In this case, I actually hadn’t heard about the false flag conspiracy theories. I was thinking about the less extreme tendency of the foreign press to see the occurrence of blasphemy as being secretly orchestrated by Western governments, who them deny involvement and claim that they are just supporting the spontaneous actions of their citizens. My theory is that this will seem more plausible to people living in areas with more state control over the press.
For example, there was an American preacher who burned some Korans. The view from within the United States was this man was a low-status Southern Evangelical stereotype, a headache to the government, and a visible annoyance to the high-status people who really do love insulting Islam but were somehow stuck defending this guy instead of some more charismatic blasphemer. In the Islamic press, this guy was a practically a CIA agent/preacher of the Official American Church acting on Presidential orders, probably working with Israel to further some foreign policy aim. Because if he really was a headache to the government, why wasn’t he already in jail?
I agree and would like to add that my parents who lived in the USSR tell me that there many “spontaneous actions of by the citizens” were in fact orchestrated by the government. This was largely for the benefit of the western press who was perfectly willing to believe this (after all genuinely spontaneous actions happen in their countries all the time). And conversely someone living in a country that does this will be less inclined to believe in spontaneous citizen actions.
I can’t add much to the other comments.
In this case, I actually hadn’t heard about the false flag conspiracy theories. I was thinking about the less extreme tendency of the foreign press to see the occurrence of blasphemy as being secretly orchestrated by Western governments, who them deny involvement and claim that they are just supporting the spontaneous actions of their citizens. My theory is that this will seem more plausible to people living in areas with more state control over the press.
For example, there was an American preacher who burned some Korans. The view from within the United States was this man was a low-status Southern Evangelical stereotype, a headache to the government, and a visible annoyance to the high-status people who really do love insulting Islam but were somehow stuck defending this guy instead of some more charismatic blasphemer. In the Islamic press, this guy was a practically a CIA agent/preacher of the Official American Church acting on Presidential orders, probably working with Israel to further some foreign policy aim. Because if he really was a headache to the government, why wasn’t he already in jail?
I agree and would like to add that my parents who lived in the USSR tell me that there many “spontaneous actions of by the citizens” were in fact orchestrated by the government. This was largely for the benefit of the western press who was perfectly willing to believe this (after all genuinely spontaneous actions happen in their countries all the time). And conversely someone living in a country that does this will be less inclined to believe in spontaneous citizen actions.