One reaction is: Why deliberately stir up anger with what some people consider to be blasphemy? There's merit in that, and I gather the Mayor was pretty annoyed at having trouble show up on his watch. I don't generally go out of my way to provoke people. It doesn't change any minds, and generally doesn't do anything else useful either.
Another way of looking at the conference is that it was intended to be provoking, but not principally provoking Muhammadans. I haven't heard that they are particularly plentiful in that neck of the woods. The target of provocation could easily have been the powers-that-be in the USA which are widely viewed (perhaps not by coasties) as compromising American values in deference to alien sensitivities. The obvious rejoinder is that our rulers don't have the luxury of getting angry over small things; they have to keep our allies happy in order to preserve our options and interests in the world. This is a logical claim and would be believable if there were a shred of evidence to support it.
Yet another way of looking at it is that the provocation was successful in removing two enemies and helping identify others.
3 comments:
Whoever would mock Mohammed would mock Christ as well.
No, there are plenty of partisans who'd mock one and not the other.
Isn't it provocative in much the way that Rosa Parks was? It was a sacred cow, quite important to a lot of people, that black people should know their place. It wasn't really intrinsically important which seat she took; she sat up front as a way of forcing the issue to a point, knowing it would drive people nuts. Sometimes that's the only way to break out of a creeping paralysis imposed by people who insist of submission from others as the price for keeping their thoughts pure.
I would not deliberately mock a figure of religious devotion for the purpose of denigrating the religion, but there's a lot to be said for refusing to knuckle under, too. If we're going to be respectful about other people's religion, then, fine, but let's apply the same standard to "The Book of Mormon" musical and the kind of art that smears excrement on Christian symbols. Otherwise we're not respecting Mohammed, we're only kowtowing out of fear of Islamofascist radicals.
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