On Anti-Muslim Films and My Gaza Neighbor



When life pushed Ghassan beyond his ability to cope, he would go to his house’s courtyard and begin to shout, shrieking the most imaginative profanities against everything sacred. His howls would often end with muffled cries and tears, especially once he realized that he had crossed every sacred line there was to cross, including those pertaining to God, the Prophets (no one in specific) and all the holy books.


But when Israeli soldiers dragged Ghassan out of his house and ordered him to curse at Allah and to insult the Prophet Mohammed—otherwise they would have beaten him senseless—he obstinately refused. It’s not that the man would not compromise, for he had already walked on all fours, barked like a dog, and spit grudgingly at a poster of Yasser Arafat. But Allah and the Prophet is where he drew the line. Ghassan retold the story many times, even long after the scars on his face healed and his broken arm was once again useful. And in no time, he resumed his regular blasphemy whenever life pushed him passed that dreadful breaking point.






Palestine has often served as a microcosm for a larger ailment, which many Muslims see as the lowest point of their collective humiliation that spans generations. Although Muslim solidarity with Palestinians is often wrapped up in religious symbols and slogans, in reality it is the degradation of the individual as a representation of the Ummah (the nation) that troubles them most.




Insulting Islamic symbols often represents that breaking point for many Muslims. The phenomenon is too obvious to miss. Long before Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses became a cause célèbre among western governments and intellectuals—supposedly so keen on shielding freedom of speech from the hordes of vengeful Muslims—offending Muslims somehow managed to survive all phases of political correctness that western countries experienced in recent decades.


It was hardly surprising that the latest anti-Islam video The Innocence of Muslims was directed by a pornographer, promoted by rightwing hate-mongers, and championed by the very self-righteous “intellectual” elements that hailed every American military adventure in Muslim countries. Those who are using the film, and the much violence and anger it generated, to preach freedom of expression and such, are either willfully ignorant or know nothing of the political context behind all of this.


Similarly, it was not the single act of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishing the offensive Mohammed’s cartoons in 2005 or Pastor Terry Jones’s burning of the Holy Quran in 2010 that enraged many Muslims. It was the identity of the perpetrators—as western and American—that placed the insults in an already unbearable political context: the sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the insanity of Bagram prison in Afghanistan, the torture and unlawful imprisonment of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo, the millions of dead, maimed, and displaced and a thousand more such examples.


Those who insist on placing “Muslim rage” (the cover story of a recent Newsweek edition) within some futile discussion over freedom of speech are only confusing the issue.


Offensive cartoons targeting Prophet Mohammed were published in numerous countries including newspapers in Africa, South America and even some Arab countries. There was no uproar. South Africa’s Mail and Guardian is notorious for attempting to add fuel to the fire, desperate for international attention. In 2010, shortly before the World Cup, cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro hoped to break into international stardom with an offensive cartoon in the same newspaper, to no avail. Only local Muslim communities reacted and the issue was more or less forgotten. Why?


Is it because Muslims are more tolerant of freedom of speech in Chile, Estonia, and Peru, than the U.S., Denmark and France? Or is it because the former are involved in no wars that continue to humiliate Muslims, pushing them to the brink, like my old Gaza neighbor?


Just as the protests were building momentum, a September 16 NATO airstrike killed 8 women in the Afghani province of Laghman. Thousands of angry Afghans, helpless before the recurring lethal strikes, roamed the streets in tears chanting anti-U.S. slogans, burning U.S. flags and more. Their rage over the film was accentuated by the deadly strike. Few in the mainstream media even bothered to link both events, as if their intention is simply to maintain that Muslims are irrational and that their misguided logic is deserving of no consideration whatsoever.



