PLANK SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
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The search for the person or people behind the YouTube video that reportedly sparked violent attacks on U.S. missions in the Middle East is one of the odder stories I have ever followed. Today the Associated Press reported that U.S. law enforcement believes a man named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is responsible for the video, which may or may not be a trailer for a longer film. Nakoula is a Coptic Christian in southern California and while his plan appears to have been to exact some revenge on Muslims for their treatment of Christians in Egypt, he almost certainly has endangered other Coptic Christians.
Nakoula denied to the AP that he was behind the YouTube video, saying that he merely managed logistics for the production company involved. But Nakoula says a lot of things. According to the AP, he has used at least three aliases and pled no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges, for which he was sentenced to prison and ordered not to use computers or the internet for five years. If Nakoula was indeed the main figure behind the controversial anti-Muslim video, he has violated those terms. Among his fake personas, Nakoula has gone by the name Sam Bacile and spent yesterday telling reporters that he (Bacile) was an Israeli Jew who had financed the video with the help of “100 Jewish donors.”
The crude video, which badly dubs references to Islam and the name “Muhammad” over other dialogue, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a philanderer and child abuser. According to Nakoula’s only other known collaborator, the conservative anti-Islam activist Steve Klein, the idea was to market the movie to Muslims to open their eyes to the sordid “truth” about their prophet. That’s one reason they called the movie “The Innocence of Muslims.”
The whole scheme sounds like something even Wile E. Coyote would see couldn’t possibly work. But Nakoula—who told reporters yesterday that “Islam is a cancer”—doesn’t seem to have thought through many details of his grand plan. For one, his initial claim to be an Israeli Jew was a verifiable lie clearly intended to lead reporters in the wrong direction, caring not at all about the potential for violent backlash against Jewish communities. That came after Nakoula had already translated the video into Arabic and posted that version on YouTube, a move he had to have known would incite Islamists in his home country and elsewhere. Again, Nakoula thought nothing about the violence that could—and did—result.
But if Nakoula made the video in part as revenge for persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, in doing so he has put his fellow religionists at great risk. It took less than 24 hours for reporters and law enforcement to figure out his real identity—something Nakoula inexplicably does not seem to have anticipated. And now that they have, the violent outrage that mobs in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere have directed at U.S. institutions may target Copts as well.
Coptic Christians make up around 10 percent of the Egyptian population and have existed in the region since shortly after the founding of Christianity. In fact, the entire area of what is now Egypt was overwhelmingly Christian until the late twelth century, when most inhabitants converted to Islam. The uneasy coexistence of Egyptian Christians and Muslims broke out into violent clashes over the past four decades, and have increased since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship in 2011. A deadly attack on a Coptic church in October 2011 that left 24 dead was the worst violence since Mubarak’s overthrow.
When Hillary Clinton released the State Department’s report on religious persecution around the world in July, she singled out Egypt for attention. Coptic Christians have frequently accused Egyptian police and soldiers of turning a blind eye to violence and they were outraged when Army tanks crushed several Copts last year during a protest of a Coptic church burning. Clinton noted that she has pressed President Mohammed Morsi and other Egyptian leaders to protect religious minorities and has been assured that they will do so. However, Clinton said that respect for religious freedom in Egypt was “quite tenuous” and she charged that when Egyptian authorities choose not to prosecute sectarian violence, “that then sends a message to the minority community in particular, but to the larger community, that there’s not going to be any consequences.”
Some conservative evangelicals, including Family Research Council vice president Jerry Boykin, have argued that the Obama administration has endangered Coptic Christians and falsely charge that the U.S. government sends billions of dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood. (These claims fueled protests by Copts against Hillary Clinton when she visited Egypt in July.) But with his intentionally and recklessly provocative anti-Muslim video, Nakoula has--more than any other single individual--put Coptic Christians in serious danger.
