When Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty more than 30 years ago to having illicit sex with a 13-year-old girl, his legal counsel brokered a plea agreement, according to press accounts, in order to avoid incarceration. But then the judge (now dead) reportedly reneged, and Polanski, 43 at the time, was confronted with the possibility of serious jail time. So the director, like in good movie drama, fled the country and has lived in France ever since, frequently visited neighboring European countries.

According to a New York Times op-ed piece by a friend of his, Polanski dined privately with three French presidents and has lived a life unmolested by French political and law enforcement officials for decades. In fact, he enjoyed the perks of celebrity status as he continued his film career. According to a Slate “Explainer” article, France and the United States have an extradition agreement in which both countries must consent to transfer fugitives. The Americans wanted Polanski, but the French declined, hence the man's freedom until Swiss law enforcement authorities finally arrested him two weeks ago.

While I make no judgment about this case per se, the following comes to mind: the French seem to have no problem granting freedom and privilege to a man who "drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in the home of actor Jack Nicholson" (according to Slate). Yet French President Nicolas Sarkozy may declare, with little public dissent, that a woman who wears a burqa is not welcome in France because the burqa is a symbol of a woman's repression. In other words, the rape of a girl has no negative symbolism, and if there were such symbolism, then its expiration is rushed along nicely by a rapist's association with the arts.

Is this what we may infer from this French quandary? To recap, a middle-age man who reportedly forced a girl to satisfy his lust in natural and unnatural ways repeatedly is welcome in France to live, work, sign autographs, and dine at high levels, but a woman who dresses like the mother of Jesus (God bless mother and son) is told that there's no room at the inn.

It seems that once again the age of placid paradox hands us another controversy. Like others, this one draws attention to the unevenness of contemporary liberal discretion, if not neo-colonialist self-righteousness. Life mimicking his own art, Polanski has become a symbol of sorts, attracting commentary that ranges from insightful to truly bizarre, splitting even those who are of liberal-leaning persuasion. Hundreds of well-known men and women, mostly of the literati and cinema arts, have come to the man’s defense and have gone so far as to demand not only his release from Swiss custody but his acquittal for the reported rape and sodomizing of a little girl. Let us have a moment of reflection here: no one of repute would defend Polanski’s right to acquittal if the offender were Polanski the Plumber or, worse yet, Polanski the Afghani.

Instead, it is Polanski’s cultural status as a film director, a Western award-winner to boot (not the passage of time, the offer of forgiveness by the victim, alleged malfeasance of the judge, or any other “yellow cake” argument) that has the likes of Whoopi Goldberg (“It wasn’t rape-rape”), Salman Rushdie, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, and many others signing all kinds of petitions demanding Polanski’s release. Notes Ben Crair in The Daily Beast, “Like their forebears, today’s limousine liberals display a very special brand of class-conscious hypocrisy. These people would never rally around an admitted child rapist, unless that admitted child rapist made great films, won prestigious awards, and went to the same dinner parties they like to attend.”

More than 60 years ago, the Spanish philosopher and cultural critic José Ortega y Gasset wrote powerful essays under the book title The Dehumanization of Art. One of the many observations he made was the segregation of modern art from human purpose. He surely did not have in mind the symbolic meaning we find in the Polanski flap (this unholy defense of a crime because of the offender’s status as an artist). Still, one can’t help but recall Ortega y Gasset’s arguments and their tangential, if not inevitable, connection to the relationship between art and the defense of dehumanizing crime. It’s easy to recall recent cases over the years that were dismissed or diminished because of the shield of celebrity: shoplifting, DUI’s galore, underage sexual relations on video, and worse. This is not an esoteric matter. A kid on my old South Side neighborhood of Chicago will get more jail time for selling a lid of hemp than an actor charged with felonious theft, rape, or vehicular manslaughter.

Human beings are observant of precedent, which helps to inform our laws, whether sacred or secular. We also have natural enthusiasm for the arts and hold in high esteem those who produce it. But nothing betrays our enthusiasm for art more than this idolatry of conferring icon status and above-the-law zealotry upon makers of art, whose priests then turn around and find it odd that people should sign petitions and be offended by xenophobic political cartoons or a droopy novel set in wearisome prose that disfigures the wife of a prophet (I do not, of course, condone violent reactions, but I support the right of reaction, which the limousine liberals selectively find unbecoming).

