Story here about the violence that erupted at the suggestion the the prophet Allah may have found a suitable wife among the Miss World competitors.
IMHO, the frickin’ craziest reason I’ve ever heard for large scale civil violence.
But my ignorance runs deep. What other episodes of large-scale civil disruptions have arisen for insanely stupid reasons?
God’s a prophet? Man, that’s a good gig.
Discontent and anger have been brewing for a very long time about this particular pageant in this particular location. A court sentenced a Nigerian woman to death by stoning for adultery there, under Sharia Law, and that alone has prompted many contestants and affiliated people to back out of appearing at the pageant. So I’m not the least surprised that violence finally erupted over it; in fact, I’m a little surprised that it took so long.
Other large-scale disruptions for stupid reasons? How about the riots over sports victories? Or the crowd rioting over Mozarts symphonies back in the day? People never seem to need much reason to go apeshit.
:smack: 'Scuse me, I’m confusing various prophets and gods. Make that the Prophet Muhammad.
And yeah, I thought about sports violence, but it looks positively profound compared to beauty pageant violence.
Wow. thats incredible.
Seems like lots of people have had issues with morality of the Miss World pageant in the past - I seem to remember a women’s right’s group storming the stage one year in and effort to sabotage the show. I think the Nigerians had a legitimate issue if they felt the show was immoral, and if they felt their Prophet had been insulted, butthere is no excuse for that sort of violence.
Yep, that was in 1970. Nobody died, except maybe Bob Hope.
Crowds have rioted in response to musical and theatrical performances, although I don’t know that anyone lost their life. I’ve never heard of a Mozart symphony causing unrest, but the Nijinsky/Stravinsky balle “Le Sacre du Printemps” (Rite of Spring) caused riots. So did Alfred Jarry’s avant garde play “Ubu Roi”.
The body count is now up to 100. 
“Beauty is a sin.” Uh, huh. Supposing you did accept that bizzare notion, how do you go about furthur convincing yourself that it’s a worse sin than murdering innocent strangers?!
Un-F-ing-Believable…
“Angry mobs stabbed and set fire to bystanders”…
amid chants of “Down with Beauty.”
I’m at a bit of a loss here in my attempt to ever comprehend what could promote such irrational behaviour.
Idiots, across the board.
</no logic>
Yes, lets use the logic that we will object to a religious infraction with the worst of them all, murder.
</no logic>
What’s the big deal? It’s just those wacky extremists of that religion of peace again.
You think they would be extremely peaceful or something.