Film Review: “Islam vs. Islamists”
Martyn Burke's documentary "Islam vs. Islamists" (produced with Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev) was commissioned by PBS for its "American Crossroads" series, but never shown by the network. Quality control or censorship? Pajamas Media CEO and Motion Picture Academy member Roger L. Simon has seen the film and has an answer.
by Roger L. Simon
I have to admit the first thing that attracted me to Martyn Burke’s “Islam vs. Islamists” was that PBS had suppressed it. As is now well known, the Public Broadcasting network rejected Burke’s documentary – produced with Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev for the network’s “American Crossroads” series – on the film’s completion. PBS’ initial explanation for this blackballing was that the film was not good enough, aesthetically.
Well, yes, I thought when I heard that; that could be. Most things are. As a filmmaker I know that well. Not to my credit, I am usually especially hard on my fellows’ work – and on my own. Only one of the films I have written – Enemies, A Love Story – can I even watch today. Most PBS documentaries I find so stultifying I would rather read the phone book. The network has yet to produce its own Nanook of the North, to put it mildly.
So I assumed the criticism of Burke’s film was valid. Still, I was curious. I had not been entirely satisfied with previous documentaries I had seen on related subjects – Islam: What the West Needs to Know and Obsession – because, like Al Gore’s global warming film, they were made in the old-fashioned didactic style of the conventional documentary that always teeters on the edge of propaganda or special pleading. I assumed Islam vs. Islamists would be like that.
Boy was I wrong. Burke’s doc is a riveting and creatively made film about the most important subject of our time: what to do about radical Islam? It confronts this dilemma in a sly, novelistic manner, inter-weaving the stories of good, moderate Muslims with the Imams and supposedly “true Muslims” who, not surprisingly, accuse the moderate Muslims of not being Muslims at all. Soon enough we learn these Imams are apologists for terrorism and for the worst kind of medieval religious sadism. (One of them enthusiastically endorses the stoning to death of adulterers by holding up a Koran. “I didn’t make this up,” he says proudly. “It is written here.”) The mostly mild-mannered moderate Muslims are shown to be at risk for the lives, some of them accompanied everywhere by bodyguards.
All this is done with the people talking about themselves and revealing themselves (including the Imam responsible for the bloody Danish Cartoons riots). There are no so-called “terrorism experts” or other talking heads interpreting reality for us. In other words, this is a film, not another one of those didactic docs referred to above.
But it does have a strong point of view – and therein lies the rub. PBS, clearly, does not like what this movie says. And I suspect it likes it less because the film is well made (the reverse of what the network originally claimed).
PBS’ views seem particularly troglodytic today in light of recent events at Fort Dix. But that is the least of it. What is far more important to our country is that our Public Broadcasting network, an organization supported by taxpayer money, is practicing the most obvious censorship. PBS is operating here in the manner of similar institutions in the former Soviet Union and in modern day Iran – financing artists and then withholding distribution of their work when it is not deemed ideologically “correct”. It’s a form of thought-control and it’s unconscionable.
I hereby call on my fellow Motion Picture Academy members, whatever their political leanings, to protest this cowardly and un-American act of censorship. As artists, we should be appalled by such blatant disregard of our First Amendment rights. Public funding of PBS should be reconsidered if such reactionary behavior continues.
ADDENDA -
HOW CAN I SEE THIS FILM?
As of now, you can’t. There have been three public screenings so far, two in Washington and one in New York (standing room only). Another is under discussion for Los Angeles. Pajamas Media will keep you apprised if this happens.
WHAT CAN I DO?
You can sign the petition protesting PBS’ censorship here.
NAMING NAMES
The gentlemen at PBS directly responsible for this censorship are, according to Mr. Burke, Leo Eaton and Jeff Bieber. Bieber perhaps tipped his hand more than he intended when he told Martyn Burke “Don’t you check into the politics of the people you work with?” – evidently referring to Messrs. Alexiev and Gaffney.
As Burke told me about his whole experience, “I’m living the Hollywood Ten in reverse.”
So it seems.
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39 Comments
1. Chris:PBS has got to go. What a complete waste of tax payer money.
May 10, 2007 - 7:51 am 2. Dr. Ellen:PBS doesn’t like me – why should I expect them to like people I agree with? I just wish there were some way to opt out.
May 10, 2007 - 8:06 am 3. J. Black:PBS may get an unexpected result by supressing this film. By ignoring moderate Muslims, public opinion will continue to build against the Muslim religion and encourage the expulsion of its practitioners from the western world.
