Immigration Global Muslim anger at European depiction of Prophet Muhammad

[ArmandV]

Which brings up a question...

I was speaking only of violent behaviour, tolerance is a completely different issue.
There are roughly 1.5 billion Muslims on Earth, a few hundred thousand of those demonstrated, only a few thousand got violent. Therefore I find the brush often applied to "the" Muslims, here & in some media, much too broad.

You are correct that it is only a violent few who are causing the trouble. They are giving the Muslim community around the world a bad name. The problem I have is that the 1.4 billion + change Muslims aren't comdemning the violence and the radicalism of the "few thousand." One can interpret their silence as tacit approval.
Does anybody wonder why this is so?

 

[nurizeko]

IMHO i find some muslims can follow a very self destructive way to honour their faith, threatening more powerful nations, sending the young and stupid to blow themselves up, trying to convince the rest of the muslim world to join them in their scuicide war, its pointless, the west isnt buckling for peace, if anything the west could absoluetly whipe the middle east and muslim world off of the planet, leaving blackened earth and dust in the wind.

I just dont get why modern muslims need to be so utterly intolerant, its as if they want to finally push the west over the edge and make the west finally believe all muslims are a threat and deal with them as such.

But they must know if they do, no amount of suicidal faith is going to stop a inter-continental nuclear missle from slamming into their country and glassing it.

I guess some muslims fundies see the western principals as weakness, ide just like to ask any muslim fundie how weak he feels the west is when he shakes the bees nest and has a few tank barrels and automatic rifles pointed at his head.

I think these muslim fundies ARE the minority, and the majority are scared to speak out because they dont want to appear to offend their religion or risk the unpleasant attentions of the local fundie imam.
I think the muslim fundies just want power, like every other dictator and tyrant, stalin probably spouted on about how awsome communism was and how the whole world should be communist, but only because it would give him more power.

Osama doesnt want a world muslim unity because it will please allah, he wants it because he fancies he will be in charge and have dominion over all humanity.

Medieval islam was a peaceful religion, it allowed other religious groups to co-exist within its borders, so the modern funide idea that islam is incompatable with the rest of the world is bull, and if it has become incompatable, then islam is too dangerous to be allowed to exist, and somehow, it will end up cast down and left to ruin, Hitlers world view was hostile and incompatable with the rest of the world, and for his efforts he got totaly defeated, fundie islam is worse, if it becomes a problem, i can only forsee its leaders and followers getting the hard end of another allied forces world war.

Hopefully though the majority of muslims will learn to speak out, and the third world war wont happen.

 

[Maciamo]

You are correct that it is only a violent few who are causing the trouble. They are giving the Muslim community around the world a bad name. The problem I have is that the 1.4 billion + change Muslims aren't comdemning the violence and the radicalism of the "few thousand." One can interpret their silence as tacit approval.
Does anybody wonder why this is so?

I completely agree. If the violent demonstrators are just a tiny community, how comes that the remaining mass stays silent, rather than condemning their acts ? That is tacit approval. Or is it because the government and media are completely controlled by these fundamentalists/extremists in all Muslim countries where violent protests and boycotts took place ?

Hopefully though the majority of muslims will learn to speak out, and the third world war wont happen.

Bad start. Let's hope we won't have to wait until after WWIII for the majority of muslims to learn to speak...

 

[Maciamo]

So far, newspapers in the following countries have (re)printed the cartoons :

- Denmark (Jyllands-Posten)
- Norway (Magazinet)
- France (France Soir)
- Italy (Corriere della Serra, La Stampa)
- Spain (El Pais, El Periodico)
- Germany (Die Welt, Berliner Zeitung)
- the Netherlands (Volkskrant)
- Belgium (De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, Het Volk)

On the Muslim side, Syria and Saudi Arabia have removed their ambassadors from Denmark. Libya has closed its embassy altogether, and the governments of Qatar and Iran have lodged official protests. Danish goods have been boycotted in most of the Middle East, including medicines from Novo Nordisk, the world's largest producer of insulin.

Anti-European demonstrations have taken place in Turkey, all the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Here are some pictures of the protests from the BBC.

