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February 8, 2006

On Western Cartoonish Reactions

Topics: Understanding Islam

Omar at IraqTheModel makes a point that naive westerners, especially those in the Bush administration, the U.S. media, and the American and European Islamo-apologentsia, should remember:

You know that those cartoons were published for the 1st time months ago and we here in the Middle East have tonnes of jokes about Allah, the prophets and the angels that are way more offensive, funny and obscene than those poorly-made cartoons, yet no one ever got shot for telling one of those jokes or at least we had never seen rallies and protests against those infidel joke-tellers.

What I want to say is that I think the reactions were planned to be exaggerated this time by some Middle Eastern regimes and are not mere public reaction. And I think Syria and Iran have the motives to trigger such reactions in order to get away from the pressures applied by the international community on those regimes.

However, I cannot claim that Muslim community is innocent for there have been outrageous reactions outside the range of Syria's or Iran's influence but again, these protests and threats are more political than religious in nature.

One last thing, even if the entire EU apologizes it won't change a thing; fanatics in our countries here had always considered the west their infidel arrogant crusader enemy and no apology no matter how big or sincere can change that.

As Paul at Powerline suggests, "Apologies, soothing statements, and hand-wringing will be perceived by the "Arab Street" as further evidence of weakness, not of good will." The result of such a display of weakness will be increasingly more violent reactions as excuses for attacks on our democratic freedoms so despised by much of the Islamic world, not peace and tolerance. As I pointed out in the take-home message of the previous post - from "moderate" Muslims themselves, we are learning that the Islamic civilization and culture is completely and absolutely incompatible with the West's: The Islamic faith does not allow unconditional freedom of speech, and the Islamists believe that the Islamic faith is above the value system of the West.

Hat tip - Powerline

Posted by Richard at February 8, 2006 10:50 AM

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• On Western Cartoonish Reactions - Feb 08, 2006