“It is an attack on the fundamental of the faith and that is why we find reactions all over the world among the Muslims”

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DG-IPS Khalid Rahman in an interview with Press TV on the blasphemous movie produced in the US

International English news channel Press TV conducted an interview with Khalid Rahman, director-general, Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad in its transmission on 14 September 2012 along with an additional guest, Omar Nashabe, editor of Al-Akhbar Newspaper from Beirut, to discuss the violent protests across the Muslim world against the blasphemous anti-Islam movie produced in the United States.

The approximate transcription of the questions put to DG-IPS and his responses during the program are being posted here along with its video link.

Video:http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/14/261564/antiislam-movie-an-insult-to-sharia/

Press TV: Right now we were getting live images coming out of Cairo as people are still out there on their fourth day of protest outside the US embassy protesting and demanding that the US ambassador to Cairo be expelled. Now this is the place, Cairo is the city where Obama came right after his election four years ago and made a speech for his outreach to the Muslim world hoping to start a new chapter with the Muslim world in America. Do you think that new chapter was ever started in these past four years?

Rahman: Thank you very much for inviting me and I would start by responding partly to the first question that you presented before my colleague in Lebanon. I think what needs to be realized is that [Prophet] Muhammad Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam is not an individual for Muslims, they regard him as one of the very important sources of their Sharia, so any insult to him is an insult to the source of Sharia.

So that means it is an attack on the fundamental of the faith and that is why we find reactions all over the world among the Muslims. When you see the photographs and coverage of the protests, you find young, old, educated, uneducated, all kinds of people are there, all kinds of nationalities, people belonging to all schools of thought are protesting.

Now coming to the question that you raised to me, I think this is the failure of America that while on occasions they talk very good but as far as their practices are concerned, they are continuing with the same practice which is not targeting the root causes of the tensions between the Muslim world and the West in general and America in particular.

Look at the current case of this film. This is not the first incident, this is not the first film coming out from there and the unfortunate thing is that while the Americans have reacted over the killing of their ambassador which is in a way understandable but they have not reacted to the making of this film and there has not been a real reaction that a kind of hate crime has taken place. As a government they are bound to observe the United Nations and UNESCO documents which make it an obligation for every government to prevent any kind of hate crime or any kind of attempt which is targeting a particular culture.

So this is their legal responsibility but they are not performing that responsibility. In this case particularly, this has come out in the press that those who worked in this film, the actresses, the actors… 80 percent of them have come up with a very clear-cut stance that they have been cheated. They were not told that this kind of film is being made. And after they have completed their job, the film has been distorted, the film has been amended.

Now what kind of American law is there? If that has come into the Press, 80 percent of the participants of the film are saying that they have been cheated but nothing has happened.

So in fact whatever speech he delivered four years back in Egypt, it was the time when he initially took up the post of presidency and one can say that perhaps he was having some good ideas but as far as the whole American system is concerned, it is at the moment not reliable as far as Muslim issues are concerned. And they are continuing to perform as they have been performing in earlier periods.

Press TV: Do you see the Muslim world now united against this film, against the American policies as far as Islamophobia goes? Do you see the Muslim world rising to the occasion right now and pushing forth a concerted effort to quell this Islamophobic campaign that we are seeing right now?

Rahman: Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you find all over the world Muslims are protesting, are showing their anger towards these kinds of efforts so as far as Muslim masses are concerned you find a kind of common reaction among them.

But when you look at the Muslim governments you find the reaction is not matching the requirement of the situation. And we have different platforms but we are not using them even in United Nations we are more than 50, in fact 56, 57 but we are not coming up with joint moves in United Nations on such issues.

So I think there is a lot of potential in the Muslim world, the masses are continuously presenting their point of view in different ways but as far as the governments are concerned they are not taking the right kind of measures and in that context I think the Muslim masses also need to focus on their own governments in a way that when violence takes place it is also a reflection that whatever they are expecting from their governments, if they are not performing that, some of them resort to kind of violence.

So yes and no, there is emotion, there is energy, there is power but at the same time it needs to be directed to really educate people in the Muslim world as well as outside Muslim world and come up with a united stance at the global level, effort for making laws at the global level and whatever laws are there, efforts to implement them, to get them implemented and putting pressure from various means on the Americans in particular and in general the Western countries where from we find off and on these kind of attempts.