And more video news of the same protests from Euronews.

Here is the complete article from Wikipedia

 

[No-name]

Welcome to the modern world.
The "Muslim world" should be concerned about not only how a handful of artists depicts Muhammad, but how the rest of the world now percieves Islam. They don't seem to have a problem showing innocent and bound people beheaded on video, nor in displaying curricatures of Jews. Perhaps this offense and the reaction, will trigger some introspection among the thinkers of that religion.

 

[ArmandV]

Why hasn't the U.S. been attacked since 9/11?

Welcome to the modern world.
The "Muslim world" should be concerned about not only how a handful of artists depicts Muhammad, but how the rest of the world now percieves Islam. They don't seem to have a problem showing innocent and bound people beheaded on video, nor in displaying curricatures of Jews. Perhaps this offense and the reaction, will trigger some introspection among the thinkers of that religion.

We should hope, but the trouble is, some of these people don't think rationally.

Here's an article that was published last year on why the U.S. hasn't been attacked since 9/11. Perhaps some of the "top brass" of Osama's Gang got the message:

Why the U.S. has been
terror-free since 9-11
Intelligence expert says nuke option is reason bin Laden has been quiet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Why hasn't Osama bin Laden's terror network executed an attack on U.S. soil since 9-11?

Simple, says Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of an acclaimed intelligence website dubbed "the oasis for rational conservatives": The U.S. has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca should the terror leader strike America again.

On his website, To the Point, Wheeler explains how the Bush administration has identified the potential of wiping Mecca off the map as bin Laden's ultimate point of vulnerability – the Damoclean Sword hanging over his head.


"Israel ?c recognizes that the Aswan Dam is Egypt's Damoclean Sword," writes Wheeler. "There is no possibility whatever of Egypt's winning a war with Israel, for if Aswan is blown, all of inhabited Egypt is under 20 feet of water. Once the Israelis made this clear to the Egyptians, the possibility of any future Egyptian attack on Israel like that of 1948, 1967, and 1972 is gone."

Wheeler says talk of bin Laden's Damoclean Sword has infiltrated the Beltway.

Writes Wheeler in his members-only column: "There has been a rumor floating in the Washington ether for some time now that George Bush has figured out what Sword of Damocles is suspended over Osama bin Laden's head. It's whispered among Capitol Hill staffers on the intel and armed services committees; White House NSC (National Security Council) members clam up tight if you begin to hint at it; and State Department neo-cons love to give their liberal counterparts cardiac arrhythmia by elliptically conversing about it in their presence.

"The whispers and hints and ellipses are getting louder now because the rumor explains the inexplicable: Why hasn't there been a repeat of 9-11? How can it be that after this unimaginable tragedy and Osama's constant threats of another, we have gone over three years without a single terrorist attack on American soil?"

Available only to subscribers of To the Point, Wheeler ends his column by explaining the effectiveness of the Mecca threat.

"Completely obliterating the terrorists' holiest of holies, rendering what is for them the world's most sacred spot a radioactive hole in the ground is retribution of biblical proportions – and those are the only proportions that will do the job.

"Osama would have laughed off such a threat, given his view that Americans are wussies who cut and run after a few losses, such as Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. Part of Bush's rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – obviously never expressed publicly – was to convince Osama that his threat to nuke Mecca was real. Osama hates America just as much as ever, but he is laughing no more."

Wheeler says bin Laden is "playing poker with a Texas cowboy holding the nuclear aces," so there's nothing al-Qaida could do that could come remotely close to risking obliterating Mecca.

Writes Wheeler: "So far, Osama has decided not to see if GW is bluffing. Smart move."

 

[breez]

Seems that the anger has materialized in torching the Danish embassy in Syria.

 

[Da Monstar]

Syrians claims that they only did this due to the fact that there have been talks in the danish publics, started by none less than the "White Pride" organisations, to start a demostartion where people should start burning the Quran (I'm still not sure that I can spell the english word correct, sorry.) as an reply to many muslims burning the danish flag and pictures of the primeminister.
For a fact there has been no such demonstration in Denmark yet, And there have not yet been any sorts of attacks on muslims in Denmark for badmouthing Denmark.
So I will call this attack on the Danish embassy for an unprovoked attack.
I will not say that it is fair, nor just, for the danish to start burning the Quran during a Demostration. But After this incident I believe that such a demonstration is a possibilty. I will not myself participate in such a Demonstration, because it will only make matters worse.
This whole freaking thing is starting to get out of hand.

