People are blaming all of the Jew-hatred in Mel Gibson’s new movie on the visions of a German nun, Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824). According to this article from Newsday:
The bedridden visionary, who is said to have borne the stigmata and the wounds of the crown of thorns, is a particular source of contention for Gibson because of her depictions of Jews as bloodthirsty and venal. In The Dolorous Passion, for instance, she “sees” Jewish priests passing out bribes to get people to offer false testimony against Jesus and even tipping the Roman executioners. She also describes seeing Jesus’ cross being built in the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem.
And Emmerich’s 19th-century biographer, the Rev. C.E. Schmoe’ger, wrote about how she had one vision of an “old Jewess Meyr,” who confessed to her “that Jews in our country and elsewhere strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices.”
Gibson, who carries a relic of Emmerich in the form of a faded piece of cloth from her habit, vehemently rejects characterizations of the nun as anti-Semitic.
In other news… I was listening to NPR news a couple of days ago. All of Haiti’s current troubles were being blamed on things that the French did in 1825 and this proposition was discussed seriously for 15 minutes. Haiti does seem to be in rather tough shape, at least going by the CIA Factbook page:
“About 80% of the population lives in abject poverty. … The economy shrank an estimated 1.2% in 2001 and an estimated 0.9% in 2002. Literacy rate is 53%.”
Despite an HIV infection rate of 6.1% and a lot of deaths from AIDS the population is still growing at an annual rate of 1.67%, i.e., there are an ever-increasing number of Haitians to share an ever-smaller pie. (cf. Malthus)
Perhaps there are more problems in our world of 2004 that can be blamed on those French and Germans who died circa 1825… Anyone care to suggest some dead Europeans to blame in the comments section?
You could blame Lazare Carnot (d. 1823) for fathering Sadi Carnot (d. 1832), the inventor of thermodynamics, and thus leading to global warming…
If I remember that interview about Haiti correctly, the guy who was doing most of the talking is actively involved in seeking reparations for Slavery in the US. It didn’t come up until the very end, but it obviously has a lot to do with how he interprets events.
But I’m sure we don’t have to look back that far to see instances of negative foreign manipulation in Haiti.
About Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ isn’t an antisemitic film. There have been complaints about how it portrays the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus, sure, but so does the Bible. The whole premise of the film is being as close to the New Testament and as realistic as possible. The movie is only as anti-semitic as the New Testament — which was written by Jews, by the way.About Anne Catherine Emmerich being anti-semitic, a lot of famous German people were portrayed as anti-semitic by the Nazis in the 30’s to give historical roots to their cause. They also did it to Nietzsche and Wagner.And, blame something dead for the problems of the world? How about the U.N.?
Europeans? Nah, that’s so pass
According to NPR, all the failures of “Third World” countries are related to colonialism, because as we all know “Third World” govt’s are never corrupt and they always address the needs of their citizens.
Lets not blame Aristide, after all he is only involved with one of the biggest drug cartels in South America. Let’s not forget the dozens of DEA investigations into Haitian official’s dealings with Colombian cartels.
And it’s all France’s fault somehow, because of what they did 200 years ago! According to this reasoning, most of Asia should be on the brink of Haitian style collapse any minute now.
I don’t know about French or Germans, but a bunch of Polish were involved in trying to suppress the Haitian rebellion. Maybe we could blame them? In reality it was the French who were pushing the Polish anyway. Of course, the Polish probably hate European snobbery more than us Yanks.
What about the French making the poor Poles fight to keep down the Haitian revolution? Maybe that has reprecussions nowadays…Phil, what is your non-ironic opinion about Mel Gibson’s movie, do you really think it’s Jew-hatred? I do. I’d be curious what your thoughts.
Well, assume Sister Emmerich is in the chain of blame, but who deserves the blame for Sister Emmerich — her parents, society, Church dogama? And then who deserves blame for those …ad infinitum. Which, of course, gets us to the question, “Is there an ultimate source of blame…if it is original sin, what is its source, and the source of its source….
What is your thesis? That it is currently popular to blame dead white Europeans for all the worlds ills? That has been the modus operandi for the last 50 years.
You don’t even support your thesis. Your NPR anecdote is the vaguest of hearsay. And the only person “blaming” Emmerich for the anti-semitism in “The Passion of the Christ” is Gibson.
Gibson’s sophistry is typical of christian fundementalists. He is not anti-semitic because it is not his vision it is Emmerich’s; she is not anti-semitic because her visions are “true”, or at least divinely inspired which is equivalent.
What is your thesis? That it is currently popular to blame dead white Europeans for all the worlds ills? That has been the modus operandi for the last 50 years.
You don’t even support your thesis. Your NPR anecdote is the vaguest of hearsay. And the only person “blaming” Emmerich for the anti-semitism in “The Passion of the Christ” is Gibson.
Gibson’s sophistry is typical of christian fundementalists. He is not anti-semitic because it is not his vision it is Emmerich’s; she is not anti-semitic because her visions are “true”, or at least divinely inspired which is equivalent.
