The title limits prevent me from giving a better description. What I mean is, from what I can see (and I admit I could be wrong) it seems that muslims seem to reserve their anger for the US and Israel, and do not care much about other acts of brutality against Muslims carried out by other nations or cultures. Gassing of the kurds, political repression in the name of secularism, etc.
Uzbekistan is an example. They were recently in the news for firing on protesters, but they have a history of torturing muslims for practicing their faith. Why is there no outcry over this when there is outcry over US soldiers flushing a Koran down the toilet? Is it because the US is an outsider? Or is it just human nature to only focus on one or two threats and ignore the others?
I know during the USSR muslim repression was not uncommon, but it didn’t seem to cause any anger the same way Israeli military campaigns or US actions do even when these actions aren’t nearly as evil or oppressive. While on the subject, I don’t remember well but did the Arab world get angry when the US intervened in Kosovo and Yugoslavia?
I think you might have a bit of a selection bias. Muslim volunteers flocked to Afghanistan to fight the soviets and still do today to fight the Russians in Chechenya for instance.
I think it’s a case of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
Not sure what N. Korea’s official stance is on islamic fundamentalism. Neither am I familiar with Castro’s opinion on the subject. But I think it’s fair to say that as long as those two don’t interfere with islamic extremist agenda, they are seen as, at the very least, “neutral” agents. Probably more like opportune alies under the right circumstance.
Precisely. To use your Uzbekistan example, that country is overwhelmingly Muslim, both its population and goverment (see factbook). The repression is thus led by secular muslims towards more religious folks of the same religion. This is also basically what more or less secular islamic states like Turkey, Egypt and Algeria have done for decades, only more violent. When Saddam was gassing the Kurds, it was not a big deal to anyone, and those who did care, perceived it more as a civil war action than as “an attack against practicing muslims”. I think it all comes from identification. When both sides of a conflict are of Islamic faith, for another Muslim outside it’s kinda hard to take sides, since neither of them are fundamentally more closer. But when Israeli military shoots Palestinian kids or US troops torture innocents in Iraq, it’s much easier to identify with the suffering side of the conflict at hand. Besides, raising anger against a fellow Muslim nation might backfire: outsiders are more of a safe target.
As for the topic, why is it then that USA and Israel are particularly hated, and not other non-Islamic nations? Because they are the ones currently in the Middle East, not others. In radical muslim’s rhetoric, the MENA region which was the area of original Caliphates is theirs and outsiders who violate that should be fought off. But, as Eolbo pointed out, if others do something that the radicals get upset of, they will make a fuss.
To continue from above, you just can’t get upset of something you don’t know anything about. Both Russia and China conduct serious human rights violations against their Islamic minorities (among others), but these are generally kept secret, whereas Western pursuits are in the news everyday. Still, as said, there are occasional campaigns against Russia, too. Of course this kind of racist behaviour of blaming others isn’t limited to Islamic cultures: Putin, for example, makes a habit of accusing Chechen “terrorists” of just about everything that goes wrong in Russia. As a result, no person of North Caucasian origin is now safe in Moscow.
I wonder about just who speaks for the “muslim world”. Take the previous example 9of muslim upon muslim violence). The current dictator of syria’s dad 9hafez Assad), once faced a revolt in the syrian city of Hams. He promptly orderd his army to put down the revolt, and killed about 50,000 people. there was nary a peep from the mullahs and muftis-the same goes for the Sudan-muslims killing muslims doesn’t get much press.
And there was so much outrage about this guy (salman Rushdie)-because his book insulted islam, he was put on notice that it was OK for any faithful muslim to kill him.
I don’t understand it.
What I’m trying to understand is why people in Afghanistan are rioting because somebody fdisrespected the Koran in the US (or more accurately, Cuba). Would Israelis riot in the streets of Tel Aviv if Torah scrolls and mezzuzah were flushed down the toilet to intimidate captured Mossad agents in … oh, Pakistan? Americans don’t take to the streets and riot when a group of Frenchmen burn some American flags. Why aren’t Muslims in the US protesting?
I guess its the outsider factor, and I suppose its universal. Supposedly several thousand palestinians were killed by Jordan during Black September in 1970, but I doubt the protests and anger were nearly as heavy as they are when Israel kills 10-15 palestinians.
This still doesn’t explain fully things like oppression by the soviets or chinese. They are outsiders too. Maybe because they don’t do it in the heart of Islamic territory (the middle east near Saudi Arabia) and that they keep it secret is why.
Nobody’s getting mad about the flushing of the Koran. They’re getting mad about a string of abuses committed by America in the Muslim world over the past fifty years. They’re mad about the CIA backed coup in Iran in the 50’s, about America’s support for Israel, about America propping up the fascist house of Saud through military and financial support, about America supporting Saddam Hussein in the 80’s, about the CIA fiddling around in Afghanistan, and the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war, and a bunch of other stuff. It has jack shit to do with flushing Korans. It has to do with the fact that for the last three generations, the United States has interfered in the Middle East indiscriminately and not cared how many people got killed as a cnosequence. If we simply pulled all our troops out of the region and stopped messing around in their politics we could burn all the Korans we wished and it wouldn’t make a difference.
The coup in the 50s was done with British support as well as US support. There are tons of coups in the arab world, and alot of political repression. Why single out this one, and only blame the US (and not the UK) for it? Why not blame the civil unrest that also played a role in the coup? Iran wasn’t exactly a happy go lucky liberal democracy before the coup.
How did the US fiddle with Afghanistan? By supporting the Taliban and terrorists? So did Pakistan, so did Saudi Arabia. The war was started by the USSR anyway, not the US.
