He has beendenigrating Islamfor decades, yet Muslim extremists seem to be unaware or indifferent to his attacks. How come they get outraged by the Danish cartoon and the recent video, but not the anti-Muslim Chick tracts that have been printed by the millions and distributed worldwide?
I’m not sure, but ISTM that paradoxically, Muslims outside the West may be more inclined to shrug off outright proselytizing slander in things like Chick Tracts because it’s more hardline sectarian.
I mean, everybody who encounters a Chick Tract knows that it’s religious propaganda wigging out against non-Christians (and some Christian groups as well) in the name of a particular form of fundamentalist Christianity. That’s the sort of thing that theocratic Muslim societies expect from Christian proselytizing. Consequently, Chick tracts and similar evangelical literature are banned outright in several Muslim countries, because they don’t see why they should stand for that shit.
But that type of “vote for Jesus!” sales pitch is different from a nation or society as a whole espousing Islamophobic slanders as an appropriate expression in its media or popular culture.
And that’s how things like the Danish cartoons and the Muhammad movie were spun to fundamentalist Muslim populations: as a deliberate attack on Islam by a Western society as a whole, rather than as typical anti-Islam propaganda spouted by particular Christian clerics trying to boost sales for their own brand.
I would just assume most Middle-Eastern Arab Muslims
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can’t read English
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don’t know about Jack Chick, either.
(2) is probably true for most Muslims, but you can get Chick Tracts in Arabic, including Islam-themed ones like this.
Some anti-Muslim Chick tracts are published in Arabic.
Well, I don’t mean to be unkind, but…I really don’t think that many Middle-Eastern Arab Muslims can even read their own language. Again, not trying to be unkind. I’d say the ones that CAN read are often young, well-educated, and open-minded enough (because the younger generation there is often college-educated, whereas the older generation definitely ISN’T) enough to not care about a Chick tract.
Also, many people there live in rural areas, where the only reading material easily gotten is the Koran, pretty much, I’d guess.
Most of those rioting in the streets haven’t seen the Youtube video either. The were incited by mullahs, who presumably can read Arabic (and English).
One would hope.
I’m all done with religion, incidentally. You ever see a little kid have some food, then say “all done!”? Yeah, that’s me, with religion. Except I won’t, you know, get hungry again later for it. I’m permanently all goddamn done.
I don’t think you’re trying to be unkind, but I think you’re guilty of a little unnecessary ignorance. There are ways of finding out the Straight Dope on approximately how many Middle Eastern Arab Muslims can read Arabic.
This site, for example, indicates that illiteracy rates in Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon are all below 20%. So at least well over half the population in those societies can read.
(And surely a few seconds’ thought is enough to remind us that many of these anti-American Muslim-extremist protestors are out there carrying signs with slogans written in Arabic. Evidently the angry anti-American demonstrator demographic has a high enough average literacy rate to make that strategy both possible and worthwhile.)
Welllll…define “literacy”. Can they read well enough to understand a Chick tract?
As far as making signs, it doesn’t take a lot of literacy to be able to copy a slogan that you’re told to copy onto a sign.
Even if they can understand a Chick tract, I seriously doubt they have access to much reading material besides the Koran and other religious writings, in many cases.
Granted, more urbanized societies probably have higher functional literacy than, say, the Bedouins or the more rural Pashtuns.
All the riots are in urbanized cities.
Somehow I doubt it’s the doctors, lawyers, and other people with advanced degrees doing the rioting.
And riots cannot, by definition, happen in extremely rural areas.
Literacy is not limited to professionals, and as I pointed out, even illiterates can be incited to violence by extremist religious leaders.
You are right, literacy is NOT limited to professionals.
They ARE more likely to be widely-read, though, and have much more general knowledge, and exposure to writings from outside their culture.
There are plenty of home-schooled kids from ultra-religious families here in the US who read/write very well, but who know jack-squat about other cultures or religions.
Y’know, if* every* publication of an anti-Muslim bent were to cause enough of an extremist reaction to make our media, both the extremists and the media would have time for nothing else…
At some point, the media have to start bearing responsibility for this sort of thing. It is becoming, more and more, like yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
Or, more accurately, like hearing someone sitting next to you whisper “fire”, then repeating it at full volume.
It doesn’t represent American culture accurately to play a movie like this on TV in Arab countries, just like it doesn’t represent Arab culture accurately to call them all suicide bombers.
There are many in both cultures who find it politically useful to portray Americans (and Muslims) inaccurately.
My guess is that nobody has found it advantageous to start a riot over Chick tracts.
Well, now the cat is out of the bag! Thanks , Fear. 
And the same tract is also “redrawn for black readers” (actual description from the website).