The no-longer-so-recent brouhaha over some cartoons shows no sign of letting up. If anything, it is spreading. What started off as an event that was pretty insignificant was used by rabble rousers to foment unrest.
In Libya, the police cracked down on the rowdy mob who burned down the Italian consulate, killing several. But the police was later disciplined for engaging in acts “beyond the the duties of the police”. Uh what is the duty of the police? It’s not the police who needed disciplining, it’s the mob!
In Nigeria, mobs burned churches and beating up people, often to death. I wonder, will we be seeing protests from the rest of the world because of these burnings and beatings? Somehow I don’t think so. The rest of the world is just too polite, civilized, and tolerant for burnings, beatings, heck even ethnocide.
All this unrest only brings wider attention to the issue which is taken as an opportunity by more rabble rousers to forment even more unrest. And the vicious cycle goes on. Pretty soon, the original issue would be forgotten and what will be left will be the animosity, a fuse to a bomb just waiting to be lit. And guess who will be lighting it? Definitely not the polite, civilized, and tolerant.