The Violent Religion of Peace

A scourge of protests spread across the world, the Middle East in particular, over an amateurish anti-Islamic film. At the time of writing, the film is still available on Youtube (Yay Youtube!).

The Guardian has a summary + timeline of the events here.

Here are some excerpts of a news report by the Washington Post on the extent of the damage done by these protesters.

CAIRO — Angry protests over an anti-Islam film spread across the Muslim world Friday, with demonstrators scaling the walls of U.S. embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, torching part of a German embassy and clashing with police in violence that left at least four dead. 

It was a dramatic expansion of protests that began earlier this week and saw assaults on the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Yemen and the storming of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Several thousand battled with Tunisian security forces outside the U.S. Embassy in Tunis... Some protesters scaled the embassy wall and stood on top of it, planting the Islamist flag that has become a symbol of the wave of protests: A black banner with the Islamic profession of faith, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.”

Police chased them off the wall and took the flag down. Two protesters were killed and 29 people were wounded, including police.

Soon after, several hundred Sudanese stormed into the German Embassy, setting part of an embassy building aflame along with trash bins and a parked car. Protesters danced and celebrated around the burning barrels as palls of black smoke billowed into the sky...

Gunmen waving the black Islamist banner and shouting “God is great” stormed into the base, firing automatic weapons. They set fire to vehicles and battled with peacekeepers inside...

Four Colombian peacekeepers were wounded and were evacuated to Israel.

Elsewhere, one protester was killed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with security forces, after a crowd of protesters set fire to a KFC and a Hardee’s restaurant. Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in a furious melee that left 25 people wounded, 18 of them police.
 
A day earlier, hundreds of protesters chanting “death to America” stormed the embassy compound in Sanaa and burned the American flag. Four protesters were killed and 38 people wounded in that incident when police tried to clear the crowd, the Interior Ministry said Friday. The embassy said no staff was harmed.


My thoughts on this? It's nuts. IT IS FUCKING NUTS.

It is one thing to express your dislike or disagreement of something that "offends" you; That's exercising your freedom of expression. But, my gosh, it's a whole other thing to harm people and destroy property because you're offended.

And no, just because it's religious sensibilities that are being offended doesn't excuse such unhinged behavior.

The fault is wholly and squarely on the Muslim rioters. There is no blood on the video producer's hands.

It should be made clear that if there is an attempt to censor the video, it should be made because we're dealing with a bunch of religious primates and not because the video is "offensive to religious sensitivities".

0 comments :