An educational video which shows Dutch children apologising for acts of terrorism and aims to challenge the idea of "guilt by association" is going viral.
Filmmaker Abdelkarim El-Fassi argues that people have been forcing feelings of collective guilt onto certain ethnic and religious communities for years. "This has to stop, otherwise the problem will fester on for generations to come," he says.
The video has taken off in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, after which there were calls for moderate Muslims to stand up and condemn the atrocities. However, many Muslims have taken umbrage with being asked to speak out and condemn something that had nothing to do with them.
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"Demanding that innocent Muslims always make new statements about crimes they could not have stopped, from which they do not benefit, and have always condemned anyway, is an act by the powerful assigning collective guilt against the powerless," professor of religious studies Caner Dagli argued on CNN.
The video aims to show how these types of accusations, prejudices and expectations affect children by lowering their self-esteem and levels of self-worth. In one case, a child who wants to be a superhero is quickly talked into believing he is a villain, just because he's told he looks like one.
"I've never felt this uncomfortable while directing a video. Sure, it's totally unethical and pedagogically irresponsible, and yet as a society we’ve practiced this on the macro-level for years," said El-Fassi.
While some have called it "heartbreaking", "poignant" and "thought-provoking", others think the filmmaker has crossed a line by using young children to deliver his message.
"This video is not challenging 'guilty by association' it is teaching guilty by association," one commenter told Al Jazeera's The Stream. "Children are innocent and should not be exposed to this ideological madness going on in the world."
"Calm down," another responded. "It's a video where people are acting to prove a point. What's sick is people are made to feel that way in the real world constantly."
