Danish Muslim Cartoons

Thanks to muslimcartoons.com and humaneventsonline.com for the pictures.






As the violence continues, Bush and Rice condemn it, one is left with the feeling of "what the fuck!?!?" As this excellent cartoon shows, Islamic leaders and citizens have better things to worry about. Instead they worry over a cartoon rendering of Muhammed by a Danish “infidel”. So here we are.

I think, more then anything over the last 50+ years, the violence over some pretty crappy cartoons shows just how different Islamic world compared to the Western world. Not even Christianity, which has shown a frequent liking of censorship, would advocate this kind of violence. Shoot not even advocate, not only would they condemn it but I don't think it would even occur to most to react in such a violent manner.

It shows that not only is the War on Terrorism futile, but that Bush's grand plan to bring democracy to that region is doomed to failure. For that to succeed, it assumes they define freedom, religious tolerance, and many of our western values the same. They simply do not. They don't want democracy, they want theocracy. They don't want freedom to choose. Nor do they want freedom of the press and ability to express one self.

For the US, until recently anyway, freedom was as defined by the Constitution. For Islam, its defined by the Quran. We get our viewpoints from our government leaders and sadly from our celebrities. They get it from their religious leaders and sadly their terrorist leaders. We define freedom as "I will defend to the death your right to say it". They define freedom as freedom to kill for saying whatever they disagree with (which can very from sect to sect). We try, and sometimes fail, to give equal rights to all. Their Quran finds that concept absurd and therefore so do they.

This incident proves in a way that is both ridiculous and tragic that the Western way is not nor will ever become the Islamic way. The ideas, beliefs, and viewpoints are completely incompatible. It not only summarizes and reinforces all the hatred and stereotypes we have for Islam but it also re-enforces our failure to try to understand them and them us. We are using Iraq as a test lab for democracy. The problem is it’s our version of democracy, not theirs. It’s our ideas, not theirs. It’s our playing field, rather then theirs. We want peace, but we want it on our terms. As a result, the grand experiment will fail. Tragically, if Islamics are willing to kill over cartoons, I hate to imagine the death toll when the Grand Western Democratic Experiment fails.