Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald proposes that more apologies be made after the example of the one recently accepted in Dubai by the illustrious Juma Al Salami:
“Juma Al Salami, Assistant Under-Secretary of the Private Education Department affiliated to the Ministry of Education (MoE), met yesterday the regional manager of Pearson Education Company who came from the publisher's main office in London to deliver a written apology for offence caused to Arabs, Muslims and Islam by material included in a book called ‘The cultures of the world’.“This book was circulated and distributed to a number of private schools in the country. The regional manager was accompanied by the director-general and representative of the company in the UAE. Al Salami accepted his apology.” -- From this news story
It was well for Juma Al Salami to accept this apology, but there is a great deal more apologizing that must be done. Just survey for a moment the larger state of affairs. Things need not stop with textbooks. Think of famous writers, who wrote in a period -- that period that we will all soon become used to referring to as the Age of Jahiliyya, or the Pre-Islamic Period of Ignorance -- when no one yet understood what constituted Islamically acceptable behavior. The Estate of James Joyce should send someone to Kuwait to apologize for making Leopold Bloom the co-hero of Ulysses and portraying him so sympathetically. And then there's the matter of Joyce's friendships with so many Jews, including Italo Svevo (Ettore Schmitz) in Trieste, and then Paul and Lucie Leon in Paris, and...well, just too many. If Giorgio Joyce is no longer alive, then perhaps the lawyers for the estate can appear in person. Don't want to cut into those potential sales of Ulysses in Saudi Arabia, now that the book has finally been translated into Arabic. I’m sure the lines are forming around the block even now in Jiddah -- but oh, the horrific offense that awaits these unsuspecting Saudi Bloomsburyans!
And Dmitri Nabokov may wish to visit and apologize for his late father's mentioning, in the class list in Lolita, a boy named Irving, and for having Humbert Humbert, in going down that list, note "Irving, for whom I am sorry." And then there is that check written by Nabokov to an Israeli charity, and his renewal of contact with a former classmate at the Tenishev School, who later became an architect in Tel Aviv. And then also is that Jewish character in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and others like him, and the depiction of the antisemite, the stepfather of heroine Zina Mertz, in The Gift, and the notes on antisemitism by Kinbote in Pale Fire to be found in the notes about "two historical hells." On second thought, the son should ask Ms. Nafisi to accompany him. She might come in handy.And then there is Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote not one but two poems celebrating Israel's victory in the Six Day War, and who liked to claim that he must have "some Jewish ancestry." And how often, in his work do we run across themes of the Zohar, and Luria, and the Kabbala! Again, his still-young widow Maria Kodama perhaps should be asked to be-burqa herself, and appear before some informal pack of mutawwa in Riyadh, and beg forgiveness for her late husband's transgressions, and mention that he also liked to refer to Arab texts and tales, and then beg forgiveness, and hope. All is not lost. There is, of course, “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim.”
Possibly Robert Craft should show up as well, once he receives a letter asking him to please explain -- because the Ministry of Pen and Speech wishes to know the exact meaning of a certain sentence in one of the Stravinsky-Craft diaries, in which, after a visit to Israel, Stravinsky comments on the Israelis as these "most egalitarian" and at the same time "most aristocratic of peoples." This is a phrase not likely to help his music rise to the top of the pops in Jiddah or Damascus or Ramallah. Let Mr. Smartypants Robert Craft try to explain that little remark away, if he possibly can.
And don't stop with writings. Demand that the Head of the Rijksmuseum, accompanied by the Queen of Holland, fly to Riyadh to present personal apologies at the next meeting of the O.I.C. for all those sympathetic portraits of aged rabbis that Rembrandt painted. And along with that apology the O.I.C. representatives will be expecting a promise that the offending paintings will be removed from view and put into permanent storage, although occasionally they may be sent on loan to provincial museums in Manitoba -- lest something untoward happen to them.
Just a start. But a good one.
Wouldn't the Ragman's son Michael Douglas' dad also have to say he's sorry. How about Cecil B Demille . . . I'm ready for my close up Mr. Demille. How about Steven Spielberg. Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark should be banned. On the subject of Hollywood Kafirs, how about Budapest born, Yiddish tongued Tony Curtis, now in his 80's, shouldn't we ban his work of art.
Also, a question to Hugh. I'm getting a DVD soon concerning an archetect who fathered a son out of wedlock. This boy does a search for his father after he dies. I can't think of his Father's name but he's a famous archetect who apparently designed a Muslim city somewhere in Malaysia? Perhaps any archetect's with Kaffir background's work should be destroyed. On the subject of great art works in Europe, nothing would give the Islalmists more pleasure than to burn all of the masters' works.
