The text of each news ticker at the bottom of the TV screen includes two words: ‘radical Islamists”. In the backdrop, a mob turns the place upside down. Cars are set on fire. Window panes of shop are shattered. Such has been portrayal of the reaction to a short film insulting Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). It’s funny to note that the visuals for other news appear for a short while only to fill the screen again with an angry Muslim mob and the subtitle ‘radical Islamists’ triumphs over the rest of the news subtitles! Dance macabre plays to the galleries along the streets of Muslim countries, playing the pipe of death to lead the mindless crowd to destroy their very own people and property.

However much they may strive to present an objective outlook to events, such local and foreign channels dish out the heartrending news that are chockfull of hatred, violence, death and riot. Hence, the medal of extremism is pinned on the blood-stained bosom of the Muslim World; the pin is driven deep into the heart, the wound does not fester and it bleeds on and on. Even amongst the nations most sympathetic and friendly towards Islam and Muslims, people wonder: Why are Muslims so violent? Why deaths, terror, violence and dictatorship are always confronting us at places where Muslims live?

The way violent, Muslim-themed news are lined up on international channels comes enough for some to assert the stereotypic image of Islam as ‘a religion of violence’.

Give as many explanations as you wish to tell them about the reasons why Muslims are so annoyed, the outcome never seems to change. “Muslims are a raw and primitive community which cannot solve their problems without resorting to violence.”

This stereotyping is stoked by periodical attacks by those who know how to get on the crucial nerve of Muslim communities. Aware of the sensitivities, the offenders design their assaults expertly to attain their objective.

Owing to widespread riots and protests, the entire world knows about a 13-minute rash cinematic assault which was otherwise circulating on the YouTube for about 9 months. Soon enough this pathological flick will have viewers in countries where it is not banned. Despite rational clarifications and presenting proofs against the insults and allegations, a few will read those explanations and numerous others will have the abuses made in this short movie impressed in the recesses of their minds.

The real motive behind the gruesome attack on the US Embassy in Libya is unknown; suspicions are strong about the motive and timing of the viral video. Who uploaded it on the YouTube? How did the news travel? Who added the Arabic subtitles which were not available in the original print? Why were the cast fooled by dubbing over their real dialogues in a hateful discourse? Why was this movie first broadcast on an Egyptian channel? Why could this TV channel not ‘calculate’ the extent of incidents to be triggered by this movie? Why did they not listen to the voice of common sense and foresee the snowballing effect of the events?

What’s more, why did they wait for September the 11th to launch the video while it was on the Internet for many months already? Not only it revived the agonizing distress burning in the hearts since 9/11, the video also propelled the crude anti-Islam discourse first adopted by the Bush administration. Fear-provoking as it was and has been so far, an epithet of this discourse, former US Defense and Foreign Secretary Henry Kissinger then expressed this war had to be a conflict among the Muslims instead of between the US and the Muslim World; adding that this war had to be fought until the ‘moderate Muslims’ would drive radical Muslims into extinction. Not much later, this project was worked out in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

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