Posted on 02/25/2006 6:02:52 PM PST by blam
Outcry in Germany as anti-Semitic film sells out
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
(Filed: 26/02/2006)
A virulently anti-Semitic film about the Iraq war has provoked a storm of protest in Germany after it sold out to cheering audiences from the country's 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.
Valley of the Wolves, by the Turkish director Serdan Akar, shows crazed American GIs massacring innocent guests at a wedding party and scenes in which a Jewish surgeon removes organs from Iraqi prisoners in a style reminiscent of the Nazi death camp doctor Joseph Mengele.
US soldiers storm a wedding party in a scene from the film
Bavaria's interior minister admitted last week that he had dispatched intelligence service agents to cinemas showing the film to "gauge" audience reaction and identify potential radicals.
Edmund Stoiber, the state's conservative prime minister, has appealed to cinema operators to remove what he described as "this racist and anti-Western hate film" from their programmes.
The £6 million film, the most expensive Turkish production ever made, had already proved a box office hit in Turkey, where it first opened last month at a gala attended by the wife of the country's prime minister.
The production went on general release in Germany a fortnight ago and has had full houses ever since. More than 130,000 people, most of them young Muslims, saw the film in the first five days of its opening. At a packed cinema in a largely Turkish immigrant district of Berlin last week, Valley of the Wolves was being watched almost exclusively by young Turkish men. They clapped furiously when the Turkish hero of the film was shown blowing up a building occupied by the United States military commander in northern Iraq.
In the closing sequence, the hero is shown plunging a dagger into the heart of a US commander called Sam, played by Billy Zane. The audience responded by standing up and chanting "Allah is great!"
Afterwards, an 18-year-old member of the audience said: "The Americans always behave like this. They slaughtered the Red Indians and killed thousands in Vietnam.
"I was not shocked by the film, I see this on the news every day."
The nature of the film and the enthusiastic reception given to it by young Muslims, has both shocked and polarised politicians and community leaders.
Bernd Neumann, the culture minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government complained last week that the reaction to the film "raises serious questions about the values of our society and our ability to instil them".
Kenan Kolat, the head of Germany's Turkish community, insisted that a ban on the film would make matters worse. "If it is withdrawn, it will raise levels of identification with the film," he said. "A democracy must be able to endure films that it doesn't approve of."
Alin Sahin, the film's distributor in Germany, argued: "When a cartoonist insults two billion Muslims it is considered freedom of opinion, but when an action film takes on the Americans it is considered demagoguery. Something is wrong."
But those arguing for a ban on Valley of the Wolves appeared to have won a partial victory last week when Cinemaxx, one of Germany's largest cinema chains, announced that it was withdrawing the film.
I'm not making such an argument. I never made such an argument. I voted for Bush precisely because he took a strong position against Islamic fundamentalists.
But I put my position in different terms. We're tribal whether we like it or not, whether it's best or not. I'm an American. This is my home, my country for richer or poorer, in good times or bad. I'll try to remedy the bad but if I'm attacked I'm going to defend myself. I don't care how good the enemy is. Do I believe that I'm better than the enemy? Smarter, finer, nicer, more moral? Yes, but I can't prove those things and that isn't why I'm ready to fight him. I've chosen to live here, chosen my way of life and I'm not going to let him force me to change my ways.
The world doesn't allow nations to exist in isolation...and hasn't for a very long time. We don't end at our borders. That's just how it is. The fight for survival continues as it always has. The only things which have changed are the size of the battlefields and the power of the weapons.
Nope.
But I remember life before television and freeways. And cars before automatic transmissions which couldn't go up long, steep hills on hot days without adding water.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I remember the first TV on the block (1953-54). The first show I saw was Howdy Doody - it was a "happening" with the neighbors over and everything.
Don´t rewrite history, Schröder won in 1998 purely because Kohl´s record was a miserable failure, and in 2002 partly because of the floodings in the East (in West Germany, the CDU/FDP had won), partly because of the then-coming Iraq war. Mr. Neumann surely meant that it´s sad that such reactions (like sending intelligence agents in the cinemas) are necessary. There´s nobody "Anti-American" in the Chancellery.
Do you think that I as a German should be ashamed? Well, I surely am not ashamed of the history of my country. I have nothing to feel shame for, and I have no special obligations to Jews. I have no special obligations to Muslims or Christians either. As a citizen, I respect them as much as any other if they behave correctly. And minorities have the same rights to protection as the majority. That´s why the police stands guard to several synagogues, on the taxpayer´s cost, rightly so.
History needs to be remembered to that we won´t make the same mistakes our fathers made in the past.
You haven´t found out that the new generations of Germans harbour no evil against Jews, have you? You don´t even give us a chance (say: our reaction to this movie, our excellent relations to Israel, our support for the Jewish communities, how we deal with the past). Would be great if you´d reconsider your attitude towards Germans.
so , Turkey's EU membership is being forestalled by Austria , no ??
...Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel should use this , we hope!
... the complacency of the West is breathtaking ,...
... and crazy muzzies are quietly condoned by our own leaders!
... fomenting muzzies' rapacious daily onslaught
... I don't want our kids and grandkids wondering why we didn't deal with this properly ,WHILE WE HAD THE UPPER HAND!!
