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The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’
- 1over137 4y agoI've been trying to find this online somewhere, but no luck. :( Sounds like a great movie.
- rock_hard 4y agoFantastic movie!! Essential time piece for everyone who lived through 9/11 Make sure to watch it if there is a screening nearby
- Animats 4y agoTheir GoFundMe is doing great. Goal achieved.[1] 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. Selected for Sundance. [1] https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-unredacted-jihad-rehab https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-unredacted-jihad-rehab
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoI heard about this first from Sam Harris’ podcast. Then went to the go fund me, and Harris gave $25k! I’m not sure why she doesn’t run a kick starter as well. I’d pay to get a digital download of the movie.
- epivosism 4y agoSmaker is a great interviewee - she runs the show, a real truth seeker and explorer
- whymauri 4y agoSimilar article from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/sundance-jihad-rehab-meg-smaker.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/sundance-jihad-rehab-m... With a lot less whining about 'the woke mob'.
- acomjean 4y agoI came to post the same. It was a couple weeks ago. According to that recently renamed film “The UnRedacted.” National review is going to do its thing, though the times seemed to take a dim view of its Sundance cancelation. Here’s a nytimes “gift” link https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/sundance-jihad-rehab-meg-smaker.html?unlocked_article_code=MZ_kGoIKIyXWZ-Qn8zASfsVcSlhO9IKEUVJfGmKwRla6L9J4BNQNmbd1fB2B_3OUtH72zfIkPfVbgM5DoDobkmqAzG7gQukkLbJ5M8KRYfTSbaU-MCdZl_FUWIFxUn4XZRk3fFAf-ZArbwCqJbYBeJBe-RvTvzZMgVYfSrqCvxrGgXv6bnMyLNjZo8NMpWoKTdIC_zYKzAECjUvkHGtJPAAGHEdT5BTAnbVdiDsDu16V-C-S8z-PRWhPOiKN3Vfv4aojf_MwyrJrFSCzJbE3iq5sOlXycLATZA95BD8vfmFrBsAkMyrhqMvn2xgQIffH3cqpkqMu5zL-P0jSrvf-WQKK-c8&smid=share-url https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/us/sundance-jihad-rehab-m...
- addicted 4y agoThis whole story is just disgraceful. And while there are definitely understandable concerns about interviewing a basically imprisoned population, 1. the fact that only a handful of prisoners opted to speak while the rest declined shows that they did have at least some degree of choice, and 2. the viewer can balance what the documentary presents against the circumstances in which it was created. Considering the actual content of the documentary it’s hard to see how else this story could be told. Finally, I thought we were past the whole “only people of a community can make stories about that community” thing. It would be one thing if someone with a similar background had stayed in the facility for a year and also made an equivalent story. Arguably they should get higher weight. But no one else did. This story is not displacing anyone else. In its absence all we have is a vacuum.
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- noelsusman 4y ago>In fact, Smaker’s film is nothing less than a nearly two-hour indictment of America’s deeply shameful experiment with unlawful imprisonment. Just absolutely wild to read this sentence in the National Review of all places.
- ShredKazoo 4y agoThe National Review is one of the publications I respect most. It's rare to see someone criticize their own side.
- jmull 4y agoLet’s be serious here. The National Review was a loud mouthpiece for the politicians promoting the war on terror, including the use of enhanced-interrogation-teqniues-don’t-call-it-torture. A piece of that national shame is all theirs. I guess it’s nice they don’t seem to support it anymore, but it looks more like a shift of convenience to me — the better to stroke the current conservative narrative to redefine “free speech” so as to cast speech they dislike as “cancellation”, that it can be repressed while still claiming to own the moral high-ground.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago>The National Review was a loud mouthpiece for the politicians promoting the war on terror, including the use of enhanced-interrogation-teqniues-don’t-call-it-torture. A piece of that national shame is all theirs. Do you have a citation for this? - - - Supposing a journalist submits an article to the editor-in-chief, and the article expresses disagreement with a position that the publication took in the past. If the editor-in-chief says "no you can't say that, we need to present a consistent perspective for our readers", I'm less interested in reading their publication. This appears to be a case of the editor of the National Review passing that test. >I guess it’s nice they don’t seem to support it anymore, but it looks more like a shift of convenience to me — the better to stroke the current conservative narrative to redefine “free speech” so as to cast speech they dislike as “cancellation”, that it can be repressed while still claiming to own the moral high-ground. I wasn't able to parse this sentence.
