Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
June 20, 2006

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The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim-Western relations.
*This service is also available in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia and French.
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ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

1. Can Australians and Indonesian ever be mates? by Duncan Graham
Indonesian-based journalist, Duncan Graham, considers the obstacles facing Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as they meet this month to consider how they can bring their two countries closer. In light of the political, social and cultural differences between these two countries, he argues that “their job would be made easier if the electorates on both sides of the divide had a sympathetic knowledge of each other's cultures.” Duncan suggests that this is best done through face-to-face visits by ordinary citizens: “If the two leaders agree to relax visa restrictions then maybe we can get together on first name terms, share a nasi goreng or a meat pie washed down by an es susu soda or a cold beer. It might make the task of Howard and Yudhoyono that much easier the next time they sip tea.”
(Source: Jakarta Post, June 14, 2006)

2. Smart integration is a must for Canada's Muslims by Mohamed Elmasry
Mohamed Elmasry, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Waterloo and national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, suggests a “smart integration model” to counter the challenges that immigrants face in feeling part of their news societies, “highly self-conscious social units whose sense of belonging to a group is collared by the feeling of being distinct from society's dominant majority.” In addition to encouraging Muslims to vote, his organization hosted “an intensive two-day short course for Muslims - imams, teachers, leaders, men and women, youth and seniors - covering such subjects as Canadian history, law, political system, the media, family counselling, and Islamic Law.” Events like this, he suggests, are integral parts of an integration program that seeks to ensure full participant of immigrants in their new country.
(Source: Middle East Times, June 12, 2006)

3. More than a game by Neil Stormer
Neil Stormer, who works in conflict resolution and foreign policy in Washington, D.C, suggests that “football is not just a game, but is also an economic force, a model of globalisation and, more importantly, a vehicle for conflict resolution.” Giving examples how sport has been as significant factors in ending or reducing conflict, at least temporarily, he explains why “organisations that promote understanding through sports see in them an unrivalled ability to overcome cultural, political and religious differences while promoting unity and understanding”: “those who play together find it difficult to remain foes.”
(Source: Jordan Times, June 14, 2006)

4. The global communication revolution by Mary Nashed and Maria Magner
Mary Nashed, a student at the American University in Cairo, and Maria Magner, whoattends the University of Iowa, consider how the internet served as the vehicle to bring them together across geographical and cultural barriers: “It is ironic that the Internet, a purely mechanical, electronic form of communication, is what has allowed us to get closer and to connect as human beings. It can take us to new places, which few of us will have the opportunity to visit, and fill them with real people. And while one person may not be able to make a difference, when we connect with others who believe the same thing, change is possible.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), June 20, 2006)

5. Two Arab movies push the bounds of cultural candour by Sarah Gauch and Ursula Lindsey
Christian Science Monitor correspondent, Sarah Gauch and Ursula Lindsey, talk about home-grown Middle Eastern movies that bravely address the issues of Islamic extremism and secularism, and push the boundaries of free speech. These movies have provoked both criticism and acclaim in their native countries of Morocco and Egypt, but this controversy itself has brought the films subjects into the public forum for debate.
(Source: The Christian Science Monitor, June 14, 2006)

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ARTICLE 1
Can Australians and Indonesian ever be mates?
Duncan Graham

Surabaya, Indonesia - "Dr Yudhoyono...has now become more aware of the 'internal dynamics' of Australian politics. The president has said to me: 'Presidents and prime ministers go, but at the end of the day these two cultures must work together.'" Report in the Australian media attributed to Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono.

"The relationship...is a complex one because we are very different societies, very, very different -- you could hardly find two societies more different," said Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Australian radio.

Howard and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are due to meet on Batam Island this month. Their job: To weld a patch over the buckled relationship, keep it afloat and set course for a new treaty that can withstand the inevitable storms ahead.

Success will depend much on both men's real understanding of each other's homeland politics and cultures.

Although they're supposed to have a warm personal relationship -- "mates" in the Aussie vernacular -- the two come from radically different backgrounds.

The sixth Indonesian president is a former general who's been in politics only seven years. He leads a minor political party and has to rely on coalitions to implement policy as Indonesia toys with democracy. He's a Javanese Muslim whose father was in the military, as are relatives on his wife's side. His eldest son is the army.

