Like you, I am also being very cynical of news coverage on both sides of the divide.
I'm not denying that there is violence, I'm not denying that it's out of proportion to the supposed insult, and I'm not denying that there are extremists out there who are using this as yet another excuse.
And I sure as hell am not arguing that "angry, rioting Muslims = right" because I'm most definitely not. Burning down embassies, making in dangerous for people of the wrong nationality to even stay in a country, issuing death threats against the cartoonists...no definitely does not fall into the "right" column.
However, Muslims who are insulted by the cartoons absolutely do have the right to call for a boycott on products from X-Y-Z country and they do have a right to argue that they find the caricatures insulting (provided it's done peacefully). These are tactics that are most certainly used in the West and have been for a long time.
Freedom of speech is important and should be defended at all costs. But our peaceful exercise of freedom of speech does not negate someone else's peaceful exercise to counter with speech of their own.
Note the key word being "peaceful" as part of that.
Where I have a problem is the decision to point to peaceful protest and peaceful boycott (which is happening, make no mistake) and putting it in the same bucket as the actions of thugs using this incident as an excuse to be violent. One is not the same as the other, at all.
However, I think there's a very good argument that can be made that this whole issue of the cartoons has long ago ceased to be a religious issue and has crossed the line to actually being about other issues. It hasn't helped that the two sides have been spewing hate for years about each other due to everything from "political convenience" to "keeping the populace united and focused on an external enemy so they don't realize just how fucked up their homeland is."
And that's happening on both sides of the "Muslim" and "non-Muslim" world. In the U.S. for example, whenever President Bush's approval rating tanks yet again, he starts squaking about "9/11" and "war on terra" and "they hate us for our freedoms" and "only we can protect you from the big bad terrorists so sit down, shut up, and stop complaining about your eroding civil rights" like a pull-string Chatty Cathy or a well-trained monkey.
There are, in fact, an awful lot of Muslim clerics out there calling for calm, there are a lot of secular and moderate Muslims that are positively horrified about what's happening.
This is not the "Muslim World" vs. "Non-Muslim World" knock-down, drag-out that's being painted on both sides of the divide. However, I think there are some pretty powerful interests out there (again on both sides) that are invested into turning this chaos into just that.
My big concern is that someone, somewhere is going to use this as an excuse for a war because, damn, wars had started over a lot less.
If cooler heads don't prevail and pull both sides back from the brink, we're all in a lot of trouble.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
I'm not denying that there is violence, I'm not denying that it's out of proportion to the supposed insult, and I'm not denying that there are extremists out there who are using this as yet another excuse.
And I sure as hell am not arguing that "angry, rioting Muslims = right" because I'm most definitely not. Burning down embassies, making in dangerous for people of the wrong nationality to even stay in a country, issuing death threats against the cartoonists...no definitely does not fall into the "right" column.
However, Muslims who are insulted by the cartoons absolutely do have the right to call for a boycott on products from X-Y-Z country and they do have a right to argue that they find the caricatures insulting (provided it's done peacefully). These are tactics that are most certainly used in the West and have been for a long time.
Freedom of speech is important and should be defended at all costs. But our peaceful exercise of freedom of speech does not negate someone else's peaceful exercise to counter with speech of their own.
Note the key word being "peaceful" as part of that.
Where I have a problem is the decision to point to peaceful protest and peaceful boycott (which is happening, make no mistake) and putting it in the same bucket as the actions of thugs using this incident as an excuse to be violent. One is not the same as the other, at all.
However, I think there's a very good argument that can be made that this whole issue of the cartoons has long ago ceased to be a religious issue and has crossed the line to actually being about other issues. It hasn't helped that the two sides have been spewing hate for years about each other due to everything from "political convenience" to "keeping the populace united and focused on an external enemy so they don't realize just how fucked up their homeland is."
And that's happening on both sides of the "Muslim" and "non-Muslim" world. In the U.S. for example, whenever President Bush's approval rating tanks yet again, he starts squaking about "9/11" and "war on terra" and "they hate us for our freedoms" and "only we can protect you from the big bad terrorists so sit down, shut up, and stop complaining about your eroding civil rights" like a pull-string Chatty Cathy or a well-trained monkey.
There are, in fact, an awful lot of Muslim clerics out there calling for calm, there are a lot of secular and moderate Muslims that are positively horrified about what's happening.
This is not the "Muslim World" vs. "Non-Muslim World" knock-down, drag-out that's being painted on both sides of the divide. However, I think there are some pretty powerful interests out there (again on both sides) that are invested into turning this chaos into just that.
My big concern is that someone, somewhere is going to use this as an excuse for a war because, damn, wars had started over a lot less.
If cooler heads don't prevail and pull both sides back from the brink, we're all in a lot of trouble.