Shouting ‘fire’

Everyone knows now as what happens when an extremely provocative and insulting movie against Mohammed and the Moslim religion is unleashed – the Moslim world is on fire with violence and many deaths have resulted. Nobody knows when the Muslim rage will simmer down.

It is fortunate that in this country, Moslims have resorted to a non-violent recourse -- to stop the showing of the movie. Innocence of Muslims “tags Mohammed as a womanizer, homosexual and child abuser”.

Muslims here have been forced to resort to the Supreme Court to stop the showing of the movie, after President Aquino refused to do so on the ground that showing the movie is part of free speech.

But is it?

(I thought I saw while viewing TV last night that the Supreme Court has stopped the showing of the offending movie. However, today’s papers, September 27, 2012 do not report such news. It’s possible, the news came out too late for the morning papers or did the notice refer to another Supreme Court, like the U.S.’s, which is unlikely).

“The Innocence of Muslims” is like a house on fire; it is akin to a disease that threatens to infect a community --- can we stand by, arms akimbo, and do nothing?

Which brings us to the famous statement of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that free speech does not protect shouting “Fire” in a crowded movie house, when in fact there is no fire.

It would seem obvious that the producer of the film, Sam Bacile, and the director Alan Roberts knew (and intended) that the film would inflame Muslims, shatter their sensibilities and cause them to erupt in riots and violence. The two (and others who are not named) must know that numerous deaths would be caused by the showing of the movie. If so, can their motives ever be justified?

Are they guilty of murder if they knew that the movie they produced will definitely result in people killed in the inevitable riots? These matters are possibly theoretical questions. In the end, is there any difference between throwing a grenade, lighting a can of gasoline in a crowded place, and making and circulating a movie like the “Innocence of Muslims”?

In any event, as punishment, they have disappeared and are in hiding because they will definitely be killed by those enraged. It’s hard to imagine what your life would be if you would just be sneaking around like a rat in the sewer.

Because of this maybe Bacile and Roberts have gotten their just desserts.

DO YOU WANT TO WIN $65 MILLION? Of course anybody would like to “win” 65 million dollars. But what do you have to do to win it ?

First, you have to be an unmarried male.

Second, you have to possess the requisite glamour, pulchritude, wit --- the usual ingredients. (You don’t have to be rich)

Third, you have to win the heart of a pretty woman named Gigi who is the daughter of a Hongkong tycoon.

Fourth, you have to double, even triple your efforts because Gigi is a lesbian who has lived with her partner for seven years and who is rumored to have married her in France early this year.

If in the unlikely event you can win Gigi’s heart and convince her to leave her female partner, and marry you, you may get your $65 million from Gigi’s father, Cecil Chao, a Hongkong tycoon who is reputed to have relations with 10,000 women.

Good luck!*

back to top