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Violence this week in Libya, Egypt and Yemen has once again brought to the fore inherent tensions between free speech, however offensive, and religious dignity. Some political analysts in Cairo invoke the dictum that the remedy for such speech is more speech. The attacks on US missions in Libya, Egypt and Yemen highlight how easily passions against the nominal ally of those countries can be ignited. An obscure, crudely-made American video mocking the Prophet Muhammed triggered rage and murder. “This is the price of extremism. If those who made the film wanted an extremist reaction, they got it. They succeeded,” said Said Sadek, a professor of Political Sociology at the American University in Cairo. Sadek argues extremists on both sides got what they wanted: for one, proof that Islam is violent, for the other, that America is the enemy of their religion - points scored at the expense of those in the middle, including slain US ambassador Chris Stevens. “The majority of people, Muslims and Christians, are not extremists but they're captives of those extremists on both sides. Each side is provoking something and then the others are responding and they try to push the silent majority into extremism and suspicion and intolerance,” Sadek said. Sadek says it's an anti-Western political agenda easy to deploy. “There is a misunderstanding in Muslim countries [about] the relationship between government and media," he said. "They still believe it's like in autocratic regimes: the government orders the media to do this or to do that. President Obama did not order that movie about Islam is made. In fact, he is being accused in America that he is pro-Muslim.” | 
