‘Innocence of Muslims’,the film that sparked a
wave of violent protests across the Middle
East is not the first work of its kind, deemed an
unacceptable violation of religion by Muslims, while the west defends it as an
example of freedom of expression. For the most part, protests of this kind are
a simple expression of anger, but in some cases they tip over into an
expression of violence. Last week, the latest of this kind of violence claimed
the lives of the American ambassador to Libyaand
three embassy staff members. In Cairo,
it led to the taking down the American flag and replacing it with that of
al-Qaeda. These protests are a link in a long chain of similar incidents, like
those sparked by the Danish cartoons in 2005. At times like this, it is worth
considering the underlying causes of this anger.
The Wahabi Salafist school of
thought, largely funded by oil-rich Arab countries, promotes Islamic
fundamentalism and reinforces its presence, particularly when the religion is
perceived to be under attack. Military dictatorships which employ religious
rhetoric also play a role, as does the nature of the Muslim communities where
these protests take place. Often these communities are part of conservative,
patriarchal societies which insist upon upholding tradition and respecting that
which is deemed holy. Some of it can also be explained by pure political
exploitation, with religious sentiments stoked by the media and political
parties in order to further their own interests, or to distract the public from
more important issues.
However, an often ignored reason
is a fear for Islam. There is a belief amongst Islamic movements,
particularly the Salafists, that there is a conspiracy against Islam and that
it is in danger. The mindset that Islam is under threat dates back to the start
of the globalization era and the information revolution in the mid-1990s. The United
States’ war on
terror furthered this notion, especially under the Bush administration, which
initially conflated Islam and terrorism and only later tweaked its rhetoric so
as to differentiate between Islamist extremists and Muslims.
This fear prompted extremist
groups to label the US
as Islam’s primary enemy driven also by US
support for Israel
and its perceived anti-Islamic stances. At the same time the phenomenon of
Islamophobia began to take form in the West. 9/11 represents just one of the
manifestations of this conflict and further fueled fears on both sides - the
fearfor Islam and the fear of it.
The appearance of Arabic-language
evangelizing Christian channels devoting significant airtime to aggressively
criticizing Islam reinforced these concerns over the state of Islam. The most
famous of those channels was the US-based Al Hayat, which broadcast
programming with searing criticisms of Islam by exiled priest Zakaria Botros.
These channels, together with the establishment of similar Islamic
counterparts, all contributed to the sectarian climate in many Arab countries
and have likely contributed to higher numbers of incidents directed at
Christian minorities in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt and Iraq.
Fear for Islam has manifested
itself in other ways in Egypt,
away from accusations of blasphemy. Following the January 2011 uprising, a
concern for the preservation of the country’s Islamic identity was one of the
driving factors behind political maneuvering in Egypt,
and led to the political polarization of Islamists and secularists. Some
Egyptians hoped that after Mubarak’s fall, Egypt
would be on a path to democratic transformation. Islamists feared the impact
that a democratic transformation would have on the country's Islamic identity.
The first manifestations of these
fears emerged during the March 2011 referendum regarding the constitutional
amendments. Political forces split into two factions, the Islamists and the
liberals. The Islamist faction was in favor of the amendments put forward by
the constitutional committee, claiming that if liberals had their way, Article
2 would be stricken from the constitution. The liberal faction, on the other hand,
held that an orderly transition to democracy required that the constitution be
written first, and were thus opposed to the constitutional amendments.
Recently, this fear also prompted
Salafists to propose a new article in the constitution a few days before the
protests, criminalizing the defamation of religion. This may have been a major
factor in the strong Salafist presence in the protests on September 11.
As the protests continue to
spread further east into Pakistan
and Afghanistan,
the same rule of fearing for their religion, together with an already openly
hostile attitude towards the USthroughout
the region will continue to give rise to angry protests. Turning an eye to the Middle East,
given that no genuine liberal democracy guaranteeing the freedoms of expression
and religion has emerged from the Arab Spring, the current climate which stokes
the notion of a clash of civilizations is likely to fester.
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