Debate: 'Should Muslims turn a blind eye to the cartoons?'

why not? its called a pollitcal cartoon and its been going on since the roman empire. every week people like Pat Oliphant, Henry Payne, and a list of other artists make their living drawing humorus (sometimes) parodys of news events and pollitical figures.
People take themselves way too seriously. now that we are all news junkies and media can travel around the globe instantly, we're all watching ourselves watching ourselves.

I don't know if the Muslims should just let it go... although I wish they would.

Something to consider; Muslims have no trouble murdering Christians on the spot in their countries, yet I don't see a media backlash against Muslims in the American media becaue of this... Christians just seem to "let it go".

It seems a bit trivial that they're ready to go to war over a cartoon when everyone else in the world just allows them to believe what they want in peace.

well I think being able to laugh at yourself or letting go of anger over the cartoons has something to do with how much self-esteem one has. And this is not the pride self-esteem, but how comfortable you are with yourself (as a group, as a culture). and I think that (and i hate to be so overly generalizing here) the muslim community that is getting so upset about the cartoons is just not having much of this kind of self-esteem. they say they are proud of themselves and their culture, but in the end they see with their own eyes every day that both the west and the east has overtaken them in economic and cultural development. and their reaction to this is that they try to hold on to what they have -- their religion.

In the documentary Controlroom there is one scene with one of the al Jazeera journalists who was criticizing the US and the west throughout the movie and when they asked him what he wanted for himself and his family in the future he said he wished that his kids could go to school in the US. I think that there is an understanding that they are not what they used to be a couple of hundred years ago, but they desperately want to think so. And violence helps you think that you still have influence ... you have power over someone else, plus in today's age you get media coverage.

I wonder why people assume that all Muslims want to go to war over this. I know Muslims who don't want to kill because of this cartoon. They don't like what the cartoon portrayed and they protested against it peacefully. I just wonder why the news only show the violent protests and not the peaceful ones?

Wagi, I agree with you that there has been a misrepresentation in the press, and as I said in my post I hate to write in over generalizing terms. I think the problem is not the violent vs. the non violent demonstrations against the cartoons. I think an issue is that there were no demonstrations against the violent demonstrations (or at least I haven't heard of any).

Plus, I think that even if you don't agree with those cartoons you don't even have to demonstrate. why? it is a cartoon. don't read the paper or the cartoon, and get over it. there are things that are worth demonstrating for (like women's rights, free press, freedom of speech, fair trade ...) but a cartoon?

Carsten, I do agree with you that a cartoon is just a cartoon but it also fuels the analogy of putting a frog in a pot of water and slowing boiling it death.

Dan Almasy, I don't know if perhaps you're using American Intelligence in your claim that a Muslim has no trouble murdering Christians on the spot in their own countries. Nuff said about that really.

With regards to certain theories around why Muslims protest so much about their religion, and about how insecure we are about it, I don't quite agree with that theory. In fact many Muslims from Muslim countries find it strange that the West has a comparatively lax attitude towards things like sexual infidelity - yet I would think it strange to claim that having a more lax attitude to such values accrues to being insecure with adultery!

At the end of the day it boils down to your values; Muslims were as committed -if not more committed - to their religion when they were the progressives and academics of the world.

Some Muslims were outraged by the cartoons.
Some Western non-Muslims were outraged by the Muslims' outrage on the cartoons!

Granted, there were more violent demonstrations on the Muslim side (though a very small minority of an overall 1.5 billion people) - but at the end of the day does that not reflect a lack of education and/or deperation in voicing opinions in societies that are mostly ruled with iron fists where there are no legitimate means of voicing dissatisfaction?

@Son of the Road - I was really not trying to make some sweeping generalization of Muslims as a whole, I was referring to the "aggressive" factions. If you think that these same Muslims are not making a mission out of killing Christians, maybe you should check out a few links:

Here's one...
And another one...

@Alex - Do you disagree? I don't see any kind of speaking out against these attacks from prominent religious figures, not in the media or anyplace else.

I am aware that the vast majority of Muslims are non-violent and actually very dedicated to protecting life, but unfortunately the other groups are the ones making headlines.

@Alex - I don't agree with us being in the middle-east! I can recognize the atrocity and senseless death. I think that the best thing we can do, is to get out of there as fast as we can. We [would be led to believe] that we're in Iraq fighting and killing because of 9/11 and terrorists. While I don't agree that this [is the true reason] why the U.S. is there, this was a response of an entirely different nature, and I think it's safe to say that the [false] pretenses by which we entered this war, were definitely a little more serious than a cartoon. Asking who's worse is like comparing apples and apples.

Isn't killing as a form of retribution wrong no matter what? Can we not agree on a universal truth, that to slay others in the name of ANY cause/religion is atrocious? Why are we so quick to side with militant Islam... because they were "offended"? That, gave them the right to start shooting and burning people? Why are we coddling them?

You're right Alex, every day the U.S. military commits horrendous acts in the name of... "freedom". But we also see the same senseless killings with Israel, Palestine, Rwanda, Nigeria, and a horde of other countries across the world.

Is killing made right because you happen to believe in something?