I see both sides as the aggressor now. The danish Newspaper DOES owe the muslims an apology, but demanding the life of the 3 painters and an official from the whole country is just inacceptable. And trying to force their opinions into the public by burning Flags and pictures of leaders is just as Disrespectful, if not more, as drawing depictions of a phophet and/or god.
starting to burn buildings, with the possibilty of causing death to ambasadors and other workers in that building, is taking things even more far than they is now.
As of now great parts of the muslims is going to far in this matter!

I will still stick to the fact that I Have not taken any parts in this, Other than I still the Newspaper owes a Personal Apology adressed to all of the muslims (even those muslims who have now put the score to 2-1 in the muslims favor). Denmark Is as now in no way the agressor or responsible for any of this. Actually I think our leader has done everything to try and calm this whole incident down. Also I must add that some muslim Politicans (who I do not remember the names of) have at a metting said that they are sorry for many muslims burning Flags etc. and that they know it will only make things worse. Therefore I must say we must in no way try to generalize a people just because of their religion. Many muslims are not warmongers and are trying to receive a solution in a much better way than this.

As of now I have not taken a side in all of this. But if the demonstrating muslims takes things more far (like killing danish citizens or burning more buildings) I will have no other choice than take the side of my country, Though I will not in any way Burn a Quran or harm a muslim in the street.

Again a long post written in the Quick Reply window. I hope my post is not to confusing and that it is not misunderstood. If it is please tell me so that I may clear it up.


"Peace is always an option, never remove this option from your choice of actions"

- Da Monstar

 

[Clawn]

As of now I have not taken a side in all of this. But if the demonstrating muslims takes things more far (like killing danish citizens or burning more buildings) I will have no other choice than take the side of my country

Da Monstar, I agree with you. I believe most of us have kept a neutral point of view in this matter, and I think that that was a smart choice. I can understand why the Islamic people have taken issue with this, I can even understand why a few of them have chosen to protest, I can even go as far as to say I understand why a few of them burned Danish flags.

But burning down buildings and threatening lives is going too far.

 

[No-name]

I also agree. Protest is one thing, violence quite another.

 

[Maciamo]

Seems that the anger has materialized in torching the Danish embassy in Syria.

I see the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassy as a declaration of war on the EU and NATO countries. This should give GW Bush and his European allies one of the most valid reason so far to invade a Muslim country. Syria and Iran were both on the waiting list. Iran is already assailed by the international community on its insistence to build a nuclear programme. Syria has now signed its own war declaration, and for the first time I really wish that Western powers invade a Middle Eastern country in retaliation. There is no way we are going to let Muslims attack Western citizens and burn Western embassies for a stupid cartoon !

 

[Ma Cherie]

Re-publishing the cartoons seems to have made things worse. So that wasn't too smart in my opinion. Both parties are wrong.

 

[Maciamo]

Re-publishing the cartoons seems to have made things worse. So that wasn't too smart in my opinion. Both parties are wrong.

Denmark and Norway have not reprinted the cartoons. Denmark only printed the cartoons last Setpember, and Norway reprinted them almost 1 month ago. So why would they attack these embassies and not those of the 6 other countries who republished the cartoons in the last 3 days ? What's more the editor of the Danish newspaper AND Danish Prime Minister in person apologised to the Muslim community yesterday.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

Religio cultures need to be desensitized to their sense of indignation. Cartoons parodying and satirising anything in the public realm is freedom of speech, and while many of the countries in the Islamic world do not have that, they have no right to insist that the rest of the world bow down to their sense of outrage on creative expressive comment.

I wish the newspapers would print more to underscore the importance of freedom of speech and draw a line in the sand that says they will not back down from that tenet.

Yes, it would be like kicking a hornets nest, but, if you want the hornet nest out of your backyard, then you just have to knock it down.