I would like to apologize for not apologizing sooner. Please accept my apologies for inadverdently telling the truth.
Biorabbi, I don't think the muslims have any problem using architecture designed by kaffirs, be it Hagia Sophia, or the government buildings in Dhakka.
Louis Kahn.
Several menages. Product of one of those menages did the film. Best work by Kahn seen: library at Exeter. Of course, I haven't been to Malaysia.
The article above was about great recent writers (and one unrecent painter), who treated sympathetically of Jewish themes, characters, etc., or even expressed strong support for Israel. The theory was that in the need-to-apologize sweepstakes, what comes in first is this sort of thing, for it must madden the kind of Muslims who madden (those who are not the "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims) and therefore the apologies need to be delivered tootsweet. Had I a year or so I would have then continued with all those who had written (not all of the Christian) or painted on specifically Christian themes, Christian subjects. I don't mean simply a book where the characters are American or European and hence Christians. For example, I don't want the head of Oxford University Press to have to go off to Arabia and apologize for, well, "The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" by Tobias Smollett just because Matthew Bramble, and his sister Tabitha, and his nephew Jerry, and his niece Lydia, and his maid Winifred Jenkins, and then of course Lt. Obadiah Lismahago, and finally Clinker himself, are all Christians and sometimes, in what they say, show it (as Winifred in her letters, writing "by God's grease" and so on.). No, I mean apologizes for C. S. Lewis, and The Pearl, and Donne's "Devotions," and Traherne of the "Ejaculations" and Herbert, and Bunyan and "Paradise Lost" and "Samon Agonistes" and "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" and those pilgrims at Stratford-atte-Bowe on their way to Canterbury and... well, you know.
And then think of all the apologies that would require Philippe de Montebello and Pierre Rosenberg and the entire staff of the Courtauld Institute to rush to the Muslims, with their Iznik tiles, and Qur'anic calligraphy, and beg, beg, beg forgiveness for the horrors of Western art which, now that Muslims by the millions are living all over the West, we really should begin to think of putting into permanent storage, and we will. Oh, anything is possible it this new world of ours.
Obviously every single Madonna or other subject with a Christian theme, which means much of Western art, and certainly all of Tuscan and Umbrain art in the first 5 or so rooms devoted to Western Art at the National Gallery (save for the odd picture of St. Peter and St. Andrew in a boat), and, indeed, almost every major Italian painter from the period 1200-1700, not to mention all those anonymous Byzantines, would not only have to be apologized for, but probably, their works put in storage so as not to spoil museum visits by Muslim schoolchildren forced to endure such awful, brainwashing stuff.
My point was really this: almost everything in Western art (save for those pure landscapes since Patinir, which excludes those paintings which are portraits, of the Duke of Montefeltro or paintings of St. Luke painting the Virgin and Child that contain, in the background, a parallelogram of valley, with a tiny river running through it, or a hill with a line of cyress, landscapes Umbrian or Flemish or imaginary), would have to be apologized for. However, some good news. Abstract art, color-field stuff, all kinds of drip-dry that the Eli Broads and Charles Saatchis of this world have, in the past, favored (not to mention a plasticized balloon-dog by Jeff Koons, woof, woof!) are just fine -- by the Muslims. Just not by us. One more difference.
You mention all these Hollywood people, apparently on the assumption that if they are Jews that is enough for the purposes above. But I chose from the very best recent writers (none of them Jewish), whose views and sympathies and themes would be suspect, and would prefer not to dilute my list with the likes of Spielberg. However, now that I've rewound in my mind -- my mind is still in the VHS era, not yet having moved over to DVD's, sorry -- and am now playing back scenes from "Some Like It Hot" I take your point about Bernard Schwartz. But you know, I can think of a thousand reasons why the lawyers for the estates of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond should rush to Riyadh to apologize for that movie. Just listing them would be fun.
No apologies from muslims. Not even acknowledgement.
http://www.france-echos.com/actualite.php?cle=8815
So much for the bleu, blanc & rouge.
Nous sommes fiers du notre passe.
Which past is that? They are in France. The French past? No, the muslim past. The Turkish past. No assimilation or acknowledgement of France at all.
Sorry for being OT
Fan-of-Hugh
You forgot the music, Hugh. I suppose that will have to be atoned for, too.
Excuse me Sir!
(WHACK)
Thank you Sir!
(WHACK)
May I have another?
