Fundamentalist v. Fundamentalist
NOT THE proper responses to films one doesn’t like are the bombing and burning of embassies and the killing of ambassadors. But the former at least has become, in certain countries, the preferred expression of outrage against the media.
The violence the film “Innocence of Muslims” has provoked, which has included the killing of the US ambassador to Libya, is in fact not new. In 2005, outrage over several cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper that protesters claimed denigrated Islam, Muslims and the prophet Muhammad led to the burning of Western embassies and other acts of violence across several countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
That those countries happened to be predominantly Islamic fed into the stereotype that identifies Muslims with violence, and enhanced the divisions between Christians and other members of religious groups and Muslims. So intense did these divisions become they led to restrictions on Muslim and Arab immigration to such European countries as France, Italy and Germany, and even to the prohibition of Muslim women’s wearing of a headdress the devout are expected to wear in furtherance of dressing modestly. The profiling of Muslims has also become so routine, anyone who could be Muslim can be pulled over by police while driving in countries like the US, and subjected to rigorous search in the airports of Europe and North America.
Among the consequences of the ongoing violent demonstrations in Libya, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which in some cases have included attacks by armed groups on Western embassies and interests, is the further hardening of these stereotypes, and the adoption of even more restrictive security measures that on the basis of racial and religious profiling tar all Muslims and Arabs with the terrorist brush.
Of even greater concern, however, is the impact of the continuing violence on free expression. The clip of the “Innocence of Muslims” film over YouTube has been downloaded by Google, and banned in selected countries. There are legitimate fears that Google’s decision can set a precedent that can be cited in other instances in which a video, film or excerpt from material some groups could claim is offensive could similarly be downloaded and banned, and not only from the Internet, but in the old media—print and broadcasting—as well.
Not that the film that has provoked the ongoing violence against US and other Western embassies and interests in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia is not offensive. It depicts the prophet Muhammad as a sexual deviant among other outlandish and unproven claims. But his depiction/representation is by itself already offensive to Muslims and Islam. The film is also badly made, “amateurish” being the kindest description of it by Western critics themselves.
Does the right to free expression protect a film that for the virulence of its content could be classified as a form of hate speech? In Germany, hate speech such as anti-Semitism is banned on the argument that it is not protected by the right to free expression. The restriction, however, proceeds from the unique experience of Germany, which during Nazi rule in World War II, carried out a campaign of extermination against the Jews. The German exception cannot apply universally: like all freedoms, the right to free expression is meaningless if only those whose views are generally acceptable can exercise it, those who hold unpopular views needing its protection most.
But the right to free expression does not preclude criticism of how it is exercised. For its malice and breathtaking irresponsibility, if not for its idiocy and incompetence, “Innocence of Muslims”  has to be condemned as a film unworthy of the medium itself, among the best examples of which are works that have provided millions of men and women with at least a glimpse into the complexities of the human condition and of the world they live in.
Critics also need to point out that “Innocence of Muslims” was financed and produced by those US Christian fundamentalist groups whose main purpose in life is to prove their worth by disparaging other religions, and, in total ignorance of its consequences, further dividing an already divided world. These are groups that have more in common with their perceived enemies than they would care to admit—and who share with the latter the same lethal fundamentalism that during the last two decades has made terrorism, violence and war so much a fact of life in this planet. Burning and bombing embassies won’t change them one whit. But public exposure and criticism might.
True. We also have our own bloc of fundamentalists who deserve to be sent to the Middle East to  live with their counterpart