“They should be stopped” – yes, right. Burn them, why don’t you.
In Christian Peregin’s story in The Times today, about the ‘Mohammed film’ chaos, there is this telling line:
To make matters worse, the protesters are used to living in countries where censorship is the order of the day so they believe any media must have been approved by a government body.
Isn’t that just like the responses of so many Maltese people to seeing things written or performed which they don’t like or consider offensive?
Same sort of cultural heritage, I’m afraid.
And to make matters even more irritating, we install lecturers who think like this (see below – another excerpt from the same article) in our university.
The name, of course, is not a coincidence. He, too, comes from a cultural heritage where state censorship is the norm. Is that the right attitude for a university lecturer in a democratic country?
How exactly does Arsalan Alshinawi think that that a democratic country – the United States of America – can stop the production of a film, even if it were to be crazy enough to undermine its own Constitution by trying to do so?
Arrest the producer, like they do in the Middle East, China, North Africa and occasionally, Malta?
And Alshinawi’s remarks about the United States deliberately seeking to provoke violence so as to have an excuse to attack are just shocking.
If I had his attitude, I would say that he should be stopped before he brings the University of Malta into further disrepute. What is the university doing, anyway – scraping the bottom of the barrel for lecturers?
The University of Malta must be insane if these are the attitudes it wants imparted to its international relations students. It’s bad enough that we have lawyers graduating who can’t write or think, and architects with absolutely no sense of aesthetics.
Now we’re going to have IR graduates who think that the US uses amateur film-makers to provoke violence among crazed fundamentalists, so that it can attack their countries.
Beautiful.
Many have accused the film-makers of deliberately seeking a reaction like the one delivered.
Arsalan Alshinawi, International Relations lecturer at the University of Malta, told The Times the film’s sole intention was to provoke enough violence to give the US an excuse to attack Iran.
He said the film should not have been allowed because it crossed a sensitive taboo in the most senseless manner.
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I seem to remember that the producer was reported to be Israeli.
If this is true, while he would have had every right to make the film under the American constitution, perhaps he should have had the decency of making the film in his own native country instead of implicating the US in trouble that, frankly, it could do without right now.
It’s not as if he did not know what would happen. Besides the film looks like a third rate piece of crap anyway. I doubt anybody would have even heard of it had the Muslims not thrown up such a furore over it.
No, he was an American Jew not an Israeli one. Undoubtedly, a number of Middle Eastern rulers are secretly viewing this as a godsend as it has temporarily diverted the attention and ire of the revolting plebs to the US and its embassies.
Apparently it was “Coptic Christians” now. Next they’ll be saying it was aliens from Mars.
Regardless who it was, this movie was obviously nothing but a political move aimed at getting back on the warpath a US that is getting weary of trouble in the Middle East. We have seen time and time again the US allowing itself to be used in this way.
Mur gibna hawn Malta li min jidghi noqtluh,kieku jekk jifdal elf ruh.Indannati bir-religjon tahhom stess jsibu skuza biex ibattlu mir-rabja li ghandhom ghalihom infushom. Tiddefendi l’Alla b’ghemilek (tajjeb) u thobb il l-ghajrek u mhux toqtol nies innocenti.
Buddhists put up with a lot worse when the Banyan Buddhas were blown to smithereens by the Islamists running the show in Afghanistan.
Christians of all denominations have to put up with daily insults to their creed and revered religious figures on a daily basis made in the name of free speech all over the world .
I do not think that fundamentalists and extremists from these two creeds stage the sort of despicable show that is now being stage-managed on this magnitude by the Muslim extremists and fundamentalists .in the new democracies that have sprouted thanks to the Arab-Spring.
I think that whoever started these riots is using that film as an excuse to cause deliberate instability and in doing so, consolidate his grip on these fledgling democracies.
