Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Like on our Civil War thread, the issue is like slavery, and it will take both the West and Islamic powers to concede mutual culpability for us all to finally move forward. The West has to stop perpetuating the provoking economic, political, and social policies which fuel this violence and these conflicts, and Islamic powers need to begin to move towards balance and away from violence. Remember, the West for the past 30 years has depended on force of arms, violence, and political corruption to quell and control Islamic violence, and much like during the Vietnam War, this has only further provoked and antagonized the situation. Egypt and Yemen are good examples, and the situations we see of escalating violence and civil destabilizing reveals the the strong-arm policies which those countries had relied upon and which Western powers financially and militarily supported do not work. We cant FORCE folks who disagree with us to negotiate totally by threat, that can often provoke the war further. They have to learn its not worth the fight, but we equally have to better learn when and where to pick a fight, and when to just let bullies vent their hot air. The Islamic thugs are bullies, simply put the WANT us to fight them. They want their own governments to fight them. They are radicals, militants, and gangsters. However decades of fighting them has clearly demonstrated the lack of efficacy in this tit-for-tat and eye-for-an-eye approach. Its an endless cat and mouse game however its not a game at all, its life and death for many people.
So often the analysis is over-simplified to being Islam vs everything else, when in reality it is more than religious sectarianism, it is politics, it is culture, it is economics, and is even logistics and geography! Every Muslim doesn't want war, in fact Jihad in its initial connotations was a spiritual battle fought through prayer! A minority of scumbags, war-criminals, and thugs have hijacked the narrative of Islamic relations with the rest of the world, and it is
silly for us to empower them by believing and perpetuating their myths. Islam is not necessarily about violence. The violence we see occurring isn't really about Islam, just like the violence in Ireland isn't really just about Catholic-Protestants. Saint Anthony was right, but because the world is what is requires us to be even MORE vigilant and guarding ourselves against spreading prejudice or sowing seeds of antagonism by how we speak and act in our communities. This is the premise of the Coptic Bishops statements denouncing the film. We ALL know the film is not the sole cause of the violence, and so as a community we need to work harder together to bridge the gaps, or else the war(s) carry on as ever. ALL wars either end in all out genocide or at the bargaining table. So one way or the other, we all have to learn to negotiate better

stay blessed,
habte selassie