The publishing of anti-Muslim cartoons in a French magazine has more in common with the publication of anti-Jewish cartoons in 1920’s and 1930’s Germany than it does with a defence of freedom of speech and expression.

Here, freedom of speech and expression are used as codes for the freedom to attack the oppressed. Freedom of speech as it is meant in this sense largely only works in one direction, from top to bottom, from boss to worker, from occupier to occupied or from oppressor to oppressed. So for instance, when Jeremy Clarkson said on live television that public sector strikers should be taken out and shot, it was taken by commentators in the media as a joke and a laugh; but if someone on live TV said that bosses should be taken out and shot as a joke in the spirit of Clarkson’s, then it would be considered incitement to hatred.

In the same vain Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published 12 anti-Muslim cartoons in 2005, balked at the idea of publishing similar cartoons of Jesus Christ on the grounds that they would be hugely offensive. This illuminates a lot of the hypocrisy in relation to these cartoons, because if a cartoon was published displaying someone stamping on the torah for instance it would immediately and quite rightly be condemned as racist and anti-Semitic. For all their talk of freedom of speech and expression Jyllands-Posten were only interested in one thing; the freedom to insult Muslims. So in that sense the freedom of speech only worked in one direction, from oppressor to oppressed.

The riots, protests and the attacks on US embassies that have swept the Middle East in response to the publication on the internet of, what the protesters consider to be, an anti-Muslim trailer; are presented by the media as something unique to Islam and that no other religion in the world would react in that manner. It is said that other religions are often made fun of, in various ways and the reaction is different. But really comparing the ridiculing of say, Christianity in the West by a comedian like the late Dermot Morgan for example (who directed his comedy upwards at the establishment) with the publishing of cartoons insulting to Muslims in France, a country that used to occupy countries in the Middle East and that has just implemented racist laws directed specifically at Muslims, is comparing unlike with unlike.

A proper comparison would be comparing the publication of these cartoons with the publication of cartoons in Britain that insult Catholicism before the time of Catholic emancipation when Britain occupied all of Ireland and when laws existed that were specifically targeted at Catholics, back then those cartoons would have been seen as insulting by Irish people and the cartoons would have been understood as been directed by them against us.

The notion that there is something unique and intolerant about Islam and Arabs in general just isn’t true either. First of all, the violence is a symptom of the rage they feel, not only at the insult to their religion but at the huge injustices caused by the US and Western Imperialism in the region, the decades long support for Israel against the Palestinians, the brutal invasion of Iraq that killed over a million people, the ruination of Afghanistan and the support for various dictators across the region.

The rioting and attacks on embassies isn’t unique to Arabs or Muslims either, there are many examples of occupied or oppressed people rioting and attacking embassies. In 2008 Tibetan people rioted when a number of Monks were arrested by Chinese forces, protestors attacked Chinese embassies around the world and rioters killed Chinese officials and Chinese policemen, and these rioters were Buddhists, supposedly a more peaceful and tolerant religion than Islam.

The fact is that the Tibetan rioting was caused by the occupation of that country by China, even though the trigger event may have been the arrest of the Monks. What is arguably a religious cause went on to have a political expression when years of bent up rage and humiliation were released all at once. The reason why I raise this example is because most people support or feel great sympathy for the cause of the people of Tibet and most people would understand that the explosions of rage are primarily reactions against the occupation of that country by China and that there is a religious element to the struggle because of the restrictions on Buddhism imposed by China on Tibet, the same is more true of the middle east.

The Middle-East is far more valuable to Western nations and its corporations than Tibet is to China because the Middle-East happens to be the most oil rich region in the world and as a result of this the USA and other nations have intervened in the affairs of the Middle-East, either through direct invasion; Iraq and Afghanistan, or through proxy; mainly expressed through support for Israel, but also through support for dictatorships like Saudi-Arabia or Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, the effect of this intervention has been to block the democratic wishes of the people of the Middle East while at the same time leaving a trail of death and destruction across the region.

Anti-Imperialist writers like Franz Fanon have described, not just the rage and the sense of injustice that victims of imperialism feel, but the daily humiliation that they feel. Iraqis are commonly referred to as Hajis or sand-niggers by American soldiers, Palestinians are constantly stopped and harassed at Israeli checkpoints and US soldiers desecrate the Koran in front of Afghanis; all of this designed to humiliate. The publishing of this video on you-tube(which Google refused to take down) is the straw that broke the camel’s back for many Muslims and it is no coincidence that US embassies have borne the brunt of their rage.