Documentary Review: Freedom to Broadcast Hate

Messing with the sacred

Fundamentalists are fast catching up with the media to spread their provocative messages

In an era marked by sectarian violence all across the Muslim world, BBC’s ‘Freedom to Broadcast Hate’, seems to be a timely production allowing us to understand this issue deeply. As the media becomes an ever more potent influencer on a common man’s psyche, the fundamentalists are fast catching up with it to spread their provocative messages. The documentary explores the inciteful speeches and sermons of Sunni and Shia clergy-men which are broadcasted live on television for millions of viewers to see. While the regulatory authories claim to have shut down the sectarian channels, many are still functional in Iraq and Egypt. They have either their head offices situated in their home countries, or have relocated to unlikely places such as the US or the UK.

Ever since the Arab Spring in 2011, the Middle-East has seen a new surge in the number of private television channels, many of which include religious channels. Lectures by Shia Imams in which the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh) are abused and cursed are aired on national televison that have led to massive uproars and bloodshed in the Sunni community. When a young Shia activist was asked if he understands the fact that his hate-filled messages are causing bloodshed, his response couldn’t have been more indifferent. He simply stated that there was bloodshed during the time of Prophet (pbuh) too but that didn’t mean that he should stop preaching the truth! Similarly, the Sunni leaders are seen touting hatred against the Shia calling them filth and begging God to eradicate them off the face of the earth. Many of the Shia and Sunni religious leaders own their television channels and spread religious intolerance via them. They are funded by undisclosed sources which as the documentary explores, are mostly based in Kuwait, a region perfectly sandwiched between the Shia Iran and the Sunni Saudi Arabia and neighboring Iraq which is the most lethally hit by sectarian riots. What’s amazing is the fact that Kuwait has no sectarian problems of its own, but here the elite are conspiring to fuel sectarian violence elsewhere. These wealthy donors residing in Kuwait have no qualms donating more than $350,000 a month to these television stations.

Such sectarian-minded television channels in the Middle-East definitely need to be crushed for ‘banned’ is a much polite word, but what about the many television shows in the US and UK that broadcast hate against the Muslims on prime-time television? Why should they have a license to broadcast hate?

This leaves us with an age-old enigma associated with freedom of speech; does the freedom of speech encompass the freedom to broadcast hate? If no, then who decides what hate is? Such sectarian-minded television channels in the Middle-East definitely need to be crushed for ‘banned’ is a much polite word, but what about the many television shows in the US and UK that broadcast hate against the Muslims on prime-time television? Why should they have a license to broadcast hate? Haven’t their insults already caused much bloodshed in the Muslim world? But then again, it only begs the question: just because you are incited, does that mean you are necessarily supposed to act on your instinct? Those Muslims who are angered by an insult, are only weak, because strenght does not lie in the body but in your ability to control your anger. Let the dogs bark. The question is: are we, as Muslims, a strong nation?