My take on things

The current situation about the Danish “cartoons” is really worrying me. A lot of people in the West seem to think the Muslims that have been demonstrating and protesting are overreacting. They don’t understand why the Muslims are making such a big fuss. Let me try to explain it to you.

Hello! We’ve just gravely insulted Mohammed and with that every single Muslim on this planet! They have had to take a lot of crap from us lately. Acting like all Muslims are terrorists and the people in Islamic countries are pathetic second-class world citizens. Forcing our way of life on them. But that wasn’t enough for the West. No, we had to insult the core of their belief. Let’s portray Mohammed as a terrorist! What a brilliant idea…

You don’t mess with Mohammed! What do you think would happen if some cartoon came out with Jesus portrayed as a terrorist? Do you think the Christians would simply laugh? No, of course not! And would we think it weird that they would protest? No! Everyone would be outraged and tripping over each other to say they were appalled. It’s exactly the same thing, but somehow we can’t understand why the Muslims are angry… Kind of weird, isn’t it?

Another aspect I was thinking about. Why do the Western media say this is freedom of speech while whenever someone says/writes/draws anything that could even be slightly offensive to Christians or Jews half the world is on top of it? Why does the entire world openly disapprove of the president of Iran saying the Holocaust maybe did not happen and have nothing to say now? If insulting Muslims is freedom of speech, insulting Jews is freedom of speech as well. Both things are just as insulting and hurtful to the respective people, so why don’t we treat these situations the same?

Because we’re measuring with two measures. Apparently it’s okay to insult Muslims, but we can’t insult Jews or Christians, because that’s anti-Semitic or anti-Christian. I haven’t heard the term “anti-Muslim/Islam” yet and I don’t understand why, because that’s what these cartoons are to me. You don’t mess with other people’s religions or faith; no matter how much your beliefs differ or how much you disagree with them.

I can understand why the Muslims are pissed off at us. I could already understand before this incident, but this has been the last drop for a lot of them. I don’t like the fact that the protests have ended in violence, because nothing good can come out of that. It’s so sad that the gap between us just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I just hope, being my naïve self, someday we’ll all be able to live together with respect. It really isn’t that difficult…