A Quote by G. Willow Wilson
Americans look at the Middle East as a source of trauma because of 9/11. At the same time, I could see the fear going on in the Middle East as well - which would be the next country to be invaded or sanctioned? Being around those tensions was traumatic for me.
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There's kind of a hidden point which isn't being brought out, and that is that it is inconceivable that the U.S. would permit democracy in the Middle East, and for a very simple reason. Just take a look at polls of Arab public opinion. They exist. You can't find them in the press, but they exist from prestigious polling agencies. Released by major institutions. And what they show is that if there was democracy in the Middle East, the entire U.S. program for domination of the Middle East would be down the tube.
There are lots of conflicts going on in the Middle East. It is unclear as to which country will emerge, if any, as the dominant or hegemonic power in the Middle East.
The Middle East is not part of the world that plays by Las Vegas rules: What happens in the Middle East is not going to stay in the Middle East.
I wrote and finished the script for 'Man in the Middle' two weeks after the September 11 bombing. It's a very American film about an ex-diplomat based in the Middle East, a leader in the U.S. administration who now sells used cars in the Middle East.
We can keep doing the same thing, but it would be unreasonable to expect a different result. It's very important, I think, for us to stop and look at what we're doing.We've been applying a flamethrower to the Middle East. And not just to the Middle East.
It was important for me to show that Beirut and Lebanon were once the pearl of the Middle East. Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East and to have that feeling of a destroyed place that once was beautiful and glamorous and visually impressive was important. I think it's even sadder to get the feeling that this country, and indeed the whole Middle East, could have been a major force in the world if people would get together and forget about destruction, death and wars. But unfortunately, it's not happening yet.
I'm absolutely confident that the actions we took in Iraq are influencing reformers and freedom lovers in the greater Middle East. And I believe that you're going to see the rise of democracy in many countries in the broader Middle East, which will lay the foundation for peace.
I believe that the Iraqis have an opportunity now, without Saddam Hussein there, to build the first multiconfessional Arab democracy in the Middle East. And that will make for a different kind of Middle East. And these things take time. History has a long arc, not a short one. And there are going to be ups and downs, and it is going to take patience by the United States and by Iraq's neighbors to help the Iraqis to do that. But if they succeed, it'll transform the Middle East, and that's worth doing.
You look at the Koran or the Bible, they all tell the same stories. You see them as the stories of the Middle East. The stories reflect who these people were in the Middle East, and this is where Western culture came from. All our literature is basically influenced by these great myths. So I'm fascinated by it. You could almost say I'm obsessed with it. But if you're asking about the effect of religion on my life - almost everything I do is opposed to the practice of religion.
Fantasy is the tendency of Americans, going back to colonial times, to look at the Middle East as a type of fractured mirror of the United States - a type of mirror that could look a lot more like the United States, if, say, a Middle Eastern George Washington would emerge.
We're not in the middle east to bring sweetness and light to the whole world. That's nonsense. We're in the middle east because we and our European friends and our European non-friends depend on something that comes from the middle east, namely oil.
Historically, the argument is we stole the country from the Indians. America stole the labor of African Americans for over 200 years under slavery. America took half of Mexico by force in the Mexican War. American foreign policy, the progressives say it's based on theft. Why? Because look, America is very active in the Middle East. Why? The Middle East has oil. Notice that America doesn't get involved in Haiti or Rwanda because they don't have any oil.
So much of what we see and hear about the Middle East focuses on what we call politics, which is essentially ideology. But when it comes to the Middle East, and especially the Arab world, simply depicting people as human beings is the most political thing you can do.
I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East. It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.
After I made my tour in the Middle, into the Middle-East and Africa and visited Mecca and other places, I think that the separation [ from the Black Muslim movement] became psychological as well as physical, so that I could look at it more objectively and - and separate that which was good from that which was bad.
There are going to be a lot of questions, not just in my country, but across the Middle East. Is Israel going to continue to be "Fortress Israel"? Or, as we all hope, become accepted into the neighborhood, which I believe is the only way we can move forward in harmony. And no matter what's happening in the Middle East - the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment - the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one.
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