- muglug 4y agoThe article is written by Sebastian Junger, an author and documentary-maker who co-directed Restrepo with Tim Hetherington. He also used to own a bar in Manhattan called The Half King. When Hetherington was killed in 2011, The Half King was soon filled with Hetherington's incredible war photography, which was an odd thing to look at if you were there for a quick pint after work, but a good way to remember an incredible photojournalist.
- tims33 4y agoTerrible story. This should not have happened to this film. I do not know what has happened to a country which has free speech and press enshrined in it's constitution. It is also sad that the National Review which paints itself as this bastion of objectivity publishes such breathless headlines.
- happyopossum 4y agoWait a sec - so the story is terrible, but the headline shouldn’t point that out?
- tims33 4y agoTwo things can be true. The story is terrible and the publisher of the story is a part of the problem too.
- happyopossum 4y agoHow is the publisher part of the problem by pointing out a shameful injustice?
- tims33 4y agoThe headline of a story about moral indignation is full of moral indignation.
- jdminhbg 4y agoI don’t think NR has ever positioned itself as objective, it’s an explicitly conservative magazine and always has been.
- happyopossum 4y agoYeah - GP appears to just want to dunk on the NR I stead of comment about the story.
- registeredcorn 4y agoThe adulation towards voluntary segregation disturbs me. I can't help but explain this queer desire as some sort of side effect of the various "bans" against discrimination. As best I can tell, regardless of circumstance or intent, there is a fundamental hunger for sameness, and the exclusion of otherness. I don't see that as good or bad, but merely a confusion of ideas counter to everything the world seems to bombard and repeat and echo, on some kind of loop. I just wish everyone would make up their mind and move on with living.
- faeriechangling 4y agoPeople never changed their attitudes, they just updated their language and their branding. In every era and in every identity group you have your MLK's and your Malcolm X's.
- registeredcorn 4y agoYou know, I'm reminded of a topic that I brought up with some friends of mine just the other day. I hope this doesn't come off as sounding "preachy" since I've been warned by the mods in the past for "preaching". I think it does fit the topic though: "Food will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak." 1 Corinthians 8:8-9 (HCSB) I see it as something to the affect of, no matter what time we look at the world, posturing of some sort, over some reason, carries an inherent risk of: belittling those who do not do as we do, while artificially glorifying our own position, through a means of self-defined terms and metrics. That there is a push to not just to do what is right because it is right, but instead to do what is right because of how it makes us appear. I think that there is a matter of arrogance, pride, and glory that each of us needs to struggle with on our own terms, to find a means to humble ourselves and show humility to others. Some way of reminding ourselves that our "greatness" (good + extra works) is merely a thing that is defined by some arbitrary, outside force of what is right. Instead, we raise ourselves up because of whatever stick we use to measure by. I'm not even sure if the people who enact this kind of rhetoric perceive their own actions in the heat of the moment. There is a sort of self-induced high we get through "going the extra mile" by insisting on be not just right, but extra right. I hope that makes sense. It's hard to really put into words; it sounds kind of pseudo-intelectual. I just mean something like: if a man is sitting in a chair, he is not raised up off the floor just because he pulls upward from the legs of the chair. I think it's a thing we're all prone to doing. It really seems to be a matter of recognizing the risks of that thing, and being able to say "I was wrong" and turn away from it when we finally see the error. I hope that the sorts who push for this voluntary segregation stuff do see the severe error in it. I guess I just still have some kind of twinge of regret in even holding them accountable for it, because I have absolutely tried to posture myself as better than everyone else many times, for very little reason or incentive - I just had the luck of it not making it to a national/international spotlight.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago3h podcast with Meg Smaker on the Waking Up podcast: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/300-a-tale-of-cancellation https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/300...
