Muslim Rage

Although I realize that there was more to the Muslim protests of a trashy American Film than mere humiliation over religious blasphemy, I think that commentators may have missed one important element in the violent demonstrations which have engulfed the Middle East. That element is ignorance. I believe that the vast majority of the people demonstrating out on the streets were too ignorant to understand that this film was the work of a small group of anti-Muslims living in the U.S. and that the United States Government and the American People had nothing to do with it. Moreover, they are too ignorant to understand the American dedication to free speech and the inability of our government, under the First Amendment, to punish the makers of this garbage.

I have no doubt that the people who are stoking this conflagration are not so stupid. They recognize that the majority of the people on the streets do not have the intelligence to make the fine distinctions necessary to see the film as the work of a tiny group of outsiders. They see it as an opportunity to heighten the level of anti-Americanism and anti-western hatred. The head of Hezbollah called on all Muslims to protest the film and demonstrate against America. While he may be feeding into a lot of other issues that motivate Islamic mobs to hate America, he is also feeding into profound mob ignorance.

Let’s face it. Although there is plenty of ignorance among the ordinary citizens of America and most western countries, and although any mob is almost by definition ignorant, the ignorance of western mobs is nothing to compare with the ignorance of the Muslim mobs. Centuries ago the West began to outpace the Middle East in industry, education, arts, sciences and civilization. It is one of the things that rankles the Muslims. They envy and resent that fact that in almost every field of endeavor the western countries have vastly outdone them. They see the prosperity of the western world and its adherence to Christianity and secular thinking as a rebuke to and humiliation of the Muslim religion. They feel that this superiority of western civilization is a new type of Crusade, and they call the western nations “Crusaders.”

This backwardness and lower civilization is not shared by the Middle East country of Israel. Israel is populated by people, or their descendents, who came from northern civilized countries. With the exception of a minority of ultra orthodox Jews, their religion, Judaism, does not have the same kind of anger and paranoia found with the Muslims.

Because Muslims resent the great advantages western countries have over the Middle East, they turn to their religion as a consolation. They believe not only that theirs is the true religion, but also that adherence to this religion makes them superior to western believers in other religions. Thus, their religion makes-up for their feelings of inferiority when confronting the West. Their religion gives them a special place that more than compensates for their backwardness in most other areas. Any western attack on their religion, particularly by means of comedy or satire, is an attack against their whole system of self-respect.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon. People all over the world use religion to overcome the many disadvantages that would otherwise give them feelings of inferiority. Even in the United States you will find that people of the lowest income groups and social class cling to religion as the one thing that compensates for their low status.

I do not know the whole reason why the West outpaced the Middle East in all aspects of civilization, but I have no doubt that the Muslim religion bears a large part of the blame. In its more orthodox aspects it is a highly restricting religion. As practiced by Muslims all over the world, particularly the Taliban when they controlled Afghanistan and by the people in Saudi Arabia today, it is a deadening religion that does nothing to encourage innovation and freedom of thought. It is a religion that teaches men to treat women as lesser beings, that makes women wear unattractive clothing, that forbids women to do many things allowed in the West, and that punishes them severely for infractions of these many restraints.

What is it that makes Muslim mobs so ignorant? Why are they incapable of the kind of peaceful demonstrations found in western countries? I believe that it is accounted for by the lower level of civilization found in the Middle East. I have come to believe that the critical moral element in the world is civilization. I believe that the ethical and moral content of most human actions is largely governed by the amount of civilization achieved by the actor, his group, his society, and his nation. Although most people in the world share certain moral values, the extent to which those values are practiced depends largely on the level of civilization present in the actor and his fellow actors.

To give one example: During the protests in Egypt that unseated President Mubarak, Lara Logan, an attractive newswoman for CBS, was covering the protests in Tharir Square, Cairo. Somehow she got surrounded by men. These men proceeded to attack and sexually assault her. She was saved only when a group of Moslem women came to her aid. Thus, Moslem men, whose religion is very strict about sex, had no problem with gang-rape of a female reporter in a public place.

Now try to imagine this happening during a demonstration in New York, or Washington, or London, or Paris. It couldn’t. The reason that it could happen in Egypt, and not in a western country is simply that the people of Egypt are less civilized than the people of those western nations. It is not difficult to imagine such an attack taking place in other cities of the Middle East or Africa, but it is impossible to imagine it happening in America, or Canada, or any western European country.

Why do Muslims in the Middle East resort to violence when confronted by blasphemy of their religion? Why were there no such demonstrations in the United States when an artist exhibited a piece called “Piss Christ” in which he had a crucifix standing in what he claimed to be his own urine? Why have there not been violent demonstrations against many other blasphemous works of art, literature, and film in the West? The answer is that the West is simply far more civilized than the Middle East.

To a large extent, civilization is and has always been geographical. The most religious, backward, uncivilized countries are in the southern parts of the world. Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeastern Asia, and South America are all far less civilized than Northern Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States. Even within countries, the geographical distribution of the population helps explain different levels of civilization.

The southern states in America, where slavery prevailed until eliminated by the Civil War, are less civilized than the northern states. This kind of dichotomy is found in large countries throughout the world. One of the factors indicating lower civilization is religion. The people of the Middle East are more attached to their religion than are the people of the more secular West. When you look at the countries of Scandinavia, you notice a far higher percentage of the people are atheists. Those countries have the highest levels of civilization. People demonstrating on their streets are far less likely to be violent than the people in the Middle East. I do not know the full explanation for this difference, but I am certain that the lower civilization, the religion, and the ignorance of the people of the Middle East helps explain the stupidity of their demonstrations against a low budget, anti-Islamic movie.