The Guilt of "Innocence of Muslims"

As a rule, I stand firm against every variation of "He went on a killing spree because he played Grand Theft Auto all the time."  Works of art, be they movies, books, video games, songs or whatever, do not make anyone do anything.  James Holmes dying his hair to look like the Joker doesn't make the Batman films responsible for the massacre in Colorado, any more than The Beatles are responsible for the Sharon Tate murders, no matter what Charles Manson says about "Helter Skelter."

And yet, with that said, artists are not absolved of responsibility.  If we create art in the hope of effecting a positive change in the world, then we must also be aware of the possibility of effecting a negative change.  Yes, freedom of speech still has to be absolute--we have to protect Salman Rushdie and we have to protect the Nazis marching in Skokie--but that freedom can still be abused, a line crossed, with horrific consequences.  Particularly when art is not art, is never intended as art, but is instead propaganda, with a decidedly political purpose and the clear intention of inciting disruption.

Angry demonstrations continue across the Muslim world in reaction to an appallingly awful so-called "movie trailer" for a "film" called Innocence of Muslims.  (No, I will not link to it.)  No one knows whether a full movie was ever actually made, or whether the trailer (actually two trailers, but I only looked at one) is all there is.  My guess is the movie is non-existent, because the "filmmaker" didn't need to make a movie in order to accomplish his idiotic purpose: to enflame Muslims.  Here, courtesy of Neil Gaiman (an unexected source),  is a compelling first-hand account from one of the actors in this appalling piece of propaganda, Anna Gurji, detailing how she and everyone else involved were completely duped by the producer:

The movie that we were doing in Duarte was called “Desert Warrior” and it was a fictional adventure drama. The character GEORGE was a leader of one of those tribes fighting for the comet.

There was no mention EVER by anyone of MUHAMMAD and no mention of religion during the entire time I was on the set. I am hundred percent certain nobody in the cast and nobody in the US artistic side of the crew knew what was really planned for this “Desert Warrior”.

The atmosphere at the set was as friendly as possible. We all knew that we were doing an adventure drama for a very low budget financing. The director Alan Roberts even had plans that with this low budget product he would be able to get some more money to make a good quality version (by shooting it in the real desert and having better product in every category) of the “Desert Warrior”.

I had interactions with the man known as Sam Bassil on the set. He was very amiable, respectful, soft-spoken, always making sure that the filming was running smoothly and everyone was satisfied. He even told me the premiere of the movie was going to happen sometime soon and I would get a good amount of tickets to invite my friends and family.

But it is completely apparent from the trailer that the lines the actors spoke were (badly) overdubbed with other lines, in which this George character was transformed into a grotesque caricature of Mohammed.  It's not even subtle: the crappy overdubbing is obvious from first moment to last.  It's like Woody Allen's infamous What's Up, Tiger Lily?, except that instead of doing it for comedy, the producer (notice how I refuse to use the man's name--not to protect him but because I will not dignify his name by repeating it) did it in order to make Muslims angry.  As The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw speculates, the trailer "was almost certainly timed for the American election, in this case to incite Muslim communities and then provoke macho responses from the presidential candidates."

The reaction, of course, got out of hand.  Anyone with even a vague memory of the 2006 riots over Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed could have predicted that.  The difference is that the cartoons were published with a serious public purpose and then were distorted by two Danish imams who decided to stir up trouble (and who also goosed the issue by including trumped-up images and cartoons that had nothing to do with the Danish newspaper).  In this case, yes, there are clearly people in the Muslim world who have seized upon Innocence of Muslims to further their own political ends; but the film itself has no serious purpose, it is propaganda whose sole reason for being is to incite anger.  (I quite like The Guardian's description of it as "a bigoted piece of poison.")  The people exploiting it didn't have to goose anything because it was pre-goosed.  The producer, a Coptic Christian from Egypt with a major grudge against Islam, apparently wanted to strike a blow against Muslim fundamentalism; instead he might as well have collaborated with the terrorists, because it would have been tough to create a more effective recruiting tool for jihadists worldwide.

The producer, in short, is an imbecile of the worst sort: an imbecile who thinks he's clever.

And now, having lit a match, he cries and moans and begs for rescue because he set his house on fire.  The appalling thing is that, in order to be a truly free society, we actually have to protect him.  And to defend the piece of crap he made.