- prng2021 4y agoI almost stopped listening pretty early on because she was all over the place with her talking points, but am really glad I listened to the end. It was a fascinating and moving story.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoShe came off as a truly one-in-a-million character that you would only expect to read about in works of fiction. Very genuine as well.
- m_mueller 4y agoMy BS sensors have started tingeling when she started talking about her kidnapping in Colombia. Is this for real?
- anonporridge 4y agoTangentially related is the recently rebroadcasted episode with Yasmine Mohammed, who wrote the book "Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam". Related to the woke mob losing it's sanity when it comes to Islam and specifically relevant to the recent Iranian protests. Incredibly sad, but fantastic interview. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/298-leaving-the-faith-rebroadcast https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/298...
- seibelj 4y agoThe safest play is to create all art as metaphor, just as the writers of great Russian literature did. You can’t be too plain spoken because that opens you up to attack by the mob. Rather, hide your meaning and the censors won’t feel it necessary to ban.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoThe Russians had to that to protect themselves from the government. “We” for someone reason are doing it to ourselves.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y agometaphors had worked in Tzar's Russia because the regime was lenient. the mob in question here is not.
- kuramitropolis 4y agoThe censors' safe play is also well known: Introduce mandatory "what did the author mean" classes in schools, where children write down the one true interpretation of a corpus of sanctioned texts from preferably >100 years ago, under dictation, for many years; until they are completely incapable of approaching a work of art to understand it for themselves. It's not 100% effective, but the remaining few percent end up mentally ill, so it's a win-win!
- phnofive 4y agoI hope this is a metaphor as well...
- kuramitropolis 4y agoYou went to a school that actually taught you how to think? Consider yourself privileged, my friend. The Prussian system of education, which is at the root of contemporary compulsory schooling, was designed to produce machine operators and obedient soldiers, not necessarily to educate anyone - the idealism of individual teachers notwithstanding. This is standard operating procedure, and definitely my own personal experience during middle and high school. Do this over a couple of generations and you get a population largely incapable of basic reflection. And since this form of "education" is, in fact, nonsensical, parents end up paying for tutoring so their kids can pass an equally nonsensical mandatory exam, so that they (supposedly) get better prospects. So teachers get a lucrative side gig giving private lessons to keep the system going, and as they get complacent, they become complicit. Maybe in your community things are laid out different. Either way, larger populations still end up having a "critical mass" of eloquent people maintaining the tradition of the written word, and the benefits it provides to society; smaller ones just get dispossessed at scale. This contributes to consolidation of power, the establishment of global oligopolies that hold back progress for the sake of their bottom line, etc.
- subpixel 4y ago“More than 230 filmmakers signed a letter denouncing the documentary. A majority had not seen it.” Just a reminder that the far ends of the political spectrum loop back and connect.
- mmanfrin 4y agoJust a reminder that the horseshoe theory isn't fact.
- carabiner 4y agoThough with the dirtbag left now flirting with being "trad cath" and softening towards racial realism, it does seem like it's approach the intellectual fascism of the nazis.
- MarkMarine 4y agoThis is incorrect in its facts and framing. I’m not going to get into a long political discussion, this doesn’t seem the place for it, but I would implore you to look further into this before you start throwing words like fascism and nazi around when you’re talking about people who basically want to give everyone free healthcare.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoIs national socialism antithetical to free universal healthcare?
- MarkMarine 4y ago[flagged]
- nailer 4y agoThe nazis admitted they were inspired by socialism, nazism specifically had elements of class warfare. “goldfish brain” isn’t much of a response.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoWhat's remarkable is that I can't imagine anything will happen to the activists behind the cancellation. They will lose no credibility. Have no drop in reputation. No public ridicule. They'll simply move on to the next target in the hopes that they will bend the knee with less resistance than Meg. Doing these cancellations is effectively risk-free, and only incurs the opportunity cost of not deploying time onto a higher ROI target. No idea what can be done about that in the current cultural climate.
