The question about who has the right to define what a "taunt" is is an interesting one - indeed the central one here. The article I quoted in the Breakfast thread from Arab News
The Power of the Muslim and Arab Worlds Ray Hanania, Arab News This week, we witnessed the power of the Islamic and Arab worlds to bring a Western nation virtually to its knees. I was amazed at that power. This is over an issue that the nation's government had nothing to do with. All I can wonder is why the Islamic and Arab world doesn't harness that power more effectively and change policies that directly impact our causes and our beliefs?
This week, we witnessed the power of the Islamic and Arab worlds to bring a Western nation virtually to its knees. I was amazed at that power. This is over an issue that the nation's government had nothing to do with. All I can wonder is why the Islamic and Arab world doesn't harness that power more effectively and change policies that directly impact our causes and our beliefs?
suggests that the "victims" don't really see themselves as victims nor as helpless, and that it is purely an ideological struggle, where precisely what is a taunt is at stake. Thus the need to take a stand there and to say, "I have a right to say this even if it makes you unhappy".
That it is not courteous is true but, in this instance, irrelevant, because that's not what's at stake. You should not say it, but you have to have the right to do so, however distateful it may be. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Calculated Reaction
However, the harsh reactions to the cartoon overstep the boundaries of acceptable protests. Even though the Mohammed caricature provokes, it by no means justifies an incitement to murder or a call for boycotts. It is also not reason enough for the Arab world to instrumentalize the protests for political purposes.
... Islamist groups are attempting to channel the hatred against the West to bolster their own political influence. Through their apparent solidarity with the wave of protest Arab governments can detract from domestic failure and discredit western calls for reform. Most likely they will also take advantage of the situation to cut back on freedom of the press in their countries.
The escalation of events in the Palestinian territories on Thursday is a good example of how political groups have instrumentalized the raging sentiments. It wasn't Hamas or jihad that fueled the violent protests, but rather the militant arm of the secular Fatah party, which lost last week's parliamentary election. For them, the protests offered the perfect opportunity to express frustration over the lost ballot.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1890725,00.html
