Kosovo burns and not one western media source has spoken one word about what a UN official called a "Christian Kristallnacht". So take your western press to the outhouse where it belongs.
Posted on 03/25/2004 9:35:56 PM PST by MarMema
MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) -
Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion Of The Christ is quite an acceptable screen version of the evangelical story, spokespeople for the Moscow Patriarchate said Thursday after a public presentation of the movie that has produced much agitation and controversy the world over.
Days before an all-Russia premiere, it was screened Thursday especially for representatives of Russian Orthodox Organizations.
“Mel Gibson’s movie with all its graphic episodes is a heavy-duty medicine that will make people consider again the events that happened two thousand years ago,” said Bishop Marc, the deputy chairman of Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external relations.
“Many of our compatriots have plunged into materialism and are afraid of asking themselves the meaning of life and death – and these are the very questions that the movie sets forth,” Bishop Marc said.
When a reporter asked him about the reproaches for anti-Semitism that had been made against Gibson, he said he had not noticed anything in the movie that could be humiliating for one or another nationality.
“Movies on religious topics must not be treated as regular works of art, as they help people look deep into their hearts instead of seeking foes around them,” Archbishop Marc said.
“Let us recall that the internal sins typical of all of us mundane humans caused Jesus’s suffering and death on the Cross,” he indicated.
A priest who attended the presentation said about the artistic merits of the picture: “Undoubtedly, Mel Gibson revealed a great deal of talent, but it’s a pity he didn’t always follow the Gospels”.
“He could have done better without sound effects to relate the meanings that the Holy Scriptures describes in terms of silence,” the priest said.
In Russia, The Passion Of The Christ will run as of April 7, which is the middle of the Holy Week under the Julian calendar, adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The first show will be in Moscow, and the movie will go on screen in dozens of movie houses in 40 Russian regions in the several weeks after that.
Gibson's Passion will bring Russians closer to God - Church
MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) - The Russian Orthodox Church is hoping that Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ will bring many Russians closer to God.
"Those believers who come to churches in the Passion Week and participate in the passion of the Lord there during services do not need to see this film because they are partakers of a living church tradition. But for those who know little about Christ, but want to know more, for those who are not used to going to church on a regular basis, this film may really become a revelation and help them become closer to God," Bishop of Yegoryevsk Mark, deputy head of the external liaison department of the Moscow Patriarchate, told Interfax on Thursday.
The Passion of the Christ, a high-profile film based on a biblical account of the last days of Christ, was shown in Moscow for the first time on Thursday.
Bishop Mark believes the film is actually very naturalistic, for which its authors are often criticized. At the same time, one should remember that the film was made by representatives of the Catholic tradition, for which such naturalism is normal and natural. In this connection, he recalled the Catholic tradition of holding theatrical performances of Christ's suffering, in which the Savior's wounds are shown to the public to give people a better idea of what he went through.
"On the one hand, the naturalism of the film is a drawback, which should be taken into account," Bishop Mark said. He assumed that "if the film had been made by Orthodox people, they would have probably made it differently."
"On the other hand, in the modern world people are afraid of suffering and death and do everything to avoid these issues, for example, by sending their parents to old people's homes or living separately from their grandmothers and grandfathers. As a result, people often become thick-skinned and not responsive to other people's suffering. For this reason, the sharpness and naturalism of this film make people stronger. Its purpose is to break the atrophy of human insensitivity and to get through to people's hearts," he said. Bishop Mark said he did not find any manifestations of anti-Semitism in the film. "The film was made very well. All the biblical statements that could trigger accusations of anti-Semitism were simply removed," he said.
"If some people see anti-Semitism in the fact that the Jewish nation is allegedly portrayed in this film in not a very good light, I will say that representatives of the Roman authorities [portrayed in the film] seem to be real sadists," he said.
Bishop Mark called on the opponents of the film who believe it is anti-Semitic to change their point of view. "When we recall the passions of Christ, we do not accuse a specific nation, but we say that Christ was crucified for our sins," he said. According to the Orthodox teaching, "each one of us who do bad things and follow the devil in any of our actions are to blame for the crucifixion of Christ and his suffering," Bishop Mark said.
Amazing, indeed. Pray for Mel that he be able to continue his mission.
Of course Putin is a regular worshipper in the Russian Orthodox church.
A really good point. Thanks.
Had not heard that, well lets pray that it helps him open his heart to a free and open press and elections.
Like the ones we have here, of course. No election fraud issues in this country. Nah.
And CNN, etc, are all terrific. Just look at what a great job our press is doing to report on the catastrophes and atrocities in Kosovo right now. Not one word from our "free and open press".
Ever been to Russia? I have, many, many times. I can assure you they have freedoms now that we have not seen in this country since I was born.
"BALKANALYSIS Russia Aids Kosovo Refugees, West Remains Out of Touch
"You can count on aid and support from Russia," promised President Vladimir Putin to the people of Serbia Tuesday. While many other international leaders have voiced their support for Serbia in the wake of the recent Albanian ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo, only Russia has so far backed up its words with actions.
Out of all the great 'humanitarian' nations of Europe and America, Russia alone has taken the initiative to deliver tangible aid to the refugees driven from their homes one week ago. As Serbia marked the fifth anniversary of NATO's air attacks yesterday, the Russian government began its emergency dispatch of humanitarian aid for Kosovo Serb refugees- the final victims of a long and bitter tragedy not of their own making.
Two Ilyushin-76 transport jets containing tents, beds, bed linen, and lighting devices took off yesterday from Russia, with two more expected to leave for Belgrade tomorrow, reports Itar-Tass. On the planes will also be transported ".a mobile hospital with the capacity for giving medical aid to about 600 patients a day." In addition, a convoy of 10 trucks containing tents, blankets and mattresses is on the way.
Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu visited a refugee camp in Pancevo on Tuesday, and expressed his country's astonishment at ".the world community's placid reaction to the annihilation of Serbian churches in Kosovo."
"It goes beyond a mere destruction of buildings," Shoigu charged. "It was an attempt to wipe out from the face of the earth, from human memory and from history the things that had been there [in the land of Kosovo] for centuries."
In contrast, the response from the West has been far more muted. While righteous condemnations and statements of sympathy have trickled in over the past week from the US, Britain, Germany and others, these have seemed largely uninspired and unsympathetic to the Serbian position on both the pogrom and the provinces final status. And so blowhards like Richard Holbrooke continue demanding Kosovo's independence, something which is reiterated by Albanian leaders and other supporters of their cause. Yet shouting that 'only independence will stop the violence' has the unpleasant ring of a ransom pronounced by terrorists or kidnappers: 'pay up now or your boy gets it!'
Of course, this has been the operating logic throughout the past decades of Albanian separatism in both Kosovo and Macedonia. In every case, a provocation followed by a protest followed by mob violence and terrorism; the quintessential gunboat diplomacy more befitting great powers.
At first, those selfsame Great Powers did not decry these methods as perfected by the Albanian KLA. That's because they were on 'their side.' Perhaps they thought that once the war was won, Serbia bombed and UN administrators went in, the aggressive and well-armed young men who'd spent the previous decades planning how to take power for themselves violently would just melt away, cheerfully re-enlist in the ranks of the peaceful, and perhaps take up a useful hobby such as gardening.
One marvels at the West's total inability to comprehend local realities and local power struggles before committing to war and its inevitable aftermath. To be sure, there were many top leaders who did understand what was going to happen, but they in all likelihood weren't planning to be anywhere near Kosovo, except for the obligatory post-war baby-kissing promenades. On the highest levels, the Kosovo bombing seems to have been motivated very little by real humanitarian concerns, and most of all by a cynical pragmatism determined to sever the Balkans into smaller and thus more 'manageable' pieces. However, Kosovo is beyond management, and the Albanians know it.
This is their trump card: the understanding that the UN and NATO forces are not prepared to die for the values they claim are mandatory for the province. In the long run, the occupiers will be driven out, panicking and covered with blood.
Thus all the outraged comments by the spokesmen for the West take on a rather farcical tone. For example, former Kosovo boss Michael Steiner declared that the international community "cannot tolerate and will not tolerate" ethnically-motivated violence such as occurred last week. And EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana also declared that the Kosovo Albanian parties are in need of a "purging." We're sure he plans to purge them himself.
After Solana waxed eloquent regarding the need for tolerance, a Serb man, ".pointing to burned houses in the distance, shouted: 'This is your Western politics.'" Indeed.
Michael Steiner is perhaps the archetype of the UN-bureaucrat in Kosovo: an upwardly mobile, overpaid foreigner in the colonial bureaucracy, who promulgated many decrees, married his much younger local assistant, and left soon thereafter. The domiciles of the peacekeepers back home are littered with Kosovo's escaped young women (and, in a few cases, young men). As if watching the frivolous foreign courtships unfolding every day wasn't irksome enough for them, the locals have also experienced their share of suffering at the hands of their benefactors: to wit, the sergeant and the girl, or the maiden and the Egyptian, among others.
No, Steiner symbolizes the sheer banality of the cumulative Western effort these past 5 years. The continual solution to Kosovo has been to defer, defer, to keep staving off the inevitable for as long as possible. The occupiers learned that eventually, the centrifugal pressures at work would cause a violent explosion, aimed against the well-meaning West. The strategy, therefore, has been to defer the final bloodbath until sometime after one's contract has expired, and the hot potato has been handed off to the next generation of peacekeepers.
Now, here at the end of the line, we can't really expect the Great Powers to apologize, or even accept any part of the blame for this fiasco. Javier Solana now blames the people of Kosovo, and not the colonial administration, for everything. That said, in consideration of the massive outpouring of aid and refugee relocations the world gave 5 years ago to Kosovo's Albanian refugees, is it too much to ask of them to follow Russia's lead and pitch in?
In this case, the lack of interest shown by the world for the plight of the Serbian refugees is a fairly astonishing (Sergei Shoigu indeed had the right word for it) proof of what the limits of political correctness will allow. Indeed, considering that the Western media has spent over a decade incessantly declaring that the Serbs are sub-human, imagining now that they might actually be normal people is proving difficult. Surely, guilty parties will protest that this is an outrageous lie; but the bias, so subtle and so pervasive, effectively precludes not only sympathy but support. And so the rhetoric of Western media reports has proven feeble, guarded, unsympathetic- shocked not by the horror of mass murder but by the possibility that anyone but Serbs could have been behind it. Given that they clearly want to avoid all attempts at 'revising' the history of the conflict, the powers-that-be can only hope that the rest of the pogrom be nasty, brutish and short. Their lives can then go on untroubled, physically and mentally distant from the savage hypocrisy that was Kosovo.
Course having Russian ancestory I know how hot blooded you people can be, used to be that way myself.
Ever been to Russia?
I plan on it someday.
I have, many, many times. I can assure you they have freedoms now that we have not seen in this country since I was born.
No thanks to the efforts of former KGB head Putin. I admire their flat tax, and nothing makes me happier to know that Reagan defeated the Soviet war machine, but if you want to look down on my country as dreaming to be like the Russian Federation I suggest next time you visit you stay there.
Kosovo burns and not one western media source has spoken one word about what a UN official called a "Christian Kristallnacht". So take your western press to the outhouse where it belongs.
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