- xwolfi 4y agoWhat we can do is wait: as with all bad things, the more it happens the less it works: one day, being "cancelled" by morons will be as seeked by film markers as having a fatwah or a catholic church disapproval. It will mean you say something new, exciting and maybe even revealing.
- justusw 4y agoAccusations are easy and can be made in seconds, a defense takes care and thought. See politicians lying impromptu, and journalists spending hours on debunking.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoYou might enjoy this then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
- dymk 4y agoGood for her in the end, though. The National Review and NYT both wrote articles about her film. I'd not know about it had her film gotten cancelled.
- aaronbrethorst 4y agoA great encapsulation of how 'cancel culture' means absolutely nothing. This film was 'cancelled' and that's why it was written up in two publications with national audiences.
- inglor_cz 4y agoThe fact that someone survived a botched assassination attempt does not mean that they were never in danger. Outcomes != intent. AFAIK the movie is still in red because of all the cancelled festival screenings - a major problem for the director who isn't wealthy.
- tayistay 4y agoPlease think more about this. The film is currently not being distributed. The crew was tracked down and threatened to disavow the film or not find further work. That is absolutely cancel culture. That there is subsequent news coverage (still no easy way to watch the film!) doesn’t change that.
- tayistay 4y agoI don’t think this is good for her in the end. Sure, she’s got a lot of media coverage, but what about her career as a documentary filmmaker? Surely the better outcome would be the film screened at Sundance.
- googlryas 4y agoWell, thank you Sonya Childress and Jude Chehab for Streisanding this film. I probably wouldn't have heard about it without their viral campaign.
- rayiner 4y ago> It was the first time that Smaker realized that her film might be controversial. “She hadn’t seen the film,” Smaker recalls, “but seemed unhappy that I — as a non-Muslim — was making a film about Muslims.” After she saw it, Chehab went on to write on the TRT World website: “The only perspective needed is the Muslim one. . . . When I, a practicing Muslim woman, say that this film is problematic, my voice should be stronger than a white woman saying that it isn’t.” I would encourage folks to resist seeing this as “white versus brown” or “Muslim versus non-Muslim.” Identity politics is not sectarian politics—groups of people with common interests aligning against other groups with different interests. It’s about using identity as currency in politics. Note the phrasing: “the Muslim [view] … my voice.” The same people who say they don’t want white people to speak also usually don’t want other Muslims, with different viewpoints, to speak either. What she wants to do is to speak for Muslims—use them as silent weight to bolster her own point of view.
- davidguetta 4y agoI agree, especially because there is no "muslim view" actually here since they disagree. That said it is important to keep in mind that the biggest defenders or retarded practices are often the ones victim of it. Same for excision in Africa.. its often the grandmother who take the little girls to the "doctor" to have it "performed".. so its not a generality
- lumost 4y agoI will refrain from commenting on the specifics of this situation. But I’m curious if the logical fallacy of appealing to group authority is a new rhetorical tactic or simply an old one that we’ve leaned into. Nixon’s appeal to the silent majority a generation ago sounds quite similar.
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- throwoutway 4y agoPerhaps the difference is that the old tactic did not tell one group to “shut up” as the newer tactics did. Did Nixon do that? I’m too young to remember
- nicbou 4y agoGreat article and great story. It's not a rant against cancel culture, but a close look at the movie, the director, and the theme. It's well worth a read.
- keepquestioning 4y agoIs anyone aware of a Marxist view of 9/11 and the WOT?
- revolutukr 4y agoIn that Marxism requires massive amounts of violence to push its political stance, and that the system itself views continuous violent oppression as the only way to implement and maintain itself?
- aaronbrethorst 4y agoIn short, 'American imperialism is the root cause of 9/11.' Which happens to be the same explanation of everything since the end of 1991 according to the most dull and, sadly, seemingly most common strain of post-Soviet Marxist thought.
- trasz 4y agoInvasion on Afghanistan rendered 9/11 relatively insignificant, except as a trigger - a Franz Ferdinand kind of event. I suspect Marxist view of that is similar to their view on other cases of US destroying entire regions just to win the next elections.
