Unrest over a stupid video...

Unrest over a stupid video - Radicals calling the shorts on both sides, time for the moderates to step in…

The turn of events in the middle-east and in other parts of the world has been very disturbing. Quite clearly the agenda has been hijacked by radicals and has been transformed into a dangerous narrative to the ill-informed. How else can one explain the brutal killing of ambassador Stevens who has been a friend and supporter to the Arab world. The fact is that the movie was made by a bigot just for attention, and it had quite rightly fallen into the intended hands and got the desired effect.

In places where the protests happen, they react as if the American government was behind the video. It is as if telling that the Saudi government was behind the Sept 11 attack because Osama was a Saudi citizen. The idiot who took the movie is an unknown in the US, and so was his stupid video. None had even heard of it and there was absolutely no coverage in the news. The US government, and more so the president, has much more to worry, trying to get the economy moving and on his own re-election bid. On the same tone, the vast majority within the US does not subscribe to such nonsense, but then people want to listen just to the minority to which they cannot connect and then further more they end up reacting to it.

The irony is that the other set of idiots who reacted like mad men to this video has only done more harm to their religion and added credence to the movie. Little do they know that the US has a very tolerant society and religious freedom as well, unlike what the propaganda is out there in the Islamic world. People from all over the world are free to practice their religion, which includes various types of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and many others. This includes more than 2000 mosques in the US. One cannot imagine practicing their religion freely on many places where we have seen this violence. Well, you can’t do this even in China where there is a tight lid on religion and they have dealt with Islamic fundamentalism in some provinces in a very harsh manner, of course behind the iron curtain J.  

I know of quite a few Muslims in the US who are here because they have more freedom and comfort than in their own countries. My intent is not to speak high of the US, and yes there are a lot of negatives too, especially with the bitter taste left over from the Bush years. Having said that,  little do these people know that the US is the single largest donor for helping the poor and hungry in all parts of the world, through UN and outside of it. This is not just from the government, but from private donors as well. In fact, the very people who protest, whether from Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.. may have all benefited from US aid to these countries.

What added fuel to the fire was the fact that none of the leaders of the nations where the riots have happened have come out in the open to criticize violence and try to impart sense by stating that what they are doing is damaging the religion and the country more. It would do a lot of good if the moderates in the Islamic world come out openly against violence of all sorts and project their good side. Most Muslims are peace loving and are not the face of Islam as the world know it now, it would do justice to them too if the moderates take control. It would also do a lot of good if people pay less attention to bigots and their actions, and instead try to find common ground. Imagine what would have happened if the people who saw the movie ignored it, would it not have been a slap in the face to the idiots who made it.

Finally, a comment on a company that I like a lot. Google (and YouTube) should have done better on this topic, free speech is needed, but to be a medium through which hate spreads does not qualify as free speech. ‘Don’t be evil’ also means you don’t spread evil thoughts and cause more evil actions. The world we live in is not perfect, so the term free speech must have a limit. We say the sky is the limit, and even the sky is not infinite…

-Ramanuja Iyer