Land of Confusion: Land of undirected rage
While leaders in Middle East shun violence, express respect for law, our religious leaders encourage violent acts.
A man said a mean thing about my mother, so I went and slapped a bystander, threw a rock at another, kicked a dog and burnt a tree for good measure. Then I went over to my friends and told them, “That’ll show him to mess with me.”
Even by the standards of violent responses, this sounds ridiculous. Except for the fact it’s exactly what happened yesterday.
Mobs claiming to want to show their love for the Prophet went through the streets of many cities and towns in Pakistan, and showed their reverence for his messages of tolerance, honesty and respect for the earth by pelting stones at people who would not go to the protest site with them, breaking and stealing public and private property, and burning trees.
Amid all this, the esteemed leadership of the country, after calling a national holiday on Friday, ostensibly to keep innocent office workers from getting hurt in violent protests, was nowhere to be seen throughout the fiasco.
After the breach of the US embassy in Egypt and the murders of four US diplomatic staffers including the ambassador in Libya, The New York Times ran a letter to the editor from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Deputy President Khairat El-Shater, in which the former presidential candidate wrote of how in a global village, “respect for values and figures - religious or otherwise - that nations hold dear is a necessary requirement to build sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships.” He then moved to the focal point, namely that, “Despite our resentment of the continued appearance of productions like the anti-Muslim film that led to the current violence, we do not hold the American government or its citizens responsible for acts of the few that abuse the laws protecting freedom of expression.”
This was followed by a condemnation of the breach of international law vis-à-vis the attacks on embassies and a call to protesters to stay peaceful and act within the bounds of the law.
For those who unfamiliar with the group, the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious party that President Mohamed Morsi is a member of. The group, founded by religious scholar Hassan al-Banna, has strong ties with religious parties across the Muslim world, including the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. Although branded an extremist group by some western scholars, they condemn violence and were singled out by Al Qaeda for supporting peaceful, democratic reform rather than violence.
Why do I bring this up? Simple.
Where a senior leader from the Middle East’s most influential religious party has been condemning violence and urging peaceful protest, all the while expressing respect for the law of a foreign country, some of our religious leaders are lying through their teeth to encourage violent acts to show the world how much they love the Prophet and how well they follow his example of peace and love.
Local religious leaders have been claiming that the film is US government-funded and has been aired on US state-run TV. Even on Saturday, as secular leaders condemned the violence, Maulana Diesel called the protests a success and said Pakistan had proved itself by protesting in an enthusiastic manner.
To this, I can only say, never trust an obese man who claims to live a life of poverty (he claims to have almost no assets as per his asset declaration to the Election Commission). Poor people can’t afford to get fat.
Back to the issue, anyone with even the most remote understanding of the US media knows that there is no state-run media in the US. The closest things to state media are National Public Radio (which would have defied science by broadcasting a video), C-Span (which shows congressional proceedings, and I highly doubt the House had a movie night featuring such garbage), and PBS, which is most famous for airing controversial and edgy shows like Sesame Street (which features unnatural giant talking birds, cookie addicts, trash-dwelling green men and a red character who keeps urging people to tickle him).
The only place the video is available is Youtube, which is populated with user-generated content (meaning they didn’t make it either).
So who is to blame for offending the sentiments of millions of Muslims? The guy who directed the movie? The script writer? The financiers?
NO!
It’s all the Americans and the Zionists fault.
And who deserves punishment?
Everyone but the thrice-convicted Egyptian-born racist behind the movie, it would seem.
The writer is a sub editor on the Islamabad Desk. vaqas.asghar@tribune.com.pk
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2012.
Even by the standards of violent responses, this sounds ridiculous. Except for the fact it’s exactly what happened yesterday.
Mobs claiming to want to show their love for the Prophet went through the streets of many cities and towns in Pakistan, and showed their reverence for his messages of tolerance, honesty and respect for the earth by pelting stones at people who would not go to the protest site with them, breaking and stealing public and private property, and burning trees.
Amid all this, the esteemed leadership of the country, after calling a national holiday on Friday, ostensibly to keep innocent office workers from getting hurt in violent protests, was nowhere to be seen throughout the fiasco.
After the breach of the US embassy in Egypt and the murders of four US diplomatic staffers including the ambassador in Libya, The New York Times ran a letter to the editor from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Deputy President Khairat El-Shater, in which the former presidential candidate wrote of how in a global village, “respect for values and figures - religious or otherwise - that nations hold dear is a necessary requirement to build sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships.” He then moved to the focal point, namely that, “Despite our resentment of the continued appearance of productions like the anti-Muslim film that led to the current violence, we do not hold the American government or its citizens responsible for acts of the few that abuse the laws protecting freedom of expression.”
This was followed by a condemnation of the breach of international law vis-à-vis the attacks on embassies and a call to protesters to stay peaceful and act within the bounds of the law.
For those who unfamiliar with the group, the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious party that President Mohamed Morsi is a member of. The group, founded by religious scholar Hassan al-Banna, has strong ties with religious parties across the Muslim world, including the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. Although branded an extremist group by some western scholars, they condemn violence and were singled out by Al Qaeda for supporting peaceful, democratic reform rather than violence.
Why do I bring this up? Simple.
Where a senior leader from the Middle East’s most influential religious party has been condemning violence and urging peaceful protest, all the while expressing respect for the law of a foreign country, some of our religious leaders are lying through their teeth to encourage violent acts to show the world how much they love the Prophet and how well they follow his example of peace and love.
Local religious leaders have been claiming that the film is US government-funded and has been aired on US state-run TV. Even on Saturday, as secular leaders condemned the violence, Maulana Diesel called the protests a success and said Pakistan had proved itself by protesting in an enthusiastic manner.
To this, I can only say, never trust an obese man who claims to live a life of poverty (he claims to have almost no assets as per his asset declaration to the Election Commission). Poor people can’t afford to get fat.
Back to the issue, anyone with even the most remote understanding of the US media knows that there is no state-run media in the US. The closest things to state media are National Public Radio (which would have defied science by broadcasting a video), C-Span (which shows congressional proceedings, and I highly doubt the House had a movie night featuring such garbage), and PBS, which is most famous for airing controversial and edgy shows like Sesame Street (which features unnatural giant talking birds, cookie addicts, trash-dwelling green men and a red character who keeps urging people to tickle him).
The only place the video is available is Youtube, which is populated with user-generated content (meaning they didn’t make it either).
So who is to blame for offending the sentiments of millions of Muslims? The guy who directed the movie? The script writer? The financiers?
NO!
It’s all the Americans and the Zionists fault.
And who deserves punishment?
Everyone but the thrice-convicted Egyptian-born racist behind the movie, it would seem.
The writer is a sub editor on the Islamabad Desk. vaqas.asghar@tribune.com.pk
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2012.