There’s a lot more going on here… I’ve seen one post arguing pretty persuasively that the TIMING of these disturbances (which definitely needs some explaining) points to a whole different agenda.  See:

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/5/132139/4838

I’m persuaded that the cartoonists deserve the name “courageists” (by contrast to “terrorists"), and that the violence, death, and destruction are part of the nature of “courageism” in action.  You can see what I have to say about it all at:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Somerschool
-----

Hi Scott - thanks for your comments.

I agree with what you (and the link) have to say about the ban on depictions being non-existent. There is no Qur’anic precedent for this and Islamic art has a strong tradition of painting of Muhammad.

I posted on this with supporting evidence here if you are interested in this area.

Actually I agree with what you say about the word ‘Islamophobe’ - it need not signify someone irrational. Sometimes (often) thsi word means a sort of perjorative but it is difficult to find another.

In the UK it is often used as a stand-in for ‘racist’. This is because UK racist parties like the BNP (sort of a KKK without the silly outfits) made a conscious decision to stop using racial terms such as ‘Jews’ or ‘Arabs’ so they could not be arrested under race hate laws.

Now they use ‘Islam’ as a stand-in for their real intent which is to target ethnic minorities and they are not committing racial crimes by doing this.

My own position is quite simple. I don’t mind what anyone believes or doesn’t but am more interested in dialogue. not dialogue to convince or convert but merely to keep bridges up as times get fraught.

To do this, it necessitates that the info on all sides is correct - as I say, not to prostletyse but just to put the facts (that is historical facts as opposed to issues of personal religious belief) are on record.

That’s why I appreciate what you have done in regard to the issue of the perceived ban on images.

One good thing will come of this. Europeans and North Americans will now have their eyes opened as to the danger Islamic fundamentalists represent. Their intolerance and fanaticism has been exposed for all the world to see, take note and fear.

Know this is not really pertinent to this site (feel fee to remove it if takes discussion too far off topic) but Global Warming, lack of arable land with increasing populations and water shortages will probably kill many more people in the long run. Humanity is in for a torrid time. Moon in for a good feed. American foreign policy is not exactly Lilywhite.  Hardly makes Islamic fundamentalism worth worrying about.

I’m inclined to Paul’s pov here over G Lister’s - not that they have to be contradictory but imo fear is never good.

We all have enemies from time to time or face challenges but having fear or allowing it to be instilled (installed?) is undermining. We can only face such challenges when we have gone beyond fear, it is so limiting.

And of course the thing feared is never as fearsome when confronted. In the present case I happen to believe that we are caught in the middle of the terrorists on one hand and our own ‘leaders’ using them - and the resultant fear which they also whip up in us - to control us.

‘Nothing to fear but fear itself’ ain’t nothing but a Trivial Pursuit question now.

I think a wise man once said that love casts out fear but that’s gone by the by as well.

Re the ‘other threats’ I think these are far more dangerous - and also because they are unseen and, to a certain extent, not as capable of generating blind panic.

There is a good Sufistic book about exactly this and how we can tackle these problems: New World, New Mindhttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=anulios-20&l=ur2&o=1 by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich. I can heartily recommend it - some of the statistics are fascinating.

No question we’re in the eigth day but if anything this farce should open our eyes to the dangers of fundamentalism full stop, fixed points of view, “Idols”.  Whether they identify “free speech” or “profits” as untouchable the consequences as we can see are troubling.

When I say “fear” I don’t mean in the context of cringing, hiding or, worse yet, ignoring. No, fearing radical Islamists is recognizing the danger these people represent and that, if allowed to proceed unapposed with bombings, beheadings, threats and extortion, our hard-won freedoms are in peril. The jury is still out on global warming. Moscow’s Russians just went through a cold period not experienced in forty five years. Does this portend another ice age? It wasn’t thirty years ago, scientists were sure we were heading into another ice age and that the earth was cooling. Today they’re telling us the opposite. Tomorrow, who knows? Radical Islamists are real, very real. They’re not supposition or theory. Dialogue with fanaticists, people bent on your ultimate destruction is not possible. Islam at least in the minds of these people, cannot coexist with Christianity and certainly not democratic and open western society. Unless you’re prepared to welcome Mohammed as your prophet, have your wife covered head to toe, bow and pray towards Mecca six times a day, you’d be well advised to “fear” these people. This problem is a lot more immediate than global warming.

