The following cartoons were published in the Palestinian press some time ago. They are not intended to be blasphemous to Christianity (seriously). Let me explain.
A lot of devout Muslims don't accept the Islamists' rhetoric and reject concepts like the war of civilizations. Note that these peaceful Muslims are not totally innocent. They never stand up against their fanatics (and when they do they are accused of apostasy), so I consider them to be passive accomplices of all the crimes comitted in their name. These pious Muslims do not hate the rest of the world but they strongly disagree with Western policy in the region. They see these policies as imperialistic and unbalanced towards Israel.
To have a coherent set of beliefs, they need to believe that Western governments don't really represent the Western people because these governments are controlled by the Jews. Deep inside, the Muslim masses know that this argument is pure crap, but they pretend to believe it in order to keep some ideological consistency. From this perspective, the West is not really an enemy because it is manipulated by the Zionists.
Arab nationalists were the first to spread these theories because it allowed the so-called 'Arab Christians' to be presented as Arabs and not as a Zionist fifth columnists. Arab nationalism is dead today but the argument was so popular that it has been recovered by Islamism, the ideological heir of the Arab nationalism.
My point is that from the 'devout Muslim' point of view, the following cartoons are rather pro-western since they depict the alleged suffering of the Christian West under Jewish rule.
Did somebody see these cartoons in France, UK or Germany? Does somebody even care ??
4 comments:
see i just don't get it.
i even asked a muslim dude that i work with what he thought of the whole uproar around the cartoons, and had him look at these pics you posted, and he didn't get it. i guess the main thing is that the prophet Mohammed, who is so holy and sacred that he must never be shown in anyway, was shown/drawn, and so some muslims took deep offense to that. my co-worker said that had it been Allah, then he too would have taken offense, just because of the whole sacredness and facelessness to it that should never be shown.
we in the west don't seem to give a shit about anything sacred since we've basically bastardized everything and are a fast food nation of everything, including sex. nothing is sacred, so of course it's no big deal to us to make fun of/humorize events/situations. that's my 2 cents anyway. :)
Making things sacred is stupid. No offense to those who feel their religious tenets are being trounced upon, but come on. Like I said before, just because your religion believes something, it doesn't mean all of humanity does. How are you supposed to control that which you can't control? More violence and intolerance, I guess. That's seems to be the easiest solution.
Sacredness is personal. As is religion. Secularism (uh, that's what we live in, huh?) essentially means "screw off, leave me alone to believe what I want to believe." I respect your right to believe what you do, so I expect the same from you.
hmm but that means everything goes? aren't there some BASICS that we should follow as humans that don't have to do with some abstarct ppl. or things or martyrs or prophets? some basic rules like treat others as you would like to be treated? if we just lived by THAT, wouldnt' life be a bit more pleasant?
i must be on crack again to think things can be so simple.
why again, can't they?
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