Not difficult to determine who is not "innocent" in the making of "Innocence"

It seems that all over the Muslim world, chaos reigns on the streets, at least anywhere near a U.S. embassy or consulate. I watched news footage of a mob of “protestors” in Yemen climbing the walls of the rather shabby-looking embassy building; it is perhaps worth noting that Yemen is one the poorest and least economically-developed countries in the world, so it isn’t surprising that there would be a large segment of disaffected people with few outlets to vent their frustrations with life. People who are content with their lives do not normally express themselves in this fashion—nor those who are familiar with Americans personally, who understand that a majority of Americans have an informal relationship with the Christian religion, let alone have the time to construe ways to offend the religious scruples of Muslims, who seem to be easily offended in any regard. Whether the Islam is the problem and not the solution is another question. It took Christianity 1500 years after its founding to reform itself to modern reality; at that rate, it will take Islam another century before its leaders decide that some of its doctrines need to be “reinterpreted,” especially in regard to the murder/paradise paradigm—that is if civilization as we know it still exists.

The fact is that few Americans can see the murder of the U.S. ambassador in Libya and several others, and the attacks on U.S. diplomatic stations everywhere, are all about. It just seems insane. There must be some other force behind it, perhaps the one I just mentioned for starters; Al-Qaeda has also been accused of being behind the killings in Libya—revenge for the death of Libya’s top Al-Qaeda operative. Nevertheless, if we are being told that it is the film “Innocence of Muslims” that is the cause of all of this unrest, then it is as horrific to Muslim sensibilities as implied? Not like the mentally-challenged Pakistani Christian girl who was recently arrested for allegedly burning pages of the Koran, who was released from police custody after a witness reported that he saw a local extremist Muslim cleric put the burned pages in the girl’s bag, leading to his own arrest. The general description of the film that we have been given is that it is crude and vaguely pornographic. Since it is available on YouTube, or at least a 13+ minute “trailor” that apparently only includes the most controversial parts, I’ve taken the time to exercise my right to view someone else’s use of their free speech rights. For those who have not seen it, nor wish to, here is a general description of the proceedings; the actor playing Muhammad is a vaguely familiar white man, although I can’t place him in any other film I’ve seen lately:

A Muslim police “constable” is seen musing “The prophet had 61 wives, 11 at the same time. He even had a girlfriend.” Thinking to himself: “If my sick wife died today, I would sell the medicine, eat the food and marry a young girl tomorrow.” Next there is an angry mob of Muslim men running down a street wielding spiked clubs. A Christian doctor calls out to his daughter to tell her mother to release all the patients and close the clinic, presumably because anyone there will be beaten or killed. The mob is then seen ransacking the clinic. The police show-up, but they decide to do nothing until the mob is finished with their business—which includes rushing down the street again, and without reason strike a young, attractive Christian girl in the head with a spiked club; she falls to the ground, blood oozing out of her skull. The constable we saw earlier is standing in the street, appearing somewhat oblivious to the proceedings; perhaps he is looking for his young girl.

Next we see the Christian doctor in his home (we know he is Christian because of all the portraits of Jesus hanging on the walls) telling his wife and daughter that Egyptian police arrest Christians who are attacked by Muslims, and force them to confess to committing the murders of other Christians (like the aforementioned girl) to  protect Muslims from their crimes. He then demonstrates some mathematical equation, in which if you add one variable to “man” you get a Muslim terrorist, and if you subtract that variable from the Muslim terrorist, you get a “man.” The daughter asks the father what the “x” variable is, and he tells her she has to find out for herself. We are not told explicitly what the “x” factor is, although the rest of this film at least gives us an idea of what we are supposed to think this is. 

We next see a man telling his father that he must take in a 2-year-old boy whose alleged father has been dead for 6-years. Ok, the man admits that this is all “madness” and a “disgrace,” but he convinces his father to take the boy in as a slave. This of course is not the accepted tradition of Muhammad’s birth and youth. Far from respecting the Islamic prohibition against his physical portrayal, the trailer initially presents “Muhammad” as a decrepit, filthy slave known as “The Bastard,” seen gnawing on a bone in the manner one imagines that a primitive caveman would. He is called into a tent, apparently to service the lady of the house.  A black girl (also a slave) takes his bone and starts eating strips of meat off of it. “Muhammad” tells the “gluttonous” girl not to finish it, who feels calls him “you bastard, the unknown father.” Inside the tent, the lady admonishes “Muhammad” for not wearing undergarments, but her expression suggests carnal interest.

