© Jim Morin
Are Muslims too easily incited to violence? There’s an interesting editorial in the Washington Post titled “Why is the Arab world so easily offended?”
Let’s ignore for the moment whether violence is ever justified. I believe in this particular case the violence is definitely not justified (mainly because it won’t do any good and will almost certainly hurt them more than anyone they are protesting against). But I also don’t think that the stupid movie is the only thing they are upset about. To coin a bad phrase, it is just the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. Don’t pretend like they don’t have anything to be upset about (cough, Iraq). How should they react?
UPDATE: AlterNet points out that the author of the Washington Post editorial may not be the best person to give us a Muslim perspective.
8 Comments
I’m at the beginning of “The Gathering Storm” by Winston Churchill. He is talking about the 1920s in America leading up to the Great Depression. And how the US buys furniture, houses, cars, etc on time, little down, just like they did with the stock market. This is not a concept in the rest of the world. The rest of the world pays cash. I think that is the total sum of the animosity towards our country, our Hubris. All other countries live without. I’ve always thought that about the Muslims. They resent our “conspicuous consumption” I watched my parents practice this “conspicuous consumption” and go deeply in dept. So I didn’t.
Of course, our avarice puts us in servitude to the other countries.
Though I don’t think we can lump the entire Muslim world together in this case, I just don’t think anything excuses the murder of an Ambassador who had nothing to do with any of their grievances. I was pretty young when 9/11/01 happened, but I don’t recall Americans storming, burning and murdering their way through the embassy of every Muslim country they could find. It just seems that these Middle Eastern states have a perpetual supply of people willing to riot at a moment’s notice. So do I think Muslim countries are more likely to be incited to violence? Yes. But I think it has more to do with the huge numbers of unemployed young people than it does with their religion. Look at the loons that made themselves known here once the economy tanked. If those folks were ever a majority I think you could bank on similar reactions to real or imagined slights from abroad right here in the States.
I think the Koran quote says it all. If more people that claim to be religious, both Christian and Muslim, actually followed the religion they claim, the world would be a better place.
And Jon Stewart captured it brilliantly when he said, “Religion – It’s given people hope, in a world torn apart by religion.”
Really? The muslims are reactings just fine, a small group in each country is acting out. This is like the Tea Party doing something in america and saying, Oh America is acting out.
Key difference being the Tea Party, extreme as it is in some cases, has not assaulted any embassies or killed any diplomats.
The tea party is an analogy, and it’s true. The protest against the video and the attack were two separate events. It was libians who brought the ambassador to the hospital.
In Libya they were separate, but Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan, India and Australia all saw either attempts to breach consulate or embassy grounds or violent protests.
Of course this isn’t a case of entire countries rising up to attack Americans, but the availability of people in the Middle East and even Muslims around the globe willing to clash with police, burn things down and scale embassy walls is alarming. Sure, the Tea Party is crazy, but they don’t start massive, violent protests outside Muslim countries’ embassies every time an American flag gets torched overseas.
Duckman your analogy should would be better to reference the OWS demonstrations then the TEA Party.
This whole thing has got the left searching to defend Obama and his reelection efforts and I believe it’s unnecessary. These protests, particularly in Libya their origin, were not initially due to the anti muslim film. In Libya it was a planned event to mark the anniversery of 911, the organizers just stumbled into the film and used it for cover. The press was covering the film and other agitators picked up on it and spread it to do what agitators do. These agitators have their own agenda, whether they are all supporters of Al Qaida remains to be seen, but they are all part of some political organization trying to further their cause. None of this is necessarily Obama’s fault, his admin may share some of the blame in Libya if they were warned ahead of time and didn’t react, but without specific information, like on 9/11 its hard to justify over reaction to a non specific event. Those scling our embassies and torching buildings are not typical, they are the agitators, just as they infiltrated the OWS movement. They have a separate agenda and are good at promoting it, playing right into the vulnerablities of the muslim youth.
I agree that the majority of Muslims do not resort to violence even when hurt by some idiot making a cheap film.