- lamontcg 4y agoThe Guardian pretty much contradicts the spin being offered here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/29/jihad-rehab-former-guantanamo-prisoners-call-for-documentary-to-be-withdrawn https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/29/jihad-rehab-for... Sounds like it isn't a "woke mob" coming after her, but the actual subjects of the film really feel like they're being taken advantage of, their perspectives are really distorted and they felt she was re-interrogating them. The idea that the film is being cancelled solely because the filmmaker is a white woman seems to be being pushed by the filmmaker.
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- ShredKazoo 4y agoIt doesn't seem obvious to me that we should happily censor a film because the subjects of the film don't like it. Suppose we did a film about the Sackler family https://www.hulu.com/series/the-crime-of-the-century-63a06efb-ecef-46c2-8331-bfe377db7fa7 https://www.hulu.com/series/the-crime-of-the-century-63a06ef... and the Sackler family says they don't like it -- they feel they were misrepresented, and claim they didn't consent to participation, despite having signed consent documents. Is that legitimate grounds to censor the film? Some may feel that the Sackler situation is different. You might see the Sackler family as known "oppressors" and "bad guys". And you might see Guantánamo detainees as "victims of oppression" -- perhaps you even think they're "good guys". I don't think this argument works -- it is exactly through documentaries such as this that we can form accurate opinions about who is a "good guy" or "bad guy"; who is the "oppressor" vs "victim of oppression". If we allow anyone claiming to be a "victim of oppression" to censor stuff that makes them look bad, that just serves to lock in our current views regarding who is a "victim of oppression" -- which means we won't be able to update those views as more evidence comes in, or as circumstances on the ground change. If someone doesn't like a documentary that was made about them, they can do a point-by-point refutation. Censorship doesn't seem like a good solution.
- kevingadd 4y agoThe facts of the Sackler family's behavior are well known and do not need a documentary to reveal them, a documentary merely provides more depth and context so you can form your own picture of the complete person or the nuances of their behavior. It is pretty reasonable to decide that they are "bad guys" without ever watching a documentary about them. The flipside is also quite reasonable here. I don't need to watch a documentary in order to decide that people horribly abused in American prisons are victims, the facts are pretty clear on that. (A bad person can, also, for reference, be a victim simultaneously.) As for whether a point-by-point refutation is the best and only remedy, that seems to require that the victim automatically have access to the resources necessary to air their refutation where viewers of the documentary will see it. Will the National Review bump an opinion column by a Republican senator in order to publish an opinion column by a Muslim detainee instead? "The remedy for speech is more speech" style defenses assume that everyone has equal access to speech and everyone's speech will be heard equally. Neither of those are true when we're talking about released films. The world is in fact full of examples where victims are defamed in public and are not offered a real opportunity to refute it, in some cases in fact in the National Review, which published this piece. I think it's generally fine that things work that way, but you need to keep it in mind when making arguments of the sort.
- revolutukr 4y agoI wonder what is more terrifying, knowing that the people in her industry are cancelling her, or knowing the extremely high likelihood that islamist fanatics might permanently cancel her?
- curiousgal 4y agoMaybe one day in the future we'll start linking directly to the things we are writing about so the readers can form their own opinions. Edit: after a quick search online, I could not find a way to watch it (paid or unpaid) so why the fuck are we talking about this?
- europeanguy 4y ago> The “authorship” or “inclusion” principle, as this is known, insists that filmmakers share the ethnic and cultural identity of their subjects. According to these standards, not only are outsiders incapable of understanding the experiences of others, they don’t even have the right to try; to do otherwise would be to take an opportunity away from a better-qualified person of color. As a white American, Smaker would be wildly inappropriate for a film about the Muslim world.
- mattparcens 4y agoI disagree with this principle.
- inglor_cz 4y agoThis principle denies our shared humanity and divides us as if we were different species. It is just a new mutated form of the plain old racism and we should probably call it neo-racism.
- rdiddly 4y agoCertain sectors of the US government wouldn't be above starting a distracting fracas like this (and it's so very easy with useful idiots doing most of the work once it gets going) in order to silence, or more like drown out, a film that calls out the injustice that was done or dares to portray the victims as human. We're sitting here talking about not that, so it's working.
