Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Would You Listen?
Two talented Nordic film makers — Hamy Remezan and Rungano Nyoni — have created a thought-provoking 12-minute film to immerse you in the world of a Muslim woman trying to escape domestic violence through the frustrating medium of a translator. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but this is an intense, harrowing short film that places you in the flip-side of a multicultural world.
https://vimeo.com/196593911
I’m curious if you end up agreeing with the film makers’ opinions on their own film, but we’ll leave that one for a separate post. In the meantime, enjoy the show.
Published in Culture
I think some of these women have a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
I really think these women are scared for themselves. If they were to help someone’s wife get away and it became known she would be in big trouble. It’s a form of slavery.
This is simply nauseating in every aspect: the helpless plight of this degraded woman, the deceitful subterfuge of the interpreter to deliver her back to her tormentor while telling her Allah will work it all out, the hapless and indignant police and the indifferent, unmoved son. A twelve minute horror show that takes us nowhere.
I’d also add that the film has a rather unsettling quality of detachment; like a wildlife film that shows a gazelle being devoured by a lion. It offers no moral sense either way; it’s just what is. As such, it’s voyeuristic.
I gotta disagree with that. Morally I think the film advocates the protection of abused women by depicting a world in witch an abused women isn’t helped for multiple reasons.
Something that I found really disturbing about this film is the face veil. If you aren’t able to see a person’s face you don’t trust them as much. If the officers could see her maybe they would try more. She is less effective at getting help– heck– she is less effective at being seen as a human being because of her prisoner dress.
I know this is a dumb question but I really don’t know the answer to this. Why did the son not want to help his Mom?
I can make a guess. It’s allegiance to his father; remember, women are second-class citizens. He also sees himself as one of the “men” in the family. Then there’s “saving face” and embarrassment with strangers. And finally, punishment from his father if he didn’t step in. I’m sure there are other factors, but those immediately to mind.
I have some thoughts on how to fix this. 1) Non-Muslim interpreters fer sure! Duh. 2) Treat it like a street mission — Sure, we’ll help you out, but you (and your kids) have to listen to the sermon (about living as a westerner) and convert away from your anti-Western, dehumanizing, toxic religion. Start by taking off that damn veil.
And eat this ham sandwich.
Hahaha!
I am glad to have a certain kind of Muslim immigrant.
Like my friend. A woman whose husband supports her continuing education — her desire to master English beyond the mere needs of survival. Intelligent, independent, with a charming sense of humor. A woman who has built friendships and relationships outside her own religious background. A couple who are earning their way and raising their English-speaking children in a supportive, affectionate, two-parent household. Precisely the kind of immigrant — the kind of American — we’ve always valued.
And one who’d have no future elsewhere — who could have been doomed to that kind of life. I want those kinds of immigrants to come to America.
I’m not saying open the floodgates, and I absolutely agree about prioritizing Christians (the persecuted minority should have first place). But while looking at Islamic culture with eyes wide open — let’s not totally forget those who are different, and remember that if our door is shut to them — and we cannot leave it wide open — that they may have no other door.
It occurs to me that if the two interviewing police officers had been women the victim would have removed her veil and they’d have seen her presumably bruised face.
I strongly agree Christians should be given priority as a persecuted minority, but we should bear in mind the worst Arab terrorist in American history – worse than bin Laden – was a Palestinian Christian who’s in a California prison right now.
For me, in view of recent history, we should curtail all immigration from cultures that are just too different from ours until we can sort it out. People forget that America did have a conscious and unapologetic policy of doing just that in the early 20th century, and not just for exotically different cultures either. They would let in a batch and then wait till they were assimilated. There is nothing wrong with going back to that, especially these days.
Ugh. It’s hard for me to put myself in that kid’s shoes. But I’ve listened to enough depressing podcasts about mental illness to know that children are just as loyal to abusive and unworthy parents as they are to the best of parents. It’s just hard for me to empathize.
I sympathize. The lady and her son don’t deserve the savage culture that they are born into. But we can’t have it both ways. We can’t let immigrants in that normalize violence and wearing a veil that prevents you from expressing yourself in the most necessary and human ways.
In the long-term (and since the long-term is bigger than the short-term that’s what we should think about) accommodating barbarism does more to weaken civilization than it does to civilize barbarism.
Sadly, we don’t know how to make cultures good. We can’t make Iraq or Afghanistan decent. Heck, we can’t even fix Indian Reservations or black ghettoes. First, we need to maintain our freedom and our decency. No beef with your Muslim friends (and many Muslims I have met) joining in though.
I agree completely. There are millions of square miles of vacant land in the dar al-Islam where these folks can be reorganized and educated at a tiny fraction of the cost of vetting and bringing them here.
Agreed. I’m not advocating letting anyone in for the asking. The numbers should be kept down to what we can realistically vet and to what is consistent with otherwise good policy. Just making a point that I think needs made — at least as a footnote — to these kinds of discussions.
No, Stockholm syndrome the victim sympathize toward their captors. I suspect many of these women act this way because they do not understand that an alternative exists or is even possible.
According to George Orwell at least, that’s not how it works in missions. According to him, bums in London gather around a mission and pretend to listen to the sermon until the food arrives. Jesus himself didn’t start trying to convert people in showy or forceful way.
29 And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.
30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
In essence, I think Jesus was saying, You don’t convince anyone by acting better than them. You meet when where they are, listen to them and then try to correct their behavior but only after being polite and nice.
I share your feelings rather than Jesus’s feeling. I want to scream at the Muslim world (many Muslims excepted) “STOP DOING BARBARIC THINGS.” But yelling doesn’t convince people.
Why with a $20 trillion dollar debt should we be spending anything on vetting and importing people?
Man, that was really tough to watch. Thanks for sharing.
You know who I want to bring in as refugees? Venezuelans. People who know what happens when soft socialism goes hard.
Then the problem is the 2nd generation becoming radicalized.
I saw the son character as the major weakness in the film. He was portrayed as a typical teen, yet seemingly unaware and uncaring of his mother’s position. If he was sympathetic to his father’s views we needed more explication than just the phone call to his father.
Otherwise, very moving.
Never forget how the Commies get kids to rat on their parents. This is why all of these evil people want to have control of the schools.
Agreed. I just thought that the son’s indoctrination should have been more clear.
There is no way to know. No way to know how many children will return to the faith, how many spouses are slaves and how many support slavery. It’s sad indeed because most people are and will remain just normal humans, but it’s more than just random selection and bad seed, it’s fundamental to the religion. How would we make a rule that we only take secular former muslims or no Muslims? We have to carefully craft criteria within existing law that makes a very tight sieve. But policies that actively seek them or even just don’t make distinctions are simply crazy.
Concerning second generation Muslims of “good” parents, here’s an example:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/11-students-arrested-for-disrupting-israeli-ambassadors-speech-at-uc-irvine-.html
I understand your perspective, but I saw the son as the major character in the film. His dispassionate, almost robotic actions in this horrific circumstance constitute the most chilling (for me) aspect of the film. I felt he encapsulated the filmmakers’ point of view: there will be no change, no evolution, no exit — not when the next generation is completely disengaged — even deadened — to the present. The past is prologue. And it is the definition of tragedy.
I didn’t write what you attribute to me above.
My apologies Right Angles. Let the record show that I should have quoted Western Chauvinist’s writing. Now accurately recorded below.