September 12, 2012 9:05 am
How an Obscure Video Sparked International Protests
Image: JanneM
The US ambassador to Libya was killed last night in an attack on the American Consulate sparked by a video mocking Mohammed, Islam’s prophet. The video itself was hardly seen at all by anyone in the United States, but a translation to Arabic posted on YouTube suddenly incited anger and violence in the Muslim community.
The film—titled “Innocence of Muslims”—was produced, written and directed by a man named Sam Bacile, a real-estate developer from California. Bacile is an Israeli-American, and his film drew about $5 million in donations from Jewish donors across the country, he has said.
Few people in the United States had seen the video, but it was promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose penchant for burning Qurans has put him in the spotlight before. His promotion likely put the film on the radar of Islamic activists, who objected to what the New York Times calls a “buffoonish caricature of the prophet Mumammad,” who, in the film, calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal.”
Bacile is now in hiding, although he’s not ready to take back what he said in his movie. While he’s not sure who translated it into Arabic, he doesn’t blame his film for the deaths of the ambassadors. “I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” Bacile told NBC News. “America should do something to change it.”
But Bacile also knew the potential risks of making such a movie. Steve Klein, a consultant to Bacile on the film, had warned him. The Guardian reports:
Klein said he had vowed to help Bacile make the movie but warned him: “You’re going to be the next Theo van Gogh.” Van Gogh was a Dutch film-maker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam.
In protests outside the Libyan embassy, angry citizens decried Bacile’s depiction of their prophet. Some of them wore Guy Fawkes masks, while others held signs saying “Worshippers of the Cross, leave the Prophet Muhammad alone.” Protestors also climbed the walls of the American embassy in Egypt and seized an American flag. They were continuing to protest Wednesday morning. The New York Times reports:
[Cairo blogger] Zeinobia also reported that confusion about the origins of the film was so general that one group of fundamentalist Muslims was “calling for another huge protest at the embassy of Netherlands, demanding its closure because the Dutch government is producing an insult film against Islam.” Dutch diplomats responded with a statement denying these claims, she noted.
While the Koran does not spell out a prohibition against depicting Mohammed, some Islamic traditions forbid it.
More from Smithsonian.com:
The Struggle Within Islam
A New Crisis for Egypt’s Copts
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
whose, not who’s. If you’re going to call your blog “smart news,” you’re going to need writers with basic grammar and punctuation skills.
Comment by WordNerd — September 12, 2012 @ 10:29 am
I work in Tahrir Square, just around the corner from the American Embassy in Cairo. In my experience, Egyptians are not characteristically anti-American, this kind of thing, however, provokes those with deep religious convictions (and the ubiquitous young football fans) in the city. It is hard to avoid the belief that the people who created this furore were perfectly well aware of what they were doing (it is particularly annoying to Cairenes as we have had two months of relative peace and quiet since the Presidential Election). I am all in favor of Freedom of Speech, but I am also pro commonsense. It is awfully easy to be brave and cite Freedom of Speech when you are several thousand miles from the consequences of your stupidity. Isn’t there enshrined within the concept of Freedom of Speech a limit when someone quite deliberately incites others to violence?
Comment by Nigel — September 12, 2012 @ 11:24 am
Nigel – every year, football teams continue to play despite the knowledge that some fans somewhere will be killed in pointless hooliganism. Why should we uphold the right of people to play professional sports, yet abandon the right of people to publicly reject and criticize Islam? If we allow our people to speak out freely, despite whatever reactions occur, then inevitably we will reach a point where there is no new blasphemy left unuttered, and we can have confidence in such diplomatic relations as remain with those who have not yet rejected our nation and our fundamental rights.
Comment by Mike Serfas — September 12, 2012 @ 12:15 pm
Not so smart – this was planned – not in reaction to your admittedly obscure video that no one has ever heard of.
Comment by Shiphrah — September 12, 2012 @ 4:24 pm