ABSTRACT
Events surrounding ‘Innocence of Muslims’ can be read as the latest in a line of similar controversies dating back to the Rushdie affair. Following each, there has typically been condemnation of the cultural product and an expression of anger by some Muslims that prompts a shift in the focus of the media, public and politicians from the original object of controversy to the reaction and behaviour of some Muslims (Ruthven 1990). As Werbner (2000) observes, many of these protests are against an abstract entity that is loosely conflated with ‘the West’. This essentialism is reflected back and Muslims then homogenously risk becoming framed as being on the wrong side of conflicts between censorship and freedom of expression, tolerance and intolerance, theocratic law and secular liberalism (CBMI 1997; Allen 2010). A similar pattern was observed with regards to ‘Innocence of Muslims’. However, it is necessary to acknowledge a key difference between the furores: while The Satanic Verses was written by a (formerly) Muslim writer, all subsequent events – the various cartoons and films – have been produced by non-Muslims. This is important for two reasons. First, because as the findings here suggest, some Muslims believe that such more recent incidents have been deliberately engineered externally to provoke a very specific, ‘Muslim response’. Second, Rushdie’s being formerly Muslim evoked a sense of betrayal or even treachery among his Muslim opponents, not least because of his public profile (Modood 1990a). For the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ affair and others since Rushdie, that sense of betrayal has been absent.
