fucktoyprincess
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank
The problem you and many have is that you are not dealing with a "group of extremists" who hate America and the American way of life.
You are dealing with a society of largely poor, uneducated, and underprivileged people who are whipped into a frenzy to hate a false idea of what America (and the western world in general) represent for them. Much like this "film" they are upset over, it uses convenient partial truths and outright fallacies to present a message depicting something ugly.
Why is that our problem? Because we continue to go over there and interfere in the affairs of the region. Our actions, for good for for ill, give credence to many of the arguments the Muslim extremists use to manipulate the general public.
It's not unlike the KKK here in America. Do you agree with them? Do you feel they represent every Christian person the world over? I'd hope not, but it's the same thing many here and elsewhere do. They attribute the work of a small number of extremists to the entire Muslim world.
The radical Muslims are the KKK of the Middle East, and they live in a society that they can manipulate easily, they use faith, politics, and doctrine to incite people who may not agree with them ideologically to still go along with them in bursts of violence. It's easier to get the "everyman" to work themselves into a frenzy when you can actually show them things attacking and insulting their core beliefs.
They use that and many other things to manipulate people that largely have no other real means of information... after all, it's much easier to blame someone else for your misfortunes than to be accountable on your own... that is just as true here in the USA as it is in the Middle East.
So how do you deal with it? The more violence and racism you show towards the group as a whole, the more you "prove" how correct the extremists are. You want freedom of speech? That's fine, however you (figurative you) knows that not everyone does. This filmmaker in specific knows what type of reaction such commentary would likely spark... especially on the anniversary of Sept 11, in which there's a great deal of tensions already.
Would you walk into the middle of Harlem dressed as a KKK Grand Wizard, start spouting off about how inferior black people are and how they should all be killed?
Would you travel to Israel in full Nazi regalia and start shouting how Hitler was right?
If you did either of those things, do you honestly expect that your actions would not be likely incite violence?
You can't have freedom of speech and yet willfully ignore the consequences. If you insult someone to their face, you can't rely on free speech to stop them from kicking your ass.
Knowing the likely/inevitable outcome of something you do will be dangerous and negative and still doing it anyways is at best careless, and at worst hateful. We as a society should be better than that. (I know we aren't, but it would be nice if we at least pretended)
You can't beat ignorance with more ignorance.
Again, it is the crying out fire in a crowded theatre issue. You might be interested in knowing that Steve Klein, who is a promoter of the film, is already on the watchlist of the Southern Poverty Law Center as being part of hate groups in the U.S. This is no regular film promoter - the film was specifically made to be hateful and falls into the types of things you mention in your post. Klein is on record as saying that he is willing to die for his beliefs - in other words, he is not complaining that people are now after him, but it is undeniable that he is a promoter of hate.
http://www.dailycamera.com/nation-world-news/ci_21540538/anti-muslim-movie-promoter-steve-klein-is-father
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RE: Some insight into the Arab riots. - 
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