Film trailer sparks protests across the Islamic world

[Starlight]

These protests in sydney are disgusting. I look at the newspaper and see some 4 year old kid holding up a sign that I am not even going to post on here about what it said. Children should not be brainwashed into promoting such violence.

I'm sorry but this has just crossed the line, Australia is renowned for being a peaceful country and we welcome people from all over the world just to get our policemen injured as a result of religion. Honestly this has gone too far and makes me sick to my stomach.

Sorry... I already posted it above

Haha yeah I realized that once I posted
Ceebs editing

[slothpomba]

Liberation narratives are always awkward and rarely accurate. Those who assist in toppling dictators tend to leave the ground fresh for another insurrection. The flipside of the Arab Spring is fundamentalist usurpation. Chatter about democracy is meaningless when the institutional will is absent. The new Libyan regime has been supported by Western governments, but it lives precariously.

All that mob violence generally requires is a vague pretext to bolster a lynching. What that pretext was in the Benghazi killings is not entirely clear. Was it the noxious video Innocence of Muslims, made by a real-estate developer and promoted by Koran-burning preacher Terry Jones? Or was mob violence a gift on the anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks, orchestrated with devastating effect?

US officials have taken it upon themselves to investigate what motivated the attacks. It will not require the gifted and the intelligent to discern some of the causes. Innocence of Muslims is merely a sideshow to both the way American power is projected and the Muslim world’s own problems, though it provides a pungent distraction for troubled communities. It also shows that mobilised groups of revolt can be formed rapidly, bypassing official channels and imperilling stability.

Islamophobia in the US, trumpeted by Jones and backed by such figures as the Egyptian-American lawyer Morris Sadek, provides one side of the equation. The counter is provided by such organised efforts as seen in Benghazi. Both sides nourish each other’s assertions of intolerance. The power of these unofficial protests has reached such a level that General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joints Chief of Staff, personally called Jones to demand that he stop promoting the film.

https://theconversation.edu.au/death-in-benghazi-the-dark-side-of-the-citizens-revolt-in-libya-9552

-----------------

Free speech isn't absolutely free anywhere in the world. This isn't even true in the USA, where their constitutional protections for speech are much stronger than ours. Their laws protect a fair degree of hateful, racist, homophobic or sexist bile you can spew. It's a constitutional right. Even their protections don't extend to things like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater or yelling our "I have a bomb!" in a hospital. These forms of speech clearly have one idiotic reason behind them - to cause fear and fuck with people.

This film quite clearly isn't a scholarly work or journalistic opinion nor art. It does nothing to further discourse in our society or enrich society as a whole. It quite clearly has one purpose and one alone, scorched earth, maximum offense. To agitate people and stir up tensions.

It's intentions are quite clear and dual in purpose:

Firstly,  to stir up hatred for Muslims amongst those who aren't. This is achieved by quoting material selectively and out of context and perpetuating old stereotypes. This is about the level of Fox News or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The second purpose is to deliberately provoke Muslims into the very reactions like this. Indeed, the Coptic Christian who did this constantly claimed to be Jewish, it seems a side purpose was to either further the myth that theres something ingrained within Islam to hate Jews or to also have Jews attacked.

It wasn't that long ago the place of fear and hated of Muslims in European society and culture was taken by Jews. It began long before Hitler. I've seen an article that argued the west has simply replaced Jews with Muslims.

We're all focusing on how hateful muslims are...what about the dick that made the film that started this all?

(aware of the stupid grammar mistakes, wrote in parts..mostly fixed now)

[ninwa]

The dick that made the film didn't kill innocent people, that's why we're focusing on the Muslims.

You can't possibly argue that he was the true murderer. He merely made a film. It is entirely unreasonable to say that the film justified the taking of lives. Once you start blaming the filmmaker you establish a very, very dangerous slippery slope.

edit:
Also, I don't understand why you are calling for people to focus on the filmmaker immediately after you acknowledged yourself that the film has very little to do with it:

Hell, if you believe that this is simply a result of the so called trailer after informing yourself about the situation, you've got as big rocks in your head as some of the people who result to violence simply because they were offended. It's clear the attack on the embassy and the death of the ambassador just wasn't over the movie though.

