Indignation will continue until President Aquino blocks blasphemy on YouTube

Indignation will continue until President Aquino blocks blasphemy on YouTube

Muslim indignation over the blasphemous film, “Innocence of Muslims”, will continue and gain momentum unless President Benigno S. Aquino III blocks this vicious attack on the Holy Prophet of Islam (saw) on YouTube.

This indignation will not cease and will express itself in many ways, hopefully not through means that might go beyond the parameters of peaceful and legal remonstrance.  But continue it will, until the national government realizes that blocking this blasphemous film is the most just and practical way to defuse Muslim indignation and maintain peace.

The legal basis on which President Aquino could take action on this issue has been laid down by the Supreme Court, which has issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the public showing of the film in the Philippines in response to the petition filed by leaders of Muslim multi-sectoral groups on September 24, 2012. 

In view of the foregoing, President Aquino no longer has the excuse not to take action. If he could accede to the demand of the Catholic Church in August 2011 to close down an art exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines which was deemed blasphemous to Christianity, there is no reason why he cannot take the same measure against an assault on Islam that is considered as the Philippines’ national heritage and the faith of 10 million Bangsamoro Muslims in Mindanao and Sulu. 

Furthermore, pursuing a policy of inaction and apathy will not augur well for the national government’s effort to resolve the Moro Question. Such a policy sends a wrong signal to the Bangsamoro people. Separatist sentiment, far from having subsided, is strong because it feeds on the historical and current injustices on the Bangsamoro Muslims that have not been redressed until today although peace negotiations are going on between the government and the MILF. The Aquino government will be pushing this separatist sentiment to an irreversible point if it tolerates by its gross inaction this latest assault on the Islamic sensitivities of the Muslims. Indeed, it will only prove that the Bangsamoro people have no place in a Philippine society that is oblivious to the existence, let alone rights, of a Muslim minority that has been minoritized by colonization, annexation and occupation.

We have lost a large part of our ancestral homeland.

We have lost the sovereignty, freedom and independence that we once enjoyed under the Moro sultanate states when our Moro homeland became a part of the Philippine Republic.

All of this we have accepted with patience and have endured the sufferings and humiliation as a consequence therefrom.

We cannot, however, countenance this attack on our Islamic faith.

We cannot allow losing our Islamic faith in the way we have lost our homeland and freedom.

We declare here and now that this latest attack on the Prophet Muhammed (saw) is an attack on our Islamic faith; and an attack on our Islamic faith is an attack on all of us, Muslims, whether at the individual level or at the collective level.

Lest this is not understood by this country and its rulers, the limits of our endurance and patience would be breached by government inaction and apathy. 

We only ask one thing from the Aquino government:

Block the blasphemous film from YouTube! 

Prevention is better than cure. Would this be not possible, Muslim indignation could graduate to the level of Intifada.

signed this 28 of September  2012 at Mendiola, Manila, PH.

 convenors:

 AGAKHAN ‘BINLADEN’ SHARIEF,          DATU HAJ ANSARI D. ALONTO
09399193044 09192269229 /                             09056700365

  DRIEZA A. LININDING,                              DATU NASSER DIMAPINTO
  09215434761

JAMIL ‘MOTAWA’ YAHYA,                          DATU NASIEF MALAWANI

-end-