Reframing the Fear Narrative

A few weeks ago, in response to the "Innocence of Muslims" movie trailer, several world leaders called on the United Nations to enact anti-blasphemy laws. These leaders had an opportunity to deflate the extremist narrative, but, instead, they became a party to it.

In asking for such laws, these leaders (Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, to name a few) justified the extremist belief that Muslims need others to behave or they themselves will not (a.k.a. Muslims are innately violent). These leaders missed the opportunity to highlight the fact that, of the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, only tens of thousands demonstrated. Even one million Muslims demonstrating is only .000625 or 0% of the total, global Muslim population. Put another way: Instead of protesting, almost every Muslim on the planet stayed home, went to work, took the kids to school, went to dinner, read a book, went to Mosque, met friends for coffee, grocery shopped, cleaned the house, prayed, or did some other activity that was not demonstrating against this movie.

Instead of suggesting that Muslims need protection from hate speech, world leaders should have pointed out that radical speech begets radical responses. Those who preach hate are counting on radicals to act. As Steve Coll wrote in the October 1 issue of The New Yorker, some of these protests were organized by “fringe political parties and radical activists”. Such protests “do not typically attract even a large minority of the local faithful”. These protesters were “shock troops, comparable to Europe’s skinheads or anarchists”.

Even in their call to temper freedom of expression through social responsibility, world leaders only helped emphasize the polarizing West-versus-Islam narrative. Freedom of expression is not the problem, and social responsibility is not the answer. Extremists do not respond to laws, logic, or social responsibility. These things are the antithesis of their mission. Mark Basseley Youssef (a.k.a. Sam Bacile) is a US citizen who made a movie and put it on YouTube, but he is not representative of Western ideals. He’s an anti-Muslim radical.

Then there is the video itself. World leaders and the media repeatedly and primarily describe the video as portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a war-mongering pedophile, womanizer, and fraud. While that description of the video’s message is accurate, the video should be just as repeatedly and primarily described as haphazard, unintelligible, low-budget, and soft-porn. Rather than a call to arms, this video is an embarrassment, a joke, not on Muslims or supporters of tolerance but on anti-Muslim radicals. Is this the best propaganda they could produce? (Will those actors ever find work outside of the porn industry?) Considering nearly 100% of Muslims did not protest the video, why can’t world leaders and the media acknowledge that this video is a message by extremists, for extremists. The rest of the world is too busy living to take this thing seriously.

All too often, radicals control the narrative. Whatever is the most shocking grabs the most headlines. Whoever screams the loudest gets heard. The rest of the world barely has time to view a movie trailer on YouTube, much less stop their lives to go protest about it. It is for world leaders, those with a built-in pulpit, to create an alternative narrative from that of the radicals. They have to present, repeatedly, and in many forums, the narrative of reason and logic. Doing so does not minimize the impact of radical violence and hate speech, but it puts it in the proper perspective. Rather than such actions consuming the entire frame, they should be viewed for what they are: one small part of the entire picture.

Sources:
“Algeria at UN: Limit Free Speech, Protect Islam.” NPR. National Public Radio, 29 Sept. 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=162013363
Bacile, Sam. “Muhammad Movie Trailer.” YouTube. YouTube, 2 Jul. 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM
Coll, Steve. “Days of Rage.” The New Yorker 1 Oct. 2012: 21-22. Print.
Craig, Iona and Sara Lynch. “Violence Tied to Anti-Islam Film Rises Across the Middle East.” Detroit Free Press. Detroit Free Press, 17 Sept. 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://www.freep.com/article/20120914/NEWS07/309140093
Kaleem, Jaweed. “At the United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation Calls for Ban on Insulting Prophet Muhammad.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Sept. 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/united-nations-organization-of-islamic-cooperation_n_1927166.html
 “Man Behind Anti-Muslim Film to Appear in Court.” Associated Press. Associated Press, 10 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=dzNLdSbg
“Pakistanis Protest Against Anti-Islam Film.” NPR. National Public Radio, 29 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=162003958
“The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projects for 2010 – 2030.” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew Research Center, 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1872/muslim-population-projections-worldwide-fast-growth
“The Worldwide Protests Against Anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims: By the Numbers.” The Week. The Week, 17 Sept. 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://theweek.com/article/index/233439/the-worldwide-protests-against-anti-islam-film-innocence-of-muslims-by-the-numbers