Tempest in a teapot

While millions die in obscurity at the bloody hands of Islamic terrorists the world over, every rare and infrequent act of harm against innocent Muslims is publicized and dramatized to prove the truth of tired Muslim claims that they are in fact victims in this ongoing “war on terror.”  Thus the forthcoming movie Shoot on Sight explores “the difficult dilemma of mostly peace-loving Muslims, in these turbulent times, when a cosmopolitan society, especially London, is gripped by fear of Islamic extremism, racial profiling, and Islamophobia during the aftermath of underground bombings in July 2005.”

The great Haid Dasalami’s BS divining rod was hard and stiff long before I even viewed the movie’s trailer, because emblazoned across the film’s promotional website is the rhetorical question, “Is it a crime to be a Muslim?”  I was agitated and alarmed when my raging divining rod started to throb in sync with the provocative and seductive query flashing on the screen.  Positive detections and readings are common nowadays, but in this case the rod was more erect than a boy scout salute at a girl scout slumber party.

“Terrorist teapot” graphic by ES (flickr)

I generally gloss over sentences with the word “Islamophobia” in them, but something kept me looking at the film’s synopsis, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.  The rod is accurate to within a mere whiff of BS, so I was satisfied, but for some reason I couldn’t click off.

Difficult dilemma.  Yeah, right.  They ought to try Somalia.

Cosmopolitan society.  Now there’s a useful euphemism for Londonistan.

Back to the top.

Mostly peace-loving Muslims. I couldn’t help amusing myself with the ambiguity of the awkward wording.  I know they mean most Muslims are peace loving, but the phrase might instead mean that Muslims are sort of peace loving—that is, mostly, but not entirely, such as when, for example, something really bugs them a bunch, in which case they go literally ballistic, becoming decidedly bellicose.

Admittedly, the old rod gets a bit randy whenever I can entertain myself with BS in this way, but chuckling to myself alone couldn’t possibly account for the rod’s enormous—if I do say so, myself— girth and overall size.  No, it had to be something else altogether.

Islamophobia.  Oy.

I finally decided to watch the trailer, hoping to satisfy my trusty rod’s irresistible demands.  The trailer is slickly produced, powerful, and effective, and it has Hollywood stamped all over it, except this is an independently produced film.  No major media outlet in America or the UK would touch a topic like this with a ten-foot rod, since it is impossible to predict what will tick off mostly peace-loving Muslims next, and there’s no use taking chances when you can just produce another innocuous Austin Powers sequel.

The Scotland Yard officer who figures in the investigation into the shooting of an apparently innocent Muslim is named Tariq.  Now why does that seem significantly familiar?  In the film, a peace-loving and innocent Muslim is shot while peacefully listening to music, wearing headphones and waiting for the train, unaware he is being targeted by overzealous constables in pursuit of terrorists. 

Train.

Tariq.

Muslim police officer.

In the aftermath of underground bombings in July 2005.

Bingo!

Suddenly it hit me.  The swollen, glowing-red rod was no longer a mystery.  You see, it’s one thing to get a positive reading for common BS, detection of which hardly requires much in the way of technology anyway, but revisionist BS is a special category.  My experience with that variety is that it will send your sensitive equipment into sensory overload faster than you can yank it offline.  Throw in a Muslim pity party and you have a film that will go over big with pilot audiences at the Fourth Annual Dubai Film Festival, if nowhere else (see video clip alongside the trailer to witness huge mountains of unqualified praise heaped on the movie by obviously moderate, and categorically westernized, Muslims in Sin City, UAE).

Only Islamists critique and condemn a film before they’ve seen it, so I’m definitely going out on a limb here, but I figure if you’re going to make a point of the “difficult dilemma” faced by Muslims in a western society “gripped by fear of Islamic extremism,” you at least ought to be consistent and fantasize the entire story.  But if you’re going to make a movie based on historical events, those incidents ought in fact to reinforce your point.  As it turns out, the screenplay was inspired, as far as I can tell, by the real-life story of the innocent Brazilian man—a non-Muslim—who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time after the Tube bombings in 2005.  He was tragically killed by stressed-out peace officers under circumstances similar to those depicted in the film, and as in the movie a Muslim officer named Tariq figured prominently in the subsequent proceedings.

It’s just getting too easy to dramatize perceived injustices against Muslims to make them out as victims.  In today’s PC, relativist climate, creating a storm in a teacup, as the British render the quaint saying of the post title, no longer even requires Muslim subjects.  Wronged Brazilians will do just fine in a pinch, especially if you can’t think of a single case of an aggrieved Muslim in Britain or America who hasn’t been accorded more rights, freedom, respect, dignity, and opportunity than he could expect in any Islamic nation on Earth.  After all, the police thought the dark-complexioned man was an Islamic nut ball intent on detonating a bomb, and the authorities certainly didn’t have any reason to be worried about that.  Everyone knows that Muslims are mostly peace loving.

The movie, starring Greta Scacchi and Brian Cox, opens in select theaters in the US and UK this Friday, September 26th.  I’ll have to wait until the DVD is acquired by the library or uploaded to one of the media-sharing sites, but if you’re able to catch it at the theater, I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage you.  It might even be a thrilling “shoot’em up” in the action genre.  At the appropriate moment, you can yell out, “Is it a crime to be a Brazilian?”  That will get the audience thinking.

Just take precautions to protect your precious and irreplaceable equipment.  Mine almost exploded, and I only viewed the trailer and read the promo drivel.

For certain, you don’t want to lose your rod prematurely.