Multiculturalism 101

The Newsweek blowup could be worse than Abu Ghraib. The reasons why are taught by the doctrine of multiculturalism.

Imagine a culture with religion at it's core. The notion will seem peculiar and even backwards to people with a secular mindset. As offensive as the electrodes and kitty piles were, the prison abuse was ultimately a gross assault on human dignity. The Quran in the toilet is an even greater desecration because unlike the media and some portions of America, many Muslims put a high value on the divine.

And since these nations were very recently totalitarian states (or they still are) the media was (or is) directly controlled by the government. The people are accustomed to this, and very likely suspect that things work that way everywhere - a key teaching of multiculturalism.

Had Abu Ghraib taken place in Syria or Egypt for example, the immediate response would have been that the pictures were forgeries, the result of a plant by some foreign intelligence agency. When people in Islamic countries see the U.S. president, the congress, or the Secretaries of Defense and State apologizing for the prison abuse repeatedly in public - I think this may seem simply very strange, like some weird American mix up.

Given that context, when Newsweek comes along and offers a retraction it's meaningless. This situation much more closely jibes with what they assume to be the case about media and government. To them, the correction made afterwards is simply a sign of the U.S. government putting together a coverup. And since the countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan are already on the verge of explosion - owing to fundamentalist minorities that won't go quietly in to the night - news like this is like a match in a tinderbox.

It's already happening.