 

[TwistedMac]

I see the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassy as a declaration of war on the EU and NATO countries.

I'm right there with you. (Although it was the Danish, Swedish and Chile embassy) An embassy is to be considered the soil of the country it belongs to and as such an act like this is not just the burning of a building but an act of war, and to be honest I've had quite enough of this [censored word goes here] hypocracy and inane ranting of the Islamistic fundamentalists.

This should give GW Bush and his European allies one of the most valid reason so far to invade a Muslim country.

We don't believe in Bush for sh*t anymore. the Danes were one of the few to stand behind the USA in moving into Iraq and although they are a small country they believed they were the allies of America, not their toy. Bush has come out condemning the pictures as tasteless and whatnot in an obvious attempt to gain some standing with the Islamistic people by throwing the Danes to the sharks.
If my weak-minded, coward nation would just take these simpletons offended by mere cartoons to the point of burning down embassies up on their declaration of war I'd be on the frontlines, smacking them around with a shoe, which apparently seems a big insult to them.
To be honest I don't even have any nationalistic pride or anything like that to fight for... these pyromaniacs just piss me off.
But when it's all said and done, I believe it will just end here. We're just too civilised to start a full scale war over a building.
Well I'm not, but my goverment is.

 

[Maciamo]

Well said, TwistedMac. It's time for European countries who backed the USA to see if they can really count on their American allies, or if it's just a one way relationship. I am pretty sure that if it had been the US embassy that had been burned, US troops would already be on their way to occupy Syria, and Bush would have said that attacking diplomatic missions is no response to what private citizens might have said or drawn in a country.

 

[Duo]

We should hope, but the trouble is, some of these people don't think rationally.
Here's an article that was published last year on why the U.S. hasn't been attacked since 9/11. Perhaps some of the "top brass" of Osama's Gang got the message:
Why the U.S. has been
terror-free since 9-11
Intelligence expert says nuke option is reason bin Laden has been quiet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Why hasn't Osama bin Laden's terror network executed an attack on U.S. soil since 9-11?
Simple, says Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of an acclaimed intelligence website dubbed "the oasis for rational conservatives": The U.S. has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca should the terror leader strike America again.
On his website, To the Point, Wheeler explains how the Bush administration has identified the potential of wiping Mecca off the map as bin Laden's ultimate point of vulnerability – the Damoclean Sword hanging over his head.
"Israel ?c recognizes that the Aswan Dam is Egypt's Damoclean Sword," writes Wheeler. "There is no possibility whatever of Egypt's winning a war with Israel, for if Aswan is blown, all of inhabited Egypt is under 20 feet of water. Once the Israelis made this clear to the Egyptians, the possibility of any future Egyptian attack on Israel like that of 1948, 1967, and 1972 is gone."
Wheeler says talk of bin Laden's Damoclean Sword has infiltrated the Beltway.
Writes Wheeler in his members-only column: "There has been a rumor floating in the Washington ether for some time now that George Bush has figured out what Sword of Damocles is suspended over Osama bin Laden's head. It's whispered among Capitol Hill staffers on the intel and armed services committees; White House NSC (National Security Council) members clam up tight if you begin to hint at it; and State Department neo-cons love to give their liberal counterparts cardiac arrhythmia by elliptically conversing about it in their presence.
"The whispers and hints and ellipses are getting louder now because the rumor explains the inexplicable: Why hasn't there been a repeat of 9-11? How can it be that after this unimaginable tragedy and Osama's constant threats of another, we have gone over three years without a single terrorist attack on American soil?"
Available only to subscribers of To the Point, Wheeler ends his column by explaining the effectiveness of the Mecca threat.
"Completely obliterating the terrorists' holiest of holies, rendering what is for them the world's most sacred spot a radioactive hole in the ground is retribution of biblical proportions – and those are the only proportions that will do the job.
"Osama would have laughed off such a threat, given his view that Americans are wussies who cut and run after a few losses, such as Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. Part of Bush's rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – obviously never expressed publicly – was to convince Osama that his threat to nuke Mecca was real. Osama hates America just as much as ever, but he is laughing no more."
Wheeler says bin Laden is "playing poker with a Texas cowboy holding the nuclear aces," so there's nothing al-Qaida could do that could come remotely close to risking obliterating Mecca.
Writes Wheeler: "So far, Osama has decided not to see if GW is bluffing. Smart move."

