In the fabled Moderate Morocco, a movie depicting a romance between a Jewish boy and a Muslim girl offends sensibilities -- after all this is forbidden by Islamic law, and that matters even in Morocco.
From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:
CASABLANCA, Morocco -- In a darkened lane the young lovers crouch and caress. The girl leans to kiss the boy, then hesitates. He removes the Star of David pendant hanging from his neck and fastens it around hers, where she can no longer see it."This way, you'll think of other things," he says gently.
The scene is just one of many provocative moments in the movie "Marock," a story of Jewish-Muslim love challenging taboos in this traditional Muslim society and provoking Islamic politicians' ire.
The movie only won general release on screens here this week -- nearly a year after it showed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 -- following a long vetting by government censors, who made no cuts.
Prior to public release, the movie also appeared in festivals in Casablanca and Tangiers, provoking both critical acclaim and debate over whether it was appropriate for Moroccan audiences.
Acclaimed Moroccan director Mohamed Asli said "Marock" did not deserve inclusion in the festivals because it was "not a real Moroccan film," although he subsequently told a magazine that he welcomed the public release because it would open debate. Some critics claimed to detect sinister Zionist propaganda in the depicted Jewish-Muslim romance.
The Justice and Development Party, Morocco's increasingly popular Islamist political party, has led the charge against "Marock," claiming that it breaks a Moroccan law forbidding offense to Islam. The party plans to press the government on whether it has fully upheld the law.
"It's a mockery of Moroccan spiritual life," said Abdelkader Amara, a member of the PJD's general secretariat. "It presents Moroccans as if they don't adhere to their religion. But that's not true."
The film follows Rita, a rebellious daughter of Casablanca's thin upper crust, as she and her friends approach the end of high school, and then adulthood. Along the way, they gulp whiskey, smoke hashish, party, eat during Ramadan, and indulge in romantic intrigue.
Rita's youthful hedonism gets complicated when she falls for handsome daredevil Youri, a Jew. While her friends accept the affair, she must hide it from her tradition-bound parents and religiously conservative older brother.
"I don't care about religion," Rita tells Youri. "I just want to be able to kiss you where I want and when I want."...
In the cinema, the mostly young audience sighed during the tender scenes in which Rita and Youri managed to snatch a few happy moments alone. But for some of them, the symbolism of the Star of David went too far.
"That the girl accepted (the necklace), that bothers me" said Amal Rohda, 17. "I would never have done that."
I love to pop the corn, pour the cokes,
grab a hankey, pull up a chair
and watch a good movie.
Many of my favorite foreign films
were made by the Persians.
The Circle and Osama are good,
as is Kandahar. The visceral
A Taste of Cherry was brilliant
for giving the rest of the world
a taste of the nihilistic,
monotonous, suicidal mind
of a man from, I think, Terhan.
The Persians aren't able to make
their artful movies anymore.
The mullahs and their mouthpiece,
amadijihadi, said they have to become
architects and calligraphers,
all other art is haram.
How many more insults can poor Muslims take? First, it was the cartoons; now, a movie made about a Muslims girl and a Jewish man!!! Caution. Muslims are easily offended and enflamed. Expect riots to follow.
Should anyone care to read the islamocomments in French about this movie, on the main 'moderate' muslim forum in France, here is the thread:
http://www.mejliss.com/showthread.php?t=228125
Scarcely conceivable in reality, and certainly not possible were the girl to take Islam seriously, and a movie that may, in its obvious Romeo-Juliet appeal, continue to beguile and mislead Infidels as they sigh over the romance and pathos of it all, and fail to understand that Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslims though the reverse is not the case.
So here we have these Qur'an-crossed lovers, defying -- well, only one side is really enaged in a death-defying act. I assume that the movie does not show the girl being killed as a way of preserving the family's honor, and also the honor of Islam (the boy's death is -- well, that's a given). And if it does not, the fantasy is complete.
The Poetess:
The recent '10' by the Iranian director Kiarostami was pretty good. It's about a woman(taxi driver?) driving around Teheran picking up and talking to various people, all women, except her son, who she has a very conflictual relatioship with. One of the women she converses with is a prostitute and another has just been discarded by her seemingly abusive partner. It obliquely presents a sour view or critique of Iranian men and clearly sympathises with the lot of women in modern Iran.
Beats me how Kiarostami gets to make films like this. Maybe they're too subtle for the intellectually challenged authorities there.
How about making a movie about an Iranian Muslim girl converting to Christianity, marring an American guy and ending the movie with her being pregnant, or giving birth. Preferrably in Farsi. Then drop DVD's of this all over Iran. This should get them completely raged, and provoked into doing something violent. Once they do, send missiles to take out their nukes.
Same for Pakistan.
Sebastien
Thanks for the link. I just finished reading it. Painful reading, I must say. Not that those views exist, but that they come out of France, and that absolutely no one among the posters seems to be aware of the utter irony/stupidity of blabbering against France's and the West's values while leeching off France's bounty as students, homemakers, whatever.
A choice quote from a wannabe "insurgent" against the perceived offence of Islam:
"Faut se bouger!"
Which reads, "The November riots were not enough. Let's go for France herself."
I knew that it would never be a Muslim guy and Jewish girl, because that is common enough to be considered 'nothing special', merely a minor conquest by the Mohammedan men.
