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Thursday, February 9, 2006 12:00 AM

The Moroccan street: No to violence, no to Western disrespect

From taxi drivers to professors, Moroccans weigh in on the cartoon controversy.

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  • Thursday, February 9, 2006 12:46 PM

    Who Benefits from Our Turmoil

    I apologize ahead of time if this is over some people's head or comes across as too offbase to be accurate.

    But this situation really reminds me of the situation in the mid to late 90's with the supposed "East Coast West Coast" beef in the rap industry. I remember that nothing had actually had "happened" to start or legitimize the feud, a part from a couple of songs. However, there were numerous people capitalistic and opportunistic enough to turn this into a full scale battle. Soon enough, there were reports on MTV and covers on Rolling Stone and Source detailing the supposed East West feud. People profited from the facade, but they weren't the artists or people on the front line, but the record executives and magazine publishers. But as the people who profited from this situation perpetuated it to almost an absurd level, the facade evolved into reality, and both Tupac and Notorious BIG would end up murdered less than one year apart from one another.

    A quote from this article reinforces this metaphor: "I hope this type of incident may help people reconsider who think there is no war of civilizations," Ksikes continues. "It has dramatized what could become a reality, if more and more extremists determine the political agenda." It seems that he is aware that extremists benefit from this kind of situation, yet unaware that they may be the one's to provoke, promote, and perpetuate the 'war of civilizations' he seems to think is evident. The people who are benefiting from a dramatized clash are also the one's that are pushing it. Clerics and hard-liners in the Middle East seeking to gain or maintain power, and military and media entities that sell Americans and the West an image of suicide bombings and a militant religion.

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