Many, many countries supported Saddam in the 80s. The US sold maybe 1% of the arms to Saddam, he got most of his weapons from China, the USSR and France. Hell Brazil sold more arms to Saddam than the US. None of these countries are chastized other than the US.
The first Iraq war was a coaltion of 30+ countries. A true coalition too unlike the 2nd war, and several attempts to tell Saddam to pull out peacefully were ignored by the Iraqi government.
At the end of the day this is the same thing, one sided blame for the US & Israel. Black september kills thousands of palestinians and its a non-issue and the massacre in Jenin that kills 50 is a cause of rioting. In Uzbekistan the government killed hundreds of muslims who helped free Islamic fundamentalists at the same time that the Koran was supposedly flushed down toilets. However no protests happened over Uzbekistan.
This is a chicken & egg argument. Are these the reasons for the anger or does the anger cause these one sided views that increase the anger? When the US invaded somalia for humanitarian reasons it was seen as imperialism, and when the US went to war in Yugoslavia to stop genocide against muslims i’m pretty sure it was frowned upon. This is just an extension of what i’m talking about in my post, why is the condemnation so one sided for? Why is only the US blamed for ‘supporting Saddam’ or ‘screwing up Afghanistan’ or ‘the first Gulf War’ when it took many countries to do that? These views are a result of the one sidedness and anger, not the cause of it. If they were the cause of the hatred (rather than fuels for it), many many countries would be hated but most hatred is reserved for the US & Israel.
I don’t blame the Muslims. Muslims can march out against the US or Israel or the UK. They can protest, they can go on riots. The governments will not hinder them (too much).
But they cannot do so with regard to issues that are closer to home or that involve Muslims because their government will crack down very harshly on them. For these governments, such protests can cause local instability because they deal with issues that are in the realm of the government’s responsibility.
It much like why Pakistani politicians keep the Kashmir issue burning: keep the people distracted by a non-issue so they won’t focus on what matters, which would hurt the politicians if they did. Other Muslim politicians do not mind the people obsessing about America: better scrutinize America than scrutinize their own corrupt government.
The people can get away with opposing the West: they are easy targets, they won’t retaliate, and there’s no harm in it.
As of now, May 18, 2005, it looks like the Uzbek government may fall to a popular uprising. The Uzbeks look at what has just happened in Georgia, Ukraine, Ecuador, and now neighboring Kyrgyzstan (all recently had popular uprisings that replaced their governments), and they look at what a brutal, lying dictatorship they live under… They’re mad. They’re really, really fed up. As of this moment, I think it could go either way.
You are right, the goverment there is one of the worst offenders as far as human rights go. But will the muslim theocracy that the majority of the rioters are pushing for be any better? And will they still cooperate with the US and let them have airfields there? Well at least the US isn’t directly to blame for this mess. One point for W as far as trying not to be the cork in every barrel in the world
There have been protests against the UK, Spain, Japan, Australia, and other countries for supporting the invasion of Iraq. There have been protests against France for forbidding Islamic headgear in scholls. There have been protests against Russia over Central Asia. There have been protests against China over the surpression of Islam. There have been protests against Serbia over attacks on Muslims. There have been protests against France, Germany, and several other European countries about issues involving Islamic guest workers.
The hatred of Muslims towards the Jews, goes back to the times of their prophet Muhammed. The Koran has several verses that describes Jews as bad for the Muslims and not to associate with. During the lifetime of Muhammed and the nascent period when he was trying to establish Islam, Jews supposedly were a big problem for him.
The mention of the Jews in the Koran and they being out of favour with the founder of the religion of Islam makes them sworn enemies for the more religiously inclined Muslims.
More subsequent events like the crusades sowed further seeds of animosity between Islam and Christianity too.
Not difficult to realize then that when they see America, read Christians, supporting Israel, read Jews, it makes the Muslims real mad. They consider the support of Americans for Israel as perhaps a direct attack on their faith and religion.
Well you can stand there saying this stuff all you want, but the rest of the planet isn’t required to be a moral relativist just because you are. There would have no invasion of Iraq in 1991 if the United States hadn’t decided to lead one. Thirty country coalition or not, the United States was the driving force. Same with most of the other “but he did it too” excuses that you try to toss around. Face the facts. Since the withdrawl of England and France from the region generations ago, the United States has been by far the largest influence from the West in the Middle East. The United States provided the bulk of support for the House of Saud for the last twenty years. not France. Not Russia. Not China. The United States plays the largest role in propping up the current governments of Egypt and other undemocratic regimes.
Kindergarteners, when caught in some sort of bad behavior, often claim that they weren’t doing anything wrong if one of their classmates is gulty of the same thing. At some point alopng the line of growing up, they have to get taught that this line of reasoning is logically unsound. Morally wrong is morally wrong, even if one of your buddies was doing the same thing. The same principle applies to what you’re whining about. You admit, or at least so it seems, that the United States has committed horrible crimes in the Middle East, and yet you say it’s unfair that only we’re getting blamed for what we do. Bottom line: if you don’t want the blame, don’t commit the crimes.
People in the United States get all pissed off whenever there’s the slightest suggestion that any other country should have the slightest role in deciding what actions our government takes. Yet you sit around scratching your head, wondering why the Muslim world gets mad when we order them to live other governments chosen by Americans. It’s not difficult. Americans wish to be government by Americans. Arabs wish to be governed by Arabs. Right now, one country and only one country is asserting the right ot govern the entire Arab world from the outside: the United States. One country and only one country has asserted a right to slaughter any Arab who refuses to bow down: the United States. And unsurprisingly, the Arab world hates primarily that country. There’s no hypocricy and no one-sided views. Arabs do what all rational people do: they hate the outsiders who are currently invading their homeland and massacring them in large numbers.