Jyllands-Posten

I just can’t believe that I have waited this long to say something about the Muhammad Cartoons. This has been a major issue here in Europe for quite a while now, but has, except for a bit of coverage in some major newspapers in the US, been relatively ignored in the Mother country.

Normally, I think it would be an issue that simply died away, as most hot-button issues are. But, because the Muslim world continues to protest over them, the issue continues to stay in the forefront of our minds here.

The most informing article I have yet seen is the one on Wikipedia.org under “Muhammad Cartoons”. I find particularly interesting the fact that the cartoons gained practically no recognition at all until a group of Danish Imams traveled to the Middle East in order, basically, to incite anger and backlash against their host country. They compiled a dossier which included the original 12 cartoons, and then added, on the sly, without mentioning that they actually weren’t published in Jyllands-Posten, several other, even more inflammatory cartoons (notably one where Muhammad is sodomized by a dog during evening prayers and another implying that Mohammed was a pedophile.) So, in other words, these Islamic leaders from Denmark were complaining that they were not fully accepted by the Danes because of their religion. They then thought a good solution to this problem would be to go to the Middle East and incite violence against their host country. They have succeeded. Several people have now died, Danish products are being boycotted across the Middle East, and embassies have been torched.

I just think that people should be reminded of the facts. The cartoons were published in September of 2005. It was not until after the mission by the Danish Imams that the protests started. Some Middle Eastern papers have actually reprinted the cartoons, condemning them, of course. But isn’t it a conflict to reprint any of them, since the printing of them is the real problem? The protests against the cartoons is supposedly a protest against the publication of any image, negative or positive, of Muhammad. How can the papers in the Middle East then reprint the images themselves?

These facts speak to a much larger, macrocosmic issue. The entire issue is not about cartoons. It is about conflicting cultures. I wonder:

1. If Islam is a non-violent religion, then why has it fostered such violent cultures? I know, I know. Christianity was also violent. I think the operative word in that sentence, though, is “WAS”! How can we compare the Christianity of 1250 with Islam of 2006? That makes no sense. Islam is also quite an old religion, which begs the next question:
2. Christianity became suddenly milder and more humane after the Reformation. The Reformation occurred at the beginning of the 16th Century. Why has Islam had no Reformation? Also greatly influential upon Christianity was the Scientific Revolution. Why did this revolution of science and humanism have no effect upon the Middle Eastern cultures.
3. Just about every Muslim leader has made a public speech protesting the Danish cartoons as an insult to Islam. Where were these people when images of innocent people being beheaded were running wild across the Internet? Is not the beheading of someone solely because of their nationality even more of an insult to a, supposedly, non-violent religion?

I think that people in the West think that it is simply not possible to have a Holy War. They think this because they would never go to war in the name of Christianity. What people don’t understand, though, is that a Holy War could be fought even if only one side thinks it is about religion. Wars such as this start over long periods of time, and because of a long list of circumstances. The Danish cartoons could be the igniting factor that will be seen in retrospect as the spark that started the Great War. Every student of history knows that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked World War I. But, the war didn’t break out in a day. It took time for the lines of war to be drawn and crossed (see the Willy and Nicky communiqués between Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas.)

What is the possible scenario of the great Holy War? The lines are being drawn in the sand right now. Europe and the Middle East are pushing each other to see what they can get away with. Europe, feeling emasculated by its own high-minded philosophies on how to combat terrorism, is losing patience with the Muslim world and its constant violence. The Middle East feels condescended to by Europe and has seen that it is able to get what it wants by instilling fear in its victims with acts of terrorism. Eventually, Europe is going to get its back pushed up to the proverbial wall and will strike back. This creates a problem, though, in that Europe has not prepared itself for any military response worth noting. This means that, in the end, Europe will require, unwillingly, the help of its big brother across the sea.

Of course, none of this may happen. It only needs certain circumstances in order to happen, though. To think that World War I could have been avoided had Germany and Russia not miscommunicated their intentions to each other is the perfect example. Couldn’t you imagine that if Czar Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm had been able to see in an instant what would occur because of their choices, they may have reconsidered? I would hope that the Danish Imams now understand that their tour of the Middle East, dossier in hand, was a huge mistake.