I can stand a lot of things. But a few things will tick me off. One of them is mass hysteria over things that are plain stupid. The thing that really ticks me of right now is all the Islamic people protesting and getting out of control over some stupid cartoons a Danish newspaper published last year. While Muslims worldwide are calling for a boycott of Denmark and any other nations whose press reprints the cartoons, Europeans are trying to stand up for Western principles of freedom of speech and not cave in to self-censorship in the name of multiculturalism and fear.
Also I think this whole case clearly shows that those Muslims and Muslim countries do not posess the mental capabilities to see the meaning behind the cartoons. They also clearly take their religion way to serious which is exactly why wars have been raging for ages between men. I say that anyone who takes himself or his religious beliefs too serious will never know the true meaning of religion anyway. The western civilization has already outgrown this kind of outdated beliefs while big parts of the world still seem to have the same ideas as in the dark ages.
However, as the Mohammed Image Archive (mirror here) states:
While the debate rages, an important point has been overlooked: despite the Islamic prohibition against depicting Mohammed under any circumstances, hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. The recent cartoons in Jyllands-Posten are nothing new; it’s just that no other images of Mohammed have ever been so widely publicized.
As the writer of that page also painfully makes clear, religious leaders of the Islam now completely falsify history, by denying such paintings and drawings ever were made by their own people. Exactly the kind of reaction you expect from radical islamic people. It’s the same kind of reaction you expect of neo-nazis when they totally deny the death of 6 million jews in the second world war.
Not all is bad though: the editor-in-chief of the Jordanian newspaper Al-Shihan, Jihad Momani had the guts to print the cartoons in his newspaper and asked “muslims of the world be reasonable. What would provoke more prejudice against the islam? These cartoons or the images of extremist cutting the throats of hostages on camera or that of a suicide bomber blowing himself and people up during a wedding in Amman?”
According to sources he said he printed the pictures as well to show what people are actually protesting against: “most people haven’t even seen the cartoons”.
So, as a extra service I will put those cartoons op here as well.
Also I would like to put some cartoons here from the infamous “Retecool Foto Fuck Vrijdag” a satirical look on the whole issue (warning: these are highly political incorrect cartoons/photo mash-ups).
So have a look for yourself. Click on each image for a larger version (duh).
And the original cartoons by Jyllands Posten:
