Monday I reported that an Al Qaeda cleric has called for the death of Molly Norris, the woman who prompted the Everybody Draw Mohammad Day movement. The story in the New York Post mentioned there were eight other individuals also cited in the edict. Foxnews.com is reporting that the woman who created the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” on Facebook is one of those eight other individuals. Her name is not being released by the media at the woman’s request.
The Canadian woman told FoxNews.com that she created her page as a way for Facebook users to discuss Islam “openly and honestly” — and that she has lost most of her anger following her initial outrage.
“I was upset at first, but I’m not too upset anymore,” she said. “I kind of got tired of it.”
She said she now realizes her online actions may have put her in jeopardy. Following the recommendation of Canadian authorities, she said she has altered her routines and will consider changing her phone number.
“I have no way of knowing what might happen to me,” she said.
Lucky for Molly, the media and bloggers used her name a zillion times during the past few months. It seems like the effectiveness of this idea relied on the fact that you can’t attack hundreds of cartoonists. Did these media writers really not understand they might as well have given Molly’s phone number and address to Muslim extremists?
This may sound horrible, but who actually didn’t see this coming?
I understand that a lot of people seem to think that this was necessary for free speech and freedom and so on, but what a lot of Americans don’t seem to understand is that other countries do not place as much emphasis on, or even treat the idea of free speech the same way. Even Canada’s free speech has exceptions that make it vastly different from America’s.
I know a lot of people thought that they were doing something important, or fighting for freedom, or whatever, but all that really happened was that:
1) Some death threats were made that could have been avoided
2) A lot of people were outright offended– imagine what would happen if someone decided that it was ‘everyone draw Jesus (insert something sexual and also gay here that I can’t describe for fear of violating the rules here) day’ and decided to say ‘hey, free speech! nothing you can do!’–the bible belt would crapping itself, and whoever started it would probably get their fair share of death threats. For someone reason, a lot of Americans are totally cool with dishing it out, but can’t take it when it’s done to them.
and
3) Facebook was banned in Pakistan, indefinitely. Yeah, imagine if you’re some regular guy who uses facebook to talk to family and friends and share pictures, and then suddenly your government decided no facebook for everyone, forever, because someone made a facebook group that was extremely insulting to pretty much everyone in Pakistan.
=/