Ok let's talk about my last diary, which not only engendered some 300 comments but also inspired a
counter-diary with 300 plus comments.
I didn't realize I had to write every Diary with the footnotes of a legal brief in front of the Supreme Court. I sometimes use links as a shorthand for people who are interested in more information to follow the sources. They're not meant to be comprehensive NOR are they meant to be the be-all and end-all of documentation.
I put in a link to the Religious Policeman blog because his own blog mirrored much of my own thinking and he had some very useful links already assembled. Those links were to actual Saudi newspapers, which are all state-controlled. The links he provided could be further explored by anyone who wished to and I of course encourage this. I always encourage people to think critically, not only on my own pieces but on anything they've ever read. I'm not the Voice of God and neither is ABC or CNN or any other media, including this very website.
I'll even be brave enough to admit here that I often make mistakes and that courteous readers help me learn from my mistakes and I am incredibly grateful for that. I have no problem with that whatsoever! And anyone who has ever read any of my thousands of Diaries knows that full well. You won't find a single instance of me saying "nope I'm always right and you're wrong". It's ludicrous to think that.
Saudi Arabia published a number of English-language dead tree papers and you're free to review them yourself as they're online. Read the articles and look at the timing. Look at how the "outrage" began to increase in magnitude and frequency after the Hajj disaster. Were Muslims angry before January 12 at the cartoons? Of course they were. Approximately 3,500 Danish Muslims protested in October and there were a number of "labor strikes" in Pakistan as well. And I mentioned this!!
Saudi Arabia did not only ramp up their coverage of the "outrage" but they also cited several religious authorities' opinions, which carry serious weight in the Sunni world. Again, don't take my word for it, read the newspaper articles for yourself.
The cartoons were published on September 30, 2005 and the embassies were burned down in February 2006. Why the delay? And why the intensity of outrage? The Danish government made some missteps in trying to defuse the situation, this is true, but Denmark is hardly a hotbed of Muslim oppression. There are many other Western European countries, the Netherlands comes to mind, which have printed or broadcast more visibly offensive material to Muslims. Why was there no burning of Dutch embassies?
As many other traditional and blogger articles have reported, there have been many offensive cartoons, articles, depictions and television shows in the past which were offensive to Muslims, Jews and Christians. Anyone who wanted to make this a serious, embassy-burning affair could've done so long before the September cartoons. There were physical protests by Danes and Pakistanis but the sheer level of rhetoric coming out of Saudi Arabia is unmatched (in my opinion) by any other Muslim country. The Saudis took a genuine issue and flogged it for what it was worth because the timing was convenient.
That's all I ever said. I did not say that the Saudis were the only ones who were angry. I specifically said that outrage over the cartoon also had roots in the genuine feeling of oppression by Muslims by Western European societies. The riots in France earlier were just one manifestation of this oppression. The question over what exactly Europe can do in the name of both tolerance AND free expression is a hot button issue right now and in that context, the Danish cartoons are only a subset.
The title of my original diary was "what the media isn't telling you". And they're not telling you about why there was an enormous delay between the cartoons and the angry riots. The Saudi government knows full well that the Danish government does not exercise direct control over its newspapers. Yet they took the government's refusal to "do anything" as something which added to the outrage. Denmark doesn't buy Saudi oil and there is not a heck of a lot of trade between the two countries. Taking shots at Denmark is an easy thing for Saudi religious authorities to do.
The title of my diary was not "The Saudis and only the Saudis are behind the outrage". I never insinuated or stated that directly. I wrote about my own interpretation and provided a link for further exploration, which many people did. I sat in my living room and watched CNN for 2 hours yesterday and heard not one mention of why the outrage was coming 4 months after the cartoons' publication or why there were so many Saudi flags being waved in the crowds. Neither Syria nor Lebanon are very pro-Saudi. Syria is run by the secularist Ba'ath Party which cracks down heavily on fundamentalist groups. Lebanon's Muslims include many Shi'ites, who look elsewhere than Saudi Arabia for guidance.
The rioters seemed to have not only a lot of Saudi flags but a lot of other professionally-printed banners and signs. They were not scribbled on paper at home (such as were seen in the protests in Britain for example) but clearly demonstrate that the rallies were organized. My question is, by whom? And who financed them? I was also curious as to why the Syrian and Lebanese governments allowed the protests to rise to the point of burning down the embassies. I don't see this as some kind of sinister cooperation with Saudi Arabia but more of a way of letting the population manifest anger at the west. In Indonesia (and YES in other Muslim countries), where crowds also stormed the Danish embassy, there have been a number of anti-American protests, which weren't mentioned in my last Diary but I've written about them before.
In short, there's a lot of Muslim anger against the west bubbling beneath the surface. It comes from a myriad of reasons, including the Israeli-Palestinian situation, the war in Iraq, the banning of "head scarves" in France, high unemployment levels and discrimination in Europe amongst immigrants AND the Danish cartoons. It is my contention that the Saudis tapped this well-spring of anger at the cartoons in order to deflect criticism at themselves. Were Saudi clerics genuinely offended by the Danish cartoons? I have no doubt about it. But they are regularly offended by a number of cartoons, drawings, paintings and television shows coming out of America and Western Europe. The only significance of the Danish cartoons is in the timing.
I remember quite well when Newsweek printed an article about how American guards at Guantanamo Bay were urinating on the Qur'an. That article prompted worldwide protests immediately. The crowds in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Indonesia did not need 4 months to be angry enough to take to the streets. They did not need months of sermons by their religious leaders to be properly offended. The reaction was natural and immediate. This is in complete contrast to the Danish cartoons, not counting the peaceful protest in Denmark itself. Pakistan has a number of opposition fundamentalist parties (including the MNA) who hold protests regularly, including against women running in the marathon races in Pakistan. Their outrage, like the Danish Muslims themselves, was natural and more or less spontaneous.
It seems that whenever someone writes something that gets enough attention, the people who feel personally offended or who hold some personal grudge against me suddenly come out of the woodwork to nitpick at details. That's fine and it's their right but I guess I fail to understand it. I understand that not everybody "likes me" or finds what I write to be of value. For those people, all I can say is don't read my blog, don't read my Diaries and don't recommend them.
Writing a Diary that recommends censoring what I have to say is however quite offensive. The Diary I wrote is open to all and anyone who doesn't like what I have to say is of course free to say their piece there, without rancorous personal insults or attacks by me. I've been on DKos for a couple of years and you'll never find one instance of me belittling, insulting or attacking another user.
It's funny in a tragic, ironic way that some people feel the need to urge censorship of what I have to say when the issue we're all discussing touches on whether or not to censor inflammatory or offensive material in the dead tree press. But that's the way it goes I guess.
Oh yes, just in case this wasn't clear - I live in Romania, which is 7 hours ahead of America's east coast and 10 hours ahead of the west coast. I was asleep in the bed when most of the comments were written, which is why I did not respond before.
Peace