Recently, the German government banned the film production, 'Valkyrie' from their military bases.
Why?
Because Tom Cruise is a scientologist.
This isn't the first time this happened. Back in 1996, they called for a boycott of "Mission: Impossible" and other movies he starred in. The boycott didn't work so well since the movie brought in $24.2 million. The new movie, "Valkyrie" has absolutely nothing to do with Scientology. Not one bit. So the government really had no reason to ban the production from filming at their military bases if they allow the others to do so.
It's bizarre how the government just blatantly discriminated Tom Cruise in such a manner. I can't help it myself but think of the Third Reich whenever a story like this is brought up. I imagine a lot of people got the same impression as I did. You can read more on the situation, just click here.
In the movie, Tom Cruise portrays the German officer, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. A historical figure celebrated for trying to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944. The German Defense Ministry warned that if Tom Cruise were to play the role, they wouldn't allow the filming to take place at the ministry sites because of his involvement with the church of Scientology.
Von Stauffenberg's son objected to the idea of Tom Cruise stepping into the role of his father. Though he is entitled to his opinion, but he has no call in who can and cannot play the role of his father. This isn't a matter of how the family feels; it's about how the government practices discrimination against people for being involved with a church like Scientology.
It's already disturbing enough to imagine a government practicing discrimination against people of different religions and philosophies. Now that I know the government of Germany is one of them. It is like a slap to the face because many soldiers from around the country fought and died to stop the Third Reich from dominating Europe. Now this is how they operate the government, they practice a strong form of censorship. People cannot express their opinions freely.
In fact, it's a crime to deny that the holocaust took place. You can go to jail for it. As much as I believe the holocaust took place and I have met people who went through with it. I will not agree with the idea of sending people to the prison for saying otherwise. People live in fear and cannot express themselves as freely as they would like to even if they were wrong.
The Germans should be ashamed of their government; which I imagine a lot of them are.
iTheme Techno Blogger by Black Quanta. Theme & Icons by N.Design Studio. Distributed by eBlog Templates
6/30/2007 1:15 PM
Separation of church and state, though a noble concept, is being increasingly blurred as elected officials become more open about their beliefs. Prostlizing (sp?) religion is a practice as old as religion itself. Unfortunately tolerance is becoming a lesser practiced medium as people take a stance in what they believe in. As a citizen, please practice tolerance and an open mind. Even though a religion may seem wrong in other peoples eyes, the person themselves may be a good soul with different cultural understandings.
Echo
7/02/2007 2:09 PM
This is a very interesting set of issues and I don't think it's nearly as black and white as you might think.
First of all, about the crimes of holocaust denial in Germany. The holocaust started there. They are especially sensitive about the whole issue. Germany cannot afford to go back to what happened in WWII. They cannot afford to forget. Plus which, much of Europe (eg the European Union) pretty much has holocaust denial as an illegal activity. You can agree with it or not -- but the American concepts of freedom of speech and such simply aren't applicable outside the U.S. That isn't the be-all and end-all model -- as useful as it can be -- for a civilized society. You can have a civilized society without it (and an uncivilized one with it, I would argue :-) ).
As something of a counter example, many Europeans find some of the remedies the US have put in place to address racisim baffling. OTOH, Europe did not make slaves of black people for hundreds of years, either. It leaves a cultural legacy that has to be addressed, and that is probably not the same in another culture.
Scientology...now that's another very interesting issue. Germany has had quite a few run ins with this group. From Germany's point of view, Scientology is NOT a religion, so from their POV, they are not discriminating against Scientology based on it being a religion, but based on its (documented) illegal activities in the country. There is a long history of disputes back and forth between Scientology and German that are really rather disturbing whether or not you are for/against/neutral about Scientology. You should peruse the website http://www.xenu.net/ for much more information about Scientology.
I have to confess, the more I've learned about them, and the more I've seen of Cruise's own behavior since he reached OT-VII level, the less regard I have for the actor, and more unwatchable I find him.