Jihad, The Musical

Lots of folks have their backs up over Jihad, the Musical, now being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A quick look at comments left at various reviews indicates a load of righteous indignation. Godwin's law gets tossed in right off the bat. I came across the link at Chicago Boyz but it's pretty much all over the place.

I'm reserving judgement, but my first take is that the more we make light of serious issues the better off we are at many levels. A rash of silly illustrations comes to mind from TV shows about the Korean war and German POW camps to Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus Christ, Superstar (remember Herod's Song?).

The dust will settle soon, but in the meantime this video is a don't-miss piece of work.



In the meantime, you want serious?
You can't handle serious.
I'll give you serious.

Tighten your seatbelt and get ready for this from Iraq Slogger...

"Meeting Resistance," a documentary exploring the roots of the Iraqi insurgency, as told by the insurgents themselves, opens this weekend in Los Angeles at the famed Laemmle Grand, with other cities soon to be scheduled.

Filmmakers Molly Bingham and Steve Connors just put the finishing touches on their trailer--a series of questions that force the viewers to examine the Iraq conflict from the perspective of those who call their fight against the US "resistance" against "occupiers." Provocative would be an understatement.




And if that fails to get your attention, here is a link to IRAQI MESSAGE TO AMERICAN PEOPLE which has been around over a year. It is shot through with anti-Semitism and other bloody-shirt propoganda, but it lays out in language that no one can misunderstand a point of view which will not be destroyed by violence or the threat of violence. It is a mind-set, not too different from those that led to our own revolutionary and civil wars. And mind-sets are not easily changed by wars. They morph instead into more subtle forms. Succeding generations usually wash off the blood stains while retaining the values that led to the conflict. The warm, fuzzy relations between the US and Britain, between former Union and Confederate families, between Vietnam, Japan or Germany and the US...these did not happen right away. But happen they did, after reconstruction, the Marshal Plan or post-war occupation of Japan and Germany.

How many people calling for the US to leave Iraq are aware that without some kind of post-war equivalent to these historic realities the United States will become the target of global rage the likes of which have not been seen in our lifetime?