Those bloody cartoons.

[gridlore]

Excellent piece on the whole Danish Muhammad cartoons mess from the SFGate.

As for me, I've tried to be a good, understanding person. I've actually read the Koran (in translation), and have studied the history of the religion and culture. But the current level of insanity in Islam is pushing me into the "nuke Mecca" camp. The problem is that the bulk of the world's Muslims, while not radicals, refuse to do anything to stop the excesses of the extremists. Hell, from what I've seen, there seems to be almost an acceptance of the actions of terrorists and rabid mullahs in some quarters.

The base intolerance of the extremists pisses me off. I am not Muslim. If I decide to draw the Prophet, I have no bar to doing so. I am not an observant Jew, so I can eat pepperoni pizza with glee. Nor am I Catholic, so I am free to use birth control, etc.. The religious fanatics of the world are going to have to learn that they cannot impose their religious laws on others.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to what destroying the center of the religion for the majority of Moslems who're not violent is going to acomplish.

It's not like I'm not frustrated or disgusted with some of the Islamic responses, but I'm not connecting with any justification for genocide, and the equivilant of nuking the Vatican.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Nothing other than bloody fucking vengence. Which sometimes makes a twisted sort of sense.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

It's what the worst of them would do if they were in control.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

And sometimes you fight fire with fire.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

It certainly guarantees that the percentage of peaceful Muslims will decrease to a small minority, in stead of a majority.

I'm not sure how that's supposed to help anything.

[isomeme.livejournal.com]

Amen! Oddly, enough, as a Thelemite, I recognize explicitly that Man has the right to draw as he will. (http://oto-usa.org/l77.html) So there. :)

[odanu.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you've written. That said, though, a simple apology from the Danish government would have prevented a lot of this. Instead, there seems to be an element of glee in "poking the bear" to see what "those crazy Muslims will do". Grrrr. A pox on both their houses.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I fail to see where the Danish government had anything to apologize for. They didn't publish the cartoons, a newspaper did. Perfectly legal.

There is no right not to be insulted. And what is pissing me off is the violence of the response.

[(Anonymous)]

What, exactly, would the Danish government have to apologize for? Not censoring the right-wingers?

Curiously, nobody else seems to see that there are multiple issues here

[capplor.livejournal.com]

One is basic hate speach. It doesn't justify the violence, but some of the depicted cartoons ARE offensive. Protests in the form of boycotts & burning flags are perfectly acceptable in response to such. And a newpaper that prints hate-speach ought to be embarassed, at a minimum.

The issue you point out is true. If we tried to be ruled by the "you can'ts" of every other religion in the world, we'd be totally non-functional. There is moderation on the subject, though. For example, although I do not agree with the concept of veiling women, if I were going into a predominantly Muslim area, or into a religious service, I would probably don a cover as respect to others' sensibilities.

"Nuke 'em because they haven't tossed the scoundrels out"? I hope I'm not going to be held accountable for the continued existance in power of W. and Pat Robertson. I did the best I could about the former, though I'll admit I keep hopping the latter will just go away.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the bulk of the world's Christians, while not radicals, refuse to do anything to stop the excesses of the extremists.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Yup. Same with Jews, Hindus, and followers of Fred, God of Morning Breath.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

This is definitely a political issue. For one thing, the cartoons were published to not much comment until some right-wing Christian papers began reprinting them -- "poking the bear" as someone phrased it. The Egyptian Foreign Minister has also been stirring the pot. It suits those doing the stirring to have this as an issue.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

This blog (http://muttawa.blogspot.com/2006/02/memo.html) lays the blame elsewhere (although with the same general conclusion).

He's got some interesting stuff in later posts, too.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

The BBC has a timeline here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4688602.stm).

From the BBC accounts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4686536.stm), it looks like at least some of the fuss was caused by a delegation of Danish Muslims who visited the Middle East in November. Other news sources (sorry, still hunting links) point out that the papers that reprinted the cartoons are right-wing Christian (some said fundamentalist) papers with a known anti-Muslim stance and a propensity for stirring up trouble.

Which is why I said trouble was being stirred up by both sides.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for US Muslims, but Muslim leaders here in the UK are doing plenty. And nuking anything at all? Way to pass on our mess to future generations to clean up.