Things degenerate only if we allow them to. The West’s sensitivity has ill served us. Mark Steyn on how the trivial causes offense and the truly offensive draws no rebuke:

From Europe’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Sun: ”Furious Muslims have blasted adult shop [i.e., sex shop] Ann Summers for selling a blowup male doll called Mustafa Shag.” Not literally “blasted” in the Danish Embassy sense, or at least not yet. Quite how Britain’s Muslim Association found out about Mustafa Shag in order to be offended by him is not clear. It may be that there was some confusion: given that “blowup males” are one of Islam’s leading exports, perhaps some believers went along expecting to find Ahmed and Walid modeling the new line of Semtex belts. Instead, they were confronted by just another filthy infidel sex gag. The Muslim Association’s complaint, needless to say, is that the sex toy “insults the Prophet Muhammad — who also has the title al-Mustapha.”

In a world in which Danish cartoons insult the prophet and Disney Piglet mugs insult the prophet and Burger King chocolate ice-cream swirl designs insult the prophet, maybe it would just be easier to make a list of things that don’t insult him. Nonetheless, the Muslim Association wrote to the Ann Summers sex-shop chain, “We are asking you to have our Most Revered Prophet’s name ‘Mustafa’ and the afflicted word ‘shag’ removed.”

If I were a Muslim, I’d be “hurt” and “humiliated” that the revered prophet’s name is given not to latex blowup males but to so many real blowup males: The leader of the 9/11 plotters? Mohammed Atta. The British Muslim who self-detonated in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif. The gunman who shot up the El Al counter at LAX? Heshamed Mohamed Hedayet. The former U.S. Army sergeant who masterminded the slaughter at the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. The murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh? Mohammed Bouyeri. The notorious Sydney gang rapist? Mohammed Skaf. The Washington sniper? John Allen Muhammed. If I were a Muslim, I would be deeply offended that the prophet’s name is the preferred appellation of so many killers and suicide bombers on every corner of the earth.

It wasn’t that long ago that the West acted differently. A half century ago, Alfred Hitchcock noted some of the same Muslim sensitivity to offense given to Islam, though in those days nobody blew himself up. In his 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dr. Ben McKenna’s (Jimmy Stewart) son Hank accidently pulls the veil from a Morroccan woman in a bus. Hank is assaulted by an Arab and has to be rescued by Frenchman Louis Bernard (Daniel Gélin) as his mother Jo (Doris Day) watches helplessly. Here’s what happens in the script:

The [Morroccan] woman still covers her face, but from the seat next to her, and nearer the window, an Arab rises and makes a sharp comment in Arabic to Hank. The Arab’s robes are brown, with a turban-like hat combining twisted strands of white and pale green cloth, The Arab starts to move past the woman, toward Hank, repeating his demand….The Arab in the brown robes begins assaulting the boy in furious Arabic, indicating that he wants the veil….Still staring straight at the Arab, both frightened and fascinated by his verbal attack, Hank retreats….

The Frenchman leans toward Hank and takes the veil he is still unconsciously holding. He hands it to the Arab with a sharp command to return to his seat. The Arab turns away carrying the veil. As the CAMERA PANS him AWAY, we see the spectators resuming their seats, growing quiet….

HANK: You talk Arab talk.

LOUIS: A few words.

JO: Why was he so angry? It was an accident.

LOUIS: The Moslem religion allows for few accidents….

LOUIS: Now about the “accident.” You see, Moslem woman never takes off her veil in public under any circumstances.

HANK: They feed her intervaneously?

Buy the DVD now. No doubt that shortly, after Islamic “outrage” has picked all the low hanging fruit, some Muslim organization will want the scene excised or the movie banned. You will recall that the film showcased Doris Day in the Academy Award winning song “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)”. That inevitability is only true only if allow things to happen that way — as we unfortunately currently are doing.

UPDATE

Do you think we are exaggerating about recutting the movie? Hey, it happened to Aladdin (1992) in the song Arabian Knights.

The lyrics of the song “Arabian Knights” had to be changed after a massive outpouring of protest from anti-discrimination groups. The new lyrics “Where it’s flat and immense and good folks live in tents” replaced the original “Where we’ll blow ourselves up if we don’t like your face.” We ask you to think about that substitution in the light of Steyn’s comments on all the Mohammeds he named, as well as the photographs above.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 9:50 am and is filed under EU, General, MSM, Religion, art, culture, idiots!, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.