Don’t Attack the Messenger
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    Cool Don’t Attack the Messenger

    Don’t Attack the Messenger
    February 13th, 2006
    Keith Roderick

    “Don’t attack the Messenger!” is a phrase shouted by enraged Muslims defending the iconoclastic tradition within Islam prohibiting artistic renderings of Mohammed. However, it also might be the response attributed to beleaguered European editors accused of provoking riots after publishing caricatures of Mohammed.

    What began as a liberal challenge to resist intimidation for criticizing Islam has became the Islamists’ vehicle for challenging Western liberal democracy. Dr. Walid Phares, Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, interprets the protests as the beginning of an anti-European intifada noting that,

    “the Islamists want to draw the limits of world freedoms and the Western liberals reject that limitation.”

    Far from being a spontaneous eruption by aggrieved masses, victims of European imperialistic and racist attitudes, the conflict was carefully calculated from the beginning. What began as the Danish Islamists desire to engender support for their grievances to Islamic governments was skillfully manipulated by others to intensify the uprising.

    Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, accused Syrian security officers in civilian clothes of initiating the burning of the Danish embassy in Beirut. In Gaza, professionally printed placards and a myriad of Danish flags were produced ready for burning. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, provided his religious imprimatur to violent demonstrations against Denmark’s embassy in Tehran, calling their actions “justified and even holy.” King Abdullah II of the moderate Muslim state of Jordan reminded the American press after meeting with President Bush in the Oval office that

    “anything that vilifies the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, or attacks Muslim sensibilities, needs to be condemned.”

    This is a campaign, not a reaction. For the radical Islamists the objectives have less to do with securing apologies than it does in creating conflict to empower their movement for future success in the Islamization of Europe.

    The final Communiqué of the Islamic Summit Conference of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) issued on December 10, 2005 identified the political goals of the world’s Islamic community to include criminalizing “Islamophobia” and anything that can be construed as defamation of Islam as racist.

    Identifying offenses against Islam inevitably will become burdensome. Even when they practice “responsible freedom,” European bureaucrats, editors, authors and artists will never be certain of where the line of Muslim sensibilities is drawn and when it is crossed. A crucial question for Europeans is why they should be concerned more with Muslim sensibilities than they are with any other religious group’s sensibilities.

    What is being asked of Western countries by the OIC is to accept, in effect, shari’a-based blasphemy laws, but only as they apply to Islam. Nowhere in the OIC communiqué is there a condemnation of the horrific caricatures of Jews and Christians, nor of the violent attacks against non-Muslims which occur on a regular basis in Islamic countries. Self-criticism of the bitter fruits of Islamic law for women and non-Muslims is also absent in the OIC statement.

    The riots of the last few weeks will subside. The question will then arise, what next? After the ashes of the European flags have been washed away, will the EU members settle into a calm complacency? Perhaps, but Islamists see the future of Europe as more dynamic.

    Dr. Ismail Jalili, chairman of National Association of British Arabs, provides a clue. Even as he calls the violence unacceptable, he concludes that it is likely that insensitivity will build resentments in Europe that will inevitably “explode in an uncontrollable fashion….”

    The die is cast. The restraints Islam imposes upon itself through shari’a will continue to chaff against the seam of traditional Western liberal values.

    The real test for Western countries will be to resist the temptation to legislate a new spate of religious vilification laws. Although designed to promote tolerance, they are often misused and contribute to greater inter-religious conflict. By seeking to appease, the proponents of these laws actually empower the Islamists. Radical Islamists will use vilification laws to muzzle critical opposition, thereby adding another arrow in their quiver to confront the West, the fear of prosecution.

    Already there are calls for laws to prohibit publishing images of Mohammed. The British Muslim Action Committee has proposed changes in the Race Relations Act and the Press Complaints Commission code.

    Contrary to popular belief, the word “Islam” does not translate into the word “peace.” Islam means submission. That is the message Islamists are sending the West. Submit to Islam. The West must be equally as clear in reply.

    No.

    The Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick is the Washington representative of Christian Solidarity International and Secretary General of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights, the largest coalition of ethnic and religious minorities in Islamic countries.




    Ellie


  2. #2

    Cartoons erupt riots

    After seeing the world from just about every prospective, I have noticed one major problem. It comes from the way that the ones seeking asylum or immigrate to other lands want to be treated. The problem is really that they want to be treated as if they are guests but also want the same freedoms as the native born of that land. They have beliefs that are theirs. They have lives that they wish to live. And they believe that, in most cases, they deserve special privillages because of what they endured. Most are happy with being away from the place that caused them and their families harm but forget that not each land is the same. That their beliefs are not as every-one else's belief. So when something such as these cartoons come out the reaction that the religious believers of that culture have will definitely be outrageous. They see it as an attack on them and their beliefs not freedom of speech or freedom of the press. As I said they forget that the land that they are living in isn't the same as where they came from but in a motion of emotion they are then making their place of safe haven the place where they are from. Mainly because of ignorance towards the freedoms that others have grown up with. I know that they have Jesus jokes and that they make fun of the Catholic Religion. But when an outsider makes fun of the Muslum Religion then there is a public outcry of racism and hatred. They want that those involved to be submissive towards their beliefs and that they beg for forgiveness from the Islamic People.

    My view is that if they wish to partake of the land they are in then they had better start to understand that things are not all about the Islamic Culture. Not every land that they inhabit will conform to their beliefs and that they don't need to conform to the beliefs of it. If they are not happy about what the land is doing and wish to commit acts such as riots and destruction of property then they can always go back to where they came from and live there since it must be a better place than the safe haven that took them in. freedom has been fought for and against for many years. Not every country will bow down and apologize for something that is NOT going the Islamic way and I don't that any country should. I think that the Islamic People that have made it to a better place then their own homeland should appreciate that some country took them in and gave them and their families a place ot live without the threat of being killed just because of religous preferences or where they were born. They should wake up and smell the coffee. These actions of riots and such are doing nothing but helping nations that feel them as a threat to exspel them from their borders. Such actions as in France not to long ago and other actions that have been commited because of decisive indecission making of the absurdness that they have demostrated should be legal grounds to send back any that do not wish to comply with the laws of the land they are in.


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