And the cartoonists. Comics are one of the great arts as far as I am concerned, so we should apologize for the genius of Jack Kirby, for Will Eisner and Joe Kubert and Steve Gerber and Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane and Siegel and Schuster and all those guys who painted the walls of our memory and established a new language of narrative and story.
"You forgot the music, Hugh.."
-- from a poster above
Sounds like a song title from the good old days, when I was automobiling through the hedgerow-lined paths of rural England, and when I would stop at my favorite country pub, The Garter and Stars (or was it "The Stars and Garter" -- I can't remember), for a plowman's lunch and a pint of bitter, I could hear from a gramophone playing in the flat above an Al Bowlly song containing that melancholy refrain: "You didn't know the music/And I didn't know the words."
I miss Al Bowlly. I miss "The Garter and Stars." I miss those hedgerow-lined paths. I miss Cheryl Campbell singing "Love Is Good For Anything That Ails You" to the classroom full of children, in The Forest of Dean, in "Pennies From Heaven," on the BBC, not very many years ago.
Errata:
For automobiling, read motoring.
For favorite, read favourite.
For Stars, read Star.
For plowman, read ploughman.
"You forgot the music, Hugh. I suppose that will have to be atoned for, too."
-- from a posting above
Okay, Oakeshott-lover, your wish is my command. I apologize to the Muslim Community of Europe and North America for that B-minor mass they have to endure, should they accidentally turn the dial to the last classical music stations standing in the Western world, round about Christmas. I apologize for all those pesky Christmas carols which still seem to have something to do with Christmas as a celebration of the Birth of Christ ("Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem") though of course not for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as sung by Gene Autry or Jingle-Bell Rock as sung by anyone. I apologize for Bach in general. I apologize for Monteverdi (not "Montiverdi" as his name was long ago engraved on the wall of Paine Hall, at a certain famous university that does not know how to spell). I apologize for Isaac Watts and the entire contents of all hymnals in, as Gabby Hayes used the say, the whole United States -- and Texas. I apologize for other hymnals, whether in Europe, Africa, or Latin America, or Asia, or Australia, wherever hymnals can -- so sorry -- still be found. I apologize for the Andrews Sisters, and especially for "Bei Mir Bist Du Shon" (put the diaeresis in yourself, please, I can't be expected to do everything). I apologize for Palestrina, but if one takes out that "r" -- see -- does that make you feel better?
I apologize for all those songs which appear to suggest that men and women can flirt, dance, sing, do all kinds of things, and even not impossibly live happily ever after, if they've a mind to, but meanwhile are having a good time anyway. For this view of things is one that does not get a whole lot of air-time on the Muslim International Satellite Channel, though let's not forget that in the very distant past, therer were poets in Dar al-Islam, who had something to say on these matters. Many were Persians: Hafiz, Sa'adi, Omar Khayyam, amidst all the real and imaginary roses and bulbuls of Gulistan, where the fountains gurgle and gazelle-lke girls wander among those roses, and listen to those nightingales. Arabic-language poets as well, but in even more distant days. Pre-Islamic Qays, for example, or possibly not pre-Islamic at all, depending on when you date the Mu’allaqat, or “Hanging Poems,” and who wrote “Ed I miei occhi piangono d’amore” (sounds like an aria, doesn’t it, when given in Italian? So let's stick to Italian for our titles), and since I’ve alread imagined that sweet gazelle of Gulistan, let's add that Siculo-Arab (“hey, Gennaro, you want a piece of me?" he used to ask his Christian neighbors, whenever he wanted to start trouble in the mean streets of Palermo) Al-Billanubi, with “Oh gazzella mia ammaliante.”), or Al-Tubi (“La tua belleza”) but I won’t mention Abu Nuwas, not only because Qaradawi might not be pleased, but also because it gets us away from the main theme, to wit: Men and Women. Of course there was a whole lot of other kinds of poetry, that had nothing to do with love. Panegyrics to potentates, designed to obtain a hoped-for place or payment or preferment, and if it was not forthcoming, those panegyrics would be followed by -- same poet, same potentate -- venomous attacks. See al-Mutanabbi, after whom that street with the booksellers in Baghdad is named. But there was stuff that, while it observed the outward rules of decorum, would offer another meaning (see more on this at "Call Us Prudes: A Note on Verbal Decorum" and thread following). For example, Faris al-'Arab, who ends "La donna mi dice" with "(ma ora, chi sa, fermi in una bassura,/se ancora m'accogli..., che galoppata dura.") Well, I'll leave that "bassura" and that implied accogliamento up to you to figure out, but that "galoppata dura" at the end says it all. Horseman -- what of that night? Call in the cavalry.