[sorry for yelling , but my "puzzler" is sore]
"I grow weary of trying to tell people what is coming. I'm saving my energy for the reloading bench."
Fair enough. May I suggest that you make a small investment of that energy into helping to build a local network of eyes and ears that will let you know when and where those products of your labor may be needed? In other words, we conservatives are going to need intelligence as well as guns.
I just read this. You owe me an apology bud. Do you have enough integrity to deliver it?
"Well, the primary problem is the Muslims, apparently including the Turks. It seems to me that the modern veneer of Kemel Attaturk is slipping, and the Turks are reverting.
But the secondary problem is right here in our decadent western civilization. Who told these arab youts that Americans killed all the Indians? Who told them that they murdered thousands in Vietnam? None other than our American and German leftists. Hollywood and their teachers. They are the ones who have fed this poison of anti-Americanism to people around the world."
True. Gives one the feeling of a tidal wave sometimes doesn't it?
And who is behind this tidal wave of forces inside US and European societies that is clearly aimed directly at the distruction of our societies? Some think it is cultural Marxism and "self-sustaining" movements. I find that too much of an overly convenient coincidence. How could all be separate movements all be on destructive courses for our society over a 70 year period---and all stay aligned with each other?
I say its the Russians. And I believe they still run the terrorists too. It's plain as day that they are backing the Iranians, and now they are openly befriending Hamas.
Meanwhile, we included the Russians in a recent massive international naval exercise designed to combat terrorism. In my opinion, that means we are telling the terrorists exactly what we are trying to do to combat them. It is my understanding that our special forces are also working closely with Russian special forces on antiterrorism techniques. More disasters, as far as I'm concerned.
"I was quite struck at this image I saw earlier today on Michelle's site...a loving moozie dad teaching his boy the robes, don't you know."
Profoundly sad picture. He is still young enough that you can see he deep down wishes he could bury his face in his mother's breast and escape this nightmare. But his whole world has gone mad and his only chance at survival is to compete with others to see how insane he can be.
"*Remembering those FReepers who told me what great friends the Turks are to America*"
I haven't followed it and don't know what the reality of Turkey was in the past, but it's clear that they have tipped into Islamacism.
One sad thing about it is that we have consistently sacrificed the Kurds---a truly cool people---for our friendship with Turkey. Theoretically, it is not too late to reverse course and support an independent Iraqi Kurdistan---a nation we could defend militarily without casualties because there are no IED's and no car bombs in the Kurdish section of Iraq. I don't believe anybody is going to attack our army openly with tanks, planes, etc.
Realistically, this will never happen because it would imply abandonment of the rest of Iraq.
"But we did take it - and extirminate them and their culture in the process. There's no denying it. And it's better to tell all sides of the story than try to prevent some from telling only one side."
Your statements are true, but the problem is, these truths inevitably end up being mixed in with a torrent of lies and distortions.
The realistic fact of the matter is, there is no real dialogue possible anymore in much of the United States and much of the world. Unfortunately, this includes the MSM. I believe this is the real meaning of the term "Marxist dialectic", though I confess I'm not an expert on that subject. The Marxists, the leftists, the Islamacists, the whole Russian-loving bunch of them use words not as a means of understanding but as a weapon.
We must develop a dual capability with words. We must learn to wield them as weapons to defend ourselves and our ideas in battles with the Left. And we must still use them for real communication with each other---or otherwise cease to be human.
I know. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance". Eternal means just that. Never-ending. It's hard.
The realistic fact of the matter is, there is no real dialogue possible anymore in much of the United States and much of the world
No. I don't think so. Times are tough, that's all.
The Marxists, the leftists, the Islamacists, the whole Russian-loving bunch of them use words not as a means of understanding but as a weapon. We must develop a dual capability with words.
We're the best in the world at it...as at most other things. The Left in this country is in complete disarray without any believeable or useful ideas. Elsewhere, they're not doing much better. The problem we face is this: Most of the Muslim world is in terrible shape, living in terrible societies under a terrible religion. Without hope and extremely jealous and angry. The Western world in general, and we in particular, are the focus of that.
I think the Adminstration is right. We're in for a long war.
Since I doubt seriously there are this many Jews in Paris I'm sure hoping there were lots and lots of just plain ole French citizens who have finally had enough standing with the Jews of Paris. I think a bottle of French Bordeaux sounds real good too!!
Click that link. Many races and colors were marching arm-in-arm today in Paris. You will be pleasantly surprised by the photo.
Thanks, I did. My husband's family is of French descent and its been pretty rough hearing anti-French rhetoric, lots of it coming from my husband's family!! Real French culture is worth saving not the socialist nonsence of the last 50 years. I hope it can be done.
"But we did take it - and extirminate them and their culture in the process. There's no denying it. And it's better to tell all sides of the story than try to prevent some from telling only one side."
That is exactly why I posted the other side of the story about the Trail of Tears, so not only your side would be presented. It is indeed a dog eat dog world, so cut the blame U.S.A. game for bad deeds. All countries do bad deeds. There are enough other enemies of us in the world continually pointing out our country's flaws. No need for you to chime in and pile on.
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