May 10, 2007 - 8:15 am 4. Edward Blewett:The truth can be manipulated, but it cannot be concealed for long. The truth will always surface. Lets hope it does so in time.
Ed
May 10, 2007 - 8:16 am 5. Insufficiently Sensitive:Were the rest of the MSM not so corrupt in their ideological lockstep, this story should rightly be on all TV screens and in the papers – “PBS suppresses own politically incorrect documentary”, or some such line.
But as with the French media, which refuses to cover the nightly riots in France with accurate information in order to prevent non-leftie politicians from obtaining public support, so will MSM in the US refuse to cover this partisan censorship by PBS. Should MSM cover it, our public might develop more well-deserved skepticism about the purveyors of political correctitude – and those purveyors, their name is MSM.
May 10, 2007 - 8:20 am 6. Cincinatus:From the perspective of PBS, they choose between angering:
A) A group that credibly threatens violence…
B) A group that gets people to sign a petition.
Do whatever it takes to get this film to the widest possible audience.
May 10, 2007 - 8:35 am 7. Edward Blewett:The truth can be manipulated, but it cannot be concealed for long. The truth will always surface. Lets hope it does so in time.
Ed
May 10, 2007 - 8:54 am 8. Patrick Carroll:I’d pay to see this film, were it to come to my hometown, Atlanta.
May 10, 2007 - 8:59 am 9. spongeworthy:What I find odd is that they won’t even release the film for viewing elsewhere. It’s not just that they don’t want to show it, it’s that they don’t want it shown.
I’m beginning to wonder if somebody isn’t taking money from the Wahabbi Lobby.
May 10, 2007 - 9:37 am 10. Matthew:This is a pretty outrageous story.
I’m hopeful that the alternate media will generate enough publicity for the show so that the attempt at censorship will boomerang. Success is the best revenge.
May 10, 2007 - 9:50 am 11. Peter Sibley:You can at least get the title right:
It’s “Islam vs. Islamists.”
May 10, 2007 - 10:12 am 12. John:Oh come on. This is not an outrageous story. PBS has editorial rights. It is not beholden to you just because a small fraction of its budget is federal dollars. (Indeed, Dr. Ellen, there is an opt-out — don’t give to PBS.)
I mean what is the implication here? That PBS is denying the existence of moderate muslims because why again? Because they (the “liberals”) support the terrorist? and so, what is it again?, by excluding this documentary they’re promoting the radical islamists that they love? Umm, this just doesn’t make any sense at any level.
May 10, 2007 - 10:25 am 13. pst314:“I’m beginning to wonder if somebody isn’t taking money from the Wahabbi Lobby.”
Nah, this is the sort of betrayal that they will commit for free.
May 10, 2007 - 10:31 am 14. Prospero:Is this ideological purity at work, i.e. political correctness gone crazy? Or is is old fashioned fear for their lives, i.e fear of becoming another Theo Van Gough who made the “mistake” of making a documentary that criticized the islamist extremists? Is this Sharia law being defacto enforced in the U.S? enforced against PBS? enforced against the U.S. government?
May 10, 2007 - 11:05 am 15. apb:Sorry, Johnny -
The truth is that liberals and liberal media have a story to tell, and they are so vested in that story they will not deviate from the storyline.
The story is that the US is the bad guy everywhere, and that the behaviour of the evil we face MUST be because of something the US did.
Definitely not a good story to show evil exists on its own, and that the evil is pervasive. The same liberals and liberal media REFUSE to connect the dots between US Embassy bombings, nightclubs in Bali, the USS Cole bombing, 9/11, the Ft. Dix Six, Morocco, the crazed Muslim shooter in Seattle, shoe-bomber Richard Reid, the crazed Muslim drivers in LA and at UNC, and al Qaeda in Iraq.
Stick your fingers in your ears, and repeat ‘LALALALALALALA’ all you want – the dimwit “gatekeepers” of our society so want to believe they’re right, they’re willing for all of us to fall with them.
Morons, all.
May 10, 2007 - 11:08 am 16. a guthrie:Why not just put it on Monster and let word of mouth move it along….or we could order it off of the producers, directors own website
May 10, 2007 - 11:24 am 17. Demosophist:a guthrie:
If the producers/directors don’t own distribution rights then they may not be able to sell the DVD on their own. However, they could join a long tradition of bootlegging, and leak it. That would not only get it out for public consumption, but would build an audience for this and future projects.
