Nobody Loves Abdullah

Cry me a river.

Comments

[Josh Scholar]

"The Arab serves as the ultimate outsider, the other, who doesn't pray to the same God, and who can be made to be less human..."

It's much more convincing when you apply the same standards to yourself that you demand of others. The "Golden Rule" and all.

Also I think that middle eastern society has different concepts than "slander" "libel" and "stereotyping" where criticism (of respected figures and groups) is considered a crime, even when that criticism is truthful. As far as I can tell, in Arab countries, the truthfulness of a critique doesn't even come into play.

Whereas in American society, when talking about an individual, as long as you're truthful there's no problem no matter how shaming your speech. And in the case of public figures, there's even less protection.

In the case of groups, the wish to end racism and sexism has made people wary of all generalizations, but the fact is that as long as you're not racist, many people will accept that all social criticism is allowable.

In any case, middle easterners never seem to notice our rule "If it's true then you can say it!"

[Classical Liberal]

Oh, please! In the book "The Sum of All Fears," the villians are Arabs, but in the movie (which you just know was seen by a lot more people than read the book) the villians are changed to neo-nazis. Yeah, lots of millionaire neo-nazi businessmen running around, these days. For that matter, as far as I can tell, the most common villian movies today are businessmen. Damn them, selling us things we need!

As for "The Rules of Engagement"--which I thought was pretty well done--how exactly is it unrealistic to show Arabs giving arms to young children or using women and children as human shields? Gee, that's never, ever been in done in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, or Iraq, has it? Nope, nope, not ever!