John Winston (as in Churchill) Howard (67 next month and ten years the senior) is steeped in the Western democratic tradition. His antecedents are British and he's a Methodist (Protestant). His Dad ran a garage.

Howard's a former solicitor who's been in parliament for 32 years -- the last ten as the nation's 25th PM. He's considered one of the nation's most successful and canny politicians with a reputation for taking tough decisions. His Liberal Party holds power in the House of Representatives and the Senate and is widely considered responsible for the nation's non-stop economic boom.

Despite the geographic closeness, few Australians know much about their neighbour. What they do know is mostly negative, particularly since the Bali bombs.

Ordinary Australians reacted with great compassion to the Aceh tsunami and the Yogya quake, giving generously. But they've been angered by stories of aid going astray, extortion and hostility to foreigners trying to help.

Judged by the raw comments on commercial talkback radio and letters to the editor, many seem to consider Indonesia a land of losers, an ungrateful, corrupt and poorly administered nation driven by primitive superstitions, doomed to be a mendicant forever.

In brief, Indonesia is currently on the outs with Australian voters. Any policy decisions taken by Howard at the Batam meeting which are seen to appease Indonesia will get a savage battering when he gets back home.

We Aussies, crow the smug voters, are winners. We've got our economy and lifestyle right. Not too rich, not too poor. We’re taxed heavily and inescapably but have all the services and security: Free education and health care from womb to tomb. Care for the downtrodden and distressed.

Locating itself in the world has long been an Aussie problem. Keating tried to position Australia as an Asian nation; the rhetoric now is that the country's interests lie in the Pacific. Many Indonesians think their neighbour is a U.S. state, not to be trusted, its people spoilt and rude.

Yudhoyono who has studied in America certainly knows the West better than Howard knows the East. But does Yudhoyono understand and appreciate that Australian foreign policy is powered by fear of the "yellow peril" and the "threat from the north" -- crude racist emotions equal to Indonesians' horror of separatism?

In the 19th century it was Chinese coolies coming to undermine Australian workers. In the 20th it was the Japanese army, then communism. Now it's refugees.

And every imagined invasion of the great rich and empty continent comes through -- or from -- the poor and overpopulated archipelago to the north.

Equally important is the question: Does Howard really know that the residues of Soeharto's New Order regime still have muscle? Is he conscious that two generations have had their minds, prejudices and understanding of history and the world warped by an authoritarian government? These facts are probably in his briefing papers, but they're not immediately obvious.

However well advised, the Australian PM is unlikely to fully comprehend the grip on the Indonesian psyche of the principal of the Unitary State -- or the power and importance of religion in everything. Few Australians can adequately wrap their minds around these facts.

Australia made a seamless negotiated transition from colony to independent state 105 years ago. Indonesia had to fight a long and brutal war to win nationhood -- a fact that has shaped the nation's politics.

In Australia, the army is a defence force. In Indonesia its prime role is keeping the hard-won country together. Yudhoyono's background is embedded in this policy that has the authority of sacred writ.

Although some claim Howard's term has seen the rise of the religious right, in common with most voters his tradition is the clear separation of faith and state and total belief in the rightness of that philosophy.

When the two men sit down it's easy to see the similarities. They wear Western suits and speak English. Yudhoyono has travelled widely, sent his youngest son to Australia to study and comes across as an urbane man.

On the surface they have lots in common. Culturally and historically they -- and we -- have nothing in common except that we live next door.

Wearing away the prejudices and misinformation is going to be a long journey with the meeting of the two leaders a necessary step. Their job would be made easier if the electorates on both sides of the divide had a sympathetic knowledge of each other's cultures.

That's best obtained through the personal visits of ordinary people. If the two leaders agree to relax visa restrictions then maybe we can get together on first name terms, share a nasi goreng or a meat pie washed down by an es susu soda or a cold beer. It might make the task of Howard and Yudhoyono that much easier the next time they sip tea.

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* Duncan Graham is an East Java-based journalist.This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Jakarta Post, June 14, 2006
Visit the website at www.thejakartapost.com (http://www.thejakartapost.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 2
Smart integration is a must for Canada's Muslims
Mohamed Elmasry

Waterloo, Ontario - The Muslim men arrested in Toronto on the weekend are innocent until proven guilty. But if and when any of them is proven guilty in a court of law, I hope and pray that Canada's Muslims will not be also found guilty by association.

