Muslims Are Being Provoked

As A French Magazine Publishes Cartoons Of The Prophet Muhammad, We Ask If This Is Freedom Of Expression Or Provocation. 

A French satirical magazine called Charlie Hebdo has published cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad - a decision that could anger Muslims already furious about a recent anti-Islam video trailer.

The weekly magazine printed the images or caricatures on Wednesday. Muslims consider any representation of Prophet Muhammad offensive.

Stephane Charbonnier, the magazine's editor, says the decision was well within the law, and that that is what really matters.

"We're in a country of the rule of law. We respect French law. Our only limit is French law. It's that which we have to obey. We haven't infringed French law. We have the right to use our freedom as we understand it," he said.

Despite concerns over a possible backlash, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister, has defended France's tradition of free speech.

"If people's convictions have really been offended that laws have been breached, we are in a lawful state, laws must be totally respected, then they can go to the court. That has already happened with this weekly. Then there is the issue of respect, whether the directors of this weekly decide to it or not," he said.

But some have criticised the decision to publish the cartoons.

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, seemed to contradict Ayrault by saying the publication of the images is a provocation and that people should exercise responsibility.

"Is it pertinent and intelligent in this context ... to pour more oil on the fire? The answer is 'no'. But we don't want to say to these people 'we're infringing on your right to free expression'. So there's a balance that has to be struck," he said.

Last year, when Charlie Hebdo did something similar, its offices were firebombed.

This latest incident follows violent protests across the Muslim world over an anti-Islam video trailer made in the US.

On this episode, Inside Story asks: Are these cartoons meant to provoke Muslims? Is this freedom of expression or provocation?

Joining presenter Shakuntala Santhiran for the discussion are guests: Houmi Mikidache, a journalist and political analyst; Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, a columnist and political commentator; and Naveed Ahmad, an investigative journalist.

"We have to re-define the identity of people everywhere in the world because there is a crisis of identity .... We also have to re-define secularism. It's actually a huge problem because there are many aspects that are not explained."

Houmi Mikidache, a journalist and political analyst

The only Surprise IsTthere Aren't More Violent Protests In The Middle East

The Muslim Eruption Reflects A Deep Popular Anger and Blowback From US Intervention In Both Libya and Afghanistan

Seumas Milne writes,

The US-British invasion of Afghanistan was of course launched in response to the 9/11 attacks: the poison fruit of US-led support for the Afghan mujahideen war against the Soviet Union. Why do they hate us, many Americans asked at the time, oblivious to their country's role in decades of coups, tyranny, sanctions regimes and occupations across the Middle East.

In the aftermath of the killing of the US ambassador to Libya and assault on the consulate in Benghazi, as protests against a virulently Islamophobic US-made video spread across the Muslim world, Hillary Clinton echoed the same sentiments. "How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?" she asked, "in a city we helped save from destruction?"

She was referring to Nato's decisive role in winning power for the Libyan rebels who first took up arms in Benghazi last year. But just as the mujahideen the US backed in Afghanistan later turned their guns on their imperial sponsor in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaida, so many of the Islamists and jihadists who fought against Gaddafi with Nato air cover have their own ideas for the future of their country.

This is the start of the blowback from US and western attempts to commandeer the Arab uprisings. 

Something similar is likely to happen in Syria. The invasion of Afghanistan more than a decade ago not only didn't destroy al-Qaida, it spread it into Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and north Africa, and today the flags of its offshoots are flying across the Arab world.

In Libya, Nato's intervention sharply escalated the death toll, triggered large-scale ethnic cleansing, spread war to Mali, and left thousands in jail without trial and the country in the control of multiple armed militias. 

But their man, a former Gaddafi minister, has now been defeated for the job of prime minister by an independent Islamist, while the British ambassador's convoy, the Red Cross and UN have been attacked and Sufi shrines destroyed. Meanwhile, the Nato-backed authorities are threatening military action against jihadists in Benghazi, as American warships and drones patrol Libya's coast and skies.

