Earlier today I linked to a piece about PBS’ (potentially politically motivated) shelving of Islam vs Islamists. Now, thanks to Charles and one of his readers at LGF, we get a glimpse into who PBS charged with judging the final product:
LGF reader Paul Green emailed some interesting information about one member of the five-member panel that reviewed the documentary, DePaul University Professor Aminah McCloud. McCloud apparently showed some footage from the film to members of the Nation of Islam, and has very close ties to the extremist group herself. In the March 10, 2000 issue of the NOI paper The Final Call, she declared, “The Nation of Islam must define what Islam is within the American culture.â€Â
Or, to put it in terms familiar to regular readers of this site, the narrative of Islam in America is to be crafted and guarded by radicals.
But wait, there’s more!
[…] according to the January 17, 2004 edition of the New York Times, McCloud is also “a board member of the American Muslim Council and of the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.†Googling her name in connection with CAIR brings up quite a list of results: aminah mccloud cair – Google Search.
Here’s an informative profile of McCloud at FrontPage: “Teaching and Terror at DePaul.”
[…]
As you read about the radical Islamic connections and sympathies of the person picked by PBS to judge “Islam vs. Islamism,†keep in mind that PBS’s executive producer Jeff Bieber reportedly asked the documentary’s producer Martyn Burke, “Don’t you check into the politics of the people you work with?â€Â
You’ve been hearing me prattle on about the importance, in identity politics, of gaining control of the narrative—with the initial battle happening between warring factions within the group itself. Once a particular narrative is ascendant, those who don’t adhere to it are labeled apostates or “inauthentic”—putting immense pressure on ostensible members of the group who might disagree with the master narrative to either toe the line, or at the very least remain silent for fear of being ostracized. From there, only those who are “authentic” have the requisite ontology to question or criticize the master narrative.
As we watch this unfold in the real world—in relation to a film whose very title bears out the very battle under scrutiny—we can perhaps glean a bit of insight into the question many conservatives have long been asking: where are all the Islamic “moderates”?
It may not be that they do not exist, as many have speculated—but rather that their voices are being suppressed, with the liberal western press, western academics, and “progressives” so worried about offending that they are subsidizing this suppression by giving complete control of the narrative of Islam over to the radicals who have taken ownership of the presumed orthodoxy.
Yet another way that identity politics and its enablers stifle dissent, however unwittingly—sacrificing the individual on the altar of the “authentic” collective.
(h/t CJ Burch)
For approximately the 4,560,341,444th time:
Why is there still a PBS?
I have always figured that the moderate muslims are the ones who figure “All will happen by the will of Allah”, and thereby excuse themselves. I had a totally illiberal professor here at CU-Denver (A REAL Ward Churchill type, just down the road) who said something (that actually made sense) along the likes of “when the majority doesn’t get involved, the radicals take over” This sort of fits the reality of what is going on.
So.. no help from them.
Jeff,
Your summarization in the first paragraph after the second blockquote… As long as I have been following your discussions here, that has been the best definition yet. I got it before, but that was the money shot.
As always, thank you.
Re: moderate Muslims…
I think that possibly there’s more at play here than a fear of ‘offending’ muslims. The MSM has no problem casting PC aside when it suits partisan purposes, like outing Cheyney’s daughter, or all of a sudden painting idiots like Imus as conservative, though he endorsed Johnny Nuance in 2004, etc.
Sad to say, but perhaps cowardice and the fear of real physical violence. Perhaps a pathological partisanship so poisonous that is willing to allow our country to be beaten just so they can feel vindicated? Or gain political advantage?
The mind reels…
What an unholy alliance.
Nation of Islam Haters
PBS teat suckers
Citizens unenlightened
Darkness spreads
Evil deafens
Is the pot boiling yet?
It’s amazing nowadays to think that PBS once actually aired Steve Emerson’s Jihad in America on Frontline. But that was 12 long years ago, before there was a war for civilizational survival to undermine.
Let’s have some acronym fun:
Perpetually Boosting Seditionists
Please Beatify Saladin
Peace By Surrendering
Progressive B.S. is too easy, and therefore disallowed.
The PBS Crossroads series is airing a film by Richard Perle and an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Sounds this film, one of 10 that didn’t make the cut, is just a bad film.
I agree with Alphie. The jihadist reviewer always knows best! And I especially lke the Alphie put Richard Perle’s name in italics. Always point out the Jew before you pick up the rock, eh Alphie? Still, you are not Markg8…yet.
That should be “And I especially like the way Alphie put…”
You infidels try typing with your fingers all blown to smithereens.