Then the question will become: Why were a few Canadian Muslim youth trying to make a political statement using violence instead of the peaceful means available in a liberal democracy like Canada?

To my knowledge, there is no academic research being done in Canada or any other Western country to address the social aspects of this problem.

In 2003 the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) urged the federal government to allocate research funds to academia to do the needed research in partnership with the community, but we were turned down. Today, the government continues to spend lavishly on the policing side of the problem, but gives zero dollars to support well-documented university research.

Two years ago, after waiting in vain for the government to fund such research, the CIC launched its "smart integration" project despite having limited recourses to do so.

Minorities are often excluded (consciously or unconsciously) from full participation in the life of the host country. As a result they become highly self-conscious social units whose sense of belonging to a group is collared by the feeling of being distinct from society's dominant majority.

Although the smart integration model could well prove beneficial for all of Canada's ethnic and religious communities, it is a must for Canadian Muslims, who now stand at some 750,000 making them the nation's largest non-Christian religious community.

Here is an example of smart integration in action. When the CIC carried out research for its 2004 Election Report, it included a position paper on 20 issues -10 national and 10 international categories.

National issues included some being addressed for the first time by this community, such as healthcare, taxation, and defence spending, while international issues also included non-traditional ones for Canadian Muslims, such as reforming the United Nations.

The report specifically tried to promote "informed, committed, multi-issue voting," urging Canadian Muslims to vote by reminding them that it is both one's civic and religious duty to do so. Muslims are taught that bearing witness for (i.e. supporting) the best candidate will be divinely rewarded.

As result, for the first time in more than 50 years, the percentage of eligible Canadian Muslims who voted in the 2004 federal election was higher than the national average of 61 percent. This was a practical and successful exercise in smart integration.

By becoming informed, committed, multi-issue voters, Canadian Muslims proved on Election Day 2004 that they could be simultaneously good Muslims and good Canadians.

But post 9/11 Canada nevertheless has created an extremely challenging environment for Muslims and increased the urgency of accelerating the smart integration movement.

Imported extremist religious and political ideologies from their (or their parents') countries of origin are still dominant in some Canadian communities and are hindering smart integration; the result in some cases has been division, fragmentation, increased isolation, and in a few instances, destructive fanaticism.

In response to these challenges, many post-9/11 Canadian Muslims are trying to break away from such ideologies, because they are simply not an appropriate or constructive fit for the time and place in which we live. Because the civil liberties of Canadian Muslims are eroding, they feel that they cannot afford to follow the road of either assimilation or isolation.

The CIC) has worked to link associated current events with smart integration, such as when it called for the community to embrace "smart integration beyond condemnation" in response to recent terrorist acts in the US, Spain, and London.

Over the 2005 Labour Day weekend, the CIC hosted an intensive two-day short course for Muslims - imams, teachers, leaders, men and women, youth and seniors - covering such subjects as Canadian history, law, political system, the media, family counselling, and Islamic Law.

The course - a first in Canada - was well received, with women comprising fully one-third of the participants.

As a guest imam, I annually present sermons and talks on our smart integration model at some 50 mosques across the country; these are attended by about 50,000 Canadian Muslims and positive feedback is by far the majority response.

The smart integration model allows a minority to be considered an asset, thereby leading to positive feedback that benefits society at large. In the case of Canadian Muslims, smartly integrated individuals and communities are a must.

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* Mohamed Elmasry is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Waterloo and national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Middle East Times, June 12, 2006
Visit the website at www.metimes.com (http://www.metimes.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 3
More than a game
Neil Stormer

Washington, D.C. – “Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude, it is much, much more important than that!”

With those words, former Liverpool football coach Bill Shankly inadvertently alluded to a new reality: football is not just a game, but is also an economic force, a model of globalisation and, more importantly, a vehicle for conflict resolution.

