The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a series of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. . .
. . . including two showing him naked. An obscure US film insulting the Prophet was translated into Arabic and circulate throughout the Arabic world (but not in Saudi Arabia) by the Saudis,.
Following, there have been some demonstrations in 20 Muslim countries, and some people, including a US ambassador, have been killed.
These two insults to the prophet are said have produced the demonstrations.
From The Guardian, September 12, 2012:
Condemning the publication of the cartoons in France as an act verging on incitement, Egypt's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, said on Thursday it showed how polarized the west and the Muslim world had become.
Muhammad and his companions had endured "the worst insults from the non-believers of his time", he wrote on the Reuters blog Faith World.
"Not only was his message routinely rejected, but he was often chased out of town, cursed and physically assaulted on numerous occasions.
"But his example was always to endure all personal insults and attacks without retaliation of any sort. There is no doubt that, since the prophet is our greatest example in this life, this should also be the reaction of all Muslims."
• • • •
Gomaa said insults to Islam and the response, including the killing of the US ambassador in Libya and attacks on other western embassies in the region, could not be dissociated from other points of conflict between the west and the Muslim world.
He cited the treatment of Muslims at the US detention centre in Guantánamo Bay the US-led war in Iraq, drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan, and the denomination of Muslims by far-right European parties as "underlying factors" for the tension. [Emphasis added]
Well, maybe so. You have to love a country deeply to be truly angry with it. Folks in Cairo don't know the US, they know a cartoon of it; the anger reflected in the Muslim demonstations have a theatrical quality, and were easily put down by authorities. (The well-executed attack on our consulate in Benghazi is another matter.)
I, am a Unites States citizen: I denounce the horrendous prison at Guantanamo Bay and also the one at Pelican Bay, just sas bad, with its non-judicial solitary confinement for life; the cruel and blunderous Iraq war that hurt Iraqis so badly and even now harms US interests. Drone strike in Yemen are another matter; not as bad as an innovation of Yemen, which we could still do, and not as good as cooperating with the Southern Secessionist Movement
So I don't accept the good Worthy's assessment uncritically.
Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa was appointed to his high position by the dictator and friend of the US, Hosni Mubarak, in September 2003. Google does not report anti-West sentiments by Gomaa until it became obvious that his patron would fall. Then he became sympathetic with the "youthful demonstrators". Gomaa focuses on Western flaws and faials to mention Mulim ones: the grossly unfair treatment of it's women and the murder by hanging of Gay men; depositing horded billions of dollars "safely" rather than investing them in jobs that could feed their people; the ungracious ignoring of billions of aid the West has praovide to the Muslim world.
We all see the world through prisoms; no reason to expect a High Religious Eminence to be better than the average run of mankind.
∼ ∼ ∼
The Web images, in the main, remind me of youthful pranks I might have joined with glee when I was 18.
Some of the images below are tragic, some are hurtful, some defiantly disrespectful of the all-powerful West and Israel (What fun that must be, and at what little personal cost to most!), some are dignified, some are of bravery, but mostly they are of youngmen letting offf long-pent-up steam.
Here are some of riot images I like, mostly from Cairo. I like them for a variety of reasons, some artistic, and some you won't like, for reasons of misplaced patriotism:
Male bonding, Cairo
From The Guardian: Pakistani soldiers hold back
Muslim protesters shouting anti-US slogans
as they attempt to reach the US embassy
during a demonstration against
the anti-Islam film
in Islamabad.
Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Image
Yemeni hvve a special
reason for disliking the US
which hass to do with
tribes, abuse of power,
and an instinct for democracy.
More in a different blog.
Pakistan
Sudan
Outside the US Consultate in Libya.
Some, like this image, have been blogged so many times
that I can't tell its origin.
Sudan. Someone is preparing to burn someone's flag,
and others are intent on stopping him.
Explain, please.
Pakistani lawyers, no doubt.
India. Don't know who is depicted with Hussein.
Looks artificial and posed.
Said to be Bagdad or in Pakistan.
My kinda guys. I loved climbing flag poles. . . when I was young.
Cairo
Cairo
Pakistan
London. Perhaps a Londoner standing near by would hold a sign:
"Muslims, Keep out of English lands",
but that would be boorish. I have a button from the 60s:
"US Out of North America."
I guess is was only partly a joke.
Cairo. A Baroque image.
Mannerly Irrnians
Yemen at our embassy gates.
Note that there are no images from
the Horrible Saudis,
because public displays of anything at all
are prohibited.
Somalia. Somebody is abut to burn a flag,
others are bent on stopping him.
What's going on here?
In my dreams,
this would be me.
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