While the New York Times and most other papers in the United States refuse to run the cartoons that have inflamed radical Muslims–and I say “radical” because I’d like to think that the majority of Muslims would actually, y’know, follow the Prophet’s teaching and react to criticism with patience rather than violence–the University of Illinois student newspaper, “The Daily Illini,” ran an assortment of them.
And why not? A dozen pictures that would have been here today, gone tomorrow if radicals hadn’t made them a cause celebre have become a major news item. So the newspaper ran some of them.
The result? Angry protests from students and the newspaper editor has been relieved of duty. World reaction in microcosm.
The most laughable reaction is the Iranian newspaper that wants to run cartoons lampooning the Holocaust. This despite the fact that the cartoons ran in Denmark and had nothing to do with Jews, Israel, or the Holocaust. Perhaps it’s because a contest for cartoons lampooning Danish pastries doesn’t seem ripe for humor. Or perhaps Muslims have yet to encounter a problem that they can’t blame on the Jews. Most likely they consider cartoons attacking Jews to be “payback.” As far as Jews are concerned, Muslims lambasting Jews isn’t called “payback.” It’s called “SOP.”
There is nothing–I repeat, nothing–that some Iranian newspaper can run that’s going to get the average Jew to do anything other than roll his eyes and say, “Yeah, whatever.” We’re sure not going to start burning down Iranian restaurants or embassies over it.
This entire business has been revelatory. It underscores the complete Muslim disconnect between their own actions and others. Anti-semitism, anti-Americanism, insults and lambasting of others based upon race, color and creed is completely ingrained into their culture. But at the same time they demand complete respect for their beliefs from others who DO NOT SHARE THEM. They demand from others what they would not even remotely consider dispensing themselves.
And it underscores the complete chickenshit nature of governments here and abroad who seem far more eager to condemn the publishers of the cartoons than the overreactions to them. “How can someone provoke the Muslims?” people wonder. I wonder how people can NOT provoke them, or at least provoke their extremist factions who are determined to sell the idea that the world is out to get them. (Then again, if Christians can try to claim that they’re under attack in the ninety-percent Christian United States, I suppose anything is possible.)
Governments are trying to sell the notion that we must all be careful to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of others. Which is nonsense. Cartoons trashing Jews are standard in newspapers throughout the Arab world and I don’t see the U.N. making a stink about it. No, the truth is that various governments want to show respect for Muslim beliefs in the same way that one shows respect for a test tube of nitro glycerin: You don’t REALLY give a dámņ about its preachings. You just want to make sure not to shake it up so it doesn’t go off.
If the answer to free speech is more free speech, then apparently the answer to intolerance is more intolerance. Don’t say to the Arab world, “It’s a dámņëd cartoon, get a grip. And if you don’t like it, then how about cleaning up your own house by eliminating the practices that cause the world to see you as a bunch of dangerous, violent psychos, drowning out the teachings of peace and tolerance that your Prophet puts forward.” Say instead to everyone else, “Don’t get the Muslims upset because they’ll blow you up.”
What the hëll is it with extremists anyway that they use historical figures who preached the ways of peace to justify the ways of war?
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