by B. R. GOWANI
A scene of a riot in Haren, Netherlands. PHOTO/AFP
Project X Haren
In a small town in Netherlands, with a population of some 18,000, a sixteen year old Merthe Weusthuis sent out an invitation on a Facebook for her birthday party. She forgot to set the invitation “private” which resulted in it going viral. Over 3,000 people turned up in Haren. The girl and her family had to leave the town. The party was named “Project X Haren” after a film “Project X” in which the party goers goes berserk. Somewhat in the same fashion, the situation in Haren turned ugly because of vandalism and rioting by some of the partiers. The loss to the town of Haren is estimated to be a million euros or $1.3 million US dollars. As it happens after these kind of incidents, the blame game has begun.
Reaction to anti-Muhammad video
Many Muslim countries witnessed violence in the wake of a 14 minute video, Innocence of Muslims, an absolute crap, which maligned Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Not surprisingly, the violent protests were restricted to a small segment of the population in each country. Also, the degree of violence varied–of course, Pakistan experiencing the most violence and financial loss. Following in the footsteps of the United States, which is the custodian of “democracy,” Pakistan has become the custodian of “Islam.”
Unsurprisingly, there was only one small demonstration in Saudi Arabia, where the rulers impose the most rigid form of Islam and funnel its petrodollars to spread Wahhabism, which Paul Vallely called a “deadly scripture,” to other countries.
A demonstrator brandishes a stick near burning police vehicles in Karachi. PHOTO/Asif Hassan/AFPGettyImages/Los Angeles Times
However, to be fair to Pakistan, one has to point out that the US “war on terror” has also contributed a great deal to the current mess.
Drone warfare
President* Barack Obama’s administration denies that it is involved in drone warfare in northern Pakistan. The CIA follows another tactic: It neither denies nor acknowledges the drone attacks. However, the US government regularly gives out information about the drone attacks but in the form of leaks.
Investigative reporter Andrew Cockburn puts it thus:
“According to the leakers, the strikes are a miracle of precision, waged with a concern for the protection of innocent bystanders that would have done credit to Mahatma Gandhi.”
As usual, the news media in the US never thinks in terms of the death, destruction, and the suffering of the victims but rather discusses in terms political fallout with Pakistan or other by products.
Cockburn again:
“The actual effects of an escalating eight year bombardment of Hellfire missiles on a society living in mud houses on an average per capita income of $250 has attracted less scrutiny.”
Similarities
The thousands of people who descended on Haren had never seen or met Merthe Weusthuis, the birthday girl. They were not all there to see her. Many of them were simply there to enjoy and others were there to create trouble.
Similarly, many thousands of Muslims protesting against the “blasphemous” video had never watched the Innocence of Muslims clip. Many of them were out there on the streets with different agendas: economic grievances, political freedom, and so on. Many of them were undoubtedly hurt by the video.
Dissimilarities
Haren will recover soon. However, that is not the case with Muslim countries. Every time the religious zealots flex their muscle, the ordinary Muslims and secularists loses ground. This in turn propels Islamists to force their governments to introduce more draconian Islamic laws. And if they fail to do so, then they begin running parallel government by punishing or executing people for acts or appearances which they see as un-Islamic. The women and minorities suffer the most.
Solution
There is no such thing as the Islamic world. There are countries with Muslim majority and so the liberal leaders in each of the countries will have to tell their people unambiguously that Muhammad departed this world safely in 632 CE and no one can do any harm to him through films or cartoons or articles. Another thing they should tell their people is that forget Allah because He is too scared of Uncle Sam and suicide bombers to appear on this planet to pull us out of this mess, and so it’s we who’ll have to uplift our countries by saying goodbye to this religious idiocy.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com
*The New York Times, citing current and former government officials, disclosed in May this year that Obama presides over the “kill list,” that is, the list of the “terrorists” to be killed. A colleague of Cameron P. Munter, Obama’s ambassador to Pakistan, who retired this year, said “he didn’t realize his main job was to kill people.” It’s rare that you get such a frank assessment from an ambassador about his own government.