Syrian MP Dr. Muhammad Habash Denounces the American Culture of 'Violence' and 'Cruelty'

From MEMRI. Let's take that article one at a time:

What do the Americans want? The Americans don't want to hear any Arab voice, any Islamic voice.

On the contrary, we hear those voices every day. And this:

I was going to America to represent the tolerant voice of Islam.

Oh? Which voice is that? The one that says, "Fight and slay the infidels wheresoever ye find them"? Or the voice that tells the sort of lies that it's OK to tell if they'll advance the faith?

I want to talk about the philosophical roots of this condescending culture, a culture that realizes the desire for expansion at the expense of others. Take for example Nietzsche, the 19th century philosopher. I personally view him as the philosopher of American administrations and philosopher of American policy. He speaks very clearly about the need to create a superman and that the creation of superman, the creation of a strong man, requires the annihilation of the weak from the face of this earth. Nietzsche said through Zarathustra in his book 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' and which angered the Zoroastrians who condemned these words… Nietzsche says, 'If we want to build our culture we must crush the weak, oppress the weak, crush them, climb all over their corpses. We must fulfill this duty in order to build our culture.' Nietzsche says that Christian values are lethal poison [impeding] any cultural development. He said, 'We work and our fathers worked just to sustain the poor, the miserable, and the weak. We must supply the poor with an honorable and quick death so we can build the culture, this cultural giant, this superman.' These words are not an attack on American culture. This is exactly what a well-esteemed philosopher wrote.

Well, at least he later admitted that most American soldiers never heard of Nietzsche. Too bad--because they would have gotten a primer on how wrong Nietzsche was. But Nietzsche is no more "esteemed" in America than is Karl Marx--and probably less well esteemed. And since when has any Muslim expressed any sympathy, even indirect, for Christians? Did you happen to notice Nietzsche's criticism of Christians? (I'll vouch for its accuracy, by the way.)

Now when he says this, I am of two minds about it:

The culture that is exported today, through Hollywood, for example, is a culture of violence, a culture of films ending usually with the policeman bleeding and the robber hugging his lover and smoking a cigar. These images glorify cruelty, glorify force, glorify the man who is victorious because of his might and his weapons. This is the language that still controls these people's culture.

If Dr. Habash did not himself represent a culture that wants to kill everybody who isn't a Muslim and who won't bow to Arabia uber alles, then he and I might have a point of agreement here. Because I abominate Hollywood. When he describes movies that end with the law-enforcement officer defeated and the robber and his moll getting away, he only slightly exaggerates. The old Motion Picture Production Code (i.e., Hays) expressly forbade this kind of project:

Crimes against the law...shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation.

And even when the stories do not throw sympathy with the criminal against the LEO's, movies are far too violent today. Production values are governed more by the desire for primal set pieces than by the desire to have a good story and tell it in an edifying manner. This is why the Academy Awards, for example, have become meaningless, and why I don't go to the movies anymore, unless the movie involved is adapting a classic or semi-classic novel title--like The Lord of the Rings or, coming up next spring, Pride and Prejudice.

That said, Dr. Habash needs to do better research than he's now doing. Whom did he think Hollywood supported in this last election? George W. Bush, the one who has played havoc with the terrorists' plans? Oh, no--John F. Kerry. And has he any attendance figures for those movies that keep playing--largely to nearly-empty theaters? How can anyone cite movies like these as reflective of American cultural values if people are already growing disgusted with them, turning away from the box office, or throwing their TV sets over cliffs when the last of the decent shows get cancelled in favor of more shack-up/shoot-'em-up trash?

But what does he know? He comes from an authoritarian society, not an open one like ours. He's still looking for our equivalent of the Ministry of Information, which we don't have (well, maybe we have, but not what he means by it). He's also pushing a party line, and is looking for excuses. As I said--too bad, especially when I have some of the same problems with the Hollywood counter-culture as he has.