i’ve always found the pakistani newspaper “dawn” to be disturbing in its greedy embrace of american imperialism. now i’m more sure than ever that dawn is just a sad pakistani version of the NYT. i commented on this article “power of passion” by dawn’s correspondent in brussels. her writing lacks context and i tried to provide that in my comment. interestingly enough, even tho the editors felt comfortable publishing all the comments u see under the article, they chose not to publish mine. here it is anyway.
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it would help not to talk about a film only. there is always more context, more historical continuity than what western media will concede. the invasion and decades long occupation of muslim countries matters. the detention w/o trial and torture of muslim bodies matters. the film is just the last straw, the last insult but it’s not the whole story. it’s “the playground bully calling your mother a slut after already breaking your jaw, and then wondering why you can’t take a joke” as michael muhammad knight said. what about the 8 afghan women who were recently killed in a US-NATO airstrike? what kind of “rage” was that? christian? western? imperialist? it’s not a level playing field – some violence is more normalized than other. also, there is a strong distinction b/w free speech and hate speech. the denigration of a group of people on the basis of their religion and ethnicity is not protected by law. the campaign to dehumanize muslims is not random – it’s not the work of independent artists or political activists. it’s coming from a well-established network that finances people like pamela geller and daniel pipes and funds ads such as the ones that ran on san francisco buses which said: “in any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man” followed by “support israel. defeat jihad.” so these things go a bit deeper than “the film that roiled muslims.” max blumenthal has exposed many of these connections in his incredible work. everyone should check it out here.