speaking of fear, i feel it goes both ways and we lurk in the middle somewhere. perhaps the silence of the muslim majority also feeds on the fear thats being used by all sides.

i liked what ramadan had to say regarding the cartoons:
http://www.digitalnpq.org/articles/global/56/02-02-2006/tariq_ramadan

I agree with Lister’s point about recognizing the immediate threat of this Islamofascist cancer.  What with Iran’s nuclear plans, ongoing now for 25 years, and all manner of upcoming developments (nanotech and nanobiology) with even more destructive potential, the rest of the world must at least be willing to call a spade a spade.  We no longer can, unfortunately, just build a wall to keep the barbarians out.  And trying to pacify extremists by tiptoeing around, not upsetting the cart, or what have you, in our own lives, won’t help IMO.

You can have “dialogue” and discussion all you want, but that can also be a means, beyond a certain point, of being in denial and rationalizing away what will have to be dealt with.  Pointing to every possible other “evil” or flaw in Western civilization or to the idea of leaders manipulating people’s fears is an exercise that goes down the road of convincing people “black is white”.  Even Rumi didn’t hesitate to kick some intruder in the chops when the lout was upon him.  Some situations just don’t call for endless “soul searching” and “where did we go wrong.”

When the Titanic is sinking, there are always those who are going to argue over how the tables should be set. 

Build a pen around the tantrum throwers and keep them from infringing anymore on the civilized world.

I’d recommend this article, “Role Reversal: The Euros Get It”:

http://newsisyphus.blogspot.com/

Good article, arjay. Some key points I endorse (my emphasis):

How many times have we printed material that Jews might consider offensive in an attempt to define the extent of anti-Semitism? It seems odd that most U.S. papers patronize their readers by withholding cartoons that the whole world talks about. To publish does not mean to endorse. Context matters.

I think it is beyond doubt that there exists a pan-Islamic school of fascist thought that has declared war on the West and that support for this line is quite high among the Muslim masses. Since they have declared war, and since their rationale for this war is Islam, we are, in a sense, at war with Islam. To paraphrase Trotksy’s famous saying on the dialectic, “you may not be interested in an Islamic war, but Islamic war is interested in you.”

Segovius wrote:

The basic gist was that the Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist and that it is really no surprise that there are terrorists in Islam today as Islam actually teaches intolerance and extremism.

I don’t agree that this was the basic gist, not even of the Westergaard cartoon. I think that one is saying that Islam is fundamentally self-destructive. To some extent at least, all of the cartoons do what cartoons usually do: they depict humanity as buffoons, they poke at us and ask us not to take ourselves so seriously.

This is precisely what “The Satanic Verses” did and the Muslim reaction has been similar. The cartoons are especially dangerous (or “offensive") to Islam because, unlike the Rushdie novel, you don’t have to plough through hundreds of pages of brilliant but sometimes tedious text to get the idea. It only takes a second or two to take in the messages of these cartoons.

Regarding the dressed-up suicide bomber:

He wasn’t actually threatening violence. He was just being very, very offensive.

No, Segovius, he was threatening violence. Offense and violence do shade into each other but in the context of actual and almost daily occurrances of Muslim violence any kind of passionate support of an Islamic cause becomes a threat of violence.

In New Zealand, a peaceful rally was held in protest at the republication of the cartoons. If this had happened in isolation it would have been a simple peaceful protest, nothing more. However, it happened at the same time and for similar motives as more overtly violent protests worldwide. It was a restrained crowd standing in support of another unrestrained crowd, with the two crowds bound together by Islam. Of the two sets of values, civilized restraint and Islam, it is the latter for which those people were standing, not the former. If the values were to clash, I would not trust them for one moment to turn their backs on Islam. That translates into a realistic perception on my part that the New Zealand Muslims were part of a violent global protest and a real threat of violence was implied.

After such reflection and analysis, I simply do not accept either the NZ protest or the dressed-up suicide bomber protest as merely “very, very offensive”. They were terrorist threats, as simple as that.