I have been following the unfolding protests in the predominantly Arab-Islamic countries, in North Africa and Middle East, against the film “Innocence of Islam”. No sooner did I hear about the upsurge of protests against it than I watched the parts of it that were available online. I wanted to be fully aware of the facts surrounding such a religious rage which was, all of a sudden, turning the region upside down. Unlike millions of people, who are protesting against something they may have not watched, I wanted “my rage” to be based on watching the movie itself; not hearsay.

The trailer I watched represents the pinnacle of triviality. No respectable movie-maker, endowed with an ounce of artistic taste, can misuse the word art to describe such an oddity that spans fourteen centuries, oblivious to historically established truths, so as to besmirch the image of an entire religion. Human progress has established art as a form of expression that brings people together, builds bridges of understanding and establishes a forward looking relationship between peoples and religions. A tool to transcend religious cleavages. However, everything about “Innocence of Islam” is created with the intention of stoking embers of hatred between Muslims and the rest of the world. Everything about this so-called movie, from its low taste cinematography to the scenery where it was filmed, was intentionally designed to portray Islam, its prophet and his followers, in the crudest disrespectful way possible. “Innocence of Islam’s” impregnation with artistic ugliness, taste crudeness and hateful speech disproves any possibility that it might be the doing of cinema professionals; it is rather a low quality racial slur that even the most amateurish beginner in a cinema class would not make. By launching such a “movie”, its makers betrayed their ignorance and their contempt for others; for difference. Hence, for me personally, “Innocence of Islam” has gloriously secured a place for itself in the bottom of the art dumpster, and it is not worth any Muslim’s protest; it will assuredly never be a blockbuster anywhere.

I was wondering whether the prophet, Muhammed (PBUH), would have been happy to see his followers take to the streets in thousands because a fame seeker spewed his hate out to provoke them, while they sideline the greatest struggle, al jihad al akbar, building a modern state, where human rights and dignity are the keystone. My personal assessment is that the beloved prophet of Islam, whose conduct, tradition and life embodied tolerance, would not allow any innocent blood, rather any blood whatsoever, to be shed in his name. The prophet would have preferred to see his followers’ energy channeled towards social programs to better the lives and alleviate the pains of people, and not just Muslims, everywhere.

The protests elicited by “Innocence of Islam”, despite the legitimacy of the collective feeling of humiliation, are not worth the mobilization of thousands, rather millions, of Arabs and Muslims, who just taught the world one of the finest lessons in peaceful revolution against injustice and dictatorship. They offered the world a beautiful patchwork of civil disobedience in which all people joined forces, regardless of their religions, from Rabat Square to Damascus, side by side, to chant in unison “down with dictatorship”. Yet, the violence of the recent unfolding protests are eroding that symbolic capital and diverting the world’s attention from the real priorities in the post-uprising countries.

Violence has never been the right answer to situations of injustice. The prophet himself exhorted his followers to develop self-restraint, and not make hasty reactions. The meaning of strength was redefined and shifted, thanks to the message of Islam, from physical strength to self-restraint. Beefy muscles, and violent protests by extension, are not equivalent to strength anymore; rather strength is having a sound character and the use of one’s intelligence to solve problems wisely. The strong person, according to the prophet, is not the one who overcomes the people by his physical strength, but the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger. Muslim jurists, during the golden times of Islam, when gates of ijtihad were still open, developed a rich jurisprudence around anger management which unfortunately seems to have fallen in desuetude. Dr.Muhamed Iqbal Araoui rightly argued that the prophet should be only defended in the same means that he would have used to defend himself. Unfortunately, what we see today is all but an embodiment of the prophet’s tolerance and generosity. These violent protests have no wisdom in them; they are rather antipodal to wisdom or thoughtfulness of the prophet of Islam. Watching throngs of people vent their anger at a flag or an effigy contrives all sorts of feelings of asabiyya (community bond) that Islam strove to put an end to.

After the remarkable changes, brought about by the epic Arab uprisings, overshadowed the marginal, nonetheless powerful, voices that herald a clash of civilizations in every encounter between East and West—namely between Islam on the one hand and Christianity and Judaism on the other hand—and forced them to bow down because of the anachronism of their rhetoric to the spirit of the moment, the atmosphere created by “Innocence of Islamic” afforded them an undreamed of opportunity to dominate the public arena. These forces were silenced on both sides because the uprisings did not only oust corrupt leadership, but also imposed a radical change of the perception of the Arabs and Muslims in the West. The word Arab, and Muslim by extension, acquired a new, more positive connotation, which evokes heroic challenge, grassroots organizations, collective sacrifice and peaceful mobilization to effectuate change. Who in their wildest dreams, before 2011, would have imagined American citizens in the state of Ohio waving signs to urge their co-citizens to “walk like an Egyptian”, in protest against their governor? The Egyptian, and hence the Arab, has become a symbol of pride and peaceful fight to snatch one’s rights from the powerful. These perceptions, of course, constitute a rupture with the terrorist stigma that reactionary “Benladenism” has unjustly smeared Arab/Muslims with. In the midst of these positive changes, which are not only changing the Arab world but also the way the world was perceiving Arabs, “Innocence of Islam” succeeded, because of the passionate and disproportionate reactions it engendered, in casting doubt on the validity of these positive changes, especially with the raise of Salafism.

