[update below]
Le Monde’s Washington correspondent has a blog entry on that crazy, Islam-hating pastor in Florida, who wanted to publicly burn a Quran last year. He finally did so two weeks ago—over a barbecue—, so one learns (I was no doubt too distracted by Fukushima, Libya, and the French cantonal elections that day), prompting enraged Afghans in Mazar-e Sharif to invade the UN compound there and murder seven employees. The title of the Le Monde blog entry is “Massacrés à cause d’un pasteur de Floride” (Massacred due to a Florida pastor). This is insane. The pastor may have a twisted mind and be a bigot, idiot, son-of-a-bitch and anything else you want to call him, but those responsible for the massacre were the ones who committed it! It’s not like they were remote-controlled half way around the world by some wanker in Gainesville, Fla.! Whatever happened to human agency?
UPDATE: Good take by Glenn Greenwald. We’re on the same page.
[…] somehow provoked, I insisted that they were responsible for their actions, that they had agency. Here’s the post. It is likewise for those in Benghazi and Cairo. They have agency, dammit. I repeat: they have […]