I think that many moderate Muslims are just too fearful to speak out against terrorism. Hey, if I speak out about Islamic terrorism I am simply an infidel. If a Muslim speaks out that way he is surely to be interpreted as an apostate by at least someone within the religion of pieces.
And, you know how that old chestnut plays, off with his head!
“Alter of Sacrifice” is one of the better Derrida-inspired Slayer songs.
…
Wait. You fixed it. Well then.
I didn’t make that joke either.
Offend CAIR and they go after your donors. I think PBS is at around $75M-$100M a year from corporations and foundations.
The “Jonathan Alter of Sacrifice,” as someone else pointed out via email.
Wife’s out of town. Son is very active. Blogging is under situational erasure.
The moderate muslim are afraid of their lives from radical muslims. Most moderate muslims who have spoken out have had to hire a body guard or have to self-censor because they don’t want a fatwa against their heads. An Indian woman right now is facing death because she dared to speak out.
To defend Taslima Nasreen, sign the below petition by clicking here.
some info about her:
<I>We, the undersigned, are writing to register our strongest protest at yet more death threats made against writer, humanist, secularist and human rights activist Taslima Nasreen. This time, Taqi Raza Khan the president of an Islamic group, the All-India Ibtehad Council, has offered a bounty of about £8,000 for her beheading. This and other clear threats to her life require that the Indian government bring the full force of the law to bear on him and those who threaten and incite murder and terror. Taqi Raza Khan has warned the Indian government that if she is not driven out of India within ten days ‘all hell will break loose’. In fact, it is the other way around. Taslima has every right to freely express her views on Islam and Sharia law and in favour of women’s rights and equality. The Indian government is duty bound to protect her from these threats and grant her the citizenship she requires so that she may live without fear of expulsion.
What’s interesting is that PBS’ underwriting information on their site is only current to 2003.
Oh please,
There are 1,300,000,000 Muslims in the world. If 99.9999% of them weren’t moderate, we’d be in real trouble.
As for the film, it didn’t even make the technical requirements to get aired on PBS.
Incompetence on the right hiding behind a cloud of ideological squid ink once again.
For MattM: “The best lack all conviction,
The worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
W.B.Yeats “The Second Coming”
Either this man was psychic, or he understood human nature.
Looking for that rough beast.
And I’m sure al’ph^ckhead will be only too happy to explain those technical requirements?
Or, to rephrase my previous comment more bluntly:
What the ph^ck do <i>you know about technical requirements at PBS or anywhere else, you sniveling spitwad?
OK, alphie–only 1700 guys are causing the trouble. Round them up.
Idiot.
Alphie you use the talking points beautifully. Now favor us with a couple of choruses of “Throw the Jew Down the Well.”
For example:
And Alphie if any one asks the genocide in Darfur, it is not big trouble at all…barely noticable. Likewise the bombing in Algeria, the bombing in spain, the WTC, the riots in paris, the death of Theo Van Goh, etc, etc and so forth.
McGehee,
One of the requirement was that the submitted film be one hour long.
These wingnuts refused to submit one that was less than two hours in length.
Which completely removes the influence of a CAIR member serving on the reviwing panel.
Idiot.
Any influnence CAIR had on whether this film, along with 9 other that didn’t make it, got aired during the Crossroads series exists only in the minds of a select few, wishbone.
PBS let the wingnuts keep their film to show where ever they want. They even offered to show it if and when they could meet the technical requirements.
If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, I guess.
Unwitting self-parody.
It’s FANTASTIC!
Idiot.
I’m beginning to think alphie’s no Buchananite after all…
Now you infidels can see the new lexicon. Those who do not hate the jew are “wingnuts.”
I suppose “serious structural problems” could be an incredibly pretentious way of saying “it’s too long”, but it sounds to me like alphie is still full of shit. It is kind of hard to not read the bolded part as a political bias.
Fight Threadjacking!!!
IGNORE ALPHIE!
And when you have a tack, you just can’t stop hammering it, can you, alphie?
Does anyone have any background information on any of the ‘technical shortcomings’ that are pontificated about?
If the flick is, on a production level, garbage, that’s one thing. But absent more information about the work in progress, this is a lot of handwaving.
BRD
The series airs this week, BRD,
If this masterpiece of moderation is indeed complete, sounds like a great candidate for Hot Air of YouTube.
Meanwhile first up on Crossroads is a film entitled:
JIHAD: THE MEN AND IDEAS BEHIND AL QAEDA
From freedom fighters in Afghanistan to cold-blooded terrorists
Sounds like CAIR approved propaganda to me.
