Islamophobia and Internet

(Sorry! this is the composition work in my English class)

It started in September 2005, when the reckless Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten” published twelve editorial cartoons which boldly depicted Prophet Mohammad’s satirical images. The cartoons have been quickly spread over the world via Internet and other media. Subsequently, it has caused turbulent opposition by Muslims, and generated immeasurable negative consequences.

Regardless of Muslim’s traditional sensitiveness, which strictly prohibits anyone from drawing the Prophet Muhamamd’s image, the Danish media broke the taboo. The paper said they aimed to contribute to the debate criticizing Islam and its self-censorship. Despite the Danish Muslims’ large opposition to it, 50 other newspapers in the world reprinted the unflattering cartoons. Angry Muslim protesters reportedly set fire to Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran in 2006. The rioting crowd also stormed several European buildings and burnt their flags, resulting in more than 100 casualties.

The 75-year-old-Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, who had originally drawn the notorious image of “Mohammad as a suicide bomber (concealing a bomb in his turban,)” had received number of death threats. In Janurary 2010, he was assaulted by a Somali Muslim extremist, who had ties with the Al Qaeda-related terror group, Al-Shabaab, but he barely escaped by hiding in a fortified “panic room” at his home.

The Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders is the one who poured oil on the flames. Wilders, who leads the party called Party for Freedom, created an anti-Islam short film in 2008. In the film“Fitna”, he argues that Islam is particularly “encouraging acts of terrorism, anti-Semitism, violence against women, violence and subjugation of infidels…,” and so on.

Fitna’s release on the Internet was first suspended by an American provider because of perceived controversy, and also, rejected to be shown in many countries. However, it was finally distributed by the public relations agency Ruder Finn, which organized "Facing Jihad" conference in 2008 in Jerusalem. Ruder Finn is also remembered as the “war PR agency”, which masterminded/manipulated the media strategy for the 1st Gulf War and the Bosnian War, hired by American CIA.

Many liberal critics regard Wilders as lunatic xenophobic politician, who is also facing criminal prosecution at home for inciting hatred and discrimination. However, his party actually gained popularity in the election, and formed coalition government with two other parties in October 2010. His policy has appeal to the Dutch people, because the country is a small country particularly wary about increasing influx of Muslim immigrants. Their Parliament passed two anti-Islam laws on his request: It aims to ban Muslims from wearing burga (headscarves), and demands to reduce the number of acceptable Muslim immigrants by half.

Other European countries which host large Muslim immigrant population, such as France, also moved to ban the Muslims from wearing headscarves in public places. People in these countries insist they are scared of seeing a “hooded person” enter the public spots (airports, train stations, convenience stores..), which incites the image of possible terrorist threats. The Swiss government also moved to ban the construction of new Islamic minarets. “Islamophobia” is now spreading as a buzz word in Europe, where people may be somewhat more sensitive about cultural traditions than Americans.. Currently, major European newspapers’ online forums are filled with discussions concerning the issue. British journalist Melanie Phillips also alarmed: Islamist network are already thriving in British soil,. in her book “Londonistan” in 2006.

On the other hand, in America, another unscrupulous cartoonist appeared to further escalate the fuss. Earlier in July 2001, when the time was more permissive, Comedy Central’s animated “South Park” was already presenting Prophet Muhammad as a funny cartoon character. It was in their story about “Super Best Friends” (Namely: Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mormonism’s Joseph Smith, Taoism’s Lao-tse, and Prophet Mohammad — Unusual team of superheroes were formed to help the “foul-mouthed urchins..”) However, when “South Park”s creators aimed to parody the Danish cartoon controversy again in 2006, they found they were no longer able to portray Muhammad on the TV show, because of the increased sensitized situation. They dared to repeat the old show, but the prophet’s appearances were all blacked out and replaced by Comedy Central’s announcement message (excusing they could no longer show the image of Prophet), just intentionally.

South Park’s creators tried to caricaturize such odd situation itself, and made a new story in which Prophet Mohammed’ appearance was reduced to be “non-appearance appearance” (invisibly appeared only inside the mascot bear’s costume, or the U-Haul trailer), but the cynical animators again received a death threat from a radical Muslim man in New York. They needed to shut down all the past record of footages available on the Internet. The guy who made threat against them was revealed to be a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert, who used to be an Orthodox Jew. He was running an Islamic cult website “revolutionmuslim.com,” and made a threat on that page.

Since the spring of 2010, New Yorkers saw the situation further escalates. Shortly after South Park’s creators were threatened, more egregious threat was made by a local Muslim resident. The Pakistani immigrant, Feisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square near Comedy Central’s headquarter, though the plot failed. While his motivation seemed to be mostly about personal discontent with his troubled marriage, he also had a record of returning to Pakistan to be “trained” by Al Qaeda extremists, before he came back to make horrifying plot in New York.
While there are a lot of Muslim immigrants in New York, especially in Queens and Brooklyn, the authorities keep tight eyes on their gatherings at local Mosques. The police arrested some of them as potential terror plotters, through some cunning sting operations. Reportedly, there are many Muslim residents in New York who still have ties with extremists in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

In spring 2010, there was an another trouble maker on the Internet. An American cartoonist, Molly Norris of Seattle, announced to hold Muhammad’s “cartoon contest” on Facebook’s page on May 20. She said it was in response to the South Park controversy. The online event, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” was actually held on Facebook, with over 100,000 participants. There were also protest pages, including “Against ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'” which also attracted about the equal number of supporters.

Although Norris and other initiators of the event withdrew from the event in late April, for fear of reprisal by Muslims, the event has “taken a life of its own”, and eventually gone wild. A Fox commentator said, "she may have started something she can't stop, because others have taken up the cause.” Although the Pakistani and Indian government blocked the Facebook page, protest movement had sparked demonstrations in the streets of Pakistan.

As a consequence, radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki declared to put Norris “on a hitlist” in July 2010. FBI officials gave her warning, and “she has since changed her name and gone into hiding under advice from the FBI.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Draw_Mohammed_Day)
Currently in New York, another raucous controversy has been arisen concerning the construction plan of so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in Manhattan. It has drawn nationwide attention, since the Mosque’s plan, made by the group called Cordova Initiative, is about a construction of a real mosque, right next to the Ground Zero site in New York.

Opposition website accused the developer of the Mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf "has a genuine Muslim Brotherhood roots," and now, pursuing his late father’s radical dream of spreading Islam in America.. Although President Obama’s office has already officially announced to withdraw from meddling in religious issues, the controversy appears to have no end. Strangely, other than the Imam Abdul Rauf himself, the local “moderate Muslims”, who are supposed to follow Imam Rauf’s idea to gather at the mosque in future, have not been expressing their views or personal commitment about the planned mosque at all. Do they have their own views or opinions to the plan? I guess it should be the important point for gaining public support from American people.

As the writer Christopher Hitchens recently put, the dispute over the planned Ground Zero Mosque has “now sunk to a level of stupidity that really does shame the memory and the victims of that terrible day in September 2001..”
Religious conflict is a complex issue, and the Internet’s influences are scary. Unless the Western people would respect Islam as world’s No.2 religion, and unless the Muslims would really wish to have harmony and safety living together with other people in other societies, the sleaziness of Islamophobia, and media frenzy on the issue may have no end.