As author and blogger G. Willow Wilson comments, “I find myself really irritated by the hypocrisy surrounding film director Roman Polanski’s extradition. Practically every day we’re bombarded by arguments that the Prophet was a pedophile for marrying Aisha, yet when Polanski drugs and rapes a 13-year-old, he is a misunderstood genius.” Universally people are averse to contradictions and acts of hypocrisy. The French decades-long hospitality to a confessed child rapist, especially when held up next to Sarkozy’s nasal exegesis of the burqa, drips with pretense and hypocrisy.

Still, we need to be clear that these drippings are not the patented product of Western Europe. They are, as mentioned before, part of our postmodern age that has no regard for boundaries. The controversies, overreactions, and strange applications of sacred law of the East are well known, despite the scripture of Islam’s strong censuring of hypocrisy, duplicity, and unevenness in evoking rules and consequences. Of course, it’s easy to spot contradiction when one thinks he or she is on the right side of the event. When we look at the world, East and West, the wind of irony and paradox fills many sails. This current flap, though, is particularly embarrassing, given the cottage industry surrounding the search for all things wrong and conflicting in the Islamic realms. As this current controversy plays out, we’ll see how some of Polanski’s defenders may “revise” the stands they have now taken, but only when they are shown the angst of the all-important public, which fortunately is not duped by the pretenses of this furor.

While I find this story interesting from a legal and cultural standpoint, I still find the sheer length and volume of the article a bit perplexing. The only significance of this story in regards to muslims is that Polanski is well... Jewish. I think it would be a mistake (and a stereotype) for anyone to say that Polanski's support in Hollywood is absolute and unquestioning.

I just hope that the story about the Taliban's admitted suicide attack on a United Nation office in Pakistan gets the same kind of attention. The sole task of those UN employees was to coordinate food/aid to disaffected people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The reward for their good works was complete annihilation.

I think the fact that the United Nations had to shut down nearly all their important operations in Pakistan has far greater implications for millions of muslims, than the legal troubles of Roman Polanski. I just hope the Polanski story does not suck up the entire "spotlight" from a story that is perhaps more deserving of coverage.

As an artist/art student myself it is my hope that the author still appreciates the important work artists provide to society, especially the provocative stuff. The fact that an "enfant terrible" cartoonist, a renegade filmmaker or a "droopy" novelist can ply their trade in our society is a wonderful thing. Those kinds of artistic expression are often denied in nations and societies... that have burqas.

Polanski (and the crimes he is accused of) does not invalidate that truth.

Let us all remember a few things about the French;
1. the French don't like anyone who doesn't act in a thoroughly French-like manner,
2. the French consider extra-marital sex by men to be a sign of virility, and,
3. the French don't like Americans. They only maintain diplomatic relations for the day the Germans re-arm.

The French don't like burqas because they're not French.
The don't care about child-rape because it proves a man is virile.
They're hiding Roman Polanski because the Americans want him.

I find it no more perplexing then middle aged men in Saudi allowed to marry little girls...and have sex with them...and not too much out cry is sent out....but heaven forbid a foreign woman in Saudi not cover properly and fingers are pointed.

Men are hypocrites..bottom line. Do as we say...not as we do. Period.

Simple really. Men make no sense when it comes to making decisions about what is proper and improper...modest and immodest...acceptable and unacceptable. For the most part...women are forced to follow along.

Soooo raping a child has its leeway...a man was "just being a man and doing what men do"...albeit some dont quite go that young....however...women cannot "just" be women and do their thing...without a mans prior approval.

Man...Rape child but make some movies that people enjoy...fine...pass.
Women...Wear too much or too little clothing which causes men to think too much..fail.

Right on most accounts. However, as Muslims we ought not protest too much about the age nor emphasize "little girl" since others can always bring up Aisha...

@coolred: before playing the "men-can-get-away-with-it" card, do consider how many women go to jail for life for doing thier male students; slaps on the wrists is the most many of them get, while men go to jail for decades and are rightly reviled by society while women are basically given a free pass to molest since they're the recievers.

Sir Magpie

This article is about Polanski and hypocrisy, why mention the Taliban and bombings in Afghanistan? That’s a separate topic, which, BTW, Muslim bloggers write about a lot. Are you suggesting that Muslim writers of the west can say nothing about contemporary controversies? Is this your worse nightmare that Muslims comment meaningfully about such things? And do you really think that a Muslim writes about Polanski because the man is jewish? Are you that stickin paranoid? What an absurd comment. Really, quite shallow.

I would sure as heck like an explanation from the French regarding why they didn't hand him over!

