Does 'Innocence of Muslims' really deserve our attention?

So here we are again, after blasphemous cartoons, burning Qurans now we have an insulting film.  Many have been injured, some killed, buildings, restaurants, tires, motor cycles and buses have been burned, websites have been blocked, and still the issue is hot.

Up until now, I was reluctant to see the trailer of the movie because frankly I was not interested. I have much bigger issues in life then to waste my time watching trailers of third class movies, which also happen to insult some other religions. But then after seeing and reading about all the violence I decided to give it a go and saw it on YouTube.

My fellow readers, if I believe that Sam Bacile (the producer of Innocence of the Muslims, whose real name is alleged to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) says that he financed the project with 5 million dollars then I would also believe that King Kong really did climb the Empire State building. The trailer showed that this movie is a hideous and revolting insult to the art of movie making. Not only that one can clearly see that at some parts it is horrendously dubbed, especially where the name Muhammad comes in. The acting is other worldly bad and the dialogues are offensive. Remember, this movie is supposed to be satirical, but if this was satire then one might as well call Nazi propaganda movies like The Eternal Jew as thoughtful and considerate works of art. This is a crude movie that does not even require big financing, even I can finance this movie with my $10 per hour part time cash in hand job. But if it is, so crude, so childish and so amateurish, then why is it responsible for worldwide violence.

One might blame the attitude of the Muslims; some are calling the Muslims as immature and contend that that this movie is not enough to have sparked worldwide outrage and violent protests. For hardliners in USA and Israel it is a dream reaction, they can now confidently say that, look this is why we are against Islam, it’s a violent religion.

Its critics point out that there is a thin line between good-natured satire and malicious satire, others say that movies like this should be banned because freedom of expression doesn’t meaning hurting the religious beliefs of others. Hardliners from the Muslim camp, point to a sinister conspiracy by the Jews and Americans.

I find some valid points from both the arguments, I believe that killing people and burning cars and buildings in response to a sub-mental dialogued movie is absolutely nonsensical and this movie should have been ignored and I also believe that there should be line drawn when it comes to satire because this movie was not what you would call satire. When somebody knows that this sort of movie will hurt the feelings of Muslims in the same way, a satire about concentration camps will hurt Jews then why do it?

Turns out that the consultant for the movie, Steve Klein did know about the outcome of this whole enterprise. His life mission it seems is to protect his family, especially his granddaughter from ’these monsters’ (referring to Muslims).

So we have a bunch of Islamophobes out there that made a crude anti-Islam movie, but then there are lots of websites, books, documentaries, even seminars, that purport to be anti-Islamic, but should we do violent protests every day just because they insult our religion?  Surely, there can be another, more mature way to register a protest. Why hasn’t any American Muslim sued Nakoula or Steve Klein for being indirectly responsible for the deaths of American citizens in Libya? Or doesn’t anybody from the cast sue the filmmakers for duping them?  Surely, there are ways if one is willing to look.

In my view the only the entities who would benefit from such a situation (and they have always benefited from such situations) are the hardliners from both parties. Its them hardliners who are having a field day and hyping up the issue, which is not worth even a penny.  The public property that we end up burning happens to be our property not Nakoula or Klein’s.  With such actions, we only favor the cause of the extremists and nothing else.

It’s high time that we show some maturity. If one is offended by the movie then don’t watch it (hardly 10 people watched it in USA but which, thanks to the Egyptian cleric, has now been watched by millions), ignore it and the agitators would eventually fade away. Such violence only reveals insecurities of own beliefs rather than being an expression of our strong belief and the love of the Prophet (PBUH).