Friday, February 24, 2006

It's good to know!

Yeah, I know its kinda late to jump onto the bandwagon about the Muhammad Cartoons, but here are my thoughts anyway.

Just recently, The News Straits Times was accused of defaming the prophet because it published this cartoon:


NST had been threatened with suspension just because some nut thought the above comic was one of the twelve Danish cartoons first published on the Jyllands-Posten, and decided to declare Jihad on the newspaper.

Now, with this in view, do most Muslims even know what the Danish comics look like? I'm beginning to think that less than 10% of the raging Muslims even know what the comics look like. Being human, I guess its natural for the rest of the 90% to, fill the gaps and assume the worst about what they've been TOLD, but not SHOWN. Lacking any real visual reference, they're probably just guessing that the minority DO know what the comics look like, and have a pretty good reason for being mad. So why not be mad with them? This ignorance hadn't been helped by the misinformation the Danish imams spread around the Middle East.

So tell me, are goverments' just perpetuating a vicious cycle when they threaten newspapers with suspension for publishing the Danish cartoons? The less people know, the madder they get. The madder they get, the tighter governments' will hold the leash. And then the people will know even less. So on, and so forth.

People NEED to know what the cartoons look like before they even think of lighting any more fires in the name of Islam. If not, when will the cycle of hate end?