Why is there so much outrage in the middle east over insults to Islam?

[cali]

To us, the "film" Innocence of Muslims" appears laughably bad. Crudely made- and that's a compliment- with dialog so bad and so clearly not about Mohammed or Islam, that it seems to come from a movie about something else entirely, it may be easy to find the reaction in the middle east incomprehensible, but if you really look at the spheres around the movie, I think it's easily understandable.

There's a feeling of powerlessness that's widespread in many middle east countries. And why wouldn't they feel powerless knowing that there's the possibility that they could be invaded or attacked by western forces. Then there's the almost opposite of that: Needing help from western powers, chiefly the U.S., due to the actions of those who rule them and who are or have been supported by the U.S.
That would be pretty maddening.

Regarding "innocence of Muslims", it appears that a great many people in the middle east did not understand how marginal this "film" is here. According to a story on NPR, many believed that is was mainstream, widely seen on U.S. TV and made to mark the anniversary of 9/11. Then there's the language issue. And the fact that in those countries most people have few outlets.

I'm not justifying violent reactions. I'm just trying to understand them beyond the "oh they're just fanatics" or "they're ignorant" or the other biased claims that purport to explain the reaction.

[jody]

1. Perhaps the same reason there is so much outrage over insults to Israel? nt

[Hubert Flottz]

21. Or the Outrage felt here in America when...

someone abroad or even here at home attacks God and the Bible.

You don't have to be a Muslim to be a religious fanatic. Just shit in the Pope's Easter basket sometime and watch happens.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Part of the problem, these countries are or in the process of becoming theocracies.

An insult to their religion is equitable to insulting them and their country. That's the problem when church and state are blended together. Mocking Mohammed and/or Islam is comparable to someone shitting on the American flag; you're bound to get a negative reaction by nationalists of that country.

[4th law of robotics]

12. According to Muad'Dib.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.

[no_hypocrisy]

34. It still boils down to considering an insult or attack to a symbol to be a vicarious assault upon

the person. Doesn't matter whether it's nationalistic or a religious symbol in a theocracy.

[Dr. Strange]

43. Your dishonesty is showing.

That's a lovely quote--or should I say, a lovely Bene Gesserit proverb--which predates your precious Muad-Dib by several decades. Let's not be attributing things to Emperor Paul Atreides (yes, his REAL name, before he became a carpetbagging Fremen) that aren't his.

[loli phabay]

45. lolol spoken as only a true dune nerd can i applaud you

[4th law of robotics]

47. Hahahaha

I couldn't remember who said it. I googled it and the first site attributed it to him.

But I will bow to your superior nerdery on this.

[Dr. Strange]

48. I won't claim superior overall nerdity.

But no one tops my Dune nerdism, save possibly for that mentat Rabrrrrrr.

[Rabrrrrrr]

64. Perhaps, perhaps.

"Why did he call me a mentat", thought Rabrrrrrr. "I do not have the stained lips. I have been very careful to ensure no staining so that no one would know. Someone has informed on me. The Lady SOteric, perhaps. Wheels within wheels... I must pretend not to know what he's talking about."

Mentat - what's that?

"That ought to throw him off the track"

[Dr. Strange]

65. Don't try your weirding ways with me!

[Rabrrrrrr]

66. I shall weird you until your fingernails turn yellow.

Yellow like the sands of Dune, but not as rough on the skin.

NOT AS ROUGH!

BWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[BlueStreak]

55. About 95% of the "problem" is that the cable companies don't have anything better to do

What, exactly, is "so much outrage"?

It is a handful of people mugging for a camera, and the the protests are so small that they have to go with very narrow camera shots. The action is so limited that they have to go with 5 seconds of action looped over and over.

This whole thing is bullshit. And we are going to find that people like Rove had a hand in getting the thing subtitled in Arabic and pushed into all those countries to agitate the limited protests that actually did happen.

This has nothing to do with the Islamic countries and everything to do with stoking the crazies in the US.

And the Libyan attack? We will find that had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. That was a premeditated attack well planned to occur on 9-11.

[Skidmore]

59. Yes, when your source of political power derives from a religion

then it is necessary to protect the religion. Old as mankind and the world has seen cycles of this repeatedly, from the priests of Ra trying to decimate the followers of Aten to the Catholic church hammering away on any new "heresy" to come down the pike.

