Filmmaker Gloria Z. Greenfield says Western civilization is facing threats from both internal and external ideas and movements. These totalitarian forces, she argues, are strengthening as “politically correct” coercion is tightening its grip on society. Since founding Doc Emet Productions in 2007, her films The Case for Israel – Democracy’s Outpost (2008), Unmasked Judeophobia (2011), Body and Soul – The State of the Jewish Nation (2014)  have received international acclaim and have been translated into Arabic, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Though produced in 2018, the issues raised The Fight of Our Lives – Defeating the Ideological War Against the West are even more relevant in 2020 as America is now well into an election that could result in virtual one-party rule and a potential packing of the Supreme Court – especially when that party is dominated by an ideology that mocks the idea of alternative facts (aka alternative perspectives) and is, therefore, prone to shutdown debate.

Below is a transcript of a recent Q&A in which Greenfield talks about the movie and its message for our time.

Q:  At first glance, it seems that your latest film, The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the Ideological War Against the West, has a very different focus than your previous films.  What motivated you to make this film?

A: Following the previous three films, The Case for Israel: Democracy’s Outpost (2008), Unmasked Judeophobia (2011), and Body and Soul: the State of the Jewish Nation (2014), I found that it was critically important to view Jew-hatred (including hatred of Israel) through the broader context of the ideological war against the West. Western Civilization was founded upon the Hebrew Bible and the Judeo-Christian values that emanated from it.  When we connect the dots, we begin to see that in order for anti-Western enemies to destroy the West, they have to demonize and destroy Judeo-Christian values and they have to demonize and persecute Christians and Jews. And that is what we’ve been seeing.  And it is escalating rapidly. So it is imperative that right-thinking Christians and Jews work together to fight this assault.  If we continue to work in silos, we will be at a loss in trying to confront these threats from both postmodern secularism and fundamentalist Islam.

Q:  How has the west allowed itself to get in the situation where we actually are threatened by an ideology that hates everything that represents our Judeo-Christian heritage?

A:  Many people assume that the KGB’s priority was gathering intelligence, but in fact, the majority of the work that the KGB engaged in was demoralizing the West.  They planted the seeds.  This demoralization has been going on for some time, going back to the 50s and the 60s.

While people have celebrated that the Soviet Union fell, in fact, Marxist-Leninists are still harvesting what the Soviets planted.  Following the First and Second World Wars and the Holocaust, there was a demoralization that shook Europe. And several prominent philosophers developed an entire perspective of the West being all that is wrong in the world. And Edward Said played a major role in bring that anti-West sentiment into North American academia.

Today, a significant number of college students throughout the West have bought into the canard that capitalism is evil and that Marxist-Leninist ideology (which they often ignorantly refer to as “Socialism”) is the solution. We see the impact wherever we look.  This pro-Communist thinking and activism have spread beyond the universities.  And that’s because the graduates of the universities are now teaching in the elementary and secondary schools, or are holding government positions and media.  They are now in every sector of society. Whether their identification is Marxism-Leninism, anarchy, cultural Marxism, or socialism, their thinking and activism comprise the internal anti-western ideas and movements calling for the downfall of the values and freedoms that the West was founded upon. And this includes the assault on religious freedom and the exultation of secularism.  Throughout the West we see the closing of churches and synagogues and the demonization of faith.

Q: Academic freedom of expression is now under serious threat.  The university is meant to be places of freedom of thought, freedom of academic expression, learning about ideas and debate.  How did this happen?  

A:  It’s as though the administrations of many of these universities are being held hostage by radicals in their student body and faculty.  The administrations at many of these universities are not standing up and enforcing discipline and consequence for illiberal and uncivil behaviors.    And with the establishment of safe spaces and trigger-warnings, the students have become emotionally weak. Even though they stand up to protest and riot, their character is weak they’ve been so pampered that they cannot handle debate.  They cannot handle the challenge of processing another perspective.  They don’t have to accept another perspective but they have to be able to engage in civil discourse with opposing views.  If they can’t do that, they’re going to fail in the future. There are students who think that they could actually go to law school and be an effective lawyer or go to medical school and be an effective doctor, while in a literature class they can’t even handle reading a novel that might involve rape.  How are they going to help a rape victim if they can’t read a book, if they need a trigger warning so that they could decide whether they can remain in the classroom to read that book?

Q:  What do you think the world would be like in the next decade if our political leaders, academics, and journalists–those who have a big impact upon our society and its values–don’t recognize what is happening?

A:  It’s unthinkable what will happen if we don’t turn things around.  Now, I do want to say that I don’t think it’s necessary for the majority of the West to wake up. What we do need is a very strong minority to wake up.  If we look historically, the majority of Jews did not leave Egypt with Moses.  But a good minority did.  The numbers fluctuate; some people say 20% left with Moses, some say 40% left with Moses.  But it’s not just that event where we learn that you need a strong minority, and you don’t have to wait to get a strong majority.  We know throughout history that if you have a strong minority, a strong resistance, and people of faith who have the passion, and the commitment and determination to fight evil, to fight for the good, we don’t have to do it alone, because we have God on our side.

IMHO: Though I have yet not watched her movie, I believe the issues Greenfield raises are not only timely but urgent.