The protests against “Innocence of Muslims” are not just spontaneous outbreaks of rage. Radical Islamists and governments are exploiting the unrest for their own ends. In the process, it is hard for moderate Muslims to make their voices heard.
The conversation between the diplomats in Khartoum shows just how cynically the governments of some Muslim-majority countries deal with Internet phenomena such as the trailer for the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims.”
“If our regime would introduce more democracy, these kinds of riots would be impossible,” Sudanese opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi told SPIEGEL. “The undemocratic elites in the Islamic world take advantage of outbreaks of anti-Western violence to justify their illegitimate rule.”
It’s a recurring pattern: Most governments of Islamic countries are wary about isolating anti-Western preachers and agitators because they either need or fear their backers. This leads them to simply ride out the wave of anti-Western sentiment, even when it occasionally gets out of control. It has much more to do with tactical calculations than with spontaneous outrage.
Last week, politicians and rabble-rousers exploited the protests once again. In Pakistan, the government of Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf declared Friday to be “Love for the Prophet Day,” thereby presenting outrage as a civic duty. Radicals sent the police to arrest, on blasphemy charges, one shop owner in the southern city of Hyderabad who didn’t want to demonstrate.
The protests were mainly used as a way to vent growing frustration. Indeed, the fierce street battles waged between demonstrators and police in Karachi and Peshawar were by no means just about the Muhammad video. Instead, they were also about unemployment, about the rising cost of food, natural gas and gasoline, and about a chance to finally let off some steam. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets in protest, and at least 21 people paid with their lives.
Pakistan’s Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour offered a bounty of $100,000 on Saturday for anyone who killed the maker of “Innocence of Muslims.” On Monday, the Pakistani government distanced itself from the offer, however, saying it did not represent official policy.
On Tuesday of last week, a suicide bomber blew herself up next to a bus full of foreigners in Afghanistan. The group Hizb-i-Islami claimed responsibility for the attack. Although it was presumably meant to avenge the insult to Islam in the Muhammad video, the terror organization already sets off bombs frequently.
However, those eager to see an escalation are mostly members of vocal minorities – and radicals such as Egyptian Salafist preacher Ahmad Ashoush, who issued a fatwa calling for the murder of those involved in making the film. The religious edict posted on his group’s website calls for killing everyone who had anything to do with the film “including the producer, the director and the actors,” and said that “their killing is a duty of every capable Muslim.”
Majorities in both the Western and Islamic worlds have helplessly looked on as this cycle of provocation, protest and counter-provocation repeats itself. In recent weeks, calls for calm by Muslim scholars such as Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Paris Mosque, have been virtually drowned out. Mehmet Görmez, Turkey’s highest Islamic authority as the head of its Religious Affairs Directorate, said: “No matter how base, banal and provocative the film might be, there is absolutely no justification in the Islamic faith for Muslims to attack embassies and murder people who are not involved.” But radical Muslims ignored his statement.
Spiegel has the full article