Then we get:
THE CASE FOR WAR: IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM
Richard Perle advocates and defends neoconservative policies
Oh my, the sheer leftitude of it all!
You guys have been had.
Because that CAIR person on the review panel? Means nothing.
Direct quote from the WETA exec producer? Means nothing.
Idiot.
Wish,
The thing that I am actually curious about is the supposed length issue. From what I am given to understand, nobody on earth would even think to cry “Wolf” if the problem was that they were running almost twice their allotted time segment. So I can’t help but wonder what the actual details of this whole thing are.
This just seems like one of those things with a lot of internal moving parts, and I’m not altogether comfortable with my level of understanding on this issue.
BRD
I want to get to the bottom of this ability to know all about a film before it has even been shown. Would save me a helluva lot of money, dontcha know.
The Frontpage article opens up this comment to a near-perfect embrace of Jeff’s ideas about narrative control.
We’re the only Muslims in the village!
Liquid nitrogen tennis shoes? Newspapers, goldfish, windows, and prime rib!
Dance sitting with cows.
Hot damn! Maybe it works!
Tell PBS to get stuffed and stick it up on YouTube then we can all decide.
The filmmakers can’t; not without PBS’s permission. The Islam vs. Islamists film is owned by PBS, and if PBS doesn’t show it, it’ll never be seen. At least, that’s what Frank Gaffney said on Mike Rosen’s radio show yesterday.
In particular, I am curious about the assertion that the thing – as submitted – was twice the expected running time. Which, if true, is about as solid an indictment of filmmaker foolishness as one can get. I suspect, rather, that at some unspecified deadline, the edit was down to two hours, and customarily, folks don’t come down that aggressively on enforcing a deadline – but that’s all baseless speculation.
Bouillabaisse! See here this bouillabase? Plankton parmegan crafts a conundrum competant to withstand hopeless dithering. See? Fortune favors the sanctimonious gazelle in flightless wonder. If you characterize the simpering heartworm, your Mile High Dirt Bermâ„¢ staggers to infidelity upon the altar of crassly defined chestnuts.
Cato?
There can be only one narrative.
Why am I the only one making that joke?
Don’t answer, please.
(grips head)
Too many jokes!!!!!
Damn statistics. Good thing I so trust you.
Idiot^3.
tw: actually49
NB: Alpo doesn’t actually cite any source on the issue of the film’s length. For all we know, he pulled that out of his ass.
Robert,
I have actually have become able to tell something is an Alphie post without actually having to read it, so I don’t know what info he’s cited or not. I did read elsewhere that there were quality/length concerns, but that’s still relatively undefined.
BRD
As Homer Simpson noted to Kent Brockman:
“Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that.”
(I actually did my CFA review classes at DePaul, and even worked there in the mid-1980s. Completely missed that it was becoming a loony bin, but then again, I dealt with the adults in finance and fundraising, avoiding the liberal arts types.)
Whew. That’s something really long to pull out of one’s ass.
Unless it was 8mm, then it ain’t no big thang for chimpanus.
Neither can any of the rest of you guys apparently. Why is it *so* damned difficult to leave the troll alone? He’s only relevant because you all keep picking at him like an infected scab.
Stop it already.
Apparently filmmaker Martyn Burke’s father isn’t very rich, or he could have gotten the film aired with some very slick p.r. work.
Even the best of us can’t resist rattling a cage every now and then.
I’ve seen the film in a preview about 3 weeks ago. It’s the exact required length and had been for a long time. There is indeed another 30 minutes or so of vignettes that could be added to turn it into a feature length film, but the edited version is terrific.
The length question is a red herring, and the many folks who have seen the previews – including everyone at PBS – know that. The documentary was a political threat to the leftist and Islamist establishment from the beginning.
Actually, it’s not just the moving stories of the moderates who have spoken out (saying the most ordinary, reasonable statements BTW) and then had to change every aspect of their lives due to death threats and stalkers. The reason I think it was banned and PBS is scared of letting it be shown anywhere are the statements by the imams opposing the moderates. They’re completely open about wanting to impose sharia law in the U.S. – not some kind of sharia that fits under ths US Constitution, not sharia-lite, just plain old bury them-up-to-their-necks-and-stone-them-to-death sharia law.
PBS did not expect that the documentaries would contradict their view of how the world works or challenge their assumptions.
If this documentary is censored and not allowed to be seen – a decision that rests probably with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting more than PBS – then Congress needs to intervene, since the taxpayers’ money funded it. PBS doesn’t own it – ultimately we do.
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