(Although, you know… I didn’t say that out loud.)
May 10, 2007 - 11:50 am 18. LTEC:John: Yes, by excluding this documentary they’re promoting the radical Islamists that they love, and yes, this doesn’t make any sense at any level.
But I agree with John that PBS is exercising editorial rights, and is no more or less doing censorship of their site than Roger is of his own site. Roger chooses to promote some movies and to ignore other ones, and that is his right. The problem is that PBS receives public funding, which raises the question of what public responsibilities PBS has. A similar problem arises for government funded art.
May 10, 2007 - 12:01 pm 19. Steven:John:
Are you familiar with the term “anti-anticommunist” from the Cold War? Substitute the word Islamist for the word communist and you have a prttey good idea of what is going on here.
May 10, 2007 - 12:15 pm 20. Johan Amedeus Metesky:I say that Burke, Gaffney et al should challenge PBS/CPB directly and start distributing the film – knowing full well that the CPB/PBS own the rights. Let PBS/CPB sue over the ownership. The lawsuit will surely end up publicizing the entire matter and PBS will end up with egg on their faces.
Or, recut the film, give it a new title and say that it’s a different movie than the one delivered. CPB/PBS owns the finished product, not the raw footage.
May 10, 2007 - 12:22 pm 21. Sissy Willis:I bought and paid for it. Let me see it and decide for myself:
“The Hollywood Ten in reverse”
May 10, 2007 - 12:43 pm 22. spongeworthy:John, you haven’t been following the story, obviously.
The line PBS is selling is that the Wahabbis are the representatives of True Islam and they are, with very few exceptions, peaceful and law-abiding. This is the narrative.
Skeptical? When you acknowledge the ridiculous amount of money the Wahabbis spend selling just that narrative (see:CAIR) PBS’s likely corruption seems pretty likely.
May 10, 2007 - 1:29 pm 23. John:What part are they against, it seems that by showing the moderates v extremist views within modern Islam, the documentary makes the multicultutalist point that its not the religion but just a fringe group. Or am I reading this wrong?
May 10, 2007 - 1:42 pm 24. Jeff:John,
The reason the Left does not want this film shown is that they cannot afford to give any credit to the argument that the western civilization faces a serious threat from the Islamists. The logic goes like this: The Left really dislikes the Bush administration. The Bush administration supports the “War on Terror”. Therefore the Left really dislikes the “War on Terror”. Since this film shows that we are on a collision path with the Islamists and their terrorist tactics, thereby giving credit to the notion that we are fighting a “War on Terror”. Because “Islam vs. Islamists” supports the “War on Terror”, the Left must reject the film else they run the risk of supporting the Bush administration.
The Left and the Islamists have a common enemy. It’s ironic that the Left and the extreme Right (Islamists) have the same goal of bring down the Center. If it wasn’t for Left’s hatred of the Bush administration, they would be first to reject the Islamists.
May 10, 2007 - 1:48 pm 25. Roy M. Postel:Well said Roger.
Your being kind when you label this form of thought control as being “unconcionable.” In the context of the “war on terror,” the decision is treasonous!
Sadly, PBS is not alone in its actions. The New York Times and the major networks provide aid and comfort to the Islamists almost daily.
I keep waiting for some event to stir the masses of this great land. Maybe this will be it.
May 10, 2007 - 1:55 pm 26. John Sr.:Sorry, everyone. John is my 8 year old son. He’s quite bright for his age, but likes to poke it in people’s eyes by posting opinions that are 180 degrees from what he really thinks. He’s childish enough to think that provoking people by posting poorly thought out comments is funny. Again, sorry.
May 10, 2007 - 2:14 pm 27. Cardinal:I do think this is unconcionable behavior on PBS’s part.
I’d recommend posting the documentary on YouTube and other video sharing sites. It’s next to impossible to trace the origins once it’s on such a website, and once it’s released even for a short time, copies will propogate even if it gets pulled from YouTube.
This is important information that deserves to be seen, and as others have commented, we paid for it – we can decide it’s merits without censorious assistance.
May 10, 2007 - 3:36 pm 28. Laika's Last Woof:Writing PBS obviously can’t help. They want to censor anything that doesn’t agree with their ideological bias and since they’re not accountable to us writing them won’t do a darn thing.
May 10, 2007 - 6:23 pm 29. Rupert:They are, however, accountable to Congress. Hit PBS where it hurts: write your Senators and Representative.
Look, is anyone familiar with isohunt.com? You can find any movie, sometimes, before it’s even released to the public( screeners ).
