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There’s more going on here than just an insult to a religion.

In fact, Islam is not really a religion; it’s a political movement. Communists during the cold war hoped to replace all religions with their own all-encompassing belief system. This belief system covered a lot of ground, from the nature of the universe to the way each individual should relate to the state and other individuals.

An understanding of the pernicious nature of this kind of total religious intrusion into every sphere of life is one of the bedrock principles of Western Civilization.

We’ve had plenty of martyrs to this cause but we don’t use that word because of its archaic and religious overtones.

When, almost five hundred years ago, Copernicus proposed a view of the solar system that contradicted Church teachings, it caused persecution and burnings at the stake. At around the same time, Englishmen were being persecuted and occasionally burned at the stake because they refused to incriminate themselves under oath.

It took a long time, but Western Civilization is beyond that kind of thing now. The Islamic world is not.

Deliberately insulting Moslems for the sake of insulting them is ridiculous and crude. Deliberately insulting them to prove the point that they are not tolerant is another thing entirely.

I’ve chosen my deliberately provocative title for this post as a wake-up call. The mocking of Mohammed has gone to far. What started as a few cartoons in a newspaper to make a point has, in parts of the blogosphere, deteriorated into an all-out in you…

The internet seems to be exploding with Mohammed cartoons and images. It started with a publication of some Mohammed cartoons in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2006. Some of the cartoons were reprinted in a Norweigan publication in J…

Since when is it logical to burn down a country’s embassy because a few newspaper editors from that country, though in no way representing it officially or unofficially, chose to publish some offensive cartoons?”

Answer:

he following is an exerpt from an interview conducted by the Hindustan Times with Liaquat Hussain, secretary of the Bradford Central Mosque contrasted with statements from Flemming Rose, the cartoonist responsible for the original caricatures that appeared in Jyllands-Posten.

“This is clearly a demonstration by the Christian world of hostility towards the Muslim community,” he said. “This has come from all the nations of Europe and it reflects an ongoing campaign against Muslims by the Western powers. You can’t differentiate between the Western world and Christianity; you can’t separate what’s happened from the people of those countries and their governments. I blame all of the Western population because these cartoons reflect the opinion of the people.”

Liaquat Hussain

Maybe we have become callous here in the West. Maybe we are so cowed by political correctness that all we can do when confronted by similar situations (”Piss Christ”, Anti-Semitic or Anti-Israeli rhetoric, anti christian-fundamentalist commentary, and even the hate-filled political rantings of the Far Left) is to shrug and calmly accept the situation as the natural way of the world. Maybe our own Judeo-Chriatian upbringing and our “turn the other cheek” mentality has a stronger grip on us than we really know.

It is obvious the Arab World does not accept this status. Maybe they do not believe in the turning of the cheek. Maybe they do not believe in diversity, multi-culturalism, or any of the other methods of just working together for the cause of peace. The Gitmo controversey of last year regarding stories of improper handling of the Koran should have been a warning. And now we have what may be a potential watershed crises between the Arab world and the West regarding cartoons.

So what do we do? I think we are on a course whether we have chosen it or not. Representatives have apologized for the harm done. Actions have been done by the newpapers and even governments to correct the situation. And still the “Arab Street” explodes. What more can be done?

In times past, when the common people rioted and burned and looted their way through the Jewish quarters of 17th, 18th, and 19th Century Europe, the powers that be, who instigated the riots in the first place, stood by and let the anger fade. The hope was the mob would burn out it vengeance on the Jews before it spreads to the normal parts of the cities. These were called Pogroms by the Jews. They came to fear and accept them as their lot in life. Shall we join the Pogrom? Or stand by and hope the riots and the cause of the riots fade from the mind of the rioters.

And in all of this I have but one question? How far have we really travelled from those dark days of the Pogrom. Or do we stand up on our hind legs and state “Enough!!!”