Finally one has to also point out that muslims traditionally show little tolerance to slights made even in humour at their religious figures because in their holy books it is recorded that their holy leader showed little sense of humour , tolerance or respect for dissenting opinion and even less for satirists of the time .
What is this character doing lecturing our future diplomats? Back when I was reading for a degree in IR the department had never sunk to such lows.
This man has got absolutely no understanding or respect for one of the most important pillars of civilisation.
Unfortunately, this knee-jerk anti-Americanism (resulting in insane conspiracy theories) is quite widespread in the media and academia. To my mind these people are blinded by their own bigotry.
He actually WAS a diplomat representing Malta! http://www.um.edu.mt/arts/int-relations/staff
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080828/local/ministry-official-charged-with-assaulting-warden.222538
With this fuckhead lecturing on international relations and Scicluna praising Dom Mintoff’s ruinous economic policies it is no big wonder that our University is churning out dorks by the thousand.
That’s the tragedy, that many people do believe that something has to be approved by some authority or other before an opinion is published. And the culprits to this thinking are inadequate journalists and censorship bodies.
Remember the university student who wrote a story full of vulgar words and got himself arrested? I found the story distasteful and only read the first few lines, but who am I to decree that it’s illegal? What about all those Mintoffjani who were raving mad a few weeks ago and used all manner of vulgar expressions? Should we censor them?
Besides, a nice lot the University lecturers are. Some months ago we had a blatantly misogynist Gender Studies lecturer, and now a censoring and almost racist, International Relations lecturer. I can attest to a number of god-like arrogant Medical doctor lecturers; so much for the much talked about patient-centred approach. Doesn’t the University try to uphold its standards?
Mr Arsalan Alshinawi should go home and start again from scratch. He is obviously in the wrong profession.
He could try the public cleansing department for a start.
It seems to me he could fit in admirably.
Let’s be honest, no one from overseas worth his salt would opt to come and lecture at Malta Uni.
He must be really desperate.
Our University is really scraping the barrel.
Its product is a witness to this.
He is a Maltese citizen, probably through marriage, and was even a Maltese diplomat.
This link is of interest –
http://www.um.edu.mt/arts/int-relations/staff
You are absolutely right.
Clearly the film-makers meant to provoke this type of response, but the protestors in these countries fell right into that trap, allowing themselves to be defined as violent and emotionally-volatile.
Ultimately, the responsibility for violence ALWAYS rests in the hands of the perpetrator.
The “the US is doing this to have a pretext for invasion (because of the oil!)” line of reasoning represents the laziest school of leftist “intellectualism” that is so pervasive in Europe.
Anyone who knows anything about US internal politics would recognize that, as a country, our appetite for military adventurism is spent: Iraq was our Boer War and Afghanistan our Afghanistan. Americans are exhausted.
This is why we’re giving Netanyahu the cold shoulder and this is also why (among so many other reasons) Mitt Romney will never be President.
The vast majority of us are happy to see the empire die if it means preserving the Republic.
However maintaining a hegemony in the region and ensuring that the tensions between the regional powers don’t escalate into full blown conflict and disrupt the oil flow is vital for everyone’s interests, most especially those of the ‘Western’ nations.
Erratum: *maintaining hegemony in the region
Imagine what debates about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and similar scenarios must be like during this arsehole’s lectures.
I bet it would resemble an Al Quds demonstration and any alternative (even neutral perspectives) on the matter would lead to an F.
With diplomats like this (lecturing to boot) who needs enemies; keep him in Malta for Pete’s sake lest we be judged by his intelligence in negotiating some treaty. He’s an inch displaced from Kissinger it seems.
As to the UOM scraping the bottom, yes Dear Daphne, those of us exposed to foreign universities, have known that awhile, and to teach you a major tenet of mediocrity in academia, it is better to surround oneself with fools than be held accountable for productivity.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/egan-the-burden-of-speech/?ref=opinion
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/collins-mitts-major-meltdown.html
Two interesting articles with a reference to Malta in the second one.