Everyone is ignoring the obvious geopolitical dimensions here or haven't even bothered to fully inform themselves (bit of an irony then hey).

People hated the USA way before this film came out. Now is just a convenient time.

[paulsterio]

This is why we shouldn't even have religion in the first place, there would be nothing to hate (eliminating the initial problem) and the issues of aggression would also be more or less curbed.

[enwiabe]

kingpomba,

tell me how the filmmaker insulting the "prophet" muhammad in ANY WAY justifies physical violence? If you cannot make that logical link, why are you calling for the filmmaker to be blamed? Further, the attacks were on innocents who had nothing to do with the filmmaker. So why should the filmmaker be focussed upon? He's just an idiot who made a shitty film. The extremists actually KILLED people, and you want to focus on the filmmaker? You don't want to focus on the culture of fundamentalism that produces such an egregious reaction?

I think the following is a solid analysis of the situation, and is difficult to disagree with:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/feisal-g-mohamed/the-muhammad-film-protest_b_1884285.html?utm_hp_ref=world

"Feisal G. Mohamed holds degrees in biology, English, and law. He is a Professor in the Department of English of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also holds appointments in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies."

[enwiabe]

No one should offend these people because they clearly don't accept it.

No. We will not kowtow to the demands of terrorist savages. All we will do is drag them, kicking and screaming if need be, into the 21st century (hell, the 19th century even).

[enwiabe]

Another good one:

http://i.imgur.com/7JRO4.jpg

[Truck]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

[Biceps]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

They have a right to be angry and offended. They do not live oppressed lives in theocratic "shitholes". I lived in Lebanon for half my life. Never felt "oppressed."
The people rioting in Sydney are complete idiots. They took it too far. They humiliated Muslims all around the world. They are, however, a minority.

[ninwa]

They have the right to be offended. They do NOT have the right to resort to violence to express that offence.

Honestly, it disgusts me that anybody is willing to blame the filmmaker at all. Once you put blame on the film, you DISPEL blame from the true murderers. You essentially say that some part of these riots and killings was justified.

NO, the wanton taking of lives, the destruction of property without cause, the injuring of innocent bystanders who were -just doing their job-, there is ZERO justification for these disgusting acts.

These radicals are like a screaming toddler. Just because the toddler throws a tantrum when the mother refuses to give it candy for dinner doesn't make the mother in the wrong.

[Soul_Khan]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

They have a right to be angry and offended. They do not live oppressed lives in theocratic "shitholes". I lived in Lebanon for half my life. Never felt "oppressed."
The people rioting in Sydney are complete idiots. They took it too far. They humiliated Muslims all around the world. They are, however, a minority.

Muslims need to absolutely lighten up a bit, seriously. We can't portray Mohammed in a cartoon or a damn picture without getting these violent reactions from these fundamentalists.. why don't we get the same reaction when South Park and Family Guy for example portray Jesus in a negative light? We are allowed to criticize every other religion out there, but somehow when it comes to Islam the stupidity of political correctness and the status quo disable us from doing so.. stuff that!. Every ideology whether it be religious, political or philosophical should and must be criticized whether it be in an article, a documentary, a comic, or a cartoon.

You can't suppress my right to speak against your religion, whether you are a muslim, a jew, a christian, a hindu, etc, simply because you are offended, that's not how freedom of speech works.

[Truck]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

They have a right to be angry and offended. They do not live oppressed lives in theocratic "shitholes". I lived in Lebanon for half my life. Never felt "oppressed."
The people rioting in Sydney are complete idiots. They took it too far. They humiliated Muslims all around the world. They are, however, a minority.

