On the anniversary of Sept. 11, eleven years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, strife has risen during a time where moments of silence and hopes for peace ought to have prevailed.
Islamphobia and negative convictions of Muslims continues to plague the post-terrorist United States. With extensive coverage of religious extremists, there leaves an opening for gross generalization of all Muslims as anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-peace among other categories. The near east where faith and livelihood go hand-in-hand is still shrouded in sensationalism, orientalism, and misconception perpetuated by frequent media exposure to Islamic radicals.
In Benghazi, Libya violent protests aimed at U.S. diplomatic officials and headquarters broke out with the release of an anti-Islamic movie “Innocence of Muslims.”
Short excerpts of the film on Youtube were in English and Arabic. The film’s alleged director Sam Bacile, 56, is of Israeli descent and went into hiding after his piece incited riots from fundamentalist Muslims. Many questions of validity and discontinuity are still being investigated in relation to Bacile’s identity as well as his nationality. Steve Klein, a Christian activist, said Americans who had lived in countries such as Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt were behind the creation. He also stated Bacile’s name and age to be false.
The content of the film claims Islam’s most revered prophet, Muhammad, as a slew of derogatory slurs. It appears to be currently private on Youtube.
Supposedly based in California, Bacile told the Associated Press in a phone interview that the movie was “political” and that “The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re fighting with ideas.”
He was said to blame lax embassy security and the protestors for the resulting deaths of Americans caught in the crossfire. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, 52, along with other American personnel.
Protests also took root in Cairo, Egypt where an American flag was taken down and replaced with the likes of an Islamic banner. Tear gas and police arrest from officials have followed.
“Islam is a cancer, period,” reportedly Bacile told the AP repeatedly.
In response to the recent conflict, the U.S. has deployed a unit of marines as well as warships to Tripoli. President Obama has also commanded for heightened security measures to be taken at American embassies worldwide.
Zainab is a full-time college student born and raised in New York City currently studying mass communications and journalism at the University of Delaware. Her interests include politics, fashion, writing, travel, and unhealthy doses of pop culture.
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