Film protests

[robert_jones]

I understand why people get upset if someone makes a video insulting their religion. What puzzles me is how attacking US embassies is supposed to help. Given the secrecy surrounding the production of the video, it seems unlikely that the US government could have stopped it, even if they didn't have a constitutional protection for free speech.

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

And from what I hear, many Americans came right back with exactly the same mistake of blaming the Libyan and Egyptian governments for the awful raid and meaningless riot. People blaming whole cultures for things seems awful but a constant battle to prevent it :(

[smhwpf]

Monumentally stupid, but a lot of people in the Muslim world are extremely angry at the US for many (often very valid) reasons that it makes the US a very easy target to take something like this out on.

Also, a lot of the crowds come from the most extreme Salafist sections of the population. For every one taking part in the violence at the US embassies, there's probably 10 who are also deeply offended by the film, but also agree that attacking US embassies is an extremely stupid way of responding to it.

[quizcustodet]

To take Sam's point a little bit further: it appears that, to many people in the Muslim world (including those living in the West), the West's foreign policy is so offensive and misguided that it appears possible or even likely that it could be motivated by the sort of hatred of Islam which this film propagates, and thus that this film has the implicit or explicit backing of the government.

[hairyears]

…this behaviour gives succour to
those who seek to portray Islam in a negative
light

Quite. Seen from the outside, from the view of the propagandists who make the offensive videos, cartoons and tracts, it's the gift that keeps on giving: they get so say something offensive about Islam - an action they rather enjoy - and the response is prime-time broadcast propaganda to persuade their more civil fellow-citizens that Moslems are individually raving loonies and collectively a bloodthirsty mob of savages.

I have no idea what it looks like from an inside view. I would say that populations under stress - economic stress, hunger, or fear of violent and oppressive authorities - tend to form dangerous and destructive mobs; and the 'trigger' event to the disturbances may be entirely unrelated to the source of stress. Or, indeed, artificial - mobs, lynchings, riots and pogroms have often been deliberately triggered by the authorities against conveniently-distracting targets.

[jamesofengland]

I don't think that the salafists in Libya are under a new wave of oppression from the authorities, nor hunger, nor economic stress