Two days ago, in the pages of this paper, Pascal Boniface discussed the relationship between football and geopolitics. In the context of his article, Boniface jokingly stated that football fans believe that FIFA should be given a Nobel Peace Prize. While concerted, pro-active efforts need to be made before the noblest of Nobel Prizes is conferred upon football’s governing body, it is true that football and sports in general can play and have played a role in limiting the reaches of war and de-escalating violent situations.

There are numerous examples from the 20th and 21st centuries showing just how large a role football and sports have played in mitigating conflict. Consider the Christmas Truce during World War I; caked in mud and nearly frozen, Germans and Brits climbed out of their respective trenches along the front, set aside their guns and mutual animosities and celebrated Christmas by playing football. The truce didn’t last, the war continued, but soldiers on both sides found themselves unable to fire out of their trenches — to fire across their erstwhile football pitch — at their enemies. A large amount of wasted ammunition was recorded on the following days as guns were trained at the stars above and not at the enemy.

In 1967, Pele travelled to Lagos, Nigeria, then in the midst of a brutal civil war, to play an exhibition match. In order to allow both sides of the conflict to see the greatest ever play the game, a 48-hour ceasefire was called and honoured. A single footballer stopped a war.

World Cup qualification can do it too. Cote d’Ivoire is in the middle of a civil war. After the country’s qualification for the World Cup, President Laurent Gbagbo acquiesced to the pleas of the Ivorian football federation and restarted peace talks. The country now enjoys a tense ceasefire, thanks solely to the team’s trip to Germany. The peace may not survive much longer than the World Cup, but any cessation in fighting is a reason to celebrate.

Football can be a force for violence however. There is a tendency towards nationalism and racism, and the 1980s witnessed the rise of football-related gangs notorious for criminal behaviour and drunken brawling. The game has also “started” a war: a riot erupted at a series of games between Honduras and El Salvador, and the ensuing diplomatic collapse resulted in the 100-day Soccer War.

But the violence is the exception, not the norm. Sports have long served as a means of bridging gaps through peaceful exchanges and act as a diplomatic tool. While rivalries are occasionally inflamed through athletic contests, sports exchanges are seen as a safe icebreaker.

The real sports-related conflict resolution success to be had though is not through the temporary unity achieved during international tournaments or the diplomatic thaw following a friendly football match. While a successful national team’s efforts can bring warring sides together for the duration of the World Cup, the way to leverage football and all sports in the name of conflict resolution is through consistent, grassroots efforts to enlist the masses in peaceful interaction.

An increasing number of organisations take advantage of this form of peace building. Football 4 Peace is one such organisation. Since 2001, F4P has been bringing Muslim and Jewish youth together to foster understanding and to overcome differences through sport. The Peres Centre for Peace has used football in a variety of ways to foster peace between Israel and Palestine, from a mixed Israeli-Palestinian exhibition team to camps and tournaments for children from both side of the divide.

Acknowledging the role sports can play in building peace, among other things, the UN General Assembly, passed Resolution 58/5, proclaiming 2005 to be the International Year for Sport and Physical Education. The goal was to use sports “as a means to promote education, health, development and peace”.

Organisations that promote understanding through sports see in them an unrivalled ability to overcome cultural, political and religious differences while promoting unity and understanding.

While the temporary ceasefire in Nigeria during Pele’s visit and Ivory Coast’s World Cup-inspired peace are not to be overlooked, these examples are only part of the bigger picture. The path to peace should be paved not just with the one-off event and top-down, tournament-inspired ceasefires, but also with long-term efforts of those who try to build from the ground up.

The premise behind the practice is simple: just as the World War I-era British and Germans who entered into a wartime Christmas football match would not readily fire upon each other, those who play together find it difficult to remain foes.

No one seriously contends that football is more important than life or death, but if applied to more serious pursuits, it can mean the difference between war and peace.

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* Neil Stormer works in conflict resolution and foreign policy in Washington, D.C. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Jordan Times, June 14, 2006
Visit the website at www.jordantimes.com (http://www.jordantimes.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 4
The global communication revolution
Mary Nashed and Maria Magner

Iowa City, Iowa and Cairo, Egypt - In the past few years the entire landscape of global communication has experienced major change. While once the globe was a giant disconnected place, today the World Wide Web has managed to link a substantial portion of the world population together, allowed information to travel faster than ever, and empowered groups and individuals who had no voice to be heard loud and clear around the world.