AS IF!!!!
That is the most ridicolous point ever. Why would the US nuke a prime ally in the middle east and one of the main "CHEAP" oil suppliers to the US. The consequences would be catastrophic. That would prolly start the clash between civilizations not to mention the economies of the West going to chaos mode. I find this article to be completedly idiotic. What editor has let this one slip by. Intelligence expert, where do they find these guys?!!



@ main point. Can't say to be surprised. I would expect some reaction such as this one. This is also proof that the intolerance on the muslim side is non ending... I wonder how long the EU and Europe are going to tolerate these kind of actions. There are already signs that Europeans are fed up with muslim outbursts such as this one.



I wonder if the local police forces did anything to protect these embassies from being assaulted. That an ignorent idiotic mob attaks them is not as worrying as governments condoning this by not acting against the will of the mob. The begining of this january some radical serbs threw some light explosives on the Albanian embassy's garden... the very next day Serb police were on guard as a precautionary measure. I wonder if such measures were taken here in this case. Should EU countries now in Middle Eastern nations have to bring armed guards with them like the US?



And what about some nations withdrawing their ambassadors. What kind of idiocy is that? Break dimplomatic relations because some newspaper in a country prints offensive material. There are a million calls of jihad against the West a day in middle eastern nations... yet I don't see European countries withdrawing embassies. A call on your death is far more serious than makin fun of your religious figure. That European Army force sounds good about now, doesnt it ?

 

[Maciamo]

I'm right there with you. (Although it was the Danish, Swedish and Chile embassy)

You are right, the Swedish and Chilean embassies were in the same building as the Danish embassy. But according to the BBC. the Norwegian embassy was also burned.

Syrians have set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus to protest at the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

We can thus suppose that 4 embassies have been burned.

 

[ArmandV]

I'm right there with you. (Although it was the Danish, Swedish and Chile embassy) An embassy is to be considered the soil of the country it belongs to and as such an act like this is not just the burning of a building but an act of war, and to be honest I've had quite enough of this [censored word goes here] hypocracy and inane ranting of the Islamistic fundamentalists.
We don't believe in Bush for sh*t anymore. the Danes were one of the few to stand behind the USA in moving into Iraq and although they are a small country they believed they were the allies of America, not their toy. Bush has come out condemning the pictures as tasteless and whatnot in an obvious attempt to gain some standing with the Islamistic people by throwing the Danes to the sharks.
If my weak-minded, coward nation would just take these simpletons offended by mere cartoons to the point of burning down embassies up on their declaration of war I'd be on the frontlines, smacking them around with a shoe, which apparently seems a big insult to them.
To be honest I don't even have any nationalistic pride or anything like that to fight for... these pyromaniacs just piss me off.
But when it's all said and done, I believe it will just end here. We're just too civilised to start a full scale war over a building.
Well I'm not, but my goverment is.

Freedom of speech (and press) is a right that allows for the publication of said cartoons, however tasteless they may be. (I agree with Bush, they were tasteless, but I thought the one regarding the shortage of virgins was particularly funny. But that's just me.)

Where the wackos are wrong is that private papers did the publishing, not the governments. If the Denmark government published the cartoons in a government paper, then that would be one thing. But since the cartoons were published in a private paper and the government issued apologies, then the wackos are completely wrong. It is okay for Muslim publishers to publish cartoons attacking Jews and 9/11, but when the tables get turned they scream like gutted pigs.

 

[Sensuikan San]

... Hopefully though the majority of muslims will learn to speak out, and the third world war wont happen.

WWIII?

On September 12, 2001, I declared to my colleagues in our office that we were already in it!

We just don't perceive it for what it is.

Will the majority of Muslims speak out? No ... not in the foreseeable future. They are too frightened of those that really hold power (over each and every individual, on a day to day basis) in their own countries.

They are in the same boat as was the average German, Japanese or Italian citizen in 1933.

Fasten your seatbelts ... it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

?W????