No question, Nakoula is a weasel. He pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010, was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $794,700 in restitution. The terms of his parole forbade him to use aliases and the Internet. Oh, and he served a year in jail in 1997 for intent to manufacture meth.
But it appears that everyone has forgotten about a real movie, Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Millions of Christians were outraged by Willem Dafoe's portrayal of a Christ whom Satan tempts during his final moments of life with a vision of consummating a marriage to Mary Magdalene. And many Christians reacted then like the Muslims in the Middle East today. In 1988 a fundamentalist Christian group lobbed a Molotov cocktails into a French theater showing the film. (The following excerpt is a contemporaneous account.)
Government officials, religious leaders and film directors condemned today an apparent arson attack against a Paris theater that was showing Martin Scorsese's film ''The Last Temptation of Christ.'' The fire Saturday night left 13 people hospitalized, 1 of them in serious condition.
The fire, if it proves to be arson, would be the most serious incident in a series of attacks against the film in Paris, Lyons, Nice, Grenoble and several other French cities. The incidents have included the clubbing of moviegoers and the throwing of teargas and stink bombs in theaters.
... [T]he leader of one Roman Catholic group, Christian Solidarity, said, ''We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary,'' to stop what he called a ''blasphemous'' film.
The Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, condemned it without having seen it. He said, ''One doesn't have the the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother.''The film was banned in several countries and still is in Chile, the Philippines and Singapore.
Nakoula's arrest is, as they say, complicated. It may be more about placing him under protective custody than parole violation. Last week 23 people died in Pakistan in riots sparked by Nakoula's trailer, and a Pakistani government minister offered a $100,000 bounty on Nakoula's head. This in turn may have more to do with internal politics and his getting "amnesty" from the Taliban than his outrage over the video.
There's a difference between a serious film like The Last Temptation of Christ and a 14-minute piece of religious pornography like the The Innocence of Muslims, which was crafted explicitly to incite outrage and violence. Martin Scorsese and Salman Rushdie, whose Satanic Verses earned him a fatwa against his life from Ayatollah Khomeini, are serious artists who upset the tender sensibilities of conservatives with art that ultimately echoed the messages of the faiths they were accused of blaspheming.
Nakoula is a vile pornographer who spilled blood in the water at a crowded beach to draw the sharks in to attack innocent swimmers. Yes, Nakoula has freedom of speech. But freedom of speech does not include shouting "Fire!" in crowded theaters.
Nakoula got exactly the reaction he was aiming for, and although I support the right to free speech, it's wrong that so many other innocent people had to pay the price for him to spew bile. Just because you can do something does not mean it's good for you or your country if you do it. Nakoula and the moron who publicly burned a Koran are selfish narcissists.
Will this be the last time Nakoula is tempted to kick over a hornets nest? Or will he succumb to their stings like his victims in Libya and Pakistan? I don't wish him ill, but karma, a concept from another major religion, can be a bitch.
3 comments:
Funny how you seem to think the video was responsible for the Muslim violence. Even your Messiah has backed off of that rediculousness.
Why aren't Muslims rioting about this goofball?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htshvId51UE&feature=related
Maybe you are a dumbass fuckstick?
[sarcasm note: I wouldn't actually call you a dumbass fuckstick, even if you were, because it detracts from the facts. But to Mark (writing as his alter-ego dave c.) this seems to mean something.
Nakoula's arrest is, as they say, complicated.
You shameless Demococksucker. If the Bush Admin had done this you would've been screaming bloody fucking murder.
Amen Juris. They would have been screaming.
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