So there have been protests across the Middle East in reaction to Innocence of Muslims, an anti-Islamic film that pokes fun at the Prophet Muhammad. The most noteworthy being the protest in Libya which culminated in the burning of the American embassy and the death of US ambassador Chris Stevens. The American Right have resorted to claiming it was an act of "terrorism" and accusing Obama of covering up al-Qaeda involvement in his death. On an interesting side-note, it seems all too convenient that al-Qaeda is everywhere and nowhere at once. Of course, the reaction has been mostly dull and predictable. The neoconservative Douglas Murray has found the time to moralise about the fire-bombing of Charlie Hebdo last year and the appalling behaviour of Hillary Clinton. Even though Murray finds the invasion of Iraq - a war crime that has left 5 million children orphaned - the most beautiful testament to the liberal ideals of democracy and freedom. The reactionaries always have the time for the liberation of women and homosexuals if that means they can bash Muslims.
You don't need me to tell you about the reactions the protests have drawn from such reactionary hysterics as Glenn Beck and Melanie Philips, but what about the enlightened liberals? In response to the protests Richard Dawkins tweeted ‘Koran discovered with coffee cup stain on the front cover, US marines deployed to all Starbucks franchises.’ The secularist brigade has moved to damn the protests with the garden-variety brand of middle-class outrage. The timeout from the important task of banning circumcision and public funding for Christmas trees gives anti-theists a moment to posture over the sight of Muslims burning Israeli and American flags. Pat Condell has taken to calling Islam the ‘religion of permanent offence’ before commenting on Islam's unwelcome status in the world and the literacy rates among the rioters. He describes Islam doubles as an ideology equal to Nazism. Once again the commonsense critics of religion find it persuasive and progressive to pick fun at the already furious masses of the Middle East.
Okay, enough about the New Atheists - I've wasted too much ink on them already! It has to be acknowledged that there is room for criticism of the violent protests insofar as these events are destructive to the perception of Muslims in the West. No one condones the death of an American ambassador, but we have to consider the wider impact of this on religious and ethnic minorities in the West. The violence falls right into the hands of those engaged in campaigns of hatred against Muslims in Europe and elsewhere. This is no laughing matter as we've seen the veil banned in France, minarets banned in Switzerland and circumcision banned in Cologne. There remain many calls for even more bans, even on halal meat. French fascists have been setting up soup kitchens which only serve pork based soup in a deliberate strike at homeless Muslims. Events such as the violence and protests around the Muhammad cartoons just pour fuel on the fire.
If we're going to be serious about racism in Europe and the long-term safety of Western Muslims then we need to acknowledge this. That isn't to say there aren't important questions to be asked about the film itself. But there's no contradiction between criticising the violence and criticising the provocation. We can still debate whether or not people should be producing philistinous films caricaturing Muhammad to bait Muslims. It appears that the person behind the film was a Coptic Christian, who tried to deflect the blame onto a non-existent Israeli realtor. It's good reason to suspect that the film was produced to whip up a frenzy of Muslim anger. It may be possible that the film itself was a work of religious sectarianism. This may be speculative at this point but I see good reason to suspect that this film was about provocation and nothing more. Some of the actors weren't even aware that they were participating in an anti-Islamic film and were duped into the project. That's not to say it should be censored for it caused offence, there is no right not to be offended.
Furthermore, there can never be such a right as one can be offended about anything, just as a belief shouldn't be bestowed privilege simply because it is believed. This is where it is important to distinguish between what is constructive criticism, especially when it comes to the debate over theological questions, and when it is cretinous intolerant garbage. In other words, in case you're Pat Condell, there's a difference between a historical documentary on Islam's emergence and the mobs that have formed outside Mosques under the chant "Allah is a paedo!" We can make moral statements about that which ought to be unacceptable in society and this is a different discussion to calls for censorship. It's about what should be said, not what has been said. The position that the video shouldn't have been made, given the motivation behind it, really falls before it was published. After it has been published it doesn't do much good removing it, it's best to be pragmatic about this. But that's a different statement to defending its specific content.
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