It’s the developmentally flawed individuals in our world that creates much of the chaos for everyone else.  Where we need mature guidance in pushing our way past the miasma of intolerance, we too often find ourselves being influenced by the worst of the lot.

I’ve been reading the commentaries following the tragic incidences occurring throughout the Muslim world, resulting from a cheesy video that mocked the Muslim prophet Muhammad.  Perhaps one of the best analysis I have reviewed on this is the one by Scott Erb over at his World in Motion blog

Clearly people are mad about the film, but how many Christians in the US go on murderous rampages over a film?   It’s not that Christianity is any more peaceful at its core than Islam — it’s not.   These events are caused by cultural and political instability that will continue for some time.  (emphasis mine)

This view is also shared by Juan Cole, an expert on the relationship between the West and the Muslim world.

Scott goes on to point out, effectively I think, that such violent reactions are essentially that part of the energy behind developing a democracy.  As devastating as this can be, it is only through a sort of fiery purification that something of substance can remain.  But as I see it, this should not occur as a result of a careless or willful person igniting such a firestorm.  It discredits this transition from dictatorships to democracy when nobler causes are not at the forefront of such violence, where instead ignorance and intolerance play too much of a decisive role in a country’s struggle to remove the bonds of despotism from its subjugated people.

The incident reported to have served as the spark for all this unrest was an amateurish video made by people who are either willfully ignorant of Islam in all its complexities or are impassioned zealots for their own cause that dictates a sense to do whatever it takes to accomplish their personal goals, no matter who gets hurt.  They are in effect, as the influential Arab journalist, Abdel Bari Atwan of al-Quds al-Arabi, puts it, “the best ally of the Islamic jihadist organizations [with their] deep hostility … toward Islam and Muslims …”   

But the video by itself cannot be blamed solely for the riots and deaths that have occurred over the last week at U.S. embassies.  According to a report by Mike Brinker with NBC news:

Although [the video] was posted to YouTube in July, the film only attracted attention in the Middle East after an unknown person recently dubbed it into Egyptian Arabic. That translation, which the man who identified himself as Bacile, [the film maker of the video] told the AP was accurate, has been broadcast repeatedly on Egyptian media in recent weeks after being seized upon by extreme Islamists who dislike the presence of the country’s Coptic Christians.   SOURCE 

This offensive video would have most likely remained underground and perhaps disappeared completely had media hardliner,Egyptian TV host Khaled Abdallah, not broadcast a televised report on it Saturday, September 8th,  followed the next day with denunciations from a prominent Egyptian Muslim leader

The chaos on Tuesday in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was set in motion the Sunday before when Ali Gomaa, the grand mufti of Egypt, spoke out against a film that he condemned as “offensive to all Muslims.” He claimed that it was produced by “some extremist Copts” living in the United States. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government followed Gomaa’s lead and demanded a public apology and criminal prosecution of the filmmakers.   SOURCE 

Clearly cooler heads failed to prevail on both sides.  This insulting video was made by hateful religious bigots and does not reflect the mainstream thought of Islam in America or Israel.  Why Khaled Abdallah, Ali Gomaa and even the new Islamist president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi allowed it to go beyond the narrow confines it had been idling in can only be explained in terms of small-minded people who reflect the deep-seated hate of their anti-Muslim counterparts in the U.S. and Israel.

It is people like Terry Jones, the fundamentalist, Muslim-hating preacher from Florida and those responsible for the making of “Innocence of Muslims”, along with their counterparts in Islamic cultures that set fire to the dry brush of religious bigotry that builds up overtime.  Whether they intentionally douse the fuel for flames before lighting it or simply drop a careless match here and there, they perpetuate the constant struggle of these two cultures to resume a more rational relationship that existed before the events of 911 unfolded.

The instability in the mideast and other regions where poverty has pushed millions to the brink of desperation is set to explode further unless more mature leadership takes charge and mollifies the worst fears of its people while being proactive in countering potential threats from the refuse of hate-filled people.  The last thing we need in this country is a Romney presidency that plays into this political pyromania.

His insensitive response to the death of four embassy staff in Benghazi last Tuesday was the Beavis & Butthead style of reacting.   He demonstrates one who hears what they want to hear and use only the elements in a crisis that they can exploit for their own gratification.  Romney’s failure to grasp the significance of his flawed assessment, like those religious zealots on both sides who fan the flames of this age old prejudice, is indicative of those who serve a small-minded view of the world.  One in which promotes a personal agenda rather than seeing the bigger picture that includes the larger community of mankind.

The mandate from those who have put Romney in the seat to represent the GOP for the  office of president are people too close to the backwards view that wants to restore America to some early 19th century model.  Romney may well have been an apt representative of this era but it will not serve us today in the 21st century.  American exceptionalism may be a feel good term for many in this country but it’s an affront to many in the rest of the world and to the Muslim extremists, it’s a direct threat.  It’s the match ready to strike and ignite the tender box of religious intolerance.

Clearly, those who financially supported and produced the anti-Muslim video and their counterparts in the Middle East care less about the consequences that their actions have on innocent people who inevitably get caught up in religious wars.  To them such human sacrifice is the price that needs to be paid to foster the insanity that began when Ishmael was forsaken by Abraham centuries ago.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Global politics Tags: al-Quds al-Arabi, Ali Gomaa, anti-Muslim video, Egypt, Florida preacher Terry Jones, Islam, Muslim, religious intolerance