Network Solutions’ Parallel
Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under Media, Middle East, Multiculturalism, News, Politics, Religion, Stupidity, USA
If you’re living in the United States (that’s where Network Solutions hosting provider is located), grab a map of the world and look east…east…east, find a pond called “Mediterranean Sea” just south of Europe, and then look a little bit more to the east till you reach the shores of Lebanon. Stop there and look no further. Lebanon is a country which Network Solutions should send a letter of solidarity to and thank it for sharing the same vision on freedom of speech and expression, due to its joint decisions of banning movies before even seeing it.
Network Solutions banned “Fitna”, Lebanon banned “Persepolis”, and the similarities in technicalities of banning are stunning.
Network Solutions provided plenty of thoughts for debate regarding “free speech” when it decided to suspend the website of Dutch MP Geert Wilders where he intended to launch his newly made movie (and according to some speculations it’s just a publicity/media hoax - something I do not believe it is) “Fitna” - the movie that is supposed to explain the similarities between the ideologies of fascism and those that are preached in the Muslim “holy” book “Quran” (”Koran”, “Kuran”, whatever you spell it). “Fitna” website simply displayed the name of this movie and graphically designed logo, and no other content was yet published, but Network Solutions decided to take it down anyway due to complaints received from the Muslims. Needless to mention that this decision is highly controversial and it is one of these few things that the people from the democratic societies - whether they belong to political left or right - largely agreed to condemn. World Divided was not an exception, of course, and covered the entire shebang in this post.
In case of Lebanon it is a ban for the movie called “Persepolis”.
Persepolis is an Oscar-nominated animation created by Iranian-French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi, and it tells a story of an outspoken little girl living in the days of the Islamic revolution in Iran. The movie describes the atrocities of the Iranian regime - arrests and executions that followed the “revolution” in 1979. “Persepolis” was banned (obviously) in Iran after the crazed thin-bearded pokemon Ahmadinajad condemned it, but it was a huge success in the USA and France and won Jury Prize at Cannes festival.
Lebanon - a home for the large Christian and Muslim populations standing on the brink of political abyss (i.e. civil war) due to bitter rivalry between the various religious factions - decided to ban this movie because the authorities do not want to upset the Shiite community.
General Wafiq Jizzini, the head of the general security department at the interior ministry, told AFP he had approved the ban after Shiite officials expressed concern that its content was offensive to Muslims and to Iran.
Offensive to Iran? Last time I checked Lebanon is an independent state and it’s two countries away to the east (look at the map again) - Syria and Iraq - to Iran. But yes, how could we forget that the Hizballah and the majority of Shias in Lebanon are loyal first and foremost to Iran. I wonder if Network Solutions didn’t want to upset Iran as well…
Of course, comparing the freedom of speech in the US and this in Lebanon would simply be ignorant on my part, because nobody expects a Middle Eastern Arab country with a large Muslim population as Lebanon to be fully democratic (despite their claims of being such), but here is another major similarity (except the act of banning itself) between Network Solutions and Lebanese authorities:
“The office that handles censorship matters also informed me in their report that the film attacks Islam and the Iranian regime, and this could spark tension with Iran,” Jizzini said.
He added that he had not seen the film and that his decision was not final.
Feeling comfy, Network Solutions? Now you even know whom to address your letter of solidarity to.
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