The same Malta Times report also has the folowing comment
by Abdallah Kablan
“What happened in Benghazi by those barbaric inhumane fundamental extremists is a shameful moronic crime against everything human. Fundamental extremists are a cancer worse than Gaddafi and if they are not fully exterminated they will burn down what is left of a broken country.”
Are we sure that the Libya is on the right track, or is Libya
now worse than when the colonel was supreme?
Today’s edition of The Times was worse than l-Orizzont. The Times even managed to hide the huge success in tourism by reporting what MHRA and its usual whiners and headman said.
Yes, good thing for Malta to get 30% of what the tourists spend in Malta, because it’s Malta that is spending most on improving the product.
So MHRA, as ever, first starts spilling doom and gloom in January, then goes quiet during the early months of the tourist season, and now that it has been proven wrong (once again) after another record summer goes on to complain of its profit margins.
If Zahra and his MHRA dont think it’s profitable to stay in the industry they have only one thing to do…just go look for something else. But they won’t, would they?
Hear, hear.
Whoever has engaged this lecturer should have made accurate and proper vetting before engaging him. When I heard he had been employed as lecturer, I was speechless, dumbfounded. This is as far as I can go, I’m afraid.
‘I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to death your right to say it’ : Voltaire
[Daphne – No, not Voltaire, actually. http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2012/09/say-what-you-like-and-dont-try-to-stop-others-doing-the-same/ ]
You’re right. Strange how everyone had attributed it to him.
So this Ars worked for Malta’s foreign service. Is that right?
I wonder who roped him in. Was it Michael Frendo or Tonio Borg?
What a gross error of judgement, whoever it was.
At least he did not end up as head of mission in Washington.
He ended up at Malta Uni.
The Skip.
No, earlier. His father was a high-ranking UN official during Malta’s UNGA presidency….
Interesting – explains it all now. But can you imagine this man representing Malta?
What Arsalan Alshinawi said was stupid but it’s only a side-note to the blog entry. The point is that his line of reasoning is prevalent among Mintoffians, especially when the violence occurs in Malta itself.
How else can they accept and be comfortable with the culture of violence fostered by Mintoff and still very strong today?
They need something to justify it and they want to believe that the victims of Mintoffian abuse and violence brought it upon themselves by “deliberately seeking a reaction like the one delivered.”
I don’t think the film should have been allowed to circulate around. Apart from being meaningless and senseless it was alos offensive for the muslims and also I that am christian found it of bad taste and went too far. However, I have doubts whether the USA had control over its circulation. I don’t think it passed under the censorship. I don’t think there was any foul play by the United States. However, this episode reinforces the importance of censorship. Censorhip doesn’t mean that one has to censor everthing one disagrees with. Censorship means one censors if the way the message is being portrayed is offending the general public. There are degrees by which censorship can be done. However the arabs reaction was over proportionate. Although I think that it was fomented by the extremist muslims possibly urged by al-qaida elements. Sensitivity should guide the censorship. One should never go to extremes. However I reamin in favour of censorship especially of sentivity and moderate censorship.
[Daphne – There is no censorship in the United States. The United States is not responsible for offence taken outside its jurisdiction. Those who live in a democracy should not be dictated to by those who do not live in a democracy.]
What a load of bollocks. It makes no sense to argue that people ‘used to living in countries where censorship is the order of the day’ must to resort to violence if they are somehow contradicted.
It is equally a non sequitur and a gross obscenity to state that a film is produced as an excuse for war. Why is it that religious fundamentalists (and several moderates, for that matter) feel ‘offended’ by criticism, satire or lampooning?
Yes Crockett is right your answer Daphne is nonsense rubbish . It doesn’t follow.
[Daphne – Crockett does not refer to me. Sometimes I wonder just how many children found the exercise called ‘comprehension’ – do they still do it? – more difficult than maths back in the day.]