This unfortunate situation sheds light on the expedite need for an overall intellectual change in the Middle East and North Africa, and also among Western citizens, to help people understand the scope of freedom of expression. It is true that the uprisings managed to overthrow dictators, but a long term education reform process is needed to uproot its sediments from people’s behavior. Decades of oppression did not only scar the memories of its direct victims, but they also left their imprint on people’s perceptions of themselves and others. Dictatorship ruled the people by making sure that they were not highly educated, or if they were, that their education did not allow them to develop critical thinking. Therefore, the region cannot succeed in the coming years in its bid to build real progressive societies without implementing deep intellectual reforms. On the other hand, Western citizens should be taught that freedom of expression is not a one-size-fits-all thing when it comes disrespecting other people’s beliefs and religious faith. It is important that people are aware of the fact that freedom of expression can be understood differently across cultures, and they should be mindful of its consequences when people feel humiliated.

The role of Arab and Muslim intellectuals in western countries is primordial in developing positive exchanges between the two worlds. They are at the helm of those, sadly, very few people, who represent the voice of reason and call for self-control in the midst of this fury. This is not to say that they are better than their co-religionists and co-citizens in the Arab world. It only means that their life in immigration, in addition to their immersion in the cultural environment of their host countries, allows them to see the in-between space others do not have the opportunity to see. Dictatorship managed, in collusion rich countries, for purely economic reasons, to turn Arab countries into big roofless jails where people are contained from all sides. The ones who obtain a visa to visit a foreign country feel blessed, and treat that luxury with utmost care. This state of affairs does not help fostering the necessary cultural exchange to appreciate “alterity”; it takes discovering the other in their own space, among their own people and in their own language to be able to trust them. It is true that very big numbers of students from the US and elsewhere visit different Arab countries, but very few people go the other way. The persistence of this situation does not help in dispelling the reigning mistrust between Muslims and the West. A mistrust that can be successfully dispelled if the sources from which it emanates are dealt with:

– There is a misconception among Arabs and Muslims that denigrating films are orchestrated by the governments in the West. This is as far from reality as it could be. This misconception, however, finds its roots in the existence of film commissions and censorship bodies in Arab countries. When people call on the U.S. to censor a movie, it is because they think that the same rules apply everywhere. It is unconceivable for a lot of people to accept that there is no state control of the film industry in the US for example.

– Lack of understanding of the sacredness of constitutional rights. Freedom of speech was won after fierce battles against dictatorships in Europe and America, and citizens treat it dearly. While freedom of expression is the practical incarnation of democratic values of the American society, it did not exist in the majority of Arab countries before the uprisings; and in the rare places where it indeed existed; it depended on the whims of the ruler, who could take it away at his own will.

– The misleading idea that European and American people are monolithic. It is simply the most preposterous allegation one could ever hear. These countries enjoy such a huge cultural, linguistic and political diversity, that talking about their monolithism is untenable.

– The existence of a misapprehension that by protesting more, western citizens would feel their rage, and hence force their governments to sacrifice democratic values to please angry protesters. In a democratic country, like the US, only justice can redress people’s grievances following a due process.

– The persistence of religious influence. The biggest majority of these protesters may not have watched the movie they are protesting against. However, they were forced to protest because a sheikh or a religious reference incited them to, and thus, protesting becomes a religious duty that intersects with political agenda of the Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood whose forces are joined manipulate the faithful.

– The West has generally been the target of Arab frustration. The former dictators allowed their people to criticize Western countries, and even provided logistic help for these million men demonstrations to succeed; but woe to anyone who criticized the regimes themselves during these protests. The new rulers are using the same “scapegoat strategy” to divert anger from their failures and channel it towards the Other.

I believe that the implementation of a few measures in the long run will appease these tensions, and allow many more people in the Arab world to understand the value of freedom, free speech and the genuinity of democracy in western countries, namely the US. Unfortunately, the visa systems do not encourage the mobility of the lower social classes. However, encouraging the movement of individuals will have a positive impact on the understanding between people in the Middle East and western countries. Deepening education exchanges will also establish bridges of understanding in the long run between Arab citizens and their counterparts in Western countries. Moreover, making sure that educational exchange scholarships go to the people who deserve them, especially from lower classes of society, is sine qua non to establishing a dialogue with the “bottom of society”, where real change should gestate. Only when people at the “bottom of the social ladder” are reached out to, can we talk about the beginning of a change in the misconceptions that create the psychological barrier between the west and Arab people.

“Innocence of Islam” does not warrant the Muslim’s disproportionate reaction against its director, actors and the US interests, the country where it was supposedly made. The people behind the apparently innocent spontaneous protests against its fatuous maker do not only help him in his mission to denigrate Islam and Muslims, but also distract Arabs from their holier and bigger fight against the reactionary regimes, and the return of dictatorship. Millions of Mulsims are falling in a skillfully set up trap to polarize the world between them and everyone else.

* Araf, verse 199. P. 159, M.H.Shaki

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Brahim el Guabli teaches Arabic language and culture in the United States. His areas of research include–but are not limited to–Arabic literature, Islam and society, identity and political discourse in modern Arabic societies, and “berbérité” and Islam among the Amazigh of southeast Morocco. Prior to living in the United States, Brahim was involved in the Moroccan civil society for many years. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya‘s Maghreb Page.