William Marling Judgeth: when the White Man visits AUB

Wake up the children and release the uninfected pigs from the barn. William Marling wants to alert the Western world to the bad deeds of Arabs. And you can tell the motives of Marling simply by the platform that he selected for his complaints. Yes, Mar. Marling: the Wall Street Journal is known for its cultural sensitivity and political alertness to Arabs and their grievances. You could not find any better platform, indeed. And the little silly article has so many errors that it does not deserve a rebuttal. First, he compiles a list of censored books over the decades: as if there have not been banned books during those times in the West. Secondly, he does not mention that the bans have been conducted by allies of the US: censorship should be blamed on the governments of the region and the kooky clerics who are all now clients and allies of the US empire. And then there are the errors. Look at this dude here: "All of Jane Fonda's films are banned, since she visited Israel in 1982 to court votes for Tom Hayden's Senate run." Well, no Mr. Marling (don't you like it the White Man when he goes to AUB for a semster or a year and then appoints himself an expert on the Middle East without having studied the region or learned its languages). Fonda is banned not for visiting Israel (although I am IN FAVOR of bann artists and celebrities who visit Israel just as we did a smilar ban during apartheid South Africa), but because she visited Lebanon in 1982 to cheer Israeli soldiers while they were bombing the shit out of Lebanon. Did you get that? You simply mention her visit in 1982 without mentioning the reason for that timely visit. ANd notice that he does not mention that the Arabs don't need the White Man to fight against censorship: they can do that on their own. He for example mentions: "Writers in Arabic are not exempt. Abdo Wazen's "The Garden of the Senses" and Layla Baalbaki's "Hana's Voyage to the Moon" were taken to court. Syria's Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was prosecuted for his "Critique of Religious Thinking." But he is too ignorant or too malfeasant to mention that public pressures led in all three cases to the lifting of the ban. ANd then he suddenly adds this toward the end: "Books of all types are routinely photocopied for use in high schools and universities. As for DVDs, you have only to mention a title and a pirated copy appears. "Slumdog Millionaire" was available in video shops before it opened in the U.S." Oh, how awful and sad. By the way, can you fetch me a few titles while you are there? I hear that the quality of pirated DVDs is really high in Lebanon. And notice that this Marling guy did not feel outraged when Israel bombed the shit out of Lebanon in 2006 and did not feel compelled to write in the Wall Street Journal to protest Israeli crimes but felt moral outrage when he learned that Jane Fonda is banned. And does Israel allow books calling for its destruction? We know the answer. That tells you something--something not nice of course--about this man and his standards. (thanks Olivia)