This remarkable documentary, well written, researched, and articulate, traces the odd, parallel paths of the rise and failures of the Islamist movement and the movement of the American neoconservatives. What makes this documentary so outstanding is not just that it clearly exposes many of the myths of the so-called "War on Terror," but the fact that it places the power of these myths in a larger and very important context.
This film's position is clearly that it is the failure of belief and of ideology in Western societies that has allowed neoconservative extremists to fill the gap with nightmares in order to assert power and influence.
Fear works well when people do not believe in anything, since that lack of faith makes them quite vulnerable. For the Islamists, fear attempts to fill the gap in societies that have lost their Islamic faith and roots.
The dirty little secret underlying all this is that both groups, the Islamists and the Neoconservatives, are, at the core, nihilists, in spite of their ideological rants and pretensions. One can only hope that a discerning public will eventually be exposed to the hollow, vain, and arrogant "men behind the curtain" in both societies, so that all can realize that these wizards of terror are just empty charlatans.
The sooner that happens, the sooner we can all click our ruby slippers together and return to Kansas, and, hopefully, to some measure of sanity, and, perhaps to a genuine faith.
This film's position is clearly that it is the failure of belief and of ideology in Western societies that has allowed neoconservative extremists to fill the gap with nightmares in order to assert power and influence.
Fear works well when people do not believe in anything, since that lack of faith makes them quite vulnerable. For the Islamists, fear attempts to fill the gap in societies that have lost their Islamic faith and roots.
The dirty little secret underlying all this is that both groups, the Islamists and the Neoconservatives, are, at the core, nihilists, in spite of their ideological rants and pretensions. One can only hope that a discerning public will eventually be exposed to the hollow, vain, and arrogant "men behind the curtain" in both societies, so that all can realize that these wizards of terror are just empty charlatans.
The sooner that happens, the sooner we can all click our ruby slippers together and return to Kansas, and, hopefully, to some measure of sanity, and, perhaps to a genuine faith.