Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Film / Hicks From the Sticks Not Welcome, Documentary on Murfreesboro Mosque Controversy (Rough Cut)
Posted by Steve Haruch on Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM
Filmmaker Eric Allen Bell has been working on a documentary called Not Welcome, about the dust-up surrounding the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. He's put up a 25-minute rough edit of the movie at www.notwelcomedocumentary.com, calling it a "proposal for the long form documentary." This early version is definitely rough, but it shows Bell has some pretty amazing footage in the can.
Aside from the easy theatrics of Islamophobes spewing weird, barely grammatical vitriol, there are moments of real insight. Ossama Bahloul, the imam of the ICM, offers that making a big public anti-mosque stink is actually rhetorical ammunition for Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and elsewhere, who are trying to convince moderate Muslims that America hates Islam. Murfreesboro mayor Ernest Burgess seems to be reading his statement from a sheet of paper, but he also seems to mean it when he says "cultural diversity adds something to any particular location."
Then there's more of that vitriol — in one shot you see someone get in Bell's face and tell him to "get your ass out of here." But that's not where the story ends. Bell says all the hate started to get to him — at one point he taunts a mosque protester by mocking his misspelled sign — and he had to find another way. That's where it really starts to get interesting.
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Comments (5)
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Wonder if this "documentary" will include the two muslims arrested last week for attempting to buy & send weapons to their fellow killers in Iraq? Nah, that'd be too much to expect.
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Were those two affiliated with the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro?
Just another day in the white trash capital of universe, Tennessee!!!
It starts getting interesting is an understatement!
Yeah.....the hate GOT to Eric! Now, he's an Islamaphobe, himself!! Just like Agent Smith in Matrix, Pt. 3, he's been cloned by the Islamaphobes. Now, he walks, talks and thinks just like those bigoted people most of us saw in Murfreesboro, TN. The reason the formerly embedded video is no longer available is the Eric removed it from the Internet, as a sign of a departure from the truth, apparently. But here is the CNN version of the bigotry being shown in Murfreesboro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IMnXYiQKGY .
What a devastating & detrimental for Eric to change from being a person in favor of religious freedoms to do a complete 180º turn and begin to speak lies against those whom a person once defended! He's merely parroting what others say who lie and hate against Islam & Muslims.
After getting into the depth of it, Bell found another side to the story that made him realize the protestors of the mosque are legit. He was also receiving death threats from muslims, and to protect those he loved, and because he wouldn't promote lies, he yanked the film. Damn shame muslims are so hateful. Yelling "islamophobe" is just a way to squash free speech and truth. Good for you Eric, for waking up to the truth of it.
