Pakistan: Citizens Offended by Words Burn Their Own House Down

As someone who does not live in Pakistan, I consistently enjoy watching developments within its borders. I assume, however, that for people living in the country the daily idiocy isn’t that entertaining. Decades of tragic and nonsensical developments amongst their midst, however, have taught Pakistanis to laugh-off just about everything and this helps them survive the daily grind that most people would call living in Pakistan.

The one thing Pakistanis cannot laugh off is anything related to Muhammad, Islam’s prophet and someone whom every Muslim holds in very high regard. This is what makes Muhammad such an easy target for those who want to whip up trouble in the Muslim world. A few weeks ago, around the time the amateurish clip about Muhammad became a YouTube sensation, I had a conversation with a Muslim friend of mine about his community’s reaction to the video. He was seething over the clip and wanted Muslims around the world to loudly protest against YouTube, the United States, and the clip-makers. I proposed that since the clip-makers wanted to cause protests within the Muslim world, wouldn’t it make more sense to protest by not protesting. Sort of like a hot chick who gets hollered at while walking down the street but doesn’t react because nothing she does would stop the hollering anyway. (Islam is the hot chick here by the way since, in terms of religions, it’s young enough to still have its looks but old enough to know what to do with them.)

As always, the Muslim community did not follow my advice and began protesting against this clip. In the process they killed a US ambassador and many other innocent civilians, destroyed millions of dollars of their own property, and showed the global community that if anyone says disparaging things against Muhammad, Muslims will cut their own throats. The Muslim community has become like that person who threatens to commit suicide if others don’t do what he/she wants – the only problem is that the others want him/her to commit suicide so they just sit back in their lawn chairs, roll a fattie, and enjoy the show.