They signed an extradition treaty that obligates them to respect criminal court decisions made here in the US, so why did they give sanctuary to a child rapist?

Aparently Faizi Silmi's "radical" values were "incompatible with French values" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/world/europe/18iht-france.4.14618011.html), but Roman Polanski's fit right in. Is Berlusconi heading France, too?

@Sirmagpie: The fact Polanski is a Jew is something I've learned only today through you. And I doubt most muslims are even aware of his Jewishness.

Moreover, it seems you and I have read two different articles because your interpretation is completely off the mark.

Abdu
(http://abdusalaam.blogspot.com)

In the French system the higher in rank you are the less the law can apply to you, because of your supposedly great reputation. That was the defense of the French TV journalist who aired a video that supposedly showed the death of a little boy from Israeli gunfire while his father tried to shield him. In court, the fact that the story was false and the video was faked or at least mis-attributed (and the journalist knew it) was not sufficient to convict him of the crime - he and the producers got off with a mild fine, I think. link.

The same principle applies here. If Polanski was a nobody he would have been in jail long ago, rather than hosted by the French elite.

This article needs to be revised and rewritten, since apparently it has now come out that the French "culture" minister, Frederic Mitterand, who is Polanski's most ardent defender and nephew of the former French Socialist PM, Francois Mitterand, has now come under scrutiny for an old book he had written admitting to going into Thailand and other third world countries to buy young underage boys to sleep with/rape:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8296578.stm

Even though he ADMITS these kids were forced against their will by traffickers into prostitution, he finds it "exciting" :

In his 2005 book The Bad Life, he wrote: "I got into the habit of paying for boys," saying his attraction to young male prostitutes was not dimmed despite knowing "the sordid details of this traffic".

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

Crow >>> I think the fact that the United Nations had to shut down nearly all their important operations in Pakistan has far greater implications for millions of muslims, than the legal troubles of Roman Polanski.

I think if you're a French or American Muslim who faces state driven practices of discrimination, this becomes more evidence of a creeping fascism directed at Muslims and Islam. That's not some small indictment! Rather, A very pointed discussion of the hypocrisy and failure of the western standard using its own terms of reference. Article upon article were written about peripheral issues facing the Muslim world (female genital mutilation or hadd laws). So much intellectualising about the hijaab or the problem with the Palestinians (much like Sol2 who can't help himself).

The western point of reference for Muslims is always the lack of civilising capacity and the need for progress. Yet the past forty years, Polanski is the much celebrated paedophile artist enjoying state and presidential protection? While French citizens are told their children can't be faithful in school and workers are threatened with poverty if they choose to live according to their liberty? If you think this is a small issue not worth discussing, then I suggest you go to all the anti-hijaabi, anti-Islamic ideologues and inform them about the American need to feed Afghans.

An open and frank article discusses the ugly underbelly of western society, the presence of slavery, rape and child abuse in its very own ruling elite ... we get told... yet again "but in Afghanistan"

P.S. Afghanistan is an Asian nation in a state of civil war. The tale has two sides. One side destroys the agricultural capacity of its opponents and floods the country with "AID" .. the other retaliates. That's the true face of the war on Afghans.

Sol2 >>> That was the defense of the French TV journalist who aired a video that supposedly showed the death of a little boy from Israeli gunfire while his father tried to shield him. In court, the fact that the story was false and the video was faked or at least mis-attributed..

I think we all know the instance quite well, and the idea that it was "misattributed" to some other occupation .. well .. get back in line with conspiracy theorists and others who say that the Palestinians "stage" their oppression and grief. The only truth about this, is that was probably some other Israeli soldier/settler who killed the child. Unless the soldiers were just there to keep the peace.

To Ghulam: I think this creeping fascism you speak of has yet to match the intolerance shown to minority groups in countries like Pakistan, where several Christians were recently burned to death. American and France are indeed infected with instances of irrational discrimination. But is it as pernicious and widespread as the assaults on Christians, Sikhs, Shi'ites and the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Pakistan? I don't think so. One point about the Polanski story I was trying to make was that it is certainly worthy of discussion but I have my doubts that it should be a dominating issue. I think other stories like the horrific gang rape of the 15-year-old French boy Alexandre Robert in Dubai was equally important. His treatment by the justice system of the United Arab Emirates was truly appalling. Another tragic story was the labor exploitation and sexual abuse of Pakistani boys who were used as camel jockeys in some gulf states. At least in the case of Polanski there is an opportunity of him getting some kind of punishment that the abusers in the other cases failed to receive. Also Ghulum, I want to say you are mistaken if you think I have common cause with the idiocy of rank "anti-Islamic ideologues". If I'm truly one of them... I guess this means I have to get rid of all my Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan CD's.

