Got Ink, Got Bombs, Got Controversy

This passed week was quite busy for me. I had relatives in town, a few dinner engagements and a few late nights at work. Having said that, because as is typical these days, life got in the way of my usual news reading. What little I was able to glean seemed to indicate that nothing was happening in the news except for an attack on the known universe by a pair of political cartoons. One of the cartoons earned a letter of response by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some more annoyed op-eds. The other one seems to have upended the entire Muslim religion, resulting in riots and arrests of editors.

It’s nice to see the tolerant people of Islam on the march showing us just how ridiculous a caricature of Muhammad with bomb in his turban is.

According to the Brussels Journal, ”The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. According to the Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists.

The newspaper published the cartoons when a Danish author complained that he could find no-one to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Jyllands-Posten wondered whether there were more cases of self-censorship regarding Islam in Denmark and asked twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them. Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.”

Apparently, in the Muslim tradition, Muhammad is so weak and his people so easily threatened that even caricatures must be destroyed, as the entire of Islamic faith will be abandoned if somebody makes fun of it. If Christianity were made of the stuff Islam is made of, Bill Maher would have already destroyed it during his first season of Real Time.

So the Muslim expressed their fear and distrust of two-dimensional drawings by protesting in the streets and demonstrating that one should not associate Islam with bombs.

Denmark has been the main target of arson and threats. In Syria, protesters torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies. Iran recalled its ambassador to Denmark, following the example of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Lebanon's Interior Minister resigned after protesters burnt the Danish consulate. Thousands protested in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Indonesia, protesters attacked the building housing the Danish embassy. Threats against Europeans and their diplomats spread around the Muslim world.

All sarcasm aside, if there is one element of the Islamic world that seems to always show itself at times like this, it’s that the majority of them appear to be spoiled brats with a tremendous propensity for throwing tantrums. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and it’s not the first time they collectively cried about it, blew something up and then demanded an apology. The drug addled children I work with would know a lot about this behavior could teach the Muslims a thing or two about why throwing temper tantrums ultimately gets you no where.

Of course the other issue is that they not only want to kill and maim when their beloved Muhammad gets assaulted by ink and pen, but then they respond in kind with their own artwork that completely misses the point of the argument, much like a child.

According to Haaretz, “As the case spiraled from outrage to arson this week, a surreal test case presented itself. The Arab European League, a Dutch-Belgian Islamic political group, posted a cartoon on its Website portraying Anne Frank, the best-known Dutch victim of the Nazi Holocaust, in bed with Adolf Hitler. A second cartoon questioned whether the Holocaust had actually taken place.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, the party's founder and best-known figure, defended the action on Dutch television, again arguing on the basis of a double standard.

"Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not religious sacred cows," he said.

This might well be the time to point out that a double standard can cut two ways.

Everyone who lives in the Middle East knows that one reason for the longevity of the hideous Jew-baiting cartoons of Der Sturmer, is the popularity of hideous Jew-baiting cartoons in popular publications in places like Cairo, Damascus, and Gaza City. Some of the same places, that is, where outrage over the Danish cartoons boiled over into violence, torching embassies, and death threats.”

I saw all of the cartoons from the Danish newspaper, including the one in question with the bomb in Muhammad’s head. I wasn’t impressed. I think it is unfair to assume that all Muslims are potential bombers. Muslims typically are no different than anyone else. They want to live in relative peace and be able to go about their day without getting involved in politics. These acts of violence tend to show the worst kind of a people, not the majority itself. After all, it just takes one nut to burn down a building.

However, it is very hard to compartmentalize all of this into appropriate versus inappropriate when all you see are the violent acts all over TV. And it is not as if other religions have not suffered indignities as well, Islam aside. I believe it was that bastion of tolerance itself, New York City that gave us a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine as artwork, which was called, “Piss Christ.” Insulting? Absolutely but as much as somebody would have liked to, the museum was not burnt to the ground.

Having said that, in some cases the Muslims are coming to see that trying to put out a fire by blowing up the building is not the best way to make you heard. ”Lebanon apologized Monday to Denmark after thousands of rampaging Muslim demonstrators set fire to the building housing the Danish mission in Beirut - the most violent in a growing string of worldwide protests over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. In Afghanistan hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police and soldiers, leaving one dead and four injured.

The prime ministers of Spain and Turkey issued a Christian-Muslim appeal for calm, saying "we shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation."”

In all, the Muslims have got to develop thicker skin when it comes to stuff like this. Rioting and calling for the death of journalists only gives these caricatures more strength as the average Westerner will always associate bombs with Islam if when you make fun Islam, as you would any religion, something goes BOOM!