Solving the Problem

In the comments to my last post JP asks, "how do we solve the problem?". It's a good question, a very good question. As I've thought about a possible answer I've found myself reaching for the language of parenthood, as though telling a teenager not to stay out too late or drive too fast. You're in with a bad crowd.

First, we've learned throughout this past week that appeasement is not the solution. In the interests of those involved, including the United States' administration, every effort should be made to recall how Salman Rushdie issued a full and candid apology in 1989 for any offense he may have caused in publishing The Satanic Verses, which did nothing to curtail the rioters and assassins from spiraling into a rage. There are those to whom one cannot appeal in this way.

Likewise, are we still foolish enough to consider these current acts of aggression a direct response to a video on YouTube? Leaders of Islamist sects rely on aggression and bitterness, however deluded, to stir their supporters into a frenzy lest they see their power come to naught. This is evidenced by the burning of the Israeli and British flags, the protests at the German, British, and Dutch embassies, and not least of all the attacks on the American embassies, wherein those responsible for the video itself have never stepped.

There is little to which one can turn besides fixing the onus firmly on the side of Muslims worldwide. Without wishing to seem frivolous, they have a lot of growing up to do. William Saletan writes in Slate: "Dear Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Jews, you’re living in the age of the Internet. Your religion will be mocked, and the mockery will find its way to you. Get over it." Sadly, just as the US embassy workers in Libya, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Susan Rice, and some dissenters in the media fail to realize how their statements align all too well with the views of the violent mobs, the violent mobs similarly don't realize how perfectly their actions fit the narrative intended by those they seek to revenge.

As I noted on Wednesday, Milton's speech on religious censorship in 1644 highlighted a paradox; those seeking to silence others often appeal to texts that themselves warrant censoring. The sooner Muslim demonstrators recognize that they are unwittingly playing out a huge false antithesis, the sooner they can start exercising their minds without one hand strapped behind their backs.

If we are to solve the problem it is absolutely imperative we furnish ourselves with a better understanding of the forces we defy. Tarek Masoud, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard, notes that the protests, as is frequently the case, are "organizedby political actors with agendas to advance". Successive to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the military junta was replaced by an elected government, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Masoud writes:

Though it’s not clear yet who choreographed the current moment of excitement, there are lots of people who stand to benefit from it. First, and most obviously, are other Islamists who wish to usurp the Brotherhood’s throne as the principal defender of Islam. Staging protests against the United States isn’t just a way of casting stones at the Great Satan, it’s also a way of showing up the Brotherhood, of saying that the group is too weak or corrupted by power to do anything to protect Islam’s honor.

The Brotherhood in Egypt, alongside many of its neighboring nations, have a constitutionally Islamic regime. On the one hand, were their leaders to condemn the protests, they appear to undercut their values and court western favor, whereas on the other, by damning the US they invite the strongest opposition.

Lastly, those of us intent on maintaining our freedoms, faced with confronting this problem, ought to stick up for ourselves. No, we won't rewrite our founding principles because you've killed our representatives abroad, terrorized our civilians, and burned our flags. To the contrary, we will stand by them, and we won't relinquish them to our dying breath.