liz_marcs | Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

Still feelling craptastic, although I dragged my butt into work today because...yeah. I'm stupid. That and I'm just well enough to be going out of my skull from boredom.

I may post another part tonight for Facing the Heart in Darkness. Or I may just crawl directly into bed. Depends on how sucky I feel.

I do apologize for the delay, but this stomach bug sucks.

Anyway, I've been seeing some discussion about the Danish Charicature Riots, especially among the Europeans on my FList. As I've been in and out of it pretty much for the past five days, I haven't really gotten involved in the discussion nor have I been able to really think clearly about it.

I did, however, find a very good write up about what happened this past weekend.

Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan who specializes in Middle Eastern Studies has the best, most balanced, and most level-headed take on the caricatures that riled the Muslim world that is very much worth reading.

Sample quote:

I want to underline that few places in the Muslim world have seen violence over the caricatures, so far mainly Damascus and Beirut (which are unexpected in this regard.) Protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere have been nonviolent. This is not to play down the seriousness of what happened in Damascus and Beirut over the weekend — acts which can only inspire horror and condemnation — only to set it in context. There are 1.5 billion Muslims. A lot of Muslim countries saw no protests at all. In some places, as in Pakistan, they were anemic. The caricature protests are resonating with local politics and anti-imperialism in ways distinctive to each Muslim country. The protests therefore are probably not mostly purely about religion.

I really recommend that you read the whole thing...

ETA: A Sign of the Times...
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Freaky-ness.

Once upon a time, you'd have to search someone's bedroom and find the diary when you had people like Jacob D. Robida, the New Bedford 18-year-old who attacked patrons in a New Bedford gay bar with a hatchet and a gun and then subsequently died in a shootout with police in Arkansas.

Now, you can always read Robida's My Space page to get a look inside the mind of a killer.

Anyone else just a little creeped out by this? Or is it just me?

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The only thing that I can't seem to discover is whether the cartoons originated in a right-wing Danish newspaper that had shown racism in the past. The source of the cartoons is a little muddled to me, but then again, I've been sick so I'm not sure on the deal.

As far as I know, Jyllands Posten is a well respected newspaper, one of the biggest in Denmark. They commissioned the caricatures and printed them 30. September. The reason is said to be that a guy who had written a children's-book about Islam couldn't get anyone to draw the Prophet Muhammad for the book, because they were afraid.

There were protests in several countries.

On 10.January the tiny Christian-fundamentalist rag "Magazinet" in Norway re-printed the drawings. The editor claims it was because freedom of expression is so important. Nobody with half a brain believes him. He has argued in favor of laws against blasphemy in the past, but that was to protect his religion of course.

The international protest erupted. Other Newspapers printed the drawings. More protests.

Thank you for the clarification.

I know that I remembered something about some racist/fundamentalist paper doing something or somehow being involved, but I wasn't entirely sure when/where. (Again, fever, illness, dizziness and apologies for not being more prepared on the history).

No apology needed. I have a front row seat to this one, unfortunately.

My sympathies for what's happening in your neck of the woods. You just look at something like this and you wonder how things got so bad so quickly.

I suppose that's why I'm looking at the "why" more so than the cause and effect.

I think the "why" is an unfortunate mix of western cultural arrogance and eastern frustration over life in general.

It probably feels good to feel superior, and also feels good to scream and shout one's anger without getting arrested for once.

Once the parties start talking, they seem to reach agreement rather quickly.

5+ people have been reported killed, embassies have been burned, people is being evacuated, death threats. It has already gone too far.

Most norwegians seems to agree that printing them was a bad idea, but that any danish or norwegian should fear for their lives because of it just wrong.

5+ people? I have heard of one demonstrator being shot by the police in Afganistan. Who are the others?

Things have definitely gone too far. The anger are out of proportion to the insult, and this suggests to me that there are other issues at work here.

There are always those who finds it to their advantage to help trouble along. In this case I think we can find such people on both sides. Which to me is a strong argument for staying calm and sceptical.

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.

I think you and I are very much in agreement on this issue.

But I'm not so worried about war. I see this more as the kind of venting that keeps a bad situation stable, than the kind that makes people band together for revolutionary change. I could be totally wrong of course, I'm no expert.

But if we in the West don't learn to share our wealth, the revolution will come, and the only winners will be the cockroaches.

Um, now I'm getting morbid, sorry.

4 people shot in Afghanistan, a 14 year old kid shot in Somalia and one died after jumping of the danish embassy in Libanon. (www.vg.no)

But at the speed things are moving Im not sure how accurate these reports are.

I've seen that the number of dead and wounded are going up now, yes. It is bad and tragic. The victims have been protesters and police trying to control them.

Except a Catholic Priest who got killed in Turkey. And an ordinary Norwegian Muslim family man who got stabbed in the neck by a drunken lout (fortunately he didn't get badly hurt).

There is no excuse for this violence. But there are explanations.

Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

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