Newsweek prompted a wave of indignation and mockery from the left a few months back when it published a cover with the caption MUSLIM RAGE in the wake of riots over the YouTube-posted trailer for "The Innocence of Muslims". The responses I saw offered no specifics, apparently considering the offensive absurdity of the notion of "Muslim rage" so self-evident that it required no explanation, but as far as I could tell the core of the complaint was that not every Muslim on the planet was outraged—so this overly-generalized caption was clear evidence of Newsweek's anti-Muslim bias* (just as the use of the blanket phrase "Los Angeles Riots" back in 1992, despite the relative peace in areas like Echo Park and Brentwood, established once and for all the media's anti-Angelenoism).
In any case, someone really needs to get the word out to the Egyptian court that just handed down this ruling:
An Egyptian court ordered YouTube to be blocked for a month after the website disseminated video footage deemed offensive to Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported, citing Administrative Court Judge Hassouna Tawfik. [...] YouTube, “did not respect the belief of the millions in Egypt and it overlooked the state of rage that prevailed amongst Muslims,” it said, citing court documents.
Maybe a bad translation?
YouTube had "insisted on broadcasting the film insulting Islam and the Prophet, disrespecting the beliefs of millions of Egyptians and disregarding the anger of all Muslims" the court said, according to MENA.
Huh. Well, once the Egyptian judiciary is informed about how ridiculous this whole "Muslim rage" notion is I'm sure they'll not only retract their offensively Islamaphobic sentiments, but will also overturn the death sentences they've imposed on seven Egyptians involved in the production of the film. One of the capital crimes for which those people were convicted, by the way: "Using religion to promote extremist ideas."
ADDING: The Egyptian court also transgressed against the permissible narrative when it suggested any meaningful connection between the film trailer and the so-called "rage"; the mere suggestion that these outbursts of violence and anger are caused by seemingly obvious triggers like Koran-burning or crappy-film-trailer-distributing provokes scorn from many on the left, who blithely ignore statements like the one(s) above, Muslims who say outright that "We cannot accept any insult to our prophet...it's a red line" or "We did the protest to show to the infidels that we are unhappy about their action in burning our holy Koran in America," etc. In ideology as in theology, reality is rarely an impediment to belief.
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* Newsweek wasn't alone in this ugly bias, though; the well-known Muslim bashers at the Daily Times of Pakistan ran a story titled "New blasphemous caricatures fuel Muslim anger."
the mere suggestion that these outbursts of violence and anger are caused by seemingly obvious triggers like Koran-burning or crappy-film-trailer-distributing provokes scorn from many on the left
True. I myself am guilty of this; though on the whole, the bias in America is certainly the other way -- Muslim rage is supposed to be entirely due to their fanatical faith and inherent irrationality, and not at all due to their political subjugation.
Posted by: Cloud | Monday, February 11, 2013 at 08:22 AM
Agreed, and that's one of the reasons why there's resistance to admitting that in cases like this the anger really is irrational: because doing so feels like opening a door to the many people out there who want to use the irrational anger of raving fundamentalists to dismiss the genuine grievances of the entire populations of Muslim countries who have a very rational desire not to be bombed and occupied. But it's a mistake to meet black and white thinking with black and white thinking.
Posted by: John Caruso | Monday, February 11, 2013 at 09:16 AM
Indeed. As usual, Orwell thought it out also:
— Tribune, 23 November 1945
Posted by: Cloud | Monday, February 11, 2013 at 12:18 PM
Beautiful; thanks for the quote and link. It's always remarkable to me how he not only saw it all so plain but said it so well.
Posted by: John Caruso | Monday, February 11, 2013 at 12:34 PM