different with their religion and not be one minority victimizing another. People choose what to do with their religion. Blame people, not what books they read.
Although I wonder how it is structured - why can some Imams get by with issuing such statements? I don't think any priests of the "big" christian churches could do such a thing without being expelled. However, there seem to be a lot of crazy private "Christian" churches that are probably capable of anything. I am just not sure if their actions would then be described as "Christians doing stuff"?
One similar thing that comes to mind is "Christians" calling for abortion doctors to be killed (I think there were also some successful killings or at least attempts at it).
In Shia Islam, it's a bit different because Al Khomeeni is considered a legislator like the prophet himself. So his command is supreme and absolute and you'd expect most Shias to abide by it. Other Shia Imams vary in popularity and usually have some committed followers in varying numbers and their Imams too have a hierarchy usually leading up to Al Khomeeni. In reality, you will find Shias who would not follow these Fatwas, but they are a minority. And again, Al Khomeeni is undoubtedly learned in Islam to make stupid Fatwas. I'm a sunni, not a Shia.
Finally, yes, the fatwas do pose a risk to these people. There's no way to say otherwise. But at the same time, the moderate more learned Muslims always follow up. Where sentiment reigned supreme at the beginning of the event, now religion/logic is catching up to tell these brainless idiots that they've screwed up badly. Many supporters of the latest events have even recounted and realized their mistakes. But alas, a little too late. Islam, through its teachings, forbids the kinds of actions that happened in Libya (check my previous response for sources). I'll try my best to spread the letter that's been passed here.
It's not very structured. Islam doesn't really have big religious organizations like the Catholic Church per se. And Salafism tends to be explicitly somewhat anarchist. Some crazy imams call for murder. Some of the more radical Muslims around here (Indonesia) tend to vandalize night clubs during Ramadan. That's mostly how far it goes. At least here, most Indonesians don't really want religious violence and Jakarta elections are probably bigger reasons for concern than is the movie.
As for Christian equivalents, Ian Paisley comes to mind, but we aren't going to blame the fact that Christians believe their sect is right and others are wrong for the Northern Irish troubles are we?
In case you are wondering, I am a heathen. I follow the older paths, and often lift a horn, preferably of mead, to Odhinn, Thorr, and Freyr....
P.S: For those who says it's not pertaining to HN, well the movie maker did do a _hack_ by altering the script later. So, it fits well for this site.
Some guy thought it was within his right to manipulate this movie into existence and then do his best to make sure it was noticed and caused real damage. That this guy runs free while someone like Bradley Manning sits in isolation jail without a trial is outrageous.
The fact that we are engaged in torturing an accused (and probably guilty) but not convicted traitor* is unrelated. Having one flaw does not mean we must have others.
* - Terming it "traitor" describes our reaction, but the actual crime must be something else because the US constitution specifically requires witnesses for a prosecution as a traitor.
EDIT: He is charged with "aiding the enemy" which most people would count as treason. So if you believe the charges then calling him a traitor is correct.
Your first paragraph is kind of worrisome though. You say that Manning meets the definition of a traitor "if you believe he intentionally leaked information which risked American security during a war". But from the military legal standpoint there is no such thing as "no harm, no foul", so really he would be a traitor "if you believe he intentionally leaked information [to an American enemy] during a war", and this is true whether or not one would go through even a neutral (or Allied!) third-party first.
Other military servicemembers have acted as actual whistleblowers, even for things far more embarrassing to the U.S. than leaked diplomatic cables (e.g. Pfc. Justin Watt, who revealed a heinous crime of rape, multiple murders, and arson committed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, or the unnamed(?) whistleblower who revealed the Abu Ghraib abuses).
The reason they ended up OK is because they were whistleblowers, and not just exfiltrating as much confidential material as they could (without even examining it all) before their security access was removed due to a previous Article 15 conviction from punching another soldier in the face.
I mention this only because I see all the time (even here on HN now) about how people think Pfc. Manning is a "whistleblower" who is being oppressed, but there's far more to that story.
As for if he is a traitor or not: since I do not think there is an ongoing war involving the US in the middle east I cannot really count it as treason. Still criminal of course.
Just a reminder, but there's no declared war. There's military action, yes. But no war has been declared.
Manning is only a traitor if one enjoys fellating the Military-Industrial Complex.
> Just a reminder, but there's no declared war. There's military action, yes. But no war has been declared.
Please look through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unite...
The war in Afghanistan was formally authorized by Congress in the "Authorization for Use of Military Force" (a resolution which even explicitly mentioned that it satisfies all requirements of the War Powers Act passed in the aftermath of Vietnam).
Despite the fact that the writers didn't put "Declaration of War against $FOO" in the title of the resolution, it was certainly a declaration in the Article I, Sec. 8 sense.
But please, tell me more about how traitors are only created when Congress dots their I's and crosses their T's in a certain format.
Uhh... never. In the western world and America especially, modulo certain exceptions[1] it is within your right to make stupid, offensive, degrading movies. This is true even if people in other countries riot in the streets and call for your death.
1. Such as directly inciting violence or yelling fire in a crowded theater.
That film was silly at worst, and people who are using it as an excuse to do harm and violence, are just that, excusing their savagery, intolerance, hatred, blood-lust away so they don't appear to be sub-human.
The real story here is that western values and culture is incompatible with Islam.
This will just result in damages and perhaps a fine though, not any jail time.
What do you mean by "lead"?
If I anger you and you break some stuff then should I be punished for your vandalism?