Thank God there still are people in this world who stand up for moral courage - instead of the complex moral quagmire of relativism so prized by the Hollywood clique.
One of those people is Nonie Darwish, herself the daughter of a Gazan "martyr" and a very brave woman.
Last Friday she presented a petition with 36,000 signatures on it to the Academy, denouncing its selection of Paradise Now, a film that glorifies suicide bombers and the culture that produces them. That's the petition we had earlier mentioned here.
Nonie Darwish harshly criticized the Palestinian film about two suicide bombers for "putting a human face on the murderers of children."
She warned that if Paradise Now, one of five nominees in the best foreign film category, wins an Oscar at Sunday evening's ceremony, "it will send a message to young Arabs that we are accepted in the West and we have won."
I have no idea if this film will win. But undoubtedly the idiots who vote for it think they are being brave and subversive. ...
Meanwhile, one truly brave and subversive woman is speaking out on al-Jazeera, courtesy of MEMRI (Windows Media Player). Read the subtitles, but listen with the volume up, even if you're not fluent in Arabic, to get a sense of the beauty and power the Arabic language can express - especially in the mouth of a brave, articulate, and intelligent woman like Wafa Sultan. (And don't miss the scene of the religious guy fidgeting with his papers at the end!)
It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on the other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat women like human beings. What I see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.
... Who told you they [the non-Muslims] are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath"?
... I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.
... Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me.
... The Jews came from the tragedy [of the Holocaust] and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror. With their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. ... We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant.
Somehow the phrase "not mincing words" doesn't even come close. Go catch it all at the link.
Nonie Darwish
Wafa Sultan
