Muslim Rage - How Justified -A western View

Seven things you may have missed in the 'Rage'

Like everyone else, many Muslims find the 13 minute Islamophobic video "Innocence of Muslims" trashy and offensive. Protests have spread quickly, tapping into understandable and lasting grievances about neo-colonialist US and western foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as religious sensitivities about depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. But the news coverage often obscures some important points: 1. Early estimates put participation in anti-film protests at between 0.001 and 0.007% of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims – a tiny fraction of those who marched for democracy in the Arab spring. 2. The vast majority of protesters have been peaceful. The breaches of foreign embassies were almost all organised or fuelled by elements of the Salafist movement, a radical Islamist group that is most concerned with undermining more popular moderate Islamist groups.

3. Top Libyan and US officials are divided over whether the killing of the US ambassador to Libya was likely pre-planned to coincide with 9/11, and therefore not connected to the film.

4. Apart from attacks by radical militant groups in Libya and Afghanistan, a survey of news reports on 20 September suggested that actual protesters had killed a total of zero people. The deaths cited by media were largely protesters killed by police.

5. Pretty much every major leader, Muslim and western, has condemned the film, and pretty much every leader, Muslim and western, has condemned any violence that might be committed in response.

6. The pope visited Lebanon at the height of the tension, and Hezbollah leaders attended his sermon, refrained from protesting the film until he left, and called for religious tolerance. Yes, this happened.

7. After the attack in Benghazi, ordinary people turned out on the streets in Benghazi and Tripoli with signs, many of them in English, apologising and saying the violence did not represent them or their religion.

Add to that the number of really big news stories that were buried last week to make room for front page, angry Muslim "Clash" coverage. In Russia tens of thousands of protesters marched through Moscow to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese and Spaniards turned out for anti-austerity protests; and more than a million Catalans marched for independence.

Muslim rage or Salafist strategy?

The "Innocence of Muslims" was picked up and peddled with subtitles by far-right Salafists – radical followers of an Islamic movement long supported by Saudi Arabia. The film was a cheaply made, YouTube failure until an Egyptian Salafist TV host, Sheikh Khaled Abdullah (right) began promoting it to viewers on 8 September. Most insulted Muslims ignored the film or protested peacefully, but the Salafists, with their signature black flags, were leading instigators of the more aggressive protests that breached embassies. Leaders of the Egyptian Salafist party attended the Cairo protest that broke into the US embassy.

Like the far-right in the US or Europe, the Salafist strategy is to drag public opinion rightwards by seizing on opportunities to fan radical anger and demonise ideological opponents. This approach resembles that of anti-Muslim US pastor Terry Jones (who first promoted the film in the west) and other western extremists. In both societies, however, the moderates far (far!) outnumber the extremists. A leading figure in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (the more powerful and popular political opponent of Egypt’s Salafists) wrote to the New York Times saying: "We do not hold the American government or its citizens responsible for acts of the few that abuse the laws protecting freedom of expression".

Good reporting

A lonely band of journalists and scholars have approached the protests with an intent to truly understand the forces behind them. Among them, Hisham Matar, who powerfully describes the sadness in Benghazi after J Christopher Stevens' killing, and Barnaby Phillips, who explores how Islamic conservatives manipulated the film to their advantage. Anthropologist Sarah Kendzior cautions against treating the Muslim world as a homogenous unit. And Professor Stanley Fish tackles a tough question: why many Muslims are so sensitive to unflattering depictions of Islam.

The above came in my mailbox from Awaaz.com.

The population of the world as on date is around 7.25 billions and is increasing every second. To get the latest figure you can go to the site. http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

God has made every person unique but this unique person is molded by his surroundings and the persons he comes in contact with to follow certain religion, caste, sect with certain beliefs.

These beliefs vary between different people and it is impossible to get a person to change his views unless we use force or give incentives.

The human race is spread out all over the earth and it is impossible to subjugate the whole race and impose your views.

It is best for everyone if they care for each others feelings and work within those limits

Statistics may be very misleading.0.001 and 0.007% quoted above may seem miniscule.These are the figures given above, who actually participated in the demonstrations but what about the silent mass who may have supported the demonstrators but did not care to participate in those demonstrations.

We had the Congress government at the centre giving similar figures of the crowds supporting Anna's cause.They too missed the anger of the masses behind the cause.

We had our own demonstrations in India against M F Hussain who took his artistic licence too far in denigrating Hindu gods. The man had to spend the rest of his life in a foreign country.

Freedom of information is good but if it creates enmity between mankind, it should be controlled.

The USA is lucky that it is separated from the rest of the old world by two big oceans on both flanks otherwise there would have been many more 9/11 accidents. Its policy of trying to impose its will on countries for its own benefit does not go down well with right thinking masses.

The USA supports dictators where it suits them and tom-toms the value of democracy where it suits them.