Will the Real Jihadist Please Stand Up?

"Conservative" independent filmmaker Jason Apsoto has recently released a film on Islam called Kalifornistan. The website promoting Kalifornistan has this to say about the film:

KALIFORNISTAN follows the deranged leader of a terror cell called 'Glorious Jihad of Kalifornistan' as he plots to destroy Los Angeles with his 'mighty plutonium superbomb' - while being distracted by an exotic dancer.

KALIFORNISTAN takes viewers on a twisted journey of the post-9/11 world from Gitmo to Iran, from the dark corners of LA harbor into the mind of a terrorist too deranged even for Al Qaeda.

There are enthusiastic reviews for this film at its website, but I will be more critical. Apsoto has made his jihadist a lone, lunatic sex maniac, whose mission to destroy Los Angeles is due more to his deranged personality than his religious convictions.

Many writers give all kinds of reasons for jihadists' uncontrollable quest to bomb apostates: They are sexually frustrated maniacs; they are poor, oppressed Arabs; they are psychologically impaired; they have unresolved issues with their distant fathers; they are too close to their clingy mothers. And so on.

Apsoto seems to have fallen for the "they are deranged sex maniacs" variety, and that is where I cannot take his film seriously. I understand that artistic license is due, but even artists have to research their material and know something about their subject, rather than make up whatever they feel would suit the tone of their film.

One critic writes, "the film clicks as strong, effective satire." The jihadist's prescription is to follow the clear commands from the Koran, which is to turn the
whole world into Islam, whether by force or by stealth. Apsoto, rather than find a unique and artistic way (if possible) to write a fictitious account of a real Koran-following jihadist, prefers to make his jihadist a socio/psychopath so that his film becomes a "satire."

Strange Allies in the War on Terror

Cropped image from Michelle Malkin's book cover In Defense of Interment.
[Click on image to see full cover.]

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto started a new documentary series on March 2009 called Nikkei Flix. I had to look up Nikkei (these days, we are just expected to know obscure words from alien cultures, and if not, shame on us for not being global enough). Nikkei, according to Wikipedia are, "Emigrants of Japanese ancestry or their descendants."

The first film to kick off this series is Caught In Between, which the film's schedule proudly announced was, "Part of the programming for International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which is March 21." Better late than never.

The documentary film's official web page describes Caught in Between as a film that:

[T]races how in the wake of 9/11, two communities that had rarely crossed paths have come together in solidarity to speak out against the U.S. government’s attacks on civil rights and civil liberties. Speaking at San Francisco’s Japan Town Peace Plaza, Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, Japanese Americans, and others ... make passionate pleas to uphold our constitution and protect innocent people who are targeted as the "enemy."

The film's site further discusses Japanese American internments during World War II, and associates them with the current "War on Terrorism":

As the Arab, Muslim, South Asian communities face post-911 repression, this documentary captures Muslim and Japanese American communities revisiting the dark days of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Interviews with former internees, their children, religious leaders, citizens and immigrants from Japanese and Muslim American communities are woven together to make crucial connections between then and the current “War on Terrorism.”

Michelle Malkin's book In Defense of Interment made similar associations. But, Malkin was supporting those internments, whereas Caught In Between refers to that episode in American history as "the U.S. government’s attacks on civil rights and civil liberties."

So far, there have been no official plans (or talks) that Muslims be interred, unless one takes Malkin's attempt to suggest otherwise in her book. Malkin's book was highly criticized, and I don't think she ever brought up, or developed, that idea further.

At a crucial time in America's history, when all her citizens should be banding together to eliminate her enemies and protect her from internal threats, we have yet another ethnic group with a chip on its shoulder and full of grievances, which is actually hampering national security and siding with what is clearly the enemy. 9/11 was not an isolated event, as proceeding events have shown us, but one in a series of tactics to have Islam reign supreme.