It is shameful and outrageous that the legitimate demand of a billion strong community that a video spreading hatred against it, and its most important figure be removed from youtube, has met with bare-faced contempt from Google. Even the White House realises the toxic effect this poisonous movie is having on the peace of the world and relations between faith communities.
Yet Google – who will remove a video in a moment if it suits them – are showing utter insensitivity to the feelings of every Muslim in the world. They are showing the already incensed followers of the Prophet Mohammed (on whom be peace) that they are siding with those who insult him and all that Islam is about, against the Muslim community.
I am appalled by the unislamic reaction of some Muslims to this video. Killing diplomats and burning buildings -is NOT the way of the Prophet (peace be upon him. Yet the West should question some of its own double standards before it assumes it moral superiority on this issue:
1. Whilst most of Europe was offended by anti-religious sentiment anti-blasphemy laws existed in just about every country in the West. Now that the majority of ‘indigenous’ Westerners do not carry any sensitivity towards blasphemy, they insist that if they are not offended nobody else has the right to take offence.
2. Denying the holocaust is a crime in some Western nations. Here the freedom of speech is not extended to those who claim they are presenting an alternative view of a historical event. Yet in reality it is the extreme insensitivity of these ‘historians’ that means they are deemed worthy of punishment. It is wrong to place the particular sensitivities of one religious or racial group i.e. the Jewish community, over those of another.
3. I do not have the right in Britain to insult an on duty police officer. If I swore at the Queen, I could be tried for treason. Indeed if I was to heckle the Prime Minister at a public meeting I would be handcuffed and removed from the building. I am also not allowed to shout fire in a crowded cinema hall. If someone was to lie about me, I could sue them in a court of law. Yet the ‘freedom to insult’ becomes a sacred cow that cannot be sacrificed for the greater good of community relations and to prevent violence, when it comes to religious sensitivity.
4. Honestly consider if such a video was made about Jews, Blacks or homosexuals whether ‘freedom of speech’ would be defended by the liberal elite, with the same ferocity and fervor?
Please Google, for the good of the world stop playing innocent. Accept your mistake and and remove this hateful, vile, disgusting video just as you would if targeted somebody other than Muslims.
Peace