For those of you who have any doubt that most of the intense rioting "protesting" that goes on in the Islamic world is done purely for the sake of the media, I recommend taking a look at the foreground of this picture.(I'd post it directly, but I still have a touch of the jitters.)
What the heck—I've cropped the relevant content from the photograph. Click here for the full frame.
Supporters of Jamat-e-Islami party chant slogans during a protest in Karachi March 14, 2008. Protesters in Pakistan are demanding for ties with Denmark to be severed over the republication of one of several cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that led to violence in Muslim countries two years ago. REUTERS/Athar Hussain (PAKISTAN)
Supporters of Jamat-e-Islami party chant slogans during a protest in Karachi March 14, 2008. Protesters in Pakistan are demanding for ties with Denmark to be severed over the republication of one of several cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that led to violence in Muslim countries two years ago. REUTERS/Athar Hussain (PAKISTAN)
If the press weren't present in this picture, do you think the locals would still feel so compelled to march around in the streets day after day?
This does serve as a fine example of what Christopher Hitchens meant when he recommended that photographers take several steps back from the shot, incidentally.
Update: As I've pointed out before, Friday protests usually have a very specific origin.
Can you imagine a world in which your local Presbyterian pastor whips his congregation up into a carefully-orchestrated fury right after Sunday's morning church service?
And your local media studiously ignores the fact that the fury is, in fact, quite orchestrated?
Update: A carefully-orchestrated, very flammable protest?
Tags: athar hussain REUTERS #YourProtestStinks
Glad to know the AP continues to not be bound by morality or legal-based photojournalism. I mean, if they were bound by the silly antiquated notion of ethics, then we would never see images from groups that even zionist supporting nations claim are terrorists.
Am glad the AP is wiser than that.