- seanhunter 4y agoThis framing of protest as "cancellation" in the context of supporting free speech is something I find perculiar. Surely protest is speech? If that is the case then if you support free speech you must logically support both the right to the original speech and the right of others to protest that speech. When people say that people signed a letter denouncing the documentary without seeing it that's a little bit wide of the mark also. If free speech is a right that is to have any meaning whatsoever, it must certainly include the right to be wrong, not fully informed etc. If that's not the case, then speech can be shot down by saying the speaker doesn't have the right because they haven't done their research or the sources are inaccurate etc.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoIf I use my influential speech to get you to cancel a project or to have it removed from every major streaming service, am I merely exercising in free speech or also using social pressure to prevent you from speaking? The point here isn't that people are uninformed (that's bad, but obviously allows allowed) - it's that one group is demanding that something does not air and is claiming sole moral and cultural authority to do this. While it's their right to claim this, the consequences for everyone else are that they lose the ability to actually make the choices of which film they want to see on streaming services because another group has removed that ability. Why shouldn't the film air, and if it's terrible and awful beyond belief in every way, then the creators will forever have their names sullied? The reasoning here isn't even whether the film is good, but who the creator is, and not even because they've done anything bad really but because the single person the critics have focused on happens to be white. How is this not insane?
- goodpoint 4y ago> if you support free speech you must logically support both the right to the original speech and the right of others to protest that speech Nowadays the concept of "free speech" is developing a new meaning among some crowds: "free speech for me but don't call me out if I say something socially unacceptable and hurtful"
- amadeuspagel 4y agoYou are doing the very thing you're criticizing here. Freedom of speech apparently includes making a movie, protesting that movie (both true) but not counter-protesting.
- jwilk 4y agoArchived copy: https://archive.today/tE7JM https://archive.today/tE7JM
- personjerry 4y agoIt sounds like an IRL example of "read the title and didn't read the article, left my angry comment"
- iudqnolq 4y agoI don't understand how the national review writer could write this and not realize the documentary was unethical. Why is "carceral system" in scare quotes? By their own description the facility obviously meets the definition. Yes, it's impossible to know for sure to what extent and how the men might have been threatened. That doesn't mean you throw up your hands and say "whatever, I now have no moral obligations". > The accusation was rooted in the question of free consent: Even if the men signed release forms — which they did — they might have done so only because they were under the control of a “carceral system.” If that were true, though, it could be equally true that the men were forced to criticize the film and affirm the claims in CAGE’s letter. Either way, the idea that Smaker had coerced her subjects into cooperating and put them at risk became a doc-world trope that was impossible to disprove, because, by order of the Saudi state, the men were prohibited from communicating with anyone outside the country without permission.
- leot 4y agoBy your logic, any documentary that interviews prison inmates would be unethical. Smaker asked ~150 inmates to participate, and only a tiny handful agreed.
- iudqnolq 4y ago> By your logic, any documentary that interviews prison inmates would be unethical. All ethical filmmakers carefully consider ethics in situations where people might feel compelled to participate. Prison is one such situation. I'm not saying it's impossible to ethically film inmates, but it is very worrying she brushes off the possibility she might need to carefully consider it. It's (almost always) unethical to interview inmates held in repressive dictatorships because there are so many different ways you can violate their rights and put them at risk.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoIf you keep reading … Smaker, who had already been cleared for contact, was in touch with three of the men throughout the months after Sundance. None of them ever brought up issues raised in the CAGE letter, and one even called recently to say — in a voicemail — that he missed her and wanted to know when she was coming back to Saudi Arabia for a visit. Even on the face of it, a white woman in Saudi Arabia, probably isn’t running around a rehab centre without authorities knowing what she was up to.
