In Muhammad’s name
Now, I don’t want to comment about the satirical drawings on European newspaper, and I don’t want to talk about the violent reaction this is causing. I don’t want to generalize either. There’re wanderful people out there, and their religion doesn’t matter much to me.
But I was thinking the following…
I am catholic. People are all creatures of God, and they have to be considered all brothers and sisters, regardless of their color and their religion. But what if a team of aliens from Mars (here my geek part takes over) come to the Earth to suck all our blood and wipe out humanity… just because we’re not like them and they believe in what they do. It is allowed to fight against them and preserve our race? I think yes. Even if they’re part of this universe like us, hence sons of the same God. It’s a silly reasoning, I know you’re already laughing, but you have to admin it is logic…
Now, here comes the point where an improbable sci-fi scenario relates to reality… I feel in danger.
I’m worried for my ‘normal’ life, the one of my partner and the ones of my future children, because in this world there’re populations which consider terrorism and violence part of their everyday life, which don’t hesitate to set buildings on fire, which are proud of blowing up buses with other people, which consider vengeance a sign of civilisation. Believe it or not, this for me is inconceivable as well as the aliens sucking blood from the humans.
I can’t consider the responsibles of these acts of these days… human beings.
If someone offended their religion, excuses and apologies and justice must be. But this can’t be the spark for violence. Moreover - correct me if I’m wrong - those satirical drawings have been published in Europe… how many times their behaviour in their country offended my western beliefs and ideals?
I was shocked when Hamas won the elections, few days ago, not because of the fact itself, but because when US asked them to give up the army wing of their party in exchange of humanitarian support, their answer was that ‘humanitarian support is not object of trading or blackmailing’. Fair enough. But those poor people in needs, are the same ones conceiving blowing up and burning down stuff as a due act…
 
February 7th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
quoting:
“I strongly agree with the points of Alberto.
And yes, it is not a matter of censorship here, but of sensitivity.
Helaaaaaaaaaas, there is no authority on hearth that can teach men to be sensitive.
There are good jokes and bad jokes, and some get published.
If they are published in Denmark, though, they are not affecting the life of billions
of Muslims in Asia until the day that someone make a scandal out of it.
Which suddenly draws the comics on the front page of important journals, news,
tv-channels. And every muslim of the world gets pissed.
Also some Christians had these things against representing Gods and the Saints.
It started somewhere in Middle East around 500-700 a.c.
It continued again also in europe after the middle-ages, see if you can find any human-alike
statue outside the Churces in Belgium and Holland, apart from the Cross.
Compare them to the Catholic Churces.
My conclusion is that the problem is not what religious concept you are breaking.
In facts, the same concept can be present in other religions, whose supporters don’t set up fires.
Never.
Only some religion have supporters that set up fires, because their leadership teaches that
this is correct. Christians did the same, of course, but now they are out of it.
Western Countries went over the concept of asking the Goverment to defend the Religion,
the Muslims not. As obvious as this.
I believe that a moderate Muslim can be hurt from the comics in object, but that
he would just comment that humans can be so stupid. An aggressive one would finally
see the chance to attack the untruthful hypocrite Christianity and Europe and West.
Just because a stupid made a supid joke.
And whoever turns a questionable joke into a “cultural statement” and religious issue,
either on the side of the publisher or on the side of the “offended”, is probably looking
forward to starting up a fight.
This is my personal opinion, and albi if you want you can post it to Albazilla.”
Aldo
February 8th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Please consider that islam is 700years younger than Christianity. I’m just guessing here but I doubt that in 1306 conditions for heretics were any better than in 2007 for infidels. If we go back a little further we see that in 33 Jews were not very friendly to Christians. It’s a matter of time before islam reaches maturity.
Of course this is no excuse for those idiots to wreak havoc over some cartoons. It really outrages me that even governments are in this, and this affair is not having a positive influence on my opinion of muslims ;(
February 8th, 2006 at 11:58 am
It’s a wise comment, Peter. Muslim countries are a bit the mirror of the old Europe. They live in another time and in another world, but I don’t want to imagine that they’ll learn on our skins!
February 9th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
These silly cartoons seem to have opened a whole new can of worms. The hate really runs deep. Hate towards the West is i think directed towards our way of living, our succes of making life worth living in the west without believing in Allah or whatever. I think our success embarresses and insults muslims in the sense that they wont recognise a way of living without Allah. As a consequence, they feel insuperior, low etc. Bin Laden must have referred to the US as the ‘Giant’ or ‘The almighty US’ on numerous occasions. If you make fun of muslims by printing these cartoons, of course youre not going to make them any happier. Thats just another kick in the face.
I dont think we’ll ever get along. The differences are just too big. I wish religion all together would be banished from this planet. Wouldnt that be great?
February 9th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
…at the same time, for these men, religion represents the hope for a better life, on earth or somewhere else, and is the only way to accept to suffer and to live such a poor, not western life… if you take it off, they would become even more dangerous?