Dead Europeans, no. But I’ll be the secret documents smuggled out of the country by our government before Aristide’s reinstatement have a pretty decent blame trail recorded in them.
Dead europeans, no. But I’ll bet that the secret documents smuggled out of Haiti shortly before Aristide’s reinstatement have a pretty good blame trail recorded in them, pointing to some pretty warm bodies.
Dead europeans, no. But I’ll bet that the secret documents smuggled out of Haiti shortly before Aristide’s reinstatement have a pretty good blame trail recorded in them, pointing to some pretty warm bodies.
I’d like to take the opportunity to blame Churchill for the problems in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. Of course, this is instead of letting people take the blame for their own actions.
Incidentally, Mel Gibson has said that (paraphrasing here) all of humanity is culpable for the death of Jesus Christ, and that he is first in line to accept the blame. (I heard him say this in an inteview on TV, so I can’t quote exactly.)
I tend find it a little strange that nobody has made a real stink about the text of the Bible that Mel Gibson is only dramatizing in “Passion”. Are people only now realizing what happened 2000ish years ago? Did they think a crucifixion was as clean as death by injection? Do Jews not like to be reminded of this part of their history? I’m asking seriously, because I don’t really know how Jews feel about the crucifixion of Jesus. If the Jews are ashamed of this part of their history, I can imagine it would be annoying to have a glaring spotlight pointed at it, but rather than try to hide from it (assuming the story is accurate), why not deal with it head on? The Jews are a proud people that have historically dealt with issues head on, so why not deal with this one instead of hiding behind this weak and ambiguous “anti-semitic” claim? Why not prove that the Jews are not responsible, or that everybody is equally responsible or any other claim that would alleviate the Jews of culpability? If the document Mel Gibson is using is inaccurate, why not just prove it?
Dead Europeans? I dunno, but I think Sigmund Freud can be blamed for a few of the things that are wrong with modern society.
I think the huge real estate values in some of the more expensive areas can be tracked directly back to the early American Indians.
By greedily holding out for 3 bead neclaces instead of accepting the perfectly fair 2 for Manhattan, they set the bar for future purchases at a pretty high mark.
After hundreds of years, the markup from that one bead necklace has caused real estate to sky rocket. Just imagine what it’d be like if real estate cost only 1/3 of what it does right now.
Two hundred years in a history of a nation is a short time to change human behavior without force. For one example, think that slavery was abolished in the U.S. in 1865, but the first black generation that grew up in freedom and equality was born in 1970s.
Compare today Serbs living a couple of miles away, across the river Danube which marked the border between the Austro-Hungarian empire (north) and the Ottoman empire (south). In the north, they live in neatly painted houses lined along geometrically straight roads, behind tall walls keeping the privacy of their property. Villages just south of Danube are hectically built around worn-out curvy roads, having short transparent fences displaying property in slight disarray. The north prides itself with culinary craft and the taste for fine arts from Austria and Hungary. The south takes pride in warriorship and macho attitude, and jokes about its own widespread bribery inherited from the Ottomans.
Serbia proper was liberated from the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire in the early 1800s, and united with the north in 1918.
There is absolutely no question, that if separated, the two regions would have very different economies. Just like there are vast differences between other ex-Yugoslavia states. And that is all after a century of common life, mostly under communism which tried to kill out (pun intended) all differences in religion and nationality.
Philip is the only person I know of who is a troll on his own site.
What? Are you suggesting that we abandon root cause analysis?
If we are no longer allowed to investigate our past in order to understand our current plight, then what exactly are we supposed to do? Cut our palms and have visions, or cast bones on the floor?
And then there is the whole. ‘Those that forget their past are doomed to repeat it’, thing.
I mean, if we are unable to find the cause of current ‘bad outcomes’ in the past because we might offend the spawn of some ‘dead europeans’, then we should be equally unable to consider any future bad outcomes of our own actions.
Seems like blind arrogance to me. Maybe it’s the blind arrogance of past european colonialists and religious zealots that makes them perfect targets for our analysis of misdeeds of the past and the bad outcomes that we live with.
Now, if we americans (and dare I say europeans) were more educated in the outrageous acts of cultures other than our own, then we could probably point the finger equally at non-‘dead europeans’ for current situations that have been wrought as a by-product of their non-dead european hands.
I believe President Bush did a diservic e to democratic governments he doesn’t like by getting rid of Aristide. His father did the same to Aristide.
The USA has not helped Haiti to come out of its misery.
I believe President Bush did a diservic e to democratic governments he doesn’t like by getting rid of Aristide. His father did the same to Aristide.
The USA has not helped Haiti to come out of its misery.
That’s a pretty weak comparison there. Gibson said his interpretation was based on Emmerich, so it’s reasonable to discuss her writings. Haiti’s founding and early history as an independent nation differed from other islands in the Caribbean, so it isn’t unreasonable to mention that — although recent history would be more interesting to me since I don’t have a clue what happened under Aristide myself. Just because computer science is only 50 years old, and got stuck in a rut thirty years is no reason to badmouth regular history for being so distant.
i think mel gibson is a big fan of the enqvizitzia!!!
i don’t think i’ll wach gibson moovie