One is not certain what is the most offensive scenes to Muslim sensibilities, although those in regard to Muhammad’s sexuality are admittedly extreme; one wonders where this narrative is derived from if not Christian (or Jewish) fundamentalist fantasy. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote two histories on the reign of Justinian and Theodora—the “official” history, and the “secret” histories; the problem with the latter is that its charges are so plainly scurrilous, and its intent so mean-spirited, that is almost impossible to differentiate fact from fiction. Whether there is a similar contemporary account of Muhammad’s life is something I’m not aware of. At any rate, what we are presented here is the same lady exorcising “Muhammad” of the devil by instructing him to place his head between her spread legs to view “heaven.” 

Not surprisingly in this narrative, Muhammad” seems to have rather primitive views of the place of women in Muslim society—meaning to be used as men see fit. For example, in a “comical” scene, “Muhammad” is being berated by one of his wives, who accuses him of sleeping with another of his wives when it was her day to sleep with him. Not so amusing is when “Muhammad” tells a woman, who believes she should not be forced to expose herself before a strange man, that the Koran permits a “master” to take any woman he wants, and she must submit. One of his followers chuckles to himself about how “pleasurable are our Islamic ways.” In all fairness, it must be pointed out that very few Muslim men have more than one wife in this day and age (modernity hasn’t completely passed Muslim society by), and this particular caricature shouldn’t be accepted as the norm. Nor should the suggestion that Islam permits child rape; “Muhammad” is seen fondling a young girl (the actress is rather short, but actually looks closer to 35), and then appears to copulate with her because, he says, the Koran will not permit him to adopt her. In another scene, a wife bemoans the fact that she must give her young daughters to a “child molester” who is 55 years old; her husband can only feebly correct her on his age (53), and admit that because he has wealth and power, and he will take them whether they say yes or no.

But probably more offensive to Muslim sensibilities is the suggestion that “Muhammad” was a homosexual. There is a scene where “Muhammad” appears to relish the idea that a donkey does not like women, the meaning of which becomes clear when later two of his followers discuss their belief that he is “gay.” However, the only thing of concern to them in regard to this is whether “Muhammad” is “dominant” or “submissive.” He overhears this and tells them that he is “both.” Is this supposed a “comic” scene? “Muhammad” asks them if they “remember the night at the gym?” to which they first looked confused and then nod like sycophants. 

Just in case anyone is under the impression that the sexual idiosyncrasies of “Muhammad” are supposed to be “ironical,” Muhammad the blood-thirsty fanatic is less open to “interpretation.” Early on, the conversion of “Muhammad” suggests a turn toward psychopathy. An old man promises to help “cure” him of his “foolish” ideas by composing a book with verses from the Torah, the New Testament, and mix them with false verses that no one will take seriously. This idea backfires, because “Muhammad” uses the adulterated volume as the basis of his new religion. How will he “convert” people to the new religion, besides the thugs, killers and pedophiles he initially brings into the fold? People are given a “choice”: Convert, pay extortion, or leave. Since this method is not as efficient as “Muhammad” desires, so he has another idea. He tell his fighters that they will kill men, use the women, and loot and pillage. A couple of slimy types ask about the children; their leering expressions do not require interpretation. “Muhammad” grants them the right to use the children they want, and the rest will be sold into slavery to buy more weapons and horses. One follower who does not like the idea of dying is told that “paradise” awaits all who die for Islam.

An old woman is then admonishing a follower of “Muhammad” for killing and pillaging in the name of God. What kind of God is this? She claims that she has never seen such a “murderous thug” as “Muhammad.” After this speech, we see that the old woman is in the process of being tortured. “Muhammad” now tells his followers that those who refuse to convert have two choices, pay extortion or die; his next victim is to have his arms and legs cut-off, and then beheaded while his wife watches. “Muhammad” appears to be uncomfortable when the victim tells his wife in his last words that he wishes that the sons of “Muhammad” will pay for their father’s crimes. The trailer ends with a blood-drenched “Muhammad” proclaiming that every non-Muslim is an infidel, and their women, their children and their lands are Muslim spoils, and he goes back to slashing away with his bloody sword.

