On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Miller elaborated about the impact that that morning in 2001 had on him and on his art. He expressed a newly awakened patriotism:
Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home and thousands of my neighbors were ruthlessly incinerated — reduced to ash. Now, I draw and write comic books. One thing my job involves is making up bad guys. Imagining human villainy in all its forms. Now the real thing had shown up. The real thing murdered my neighbors. In my city. In my country…
For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to face an existential menace. They want us to die. All of a sudden I realize what my parents were talking about all those years.
Patriotism, I now believe, isn’t some sentimental, old conceit. It’s self- preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation’s survival.
The National article dismisses this as “jingoism” and complains of Holy Terror’s unflattering portrayal of Muslims and Arabs (neglecting to note that it actually presents an unflattering portrayal of Muslim terrorists). It quotes Jack Shaheen, a professor of mass communications at Southern Illinois University, as saying that such an attack is common in post-9/11 media, and that the book deserves the attention of “rights groups.”
What the article omits is that Jack Shaheen is a pro-Palestinian apologist who has built a career on judging Hollywood’s purported anti-Arab racism and discrimination. In his books such as Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, he has scoured nearly 1000 movies for possible evidence of the stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims. Of course, striving for a balanced depiction is not the aim; his real goal, like CAIR’s, seems to be to ensure that no media depictions of Muslim terrorists are allowed, and that no connection is made between Islam and terrorism, despite the mountain of real-world evidence to the contrary.
Miller is not fooled and is willing to punch back hard, in the best way he knows how – through his artwork. He defended Holy Terror in a post on his website a month ago, calling it propaganda, but in a “virtuous,” patriotic sense, like Thomas Paine, and giving vent to his justifiable anger toward the 9/11 hijackers:
Three thousand of my neighbours were murdered. My country was, utterly unprovoked, savagely attacked. I wish all those responsible for the atrocity of September 11 to burn in hell. I’m too old to serve my country in any other way. Otherwise, I’d gladly be pulling the trigger myself.
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