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ASHANTI TOWN
Robert Fisk in 1999:
I had just arrived in the Middle Fast, more than 20 years ago, when I first saw, on television, the movie Ashanti. It starred Omar Sharif and Roger Moore and portrayed Arabs as slave-traders, murderers, child-molesters and sadists. The film was, said the credits, partly made on location in Israel.
Robert Fisk in 2003:
Why do they still show Ashanti, a potboiler about the Arab slave trade that portrays Arabs much as The Protocols portray Jews: as venal, child-molesting murderers? (We shall forget that the Lebanese-born actor Omar Sharif acts in this vile movie.)
Robert Fisk in 2004:
Even today, we still show the revolting Ashanti on our television stations, a feature film about the kidnapping of the wife of an English doctor by Arab slave-traders, which depicts Arabs as almost exclusively child-molesters, rapists, murderers, liars and thieves. It stars—heaven spare us—Michael Caine, Omar Sharif and Peter Ustinov and was made partly in Israel.
And Robert Fisk two days ago:
You only have to watch the Arab slave-trader film Ashanti, again filmed in Israel and starring Roger Moore and (of all people) Omar Sharif, to see Arabs portrayed, Nazi-style, as murderers, thieves and child molesters.
Has anyone besides Fisk actually seen this movie? (Note also that Fisk still hasn’t mentioned the 655,000 Iraqi deaths claimed by Lancet. He either doesn’t believe the figure, or he’s suppressing it.)
There is one place in the world where a significant slave trade still exists. Yup, you guessed it: the Middle East. And even if they’re not slaves in the strict sense, the conditions under which many (e.g) Filipino employees work for their Arab employers scarcely rises above the level of indentured servitude. Over a million Europeans were kidnapped into slavery by the razzias of the Barbary pirates.
Sorry Bob, if the cap fits…
Posted by David Gillies on 2006 10 23 at 01:04 PM • permalinkI have this movie on video, the arab slave trader is mostly played for laughs pantomime style, but the main hero of the film is another arab who dies in the final scene fighting the guards holding michael cains wife hostage on a luxury yacht,one could easily make the case that the movie showed arabs to be noble people willing to figt and die for a ladys freedom and honour,in which case its an even bigger load of old crap.
Has anyone besides Fisk actually seen this movie?
No, but Fisk makes it sound quite interesting.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 10 23 at 01:06 PM • permalinkIt’s real, but Roger Moore isn’t in it.
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2006 10 23 at 01:09 PM • permalinkLet’s try that again, without the preview:
It’s real but Roger Moore isn’t in it.
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2006 10 23 at 01:09 PM • permalinkAshanti must be a terribly biased movie to portray Arabs as slave traders , sadists , and murderers . How insensitive!
DId anyone else notice that in 1999, Fisk said: ” had just arrived in the Middle Fast, more than 20 years ago, when I first saw, on television, the movie Ashanti.”
As the film was brand new in 1979, and in 1979 he saw it more than 20 years ago, that means he saw the film even before it was made!
AND on TV!
It was a Saturday night movie in Melbourne twenty years ago. Not a doco.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 10 23 at 04:20 PM • permalinkQuick—Somebody check theSoundtrack listing! I’ve got a hunch that it features Pachelbel’s Canon, Barber’s Adagio, Donovan’s Mellow Yellow, among others.
Hmmm.
Speaking of movies: Flags of our Fathers.
It’s ok, but I’d wait for it to come out on DVD frankly. And the most basic premise, that the picture of raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi was promoted to put money into a bankrupt treasury, is frankly pretty idiotic.
*shrug* You can tell there’s a serious lefty streak by the movie previews that precede it.
Posted by memomachine on 2006 10 23 at 04:52 PM • permalinkUnlike Robert Fisk, I saw it on television after it was made. I remember enjoying it. A slave trader, played with cartoony fun by Ustinov, kidnaps Michael Caine’s character’s beautiful North African wife and shops her north in the ME. I should point out to Mr Fisk that Michael Caine and Roger Moore (of all people, PBUH) are not the same person.
According to the IMDB trivia, Michael Caine did it to pay the rent, calling it the worst film he was ever in. This is a man who, just the previous year, had starred in a movie where scientists stopped a killer bee invasion by blowing up the Gulf of Mexico. So, hey! Mike Caine agrees with you, Mr. Fisk.
