Well, Fatwa You Too, Buddy

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah issued a fatwa calling on young Muslims in Western countries in particular to carry out the death sentence of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the “Innocence of Muslims” film’s creator and an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian, as well as the film’s actors and all those involved in its making. The film ridicules Mohammed.

You will remember the same kind of thing happened to British-Indian author Salman Rushdie, whose writings were considered blasphemous, and Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi writer who expressed critical views of Islam, particularly regarding the status and treatment of women.

This was no small matter for Rushdie or Nasrin, forcing both into hiding due to death threats over their expressions critical of Islam.

But why make a film?

Egypt had a revolution in Jan 25 2011.  Now Christians have been killed all over Egypt at an alarming frequency.  In the latest massacre of Coptic Christians in front of the Maspiro building, more than 24 were killed and 250 injured. Reports say that video shows the military taking part in this massacre, using armored vehicles to crush Christians.

I’ve read that Islamist leaders justify special fines against Christians for being non-Muslim.  The fact is Christians in Egypt are being persecuted by Islamists, and are being driven out.  Christian churches are disappearing, are virtually gone, being exterminated like vermin.

And no one apologizes for this.

No one issues a fatwa over this.

The President of the United States does not mention this.

So, unknown individuals, including a Coptic Christian, make an awkward, bumbling, 15-minute movie expressing their disdain of Islam, and post it on the internet.

The reaction:  Bring out the Death Squads.  Destroy all of Western Civilization.  Death to America!  The reaction makes me mad as hell.

It makes me made because if someone in Western Civilization issued a “fatwa of death” they would go to prison for conspiracy to commit murder.  They belong in prison.  In this country we call a “fatwa of death” putting out a “hit” on someone.  Mobsters do that.  We don’t tolerate mobsters, we don’t respect mobsters. We put mobsters in prison.  We put them there because they are a threat to humanity and to civilization.  They belong there.

Here’s the point:  Rushdie, Nasrim, and Nasrallah all employed legal, civilized means of personal expression.  Islamic extremist show their disagreement by employing murder and attempted murder, all toward the end of intimidating and killing expression.

Here’s our prayer: Islamist extremists realize sooner than later the world is filled with human minds equipped with videos, cell phones, blogs, tablets, computers, television, books, and every other form of communication that allows their brothers and sisters to say what they think about religious terrorists.

Here’s our fatwa: We hereby issue our own fatwa on intimidation.  Every free person has an obligation to kill the use of intimidation in every form, including religious tyranny, with whatever artistic, legal, literary, or other humanly civilized tool he or she has.

May peace be with you.