doubt it, but let's hope some good comes from all of this.

i don't think i ever read about the leadup to tiananmen square before. i'll have to ask my friend whose mom was a paramedic there on the day of the protest what her mom remembers re: the cause.

Well, my personal thesis is that the entire brouhaha is the work of the patchwork of Salafiste seperatists (enabled in Syria, for example, by the government - I should think Beiruit was an example of Syrian meddling as well and you know I am not inclined to overdone paranioa there) deliberately trying to create alientation between Muslims and the West.

So, as to the last line, is a set of networks going to develop, I would say it is there and responsible for the nonsense (esp. the violence).

Will bigger and better come from it? I hope not, the networks likely represent the worst Jihadi Salafiste extremists and I don't particularly care to see them pull in more people. They probably will, however, given the juvenile Western response in some quarters, to throw fire on the even more juvenile state in MENA.

The only problem I see with this analysis is that the people actually protesting against the cartoons are conservative reactionaries, not liberal students. If it happened in Iran, I may hold out some hope.... but we've got some members of religious parties in Pakistan (who protest when someone farts, frankly), militants in Palestine, some nutters in Indonesia, the tightly controlled Syrian faction, and some Lebanese people. If they were students, maybe there could be more calls for freedom, but these are your standard "we take offence at anything we don't like" crowd.

Only Iran has a glorious tradition of students regularly going against repressive govt tactics AFAIK.

According to one report, the mob gathering in Syria was well organized, with several groups arriving at the same time, coordinated by cell phone. That level of organization would have to come from an existing network, which makes it one of the usual suspects, which are unlikely to let this develop in the direction of a general democracy movement (at least in that area).

I suppose there's an off-chance that having that many people together might have resulted in a chance meeting, a productive conversation, looser tongues. Or that this triggers a move towards greater public involvement, that years later snowballs into something productive. Maybe in areas of the Middle East where the protests were largely peaceful, something might develop, but you'd have to contend with the pre-existing networks there too.

I am unsure if the fact that the current provocateurs are illiberal necessarily may control where it all will go, which is why I cited the China example, it was hardly liberal students who chanted kill the black devils.

I think I'll get to it in another entry as it hits on a Grander Theme -- that political participation is more about mechanics than ideology. I am reading elsewhere less of organized mobs than of relatively ordinary persons passing along emails, expressing sincere outrage, inquiring into products to boycott, etc.

Meanwhile, for real long MENA perspective, a blast from ancient Turkey (Ephesus), Christianity, and old-time Western kuffar ("Diana Akbar!") on an episode of self-interested manipulated warpath because of blasphemy, and a plea for due process. Plus ca change:

[Acts ch. 19:] For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver temples for [the Goddess] Diana, brought no small gain to the craftsmen . . . .

"Sirs, you know that our gain is by this trade; And you see and hear, that this Paul by persuasion hath drawn away a great multitude, not only of Ephesus, but almost of all Asia, saying: 'They are not gods which are made by hands'. . . our craft is in danger to be set at nought, but also the temple of great Diana shall be reputed for nothing. . . ."

Having heard these things, they were full of anger . . .and the whole city was filled with confusion . . . .All with one voice, for the space of about two hours, cried out: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"

And when the town clerk had appeased the multitudes, he said: "Ye men of Ephesus. . . if Demetrius and the craftsmen that are with him, have a matter against any man, the courts of justice are open, and there are proconsuls: let them accuse one another. And if you inquire after any other matter, it may be decided in a lawful assembly."

Mira Sorvino wrote a thesis about the Nanjing riots? Wow.