Muslim woman twists Tolkien into crusade apologist

Muslim woman twists Tolkien into crusade apologist

Talk about your tendentious readings of a book, not even understanding it for what it actually says. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women proposes some “long-term strategies”, presumably for trying to convince the rest of us that christianity and the West are at fault for all the unpleasantness with Muslim terrorists and jihadists. Here’s one of the proposals concerning a particularly well-loved book:

Identify sources, which propagate destructive Messianic ideology and address them, e.g. Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, which can imbue children and teens with the “hate” ethos. For example, in Lord of the Rings, free peoples of the West and North enter an all-out war with the terror-inflicting forces of the South and East, in Middle Earth (Middle East?), for the second time after a thousand-year lapse (crusades?). On the border of the conflict lies the land of Gondor (Palestine?), run by a steward, and awaiting the coming of a king, who is also a healer (Messiah?). Interesting is Saruman (Catholic church?), the leader of a group of priest- or monk-like wizards, who in the previous conflict lead the wizards, but has turned evil, thereby necessitating the new leader, Gandalph (Evangelicals/Masonites/templars/another church?). Also interesting is the steward (Jews?), who fails to accept the new king and dies a pagan death. As we can see, this book promotes a disturbing world-view, made even more disturbing by the fact that it is widely read by teens and young persons.

Say what? Funny that when the book was actually written most of the Middle East was still barely out of the Middle Ages, it bears no resemblance at all to what Tolkien himself said about his book. In fact, he even rejected the most simplistic analogical interpretation of his work, that it was a reference to the then-contemporaneous World War II fight against the Nazis.

And just what was the problem that this “suggested strategy” was supposed to deal with?

The rise of a destructive, war-like, Messianic ethos, with a discourse of “good” and “evil,” and large-scale destructive policies, as manifested in war against Afghans, Iraqis and others.

As Melanie said to me upon reading it: opposed to “the rise of a destructive war-like Muslim ethos with a discourse of jihad and large-scale destructive policies as manifested in the terror attacks on 9/11 and other terrorist actions.”

[Thanks to Kathy Shaidle for the link.]

Technorati Tags:, ,

Share:FacebookX

Archives

Categories