The fact that the attack on the US consulate, along with often violent protests that have spread across 20 countries, was apparently triggered by an obscure online video trailer concocted by US-based Christian fundamentalists and émigré Copts – even one portraying the prophet Muhammad as a fraud and paedophile – seems bafflingly disproportionate to outsiders.

But in the wake of the Rushdie affair and Danish cartoons controversy, it should be clear that insults to Muhammad are widely seen by Muslims as an attack on their collective identity and, as the Berkeley-based anthropologist Saba Mahmoud argues, a particular form of religiosity that elevates him as an ideal exemplar.

But it would be absurd not to recognise that the scale of the response isn't just about a repulsive video, or even reverence for the prophet. As is obvious from the slogans and targets, what set these protests alight is the fact that the injury to Muslims is seen once again to come from an arrogant hyperpower that has invaded, subjugated and humiliated the Arab and Muslim world for decades.

Since launching the war on terror, the US and its allies have attacked and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq; bombed Libya; killed thousands in drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; imposed devastating sanctions; backed Israel's occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians to the hilt; carried out large-scale torture, kidnapping and internment without trial; maintained multiple bases to protect client dictatorships throughout the region; and now threaten Iran with another act of illegal war.

The video is manifestly only the latest trigger for a deep popular anger in a region where opposition to imperial domination is now channelled mainly through the politics of Islam rather than nationalism. The idea that Arab and Muslim hostility to the US would have been assuaged because it intervened to commandeer Libya's uprising (an intervention most Arabs reject) is absurd.

About two-thirds of people in the Middle East and North Africa say they distrust the US, polling shows, rising to more than three-quarters in Pakistan. After 11 years of the war on terror, following decades of baleful intervention, the only surprise is that there aren't more violent anti-US and anti-western protests in the region.

Western war in the Muslim world has also fed a toxic tide of Islamophobia in Europe and the US. What is it about Muslims that makes them so easily offended, Europeans and Americans commonly demand to know – while Muslims point to cases such as the British 19-year-old who was convicted in Yorkshire last week of posting a "grossly offensive" Facebook message that British soldiers in Afghanistan "should die and go to hell", and ask why they're not afforded that protection.

The events of the last week are a reminder that an Arab world which has thrown off dictatorship will be more difficult for the western powers to hold in thrall. 

The Economist called the deadly assault on the US consulate in Libya an example of "Arab dysfunction" and urged the US not to retreat from the Middle East but go in deeper, including in Syria. As Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya have already shown, that would only bring disaster.

Via: "The Guardian"

Congress Passes “The Global Anti-Islam Review Act”

ESAM AL-AMIN prescribes in  "CounterPunch", the following remedy that will aid in healing old wounds and bridging the divide that exists between the West and the Global Muslim Community:

Even though peaceful demonstrations represent a civilized way to express strongly-held beliefs, and expressions of anger and protestations, the gulf between Muslim and Western societies is still very wide. While calls for international laws against libel, slander, or incitement that lead to the imminent breach of peace are legitimate, even laudable, unsubstantiated accusations are not. Muslim scholars, leaders, institutions, and governments must understand the cultural, legal, and political limits placed on secular democratic governments. While criticizing the U.S. or French governments of double standards when it comes to free speech against Muslim sensibilities is legitimate, accusing them of producing or promoting the vile movie or the offensive political cartoons is not only wrong, but also counterproductive.

There are two competing interests that prudent legal minds must reconcile in the interest of preserving global peace and harmony, namely free speech and expression that allow legitimate criticism, or unlimited harsh, even hostile, analysis, on the one hand, and the ban of libel, slander, and violent incitement on the other. Indeed all civilized societies have laws that criminalize or impose hefty fines on such transgressions.

Libel and slander are forms of defamation.  Defamation is a common law tort in which an individual makes a publication or representation of a defamatory statement concerning an individual or entity that damages his or its reputation or standing. The elements of such transgressions include: the defamatory statement; the publication of the statement which the instigator knew or should have known was false; and finally that such statement or depiction caused injury to the subject of thecommunication. One could easily argue that all these elements were covered in the current cases. The challenge is how to widen Western slander and libel laws to also protect the reputation and legacy of historical venerated figures and symbols from outrageous insults and despicable fabrications of their lives.