I find it hard to believe that some enterprising soul can’t seed this movie via Bitorrent or something else and spread it to masses.
Screw PBS. Your tax dollars PAID for this movie, yet we can’t see it. We put a man on the moon for Christ sake.
May 10, 2007 - 6:48 pm 30. Morton Doodslag:I agree with posters above. If there ever was a “killer ap” for the internet — THIS IS IT.
Apparently the restrictions on showing the film prevent showing it for profit, and I believe it can only be shown “privately” — whatever that means.
Well, Roger, perhaps we have a chance to make some new law here pertaining to both freedom of speech and the nature of the internet revolution…
I’m no lawyer, but I’d suggest that while the internet is certainly a public institution — most of the VIEWING happens in private — I don’t see too many bars with internet feeds on large screen TVs — so perhaps talk to a lawyer — from what I’ve read — the restrictions keeping this from being aired can perhaps be circumvented.
What could be more wonderful than shattering the stranglehold the elites have at a dinosaur like PBS — I like about 5% of what they do, and would hate to see that small amount of good work disappear, but the rest of it is pure marxist social programming.
The other day I woke especially early here in LA, and while tooling around I found all three PBS stations playing all spanish children’s shows — I guess they think the taxpayers won’t be awake then, and that the illegals will have parked their kids in front of TVs while they trudge off to their non-taxed, non-declared illegal jobs.
I watched, switching between the three channels becoming more and more angry about it — I paused on one channel — KQED — and watched an old Sesame Street segment warmed over to appeal to the Hispanic audience, and just as Bert and Ernie rolled off to sleep — A CRESCENT MOON AND STAR rolled onto the screen from opposite directions — as soon as they met in the middle — they paused, formed a deliberate Islamic religious symbol with the star nestled in the crescent moon exactly like you see it on the flag of Pakistan — and then wiped the screen to the next segment.
Apparently PBS has become the playground of the socialists, the multiculturalists, and the radical leftists to use public dollars to propagandize their utopianist nightmares on hapless children, and we’re footing the bill.
I’ve concluded we’re better off with them off the air — let those utopianist Stalinists get heard some other way on some other venue — one preferably not subsidized by me and most other tax payers who don’t want this kind of crap.
In the meantime — Pajamas Media could spearhead an effort to do an end run around their attempt at Soviet style censorship.
Blow the lid off them – blow the lid off the lies we’re being told about “peaceful Islam” — blow the lid off the stranglehold the elite decision makers have been increasingly imposing on the rest of us since they began infesting our universities, our media, and our malfunctioning government bureaucracies.
May 10, 2007 - 6:52 pm 31. Blogengeezer:PBS has, in the past shown films that have conveniently dissapeared. I find this not rare in their case. An excellent History lesson, PBS series to watch is ‘Commanding Heights’ I find it interesting that this series of three DVD’s and a viewing time of six hours, does not show up in bookstores any where. The reality of history can be shocking to the left. It can of course be ordered on the net from Amazon. I believe the same will happen if this latest ‘reality show’ surfaces.
May 10, 2007 - 7:02 pm 32. Blogengeezer:http://daflikkers.blogspot.com/
One other major ‘quirk’ of the Media, is the selective ‘file photos’ used with stories. The recent victory of the Conservative winning the election in France, was accompanied with a file photo of ‘widespread Rioting’. This appeared in the Albuquerque Journal (Homie’ of the New York times and La-La times). Up until then we never saw in our local media, any indication of the common nightly riots in France. Of course you have to realise the voting base of the left in NM is near the bottom of the nation in ‘literacy’, pictures are very effective. The internet was our real source of information and will be more so as the News gets more and more biased.
May 10, 2007 - 7:20 pm 33. Joseph Baker:Like the rest of the media and too many politicians, they have sold us out and it is treasonous. That almost an obsolete adjective.
May 10, 2007 - 8:10 pm 34. Redwonders:Looks as if those of us who have a gnawing feeling in our gut about a coming civil war, have more food for thought. The MSM doesn’t seem realize they will be high up on someones target list. Credibility, what credibility?
May 10, 2007 - 11:55 pm 35. Tibor R. Machan:[I wrote this column about the controversy:]
Over the last year or so some friends of mine have been involved in a crash course in bureaucratic corruption and bias at PBS-TV. They were invited, initially, to contribute a documentary on the conflict between moderate and radical Islamists around the world. Their contribution was well received at first, slated to be included in a series of PBS-TV programs that have just hit the television airwaves, “America at a Crossroads.”
