What is wrong with the world? Some madcap, two-bit porn filmmaker makes a worthless movie which no one had heard of till another loony posts it on YouTube and the whole Islamic world explodes.
From Libya to Bangladesh in nearly every Muslim country people just go on the rampage burning public property in protest against the insult to the Prophet. Insult it is for sure but by whom? A lunatic? Can a god be insulted by any random guy?
And what is America’s role in it? Just because that deranged Egypt-born dimwit holds an American passport?
Besides, isn’t it ironical that this whole episode should begin in a Libyan town that was saved by American fighter jets from the wrath of Gaddafi’s troops who were marching on Benghazi because they dared to revolt?
I can understand and empathise with the Muslim world’s decades-old justifiable anger against the Americans, but in this case I can’t imagine how the US is responsible for the act of one unhinged individual.
And this is not the first time. A cartoonist in faraway Denmark draws a caricature of the Prophet, in bad taste I may add, and you have enraged masses burning public property in a remote town in West Bengal where those rampaging are unlikely to even know where Denmark is.
Yet these poor folks are willing (most likely incited) to forego their daily wage, risk being beaten up by the police, even their life and for what?
Why is it that a community that largely lacks in nearly every parameter of social development fails to rally itself to demand what it lacks but is readily mobilised to “avenge” a religious insult in some remote corner of the world.
And this appears to hold true for nearly every religion. Is religion the only worthy cause for standing up?
PS: I assure you I am not a Hindu fundamentalist or a self-appointed apologist for the Americans.
Coalemus's Column 