Western governments and societies certainly do not have to associate themselves with people who carry a political or cultural agenda. They certainly have a choice to make and thus bear the consequences of their choices. They can continue to sanction and promote such vile and slanderous speech by considering it a part of their tradition of free speech and expression despite its devastating implications on Muslims worldwide including their own Muslim citizens, in which case a world of constant tension and mistrust would continue. 

Or they can extend their libel and slander laws to cover these types of hate speech that result in injurious consequences in the same fashion any ordinary citizen or entity could charge or sue another person for the attempt to falsify his history or to slander and destroy his reputation.

Washington D.C. and on the campaign trail in Florida – October 16, 2012

In an historic election year to elect (or re-elect) a president, and with a continuous rise of anti-Islamic incidents around the world, the United States Congress rushed back to Capitol Hill from its October recess in order to pass “the Global Anti-Islam Review Act.”

The legislation to monitor and stop anti-Muslim acts or hate speech was passed unanimously in the House and Senate without a single dissenting vote. President Barack Obama immediately signed it in the White House with over 100 American Muslim leaders smiling behind him.

According to the Associated Press, President Obama said he signed into law a bill requiring the State Department to monitor global anti-Islamic conduct or speech and annually rate countries accordingly. “This nation will keep watch; we will make sure that the impulse of Islamophobia never finds a home in the modern world,” Obama said as he campaigned in the key battleground state of Florida.

“Extending freedom also means disrupting the evil of anti-Muslim haters,” Obama told thousands of cheering supporters packed in a sports arena usually used by the Florida Panthers professional ice hockey team. “Today, I signed the Global Anti-Islam Review Act of 2012. This law commits the government to keep a record of anti-Muslim acts throughout the world, and also a record of responses to those acts,” he said. American Muslim groups have hailed the bill’s passage, saying it provided a new avenue to fight Islamophobia.

Under the legislation, the State Department will have to produce an annual report on Islamophobia around the world and form a specific office headed by a special envoy to document such abuses and design strategies to combat them.

In the preamble to the bill Congress made the following findings:

(1) Acts of anti-Muslim hatred in countries throughout the world, including some of the world’s strongest democracies, have increased significantly in frequency and scope over the last several years.

(2) Islamophobia in old and new forms is also increasingly emanating in Western societies in a sustained  basis, including through books and movies.

(3) In 2012, anti-Islamic film was produced in the U.S. called “Innocence of Muslim,” which is based upon a fabricated history of the life of the prophet Muhammad to justify violence against Muslims.

(4) The sharp rise in anti-Muslim violence has caused international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to elevate, and bring          renewed focus to, the issue, including the convening by the OSCE of a conference in Vienna dedicated solely to the issue of Islamophobia.

(5) Anti-Muslim hate has at times taken the form of  vilification of Islam, the religion of over 1.5 Billion people, and incitement against Muslims.

In the sense of Congress section, the bill stated: It is the sense of Congress that:

(1) the United States Government should continue to strongly support efforts to combat anti-Muslim hatred worldwide through bilateral relationships and interaction with international organizations such as the OSCE, the European Union, and the United Nations; and 

(2) the Department of State should thoroughly document acts of Islamophobia that occur around the world.

In case you wondered if this was a daydream or fantasy, the answer is that every quote above from either the president or the bill did actually take place. The U.S. Congress indeed passed such a law with its related findings as outlined above

Just replace “2012” with “2004”, President Barack Obama with President George W. Bush, “Innocence of Muslims” film with “Horseman without a Horse,” an Arab TV Series, American Muslim leaders with American Jewish leaders, Muslims with Jews, vilification of “Islam” with vilification of “Zionism and Israel”, and every “anti-Islam”, “Islamophobia”, or “anti-Muslim hatred” word above with “Anti-Semitism” and you would get Public Law 108-332, The Global Anti-Semitism Review Act.