Celebrating Cultural Diversity

Especially when they're barbaric nihilists who glorify the slaughter of innocents and endless total war. More "noble savage" pabulum from Kevin Sites:

Iran reveres its martyrs. But could respect for the dead lead to a threat against the living?

. . . Every row is alike at this cemetery for Iran's war dead, universally referred to here as "martyrs": long stone slabs laid side by side with the name of the dead, an etched portrait, and the date and name of the place he was killed, if known. There is a rectangular glass display case at the head of each grave, often filled with the martyr's Koran, prayer beads, an Iranian flag and a color photograph.

. . . In Iranian society there are few more revered than the martyrs -- defined as anyone killed during war or violent struggle -- or their families. Most receive financial benefits from the government for their sacrifice, including housing allowances for parents and widows, free healthcare, and educational stipends for surviving children.

But because so many were killed during the Iran-Iraq War (Iran has estimated that nearly 300,000 people died; figures for Iraqi dead run as high as 240,000) the Iranian government found it difficult to keep up with so many payments.

These are Iran's and Iraq's official figures for military fatalities, and do not account for the use of chemical weapons on civilians, or the millions maimed and millions of refugees. Proportional to their populations, the Iran-Iraq war was a bloodbath.

At the closing stages of the war, Iran was specifically criticized by the international community for its so-called Martyrs' Brigades, in which "dispensable" children would move in front of the combat troops, clearing minefields with their bodies and allowing Iranian troops to advance.

Spare me the scare quotes. Dispensable, expendable, disposable is exactly what they were. Sites is clearly ignorant of

the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields. Before every mission, a plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise.

The only note of disapproval appears to be a suggested parallel between Islamic death cultists and, say, flag-waving, bible-thumping Alabama rubes.

But because of the honor martyrs are given and the esteem in which they are held -- particularly amongst Iran's poor and more conservative religious populations -- the concept of actively seeking martyrdom has become an attractive option, especially amongst those who have little else to live for. The notions are reinforced by Iranian clergy.

The notions originate in the immutable words of Allah, dickweed. Crack open a Qur'an and see for yourself sometime. Well, I've had enough.

Moving on: while Western liberals may have raved over the jihadi propaganda piece "Paradise Now," the very suicide bombers it celebrates didn't like it. Not because it portrays them as bloodthirsty killers, but because it doesn't portray them as barbaric enough, plus it downplays their religious motivations. Funny, that's what I said.

The Palestinian film "Paradise Now," which explores the lives of a pair of suicide bombers and just won the Golden Globe for best foreign film, got two thumbs down Tuesday in this tough West Bank city where it was filmed.

Although the film — which snared the Golden Globe in Los Angeles on Monday — has never been screened in Nablus, residents here said the clips they saw on satellite television portrayed the bombers as godless and less than heroic.

"This movie doesn't help the Palestinian cause," said an armed Palestinian militant who would not give his name because he's on the run. "People who go to carry out bombings do not hesitate so much."

The film tells the story of two Nablus car mechanics who are sent to carry out a double suicide-bombing in Tel Aviv. They shave their beards to blend into Israeli crowds more easily, pray and prepare farewell videos.

Speaking during the glitzy award ceremony Monday, Abu-Assad said he believed the film's success stemmed from the world's recognition that the Palestinians deserve "liberty and equality unconditionally."

Try sheltered, ignorant, morally bankrupt Western "multiculturalists" who, by excusing atrocities perpetrated by anyone brown, are helping to fuel a global resurgence of anti-Semitism. Iran -- the original Aryans, by the way -- is about to rain down a second Holocaust, and Leni Riefenstahl retreads are winning awards? Does this make no one shudder?

The violence even interrupted the filming — once when Israel carried out a missile strike at militants near the camera crew and once when militants briefly kidnapped a cameraman in an effort to stop the filming of a movie they believed would portray them in a negative light.

The filming was then moved to an Israeli Arab city to avoid further interruptions.

Where they could not only film in peace, but those fascist Joooos did not hunt them down, confiscate their film, or check their library records.

During the Golden Globe ceremony, the film's place of origin was announced as "Palestine."

Naturally.