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I don't think I will ever understand rioters.

FrodoGoofballCoTVFrodoGoofballCoTV
edited 2012-02-24 13:50:37 in Meatspace

Apparently, people in Afghanistan are rioting and ended up killing people because someone found a burned Koran.  Reference.


What makes this really crazy is that I heard U.S. Troops were doing it deliberately because prisoners were allegedly desecrating them by using them to pass notes, and local tribal leaders allegedly told the U.S. troops they should burn them.


I oppose all book burning, especially religious texts and other works considered by some to be of great spiritual value.  But I can't understand why it would drive people to such levels of anger.  And I'm not even sure whether what I don't understand is a phenomena of a religious or political nature, or something more due to human nature in general.  After all, people in other countries riot when their sports team wins, which also makes no sense to me.

Comments

  • SaigyoujiSaigyouji
    But you never had any to begin with.

    Some times riots can be understandable (think Arab Spring, etc.), but it's very much a context thing.

  • InsanityAddictInsanityAddict
    Diet NEET

    Mob mentality, plus the knowledge that the West will never see the demonstrations unless stuff is burned/troops kill protesters. There have been plenty of cases where rioters chant aggressively and burn stuff, only to calm down once the camera crews are leaving.

  • BeeBee

    But I can't understand why it would drive people to such levels of anger.



    This is frankly one of the more understandable ones.  There's already paranoia of encroaching Western cultures trying to wipe out their way of life and enforce our values on them.  US troops burning Korans is like a symbolic confirmation of everything we're saying we're not there to do, because you know the story published to rile people up will conveniently not mention the books were desecrated and the tribal leaders asked for them to be burned.


    The diplomatic solution would have been to turn the books over to their leaders and let them burn it.  Make it clear that their own leadership doesn't condone using the books that way.

  • FrodoGoofballCoTVFrodoGoofballCoTV

    ^


    turn the books over to their leaders


    That certainly would have been a lot smarter.


    a symbolic confirmation of everything we're saying we're not there to do


    OK, that at least makes some sense to me.  It's sort of like the story of a politician who had a bad reputation but he was doing OK until he made one tiny mistake, because in the minds of people that believed the rumors, it seemed to confirm their suspicions.


     

  • WhaleWhale
    Champion of the Whales

    It was pretty dumb for NATO to burn the books though and the reason people are getting shirty is because the Quran contains the literal word of Allah.


     


    Consider this, an Indian PM was shot by her own guards because they were Sikh and she ordered in the troops into the Sikhs most holy place

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