Patriot  News

By Ivy DeJesus

The unrest across the Muslim world in retaliation for a crudely made anti-Islamic video underscores a clash of cultures.

It’s a clash between a free country whose government has no say in the endeavors of writers, artists or filmmakers, and incensed Muslims and their leaders who call for the U.S. to intervene and even block the release of the film.

View full sizeAccording to Mehdi Noorbaksh, assistant professor of international affairs and coordinator of general education at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, the violent reaction to the anti-Islamic film stems from a deep lack of cultural understanding. File photo.

“It’s a lack of understanding,” said Muslim scholar Mehdi Noorbaksh, assistant professor of international affairs and coordinator of general education at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

“There is a gulf,” Noorbaksh said. “The way the government here interacts with faith-based institutions is very different from how their governments interact with those institutions. They do not understand that freedom of expression goes beyond that.”

On Tuesday, the wave of violent protests that has erupted in countries such as Sudan, Egypt and Libya continued to spread.

In Afghanistan, at least 12 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a vehicle carrying foreign workers near the airport in Kabul. A spokesman for an Afghan insurgent group said it was carried out by an 18-year-old woman in response to the film.

Egyptian officials issued arrest warrants for eight Egyptian Coptic Christians, including Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the U.S.-based filmmaker. Their list included Florida pastor Terry Jones, who incited Muslims two years ago when he called on Christians to burn the Quran and is reported to have promoted the film “Innocence of Muslims.”

Noorbaksh said American liberties that guarantee freedom to criticize religion constitute a notion not easily comprehended across the Muslim world.

“But sometimes they have expectations,” he said. “They think the Western democracy level of toleration and respect for other faiths and faith pluralism has to be more. That is the conflict at the moment.

“On one side, they don’t understand that the government can’t do anything about it. On the other side, they don’t understand why in a Western democracy the level of tolerance toward Islam is so low among a segment of the population.”

The anti-Islamic and pro-Israeli rhetoric of American public figures Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, and evangelists Pat Robertson and John Hagee helps portray Americans as intolerant of Muslims, Noorbaksh said.

“They do not understand that level of intolerance toward Muslims,” he said.

To understand the violent reaction in Muslim nations to “Innocence of Muslims,” one has to grasp the reverence for the faith’s prophet, said Dr. Mubashir Mumtaz, a spokesman for Harrisburg’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

The Prophet Muhammad and his teachings are held in the highest regard in the Muslim community. His teachings are regarded as having improved the lives of millions.

“Since he is that beloved of a figure and kept in that respect, Muslims are very sensitive to it. It hurts at your core when somebody says anything negative about him,” Mumtaz said.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has condemned the violence.

“Our community does not believe in any violence in reaction to anything,” Mumtaz said. “You cannot justify those acts. Islam does not teach you that.”

The video served one purpose: to provoke Muslims, he said. And even though the Quran condemns violence, fundamental sectors of the faith were bound to react to such a film, Mumtaz said.

“If you exploit someone’s emotions or feelings, you agitate somebody with the intention of making them angry and violent, I’m sure there are people who would revert to violence,” he said.

Still, both men emphasized that the violence across the Middle East and beyond is being perpetrated by a minority.

Noorbaksh used the example of a few hundred protesters in Cairo, a city of about 10 million people.

“That is not representation of the whole country,” he said. “The moderate clerics are not demanding this. This is a fringe. These are extremists in this part of the world that are reacting to extremists. I hope Americans understand that. It is not the voice of the majority. It’s a very tiny minority.”

The street demonstrations — a legacy in repressive countries recently impacted by the Arab Spring — likely will continue as the key method of protest.

“They didn’t have a media where they could write an op-ed piece or a legislature that could respond to the sentiment of the people,” said Dennis Jett, a former American ambassador and professor at the School of International Affairs at Penn State University. “They didn’t have a judiciary capable of justice and not much in the way of civil society. They didn’t have any way to express themselves politically.”

That pushed political discussion to the mosques, Jett said. And with governments unwilling to be critical of clerics, mosques became the natural outlet for a frustrated people.

“Until they are fully functioning democracies with institutions to support them, until they have alternative ways to express themselves, I suppose they’ll continue to rely on street demonstrations that occasionally turn violent,” Jett said.

Mumtaz bemoans that the film and the volatile reaction to it undermine the gains his community has made here.

The local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community recently held a blood drive in memory of Sept. 11 victims.

“We are trying to do good in every community, then you turn around and from the same country we are trying to do good, somebody does this movie, which is totally false, and tries to cause more destruction where we are trying to build peace,” he said.