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It's not difficult to see where Barbie and Harry Potter would be verboten in Iran. And Batman is the Caped Crusader, after all. But what about Spiderman? At any rate, he's an infidel. "Iran official sees 'destructive' Barbie influence," from Reuters:
TEHRAN - Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.
Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."
But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.
"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily.
Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys and suggested this posed a threat to the "personality and identity" of the new generation.
"The unrestrained entry of this sort of imported toys ... will bring destructive cultural and social consequences in their wake," he wrote.
He added many toys were smuggled into Iran and accused importers of concentrating on profits at the expense of cultural values.
Posted by Marisol at April 28, 2008 4:26 PM
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"Westoxication"?
With your leaders, "Westoxication" is the last thing I'd worry about. Evaporation would be my concern, or rather, how to avoid it.
Posted by: RalphInfidel![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 28, 2008 4:53 PM
The dangers of a boy seeing a naked Barbie are just too much to comprehend.
Posted by: Pelayo at April 28, 2008 5:14 PM
I didn't know arachnids were un-Islamic; but then, what isn't?
Posted by: John C at April 28, 2008 5:16 PM
"Westoxication."
is that anything like "Islamofacation"?
at April 28, 2008 5:32 PM
So what? They have had islamic barbies in the UK for about 2-3 years for the same reason.
Posted by: Fred at April 28, 2008 5:33 PM
Yes, it's easy to understand why muslims wouldn't like Harry Potter. After all, the Dementors, the Death Eaters and Voldemort lose in the end, as Good triumphs over Evil.
If only life imitated art.
Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at April 28, 2008 5:53 PM
I think it's probably when Harry stabs Tom Riddle's diary and the baselisk dies that gives Ahmadinejad nightmares: clairvoyant moments where he sees his final end. ... No, no ... it's probably when the Fawkes takes the baselisk's eyes. ... No ...
Well, I could go on, but you get the point.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at April 28, 2008 8:17 PM
Okay, *that* was funny :)
I just wanted to add the obvious; if some Christians are already having fits over the whole magic/witchcraft thing in Harry Potter, then you can imagine what the Muslims feel... (I'm one of those who refuses to read JKR)
Posted by: gkong3 at April 28, 2008 8:54 PM
So, has Dinesh D'Souza been informed that this is why they hate us?
Sleazy Barbie and vigilante Spider-man.
Decadent examples of the bottomless depravity of the infidels.
We must repent or John Esposito and Dinesh will be proved right!
Decapitate your dolls, infidel dogs!
Posted by: profitsbeard at April 28, 2008 9:00 PM
of course the only they want their children doingis reading the Koran and not playing with toys because there is no fun or laughter in Islam
Posted by: crusader at April 28, 2008 9:45 PM
"Westoxication"?
About as valid as the trumped-up term "Islamophobia".
Posted by: awake at April 28, 2008 10:14 PM
Damn occidentophobes, what will UNHRC do about it, we demand tough action against this sacrilege that offend our sentiments.
Posted by: Engelbrekt at April 29, 2008 3:15 AM
The horror! The horror!
Those sneaky Westerners will do anything to corrupt Islamic youth!
Perhaps we should airlift millions of copies of "Spiderman" comic books and drop them on Iran. That web-slingin' wall-crawler will "Westoxicify" the mullah's playground.
Come to think of it, all of the Marvel Comics pantheon has "destructive cultural and social consequences".
'Nuff said!
Posted by: tanstaafl at April 29, 2008 8:11 AM
They are right to be afraid. For Islam to stay strong, this is a threat.
No joke.
And I love it.
Posted by: FreeSpeech at April 29, 2008 10:50 AM
The only thing more absurd and pathetic than Islam being threatened by mere dolls or comic book characters is the fact that mere dolls and comic book characters are doing more to fight our Muslim enemy than the combined forces of Western military, diplomatic, business, and academic entities combined.
Never has so much been owed by so many to... to... cartoonists, doll makers, and a hamdful of obscure unwitting publishing houses, all of which are utterly unaware they're fighting on our behalf and for the destruction of our abject enemy. Has the world ever been more insane?
at April 29, 2008 12:25 PM
Is it possible that young Iranians would rather emulate a fictional comic book hero instead of a self proclaimed pedophile-prophet who promoted a cult of death and violence?
at April 29, 2008 6:37 PM
Shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
Anyone here who has read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Infidel" will recall her account of the revolutionary texts that she devoured in the school library in Kenya - books like Enid Blyton's Secret Seven series, first of all, with its easy comradeship and trust between boys and girls, so different from the screwed-up gender relationships that obtain in Islamised societies, in which little boys learn early that they can domineer over and abuse their sisters and even their mothers; Nancy Drew detective stories; Hans Christian Anderson; Grimm's Fairy Tales; and when she was a little older, the sizzling Harlequin romances that circulated surreptitiously among all the girls (whether Muslim, Christian, or Hindu), romances that she credits with feeding and keeping alive her longing for love and freedom.
