ISLAMOPHOBIA AND RUDOLF VALENTINO’S AMERICA. – PART II.

BUT ISN’T ISLAMOPHOBIA A TOOL OF ISLAMIC PROPAGATION AND HATERS OF ISLAM ARE PROMOTORS OF ISLAM?

By Mansor Puteh

So let Islamophobia teach the non-Muslim west and their closeted haters of Islam some good lessons and use their hatred of the religion against them.

In the early years of America, their education system was vastly different. Their media, too, was different. So was their Hollywood.

And not wanting to be direct, one can say, how these three major institutions had caused the thinking of some Americans to be so affected.

Added to the cause of the American media, which now saw themselves at being at the forefront of dissent, their gate-keepers who aim to lead the flock where their elected political leaders have all failed to do.

So in no time, what was once a tranquil and serene place became topsy-turvy when they started to embark on their grandiose plans not to understand and comprehend the lives of people who are not like them, but to force them to behave in their styles and adopt their ways.

American aggression takes place in many forms, one of which is through the medium of the cinema and music with their media in tow to provide the cover for them to perform the entertainers to play their roles.

And despite what many people in the world who say that the education system in America encourages its students to have a broad liberal-base, somehow along the way, specialization or over-specialization has caused them to become less so.

In this regard, many Americans are too focused on their own specialization that they tend to be ‘narrow-minded’, a term I am using in the most positive manner so that it is not seen to be derogatory. It is a compliment.

But alas, this sort of set-up has caused some Americans to become too focused and confused at the same time.

They end up being slaves to the voice and protests of a few, who are in full control of the media.

The media I am referring to are the papers, although in some cases, they also involve radio and television.

But alas, the cinema, or Hollywood which had at an earlier time been used to change the perception of their viewers and the general American population seems to have become less so, considering how dramatic their expression of divergent views can be seen by all and sundry.

In the end many Hollywood films are now politically correct. So few films are being made that can cause the viewers to feel sidelines these days.

It is a positive development of Hollywood, as far as I can see it.

And thanks to the globalization of Hollywood films and influence, it also manages to shape the thinking of their directors and producers, with some actors who openly support un-American-un-Democratic activities in their own country and elsewhere too.

They may not come close to Rudolf did, but since they travel a lot more than he did, they have no choice but to be open and liberal about sensitive issues, especially since they now realize that the future of Hollywood is also dependent on the reception of their films outside of America. 

As someone who had studied and lived in America for three years and also traveled much by land mostly in the Greyhound and Amtrak trains, transversing throughout the vast sub-continent, and being admitted at some two of their finest hospitals for major surgeries, I cannot believe that the America I see now in the media from Malaysia to be a stark different from the America I knew or used to know.

The real and reel America are totally different. The perception of what America is now is direct opposite of what it was, and still is, especially if I return to the country to see the entire landscape spreading before me, which does not look anywhere like the image it has in the mindscape of many, especially to those who have never been to the country, let alone, to live anywhere in it for a considerable period of time.

Studying film at a university in New York City, have given me a better overview of the whole city and country, more than those who were seconded in their campuses in the rural areas and away from the real America.

And being able to visit the 33 countries I have visited so far has managed to allow me to look at the whole issue in a wider perspective so much so that I am not unusually deterred by the common line of offense and defense both sides prefer to adopt.