Firing up the crescent moon

OCT 13 — I’m going to say something people might construe as controversial; I do not understand why people are protesting against a movie about my Prophet.

It is even more confusing when people go to the protests carrying placards asking US President Obama to limit freedom of speech and expression because of the film.

Then it goes totally crazy when suddenly the chants call for the downfall of Zionists, Jews and the United States.

Let’s just look at some facts about “Innocence of Islam” and its film-makers, shall we?

Firstly, the movie was made by a Coptic Christian in California using the name Sam Bacile as an alias. He is not a Zionist. He has never been to Israel, nor does he have any ties to Israel.

He is also currently charged with fraud.

Now for those who have seen the movie and paid close attention, you will realise that every reference to Muhammad is a dub over, meaning it was not in the original voice of the actors.

Thus, the actors are currently in the process of suing both the movie director and also YouTube with regards to the movie.

But this is not the point.

The point is that both the Malay-Muslim majority parties, being PAS and Umno, came out recently in separate protests; one in front of the US embassy and another at a mosque in Kampung Baru.

Even here, there were some weird anomalies. Firstly, why was there a poster of Ayatollah Khomeini at the protest? Secondly, how the heck did the Hizbollah get involved in this?

But, more importantly, why were they protesting against Zionism and the Americans?

I believe the main problem we have as Malaysians is that we refuse to see these things as being individual acts, so instead we attack the nation these individuals reside in, boycott the products produced by those nations and even burn their flags.

Let me put this in context through a Malaysian issue.

Let’s talk about Bersih and Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, for instance. She protested for free and fair elections; I supported it along with tens of thousands of Malaysians.

So when the peaceful supposed sit-down protest became a riot, and individuals took matters into their own hands and acted violently against the police, does that mean all Malaysians are violent?

Similarly, should an Umno leader raise a kris and some numbskull stand up during the party’s general assembly asking when the prime minister is going to use it, does that mean the entire Malay population is going to walk around with daggers and start calling for war like the Uruk-hais in “Lord of The Rings”?

Of course not. That would be moronic, most of you would say.

Well, so was that protest in front of the US embassy.

The only thing that protest did was burnish the Islamic credentials of the political parties involved.

Other than that, it also showed that we, as an ummah, are dumb and have forgotten the first lessons in Islam’s rich history.

We had forgotten that our Prophet (pbuH) never acted in this manner when facing down resistance to the initial teachings of Islam.

We did not ask ourselves, and I hope the Christians forgive me for reverse engineering their phrase: what would Muhammad do?

Considering what I have read, he would have told us all to be calm and go on with our work, not hold stupid protests because time is precious, as the Quran dictates in Al-Asr:

“By time. Indeed mankind is in loss. Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds, and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.”

So just by reading these verses, especially that last part, may I ask how we as an ummah were both truthful or patient on that day?

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.