Well, if you wanted to tie the Arab world back with Fascism, there's always the large number of Moroccan soldiers in Franco's army.
I don't think either that or the North Africans in the Free French Army says much about Islamic relations to Nazis per se. Certainly there were elements in the Arab world who viewed the Nazis as enemies of their enemy, just as there were in Indian nationalism. (And I'm sure the British were kicking themselves for manoeuvering one of these guys into a job as Grand Mufti in Jerusalem.) But then as now, I suspect that opinions among 'Moslems' or even just 'Arabs' were so diverse and contentious that no generalizations can be made.

Speaking of "fallacious framing", is anybody else seeing the Google Ad for "The Truth About Muhammad"?

Blue: Yep. Just filtered it out. Google's idea of "relevance" isn't always spot-on.

In my misplaced sense of fair play, I went over to the Amazon page for the book in question and skimmed through the "discussions" section.

I wish I could say I was disappointed, even unpleasantly so, but I guess I'm just to point of accepting that people are blazing morons. Ethnics, farmers, gays, and patriots can have their little pride parades, but for imbeciles the world is one everlasting Mardi Gras.

I don't think either that or the North Africans in the Free French Army says much about Islamic relations to Nazis per se...But then as now, I suspect that opinions among 'Moslems' or even just 'Arabs' were so diverse and contentious that no generalizations can be made.

This is the point L was making with his reference to Irshad Manji. She has a nasty habit of making sweeping generalizations about the Islamic world supporting Nazis, being complicit in the Holocaust, etc based on anecdotal evidence. There is a post about this issue in our archives.

Blue: In my misplaced sense of fair play, I went over to the Amazon page for the book in question and skimmed through the "discussions" section.

You're sick, get help.

Well, it's still metaphysically possible for intelligent opinions to arise anywhere.

Also there's a certain amusement value.

True, all things are possible in the universe given infinite time. I might sprout a second head any minute now.

You should take a look at the Amazon reviews for the romance novels I read a few weeks back. Averaging 4.5-5 stars, ha.

> I might sprout a second head any minute now.

And your quest for YouTube stardom would be complete.

Well, now I have seen the movie, and liked it. My French is unfortunately a bit too poor to catch all the dialogue (except the parts in Arabic, which were subtitled), but, I got most of it. And since it's basically a war movie, it wasn't too hard to follow anyway.

I liked it, but then I've got a weak spot for both war movies & politics, so others may disagree. Like a Maghrebine Muslim version of Saving Private Ryan (complete with a heroic last stand in a pretty French village in the end), with quite a lot of politics thrown in on top. And generally good acting.

Apparently Bouchareb's next project is a film on the Algerian colonisation and the Sétif massacres, as a follow-up to this one, to be released in two years. Very interesting if it works out.