A recent story caught my attention that you might find interesting: in Florida the Republican Congressional candidate Robert Lowry (and several of his misguided GOP friends) thought it would be cool to shoot at targets that represented his female Democratic rival and stereotypical “Arab terrorists”. He initially called the whole spectacle a "joke". Well needless to say jokes about him and his entourage are spreading through the blogosphere. I don't need to tell you how much I love the art of ridicule, especially when it is directed at worthy “targets” like him.

>However, as Muslims we ought not protest too much about the age nor emphasize "little girl" since others can always bring up Aisha...<

The liars and distorters of the truth will continue with their deceptions regardless. It's a dead issue only used by orientalist charlatans who all too easily forget the history of childhood and marriage. Apprently Maryam, mother of Jesus(a.s.) and thousands of biblical figures don't apply. And neither does anyone who lived before 1900 when the average age of consent was 12 in even industrialized nations.

The Polansky case is very different given that one of their own in this day and age broke their own rules and got away with it for decades. Even more disgusting is that the French "culture minister" Frederic Mitterrand, who has defended Polansky himself admits to having his way with young Thai boys during his sexual "tourism" romps.
Another fine example of the inferiority of French "culture" and the hypocrisy which is it's hallmark. Yeah lets create racist hysteria over niqabs while defending pedophilia, legalizing incest, bestiality, pornography.

>In court, the fact that the story was false and the video was faked or at least mis-attributed<

The story was true and the video real. That topic has nothing to do with the Polanski case but you had to chime in with a distractor to help out your fellow jew didn't you? Of course being the judeofascist that you are you're going to defend and lie on behalf of IDF jewish terrorists. It's nothing new given that they make a special effort to target children and any reporter who dares to film and document their actions.
Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall among many others come to mind.

"That topic has nothing to do with the Polanski case but you had to chime in with a distractor to help out your fellow jew didn't you?"

It's like talking to The Autorantic Virtual Moonbat! But you can relax, DrM, you don't have to sign up for the full Zionist creed here. All you have to do is read some of the court accounts and see that the reporter defended himself on the grounds of his status as a high-ranking dude rather than on the veracity of his account. (You, too, Ghulam.) That's the connection with the Polanski case, because Polanski is an Oscar-winning director, not some Joe Schmo from Hoboken, and French law treats such people differently.

Crow >>> I think this creeping fascism you speak of has yet to match the intolerance shown to minority groups in countries like Pakistan, where several Christians were recently burned to death.

You're deflecting again. There are plenty of articles criticisng and analysing issues in Muslim countries. To pretend that that has anything to do with the treatment of Muslims in France or the rest of Europe is an error in judgement.

A few months ago I read of a massacre of 300 Nigerian Muslim villagers by Christian radicals. A 3 line back page article on the backpage of the paper. There is enough violence and depression (and arms) in the developing world to insinuate endless critiques about the state of various peoples cultures, other than development. That has no bearing to the issue at hand.

You're taking two completely disconnected acts and making them congruent in your own mind. Yet noone does this for Christian evangels or Zionist terrorists? Noone writes endless articles about racist Hassidic jews and the illegal diamond trade (even though they are connected), or extremists evangels and the violent occupation (who they actually directly support with funds). Noone writes about white supremacism and the realisation of American neo-imperialism. Yet let one double standard of law be applied in France, and isolated incidents in whole other countries suddenly become relevant. If Dubai was such a backwater, there'd be no investment there. If Pakistan was so anti-minority, half of the educated Pakistanis we know would not have studied in Zoroastrian or Christian schools. You're patting yourself on the back for finding congruence where there is none.

The French president is opposed to the Liberties of its French speaking Muslims, yet openly cavorts with a known paedophile, slave abuser and drug addict. Everyone gets up and shouts out loudly the crimes of the Muslims in the first instance .. and the second instance?!?!

Sol2 >>> All you have to do is read some of the court accounts and see that the reporter defended himself on the grounds of his status as a high-ranking dude rather than on the veracity of his account.

Have read enough accounts to know that zionists purposefully staged a lynching of the reporter because of the high profile nature of his information. So many actively involved in disinformation campaigns.

>>>> That's the connection with the Polanski case, because Polanski is an Oscar-winning director, not some Joe Schmo from Hoboken, and French law treats such people differently.

