Dear Editor:
I am struggling to understand what is going on in the Middle East. I listened to Hillary Clinton condemn in the strongest terms the amateur video ridiculing the prophet Mohamed. I agree with every word she said. What more do the radicals who are attacking U.S. embassies and consulates want? Don't they understand that freedom of expression is a basic right in the United States and other western countries and that the government couldn't stop the making of such a film even if it wanted to?
I try to imagine the situation in reverse. Some Egyptians make a movie that ridicules and belittles Jesus Christ and fanatical Christians in America, Canada and Europe attack Egyptian embassies and kill an Egyptian ambassador and four embassy staff in protest. Impossible! Absolutely unimaginable!
So what am I missing? What is different? I think that until those questions can be answered, we have no chance of understanding the Muslim world.
I have many Muslim friends and they are all decent, caring, honest, hard working people. So who are these other guys that are causing all the problems? If they are only a small group of extreme fanatics why do they appear to have so much support and why can't the countries in question control them? Is it possible that their view of the world is so at odds with ours that they hate everything about our world and just want to destroy it? If so how do we deal with the situation?
Garth Evans, Burnaby
