I apologize to you on behalf of 'Muslims'

[_BuRjaCi_]

VetLegion you do know that Croatia is mstly chatolic do you? You are jokin right?

[VetLegion]

Croatia is the Finland of southeast Europe

[_BuRjaCi_]

But we should not be jesting about this. This is slowly leading to a war only a fool can not see it. I rests upon the calm people on both sides to prevent this from escalationg. And I say if it wasn't cartoons i'd be something else. We try to enforce "democracy" and are not happy at who the people want to lead them. We have historicaly had very little respect for Islam and that is fundamentally wrong. But you can NOT expect every one to uphold everyones belifes. I suppose Hindus are offended by westerners eating cows, any jew here ever touched pork,... Someone said if you add up all the "taboos" of all religions there is very little left to do except sleap and eat and even that isn't appropriate every day.
In short:
free speach
democracy
religius tolerance
hate speach
religius or ideological extremism

[_BuRjaCi_]

Croatia (except some fits of nationalism it has had, seriously if you want some fun just watch the border disputes betwen Slovenia and Croatia so much hilarious statments on both sides)

[Pekka]

Aahahaha I think that's great! I mean the dude who dressed as a suicide bomber. I mean if it was meant as a counter to this cartoon. THAT'S the best response IMO. Counters the cartoon in the same level, using the same methods. I applaud that action. Of course, as long as that was just for dressing the part . And yeah it might be a bit dangerous, cops might be trigger happy.

But yeah, I think that's pretty funny, kind of offensive but IMO appropriate considering the cartoon. I'm glad I finally came across with a smart reaction I guess some people won't get it though but I applaud his courage and sense of humour and also the ability to see the levels of this thing.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Try dressing up as a suicide bomber in the US you'll be deader than a black man without an alibyn in Texas.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Sandman
The newspapers (left and right) are pretty pissed off, complaining that the police aren't doing their job.

If it was a similar protest against Islam, they certainly would have done.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
If it was a similar protest against Islam, they certainly would have done.

That's true.

An Islam question: Would I be right in thinking that the extreme veneration of Mohammed by Muslims is not actually supported by Koran?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Sandman
An Islam question: Would I be right in thinking that the extreme veneration of Mohammed by Muslims is not actually supported by Koran?

That depends (on your interpretation). The Koran forbids idolatry. And has nothing saying you must worship Muhammed, who simply is the last prophet of Allah. In that way, he should be as venerated as Jesus, Moses, Abraham, etc.

Though, I guess someone (not I) can make an argument that the problem is a lack of veneration for the other profits.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Some Muslim guy mentioned on another forum: since Abraham and Jesus are also holy people in Islam, why don't these protestors get upset every time they are cartooned? Good point.

Spiffor: the word is heureka I think.

I guess the thinking goes that Mohammad is the final prophet and so has a special place. I do not that in the west Christian fundimentalists used to get extremely angry over what they considered to be blasphomous depictions of Christ though it has been a very long time (centuries) since they espoused violence against those people who do dipict Christ in an unflattering way. There are routine protests when such are or movies are made (they've even gotten recent TV shows cancelled through their letter writting campaigns) but they don't threaten to burn things down or kill people any more.

I suspect that in Islam a similiar change will occur over time. People will still be offended, just as Christians are still offended by some illreligious depictions, though more and more of them will channel that anger in a useful and productive way like nonviolent protests, letter writting campaigns, etc... It is just a matter of understanding that violence hurts the cause and prevents people from hearing the merits of their case. The Christians did learn this but it took them a very long time to do so.

Right now this clash between free speech and religious orthodoxy is still relatively new in the Islamic world (indeed many muslim countries continue to have a censored or state controlled press) but in time they will adopt just as other people have adopted in the past. They'll do it because they'll learn how to win people's minds over through reasoned debate and that violence turns world opinion against them. Now if we could only get Bush to learn the same concept.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Sandman


That's true.

And what are we going to do about it?

[Sandman]

Arrest them. Obviously. Incitement is a very serious offence.

[Gangerolf]

http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/

In the middle of all the mayhem surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy, a group of Arab and Muslim youth have set up this website to express their honest opinion, as a small attempt to show the world that the images shown of Arab and Muslim anger around the world are not representative of the opinions of all Arabs. We whole-heartedly apologize to the people of Denmark, Norway and all the European Union over the actions of a few, and we completely condemn all forms of vandalism and incitement to violence that the Arab and Muslim world have witnessed. We hope that this sad episode will not tarnish the great friendship that our peoples have fostered over decades.

...

[Spiffor]

French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo has joined the fray.

11 of its 16 pages are dedicated to the affair. Charlie re-publishes all 12 original cartoons, and has drawn quite a few more cartoons as well. Most notably, the frontpage sports a picture of a crying Mohammed, who says: "it's hard to be loved by cretins". Many other cartoons of Mohammed are also in the paper, which I didn't read.

Several Muslim organizations have attempted to judicially prevent Charlie from being published, but their original complaint has been rejected because of procedure. They will now try to sue Charlie for incitement to hatred.

[Pekka]

These are the people we need to deal with properly. And they are the majority after all. The only reason they feel they need to apologize even though they did nothing wrong is because folks in here (west) are getting so pissed off, so the anger is targetted at everythign that is of middle eastern looks.

That's like if we had Phelps' x 1000 out there, and everyone thought he represented us correctly. That would be a bad situation for us all. I applaud the brave action from these people and it's once again a good sign that we do have people to deal with, and that the ones who are now raging are extremists. Irrational people with irrational demands. Let's keep dealing with the good people of Islam and forget about extremists.