I remember seeing this movie. It stunk, but more due to the storyline and (I suppose) the directing. Several decent to good actors in a bad flick? Sorry, gotta lean towards the director.
As for Fisk’s obsession with Ashanti, it’s just projection. He secretly longs to be that evil Arab prince, buying beautiful women on the slave market to satisfy his lusts.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 10 23 at 07:21 PM • permalinkSeems Fisk saw this film in 1999, 2003, 2004 and two days ago. If he hates it so much, why does he keep watching it on location in Manchester.’
Fisk is an uncurable masochist, that is sooo self evident and wishes he had been one of those arab slaves.
The stoning he received was obviously not brutal enough to satisfy him.
it’s all down to the early relationship with his dad.#26 Very perspicacious of you Bobnmot
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 10 23 at 07:30 PM • permalinkA lot of Arabs ARE child-molesters, rapists, murderers, liars and thieves.
A lot of them aren’t.
Live with it, RF!
Posted by carpefraise on 2006 10 23 at 07:34 PM • permalinkOf course it was made in Israel.
It’s one of the few countries in the area where Western, and particularly American film crews are safe, yet can recreate ‘Middle Eastern desert’ scenes and not even worry about dysentry.
Anybody who’s toured the Negev desert will have seen defunct film sets for Indiana Jones (set in Afghanistan, filmed in Israel), Trojan horses (filmed in Israel even though Turkey is only an hour away) etc.
Fisk is obviously trying to suggest Israel is part of some grand Arab conspiracy, but as always, he’s totally full of shit.
Naturally he doesn’t bother to mention the Arab films, which consistently produce common antisemitic and stereotypical portrayal of Israelis and Jews such as the recent TV series based on the notorious antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Did I mention Fisk was full of shit?
Indeed first-time visitors to Israel are often surprised by the high-rise buildings, the hi-tech, the Intel, Microsoft and Motorola buildings along the highway compared to what they’d come to expect from various films on the Middle East.
By contrast, if you walk through nearly any Arab area, you will see, kids riding donkeys, garbage in the streets and scenes reminiscent of Ashanti.
1999, 2003, 2004, 2006, doesn’t matter. The movie’s still a stinker and Fisk is still an idiot.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 10 23 at 09:28 PM • permalinkIndeed first-time visitors to Israel are often surprised by the high-rise buildings, the hi-tech, the Intel, Microsoft and Motorola buildings along the highway compared to what they’d come to expect from various films on the Middle East.
That’s really a surprise to me. I thought everyone knew that Israel was basically South Florida with a better climate and mountains instead of swamps.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 10 23 at 10:17 PM • permalinkBut does the film Ashanti really exist? Or is it just an idea to rally people against the Arabs who may or may not engage in the slave trade. Certainly selling slaves is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. It is bad but the film, if it actually exists is a construct to demonise people who may or may not be evil.
Wait a minute here, Dan Lewis. I’m not really sure I understand. Are you trying to say that Robert Fisk, giant intellectual journalist with an unsurpassed knowledge of the Middle East and Arab culture is full of shit? Or did I misunderstand your covert meaning?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 10 23 at 11:16 PM • permalinkHey guys, come on, dont be so racist and judgmental.
Just because a culture’s moral code calls for the rape of women, the molestation of children and bald faced lieing, doesnt mean they are rapists, molesters and liars!
“Slave trading” is strictly a western concept. It is the long held tradtion of arab muslims to raid into “black africa” and slaughter entire villages except for those young boys and girls they want to take back with them for personal use or resale.
That’s not “slavery” or “slave trading”. Those are western concepts of which only Amerikkka is guilty.
The arab muslims are simply following their long held tradtions and customs.
You guys are such culturalists! and racists!
Why, I bet some of you are even Joos or worse ...Neocons!!!
#36 Andrea
That’s really a surprise to me. I thought everyone knew that Israel was basically South Florida with a better climate and mountains instead of swamps.
It gets stranger still. In the early days, a lot of Eucalyptus gums were planted as it was understood they could help dry up swamps and survive in the arid conditions, as they had in Australia.
In many areas, you can be driving down the highway and swear you were in outback Australia, with the added benefit that thanks to no Ozone hole, you don’t get sunburnt in 40 degrees.
#35 Kyda Sylvester
1999, 2003, 2004, 2006, doesn’t matter. The movie’s still a stinker and Fisk is still an idiot.