[Junkdrawer]

3. DemocracyNow had corespondents in the protests and found almost no one had watched the film...

they are going with the lies they hear on Satellite TV.

You're looking at the Arabic version of Ditto-heads. A small crazy minority.

[Junkdrawer]

14. Transcript from DemocracyNow...

....

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Hi, Amy.

I just came back from the protests there. There’s continuing clashes with police that have spilled over into Tahrir Square. The U.S. embassy lies just a couple of hundred yards from Tahrir, which was the epicenter of the revolution here in Egypt. And there are continuing tear gas being fired, rocks thrown by the protesters against police. There’s police trucks. The clashes aren’t exceptionally fierce, but there seems to be no sign of letting up, either. So, the police seem to have moved the protesters last night and the—or the early hours of this morning away from the U.S. embassy, maybe a hundred yards away, and are now kind of on the outskirts of Tahrir. Many of these protesters today and last night are really a different crowd than were there on Tuesday night when this first began, when protesters were in front of the embassy and took down the American flag. Many of these are kind of young protesters who you typically see kind of in a lot of these clashes with police. Like—as Iona mentioned in Yemen, I could not find one protester who had actually seen this—you know, the trailer for this movie, which has incited such anger. They—but everyone cited the movie as saying their reasons for being there, for being against any kind of insults for the prophet. But really these—I think it was used as a trigger by conservative Muslim groups here in Egypt. For example, Nader Bakkar, who’s a spokesperson for the Nour Party, which is the largest Salafi party here in Egypt, and it’s allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said on Al Jazeera Mubasher, a channel here, that the film had been broadcast on U.S. channels, which is a blatant lie. So, that’s what’s happening right now on the ground.

On the political scene, we had President Mohamed Morsi—he waited 24 hours after the initial protest on Tuesday night before releasing any kind of statement. He’s in Brussels today on his first visit as Egyptian president to Europe, and he spoke at a press conference about what’s happening. He said he condemned any attacks or any non-peaceful protest and any attacks on embassies, but he also condemned any insults to the prophet. He had a phone call with President Obama this morning, and he said he offered his condolences for the deaths of the four Americans who died in Benghazi, including Ambassador Stevens, and also said he—and said he hoped that President Obama would affirm the need for any determined legal measures against those who want to damage relations between Egypt and the United States, I think hinting at—you know, for the United States to take some kind of legal action against the producers of this movie. There’s also been at the same time Morsi’s movement. He, of course, came from the Muslim Brotherhood and is still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has called for protests tomorrow, peaceful protests in front of mosques. But nevertheless, it has called for protests against this movie, against insults to Islam and to the prophet. And this is the same group that last week spent last week wooing American investors to try and invest in Egypt. So, that’s really what’s happening on the ground here right now.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/13/middle_east_protests_at_us_embassies

[PD Turk]

39. precisely

I remember when "the Last Temptation of Christ" came out. I went to see it just to see what all the hoopla was about. I talked with a lot of the protesters outside and none of them had seen it, but they were sure it was a really bad thing and they were making a hell of a racket about it. "Oh we don't need to see it, our preacher told us everything we need to know about it"

I think that's pretty much what is happening here

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Front page story on CNN.com "Why Muslims Decry Prophet Images"

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/ambassadors-killing-shines-light-on-muslim-sensitivities-around-prophet-mohammed/?hpt=hp_c1

(CNN) – Violence over depictions of the Prophet Mohammed may mystify many non-Muslims, but it speaks to a central tenet of Islam: that the Prophet was a man, not God, and that portraying him threatens to lead to worshiping a human instead of Allah.

“It's all rooted in the notion of idol worship,” says Akbar Ahmed, who chairs the Islamic Studies department at American University. “In Islam, the notion of God versus any depiction of God or any sacred figure is very strong."

“The Prophet himself was aware that if people saw his face portrayed by people, they would soon start worshiping him,” Ahmed says. “So he himself spoke against such images, saying ‘I’m just a man.’”

[RevStPatrick]

5. I think this is an excellent set of questions.

And I'm not going to try to answer, beyond "people are different, cultures are different."

