Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Thank god people are standing up to stupidity

This is heartening - those Danish cartoons that caused such gnashing of teeth in the Arab world have now been reprinted in German and French newspapers. (One wishes that the Globe would have the cojones to do the same).

As this corner has argued before, people really need to get over themselves. I participated in a conversation in the comments page of the Washington Post and it was amazing what people would come up with.

Some people, with totally straight faces, said that Muslims never insult anyone else's religion. Right. There's never, ever been an offensive cartoon about Jews in any Arab paper. Oh no. Gays have never been vilified.

One posted had the audacity to tell me that in any Arab world, it's okay to insult any king, politician, president, dictator-for-life (itself a completely risible claim - calling Assad an asshole ended you up in the oubliette), but not Mohammed. Okay, maybe in your country it isn't. In ours, it is.

People in the west don't go kicking in stores and beating people up and every time a newspaper says something offensive.

Also, many commentators couldn't get over the Iraq war - the rationale: because you invaded us, every time we don't like something, we can riot.

First: forget that Denmark, last I checked, wasn't a member of the coalition of the browbeaten (nor Germany nor France nor Canada). We're not talking about the Danish government - we're talking about a private newspaper.

Think what you want about the war in Iraq - this poster, for one, believes it was wrong. But that doesn't mean that every time a cartoon is published that you don't like, you can resort to violence.

Grow up. Mohammed's a big guy, and I'm sure, like me, he can take it like a man. All those getting hot under the collar should do the same - and at least take a look in their own papers for similar cartoons about Jews, Christians, Homos, Athiests, Women, etc. . .

No comments: