And so the world turns. Unless you're in certain parts of the Middle East and you dislike the Danes, their free press and freedom of speech in general or Jyllands-Posten. It seems that our friends in the Middle East have reacted with their usual aplomb to the republication in a variety of newspapers of caricatures of their Prophet, Mohammed. Frankly, my friends, you need to get over it. They aren't that bad. Shoot, I see worse caricatures of American icons and politicians on a daily basis and those people often have access to nuclear weapons, not deistic lightning bolts.
There are people rioting in the streets over cartoons. They aren't even particularly offensive cartoons. As someone who spent 6 years in the Middle East I must say that things have deteriorated. There are reactionary and manipulative people pulling a great many strings to garner this type of reaction from folks who are normally as easy going as a surfer dude. Whatever happened to Ma'Alesh? The "Shit Happens" and "Oh, well, what are ya gonna do?" attitude that used to pervade the culture? Perhaps it only still exists in Egypt and the rest of the Middle Eastern world needs to take a page from the Egyptian handbook and chill out.
If Mohammed and Allah are offended then THEY will deal with it. Since they haven't rained down death, destruction and frogs I can only assume that they have a sense of humour or are not easily offended. The rioting in the streets and armed takeovers of buildings, along with the rest of the nonsense being perpetrated in the name of offence is childish at best and paints a terrible picture of folks whom I have always considered to be better than that. Ignore the pictures and they go away, continue the antics and the press has a field day and I have something to write about.
I would suggest that a lot of folks find a a copy of "The Wizard of Oz" and watch it. There are plenty of men behind curtains who are manipulating events and people from behind their curtains in the mosques. And this has to stop if Islam wishes to reclaim the glorious history that it once possessed. While Europe fell into the the Dark Ages non-radical Islam embraced science, scholarship and an enlightened age the likes of which have not often been seen in the history of man. There is now a fundamentalist "political correctness" running amok in the Middle East, Europe and even the United States. Can anyone remember seeing these cartoons in any of the "mainstream media" outlets? I can't. PC is an insidious disease rooted in the worst sort of intolerance. The intolerance for freedom and respect of others.It's time that IBM and ZAP took over the Islamic culture. Inshallah, Bukra and Ma'alesh. With these 3 simple words and all that they entail things can get back on track and folks can get down to the daily business of pursuing life, liberty, property and happiness without ulcers and fear.
1 comment:
I live in Denmark, in Århus actually, where Jyllands Posten is published. The cartoons came out last September. The 'local' Muslims weren't happy of course and there were street demos in København. Then not much, a debate but not much more. Most Danes had forgotten about it, and so it seemed, had muslims here.
Then near Christmas, a group of Imams in Denmark decided to go round the mid East and stir it up. And here we are. Personally, I lay the blame for the current problems with them. They've been called 'traitors' by the right-wing party here.
Now, it leads every news broadcast, and these pictures they didn't want published or seen in the first place, are shown just about every time the problem is mentioned. Well done!
Problem is, Muslims and people in the Middle/Far East cannot (or refuse to) understand that if they have a problem with the cartoons, they take it up with Jyllands Posten. Denmark, the Danish people and especially the PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. The paper does not represent Denmark, taking sanctions against Denmark isn't hitting the paper.
Of course now we've got Arab/Muslim countries and Muslims in the West trying to out-do each other in their show of 'outrage'. And dictatorships like Syria playing to Arab opinion ("look, ignore what we're doing to the Lebanese, look how annoyed we are with some, erm...cartoons!"), by allowing the Danish embassy to be burned down.
If Muslims had ignored it back in September, people across the world would have been saying "eh? 'Jutland's what?". Now, people in New Zealand know all about it.
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