9 comments
Muslims are trying to shut down all critical inquiry into Islam. Any book, video, or cartoon serves as a useful pretext for violent attacks on defenseless local Christians or on foreign consuls residing in Islamic countries. There are virtually no Jews left in Islamic countries except Iran and Morocco. Although, like the Christians, their roots in the Middle East and North Africa go back to antiquity. Indigenous Middle Eastern Christians are hostages. However questionable some of Nakoula's tactics, proof of Muhammad's philandering and pedophilia are found in the Koran. Muslims are familiar with the story of Muhammad's child bride Aisha, married at six, marriage consummated at nine. Muslims are familiar with the other sexual adventures and sadistic behaviors of their prophet. Yet he is considered to be the Perfect Man. Please read the Koran, Ms. Sullivan. It would be worth exploring how and why Egypt converted to Islam from Christianity. There was at least a little adverse pressure involved. The gentle pressure involved systematic extortion from monotheistic non-believers of protection money, called "jizya". Koran 9:29 requires Muslims to subdue the non-believers and make them feel subdued. Jizya is part of that process.
- amidut
September 13, 2012 at 4:11pm
Several hundred Libyans, Egyptians and Yemeni were just hanging out in cafes, planting gardens or caring for their children. Then they did what others would do when startled by a shocking movie on the internet. They grabbed for their rocket launchers, hand grenades and semi automatic weapons, put on their masks and quickly set off in unison for the nearest American embassy. Could it be any clearer?
- Doug12
September 13, 2012 at 8:20pm
Does any of that excuse the sheer bigotry and incitement exemplified by this movie? Not to mention the attempt to pin it all on the Jews, which is despicable.
- Sophia
September 13, 2012 at 9:57pm
amidut "Muslims are trying to shut down all critical inquiry into Islam." That may be true. There have been some fascinating books published that questioned the traditional history of Islam and even the existence of their prophet. Muslim is being critiqued the way Judaism and Christianity had been for a few centuries now. Many Muslims are having a hard time with such scholarship.
- arnon1
September 14, 2012 at 12:37am
amidut, Muslims also "converted" the inhabitants of vast territories to their religion with the sword. A few years ago a friend of mine was taking a history course and mentioned that Islam was the fastest-spreading religion in history. "No, it wasn't," I said. "Christianity was." I thought that the turn-the-other-cheek message of Christ had spread like wildfire across every portion of the globe, because it was so revolutionary. But I was wrong. The Muslims and their good, old-fashioned swords converted many more people and faster. Another friend of mine just jettisoned Christianity for Buddhism tonight. She said Christianity rules by instilling fear in people, as does Islam. She grew disturbed by the many Christians who had threatened her with Hell-fire. It's no accident that these two religions have so much influence in politics and economics in the world. Fear is powerful.
- magboy47.
September 14, 2012 at 3:18am
Sophia. It is not also the case that the bigotry and bad taste of the movie, especially a movie made w/o gov't or widespread support of Americans, does not come close to excusing the reaction of large segments of the Moslem world? It is the difference between individual insanity or bigotry and mass insanity or bigotry. The former, if non violent, is best dealt with by ignoring. The latter is more difficult to ignore... and potentially leads to the Auschwitz's, Bataan Marches, Dresden's and Hiroshima's of this world.
- drofnats1
September 14, 2012 at 9:42am
he first sentence should read.... Is it.... ??
- drofnats1
September 14, 2012 at 10:07am
And the Middle East insanity has domestic effects. Like the University of Texas at Austin evacuated and shut down due to phone threat that bombs were planted in many buildings.
- drofnats1
September 14, 2012 at 11:31am
Everyone always looks for a trigger to explain the violence. And each time, the triggers seems to get smaller and smaller. A decade ago, we were told despicable acts were in response to the US being in the middle east. These days, it's a movie on youtube. The bar will be lowered each time. Think about his: we've gone from "payback for occupation" to "payback for a movie" in just a decade. And at some point, someone will complain that a woman in a mall in Detroit gazed upon them suggestively, and if only she were covered... The author writes: "Again, Nakoula thought nothing about the violence that could—and did—result" In what world should he have to think about this? Weren't we all outraged over what Rushie went through? By what you wrote here, I can only assume you thought what Rushdie went through was just desserts.
- seattleeng
September 15, 2012 at 10:01pm