Now let me get back to apologizing, if you don't mind. I apologize for "You Were Meant For Me/And I Was Meant For You." Puts women on the same level as men, and suggests that love has something to do with it, and what, asks Islam, does "love have to do with it." So I apologize. And I apologize for Fats Waller's "The Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid." Puts Porter and Chambermaid on an equal footing: "I will be the dustmop/You can be the broom/We will sweep together/All around the room." "Sweeping" here may anticipate, or hint at, the later Italian slang involving the words "scopa" (broom) and "scopare" (to sweep), but I wouldn't bet a dustmop on it.
I apologize for "Let's Climb A Stairway to the Stars." No one can do that except Muhammad, on his winged quasi-steed al-Buraq. I apologize for "I Hear You Knocking But You Can't Come In." Sounds like a woman has a right to Say No, and that just isn't true. I apologize for Ethel Waters's rendition of "Mr. Iceman." And "Mr. Coalman." I apologize for Billie Holiday. I apologize for Ruth Etting and "Ten Cents a Dance." I apologize for Joyce Kane with her brazen betty-boop routine. I apologize for flappers, for the songs to which people danced the chicachoca samba or the Lindy Hope or the Charleston or the Fox Trot or the Waltz or the high lavolt.
I apologize. I apologize. I apologize. And if you have your way -- you people to whom I have been so busy apologizing, at these postings and the article at the top, and in doing so I am merely joining a cast of thousands of Infidel political and religious leaders, who presume to speak in the name of all of us, when they apologize, -- there will, in the end, be no songs, be no books, be no paintings or sculptures, for which they, or I, or any other Infidel, will have to apologize, apologize, apologize.
Well, that was a tour de force
I particularly liked:
I apologize for "I Hear You Knocking But You Can't Come In." Sounds like a woman has a right to Say No, and that just isn't true.
I'd buy you a drink for that alone, if you were in England. On the other hand, I'm not sure we shouldn't be apologizing for drinking, too.
I apologize for Henry Mancini and John Phillip Souza. For Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. For Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. For Willy Nelson and (the next Governor of Texas) Kinky Friedman. For Cole Porter and Glenn Miller. For Memphis Blues, Kansas City Jazz, and California Surfboards. For ABBA and Chicago. For Right over Wrong. For Good over Evil.
As Larry the Cable Guy would say..."Lord, I apologize....".
I'm sorry for V.S. Naipaul, I. B. Singer and my favorite . . . Shusako Endo, the Japanese author of Silence about the tremendous spirit within Catholicism. I'm sorry for Micky Mantle and M. Monroe. I'm sorry for the series 24. Yes, there is a lot of sorry to go around. I'm sorry for how hot Sharon Stone used to look in Basic Instinct too.
Please let me apologize for the Grateful Dead. It's a scandal they caused local Bedouins to dance when they played at the Pyramids. And for all music groups from the Bay Area--especially for Grace Slick and her anti-totalitarian viewpoints. And even more so for Vancouver's Wreck Beach (clothing optional). Note: leave your camera in the car, Abdul.
Sorry is not enough! It might be graciously accepted by Moslems now, but do not for one moment think that when Islam rules the world that it will stand you in good stead.
There is only one way to assuage the rage that comes from the desert (Arabia Deserta [?]): REVERT.
On behalf of the geologist who discovered oil in your holy (uh yeahsure) lands I would like to apologize. We had no right to make you relevent for that I apologize. I apologixe for the Wright Bros., Henry Ford, Samuel Colt, Thomas Jefferson, Howard Hughes, Alfred Goddard, Einstien, Oppenheimer, Tell, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt(s), well, sorry you know. Mostly I'm sorry we have'nt got a Gen. Patton to go and keep you all company you see HE would be able to extend the proper apology and the 3rd. Mech. Infantry Div. marching band(all 25,000 of them) would better serenade the Ummah and the Profit(oops) than than I Surely they could translate the desolation we all feel so much better than we, I'd bet Pattons band would be horuored to extend the apology on our behalf,
Inconsolably Sorry
Sorry too for the spelling....it's been a long day. It's my Birthday and well, sorry for that too MoH(pbuy)BTW hey ALLAH! Y.A.A.F.M!
Don't take this apology kick too far.
After reading Fitz's essay I felt pretty bad about my own behavior. You see, I am an Irish Catholic, but have dated many Jewish girls.
So, instead of sitting around feeling all morose, I hopped into my pickup truck and drove over to the town mosque and confessed to a crowd of Moslems there. But, instead of a forgiveness they beat me up real bad and threw me out onto the sidewalk.
They said they ain't taking apologies no more, and that now that the global Jihad has been called all bets are off.