As Noam Chomsky once wrote, "If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."  I recognize that, I support that, I defend that.  But man does it hurt in cases like this.  As one who toils in the vineyards of the arts, I find myself incredibly riled up by this exercise in non-art.  By lying to his cast and crew about what they were making, the producer has completely perverted the purpose of art, and it makes me want to find the man and strangle him.  I won't, and I support all efforts to protect him and his family, but good lord how I despise this miserable excuse for humanity.

A Wasted Vote?

But first, a brief tale of an election well past.  In 1980, before I was old enough to vote, my mother went down to the polling place on her own and came back with this tale.  Her choice was independent candidate John Anderson, a 20-year veteran of the House of Representatives from Illinois.  While standing in line, the people around her asked the usual "Who are you voting for?" question.  When she gave her answer, several people said "Oh yeah, I like him."

"So you're going to vote for him?"

"Oh my, no."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not going to win."

Because apparently, voting has nothing to do with making a crucial choice for your country, it has to do with being on The Winning Side.  But when the nation is evenly split down the middle and a clear Winning Side isn't immediately apparent, then what?

Twelve years ago, I voted for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore.  (There will now be a short pause while I duck the vegetables thrown by various Democrats.)

Everyone--and I do mean everyone, including close friends whose opinions I highly respect--tell me that not only did I waste a vote, but I helped contribute to the utter hideousness of the 2000 election debacle.  I remind those people that I was living in Illinois at the time, a state that was considered safe for Al Gore, and that I was trying to accomplish two things...

First, I wanted to say to the Democrats, my usual party of choice, that they were being particularly namby-pamby that year.  They were rattled by Bill Clinton's sex scandal and impeachment, and Al Gore seemed to be so determined to appear unClintonesque that he wasn't really anything, including himself.  (I remember going to a campaign rally in Daley Plaza in 1992, with the Clintons and the Gores, and it was Al Gore who gave the best speech that day.  He had it in him to be great, he always did; but when the time came, he got cautious. Fatally cautious, I would say.)  As a lifelong Democrat, I wanted to say to the party that my vote was not guaranteed, and that if they didn't earn it they weren't gonna get it.  But also...

Second.  There's no question that we are not well-served by this endless bouncing between two parties, both of which are owned by corporate interests.  (Look, it's my blog.  You're going to have accept as true my strong assertion that we are living in an oligarchy, otherwise this thing will go on for forever.)  So I wanted to support a credible third party, the Greens were pretty well aligned with the things I wished the Democrats were talking about, and if they could reach at least 5% nationally, they would not only qualify for federal funding in the next election cycle but they would go a long way toward proving their viability as a party/movement.

So I voted Nader.  Gore won Illinois as expected, Nader failed to reach 5% for the Greens, and Florida happened.  But I continue to maintain that if Gore had just been more Gore-like, had taken a stronger stand on, well, anydamnthing, he would have won.  It wasn't Nader's fault, it was Gore's.

Now, a brief detour.  For several years, during each presidential election cycle I have sought out various newspaper/magazine lists of the candidates' stands on various issues and put together a little scorecard for each candidate.  It was laborious and imperfect, and I could really only do it for the two major guys of each party.

But three cheers for the internet--now there's isidewith.com, which automates that process and includes all the candidates.  You answer a short series of questions (make sure to check out the alternative positions offered for each question) and it gives you a handy little summary of who you side with, in order from most to least.  I've taken the test twice, and the first time got a surprising score of 94% for Barack Obama.  (Surprising because I'm one of those who have been disappointed with him, and I did not expect that number to be so high.)  But I just took it again, being a little extra-thorough in my answers, and got a different result that was perhaps even more surprising...

The Green Party candidate again.  She just barely ekes out Obama in my results, but my worries about two-party oligarchy have only grown (massively) since the 2000 election.  Plus, here's one of those moments when I have to decide whether or not I'm a hypocrite.  Did I take this test in order to justify making the easy, popular choice?  Did I just want to be on The Winning Side?  (Well, maybe....)  Or did I take the test for a reason, and was I willing to run with the results?

I haven't quite decided.  But I will note this--I live in California now, which is a pretty safe state for Obama.  In whom I have been disappointed.  It's feeling a little like 2000 again, hopefully in a good way and not in a Supreme Court intervention sorta way.  Hmmmm.

But just imagine this for a moment: if every voter in America could reliably determine which candidate they really identify with the most strongly; and if every voter then actually voted that way.  Then we might, emphasis on the word "might," end up with something like a democracy again.

Before I go, here's a link to Dr. Stein's website, and here's one to an excellent Bill Moyers interview with the Green candidates from just the other night.