The internet does not distinguish between races or religions, and in most cases communications between cultures are less constrained by biases and stereotypes, though language barriers remain. One such instance of the new power of the internet to bring people together involves the authors of this article. Mary Nashed is a student at the American University in Cairo and Maria Magner attends the University of Iowa. If it weren’t for the internet, chances are we would have never met. We were brought together by the Soliya program, which brings American and Middle Eastern students together online to increase cultural understanding. Using webcams and microphones, we were able to have a conversation as if we were in the same room together.

Prior to the internet, our information about other cultures was controlled and restricted by the organizational structure of the media - individual editors and producers acted as the sole gatekeepers to knowledge about other parts of the world. Individual and cultural biases are an inherent part of all media, including so-called “hard news.” It is virtually impossible for humans to be completely objective. Beyond bias, the unidirectional format of communication through mass media makes truly establishing context and background difficult. Questions can’t be asked. Alternative perspectives can not be explored with any degree of depth. Descriptions of earth-shattering events are restricted to a newspaper page or two, and television news only compounds the problem because its visual aspect makes us believe we are seeing things as they are, despite the fact that those images are chosen by reporters who are operating under incredible time constraints and who have a duty to their corporations to make the news as exciting and entertaining as possible, for fear that they lose their advertisers.

The internet, thankfully, has eliminated all these obstacles. It has no restrictions in terms of time or space. It is infinite. It is omni-directional. All views on all topics are available, and information can be exchanged in real-time, without interference. The only true barriers are those of language, but machine-translation and the wide-spread use of English are helping more people around the world communicate in more ways than ever before.

The best way to learn about another culture is to immerse oneself in it, and the Soliya program allowed us to do that. The Arab participants learnt, for example, that Arab media often portrayed American culture as being superficial and without much lasting value and gave the impression all Americans share the same opinions. Another common belief among Muslims in the Arab world is that since the attacks of September 11, Arabs are discriminated against in the United States, but we learnt that this was not the norm.

The American participants, in turn, learnt that Arabs were not the faceless terrorists of nightly news broadcasts and that many Arabs respect and admire aspects of American life such as their commitment to democracy, entrepreneurialism, and optimism. We all learnt that the media on both sides had greatly exaggerated the degree of animosity between Americans and Arabs. None of us felt that the attitudes that American and Arab media attributed to us were widely shared by our friends and family.

It is ironic that the internet, a purely mechanical, electronic form of communication, is what has allowed us to get closer and to connect as human beings. It can take us new places, which few of us will have the opportunity to visit, and fill them with real people. And while one person may not be able to make a difference, when we connect with others who believe the same thing, change is possible. The internet can make all this possible – and it is easier than ever to take the first steps toward greater mutual understanding across cultures.

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* Mary Nashed is a student at the American University in Cairo and Maria Magner attends the University of Iowa. They co-wrote this article as part of the Soliya Arab-American dialogue program (www.soliya.net (http://www.soliya.net/).). This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), June 20, 2006)
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 5
Two Arab movies push the bounds of cultural candour
Sarah Gauch and Ursula Lindsey

Cairo and Rabat – The teenage girl in a tank top and tiny shorts stands over her brother while he prays. "Are you sick?" she asks. "Did you fall on your head? You've become a [fundamentalist] now?"

The brother, only recently a devout Muslim, ignores her. She walks to the door of his bedroom. "Mom, dad, I just wanted to let you know your son's gone crazy!" she yells.

It's one of several scenes in "MaRock" that viewers in Morocco have found either needlessly offensive or refreshingly honest.

In Egypt, a big-budget movie with a star-studded cast is already causing a stir and it's not even in theatres yet. "The Yacoubian Building," due out later this month, exposes many uncomfortable truths facing Egypt today: Islamic extremism, official corruption, police brutality, and class and gender inequalities.

With internal and external pressure on the Arab world to liberalise, movies are becoming a key outlet of free expression and a format for examining evolving mores. Like activists, journalists, and bloggers who have been testing the boundaries, movie directors are also pushing the limits of openness and influence.

"Things are moving in the Arab world and people are becoming more and more aware of the importance and vitality of having freedom of expression, so cinema would definitely reflect this," says Cherif el-Shoubashi, the head of Cairo's International Film Festival.