Martyn Burke, the producer of the documentary “Islam vs. Islamists,” says his film was dropped from the series for political reasons. As reported in The Arizona Republic, he claimed “I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds.” Burke sent a letter of complaint to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films. He said that his documentary shows the plight of moderate Muslims who are silenced by Islamic extremists, and added that “Now it appears to be PBS and CPB who are silencing them.” Yet, as the newspaper reports, “A Jan. 30 news release by the corporation listed Islam vs. Islamists as one of eight films to be presented in the opening series.” The two partners were labeled neo-conservatives by those at PBS which they regarded a serious liability, enough to cause them to cancel the showing of the documentary.
I have seen portions of this film and it is riveting. There is hardly any commentary in it. Instead all those shown, as well as the events, are allowed to speak for themselves.
It is always risky to climb into bed with the likes of PBS and NPR, both media outlets that exist by virtue of the federal government. (Sure, they also receive private support-NPR recently got big bucks from Joan Kroc’s estate, the widow of McDonalds’ founder, who died last October and left $225 million to the organization which, incidentally, eagerly invites opponents of trans fatty foods to air their views. But with the feds, they wouldn’t be.)
The few times I have gotten near such outfits I felt the censorial pinch-when, for example, in the late 80s, Bob Chitester produced a pilot for a political philosophy series, with me as the host and the late Sidney Hook as the expert guest. The show, “For the Love of Work,” dealt with the ideas of Karl Marx. (Chitester, you may recall, later produced Milton Friedman’s immensely successful “Free to Choose” program.) The pilot we did was turned down somewhere in Washington after I was identified by one of the judges, according to The Wall Street Journal, as “a mere popularizer of libertarianism.”
More pertinent is the recently shown program, produced by Filmmakers Collaborative of San Francisco, about America’s anti-trust laws, “Fair Fight in the Market Place.” This is pure, unabashed, and unadulterated statist propaganda. And badly produced to boot.
For one, it presents only anecdotal stories of how wonderful the anti-trust laws are, mostly based on some of the prosecutions of price fixers and industrial colluders and the hidden camera shots shown of their discussions in which they clearly indicate their knowledge that they are breaking anti-trust laws. Among those interviewed for the show there is but one (Purdue University) economists, very favorable to the Sherman and Clay anti-trust laws, with the rest all partisan state and federal prosecutors.
Not a single, solitary individual on the program gave any opinion disputing the ultimate wisdom of anti-trust law and of the history of anti-trust prosecution, not even when discussing the failed effort by the Justice Department’s anti-trust division to break up Microsoft Corporation because of its supposed illegal bundling of the operating system with its own Internet browser. (I recall this case well since I took part in numerous debates, both at my own university and elsewhere, making the point that bundling should not be illegal and that it occurs time and time again throughout the market place.)
The main idea in defense of anti-trust laws is “consumer choice.” As if it were a proven proposition that only with anti-trust laws can there be a truly competitive market. The late Yale Brozen of the University of Chicago’s graduate school of business and University of Hartford Professor Emeritus Don Armentano are just two of the prominent, well published authors who have argued against this idea.
But why be surprised? PBS, NPR and PRI (Public Radio International) are all instruments of the American federal government’s self-promotion. If anyone is featured on any of their programs who disputes statism, you can be sure that there will be strong voices opposing such an individual. The rest, the cheerleaders of statism, aren’t going to be allowed to be challenged.
May 11, 2007 - 6:55 am 36. Eleanore F. Grefe:I’m oppposed to censorship in any form and I always believed PBS to be free of it….looks like a mistake was made somewhere.
May 11, 2007 - 7:25 am 37. dennis j dyrhaug:I am sending a copy of this to my local PBS station with a note denying any future financial support unless they relent and show this documentry
May 12, 2007 - 2:02 am 38. william jonas:Like Elanore above, I feel duped. I knew PBS had a prediliction for leftist politics but I felt they tried to be unbiased. Now it seems we are being mislead and once again the public gets the shaft.
May 12, 2007 - 7:07 am 39. Chris:The last time someone tried to make changes at PBS and NPR they were fed to the lions.
Is there no defeat for leftism once it becomes entrenched?
It is time to DE-FUND PBS!. Using federal funds to pay for television programs are blatantly unconstitutional, & the free market TV networks can produce a much better quality product anyway.
It time to call for the separation of media & state!
May 13, 2007 - 12:33 am