Nice article but I still disagree with the way this debate is sometimes framed. The real question can't be (as Kristof suggests): "Should we curb the freedom to insult religions that are twitchy?" <br><br>I don't think there is a "freedom to insult religions" or a freedom to insult anything for that matter. Here is how I would characterize it: We have freedom of speech. That freedom allows us to critique and criticize whatever we wish, including religions. If the religious find that insulting, too bad for them. My advice: stop listening to what you find insulting.<br>
<br>How does this differ from Kristof's way of characterizing it? Later he writes: "The freedom to be an imbecile is one of our core values." But that makes it seem as if the "freedom to offend" is a positive freedom and with that comes a dilemma: I have the freedom to offend; being intentionally offensive is wrong; therefore I have the right to do wrong.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Art Deco <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>September 22, 2012</div>
<h1>Exploiting the Prophet</h1>
<h6>By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF" target="_blank"><span>NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF</span></a></span></h6>
<div>
<p>
“PISS CHRIST,” a famous photograph partly financed by taxpayers,
depicted a crucifix immersed in what the artist said was his own urine.
But conservative Christians did not riot on the Washington Mall. </p>
<p>
“The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444450004578002010241044712.html" target="_blank">Book of Mormon</a>,” a huge hit on Broadway, mocks the church’s beliefs as hocus-pocus. But Mormons haven’t burned down any theaters. </p>
<p>
So why do parts of the Islamic world <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/world/middleeast/anti-american-protests-over-film-enter-4th-day.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">erupt in violence</a> over insults to the Prophet Muhammad? </p>
<p>
Let me try to address that indelicate question, and a related one:
Should we curb the freedom to insult religions that are twitchy? </p>
<p>
First, a few caveats. For starters, television images can magnify (and
empower) crazies. In Libya, the few jihadis who killed Ambassador Chris
Stevens were vastly outnumbered by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/benghazi-anti-militia-protest_n_1903846.html" target="_blank">the throngs</a> of Libyan mourners who apologized afterward. </p>
<p>
Remember also that it’s not just Muslims who periodically go berserk,
but everybody — particularly in societies with large numbers of poorly
educated young men. Upheavals are often more about demography than about
religion: the best predictor of civil conflict is the <a href="http://www.prio.no/upload/prio/ISQU_416.PDF" target="_blank">share of a population</a>
that is aged 15 to 24. In the 19th century, when the United States
brimmed with poorly educated young men, Protestants rioted against
Catholics. </p>
<p>
For much of the postwar period, it was the secular nationalists in the
Middle East who were seen as the extremists, while Islam was seen as a
calming influence. That’s why Israel helped nurture Hamas in Gaza.
</p>
<p>
That said, for a self-described “religion of peace,” Islam does claim a lot of lives. </p>
<p>
In conservative Muslim countries, sensitivities sometimes seem
ludicrous. I once covered a Pakistani college teacher who was imprisoned
and threatened with execution for speculating that the Prophet
Muhammad’s parents weren’t Muslims. (They couldn’t have been, since
Islam began with him.) </p>
<p>
I think a few things are going on. The first is that many Muslim
countries lack a tradition of free speech, and see ridicule of the
prophet as part of a larger narrative of the West’s invading or
humiliating the Islamic world. People in these countries sometimes also
have an addled view of how the United States handles blasphemy. </p>
<p>
A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/21/opinion/watch-what-you-say.html" target="_blank">Pakistani imam</a>,
Abdul Wahid Qasmi, once told me that President Bill Clinton burned to
death scores of Americans for criticizing Jesus. If America can execute
blasphemers, he said, why can’t Pakistan? </p>
<p>
I challenged him, and he plucked an Urdu-language book off his shelf, thumbed through it, and began reading triumphantly about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/20/us/death-waco-overview-scores-die-cult-compound-set-afire-after-fbi-sends-tanks.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_blank">the 1993 raid</a> on David Koresh’s cult in Waco, Tex. </p>
<p>
More broadly, this is less about offensive videos than about a political
war unfolding in the Muslim world. Extremist Muslims like Salafis see
themselves as unfairly marginalized, and they hope to exploit this issue
to embarrass their governments and win public support. This is a
political struggle, not just a religious battle — and we’re pawns.
</p>
<p>
But it would be a mistake to back off and censor our kooks. The freedom to be an imbecile is one of our core values. </p>
<p>
In any case, there will always be other insults. As some leading Muslims
have noted, Islam has to learn to shrug them off. </p>
<p>
“Why should we feel danger from anything?” <a href="http://vimeo.com/33780689?action=share" target="_blank">Nasr Hamid Abu Zyad</a>,
one of the Islamic world’s greatest theologians, said before his death
in 2010. “Thousands of books are written against Muhammad. Thousands of
books are written against Jesus. O.K., all these thousands of books did
not destroy the faith.” </p>
<p>
A group called Muslims for Progressive Values noted <a href="http://www.mpvusa.org/uploads/Press_Release_Condemnation_of_Riot___Killings__Video__9-12-2012.pdf" target="_blank">a story in Islamic tradition</a>
in which Muhammad was tormented by a woman who put thorns in his path
and went so far as to hurl manure at his head as he prayed. Yet Muhammad
responded patiently and tolerantly. When she fell sick, he visited her
home to wish her well. </p>
<p>
For his time, Muhammad was socially progressive, and that’s a thread that reformers want to recapture. <a href="http://dailynewsegypt.com/2012/09/18/a-country-of-extremists/" target="_blank">Mahmoud Salem</a>,
the Egyptian blogger better known as Sandmonkey, wrote that violent
protests were “more damaging to Islam’s reputation than a thousand
so-called ‘Islam-attacking films.’ ” </p>
<p>
He suggested that Egyptians forthrightly condemn Islamic fundamentalists
as “a bunch of shrill, patriarchal, misogynistic, violent extremists
who are using Islam as a cover for their behavior.” </p>
<p>
Are extremists hijacking the Arab Spring? They’re trying to, but this is
just the opening chapter in a long drama. Some Eastern European
countries, like Romania and Hungary, are still wobbly more than two
decades after their democratic revolutions. Maybe the closest parallel
to the Arab Spring is the 1998 revolution in Indonesia, where it took
years for Islamic extremism to subside. </p>
<p>
My bet is that we’ll see more turbulence in the Arab world, but that
countries like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya won’t fall over a cliff. A
revolution isn’t an event, but a process. </p>
<div>
<p>I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground" target="_blank">On the Ground</a>. Please also join me on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/kristof" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/102839963139173448834/posts?hl=en" target="_blank">Google+</a>, watch my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/nicholaskristof" target="_blank">YouTube videos</a> and follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/nickkristof" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>
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<div><div><div><br style="clear:both"></div></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
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