Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Nasrallah’s anger | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the resistance, whose love for Khomeini knows no bounds, seized the opportunity to get involved in the severe crisis that is raging in our region against the American film insults Islam.

He even ensured that his speech on this matter had a unique and exceptional flavor, particularly as he has given a number of speeches in recent days. He did this by taking the decision to appear in public in front of his supporters in the Beirut suburb of “al-Mustaqila”, rather than appearing via video link. This public appearance was in order to make reference to the present and public nature of this battle, which has seen many masks being cast aside.

Nasrallah, who is the populist orator who can play on the emotions of the crowd, chose the route of escalating and intensifying the sentiments and religious passion of the audience. This was in order to draw attention away from the real battle that is taking place in Syria, and this is something that truly represents an insult to all Islamic – and indeed human– values.

Hassan Nasrallah has usually been successful with such maneuvers, and he succeeded throughout the era of the “resistance”, with many Muslim Brotherhood supporters and Arab would-be revolutionaries following his lead. However this time Nasrallah was let down by timing, and his attempt to obscure and draw attention away from the bloody massacres being carried out by his companion Bashar al-Assad against the unarmed Syrian people has now been exposed. Indeed we previously saw the Syrian pro-regime Shabiha militia, in dozens of quasi-comedic video clips, forcing prisoners to blaspheme against God Almighty and swear allegiance to Maher and Bashar al-Assad as if he they were deities, in a disgusting profane and sacrilegious manner. However it seems that this was something that was not sufficient to prompt the master of resistance to appear in public!

During his last speech, Nasrallah said “the whole world needs to see your anger on your faces, in your fists and your shouts…the whole world should know that the prophet has followers who will not be silent in the face of humiliation,”

Nasrallah is deliberately adding fuel to the fire, aiming to incite the people to the greatest expressions of anger and consequently directing attention away from the Syrian crisis under the pretext of Islam and the prophet being insulted!

This manoeuvre has been exposed, to the point that Egyptian Salafist MP Mamdouh Ismail recognized this, and told the “Al Youm Al Sabaa” newspaper that “Hezbollah is seeking to exploit the American film that insulted the prophet, peace be upon him, in the interests of the Bashar al-Assad regime that it utilizing violence against its people.”

What Hassan Nasrallah and others like him are doing is both extremely dangerous and easy to pull off. There are many such figures amongst the Sunnis and Shiites, and indeed amongst all religions, namely those who can convert the highest moral and ethical values of a religion to tools of political conflict in order to make quick gains by exploiting people’s religious and spiritual emotions.

Almost two centuries ago, Mohamed Bin Laboun, a popular and wise poet from the Arabian peninsula, condemned those who trade on religion, saying:

To those who wear turbans, backbiters and the like

Give them the chance to talk, and they will destroy everything