I do, however, believe that asking questions like this is the first step in understanding people who may be different than you are. I know people from the Middle East, and from China, and South East Asia who in many ways seem completely alien to me.

But of course, the flip side of that is that we are all the same. Identical. Every single one of the 7 billion of us. We all want love and food and understanding and to have some fun once in a while. We all want to be respected and listened to and thought of as being cool. And we all fall for stupid shit sometimes and make really dumb decisions.

Good stuff...

[jsr]

6. Religion is the opium of the people

You touch that opium and they go crazy.

[Nye Bevan]

13. But why Islam, specifically?

One of the hottest shows on Broadway now is a musical that mercilessly ridicules Mormomism ("The Book of Mormon&quot . As far as I am aware there have been no riots, murders, or even death threats because of this show. I guess the opium differs from religion to religion.

[jsr]

20. Maybe because Islam is a way of life

Much more so than, say, your typical American Catholic who doesn't know who their bishop is and who pays zero attention to what the pope says.

[Nye Bevan]

22. I'm pretty sure Mormonism is a way of life, too. (nt)

[JoeyT]

41. It isn't Islam specifically,

they just don't have the numbers of fundamentalists to do it here. They're more spread out.

Come to Alabama and walk around say...Citronelle with a t-shirt that reads "Jesus was a Child Molester" and we'll use a stop-watch to see how long it takes them to kill you. Shit, they almost killed a bunch of British guys (Top Gear) for saying NASCAR was rubbish, so we might need something that measures time in smaller increments than a stopwatch. (Don't do that. I have no desire to see anyone die to prove a point.)

Hell, we can't even get an abortion clinic that was firebombed reopened because for all their claims of not supporting terrorists, the local fanatics are perfectly happy to use their works if it hurts someone they hate. It kind of puts the lie to "Most Christians don't support terrorists", doesn't it?

There's also the fact that every time any kid stands up in their school and announces they're not comfortable with a school led prayer they have to relocate because of death threats and violence. That happens even in blue states. It's not even mocking religion, it's simply saying "I don't think you should be able to force people to pray to your god" which invites death threats and violence. Jessica Alquist was the most recent one, and she got a massive amount of death and rape threats for speaking up. Threatening to rape a 16 year old girl into submission doesn't sound very peaceful to me.

During Crackergate when Meyers nailed a consecrated wafer to a Koran, he got far more death threats from Catholics than Muslims.

So no, the opium is pretty much the same. The targets and what's considered unacceptable are what differ.

[DreamGypsy]

42. Perhaps because words are better than swords ...

We in the United States are fortunate to have free speech, widespread internet access and use, and online communities where we can express our thoughts and vent (at least some of) our rage. While the wars of words waged between factions are fierce, often offensive, and sometimes hurtful, they don't often result in deaths though we certainly have situations where words have lead individuals and groups to violence. Elsewhere in the world many battles are still fought in the street because people have nowhere else to go when offended.


After reading your question, I googled "the book of mormon protests". There weren't very many hits that appeared to be about the musical, but I grabbed the first one that did Offensensitivity and the Book of Mormon Musical–Who Offends Who? - http://improvementera.com/2011/05/offensensitivity-and-the-book-of-mormon-musicalwho-offends-who/. Since the first line of the article referenced a previous post, I went there for context “Man Up”–Applying The Book of Mormon Musical’s Message (Without the Profanity) http://improvementera.com/2011/05/man-upapplying-the-book-of-mormon-musicals-message-without-the-profanity/.

I found this article to be insightful, balanced, reasonable, and entertaining.

While the production certainly uses some of the absurdities of Mormon culture as its pawns (many aspects where, frankly, we recognize, and it's generally okay for us among ourselves to laugh about, but suddenly becomes offensive when others point it out), the underlying message actually appears to be that they feel Joseph Smith got it right, and they'd like to see more Prophets - and Mormons – like him.

Yes, this critique is coming from atheist writers that don't believe in divine inspiration.

And while certainly written from that perspective (one where there is no divine anything), what's fascinating is that the story actually still also holds up quite nicely when divine inspiration is admitted and assumed and read into it.

It's a message that is relevant for the religious and the non-religious - but, frankly, it's most likely a great majority of the most sincere and devout won't expose themselves to it.

