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Issue 281, Friday 28 September 2012 - 11 Dhu al-Qa'dah 1433 Insult, injure and vilify Muslims and Islam – it’s freedom of expression Muslims are told to be docile when they are inundated with insult, vilification and abuse. Their Prophet is mocked, made fun of, accused of paedophilia and demeaned in every way. If they respond in any way, even in a measured way, they are told they have victimhood mentality. They are accused of not sharing values with the rest of humanity. They are against freedom of expression, rationality, are irresponsible, violent, intolerant, extremists and terrorists. It is always them against us. The West is portrayed as a bastion of liberalism against the backward Muslims, who still need to be civilised and taught Western concepts such as democracy and free society. US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton said that even though she did not agree with the anti Islam film and felt “disgusted”, she still supported its publication as, the US does “not stop individual citizens from expressing their views no matter how distasteful they may be.” Except, of course, it is anti-Semitic or racist, she should have added. This is not the first Islamophobic publication. Muslims have been inundated with anti-Islam and anti-Muslim diatribes for years. Just two weeks after the US-made anti-Islam film clip, the satirical magazine in France, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad under the banner of freedom of expression. Similarly, the Islamophobic organisation, the American Freedom Defence Initiative (AFDI), headed by Pamela Geller, has taken out ads that read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The posters are due to appear in ten New York City subway stations this week. French Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, responding to the call to ban the mocking cartoons said on RTL radio: “We are in a country where the freedom of expression is guaranteed, along with the freedom to caricature.” However, soon after, when French Muslims announced they were going to hold peaceful protest on Saturday, September 22, the French Government told Muslim leaders they will not be allowed to hold the demonstration. Freedom of expression is only one way in the Western world. As in many countries, incitement to hatred laws, are found in several statutes in Britain as well as the United States. Any communication threatening, abusive, insulting or provoking violence or riots are outlawed with penalties including fines and imprisonment, or both. Yet there is much hypocrisy in the discriminatory use of such laws. When it comes to Muslims, governments and human rights bodies say incitement laws cannot apply as this would threaten free expression. The backlash against the deliberately provocative anti-Islam video is the latest example of the discrimination that allows an open season to denigrate Muslims and vilify Prophet Muhammad. The so-called Innocence of Muslims film clip is crass, amateurish and not worth the light of day but is exceptionally offensive and has already led to more than two dozen deaths, including US Ambassador, Chris Stevens in Libya. The timing of clips put out on YouTube seemed to have been timed with the anniversary of 9/11. Despite the death of the US Ambassador, Google refused a reported request by the White House to review whether the video violated its own terms of use. “Sometimes there is a fine line between what is and what is not considered hate speech. For instance, it is generally okay to criticize a nation, but not okay to make insulting generalizations about people of a particular nationality,” it insisted. Yet earlier this year, YouTube removed a series of 10 animated anti-Semitic and Holocaust Denial clips, saying that they were in violation of the video site’s policy prohibiting hate speech. This was at the request of the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Internet has changed the way we communicate: it has many positive values but there is also a lot of offensive material without editorial control and often behind a veil of anonymity. While there are no world-specific laws to prohibit wilful and hateful offenders, existing domestic laws against direct threats or incitements to violence or terrorism have been used against online miscreants. Where there is a will there is a way. This is shown by this month’s conviction of 19-year-old Azhar Ahmed for posting an offensive message on Facebook about British troops in Afghanistan. Yet in the case of the YouTube clip, Muslims are treated not as the victims of the abuse but the villains. No one can condone unmitigated violence at protests provoked by the video in much of the Muslim world, with some reports claiming it was led by al-Qa’ida. But what about the sanctimonious behaviour by the West? They reacted as though the issue was only to do with free speech that needed to be tolerated regardless of how low it stoops to be offensive. The double standards are underlined by many Western countries having laws against anti-Semitism to prevent any criticism of Jews and Israel and even jailing historians questioning the extent of the Holocaust. It is hardly a level playing field. The issue becomes politically charged coming at a time that the West is seeking to regain influence in the Middle East with the series of Arab uprisings and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq both which misfired. The history of the whole region has been littered with imperialistic wars and Western-led military escapades to divide and rule. The US response following the killing of its ambassador was to send gunboats rather than tackle the cause. The solution is not only in more egalitarian laws, to give Muslims equal protection, but to build a more cohesive world, based upon respect. There is nothing more sacred to man than his beliefs that needs to be held in reverence, not to be used instead as a political tool for vested interests. |