A Danish newspaper publishes a few cartoons or caricatures about the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. Some of them were silly, some immature, while others were just dirty and downright insulting. This wasn't something new, such things have appeared regularly in European papers and other publications. I really don't see what the problem was here in this case. Anyway, the Muslim world, at least segments of it, just exploded. I admit that I did not see that coming because it had been months since the Danish incident and I noticed that people around me had not even taken much notice of this.
I believe that this should teach us a lot of lessons about the psyche in the Muslim world and how people in this area really think and respond to provocations. I use the world provocation because those cartoons are an insult and a provocation in the Muslim. There is a cultural difference here. The Muslim world is not very tolerant when it comes to some religious issues. The level of maturity that it takes to accept such things is still not present here. I'm sure this day will come, but it just won't be now.
Another important lesson, perhaps even more important, is that the extremists voice in a lot louder than the moderate voice in this part of the world. While most moderate Muslims were offended and upset at the cartoons, they understood well the cultural differences with Europe and knew that such open attacks on religion and religious figures was a normal occurrence. The extremists on the other hand have no such understanding and no such tolerance of any cultural differences. The self victimize that the Arab/Muslim world loves to wallow in, in addition to the sense of injustice, were the fuel that the extremists used to ignite this fire. Such a fire played right into their hands. The religious fanatics are as equally fanatically opposed to the west and all its ideals. When the west is demonized and portrayed as a group of Islam-hatters and racists then this makes the process of demonizing western ideas a lot more easier and this is the fanatics' ultimate aim.
We have alll also learned the true power of the media and how it, for months, slowly stocked the fires of anger among Muslims until the situation exploded. The incitement in the Arab media was incredible with everyone, religious leaders, political leaders, journalists, all tripping over each other trying to outbid each other and appear as the loudest defender of the faith.
I don't know what else to say except that when a western cartoon tried to portray Muslims as violent, barbaric and intolerant, then the response here should have been the opposite. The response should have been a calm, logical and quiet dialogue or even a lawsuit, a lobbying of European lawmakers about the incident. Instead, the response we saw, deadly violence, churches burnt, embassies destroyed, merely confirmed this stereotype that those "Arabs" really are like that the cartoons implied.
Was this really worth it? Are Muslims so insecure that a couple of drawings can shake their faith. If we are as strong in our faith as we say we are, if we are secure in our beliefs, then such things shouldn't rattle us, we shouldn't give them a second glance. Instead, the response here caused the cartoons to be republished all across the world and everyone got to see them. The whole matter was counterproductive, but the real threat is the increased sense of power that extremists have, the sense that they are in the lead and have caused some sort of religious revival in the region, an Islamic rebirth.
We just have to wait and see what those religious nuts are going to do next. Needless to say there will be those in Europe who will no doubt do something else that Muslims extremists will use.
I can only tell the civilized world to treat us like children, because we are the young and immature member of the global family, we don't think much before we act, we have no ability to think in the long term and old stories myths about ghosts and demons, gods and devils, heaven and hell still scare us. We still need someone to sooth us and put us to bed at night and we really get upset when someone interrupts our little bedtime stories.