Why is the Muslim world so easily offended? Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks. Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world, modernity — with its sometimes distasteful but ultimately benign criticism of Islam — has sparked fatal protests. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance. There is an Arab pain and a volatility in the face of judgment by outsiders that stem from a deep and enduring sense of humiliation. A vast chasm separates the poor standing of Arabs in the world today from their history of greatness. In this context, their injured pride is easy to understand. In the narrative of history transmitted to schoolchildren throughout the Arab world and reinforced by the media, religious scholars and laymen alike, Arabs were favored by divine providence. They had come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, carrying Islam from Morocco to faraway Indonesia. In the process, they overran the Byzantine and Persian empires, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, and there they fashioned a brilliant civilization that stood as a rebuke to the intolerance of the European states to the north. Cordoba and Granada were adorned and exalted in the Arab imagination. Andalusia brought together all that the Arabs favored — poetry, glamorous courts, philosophers who debated the great issues of the day. If Islam’s rise was spectacular, its fall was swift and unsparing. This is the world that the great historian Bernard Lewis explored in his 2002 book “What Went Wrong?” The blessing of God, seen at work in the ascent of the Muslims, now appeared to desert them. The ruling caliphate, with its base in Baghdad, was torn asunder by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Soldiers of fortune from the Turkic Steppes sacked cities and left a legacy of military seizures of power that is still the bane of the Arabs. Little remained of their philosophy and literature, and after the Ottoman Turks overran Arab countries to their south in the 16th century, the Arabs seemed to exit history; they were now subjects of others. The coming of the West to their world brought superior military, administrative and intellectual achievement into their midst — and the outsiders were unsparing in their judgments. They belittled the military prowess of the Arabs, and they were scandalized by the traditional treatment of women and the separation of the sexes that crippled Arab society. Even as Arabs insist that their defects were inflicted on them by outsiders, they know their weaknesses. Younger Arabs today can be brittle and proud about their culture, yet deeply ashamed of what they see around them. They know that more than 300 million Arabs have fallen to economic stagnation and cultural decline. They know that the standing of Arab states along the measures that matter — political freedom, status of women, economic growth — is low. In the privacy of their own language, in daily chatter on the street, on blogs and in the media, and in works of art and fiction, they probe endlessly what befell them. page 1 of 3
1) Most of the "Muslim World" lives in 3rd world countries. They have little to no food and a place they can barely call home. Naturally, they will blame their misfortune on anyone but themselves. 2) Religion makes humans feel vindicated in whatever they do. Difference between right and wrong depends upon how someone reads a certain book. Couple these two points together and you have the status quo.
They're prohibited from masturbating. getting a blowjob and peeing standing up.. ....and they're f-cking dirt poor.
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Hmm didn't work. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eNtDrUhcKyQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Start at 0:48
I have no problem with Muslims getting offended by this movie or with protests. I mean it is offensive and hateful. The problem though is how that offense is expressed and to the extent that they same to be preoccupied with offense. As I noted in the other thread. Many in the Middle East seem to wallow in victimhood which I believe has handicapped their ability to develop vibrant civil societies. While they do have good reason to feel victimized by the West this anger has been played by both strong men and radicals to distract from domestic problems and keeping themselves in power.
I have yet to see a single group of people that aren't "easily offended" by something. And given the popularity of Fox News in the US, I get the feeling Americans are just as easily offended by perceived slights at Christianity as the Arab world about Islam. It's always easy for one to say "hey! lighten up!" to things you don't actually give a damn about
It has become apparent over the last few decades that people who judge all Muslims because of a minority of violent extremists is a sad state of affairs.
Muslims incessantly b**** about being stereotyped as terrorists and then go out and commit terrorism. They are psychopaths.
Lots of people are easily offended. It's just that a small minority of people that call themselves Muslims commit high profile attacks, so a large amount of attention is paid to these people.
Almost no Muslims don't go out and commit terrorism. A very tiny percentage of them go out and do that. When anyone stereotypes a whole group of people based on the actions of a minority the group should be outraged at being stereotyped. The whole group should never be stereotyped, but if it was a majority of the group the stereotyping would be understandable. But when people make stereotypes of a group when the majority of the group doesn't live up to the stereotype, they should b****, and be upset. And the shame isn't on the group, but on the people that stereotype.