This would certainly include my wife, my parents, and my in-laws. I certainly won't be playing it for them, or my toddler daughter to sing and dance to - no matter how catchy the music is. (and it is fantastically – and dangerously – catchy)

And again, I don't blame them for an instant for not wanting to see it. In many ways, I sort of envy that degree of sensitivity. And for sure, the presentation certainly provokes rather than invites.

The author then takes a journey through the story of the musical, explaining the basis for the conclusions above.

The follow on post (which was the hit from the search) speaks to Anti-Mormonism

...does that mean the musical, as is proclaimed over at Millennial Star, actually vitriolic "Anti-Mormon Dreck?" - or even mean spirited at all? And if not, discussions about profanity completely aside for the time being, is there still something in there for Mormons to be genuinely offended about?

Take a side trip to the Anti-Morman Dreck article if want, but I find the conclusion of the second article more appealing and representative of a better kind of protest.

We, as believers, need to understand that "just believing" isn't something that someone can simply turn on or off. That "stop trying to prove this wrong, and just believe!" does presuppose a degree of superiority, and assume that the individual isn't really honest. It is a direct value judgment.

And critics and non-believers should realize that "wake up and smell the delusion" doesn't tend to be effective or productive either.

But I also firmly believe we can disagree - and present reasons for our disagreement - without needing to assume the worst and most patronizing of the Other Side, and to demonize them and pronounce them as ignorant.

In fact, I think there are great things that each side can learn, with benefit, from the other.

In fact, that, I think, is another key take-home message of the Book of Mormon Musical.

Or you can just get offended.

Hey, we all do it. We're human after all.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Mockery or denigration of their faith might cause

a weakening of faith, and by extension of the culture.

[rustydog]

8. It is hard to tell why the outrage, IF this is why the attacks occurred.

The American Right has worked so hard since 9-11, with the blessings of the Republican party for political gain, to demonize Muslims and their faith.( Our God is greater than yours!)

I am not sure they are any more violent than our Christian fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics, murder physicians, shoot our elected representatives in assaination attempts and protest at funerals of murdered and fallen Americans.

fundamentalist religion in all denominations seems to be a very real threat to human beings.

[Odin2005]

9. IMO the folks who were telling Egyptians and Libyans that this film was mainstream here...

Are just as or even more guilty of inciting this as the filmmaker.

[Junkdrawer]

15. DemocracyNow agrees. See post #14. n/t

[4th law of robotics]

10. Well if what you're saying is true wouldn't they by definition be "ignorant"

sense they do not know the facts?

[Swede Atlanta]

11. I have a theory about this....

In those countries whose legal systems are based, solely or predominantly, on the Koran and Islamic law, people are used to living in a society where respect for Islam is codified. They are not used to behavior, at least not lawful behavior, that strides against Islamic law. So the perception that Islam is being insulted somewhere else is simply not "acceptable" because their entire frame of reference is different.

We in the West are used to critique, criticism, and yes even insults about religious beliefs, etc. Even as a Christian if someone wants to say that my religion is a bunch of bunk and that Jesus was a bad dude, I don't take offense at that. My belief is the individual making that statement does not understand my religious faith, may have had a bad experience, etc. I would never think of reacting violently. But recall the Catholic Church's Inquisition where the Church burned people at the stake because they dared to deviate from orthodox teaching.

Further I think some of these individuals are opportunists - they hate the U.S. and the West generally and are looking for ANY reason or justification.

[tama]

16. Collective identities

and emotional attachment to symbolic representations and tabus of those identities are the basic psychological mechanisms to understand, and they are of course not limited to Middle East but relatively universal. Cf e.g. reactions to flag burning in America.

What is different in Islam from West is it's fascinating negative attitude towards religious visual representations, which are considered strong tabu. This tabu is not limited to Islam only, and it is interesting how violent the clashes over similar tabu in Greek Orthodox culture turned during the Byzantine Iconoclasm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Iconoclasm.

[OneGrassRoot]

17. Plus, there's a difference between those who protested the film...

and those who violently attacked. NO ONE is excusing their violent attacks.

Yet they're two separate groups of people.

We may not know the identity of the groups who have violently attacked, but not all protestors (anywhere) proceed to violence. Your post gives another insight as the reason for the protests themselves.

I haven't seen updates today, so maybe there's something to contradict my impression of the two separate groups.

