In the last few days we have seen violent demonstrations in the world from Nigeria to Cairo to Indonesia to even Australia. Some are thinking this is representative of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. It is not.

The population of Egypt is about 85 million. There were maybe a few thousand involved in the demonstrations. The population of Libya is about 6 million. Maybe a few hundred were involved in the brutal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. There are 26 million Yemenis. A few hundred came out to demonstrate violently. I could go down the entire list from Morocco, to Jordan, to the Palestinian Territories, to Indonesia, to Malaysia and more. The tiny percentages of the populations involved still hold.

Were many people who were quiet and not seen while in their homes just taking care of the lives of their families and friends upset by the film? Of course they were. However, they did not hit the street – this time.

It seems that many of the people involved were extremists belonging to groups like the Salafis, Al Qaeda, Ansar Al Sharia, and the like. These groups have small followings relative to the entire populations of the countries they claim to represent. By the way, they do not represent these countries. They represent themselves only.

That is one of the reasons they were so vehement. The actions of these groups could be seen more as power plays than as reactions to a film. These groups are some of the squeaky wheels of the Muslim world. They are violent, mostly quite ill-educated (why else would many in Yemen riot without even seeing the film), and often are from the lower rungs of these societies.

In Egypt the Ultras got involved, but this has little to do with the film. It has a lot to do with payback to the security services and others who they see as having mistreated them and their friends over so many years. The fact that the Ultras turned on the Interior Ministry offices after they tired from attacking the area of the U.S. Embassy says a lot.

There seems to have been many other groups involved in the rioting worldwide who also had political or even economic goals well beyond reacting to the film.

Indeed, many of the people involved with these demonstrations have numerous grievances and objectives, both real and imagined. In many of these countries unemployment is vast. Many of the younger people involved are just plain hopeless and frustrated, and this gave the recruiters to the extremists groups easy pickings over the last few months, particularly in North Africa.

Some of the more violent extremists involved might even have serious psychological problems. Yet other groups could have been fueled by their venal leadership with drugs, such as hashish, Tramadol (an anti-anxiety drug that can dull natural fears as well), and more.

Still others are angry because they feel as if the “West”, and especially the U.S., has been messing with them for a very long time. Within the thousands involved, who are part of the Muslim world of 1.5 billion, it is likely that one could find thousands of different reasons why they were involved. Some could just be troublemakers on the rise who were paid to do these horrible things. Others are possibly just violent, and killing, maiming or causing mayhem is just their thing. Many were likely genuinely upset and had no other way to vent this grievancce. Then there are others who see these events as their ticket to political power. There may be others whose reasoning may become clearer as time passes.

Trying to explain these events by looking at just one cause misses a lot of what is going on.

This is not to justify the violence and the killing. There is no legitimacy in the killing of our Ambassador in Libya and his guards – or in the killing and injuring of many others along the way. These were horrible acts that will require proper reactions in the future. Killing a U.S. Ambassador is a very big deal. The U.S. will react in a very strong way when the time is right and the circumstances warrant. Do not think that the short run reactions will be anything near what might be to come.

On the other side of the tyranny of small numbers are the few people who were involved in making this insulting, revolting, bigoted, vicious, and, given the results of their efforts, evil film. The story is still unfolding on these very few people involved. One seems to be an ex-convict who is a known financial fraudster. It also seems that he has, for a very long time, been engaged in the worst kind of hate speech. His partners and associates in this seem to also be long-time participants in the underworld of hate and bigotry in the U.S. and elsewhere. They seem to be another form of extremism that few have seen before.

These wretched people do not represent the United States or its people. This handful of scoundrels does not represent in any way the many millions of Copts in the world.

What this situation points out is that a very few hateful people can leverage their hate on the internet. Evil lurks in the internet, as this situation has shown. Now the question is: what can be done to prevent or at least manage better the next attempt to breed violence with hatred?

Dr. Paul Sullivan is an adjunct professor of Security Studies and Science, Technology and International Affairs at Georgetown University. He teaches classes on global energy and security, energy security in the Middle East, and natural resources and conflict in Africa and the Middle East.

Source: Copyright © 2012 Global Experts, a project of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations