(The Indian Express, Sep 29 2012)
On the other side of fear
by Javed Anand
So what’s new? Someone makes a film, Innocence of Muslims, and there is “Muslim rage” in the streets. In this supposed “clash of civilisations”, how is one to choose between one brand of madness and another? Between those out to convince the world that there can be no such thing as a moderate Muslim because “Islam preaches violence”. And those Muslims who believe the best way to tell the world that “Islam means peace” is by resorting to violence each time someone provokes them with a book, a cartoon, a film.
The choice is simple. Nothing can justify violence. So the “Muslim rage” must be unequivocally condemned and freedom of expression defended, never mind the motive behind the making of the 14-minute film and its pathetic cinematic quality.
That there can be no democracy without fundamental freedoms we already know. What’s novel is the reiteration now by a growing number of Muslim scholars that Islam too rests on the freedom bedrock and the very notion of blasphemy is “un-Islamic”. That this is not a mainstream Muslim position is evident in the demand being raised by many Muslim religious and political leaders for a global consensus on limits to free speech and punishment for blasphemy.
Yet there is something new and refreshing in the air. Read the statements of religious and political leaders as well as editorials and letters to the editor in Urdu newspapers. Take, for example, a letter by a Saudi Arabia-based Indian, Abdul Rehman Mohammed Yahya, published simultaneously as a boxed/lead letter in the Monday editions of three Urdu dailies in Mumbai: Inquilab, Rashtriya Sahara and Sahafat. The gist of the long letter is a rhetorical question addressed to fellow Muslims: “What did Prophet Muhammad do in the face of repeated insults heaped on him during his lifetime?” The answer: he forgave them.
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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/on-the-other-side-of-fear/1009399/0
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