<p>About four months ago a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, posted a series of cartoons about Islam and Mohammed. By now the Arab World seems to have noticed them, and suddenly decided to boycot Denmark for it. Export of Danish products has declined considerably, and a Danish supermarket has been attacked by an angry mob. In Palestine the reaction was, as allways, more violent: the Al-Aqsa brigade stormed an EU-office in Gaza and threatened all Danes to leave the country.</p>
<p>Its because of such discimination (as illustrated in the link) that I dont always blame Islamic extremists for what they do.</p>
<p>Discrimination? I see a handful of sophomoric political cartoons. I saw many similar cartoons portraying the Judeo-Christian Deity in American papers during the recent Intelligent Design flap. Now, anent your ultimate statement–if Christian extremists had taken actions similar to those you describe above (which they didn’t), would you have been similarly understanding as to their feelings?</p>
<p>I was referring to the Intelligent Design brouhaha, cartoons depicting the Deity, and Christian response–in juxtaposition to the response by Muslim extremists to a similar provocation. But OK, OP–do you support/understand abortion clinic bombings?</p>
<p>They published cartoons bashing Mohammed as a homosexual and simply as a moronic person. I have yet to see such cartoons over Moses and Jesus Christ. Mohammed is the most valued person in Islam, if you didnt realize that, I am assuming you are underestimating the value the Muslims put on this person</p>
<p>As to your question: I fail to see how abotion clinic bombing is analogous to this incident.</p>
<p>No one has bothered to mention how totally offensive this negative ignorant response to the cartoons can be to the people in Denmark…and what little wheels are turning in their viking brains. Let’s boycott an entire nation because of some cartoons printed in their paper. This reminds me of the bully who used to wait for me at the bottom of the hill when I was a little girl. I can’t remember how I got rid of him, but he was a paper tiger in the end.</p>
<p>Bashing Mohammed is one of the worst things one can do in Islam, I think the response was totally natural. According to the first pillar of Islam:</p>
<p>“There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”</p>
<p>My point is that those cartoons were a big mistake, and the cartoonists should have though about the consequences. Indeed they underestimated the importance of Muhammed in the second largest religion in the world.</p>
<p>There should have been no consequences beyond a drop in circulation brought on by boredom.</p>
<p>Very testy, if you ask me. Much worse was said to the Prophet’s face in his own day, but of course he had an otherworldly maturity not evinced in these knuckle-head malcontents.
You need to expand your horizons…it’s been done…a lot. </p>
<p>OnThousandFists, the cartoonist and his family will probably be dragged from their home, beaten, burned, and beheaded. Of course, they probably deserve it - how dare they exercise free speech! What ignorance!</p>
<p>Last year a comic strip in The Daily Dartmouth ran a series very similar to the cartoons linked in the OP–sophomoric, occasionally funny, if disrepesctful renderings of Jesus. I can’t remember the details now, but at least one edition had Him smoking a joint. It raised some hackles, but no mob action, beatings, murders, or even boycotts. Just some op-ed pieces–the mark of a reasonably secure and mature society.</p>
<p>The arab world has much bigger problems to worry about than cartoons, and I don’t see how stopping buying feta cheese is going to accomplish anything.</p>
<p>Has anyone noticed muslims are so easily offended and readily call for jihad on just about anything ? I heard someone comment the ultimate expression of faith for a muslim is to raise jihad in his/her lifetime.</p>
<p>1KFists, there’s this little idea called “freedom of expression” that the Islamic world would do well to absorb. Not that it’s not sometimes under siege in this country.</p>
<p>The West had its moment of illumination at the exhausted end of the Thirty Years War, wherein the participants finally concluded of each other, “You may be a heretic destined to Hell but we can’t go on fighting like this and we will therefore do business with you, live side by side with you, and let God sort out the mess later.” Which more or less set the stage for the Enlightenment. </p>
<p>Islam has been relatively static, still stuck mainly in its Dark Ages, waiting for a combined Renaissance/Reformation. Large parts of the Islamic world are as grudging as the areas controlled by the early Catholic Church were with respect to innovation, theological or social.</p>