Pluses and minuses of the 'innocense of Islam' movie

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Sep 15, 2012 at 19:35

Dear Dr Pipes,

As people are getting killed in the Middle East over the 'innocence of Islam' movie we are forced to sit back and think what good purpose, if any, is served by this movie. Let me first begin with the negative. As anyone who watched the movie will testify, it was a very poorly made movie and did not convey any point convincingly. From this point of view, if our goal is to make sure that Islam is subjected to same kind of critical evaluation as other religions have been subjected to, this movie does a disservice to the cause. We have only so much blood to sacrifice at this alter and none can be wasted on frivolous, thoughtless criticism. That said, the reaction of the Islamists to the movie proves that Islamists and Islamism have to learn a lot. No opinion, no matter how offensive it is to a group of people, is so bad that a person be killed to suppress it. Nor is there justification for destroying any property to propagate an opinion or suppress any other.

FBI is investigating the director of this movie. It is very easy to suppress the voice of another person who does not agree with you. Resultantly, freedom of speech is a very fragile thing. If the law enforcement goes anywhere close to this person, except for the purpose of protecting him, it will be a black day in the history of the United States.

If this person violated the terms of his probation by making this movie and if he needs to be punished for that crime, this is not the time to do that. He may be punished several months later. Right now he should only be protected. Right now we should send only one message to the likes of Al Qaeda: thou shalt not kill.

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