Vicious Cycle of Islamophobia

Ram Puniyani

We are going through strange
times. While the science, technology and rationalism has given us physical and
intellectual tools to better the lot of humanity, we are witnessing the
production of provocative material, literature and films in particular, which
demonize the particular religion, Islam to be precise, and the prophet of
Islam. On the other hand there is a section of community, feeling threatened
and insecure coming to the streets to protest against such humiliation and
insult of their religion. There are debates on freedom of expression, but how
come the freedom of expression always goes to humiliate and demonize one
particular religion only?

Currently (September 2012), there
are massive protests in different countries against the American embassies,
resulting in death of four from the US
staff, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, in Benghazi. Different countries are asking
Google, the owner of YouTube, which is hosting this provocative and insulting
video clip, ‘Innocence of Muslims’, to withdraw the film clip. At places the
video clip has been withdrawn and blocked. US sticks to its ‘Freedom of
Expression’ stance and the many protesters are still on the streets.

The film clip, of around 14
minutes duration is part of the full length feature film made by Nakoula
Basseley, a US
based Christian. The film is very insulting to Islam. In this film large number
of modern day mob of bearded Muslims is shown to be attacking Christians. It
also takes the audience back in time to show a distorted life of Prophet
Mohammad with negative and aggressive traits of personality. It is crude film,
made in extremely poor taste and has generated strong reaction amongst large
section of Muslims.  It must be pointed out that this is not the only
type of reaction to this film. There are sections of clerics who have asked the
Muslims to keep restrain. Quoting the moral precepts from Islam, Quran, they
said that Islam is a religion of peace and no violent protests should be held.
The best response to this despicable film has been from a section of Muslims
distributing the book on life of Prophet Mohammad, the prophet of peace.

During last several years, it has
become a sort of standard pattern by many in the West and some here in India to
demonize Islam. We remember the Danish cartoon of Prophet, where he is shown as
a terrorist, with a bomb tucked in his turban. A Florida Pastor went on to burn
this holy book, Koran, saying that Koran teaches violence. Some US soldiers in Afghanistan
also burnt copies of Koran, on the ground that the terrorist elements had
written messages on those copies.

Muslims in Chennai protest against the film “Innocence of Muslims” Courtesy: The Hindu

The demonization of Islam and
Muslims has a pattern and agenda. The cartons and films are the outcome of the
deeper political processes, which aim to control the oil wells in West Asia. The imperialist greed of United States marshaled the flag of “Islam the
New threat” since Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, overthrowing the US stooge Raza
Shah Pahlavi. Later the slogan was worsened with US setting up Madrassas in Pakistan to train Al Qaeda-Taliban to initiate
the Muslim youth to fight against the occupying Russian armies in Afghanistan.
The word, Jihad and kafir were distorted to indoctrinate the Muslim youth in
these Madrassas.  With later trajectories and the event of 9/11, World Trade Center attack, the US media with all its guile,
popularized the phrase ‘Islamic Terrorism’. The phrase was picked up by the
media all over the World and later became part of the social common sense. This
is a major abuse of religion for political goals by the imperialist power. One
can understand this demonization of Islam as a part of US policy, a
cover to hide its agenda to control the oil. To understand it in the way Noam
Chomsky ‘coined the phrase’ Manufacturing Consent’, the coining of the word
Islamic terrorism is part of the US mechanism of manufacturing consent of the
world to give assent to the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

This US policy gas given rise to twin
processes. On one hand the phenomenon like a Florida Pastor Terry Jones burning
Koran or the Danish cartoonist drawing Prophet Mohammad as terrorist or the
present film has been the outcome of the intense propaganda against Islam. This
US propaganda has been backed up by the US sponsored ideology of ‘Clash of
Civilizations’, according to which the current era of World History is the era
of assault of backward Islamic civilization on the advanced Western
civilization. This distorted perception, this ideology was used as a cover for
US agenda in West Asia. The other process which
got unleashed was that the psyche of global Muslim community started being
affected. The perception came up that Muslims (Afghanistan
and Iraq)
are being attacked, they are under threat. In India
the added aspect was the rise of RSS type politics, bringing up Ram Temple
issue and starting hatred for Muslims. A large section of Muslims started
feeling intimidated and besieged. It became easy for mobilizing them around
identity issues. Any community which feels besieged, section of it becomes
vulnerable to easy provocation and identity based mobilization.

It is a vicious circle, the
Islamophobia on one side and besieged community on the other. In this scenario
the Muslim clerics who are asking for peace are the beacon lights of hope for
the community. The Muslims who are distributing the books on life of prophet
need to be complimented. This is what the sane response from the community has
to be. What about US, imperialist designs and its mighty propaganda machinery
doing all the mischief in the world? Can there be a process of controlling
that? Under Kofi Annan, when he was Secretary General of United Nations, a high
level committee produced a report, ‘Alliance of Civilizations’. This report got
lost under the barrage of Islamphobia. It is time the world as such takes note
of the deeper humane values which have developed by humanity over a period of
time, the values which have led to the reports of type of ‘Alliance of civilizations’, the UN
conventions which have conceptualized the Human rights for all.

The trigger which has incited the
demonization process of religion and films like this one are provoking these
insane reactions from a section of Muslims. Can United Nations be revived as a
global platform for monitoring the norms for Nations, media and other aspects
of our global life evolved to ensure that democratization and human dignity is
promoted. Can the World come forward to check the aggressions of ‘The Super
Power’? That’s when such films will cease to act as factors promoting violent
reactions. And even such crude attempts at insulting others’ religion will come
down. May be with such norms and restraints on US policies we can hope that
such incidents will come down. Even if there are elements making some films
like this there will be others making a film giving their own versions of
Prophet’s Mission
of peace in the World. 

And finally we also need to
preserve the concept of freedom of expression moderated with its limits. We
also need to cultivate methods of protest where hysterical emotions are kept at
bay and rational approach is brought to the fore.