Once somebody "offends Islam"[1], even in the gentlest literary way possible, the ensuing pearl-cluthcing, apologies, riots, embassy attacks, further apologies, and murders are almost entirely predicable. It's just a question of how bad it's going to get and how long the show will go on in the international news.
Also predictable is the slew of "news" articles which no insight as to why a mere cartoon or book would lead to murder and mayhem on an international scale. Instead of insight we get dreck like this:
Honestly, Reuters, are we supposed to believe that this school field trip (see fig. 1) was the result of a film? ... or did somebody maybe work a little to convince these folks that throwing rocks and burning things that were vaguely Western was a good idea? If you can't write news, maybe you could just give up and leave it to the bloggers who are honestly just as good at reading the press release from the Pakistani embassy.
[1] People can be offended, ideas... not so much.
Also predictable is the slew of "news" articles which no insight as to why a mere cartoon or book would lead to murder and mayhem on an international scale. Instead of insight we get dreck like this:
"The demonstrations were the latest across the world provoked by a short film made with private funds in the United States that depicted the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and womanizer."Somehow I don't think that people were sitting around having tea and listening to the news and when they heard about the movie they decided it would be a great time to go storm an embassy. Apparently with kids in front (Reuters):
| Figure 1: Love Islam, will throw stones for same. |
[1] People can be offended, ideas... not so much.
