"THE old saying tells us that one can never convince anyone who doesn't wish to be convinced. The makers of "Syriana" are preaching to the converted, if only because an extraordinarily large number of Arabs are comfortable in the certainty of their victimhood. Long before "Syriana" hit the screen, those Arabs were convinced that whatever misfortune has befallen them is due to some conspiracy by a perfidious Western power.
In North Africa, where France ruled for more than a century, every shortcoming, and every major crime, is blamed on the French. From Egypt to the Indian Ocean, all was the fault of the British . . . until the Americans emerged as a more convincing protagonist in the fantasyland of conspiracy theories. In Libya, where Italy ruled for a while last century, even the fact that the telephones don't work in 2006 is blamed on the Italians.
Would it change anything if one were to remind the conspiracy theorists that none of the two dozen or so high-profile political murders in the Arab world over the past century had anything to do with the United States or any other foreign power?"
Nope. Hollywood giveth then taketh away just as easily. It's good that cave dwellers the world over get to see a real democracy in action, because it might very well stimulate them to push for the same type of freedom. And it's bad that cave dwellers the world over get to see a democracy in action because when Hollywood wants to take a political stand they do so bereft of logic and reason and, duh, facts. Here's more:
"The self-loathing party in the United States, which includes a disturbingly large part of the elite, is doing three things.
First, it says that America, being the evil power it is, is a legitimate target for revenge attacks by Arab radicals and others.
Second, it tells the American people that all this talk about democracy is nonsense, if only because major decisions are ultimately taken by a cabal of businessmen, and politicians and lawyers in their pay.
Lastly, and perhaps without realizing it, the self-loathing Americans reduce the Arabs to the level of mere objects in their history. In the "Syriana" view, it is the almighty America that decides every single detail of Arab life with the Arabs as, at best, onlookers and, at worst, victims of American violence. The Arabs are even denied the dignity of their own terrorist acts as "Syriana" shows that it is not they but the CIA that decides who kills whom and where.
Pretending to be sympathetic to the "Arab victims of American Imperialism," the film is, in fact, an example of ethnocentrism gone wild. Its message is: The Arabs are nothing, not even self-motivated terrorists, but mere puppets manipulated by us in the United States."
Now, it was just a movie, after all, and movies are made to escape reality not to prolong it. Man bites dog MUST be the focus or the flick becomes ho hum. Folks WANT to see fantasy, but the problem arises when the ignorant start to believe what they see on the big screen. Happens all the time. Crank out enough science fiction flicks during the early 50's and UFO nuts the world over began spying them everywhere, and to up the ante began being abducted by them too. Each and every story MUST be more fanciful than it's predecessor, and that's why we have a rating system. Some tales are too persuasive for the immature, but what to do when the immature are in their 30's and 40's?
Call them liberal loons, let them have their say, and hope they eventually grow up. Problem arises when they blow up instead of grow up, and that's a bad thing if you happen to be in the general vicinity of a hapless youth when he or she decides to make a point by fight back against the evil alien abductors. A point taken from a fantasy story.
New York Post Online Edition: postopinion
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