As for 'Harry Potter' - gkong3, the mullahs fulminated against the books and films as 'a Zionist plot', and quite apart from the fact that (irony of ironies) Daniel Radcliffe is Jewish (true!!), in a sense, they're right, and I think both the books and the films may be among the most powerfully subversive things that ever slipped across the border between dar al Harb and dar al Islam. The Christians shouldn't worry: I personally think that they should regard the wide reading of HP by kids within the Islamosphere, as nothing less than a praeparatio evangelica.
Here's an excerpt from a posting I wrote some time ago, when we first heard that the mullahs were denouncing Harry Potter as a 'Zionist plot' "
"The mullahs may not be able to articulate WHY they find Rowlings’ vision of the world so profoundly disturbing. But all her core assumptions flatly contradict, at every level, the way in which THEY imagine the world - and within Rowlings' world, it is in the faces of the Death Eaters and Voldemort, all eaten up with spiritual pride and the ugly desire to hurt and to kill and to control, that the Ayatollahs cannot but see their own faces as in a mirror.
"Rowlings - like every traditional Western writer since Christianity turned the world upside down - has no time for spiritual pride, or lies, or the lust for power, or greed, or selfishness, or cruelty. She is in love with humility, compassion, wisdom, grace, forgiveness, mercy, truth; and she has plenty of time for plain honest passion, and for uproarious, vulgar laughter."
I argued thusly:
"Think of all those millions of children, across the Muslim world, who have read books one through six! All those little golden seeds have dropped down into the subconscious, those powerful and persuasive and colourful images of love, hope, laughter, fidelity, truthfulness, making and keeping promises no matter what; courage, joy, hard work, monogamous family life (the Weasleys).
"Although Rowlings includes teenage infatuations (‘snogging’ couples), and adult eros (Harry’s feelings for Ginny are very different from his crush on Cho Chang), she also fills her books with deliciously subversive, because taken totally for granted, representations of non-sexualised friendship and equal partnership-in-arms between girls and boys, men and women.
"Think of clever Hermione and wise Luna Lovegood advising and even rescuing their male counterparts. Hogwarts has four Houses: two founded by males, two founded by females – Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, the Houses of Humility and Wisdom. Women like McGonagal or Madame Maxime exercise authority just as fully as the men. (Of course, one doesn’t know how much the Arabic [and Farsi] translations have been…bowdlerised?; but many children of the upper classes, at least, know enough English to be able to attempt the English originals or, in Persia, the French translations)."
Representations of magic are the least of a mullah's worries when he finds that teenagers have been reading 'Harry Potter' - specially when they get to book seven and find THIS - 'where your treasure is, there will your heart be also', or THIS 'the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death' [Biblical quotations, taken entirely seriously] - and worst of all, THIS:
..."There is a room in the Department of Mysteries", says Dumbledore to Harry at the end of the fifth book, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature...It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities, and which Voldemort has not at all."
It is made quite clear that that all-conquering power is Love, in all its forms. Dumbledore's description echoes other words: - "For love is as strong as death, ardent love more fierce than the grave. many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it" (Song of Songs).
There is, strictly speaking, neither love, nor joy, fun nor laughter, in classical Islam: only power, fear, and submission. Books like 'Harry Potter' invite their young Muslim readers into a world utterly different from their own. For some, the long-term result of that soul-awakening vision may be what it was for Ayaan...apostasy.
Of course, on the other side, I am very, very thankful for the wide popularity of Tolkien, first, and then Rowlings, within the Western world. Those who have read these books have absorbed a paradigm that may stiffen their spines wonderfully; all they have to do is realize that we are like the hobbits faced with resurgent Mordor, or like Rowlings' 'Dumbledore's Army' and 'Order of the Phoenix' going up against the Death Eaters. Our poets, in that regard, have been much wiser than our politicians.
I once told a Jewish blogger, whose friends' children were avidly devouring 'Harry Potter', that she should tell those little Jewish Israeli kids that they saw a member of the nearest real-life thing to the 'order of the phoenix', every time they looked in the mirror, and that HQ was down at the local synagogue...
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at April 30, 2008 2:10 AM
"Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does"
H J Simpson
Posted by: payingattention at April 30, 2008 4:35 AM
Iranian official warns of "Westoxication" and "destructive cultural and social consequences" of Barbie, Batman, Spiderman, and Harry Potter" -from article.
Farfur the genocidal rat, on the other hand, is on the approved list.
Posted by: alexon at April 30, 2008 3:29 PM
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