Fallout from Innocence of Muslims

I’m sure that by now you’ve heard of the movie, Innocence of Muslims, which has enraged a large number of Muslims all over the globe. Essentially it is a poorly made, anti-Islamic film that is purely made to insult Mohammed. I’ve glanced through the trailer, though not watched it properly, and it’s hard to imagine how anyone could even pay attention to it. It’s just too poorly produced to take seriously as any more than the ranting of one (or maybe a small group) of sad individuals. Some people have taken it seriously, however, and although I was originally planning to ignore it as the same sort of thing that always happens it’s escalated to the point where I feel I should say something.

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Updates: Aan and Nando’s

There’s not too much new about the Alexander Aan case but there are a few things I missed when I originally wrote about his sentencing. There seems to be some disagreement with what he wrote. I originally read, and quoted, “God doesn’t exist” but now I’m seeing “God does not exist.” Of course that’s not really that big of a difference and it’s probably not even worth worrying about since he probably posted in Indonesian and not English. A little more serious was that I missed part of his sentence. Not only was Aan sentenced to 2,5 years in jail but also fined Rp100 million (about US$10 600). This article has some information on the groups that are supporting him.

Back in South Africa, there has been positive news regarding Nando’s anti-xenophobia advert. If you remember it was banned by the SABC, DStv and e.tv and M-Net for supposedly having a xenophobic undertone and in case people misunderstood it. This week, TopTV announced that it would show the ad on a number of it’s channels. One of the positive knock-on effects of that decision is that DStv has now lifted it’s own ban on the advert. Hopefully the other channels will soon follow suit.

UPDATE: Not worth making a new post for this but Nando’s has said it’s no longer interested in showing it’s ad on DStv.

Being against xenophobia is the same as encouraging it?

Apparently that’s so. Nando’s most recent advert was designed to promote diversity in the country. It did this by humorously making all the foreigners disappear in a puff of smoke till all that was left were the Khoisan. If I remember correctly (I can’t view the ad at current) it ended saying something like “True South Africans appreciate diversity.” The message is an important one, we come from all over but where you come from doesn’t matter. We are all humans and should all learn to live with each other.