comments on the Mel Gibson/Haiti posting

Hmm… this Manila software that Harvard runs seems to have mislinked all the comments posted.  I’m cutting and pasting some manually and please feel free to use the comments button underneath this posting to comment on the original (below).


From Zoran Lazarevic:



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 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.


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.


From Fazal Majid:



You could blame Lazare Carnot (d. 1823) for fathering Sadi Carnot (d. 1832), the inventor of thermodynamics, and thus leading to global warming…

11 thoughts on “comments on the Mel Gibson/Haiti posting

  1. Why not blame the Polish? they helped out in trying to put down the Haitian rebellion of French rule…Philip, how sincere are you when you say “Jew-hatred in Mel Gibson’s new movie” You’re so sarcastic I can’t tell if you really think this is a real case of Jew-hatred or not.

  2. B.P.B.: I haven’t seen the movie and I won’t see it so I can’t say what is in the movie. I have read in the newspaper that people are complaining that the movie has elements of Jew-hatred.

    [I’m not boycotting the movie, by the way, because of its religious content. I don’t like violence in movies and have heard that this one is tough to watch even for people who are accustomed to screen violence. I prefer to watch violent movies on commercial airliners because then all the really painful stuff has been edited out.]

  3. Philip that is true. Ebert says it’s the most violent movie he has ever seen. I can take the violence; I’m boycotting it for religious reasons. I can’t support a film whose primary benefactor can’t be bothered to distance himself from his holocaust-denying dad, and who goes out of his way to make a minority group look worse than necessary for no good reason. Most of the film, as I understand, is dedicated to making the Jews look bad.

  4. I don’t think you need to go that far back to understand Haiti’s problems. You could also focus on the US invasion of Haiti in 1915. The occupation lasted until 1934. It looks like the US cannot keep its troops out of this tiny country.

  5. Surely, with Mel Gibson’s movie grossing $125 million in its first 5 days alone, there would be at least one or two instances of “Jew-hatred” someone could cite – I mean, a Sikh (wearing a turban) was actually killed in the days after 9/11 because he was mistakenly identified as a Muslim.

    Where are the rampaging Christians going all Kristallnacht on Jews after watching the film? Answer: they don’t exist, because evangelical Christians are the most pro-Jewish goyim on the planet.

    Who are the people talking about the anti-Semitism in this film? People who haven’t actually seen it.

    Mel must be Jewish too, considering that in the crucifixion scene one of the shots has his hand holding the nail and hammer…

  6. I like the comment from Fazal Majid, why not blame L. Carnot for fathering S. Carnot for global warming with the invention of thermodynamics 🙂

  7. “History is bunk ” – – Henry Ford

    History is always being rewritten . . . and before our very eyes . . yet , no one even so much as blinks .

    As to the PASSION of the CHRIST , it must be said ,

    ” What this little . . . JEW . . . . did for mankind . . . is beyond HUMAN understanding .

    ojsbuddy , russ conner 480-380-7483

  8. Patrick: how about that church in Denver that put on a sign saying “jews killed Jesus”? Or do you need to see actual jews being killed before you admit the existence of bigotry against them?

  9. Patrick Giagnocavo: I’m curious if you even believe that the Holocaust happened? I know people who have seen it and said that it was anti-Semitic. Why are you so skeptical that a movie could be anti-Semitic?

  10. In regards to ‘blaming it all on people that lived 175 years ago’…

    The descendants of colonialists have no room to cry about their ancenstors being held accountable for their actions.

    Wah! I’m descended from a bunch of money grubbing religious zealots that spread disease and incompatible religious beliefs across the world… Why do you say such bad things about my ancestors. Wah! Why do you expect the same behaviour from me? Wah! Just because I live in the dominant culture, why do you think that I should pay any attention to the lessons of history? Wah! Why should I be help accountable for my actions?

    Yep, it just goes on and on. A bunch of autocratic maniacs just trying to do, um, whatever the hell they want to do.

    Why should they be held accountable by history? Why should we expect to be held accountable for our actions?

Comments are closed.