August 31, 2006
THEIR SECRET WEAPON
Pinocchio and friends converted to Islam (Malcolm Moore, The Telegraph, August 31st, 2006)
Pinocchio, Tom Sawyer and other characters have been converted to Islam in new versions of 100 classic stories on the Turkish school curriculum."Give me some bread, for Allah's sake," Pinocchio says to Geppetto, his maker, in a book stamped with the crest of the ministry of education.
"Thanks be to Allah," the puppet says later.
In The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan is told that he cannot visit Aramis. The reason would surprise the author, Alexandre Dumas.
An old woman explains: "He is surrounded by men of religion. He converted to Islam after his illness."
Tom Sawyer may always have shirked his homework, but he is more conscientious in learning his Islamic prayers. He is given a "special treat" for learning the Arabic words.
C’mon, ‘fess up. This kind of stuff upsets you far more that you would like to admit, and you aren't exactly sure why. We rational worldly Westerners may respond smartly to bombs on airplanes, but it’s unseemly for us to get agitated about these cultural digs and take them seriously, and besides, if we did we just might say something intemperate. It’s not unlike like the non-stop flow of anti-Semitic bile out of Iran, to which not one leader in the West has responded despite all the bumph we like to tell ourselves about how we would never, ever stand by and allow a repeat of the Holocaust. The fact is we are tongue-tied and impotent in the face of all these cultural and rhetorical taunts. We can’t seem to bring ourselves to defend our own cultural heritage anymore, at least not in public. It's as if we’ve all become Jerry Seinfelds. They know it, and we know they know it, but then so did Jerry.
Is it too much to dream that somewhere in this great land there is one public body or even private publisher with enough wit and pride to respond by announcing they will soon be releasing Turkish editions of Ali Baba and the Forty Disciples and Aladdin Sits Shiva?
Posted by Peter Burnet at August 31, 2006 7:29 AMIn the end, this is of a piece with the gay marriage nonsense. It's not enough that they respect themselves - we must be forced to respect them also. The outcome is that the exact opposite occurs...
Posted by: M. Murcek at August 31, 2006 8:17 AMIn the new Pinnochio, do you have to blow yourself up in a suicide bombing to get to Pleasure Island?
Posted by: John at August 31, 2006 9:18 AMPeter, we won't and shouldn't respond in kind. This is hilarious. School children grow up and in today's world, it's pretty difficult to keep up silly fiction like this.
Posted by: erp at August 31, 2006 9:53 AMConsider this revenge for Disney's "Aladdin" movies.
But what do you expect of a parasitic culture but to feed off of that of the host?
It's not enough that they respect themselves
And as with the gay marriage fiasco, it becomes apparant that not only don't they not respect themselves but they have no idea how to gain the respect except by demanding it be forced. (As for the homosexuals, they could start by just shutting up and losing the "in your face" attitude.)
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at August 31, 2006 9:58 AMI'm with you on this, Raoul.
The other thing that is interesting is that their cultures don't seem to be capable of developing their own great stories - they have to borrow/steal from ours.
We're winning.
Posted by: Dreadnought at August 31, 2006 10:22 AMIt's a fable about becoming human by listening to your conscience, and includes a bizarre punishment for dishonesty, that comes from within yourself.
This is a western morality tale now disguised as a Muslim morality tale.
This is not THEIR secret weapon. It's OUR secret weapon.
The fact is we are tongue-tied and impotent in the face of all these cultural and rhetorical taunts. We can’t seem to bring ourselves to defend our own cultural heritage anymore, at least not in public.
How do you reconcile those lines with the thoughts that you expressed in the JUST A LITTLE LIGHT TEASING BETWEEN GOOD FRIENDS thread, wherein you seem to be saying that we should be ignoring things like the non-stop flow of anti-Semitic bile out of Iran, lest we offend our (rather sensitive) Muslim brothers.
Posted by: Abner Hathaway at August 31, 2006 11:56 AMI think it highlights more how little has been contributed by them in the past few hundred years.
Posted by: ken at August 31, 2006 2:03 PMerp:
The problem is you could easily persuade me of your view on any one individual incident like this. It's the cumulative effect that worries me. Sends them the wrong meassage and eventually corrodes us. How about we blow every tenth time?
Raoul:
I admit I'd forgotten all about Disney's Alladin, even though I remember wondering how Muslimland would react to such nonsense. OK, we owe them one. I never liked Pinocchio anyway. But it's war if they touch Oliver Twist or Huck Finn.
Abner:
I never realized Tom Sawyer was in the Koran.
Posted by: Peter B at August 31, 2006 7:23 PM