Well, sorry to hear about your illness and hope you get better soon.
Testy.
Testy, I don’t know how my name got into your title, but it wasn’t me! It was someone else! I was never near the place! Honest. I was… I was at the garden centre, that’s it. Yes. The garden centre. Buying… um… plant food.
The OP is incorrect: the riots weren’t about Miss World. They were because a newspaper insulted the Prophet Mohammed with relation to Miss World. Read here.
um jjimm from the OP
Gah. Why is every mention of Muhammed blasphemous? What would they do if they had to endure the kind of surfeiting and profane use of his name that Christians endure with respect to Jesus here at Straight Dope?
What, you’re saying I have to read the OPs now?
OK sorry.
Seriously though, I can’t find anywhere in the news that says the riots were against the Miss World contest per se.
I think the beef some people would have with the artile was that the author presumed to speak for Mohammed (which is a big no no), and the uproar over that snowballed into the protests about the contest itself. Which in turn snowballed into the widespread rioting and counterrioting that happens in Kaduna at any given oppertunity. There’s alot of tension in that area.
A couple of points…
Nigeria was a military dictatorship until 1999 when they adopted democracy. There wasn’t, and still isn’t, a lot of agreement over what form this democracy should take. The end of the dictatorship resulted in a lot of people losing power and they weren’t/aren’t real happy about it.
Nigeria is about 50/50 Muslim/Christian. The division between the two groups is physical (north/south), tribal and political.
Since the end of the dictatorship the country has been rocked by one riot after another:
http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/15/top18.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1110791.stm
http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,43794.jsp
There is a lot more going on here than just an artcle in a newspaper.
Well I’ll speak for Mohammad.
<Mohammad>
STOP KILLING PEOPLE YOU STUPID FUCKS, THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE!
</Mohammad>
A quote from Miss Nigeria/Miss World’s bio:
How will she bring that off? Designer pocket protectors?
Regards,
Shodan
Munich Olympic Massacre, September 5, 1972
Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
Iran Hostage Crisis, November 4, 1979
Grand Mosque Seizure, November 20, 1979
Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983
Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983
Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12, 1984
TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985
Achille Lauro Hijacking, October 7, 1985
Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, November 23, 1985
Berlin Discoteque Bombing, April 5, 1986
Pan Am 103 Bombing, December 21, 1988
Bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17, 1992
World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993
Jerusalem Bus Attack, August 21, 1995
Saudi Military Installation Attack, November 13, 1995
Egyptian Embassy Attack, November 19, 1995
Hamas Bus Attack, February 26, 1996
Dizengoff Center Bombing, March 4, 1996
West Bank Attack, May 13, 1996
Zekharya Attack, June 9, 1996
Khobar Towers Bombing, June 25, 1996
Empire State Building Sniper Attack, February 23, 1997
Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, September 4, 1997
Tourist Killings in Egypt, November 17, 1997
U.S. Embassy Bombings in East Africa, August 7, 1998
Attack on U.S.S. Cole, October 12, 2000
Manila Bombing, December 30, 2000
Bus Stop Bombing, April 22, 2001
Tel-Aviv Nightclub Bombing, June 1, 2001
Hamas Restaurant Bombing, August 9, 2001
September 11, 2001
Many more Palestinian Homicide-bomber attacks
French tanker attack
Bali Nightclub bombing
Are you also going to say that none of the above have anything to do with Islam? Nothing at all? No connection?
A fucking resume of evil, thats for damn sure.
Not me. But I will say that a several them don’t ( Entebbe or Munich for example - the PLO was/is explicitly secular with a certain percentage of Christian members ). Just a nitpick. Carry on.
- Tamerlane
For a secular organization, the PLO certainly seems to have a particular beef with Israeli Jews, as opposed to Israelis in general. The Passover attack at Netanya (sp) for example.
They moved the pageant to London!
The terrorists have already won.
I was away all day at work w/o Internet access and I come home to this.
I guess it’s for the best–the riots were starting to spread to Abuja, the city that the contest was being held in instead of messy-to-begin-with Kaduna, and people who had nothing to do with anything were being killed.
But dammit, why can’t these folks learn how to protest without killing a gazillion innocent people? And do they really think that killing random people in the street will vindicate the “insult” to Mohammed?
And let’s not drag the IRA and stuff into this. Their crimes were committed over a land dispute, and although the offenders were Catholic it’s not like they were doing it in the NAME of the Catholic Church or Jesus himself. Believe me, I grew up in a Bronx Irish neighborhood and there were/are plenty of IRA types passing through here.
Sadly anti-Semitism isn’t solely the province of the religious fanatic. Plain old ethnic tribalism generates more than hatred to fuel the engines of bigotry.
- Tamerlane
…more than enough hatred…
Of course there is a connection. All of your quoted outrages involved muslims. You chose them for that reason. You chose not to name any outrages by non-muslims, although you certainly could have, (assuming that you are capable of taking your blinkers off, something I very much doubt)
Quite probably, you wouldn’t see outrages by non-muslims in those terms, you would see such outrages as being tribal battles, fights over land or power, nationalism, or some other cause. You would allow a deeper understanding. But because you are blinkered, all you see is that the outrages you list are committed by muslims, and you assume that to be the relevant cause.
Mehitabel illustrates the point beautifully. I bring up the IRA and Ulster Unionists and he jumps on that and says don’t drag them into this, their troubles are a land claim. Are they? Maybe they are, but they sure as hell sound like fights over religion, unless you show a bit of understanding.
Um, no, I don’t see:
Achile Lauro (pushing an old man in a wheelchair into the sea, nice touch)
Pan Am 103
September 11, 2001 (May perpetual light shine upon them)
The bloody, evil, disgusting, murder of Mr. Pearl
The Bali bombings
:as anything to do with tribal battles, fights over land or power, or nationalism.
What do you see them as?