Leilouta and the Cartoons of the Prophet

Leilouta: January 2006

Just started reading Leilouta's blog, and I really like that she is not afraid to express an opinion that goes against the popular opinion of other's with her shared background.

This particular post was about the Danish cartoons. One thing I noticed when living in the Middle East was that it can be pretty hard to gain perspective once you've lived there for a while, no less your entire life. The government lies to the people (see Egypt for a good example). The people's distrust of the government grows. They begin to believe that many political items are conspiracies. When something goes amuck (an explosion, train accident, loss of electrical power) the public is quick to assume that there is a conspiracy. Rumours spread quickly. The general public hears these rumours and eagerly accepts those rumours as fact. The content of those cartoons, though offensive just for depicting the Prophet, was distorted, and then spread deliberately like a wildfire. A dear friend of mine who is Egyptian (well-educated, I might add) refused to believe me when I said the same paper ran cartoons in the past depicting Jesus on the cross with dollars stuffed in his eye sockets. She also did not believe, despite the fact that I saw it myself, a cartoon depicting the Star of David with a fuse on it. I think the eagerness to accept and believe certain rumours is because it fuels one's perspective and one's distrust (not that there isn't a reason for the distrust). See my previous post about e-mail forwards for more on that.