I strongly suspect it is one of his favorites, despite his public denunciation, and he secretly wishes HE were the one kidnapped and molested by Arab slave traders.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 10 24 at 12:41 AM • permalinkWhoops! I meant to also include this quote by Bonmot in the above post:
Seems Fisk saw this film in 1999, 2003, 2004 and two days ago. If he hates it so much, why does he keep watching it?
Cause he really, really likes it. ::wink-wink, nudge-nudge::
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 10 24 at 12:46 AM • permalinkWhen a culture hasn’t exited the 13th century, it’s unlikely to shed any of its facets, despite some of them being frowned upon by more modern societies; Fisk is a shameless apologist for Arab bastardry, and a shameless self loather. Let’s face it, if he didn’t grease up to loathsome Levantines* he’d be penning mucky purple prose on page 13 of The Sun.
Modern slavery is essentially an arab/Islamic phenomena, as it virtually always has been.
*I wonder what the attitude of Fiskys Mohammadan mates to his nudging the turps? His nose has got more prominent veins and blotches on it than Sharon Burrows thighs.
Hey Grimmy (#39) you are getting far too good at this faux troll posting.
They will be pinching your stuff for Lavatory Proto if you keep it up!
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 10 24 at 01:07 AM • permalinkSlavery wasn’t even outlawed in Saudi Arabia until 1962 (and I suspect that was pro forma).
Maybe Fisk ought to direct his outrage at his Arab pals.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 10 24 at 04:22 AM • permalinkIf it ain’t slavery, it’ll do until the real thing comes along.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 10 24 at 05:21 AM • permalinkDan Lewis: are you talking about Florida? I grew up in Miami, see, and know all about the dreadful scourge of the melaleucas, as we call them (aka “tea tree”). They did their job too well. They’re pretty trees though, in their way.
I live near Orlando now. I see an occasional melaleuca, but the somewhat cooler climate here doesn’t seem to be as good for them. We also have eucalyptus, quite a few stands of those, especially along the I-4 expressway near Disney World. They are distinctive because they are gigantically tall, taller than the baldcypresses which of course are everywhere. (You had to start on trees. I like trees, and can babble on the subject until I’ve put everyone into a coma.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 10 24 at 05:39 AM • permalinkHmm, I guees I know what movie I’m getting next from Netflix!
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 10 24 at 06:49 AM • permalinkSlightly OT, did anyone notice the header “Never-ending violence creates Iraqi diaspora” in the Canberra Times today? I can’t find a link to the actual article, but the main point was that Iraqis are bailing out in greater numbers than any exodus since Israel kicked the Palestinians out in the late 1940s.
Now, my knowledge on this is limited, but I understood that it was Israel’s neighbours who encouraged the Palestinians to leave while they (the neighbours) wiped Israel off the map. Can anyone confirm one way or the other?
#48: This whole Disney World theme park thing has run amok, I reckon…
Black water Andrea lived back o’ the billabong where the strange green reptiles crawl and snakes hang thick from the eucalypt trees like sausage on a smokehouse wall. Where the swamp is alive with a thousand eyes and all of them are watchin’ you… stay off the track of Andrea’s shack in the back of the Florida Kakadu.*
*Trademark of Paco Amusements, all rights reserved.
That’s really a surprise to me. I thought everyone knew that Israel was basically South Florida with a better climate and mountains instead of swamps.
Except for this all-important Cuban tradition.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 10 24 at 12:17 PM • permalink“Robert Fisk in 1999:”
“I had just arrived in the Middle Fast, more than 20 years ago, when I first saw, on television, the movie Ashanti. It starred Omar Sharif and Roger Moore and portrayed Arabs as slave-traders…”
Too bad Fisky didn’t get there 50 years ago, he could have seen real live Arab slave traders plying their trade.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 10 24 at 02:07 PM • permalink#48 Andrea
(You had to start on trees. I like trees, and can babble on the subject until I’ve put everyone into a coma.)
Thank God I’m not the only one…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 10 24 at 04:55 PM • permalink#48 Andrea
I like trees, and can babble on the subject until I’ve put everyone into a coma.)
Don’t worry. If Harry Triguboff gets his way, trees will no longer be a problem.
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It’s available on DVD, according to Amazon.
Gotta be good with recommendations like those from Fisk!