Political Blog

The current riots over Danish cartoons portraying Mohammed have been a missed opportunity by most parties involved. The Muslims could have protested peacefully, or ignored them, proving that the image of Muslims as terrorists is wrong. The American media has also missed an opportunity to both show solidarity with the European press, who published the cartoons, and prove to the Islamists that threats and violence will not work.
Make no mistake; the riots are a planned attack on our freedom of speech from people that do not have the same values as we do. The cartoons were originally published in September by a small Danish right-wing newspaper. Imams in Denmark and a group calling themselves the Brotherhood of Islam took the newspapers, went to Islamic countries and told the leaders, erroneously, that they were being published all over Europe. These countries then planned the riots. As proof I point to the fact that they had so many Danish flags to burn. I could understand if they had American flags on call to burn every time the Great Satan did something to anger so-called moderate Muslims. But Danish flags in abundance?
Not only that, but Denmark is soon to be on the U.N. Security Council. With Iran seeking nuclear weapons and trying to discredit the U.N., this is a perfect opportunity to portray the U.N. as an anti-Muslim organization. This attempt points to a larger scale operation than the ‘spontaneous’ riots that we were originally led to believe.
The rioters have signs claiming, among others that call for the death of the cartoonists and the beheading of people who speak ill of Islam, that pictures of Mohammed are not allowed according to Shar’ia (Islamic law). Not only is that a lie, there are portrayals of Mohammed that date to the medieval period in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Persian Iran, but we are not Muslims therefore we do not need to bend to their rules. Non-Catholics do not need to give up something for Lent or meat on Fridays. Nor do Catholics expect anyone to.
This has been a planned terrorist response by an international fascist movement. Unfortunately our mainstream media has decided to bow to threats of violence, citing ‘cultural sensitivity’. These self-styled proponents for free-speech, whenever Christianity is involved, are now kowtowing to terrorism.
During the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal the media wrote scathing editorials about the Catholic Church. When criticized they cited their right to free-speech. Did Catholics go out into the streets and burn consulates? Did Christians take to the streets calling for the death of op-ed columnists and cartoonists that portrayed priests and the Church as a whole in a negative light?
Why is the mainstream media, arguably our best defender of free-speech, now refusing to do just that? This is a missed opportunity by our press to show exactly where their loyalties lie. I do not buy the excuse that it would have ‘added fuel to the controversy’ when the very same people printed stories about Qur’an defacement (Newsweek) and the newly released Abu Graib pictures (CNN). Apparently freedom of speech is only applicable to people that will not kill you for disagreeing.
Another point that these riots have brought to light is that America is not the sole target of Islamic fundamentalism. For too long Europe has bought the myth that only the imperialist Americans and Zionist Israel were the sole foes of a Caliphate. Europeans were able to go to sleep sure that Islamists would overlook them. This has been proven horribly wrong. Not only is Europe in this war as well, but they have more concerns than us due to their larger population of Muslims.
The major question remains: Why did Muslims choose to respond to cartoons that portrayed their beliefs as a violent religion with violence? Simply put, violence worked. Our media chose not to run these stories and hence they chose to give in to terrorism. In essence, sacrificing our freedoms of speech and press for ‘peace for our time’