Anti-Cartoon Clashes Spread, Turn Deadly
Why has a cartoon turned into a crisis?
... and if you think that we react badly to cartoons, wait until you see what we will do if you write a book or produce a motion picture that says something bad about Mohammed....Okay, all kidding aside, I wrote to the author of the third article (who did respond with a thanks) that:
What? What's sad? What's ironic?
No, YOU are barbaric for allowing cartoons. Our reaction is totally, like, civilized, you know. After all, you hurt our FEELINGS!
While the Danish cartoons were, unfortunately, in bad taste, the reaction of Middle Eastern Muslims only reinforces the stereotype in the West of a culture of one-minded, one-thought, one-truth, humorless fanatics who will kill you if you disagree with them.The West really cannot comprehend the reaction of those Muslims who are spreading violence as a means to protest a cartoon that says they have a violent religion and culture. It seems juvenile and too well staged to be genuine as far as non-Muslims are concerned.
It's much less the offensiveness of the cartoons that hurt Muslims than their own parochial emotions. But perhaps it is just that in the West, children learn from an early age that "sticks and stones...."
It is as if they are going out of their way to create a parody of themeselves.