Is there any sphere of life where one can be spared Leftist cultural indoctrination?
Comic book website Bleeding Cool reported Saturday that Indonesian Muslim artist Ardian Syaf hid subtle anti-Jewish and anti-Christian messages in an X-Men comic. Marvel Comics has apologized and withdrawn the issue, but nonetheless the message is clear: when it comes to Western self-hatred, it’s open season.
Syaf drew a scene of X-Men Gold #1, which was published last Wednesday, in which the character Colossus is depicted wearing a shirt that bears the legend “QS 5:51.”
That refers to Qur’an, surah 5, verse 51:
O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you — then indeed, he is of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.
That’s bad enough on its face, and it isn’t generally mitigated in mainstream Qur’anic interpretation. The revered Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathir explains it this way:
Allah forbids His believing servants from having Jews and Christians as friends, because they are the enemies of Islam and its people, may Allah curse them.
Bleeding Cool notes:
A more common Indonesian translation of the verse, however, states that “Muslims should not appoint the Jews and Christians as their leader.”
That is correct, and this understanding isn’t limited just to Indonesia. The word in the Qur’an verse that is translated above as “allies” and frequently as “friends” is awliya, which means friend and protector — i.e., someone entrusted with another’s safety, or one’s leader or liege lord.
This is particularly relevant for Indonesia today, as the nation is embroiled in a controversy over the governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok. He was put on trial for blasphemy after hundreds of thousands of Indonesians demonstrated in the streets last December 2, demanding he be tried. Ahok’s supposed blasphemy was to refer to Qur’an 5:51 in criticizing Muslim leaders who told Indonesians not to vote for him because he was a Christian.
Syaf referred to that in X-Men Gold #1 as well. In one scene, Kitty Pryde, a Jewish character, declares herself the leader of the X-Men. On a nearby building “212” is written large; Syaf was referencing those December 2 demonstrations.
According to Bleeding Cool:
Marvel has issued a retraction — stating that the Syaf will be disciplined and that the scenes will be amended digitally and in future prints (though a quick check with ComiXology reveals that this is yet to happen.)
How did all this happen in the first place? It happened because Marvel was anxious to signal its virtue by standing against the alleged rising tide of “Islamophobia.”
In November 2013, Marvel introduced female Muslim superhero Kamala Khan, the creation of G. Willow Wilson, a convert to Islam. Early in 2015, the image of Kamala Khan was used in a campaign of defacement against bus ads in San Francisco. The ads called attention to Islamic anti-Semitism and the World War II collaboration of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, with Hitler and the Nazis. Kamala Khan was plastered over the ads, calling such information “racist.”
Wilson wholeheartedly approved the use of her work in this fascist act of vandalism. Marvel Comics, of course, did not utter the slightest murmur of disapproval regarding how their character was being used.
And now this. Would Marvel Comics have ever published a comic containing subtle anti-Muslim messages? Of course not. But if such a comic had ever slipped through its internal political correctness tribunal, the artist responsible would have immediately been fired and ostracized, not just “disciplined.”
And Syaf doesn’t seem all that chastened by this “discipline.” Bleeding Cool reports:
[Syaf] seems not to accept he may have done anything wrong, and indeed is relishing in the fact that the first print may (and is) becoming a collectible. It has now sold copies on eBay for $17 for the regular first print. Though he has been locking down some of his Facebook threads.
Further demonstrating his pride, he changed his Facebook profile picture to a cartoon of a man wearing a hat on which is emblazoned “212.”
Marvel officials, when they hired Ardian Syaf, no doubt never expected that an Indonesian Muslim could possibly be hateful and bigoted toward non-Muslims. After all, isn’t hatred and bigotry wholly the province of white male Americans (and possibly Europeans of the Geert Wilders type)?
Now these clueless rubes are reaping the fruit of the politically correct path they have chosen. They will likely continue on this path, and X-Men Gold #1 is highly unlikely to be the last comic they need to withdraw.
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