Column: Fine line is drawn when it comes to understanding freedom, rights

We all know that this year’s commemoration of Sept. 11 brought an upswing of protests and violence in the Islamic world.

The spark that lit the recent firestorm is an American-produced film that depicts Mohammad, the final prophet in Islam, in a blasphemous and defamatory way. Many dominantly Islamic countries reacted angrily against the U.S. and the West in general when scenes from this film were posted on YouTube.

The problem is that both the angry Islamic groups and the U.S. have failed to make their position clear to the other side. So, while there has been a great deal of lecturing and even screaming at the other, there have been few attempts to see the crisis from the other side’s point of view.

In other words, we have had plenty of heat, but little light.

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