French law treats its high-profile paedophile artists differently to its Brown Muslim immigrants. American law treats its Muslims and immigrants differently to its extremist christians. And Israeli law treats all Arabs differently to its Jewish citizenry. Your comments usually rest on one purpose .. to promote the innocence of the Israeli state. You do that using two methods 1.) you directly/indirectly portray Israel as a victim or 2.) you directly or indirectly portray Muslims as destructive.

Really thoughtful article. But there can be no comparison between filmmaker Roman Polanski and our beloved Prophet, blessings be upon him. According to her own account, Aisha was playing outside, was brought inside by her parents to be asked whether she consented to marry Muhammad, and then went back outside to play. Years later, after she entered puberty, she went to live in his household and become his wife. This was in accordance to Arab custom (and Asian and European customs) of the time. And why doesn't anyone talk about the great love, respect, and adoration Aisha showed for her husband, as long as she lived? There was never, before or since, a woman who was as crazy about her husband as she. Just read her own words. It is perhaps the greatest love story in human history. Not only that, it was a lawful and moral marriage, which she and her parents happily consented to.

Thirty years ago, a filmmaker named Roman Polanski drugged and raped a girl. It is hardly fitting to put those two historical events in the same library, let alone the same paragraph.

And though it's always enjoyable to see the sly hypocrisies of Western civilization exposed, it's doubtful that most westerners think Polanski or his past actions or his defense by the elite is normal. What he is, is rich. And we westerners are too familiar with the Golden Rule — he who has the gold, makes the rules — to be surprised. Wealthy people never have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.

Thank you for your comment, Ayse, and for your observation of Aisha's love of the Prophet. But in no way does this article come close to equating anything of this Polanski scandal with the prophetic period. It's impossible to get that from this article. Did you read or skim? The mere placement of words in the proximal space of a paragraph is not any indicator of equivalence. What the article does is point out the blatant hypocrisy of not only this flap but the hypocrisy that the flap uncovers. Thanks again.

>>>> Have read enough accounts to know that zionists purposefully staged a lynching of the reporter because of the high profile nature of his information.

"Lynching" is too strong a term. It was a legal action on the journalist's home turf, and it concerned whether the "information" the journalist provided meant what he said it did. He had the opportunity to present his side of the argument (with ample legal representation) and leave the courtroom without fearing for his person. (Naturally, court actions are "purposeful", they scarcely ever occur by accident!)

>>>>>American law treats its Muslims and immigrants differently to its extremist christians.

"its Muslims" = American citizens. "Immigrants" = people who intend to become American citizens. "Extremist Christians" = Timothy McVeigh et al. That's comparing citizens, non-citizens, and convicted criminals. What is wrong with treating these groups differently? Or maybe I just don't understand you here?

>>>>>Israeli law treats all Arabs differently to its Jewish citizenry.
I don't think Israelis and Arabs exist in a situation comparable to South Africa's blacks, whites, and coloreds. The whites of the Cape settlements treated black Africans as second-class citizens out of economic and racial imperatives; wiping out apartheid was always a possibility. The Jews of Palestine were compelled to convert the "National Home" allotted to them by the League of Nations to the State of Israel because they could not exist safely otherwise; most of the Arabs who wielded power made no commitment to ensure the safety of their Jewish neighbors. The U.N. was sure that the solution was the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

>>>>You do that using two methods 1.) you directly/indirectly portray Israel as a victim or 2.) you directly or indirectly portray Muslims as destructive.

I think that's a property of my perspective as a Jew. I'm not an Israeli, I'm an American. Yet outside of Israel, I can scarcely walk down the street of a middle eastern country, kipah and all, without worrying that I'll be stoned; U.S. diplomats warn me that Arab children are educated to do this, even in countries like Saudi Arabia where most of the citizenry have never met or seen a Jew. My ancestors had the same problems walking the streets of Europe. Naturally, as a matter of personal safety, I pay attention to news accounts that are of relevant bent, emphasizing violence done to or allegedly done by Jews. So I think you can understand that these things become my primary point of reference.

>>>>in no way does this article come close to equating anything of this Polanski scandal with the prophetic period...The mere placement of words in the proximal space of a paragraph is not any indicator -

You might not have intended this Abusharif, but yes, that is how it looks. Ayse has the right idea, that an explanation of Aisha's relationship with Muhammed and its contrast with Polanski would have been in order after running the GWW quote.

Solomon2: "... that an explanation of Aisha's relationship with Muhammed ..."

Muhammad, sallalahu alayhi was salim.

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