Saturday, March 22, 2008

Discord in the nether-regions

(Muhammed not being pictured)


March 22nd, 2008 – A right-wing politician of the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, is about to release a film entitled Fitna; an Arabic word meaning religious discord or strife. This 15 minute feature describes the Islamic peoples as the ‘enemies of freedom’ whose utmost goal is the eradication of our liberties. Needless to say, the impending screening of the movie has sparked massive protest in Amsterdam as well as the official condemnation of Iran and Pakistan.

I am not going to analyze the Middle-Eastern anger at this new piece of anti-Muslim propaganda for two very valid reasons. Firstly, it would be quite boring since it can be summed up as: we are being criticized and denigrated therefore we are not happy. Secondly, I will avoid this aspect since, in the past year, I have somehow attracted a wide readership in the Muslim world (Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates…) and someone is bound to figure out where I live. This actually brings me to the point I wanted to discuss.

I question the motivation of the protesters whom took to the streets this Saturday as well as the dissociation from Geert of the Nether-gouvernment (awesomest adjectival form I could invent). It would be quite simple to say that the citizens of Amsterdam have a heightened sense of world community and a very low threshold for prejudice and racial opinion. I have faith in mankind yet unlike the Christian ones, my faith is grounded in harsh reality (I am going to close the blinds now). I truly believe that these protesters had better things to do and are thus protesting for a reason much closer to their personal interests. Two years ago, a Danish newspaper printed derogatory illustrations of the prophet Muhammed (Praise be unto him). This provoked a violent reaction from the Middle-East to the point where diplomats from Scandinavian countries were threatened and pulled out, the author and publisher of the journal had a price put on their heads and several terrorist attempts were made on the Danish people. I propose that this Nether-protest is a reactionary movement to show the Middle-East how this film was made by a marginal man with no supporters (subtext reading: please don’t hurt us…I like your head scarf…does it come in different colours?). My hypothesis is certainly corroborated by the Nether-President’s dissociation from the film and Mr. Wilders.

I consider myself a conservative libertarian. That means I will actively fight restrictions imposed on personal liberties yet I suggest that thorough discussions should precede any widespread exercise of these liberties. Geert does not incite rioting and hate crimes with his film; he is rather exposing his suggestion that the Muslim faith does not respect our democratic and liberal ideals in their own countries and thus dubs them ‘enemies of freedom’. I agree that taking a basic fact and extrapolating a generalizing truth to incite a certain behaviour is almost the dictionary definition of propaganda. I still believe Geert has the right to produce his film without the threat of bodily harm. Furthermore, critics, historians, sociologists, ethnologists and Ann Coulter will also be able to use the same raw data Geert used, add more and interpret it the way they want. Life and knowledge should be about debate. We will never find a universal truth about anything but it is not futile since we have fun pretending like we know stuff.

Douglas Adams famously enounced that we don’t know a billionth of percent about anything. I say thank Xenu since we have stuff to talk about and discuss freely. The Nether-protesters who try to boycott and censure a movie in the name of liberalism and democracy are guilty of much more hubris than Geert in my opinion.

(For those of you keeping count, I used Geert’s name 6 times in this blog, what a great name.)



(Pictured: The prophet muhammed (praise be unto him) not being pictured - Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad saying that he's OK with my blog.)



End.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I am going to Heaven because I believe St. Peter will take my Bribe











March 10th, 2008 – Pope Benedict XVI’s 2nd in command (therefore God’s third in Command) Archbishop Gianfranco Giotti has thought long and hard to give us 7 new deadly sins. I know you are all disappointed because you had a special place in your heart for the original 7. They were a perfect cocktail for a guaranteed memorable outing on the town (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Pride, Anger) or alone at home (Sloth). They also had awesome consequences at the hands of Kevin Spacey. Don’t worry too much, just in case you found a loophole in the last seven that could actually get you in heaven, the new 7 “social sins” as they are called, are cumulative to the classics and retroactive (I’m guessing).

You may question why the Roman Catholic Church would take the time to draft these up today instead of 500 years ago or 200 years from now but that would make you a heathen. Now go say 25 Hail Mary’s with your eyes closed on the priest’s lap. If you want a serious albeit cynical answer, my hypothesis is that the Vatican is very slowly acknowledging the fact that they are a corporation and have thus appropriated themselves with the indispensible Marketing Department. The marketers have assessed the current market image of the Church and have been telling their CEO (God) that a miracle could turn things around. When nothing happened and they remembered the mysterious ways thing (God’s Hawaii vacation loophole), they searched world media for trendy and easy changes they could implement.

The first trend they found was “Hollywood”. They saw how much money and media coverage surrounded such movies as Seven, The Passion of the Christ or the Da vinci Code and are simply going to rework some basic fundaments of their religion accordingly to modernise them...without actually changing them (Keep an eye out for the new ten commandments sometime in the future).

Keeping in our trendy vein, the new sins involve, directly or indirectly, drug abuse, abortion, stem cell research, global warming and globalisation. Clearly the archbishop ran out of sins to include Britney Spears, vegetarianism, Feng Shui, PETA, haki sacks and emo kids. Far be it for me to call the Vatican opportunist hippies...

For your intense pleasure and immediate relegation to the deepest abyss of popular memory (where the new 7 wonders of the world are now), here are the new deadly or “social sins”. They were kept vague by intentionally bulletpointing and not phrasing them.

1) Environmental pollution

2) Genetic manipulation

3) Accumulating excessive wealth

4) Inflicting poverty

5) Drug trafficking and consumption

6) Morally debatable experiments

7) Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

As you can see, the Marketing department got Al Gore to write these up. My only immediate problem with this new declaration of very little relevance and importance is two-fold. Firstly, as with the first 7 sins, I can quote from memory, Popes that have been guilty of all of these. Secondly, The Vatican’s PR department must know this and thus take us for illiterate morons once again.

I accuse Pope John Paul II of massive campaigning against birth control in Sub-Saharan Africa thus contributing to overpopulation, the single most influential factor inflicting poverty in the area (4). I accuse Pope Leon XII of abusing Cocaine and extolling the virtues of its daily consumption to the world (5). I accuse Pope Pius XI of complying with the Nazi removal of all Jews from Rome (7). I accuse all popes in the last millennium of accumulating excessive wealth in the midst of constant and renewed poverty and suffering (3). Finally, I accuse Pope Benedict XVI of not have an Electric Popemobile (1). I am pretty sure certain popes personally experimented with human-sheep hybrids to literalise the Bible (2,6) yet I can only back this up with very little sources (and by very little I mean none at all, that’s good enough for Catholic people, right?).

Hell is going to be really crowded...

(Pictured: Bosch's Renaissance depiction of the original sins - God's henchmen are conspicuously always white)

End.