This week, anger has turned flags into flames and spilt blood in the streets of Sanaa, Benghazzi, Cairo and Tehran over a cheap, cowardly trap, set with the one aim of inspiring violence.
And it has.
But now it is time that we see through this C-class cowardice, seek out the truth and make a stand for peace, regardless of your beliefs.
The 13 minute youtube clip rumoured to be the trailer for an upcoming movie called Innocence of Muslims, is hateful and malicious.
A simplistic image from the amateur video aimed to inspire hate
But if you do watch it, you’ll see that it is also nothing more than a hack-job video compilation put together by a still “unknown” lone, lonely con man with worse video editing skills than the average teenager.
The video’s supposed uploader, an alleged Israeli-American director named Sam Bacile, is a fake name and identity.
The movie is also fake. Hollywood has never heard of it. As the New York Times has reported:
Executives at Hollywood agencies said they had never heard of it. Hollywood unions said they had no involvement. Casting directors said they did not recognize the actors in the 14-minute YouTube clip that purports to be a trailer for a longer film. Production offices had no records for a movie of that name. There was a 2009 casting call in BackStage, however, for a film called “Desert Warrior” whose producer is listed as Sam Bassiel.
And as the Guardian has reported, the cast and crew have come out and openly denied the film’s legitimacy as well.
The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film, and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.
As one cast member reflected:
It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago. It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion – it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything.
As the Gawker has reported:
In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product, now called Muslim Innocence. Muhammed wasn’t even called Muhammed; he was “Master George,” Garcia said. The word “Muhammed” was dubbed over in post-production, as were essentially all other offensive references to Islam and Muhammed.
For example, at 9:03 in the trailer, Garcia berates her husband, who wants to send their daughter to Muhammed: “Is your Muhammed a child molester?” she says in the final product. But the words are dubbed over what she actually said. The line in the script—and the line Garcia gave during filming—was, “is your God a child molester,”The actor said she was horrified that four US embassy employees, including the ambassador, died in Benghazi. “I had nothing to do, really, with anything. Now we have people dead because of a movie I was in. It makes me sick.”
And so must we be.
This deceitful video portrays The Prophet as nothing but a liar, child molester and a murderer. But the video is a lie itself.
It has been created with the one purpose of creating hate and hysteria in the Muslim world. It has been created by a small group of people, or possibly only one person who wants to see Muslims reacting with violence. They want to see his, because they want CNN and Fox News to show images of Muslim violence to make non-Muslims afraid of Islam. And so I will not show any more images here.
The creators know that if they can make know that the only way that and through their fear, to support horrendous wars against Islam around the world.
It was created as a trap. And it has worked.
In Libya, 4 people have been killed, including an American Ambassador. Embassies have been invaded by violent mobs in Yemen and Egypt.
And the cowards who created the video could not be happier: “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen.”
But what about those who want and believe in peace. How should we respond?
Here, I look to the Quaran as my guide when it asks all people to rise above hate, as:
The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto; but if a person forgives and makes peace, his reward rests with God. (al-Shura 42: 40)
Because, as it says in al-Furqan 25:63:
The true servants of the Most Merciful are those who behave gently and with humility on earth, and whenever the foolish quarrel with them, they reply with [words of] peace.
In order to overcome this un-Godly video, we must all quarrel against it with words of peace. We must openly dismiss it for the lie that it is, but we must resist its calls to anger; or else we fall into the same trap set by ‘mysterious men’ who will never feel the violence they have brought upon he world.
And so we must resist in peace and calls for unity. As people have already begun to do in Libya.
This video is created to divide us. The best way to resist it is to come together across race and religious divides, learn about our differences and show CNN and our common faith, in human kind.
Unfortunately unfashionable and often underperforms in table manners contests, but hopefully the blogs bust without too many drops on the table, or dribbles down my top.
Posted on 14 September 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Read more articles posted by Orang putih.
A simplistic image from the amateur video aimed to inspire hate
“Executives at Hollywood agencies said they had never heard of it. Hollywood unions said they had no involvement. Casting directors said they did not recognize the actors in the 14-minute YouTube clip that purports to be a trailer for a longer film. Production offices had no records for a movie of that name. There was a 2009 casting call in BackStage, however, for a film called “Desert Warrior” whose producer is listed as Sam Bassiel.”
“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film, and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”
“It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago. It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion – it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything.”
“In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product, now called Muslim Innocence. Muhammed wasn’t even called Muhammed; he was “Master George,” Garcia said. The word “Muhammed” was dubbed over in post-production, as were essentially all other offensive references to Islam and Muhammed.For example, at 9:03 in the trailer, Garcia berates her husband, who wants to send their daughter to Muhammed: “Is your Muhammed a child molester?” she says in the final product. But the words are dubbed over what she actually said. The line in the script—and the line Garcia gave during filming—was, “is your God a child molester,”The actor said she was horrified that four US embassy employees, including the ambassador, died in Benghazi. “I had nothing to do, really, with anything. Now we have people dead because of a movie I was in. It makes me sick.”
‘The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto; but if a person forgives and makes peace, his reward rests with God’ (al-Shura 42: 40)
‘The true servants of the Most Merciful are those who behave gently and with humility on earth, and whenever the foolish quarrel with them, they reply with [words of] peace.’
Marcus van Geyzel tweets at @vangeyzel. He believes that the only certain thing in life is that everything can be explained by the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter.
Posted on 14 September 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Read more articles posted by Marcus van Geyzel.
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