Monday, July 12, 2004

The Hatriotism of Michael Moore



LEE WEBB: Our guest today says that director Michael Moore and others like him, actively promote an agenda he calls Hatriotism. Ergun Caner is a Turkish-born immigrant who was raised as a Muslim. He is now a Christian and Professor of Theology and Church History at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is also the co-author of eight books about Islam, including the latest, Christian Jihad. Dr. Caner, welcome back to the program.

ERGUN CANER: Thank you, Lee.

WEBB: I am curious about -- Hatriotism. Tell us what it is, and tell us why you believe Michael Moore is the leading exponent of Hatriotism.

CANER: I think that what Michael Moore and others like him have done is to spit on the graves of my dead countrymen, who longed for the freedom that America has brought them. I think that Hatriotism is the new, modern, culturally relevant idea where it is popular to rouse up a crowd by making fun of America … or the administration, or the troops. The radicals are those who stand for the truth. I was tired of listening to man after man after man insult my people, by saying this was a war about oil, or a war about personal agendas.

- The Christian Broadcast Network

1 comment:

Sheryl said...

I wish they had a comment section to that essay. If they did, I would send it to my wonderful persian friend Mehrdad.

He was telling me that he came to America after his sister introduced him to books by people like Noam Chomsky. He said that he left Iran, because he wanted religious freedom (the freedom to not be religious actually.)

He said the reason that the Ayatollah Khamenei came into power was solely because everyone was reacting to the Shah of Iran. For some reason they didn't like having a US controlled puppet government that murdered a lot of people to maintain control. (That last sentence is my addition not Mehrdad's, but it is well established that the Shah had a brutal police force called Savak.)

So everyone reacted and went for the other guy, who happened to be a religious extremist. And that is why a lot of persians came to the US at that time. I saw Mehrdad and his wife at the movie theater the day I saw Fahrenheit 9/11. They had not yet seen the movie, but he was really looking forward to it. I don't think he would refer to it as "hatriotism."