Atomic Jihad...

Atomic Jihad

 
The election of Barack Obama just over a year ago as President of the United States created an air of hope globally, so much hope in fact that he was very quickly (and rather prematurely I feel) awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  One of Obama's major policy shifts from the previous Bush administration was the signalling of a different kind of foreign policy and renewed diplomatic links to Muslim countries.
 
Despite all the attention on both Afghanistan and Iraq, the undisputed leader of the Islamism is Iran and has been since its Islamic Revolution in 1979 that swept the Ayatollah Khomeini to power and consigned the pro-Western Shah to history.  In a country dominated by religion, the sixth President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken a much more hard-line approach than his immediate predecessors and sent shockwaves through the region and the Western world with his words and his country's quest for nuclear power and weapons.
 
Joel Gilbert, erstwhile director of Farewell Israel (reviewed here: http://www.myreviewer.com/default/a98672/Review_of_Farewell_Israel_Review), has pieced together a new documentary that examines how the rhetoric of both Obama and Ahmadinejad differ in so many ways, not least how Islam views the concept of peace.  Borrowing heavily in terms of style from his previous film, Gilbert delivers lessons in bite-sized chunks and provides us with a history lesson of Islam and how it views itself, the creation of the Israeli state and the Western democracies.  Some of the material is almost lifted wholesale from Farewell Israel but it's a worthy lift as it helps to easily reinforce the message that Gilbert wants to get across.
 
Again one of the main lessons is the role of Islam in relation to Christianity and the Jewish religion.  Islam considers itself superior to both religions due to the failure of both to accept the role of the prophet Mohammed as a legitimate prophet of God, humiliating him.  Military victories and dominance in the area over a sustained period led to the widespread acceptance of Islam and a shift in power with Jewish race and Christians being allowed to live alongside Muslims as a protected peoples but not with equal status.  In effect, the Jewish people were subservient to Muslims and the creation of the Israeli state is deeply humiliating.  As far as Islam belief is concerned, there will be no let-up until the state of Israel is defeated and consigned to oblivion, at which point the Jewish people in the region can then take their rightful place as subservient to Muslims.  Sadly, or not depending on your viewpoint, the Israeli's are proving rather adept at matters military and not really lost a major conflict since its creation in 1947.
 
 Another lesson that hasn't been heeded just yet, or at least acknowledged publicly by Western democracies, is the Islam definition of peace.  Our Western version is essentially countries and people living side by side as equals (easier said than done, I know) whereas the Muslim definition is simply the absence of hostilities.  Certainly the rhetoric and footage shown of Ahmadinejad seems to back up Gilbert's view and the extra footage that centres around Egyptian president Anwar Sadat reinforces it quite solidly with his version of diplomacy back when Jimmy Carter was the US president trying to solve the Middle East problem.
 
The overriding lesson that Gilbert is trying to highlight is that despite Obama's own Muslim roots, it is uncertain whether the US president truly understands the aims of Islam and therefore his more tolerant stance may not have the effect he believes it will.  Whilst I understand this, I'm not convinced that diplomacy at gunpoint will work either - it certainly hasn't in Afghanistan and Iraq so far.
 
In line with Gilbert's previous film, his band Highway 61 provide the soundtrack, which is contained on the DVD as the second extra with the option to download. 
 
As with Farewell Israel, Gilbert has produced a thought-provoking film for those who are interested in examining Islam and its place in the modern world.  Personally I'm hoping that Gilbert is wrong because if he isn't there is no real hope of peace as we understand it in the Middle East and therefore an increased threat to our own regions with Iran leading the charge.