But this 'submissive Muslim girl who strays' is intolerable.
It won't be allowed to influence anyone in the Ummah, but will only bring out the Usual Suspect Protestors, from Cairo to Islamabad, -burning, looting and yelling..
The screaming zombies who always find the long arm of Zionism lurking behind each challenge to the monolithic Koran's dictates.
Or Imperial Islam's demands: for land, the "poll tax" from infidels, submission, and an end to all criticism, for starters.
Muslims should pay us for thinning their herd of their most dangerous, theocratically demented lunatics. Doing their dirty work for them.
(But pirate philosophies are usually lazy. And ungrateful.)
Interesting that Morocco leads the world in Google searches for "jihad"
http://www.google.com/trends?q=jihad&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all
Sebastien: I also read the french comments on the link you provided. These are most obviously radical islamists who live in France and I sincerely doubt that the other 99.XXX% of the population even knows that this site exists. That being said, the comments themselves are horrific, but from radical muslims I expect only to hear about death and torture these days. Bush was right when he mentioned that we promote a culture of life - a barb directly aimed at our enemies. France's mistake is in allowing the website, but since they have the same democratic principles as we, censure is unlikely happen, unless they can close the owners of the website down on other charges. On the other hand, I would not have a problem with seeing the american NAZI websites simply disappear...
I have a number of Morrocan aquaintances in Bonn - they are all (without exception) secular, as is a great deal of their country. How long this situation will remain, nobody knows. As for quoting Google/trends: this tells us little. I can type in Hakenkreuz (Swastika) and Germany doesn't even show up. Strangely enough, New Zealand does. Wierd. Google/trends changes from week to week, from month to month. I do know that Morocco has an agressive anti-shariah contingency, a strong secular population, and also a small jewish population that has been living there a long time, mostly in peace and harmony. I know, it sounds stranger than fiction, but it is so. I would not immediately dump Morroco into the same boat at Bin Laden and Co.
Here is a link about Morocco's jews:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/morocjews.html
As for (many) other Europe-unfriendly comments, I would advise you all to be a little more thoughtful here. The europeans are our allies and constantly crapping upon them is, frankly, dumb. I think that many of us have forgotten that Europe and not the USA is directly at the border of the next war and when the oil stops, Europe will be hit first. I don't agree with the carrot, but this is no reason to demonize them. Did any of you consider that this may be a pretty clever plan between Bush and Merkel - the europeans play good cop, we play bad cop? I am pretty sure Aheminidjhad will blink first, but if he doesn't, I am sure a detonation over Ispahan will make him blink.
I have lived among europeans for nine years now, and though I am still a american, I have learned how they think and how diverse they are. Especially the number of Germans who still really admire big brother USA. I would encourage you to not generalize europeans and remember that political stupidity is a world-wide phenomenon today.
Best wishes,
Mark
bonncaruso,
How would you characterize the Moroccan police and Ministry of Interior? Do they arrest people without warrants, keep people held in prisons without a trial, torture people in prisons? I.e., is Morocco not rather "secular" because that relative secularism is enforced by a rather ruthless police, not because that relative secularism grows naturally from the will of the people and the soil of the culture on a grassroots level?
"...France's mistake is in allowing the website..."
Because, of course, free speech is the problem, and supression of it by the dhimmi French government is the solution...?
Was that what you actually meant, Mark?
Mark,
When Morocco was "truly Morocco," that is, before the French conquest in 1912, the Jews were quite oppressed. David Littman wrote an article on this based on the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Charles Foucauld, a French 19th century traveler reported on the oppression of Jews there at that time, as did other travelers and Jewish sources, etc.
On the French Muslim website. One of the posters there says that he is not too worried because the purpose of the movie is to help the Moroccan elite show the world that they are really with it, hep to the jive, really Western, they really love Jews, etc. I can't judge the motives of the woman director who made the film, but this response may have something to it. The problem for the Muslim fanatics is that even an act of taqiyya can have too many unwanted consequences.
Here's a link to a Morroccan blog site about this movie and the controversy it has engendered.
http://riadzany.blogspot.com/2006/01/marock-debate.html
It also has links to a variety of opinion on both sides. It appears that Morocco, like Jordan, is a conservative Muslim country ruled by a young king who is far more moderate than the majority of his subjects.
The movie's producer/director, Leila Marrakchi, is a Muslim married to a Sephardic Jew. So the film is somewhat autobiographical. I'm hoping to be able to find it (with English subtitles) on DVD.
I had a Morrocan Jewish friend whose uncle was forced to flee Morroco to France when he was caught with an Arab Muslim girl. His choice was to convert to Islam or go to prison. Leaving Islam carries a "progressive" five-year prison sentence.
Interesting book "Beyond the veil" by a Muslim "Academic" woman. Actally an interesting read.The book does try to rationalize many aspects of the Mohammedian cult,but also makes
some good points.Within the cult of Mohammed, Al lah does not speak to women.I find this a very interesting concept. Why are there even female
"Muslims"? If even their diety rejects them,what is the point? Another point that the author raises is the hostility of male Muslims toward the state. The state,in he muslim mind is a replacement for the male. The Musliman is the absolute ruler of his domicile.The state is seen as an intruder.Islam needs to be resisted,negated,
deconstructed,outlawed,and eliminated everywhere and anywhere.It is indeed the destroyer of civilizations