Based on a best-selling book of the same name, "The Yacoubian Building" weaves together the narratives of several characters, including an Islamic militant, a corrupt businessman, and a gay journalist. It tells the story of contemporary Egypt and all its problems through the tenants of the Yacoubian Building, an actual structure in downtown Cairo. An elegant residence built in 1937 to house Cairo's bourgeois elite, the building has fallen into decay by the 1990s, when the film is set.

"It's far more frank and controversial than movies we have seen until now," says Egyptian critic Mary Ghadban. This was the movie's goal, the film's creators say. "This is not a simple love story, where you have your popcorn and coke and go home. This is a shocking movie. The film is saying 'wake up, there's something wrong,'” says Producer Emad el-Din Adeeb.

"When Egyptians see this film, they will have to reconsider their lives and how not to make the same mistakes again," says actress Youssra, who stars in the film and is so well known that she has dispensed with a last name. "We need to be shocked to realise how badly things are going backwards and how quickly things are going backwards."

While the film covers many taboo subjects, what's perhaps most surprising, film critics say, is that it passed Egypt's censorship unscathed. But Egypt's President of Censorship Ali Abou Shadi says he really liked the movie. "It's an important film," says Mr. Shadi. "It's critical of the government, extremism, and homosexuality. We don't want to cover our eyes about this."

Nevertheless, in its uncensored state, Shadi and the film's creators agree, "The Yacoubian Building" may well offend and anger Egypt's government and public alike. Religious fundamentalists might complain about its portrayal of Islam, they say. Others might argue that it shows a bad image of Egypt. Some may be scandalised by the film's homosexuality.

Like "The Yacoubian Building," "MaRock" was given the green light by state censors. According to Karim Boukhary, a writer for a French-language weekly news magazine, this decision is part of Morocco's liberalisation under the young King Mohammed VI and reflects "an official policy of the Moroccan government to tolerate a real margin of liberty in creative fields."

Abdelilah Benkirane, a member of parliament for the Islamist opposition Justice and Development Party, sees it differently. For him, the decision was taken by people who think that "to fight Islamism, young people have to be drenched in an atmosphere of debauchery."

"MaRock" director Leila Marrakchi, who now lives in France, says the film is based on her adolescence. "These are things that I lived or anecdotes that friends told me. The film isn't autobiographical, but it's personal. It's something I know."

The film chronicles the lives of rich Casablanca teenagers who drink alcohol, smoke hashish, and make out in cars. It breaks a whole list of cinemagraphic taboos. The heroine Rita refuses to fast during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and has a relationship with a Jewish boy.

Well before the film came out in cinemas, it was already part of the ongoing debate between Morocco's secular and liberal forces and its Islamist groups. The film's supporters have championed it as evidence of growing freedom of speech.

"In Morocco in 2006 a lot of things happen that aren't talked about and that aren't shown, that may be contrary to Islamic laws and social conventions," says Mr. Boukhary. "We don't talk about these things because they're taboo, because we're afraid. This movie contributes to provoking a debate. And it's a justified and salutary debate."

But the film's detractors have criticised it for wounding and ridiculing Moroccan's religious feelings. "This film shocked the entire population," says Mr. Benkirane. "It doesn't deserve to be seen and shouldn't be authorised in a Muslim country."

The Justice and Development Party has asked the government to ban the film. "There's a law in this country," says another member of parliament for the Islamist party, Abdel-Kater Amara. "There's a very clear law. We can't authorise films that attack the religion of Moroccans. They have to apply the law."

Ms. Marrakchi says the controversy over her film has taken on proportions she never expected. "My point wasn't to provoke or shock," she insists. "I wanted first of all to tell a story, knowing well that there were sensitive subjects." And, she says, "People should watch it before boycotting it. They should talk about the movie, not everything surrounding it."

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* Sarah Gauch and Ursula Lindsey are both correspondents for the Christian Science Monitor. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Christian Science Monitor, date
Visit the website at www.csmonitor.com (http://www.csmonitor.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright © The Christian Science Monitor. For reprint permission, please contact lawrenced@csps.com.

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Posted by Evelin at June 22, 2006 04:55 AM