American Consulate Attack in Libya

[Martina]

This from an article in the Times today:

“An attack on the holy prophet is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims. Therefore, this is something that is unacceptable,” said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in an address to a religious conference Friday morning in Islamabad.

Mr. Ashraf called on the United Nations and international community to formulate a law outlawing hate speech across the world. “Blasphemy of the kind witnessed in this case is nothing short of hate speech, equal to the worst kind of anti-Semitism or other kind of bigotry,” he said.

Surely he knows better.

Hate speech is defined in terms of inciting violence AGAINST the party being maligned. The people causing violence in this case are the folks who are the targets of the offensive speech.

Speaking as a high school teacher, there is an element of immaturity to this that boggles my mind. Someone hurt me deeply, so I beat them up. Please put them in jail, not me. What someone said made me feel a really strong feeling. A REALLY strong one. My behavior after that is no longer my responsibility, but theirs.

A young (tres hip) Muslim man was on NPR yesterday talking about how he couldn't believe people were taking the bait. He understood the video as bait. And he was upset at the naivete of folks who just grabbed it.

Bait or not. Intended to offend not. It did not incite violence AGAINST Muslims.

GOD, this makes me grateful for the Constitution.

HEAR me, Ciaran and others whose comments make ME feel labeled as a jingoistic American. I am so god damned proud of my Constitution. SO GRATEFUL for the U.S. Constitution.

Understand that?

Edited to add: I know that a lot of the anger with the U.S. and other western countries stems from the historical relationships we have imposed on the region -- as subaltern states. They have not had the power to affect us, and our decisions have had ruinous effects on some of the nations there -- for generations.