Well said, Cali. Thanks.

[magical thyme]

18. "In our world, the video was trivial, repugnant and free speech.

In parts of the Islamic world, it was a serious attack on their religion that required reaction."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81137_Page2.html

“Libya is unstable,” Crowley said. “Everyone has a gun; everyone has an RPG.”

He also pointed out that the possible inciting incident in both Libya and Egypt — an Internet video said to be made by an American denigrating Islam — showed the “tension traditional societies have in trying to deal with the modern world.”

In our world, the video was trivial, repugnant and free speech. In parts of the Islamic world, it was a serious attack on their religion that required reaction.

“But violence can never be an appropriate reaction,” Crowley, a retired Air Force colonel and now a professor at The George Washington University, said.


I wrote something similar yesterday in a thread comparing our view of the video versus the perspective of people in other parts of the world, who in some cases mistake the film for official US policy. For this I was excoriated by a few DUers.

In her speech (today?), SoS Clinton made a point of stating the video does not reflect US policy and was not produced by the government, pretty much affirming what I suggested yesterday.

[cthulu2016]

25. No. It required nothing until

people were told it did.

The people are not protesting the film, they are protesting what they have been told about the film, and what they were told about the film was an entirely intra-Arab deal.

[magical thyme]

49. tell it to the former ambassador and to SOS Hillary Clinton. nt

[grasswire]

19. as a comparison, consider "The Life of Brian"

It's clear that no one got too excited about that portrayal of Jesus, by the Monty Python crew.

I put that out here not to denigrate Muslim believers, but to show how little we know about what motivates them.

[Scootaloo]

53. It's not a very apt comparison

"Life of Brian" presents itself as a satirical comedy that pokes fun at the ideas of religion in a broad way. The one actual religious figure presented in the film (Jesus) is presented almost offscreen, a blurred figure delivering the Sermon on the Mount. The film can actually be watched lampooning a period rather than an idea, even - There were all sorts of wacky cults popping up in Roman Iudaea around the period. The unwashed masses looking for a Messiah are presented as daft, desperate, but again, in a clearly comedic manner.

Now we look at "Innocence of Muslims." it does not present itself as a comedy. The production values and acting are so bad that you'll laugh anyway, but no, this is supposed to be a serious film, in the vein of the godawful "left behind" movies - they're dramas with a supposedly "true life message." The religious figure portrayed in the film is done so not just in a funning or satirical way, but in a knowingly and intentionally disrespectful way, to a degree that the viewer clearly understands this is meant to piss off people of the relevant faith. Even South Park's portrayal of Joseph Smith was at least fairly true to history and what Mormons believe about the guy, but this... wasn't. And beyond that, Muslims are presented as mindless, brutal, genocidal savages who are inherently evil, all terrorists and rapists, and who seek the absolute eradication of Christians.

"Innocence of Muslims" can't really be compared to "Life of Brian." They're very different films. "Innocence" is more like... what a direct-to-DVD version of "Jud Süß" made by The Asylum (the studio that produces mockbusters like "Transmorphers" and "Americna Wattleships&quot would look like.

[cthulu2016]

23. Because some derive power from creating/maintaining that outrage.

Why are Americans so upset that Obama is a communist?

(Most Americans don't believe that, but most Arabs aren't burning down embassies.)

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. For starters....

They don't have nearly five hundred years of cultural exposure to open debate. From the moment that Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, it's been Katie-Bar-The-Door on just about every subject imagineable, while most of the Muslim world remained locked in the grip of theologians and tyrants. Not that we didn't have them in Europe, mind you, but our culture having been moving inexorable toward a more open society.

In the western world (except for certain parts of Oklahoma) it's actually considered a healthy thing for people to question the tenets of their faith and to look upon their religious leaders as nothing more than flawed human beings with important-sounding titles. While some conservatives may protest what they consider sacreligious works of art ("Last Temptation of Christ&quot , they don't issue fatwahs and in other respects demand that violence be visited upon their enemies. While we may have complete nut jobs who will bomb abortion clinics, the overwhelming majority of westerners have long-since rejected these tactics.

