Public service announcement

I don’t usually write anything worth reading, but if there’s one thing you should pay attention to, it’s this:

Syrian-American psychologist Wafa Sultan condemns Islamic fundamentalism on Al-Jazeera, calling Muslims “primitive” and believing in the “supernatural”:

It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand.

Unexpected viewpoints from unexpected places, but the first thing I thought when I peeped this (predictably, off a Myspace bulletin) was ‘wow, she’s gonna die real soon’. The original broadcast date was from last July (though the clip you see was published in February), so maybe Sultan’s attempts to quell hate between Jews and Arabs was a tad prescient. You know what they say, shrinks can read minds.

On a broader note, I checked out the rest of Middle East Media Research Initiative (MEMRI), the site that captured this clip. Fascinating initiative that will be an invaluable resource in the coming years, especially since I’m trying to spin my increasingly-obsessive obsession with Mideast media coverage into some sort of personal project.