tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16538843.post114059923510351401..comments2024-01-02T09:18:23.893-05:00Comments on Written World: Ethnocentricism in the Real WorldRagnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00373059673228550524noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16538843.post-1140632940920120562006-02-22T13:29:00.000-05:002006-02-22T13:29:00.000-05:00This week's issue of The New Yorker has an amazing...This week's issue of The New Yorker has an amazingly concise and lucid summary of the events surrounding the "cartoon riots" <A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060227ta_talk_kramer" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>Also, in the Washington Post, an editor from the Danish newspaper which started this <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499_pf.html" REL="nofollow">explains why he published those cartoons</A>.<BR/><BR/>My feeling is, these riots aren't really about the cartoons. As Jane Kramer points out in the New Yorker, when the cartoons were originally published in October, there were only peaceful protests and that could have been the end of it. But two months later, "a radical imam from one of Copenhagen’s outlying mosques put together a forty-three-page scrapbook of caricatures involving the Prophet...including the twelve cartoons and a couple of images that were, by anyone’s standards, vicious" -- in other words, as was also reported elsewhere, a radical seeking to agitate people added images that were even more inflammatory and offensive, and tossed those in to stir up a new wave of outrage. <BR/><BR/>Radical fundamentalists of any stripe always have a vested interest in causing trouble, fostering anger and resentment among the masses...and sometimes governments get mileage out of focusing public anger on a scapegoat to distract the population from their own failings. This whole thing feels like it's been stage-managed by both sides for their respective goals. That doesn't excuse the actual rioters for their stupidity and lethal violence! But presenting this violence as solely the result of some cartoons serves both sides. For the radical imams, it encourages the perception among their followers that they're acting out of pure religious piety, without any thought of personal or political gain...and for the anti-Muslim factions, it allows them to dismiss Muslims as so reckless and bestial that even something as harmless as a newspaper cartoon will turn them into a murderous horde.<BR/><BR/>P.S.: I'm kvelling to be linked from your blog!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714171897239398438noreply@blogger.com