Why? Because in our culture, there is (no matter how much some deny it) a separation of church and state. Our religious convictions exist side-by-side with our social and political commitments -- they're not intertwined. We don't participate in or condone sectarian violence because we hold our society in nearly as high a regard as we do our religion. Burning down our social/political/financial house in order to achieve some sanctified version of our religion is not an acceptable option for us because we'd be losing more than we might hope to gain.

[cali]

29. good points and well said.

[joeybee12]

26. This film is simply the match that lit the fire of anti-Amreican and western anger and hate

For how badly we have phucked them over for hundreds of years, installing dictators, killing people for oil, generally enslaving them...to disregard all that and just look at the film and the riots is idiocy.

[KurtNYC]

27. IOM is likely not the reason for the attacks

Who shows up to a film protest with an RPG? I mean, they say "everyone's a critic" but I am leaning toward the AQ coordinated attacks theory.

I think any analysis of IOM plays into the idea that one, mostly unseen, video magically enraged Muslims into a murderous rage. I don't buy it.

[cali]

30. I completely agree. I'm referring to the protests

not the attack that killed our ambassador.

[marlakay]

28. Because we have free speech people can do films about anything

the problem is the people without our freedom have no way of knowing that a film shown to them from America isn't our beliefs. The informed ones online would know but that is not most of the people in those countries.

Their culture is so totally different than ours, things seem to get over emotional very easily.

[MiddleFingerMom]

31. A GREAT concept was just voiced on MSNBC that seems to have been left behind.

.
.
.
These countries are developing and coalescing their country's influential powermongers
and the theocratic wannabes, just like the radical fundamentalists in THIS country, are
desperately trying to gather support for their representatives -- small but highly vocal
minority gaining HUGE media.
.
Violence aside, anyone recognize these tactics -- oh, perhaps employed here?
.
.
.

[Erose999]

32. There would be just as much rage if "the muslims" ever made a film about Jee-zus. I mean there have

been death threats and arson attacks against Mosques here in the US. And theres lots of violence and protests from the anti-abortion wingnuts and the Westboro types. And there were the long lines of bigots who went out to support Chick-fil-Hate.

The US is probably just as fanatical, its just easier for our media to point the finger at "them furriners".

[cynatnite]

36. They wouldn't make a film like that...

They view Jesus as a prophet and it would very offensive to them. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about Muslims there is.

[Erose999]

44. Thats why I used quotes around "the muslims". Because most of these people have little concept of

who Muslims are and what they believe. I mean a majority of them think our President is a Muslim.

[Honeycombe8]

51. I disagree. There are radical extremists here, for sure.

But there would not have been multiple murders and beatings and burnings across the country. That's because we have a system whereby the Christians here would've had other outlets to express their rage and shock.

The ones who have burned the mosques here are not "Christians." They are far right wackos who hate and who are not affiliated with religion, as far as I know. Similar to the cross burnings in our history.

[cynatnite]

33. It was explained to me this way from a friend...

We see such virulent reactions because of the culture and how they were raised. People in the Middle East were raised to love God more than self...to an extreme. It's why it's so easy for them to martyr themselves.

Also, it's how they view the Koran. It's considered literal unlike the Bible which is considered inspired. The Koran was supposedly taken from real first person accounts.

Their culture has taught them this and while some are more moderate than others, they are still slow to change because of how they view their religion.

I'm not justifying it either, but for me it makes it easier to understand them and their ways. They treat women abhorrently and there is just no making it right in my eyes.

[DainBramaged]

35. Ignorance

[Speck Tater]

37. I suppose you could psychoanalyze the protestors

and say they are insecure, their faith is weak and they are afraid of any challenge to it, or that they don't trust that their God can take care of himself so they have to volunteer to be His earthly thugs.

But the more likely answer is that they were trained from childhood, by example, to be outraged at any insult to their religion. (This applies only to the extremists, not to ordinary, rational Muslims, of course.) They react this way because they were taught to react this way, because their parents and grandparents were taught to react this way. Just like viewers of Fox News, they are taught to hate "the other" and trained to react to any "provocation" like mindless idiots. They are robots programmed to hate on cue.

[Burma Jones]

38. I would like to add resentment over Colonialism to the list

[HooptieWagon]

40. Same reasons that a small group of Americanns

think that Pres Obama is a Kenyan-born muslim intent on destroying America and turning over govt to the UN.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

46. Ignorance, desperation and just plain insecurity. For whatever reason many religious people

believe in these magical all powerful beings that are apparently incredibly thin skinned and can't take care of themselves when insulted or mocked.

