One of my readers (thanks, Simon!) forwarded the cartoon at right (click for a larger view). It notes — as many writers have — that reaction in the Mulsim world to the now-famous Danish cartoons of Mohammed seems very much out of proportion, and especially so when compared to the utter lack of outrage from the Muslim world to the terrorist actions of the radical Muslims. Where was this outrage when, for example, terrorists bombed the trains in Madrid? While there were Muslim clerics who denounced this bombing (which I’m just picking on as an example), the general reaction of the common person “on the street” in the Islamic world seemed to be somewhere between indifference and delight that the “infidels” had been attacked. And now a cartoon has hundreds of thousands of people enraged to the point where they violently demonstrate?
As TigerHawk has pointed out, there is an asymmetry to this that is both offensive and chilling. It offends our Western sense of fairness, and it is chilling because it reveals the truth under all the posturing: at its core, the Islamic world is not tolerant of non-Muslims, and in fact would be happy if we all just died. I was reminded of this recently as I read that the Muslim youth in Paris who slit the throat of an innocent Jewish boy yelled in joy “I have killed my Jew — now I will go to heaven!” as he danced about on the stairs to his apartment, drenched in the blood of his victim.
His way of speaking truth to power, I suppose…
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