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Here we have it in black and white. There is nothing more to add - at least as far as Iran is concerned.
Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World
Its true. Although much of the mainstream media have already been intimidated into a state of dhimmitude, through their very desire to appease the muslims, they have reinforced the role of the blogosphere, who, of course, thought it natural and self-evident that they would publish the cartoons.
Atlas Shrugs: The Muhammad Cartoons: Another Gutenberg Moment
This little animated Dutch cartoon justhits the spot for me...
NOVA
10 februari 2006
From Gerecht's lips to God's ears...
Correctly understood, anti-Americanism when it accompanies the loosening of political controls in the Middle East is a sign that the status quo that gave us bin Ladenism and 9/11--the perverse marriage of autocracy and Islamic extremism--is coming apart. Under dictatorship, Muslims cannot evolve politically. They will not be able to confront the "baggage" that all Middle Eastern Muslims have with the West, especially the United States, and come to a livable consensus on how they are going to absorb Western ideas, influence, and money. Even in Iran, where the bankruptcy of a virulently anti-American clerical dictatorship has done wonders for the democratic ethic and the prestige of the United States, a functioning democracy is probably the only way the Iranian people will find a sustainable, peaceful modus vivendi with their complicated love-hate for America. It is democracy, not dictatorship, that can best take Muslims through the difficult religious reformation that is well under way among both Shiites and Sunnis. (Correctly understood, bin Laden is an ugly expression of protest against the region's rot.)
This is all about internal Muslim evolution, about coming to terms with the centuries-long absorption of both good and bad Western ideas. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether the Israeli-Palestinian peace process can somehow soon resume. When al Qaeda's princes--bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--rail against the intrusion of Western democracy into the Muslim world, they know what they are talking about. If it succeeds, democracy will eventually kill them off. It will pull fundamentalist believers--the pool that bin Ladenism must draw from to survive--into the great ethical and spiritual debates that can best happen when free people fight it out in elections. Only Muslims--only fundamentalist Muslims--have the power to kill off bin Ladenism. Historically, there is no reason to believe this will happen under the dictatorships that gave birth to Islamic extremism in the first place.
Like Christendom before it, the Muslim Middle East will have to work out its relation to modernity. The faster democracy arrives, the sooner the debates about God and man can begin in earnest. It will probably be for both Muslims and Westerners a nerve-racking experience. But we have no choice, since continuing autocracy will only make the militants' message stronger and judgment day, as in Iran, a possibly bloody revolutionary event. The electoral victory of Hamas should not give us pause. It should give us hope and encourage us to push for real elections where our national interest stands to gain the most--in Egypt and Iran. We should also not neglect to defend vigorously Christian, Muslim, or Jewish satirists, be they clever, banal, or ugly, wherever they may be found. Both elections and satire are basic to the evolution of the Muslim world.
Get it all here
Selling Out Moderate Islam
Satanic Verses
Quite likely if you ask me. The news is not good.
Here are some paragraphs:
The Islamists are also sad bullies, who hunt out causes for offense in the most obscure places, but would recoil at the first sign of Western defiance. Turkey may say little to the Islamists now, but they would say lots if the European Union decided to pass on its inclusion into the union. Local imams sound fiery, but if the West is too debauched a place for any pure Muslim to endure, why then do they not lead, Moses-like, an exodus of the devout away from the rising flood of decadence, and back to the paradise of a purer Syria or Algeria?
Third, the bogus notion of multiculturalism has blinded us to a simple truth: we in the West can live according to our own values and should not allow those radicals who embrace or condone polygamy, gender apartheid, religious intolerance, political autocracy, homosexual persecution, honor killings, female circumcision, and a host of other unmentionables to threaten our citizens within our own countries.
The deluded here might believe that the divide is a moral one, between a supposedly decadent secular West and a pious Middle East, rather than an existential one that is fueled by envy, jealousy, self-pity, and victimization. But to believe the cartoons represent the genuine anguish of an aggrieved puritanical society tainted by Western decadence, one would have to ignore that Turkey is the global nexus for the sex-slave market, that Afghanistan is the world's opium farm, that the Saudi Royals have redefined casino junketeering, and that the repository of Hitlerian imagery is in the West Bank and Iran.
Read it all below.
VDH's Private Papers::Losing Civilization
More sensible words from Human Events Online:
But three cartoons made political points.
One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying "Stop, stop -- we ran out of virgins!" -- which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular -- oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence.
In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.
Get it all here...
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE - Conservative News, Views & Books --
This is a great juxaposition of the cartoon images, and real images from the protests...
Gateway Pundit: World Shocked at Muslim Imagery
Not every Muslim is losing his/her head regarding the cartoons. Here are a few who did not":
The State of Lebanon: Prime Minister Fouad Sinoria apologized to the Danish government & accepted the resignation of his interior minister.
Iraq: Ayatolla Ali Al-Sistani condemmed the cartoons, but aimed most of his fire at those "misguided and opressive" Muslims.
Jordan: the Jordanian editor Jihad al-Momani wrote, "Who insults Islam more, a foreigner who draws the propphet, or a Muslim with an explosive killing himself at a wedding in Amman?"
There is hope.. read it all here:
WSJ.com - Assad and the Ayatollah
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