[Honeycombe8]

50. The problem is their government. If there were freedom there, they would take to the internet

to "attack" and get their message out. Instead, they fanatically attack innocent people who have done nothing to them. The people they attack may be Americans or Canadians or French, or arab women and children. Doesn't seem to matter much to them. Plus, many have been raised in violence, so they have become desensitized to it.

These are radical extremists. We have some in our country, just most are not to that extreme.

If they feel powerless, they should look to their own government for answers and changes.

If they are ever going to join the modern world, they will need access to global information and the ability to communicate with others in other countries and get their ideas across.

Fact is, radical extremists don't want to exchange information and get their ideas across. They want to browbeat others into submission to their own beliefs, resorting to murder if browbeating doesn't work. You are either with them or you are dead. You must believe what they say and do what they say. They do not acknowledge freedom of thought and the freedom of others to disagree. They do not acknowledge the rights of others.

It's not everyone "over there." It's some. And that is how radical extremists are.

[still_one]

52. Why is there so much outrage and hate among most of the tea party members against the administration

They have made calls for an insurrection if Obama is re-elective. It was only a couple of months ago that within the military a group of soldiers were plotting such an operation, and that is only what we have heard.

You do realize that the recent mass killing in Wisconsin was because the idiot thought that Sikh's were Muslim, and there have been other acts against Muslims and their places of worship here in this country.

So my point is, if you can answer that question, then you can answer your question, because the root of hate in both cases stems from the same elements.

[Nye Bevan]

54. Why do they execute homosexuals?

Why do they ban women from driving?

Why do they stone people to death for adultery?

Why do they arrest women for wearing what they consider to be immodest clothing?

What's with the 72 virgins thing?

Tricky questions, all.

[zellie]

56. And that bothers you?

Just because their leaders like to divert all problems to the great Satan ? Just because there are some who "blame the US " first?

Do you believe in multiculturalism ?

[Nye Bevan]

57. Interesting how in the Great Satan, gays are allowed to marry.

In many states, at least.

And in the land of the religion of peace, they are executed.

Scholars of Islam, such as Sheikh al-Islam Imam Malik, and Imam Shafi amongst others, ruled that Islam disallowed homosexual activity and ordained capital punishment for a person guilty of it.[1] Homosexual activity is a crime and forbidden in most Muslim-majority countries. In the Islamic regimes of Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, North Sudan and Yemen, homosexual activity is punished with the death penalty. In Nigeria and Somalia the death penalty is issued in some regions.[2] The legal punishment for sodomy has varied among juristic schools: some prescribe capital punishment; while other prescribe a milder discretionary punishment such as imprisonment. In some relatively secular Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia,[3] Jordan and Turkey this is not the case; and there are no specific civil laws against homosexual practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_Islam

Is the US somehow to blame for this, too?

[cali]

61. Many states? Uh, I think you mean 6. So if 6 out of 50 is your idea of many, than sure.

But that's hardly the point I'd like to make. Yes, the U.S. outpaces countries in the ME when it comes to individual human rights.

We also kill way more people through illegal wars. We've deposed more democratically elected leaders. We've launched more drone strikes that kill civilians.

And no, the U.S. is not responsible for the persecution of LGBT folks in other countries.

[Nye Bevan]

63. Yes. I should have said "several states", not "many states".

I stand corrected.

[cali]

58. who's they? Are all Muslims in all countries monolithic in their laws?

and no, your questions aren't terribly tricky. There's a terrible deficit in human rights in many countries in the middle east when it comes to women. I'm not arguing that but it has jackshit to do with the OP, dear.

[zellie]

62. To be fair...

There is a humans rights deficit in many of these countries with

Women
Gays
Jews
Catholics
Christians
Westerners
And even their own peoples.

[kenny blankenship]

60. Insult on top of INJURY usually elicits a strong reaction

where insult alone might get no reaction at all.

Insults have been flowing back and forth between the West and the Islamic world for time out of mind. It's the presence of recent and ongoing injury, and the memory of age old injuries, that activates them into riots and acts of violence.