Now for the “review.” The “film” is obviously extremely low-budget; when it is not using obviously phony backgrounds (in some scenes the actors actually look like cut-out characters pasted in a child’s scrapbook), the location shots appear to take place in rundown streets somewhere in Mexico. Most of the actors are white, and I suspect some of the “Muslim” extras are actually local Mexicans—probably taking advantage of the fact that some whites can’t tell the difference between “Mexicans” and “terrorists.” The tone of this “film” is obviously “satirical,” the treatment of Muhammad’s personality (especially sexual) is completely and unashamedly irreverent. 

But the film takes a much darker tone when it treats with what it considers the excesses and regressiveness of the religion. There is some justice in the latter view; Islam never had a period of doctrinal reform which took into consideration changing societal conditions, in particular the effect of science and technology. In countries like Afghanistan, where the vast majority of people live off the land as they did a thousand years ago, it is difficult to convince a majority of the population that their lives will be changed regardless of the regime in power. The fact that Islam has not seen a “reform” period suggests that its refusal to change has offered a “constant” for its adherents in a world the changes of which they find threatening. And  unlike the New Testament, where Jesus explicitly teaches forgiveness and non-violence even toward non-believers (not always followed to a “T” of course), the Koran has quite a few violent exhortations that suggest “peace” is only to be has on Islamic terms. While much has been made about Islam’s “tolerance” of other religions in its early days, this was largely due to lack of strength in certain conquered lands (especially in the Iberian peninsula and the Balkans) to stamp out the long-standing prevailing religion. Unlike the Christian method of missionary conversion, Islam tended to expand by military conquest and coercion. But in this “film,” while “Muhammad” is portrayed as motivated by megalomaniacal power, his soldiers are portrayed as motivated not by religious zeal, but for rather more personal reasons that closer scrutiny cannot bear. 

While many of the issues that the film touches upon—the role of women, the perception that maniacal violence is encouraged by Islam—could be subjected to reasonable debate, the film is so extreme in its characterizations that it is hard to take seriously. Why is this a problem? While a typical Westerner may watch this and brush it off as a mildly embarrassing, bigoted buffoon’s fantasy, most people in the Muslim world won’t find it as “amusing” or “educational,” or even ponder why a Westerner may believe such things; such critiques of their religion are naturally seen as reflections on their own selves (of course, it doesn’t help that what we see on the news tends to confirm such views).  Those who have little personal experience with Westerners and the attitudes of most will believe that the generality are blasphemous heathens who have utter contempt of the higher being. “Muhammad” is not portrayed as “human” in the way the Jesus was in “The Last Temptation of Christ,” or the subject of light-hearted satire as in “The Life of Brian,” but in “Innocence” he is the subject of ridicule and perversion in sexual matters, and in the end a power-mad megalomaniac with a taste for blood. In this version, compassion and justice (as Westerners’ understand the term) has no place in Islam. 

But the reality is that most Westerners have almost no idea who Muhammad is besides the founder of the Islamic religion, and have been left to judge him by the actions of those who claim to be his followers. While there is no doubt that most “histories” of Muhammad go too far in portraying him as so elevated that he cannot even his likeness cannot be defined (the Encyclopedia Britannica’s biographical article is almost impossible to read without some measure of skepticism, because of its unquestioning flattery), any critique of the Prophet, no matter how much based on scholarly research (and this film certainly isn’t) runs the risk of being interpreted as a denunciation of the Islamic religion as the crude creation of a perverted man—as “Innocence” clearly implies. In that light, the rioting is perfectly understandable, especially if it is seen as a measure of how the West—and the U.S. in particular—has contempt for Muslims in general. Of course, most Americans don’t think about Muslims unless they call attention to themselves, even while fighting is still occurring in Afghanistan. 

The upshot is that the vast majority of us do not condone the making of films that only a few Christian fundamentalists would see as “truthful,” and would have the effect of inflaming the populations of whole communities, even ending in the killing of diplomats. Even if many people do not understand the propensity toward physical violence seemingly occurring at will, and wonder why it is religious leaders not just tolerate it, but often incite it, as long as it is happening in a place remote from them, it is not something they spend a great deal of time musing about. They are also aware of the sensitivities of Islam’s adherents, and other than questioning the level of violence, they don’t make comments on religious dogma they only have vague knowledge of. Most leaders in the Islamic world recognize this, even as they tacitly permit these “protests” as a means of directing people’s anger away from economic concerns. This all that the arrogance and stupidity of the makers of something like the “Innocence” have “accomplished.”