Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF

“About a hundred men, some of whom threw Molotov cocktails, lay siege to the home of Nabil Karoui, the head of the private television station Nessma late on Friday, the station reported in its evening news bulletin. Karoui’s family had only just escaped, the news presenter said…….About 20 of the protesters had managed to get inside. This was the most serious incident yet in an escalating series of protests against the station’s broadcast of “Persepolis” on October 7. The globally acclaimed animated film on Iran’s 1979 revolution offended many Muslims because it depicts an image of God as an old, bearded man. All depictions of God are forbidden by Islam. Earlier on Friday, police fired tear gas at some demonstrators as some of the protests against the station degenerated. The main demonstration began peacefully at a central Tunis mosque after Friday prayers, with men and women chanting slogans against Nessma. Thousands of people, many of them Salafist Muslims, were present……………..”

One unfortunate result of the Arab uprisings is that the Salafi Wahhabis, who mostly remained on the sideline at the beginning, are taking some advantage. They are trying to impose their fundamentalist ideology on others. In Egypt they had alreday gained much influence under the Mubarak-Saudi alliance, even gained influence over al-Azhar. Now they are trying to impose their will on Tunisia, possibly one of the most secular of Arab states.

Cheers
mhg


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