You can be angry and offended without killing people and rioting. But most importantly, you direct that anger towards the people who made the film, not the "west' in general which is incredibly dumb. With that said, and I can't emphasize this enough, the person who made that movie was within his rights to make it. There are just as bad movies made about Christian's and Jews, but they do not react in the same way. As you said, they're a minority, but the fact that so many people try and justify their actions rather then denounce them (not saying it's you) makes me lose a bit of faith in humanity.

Anyway, those people rioting are the only people I referred to, in my post I didn't once say that they represented all muslims. Imo, many countries in the middle east are very much theocratic and I think Islam plays a very large role in determining the legal system in many such countries, but that's neither here nor there.

[Biceps]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

They have a right to be angry and offended. They do not live oppressed lives in theocratic "shitholes". I lived in Lebanon for half my life. Never felt "oppressed."
The people rioting in Sydney are complete idiots. They took it too far. They humiliated Muslims all around the world. They are, however, a minority.

You can be angry and offended without killing people and rioting. But most importantly, you direct that anger towards the people who made the film, not the "west' in general which is incredibly dumb. With that said, and I can't emphasize this enough, the person who made that movie was within his rights to make it. There are just as bad movies made about Christian's and Jews, but they do not react in the same way. As you said, they're a minority, but the fact that so many people try and justify their actions rather then denounce them (not saying it's you) makes me lose a bit of faith in humanity.

Anyway, those people rioting are the only people I referred to, in my post I didn't once say that they represented all muslims. Imo, many countries in the middle east are very much theocratic and I think Islam plays a very large role in determining the legal system in many such countries, but that's neither here nor there.

Actually the only theocratic countries in the middle east are : Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Oman and Iran. Besides the countries i listed many Islamic countries adopt democratic ideologies.

[pi]

This is why we shouldn't even have religion in the first place, there would be nothing to hate (eliminating the initial problem) and the issues of aggression would also be more or less curbed.

I'm not at all religious, but it's a bit unfair to pin it on religion when it should be pinned on extremists and those can't can't control their emotions instead.

And we both know that removing religion is not going to happen.

[Truck]

I can't understand how any one of these fundamentalists can possibly blame America/the West for this video which was clearly made by a random idiot and not state sponsored at all. To those protesting the video, and somehow seeing it as the responsibility of a western nation to enforce what people put on youtube need to leave western democracies and enjoy their oppressed lives in theocratic shitholes. The sheer stupidity of these protests is astounding.

They have a right to be angry and offended. They do not live oppressed lives in theocratic "shitholes". I lived in Lebanon for half my life. Never felt "oppressed."
The people rioting in Sydney are complete idiots. They took it too far. They humiliated Muslims all around the world. They are, however, a minority.

You can be angry and offended without killing people and rioting. But most importantly, you direct that anger towards the people who made the film, not the "west' in general which is incredibly dumb. With that said, and I can't emphasize this enough, the person who made that movie was within his rights to make it. There are just as bad movies made about Christian's and Jews, but they do not react in the same way. As you said, they're a minority, but the fact that so many people try and justify their actions rather then denounce them (not saying it's you) makes me lose a bit of faith in humanity.

Anyway, those people rioting are the only people I referred to, in my post I didn't once say that they represented all muslims. Imo, many countries in the middle east are very much theocratic and I think Islam plays a very large role in determining the legal system in many such countries, but that's neither here nor there.

Actually the only theocratic countries in the middle east are : Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Oman and Iran. Besides the countries i listed many Islamic countries adopt democratic ideologies.

Those are a lot of countries lol .

Otherwise, you can't really classify Iraq as anything "yet" because it's kind of a failed state, Egypt's recent election of a leader from the Muslim brotherhood presents the potential for an increasingly fundamentalist government (although it's definitely not there yet), Hezbollah has a very significant presence in Lebanon as does Hamas in the Gaza strip. Although they may accept "democratic ideologies" as you attest, the presence of fundamentalist Islam is a stark reality in most countries in the middle east.