And Then They Mock Our Prophet

The Middle East-North Africa is boiling and the orgy of hypocrisy stemming from the West in reaction to tempestuous protests continues. The media has intentionally propagated that these latest fiery demonstrations are in response to an abstruse Islamophobic video trailer, ‘The Innocence of Muslims‘, which depicts the prophet Muhammad as being a ”fool, a philanderer and a religious fake” and “a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser.” Yet the violent public showings, the loud and flickering marches, are they in reaction to a video written and produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an ex-convict who goes by a laundry list of pseudonyms, or is there something more there which touches the core of this region, which the media refuses to discuss, to bring to light?

As Seumas Milne notes, the eruption in the region reflects a ‘deep popular anger and blowback from US intervention’:

“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.

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.”

“How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?” These were the credulous and self-contented words of US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton after the killing of the US ambassador to Libya and assault on the US consulate in Benghazi.

The so-called ‘Muslim World’ is often depicted as being one homogeneous savage – a beast needing to tamed, and often by use of force; interventions, drone bombings/extrajudicial assassinations, occupations, sanctions, indefinite detention. And after decades of bloodying the pages of history the US, et al., feign surprise – that the common people are not more grateful. That they dare bite the hand that both feeds and starves them.

The turbulent disposition shown by the masses congregating in the streets can be summated as follows:

They occupy our lands, bomb our villages, destroy our livelihoods, maim and kill our fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, torture and imprison us, starve us with sanctions, urinate on our corpses and then they mock our Prophet.

Further Readings:

The Innocence of White People - Michael Muhammad Knight

US media angrily marvels at the lack of Muslim gratitude - Glenn Greenwald

The tragic consulate killings in Libya and America’s hierarchy of human life - Glenn Greenwald