Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
was a big-budget example of scriptwriting by committee, and
many of the people involved in making it should have walked the
plank. Nevertheless, that 2007 film and the
franchise of which it is the third part can shed surprising light
on why some pundits want the rest of us to welcome a new mosque
near where the World Trade Center used to be.
Supporters of the Cordoba House/Park51 project have been
as extravagant as the producers of the “Pirates” movies;
neither group hesitates to go over the top. On the one hand,
pundits like
Richard Cohen drop anchor in the currents of public discourse
muttering blithe absurdities like “if you do not believe the
attacks of September 11, 2001 were launched by an entire religion,”
then “you have a moral duty to support the creation of the
Islamic center” precisely where Imam Rauf and his wife want to
build it.
On the other hand, some goofball decided that because the
rivalry between two pirate captains was entertaining, it couldn’t
hurt to add seven more captains to the mix. A flotilla of fanciful
ideas followed: writing a parrot into a pirate
movie was too easy, so a Capuchin monkey did most of the sight
gags. (In fairness, Capuchin monkeys have also worked with actors
in other movies, and a writer for the Washington Times
recently
noted that Al Gore “blamed everyone and their monkey for the
failure of Congress to pass comprehensive climate
legislation.”)
Hefty as it is, the animal budget in the Pirates
movies looks small next to the special effects budget. “Going to
Davy Jones’ locker” used to be an idiom for drowning at sea, but a
visual like that doesn’t pop, so studio execs turned Davy Jones
into a tentacle-faced enforcer with a soft spot for a sea nymph
from the West Indies.
The mania for supercharging a narrative beyond its
effective carrying capacity also afflicts Cordoba House defenders
who paint project opponents as bigoted, shortsighted, and
parochial, because no single slander applies to all the bilge rats
in what the Condescending Class thinks is a field guide to the
American Right.
New York City already has a hundred mosques, yet the
Muslim population in the financial district is under-served, we’re
told, and so a factory damaged in the attacks of September 11, 2001
would be the ideal spot for a new mosque built by a
“moderate” imam — and don’t worry about the
only-when-discussing-Islam meaning of “moderate,” me hearties,
because if you do worry, you’re “fear-mongering.”
Although commentators like Nick Kristof, Frank Rich,
Richard Cohen, Kathleen Parker, and Mark Halperin
lament different failures of understanding, all of them are
“mosqueteers” writing for mainstream publications; all of them
think it reflects badly on the American character to oppose Imam
Rauf and his planned development. This attitude forgets the Gadsden
(“Don’t Tread on Me”) Flag and the reason why the Marines’ Hymn
refers to the “shores of Tripoli.” It also reminds me of a scene in
Pirates 3 where two captains want to command the same
ship, and neither man will yield to the other. Instead, the pirates
echo each other while barking identical orders at the crew. “What
are YOU doing?!” asks Captain Sparrow, with his kohl-rimmed eyes
flashing indignation. Even the do-rag on his head looks offended.
But Captain Barbossa — bigger, hairier, and altogether more
pirate-like — will not be intimidated. Glaring at Captain Sparrow
from under a floppy felt hat that would turn a less confident man
into a dandy, Barbossa applies classical pirate emphasis to the
verb in the same question when he roars “No, what ARRR you doing?!”
right back.
Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush were the actors hamming it
up in that scene; Frank Rich and Richard Cohen are the pundits
emulating them while they write now about the mosque controversy
(and it is that according even to the wife of the imam; spare me
the new line about how a “mosque-mosque” isn’t the same as a prayer
room in a 15-story community center). Rich played the
“Islamophobia” card, little knowing that Christopher Hitchens would
destroy
that silly diagnosis faster than Jack Sparrow munches on a stray
peanut. Not to be outdone, Cohen thunders against what he calls
“the pornography of analogy” and suggests that moving the mosque
complex farther away from the 9/11 debris field is an idea that
could only be embraced by cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Cohen’s
exasperation sounds cinematic, as anyone who remembers “Parley?
Damn to the depths whatever man what thought of ‘parley’!” and
Captain Sparrow’s witty reply, “That would be the French!” could
tell you. Moreover, Cohen’s argument, such as it is, suffers from a
clumsy bow toward moral equivalence. “I am a Jew,” he writes, “but
do not judge me by Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 murdered 29
Muslims in Hebron.”
What Cohen does not understand is that only a lunatic
would compare him to Baruch Goldstein because no mainstream school
of Talmudic thought condones murder, but there is no double
standard because the same cannot be said of the Koran and its
high-profile interpreters. In other words, belay that critique, Mr.
Cohen. We’ll be setting a new course, because it’s not Jews who
agitate against something as removed from religion as Greenwich
Mean Time; it’s Muslims.
That’s why when people who fret
needlessly about “anti-Muslim backlash” and have no problem
with current plans for “Park51” vilify those of us keeping a
weather eye on those plans, it’s time to hoist the colors.
“Stop fomenting discord,” they demand (sometimes
from the Oval Office), only we’re not the ones fomenting
discord. There is no hate here. This, my lefty friends —
this — is freedom of speech. As for keeping silence in
the matter, Captain Barbossa’s reply to a proposal from Elizabeth
Swann speaks also for me, to wit, “I’m disinclined to acquiesce to
your request. Means ‘no.’” Savvy?