- ghusto 4y agoI'm writing this as an Iranian immigrant, and feel compelled to say so because it is apparently and depressingly necessary in order to lend legitimacy to my statements (though I don't think it does). The idea that a white American can't understand non-white non-American views, makes the same amount of sense the other way around. Both ways around need a great deal of research by the ones trying to understand, and I believe she's tried her best. I'll go even further and say that she understands some things better than those in the culture she's covering, since she's an outside observer, giving her some objectivity that those inside can't have. I know I have this with the particular "white" culture I'm integrating into right now. I will say that there are some things she'll find difficult to impossible to grasp -- and might not even realise she's missing -- but to say she's not even allowed to try belittles us as human beings. This exclusionary race mentality can go away.
- layer8 4y agoEven if the film was made by a non-white non-American muslim, the implication of their reasoning would be that any white/American/non-muslim wouldn’t be able to properly understand the film. This comes close to denying that there can ever be an understanding between cultures at all.
- screye 4y agoIt is peculiar how the segregationist isolationists and cancel-culture-peddlers use exactly the same lines of reasoning, while 1 gets tagged as racist and the other a radically anti-racist. It is about time for people to look at the core ethics that guide either thought and at least draw the association between the two. What to name this collective community is anyone's guess, but at least the cognitive dissonance will be gone. To aspire to understand each other is at the core of facilitating diversity and inclusion. That includes asking stupid questions, difficult questions and sometimes offensive questions. It includes tolerating faux pas and cultural appropriation. And lastly, it requires treating other communities with the capacity for occasionally just as much good and at other times just as much malice as any other community suffering from the human condition.
- sudhirc 4y ago
- iniekaas 4y agoWell, the Arabic version of that same Wikipedia article provides the Hadeeth transmitter’s analysis of the Hadith regarding Al-‘Asmaa bint Marian, and the verdict that this hadeeth is fabricated (Mawdoo’). It simply isn’t true. Moreover, the language of the claimed poet - I’m an Arab - is far different from the language of the time, far from being poetic, and the statement claimed that Prophet Muhammad said has a very different tone from his usual tone (He said “Who’d save me from Al ‘Asmaa bint Marwan?” and the Prophet himself mentioned that there is no savior other than Allah. The prophet approach would be something like يريحني (v. make me relaxed) from so and so. It’s a very horrible and easy to spot fabrication, the fabricator almost didn’t put any effort in it and used the language of his time instead. You don’t need to mention a fabricated story to attack Islam’s take on free speech. Free speech is simply not a principle that was ever well-regarded in Islam. “Whomever believes in Allah and the last day should only say good or be quiet” and “Are people thrown into the depth of hellfire except by the sowing of their tongues” and “It is enough for one to be described as a liar is to talk about everything he heard”. The notion of “freedom” is a very western notion that - in its current form - very alien to the sort of freedom that Islam talks about: minimal freedom that is constrained by rules. Free speech certainly isn’t regarded as part of that minimal freedom. More like “constrained speech”, because of the inherent Islamic belief that free speech brings chaos. In times of Fitnah (tribulation, calamity) people are commanded by the Prophet not to speak a word: “Hold your tongue, stay at your home, and abandon the matters of public”; which is absolutely against free speech because people’s opinions are stirred most when there are events, and they’re commanded to be quiet and bottle it in. It is just that we, Arabs, are a radically different culture that values stability and tradition. Something of the sort of “People should mind their own business”. Free speech undermines both. It’s a significant cultural difference that the west has no intent to respect, because they regard it as oppressive. You don’t need to mention a fabricated story to highlight that.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
- superbatfish 4y agoMatt Yglesias’s new podcast “Bad Takes” did an episode about this, covering some of the meta-issues (as you might imagine). https://www.grid.news/story/podcasts/2022/09/30/bad-takes-episode-7-sundances-unwarranted-apology/ https://www.grid.news/story/podcasts/2022/09/30/bad-takes-ep...
- Maximus9000 4y agoGoogle still has indexed her site. Is that odd? If I search for Jihad rehab, it's the top hit on bing and duckduckgo... but its nowhere to be found on google. https://www.google.com/search?q=Jihad+rehab https://www.google.com/search?q=Jihad+rehab https://www.bing.com/search?q=jihad+rehab https://www.bing.com/search?q=jihad+rehab https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jihad+rehab https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jihad+rehab https://jihadrehab.com/robots.txt https://jihadrehab.com/robots.txt