False and reckless provocation

A film on Prophet Mohammed is all that it takes to enrage an entire region, a film made by a handful of orthodox Christians in America, who did it on purpose to humiliate a faith. Many people have died, the latest being a suicide attack in Afghanistan  which killed 12 people on Tuesday, thanks to hundreds finding them humiliated by what they think is American money and American propaganda. The film incidentally has surfaced all over the Internet with Arabic subtitles, which the maker of the film says was neither planned nor executed by the film’s crew. So someone sitting somewhere wants to provoke the Arab population in particular and the Muslim population in general. And that all of this is happening when America is going to the elections doubtlessly adds some colour or whiff political vendetta. But the question remains: why is a population so enraged that it takes one little film, laughable to the core, to ignite them and to cause harm to public life, money and institutions.  

One thing that has to be noted is the deep hatred for America that has become institutionalised in the Arab world. And the US has only itself to blame when it comes to such an unquestioned and seemingly unassailable hatred. People across the Arab region and outside are always on the verge of revolting, often violently, to the distasteful discharge of power that has become an American hallmark over the years in the region. Also, there is genuine lack of dialogue and understanding between the Islamic world and the western world, which is causing the world irreparable damage. The clash of civilisations is old hat and the handiwork of the American Christian right but at the same time voices of moderation and peace in the Islamic world are either hard to come by or are severely suppressed. Are we living in a world where belief rules us? Has the world really made no progress in the last five hundred years in which human beings and human lives have supposedly moved, irretrievable away from blind faith? Is anthropomorphism merely a mythology of the enlightenment? This begs further inquiry into human history. Dissent is welcome. Dissent is necessary. Every dominant structure needs dissent and in the western world, films like Monty Python’s In Search of the Holy Grail or The Last Temptation of Christ seemingly got the goat of the orthodox Christians just like Salman Rushdie provoked Muslim orthodoxy. But such acts of dissent came from informed people. What is tragic is that in the post-everything world, dominated by technological tools of instant reach, a bunch of people sitting in the US heartland could provoke killing of Muslims in the Arab region. And no one at the moment knows where the buck begins and where it stops!