Current Events: Arabs vs. Denmark

In response to a Danish newpaper's political cartoons with which they did not agree, Arabs throughout the world have not only boycotted Danish goods but have, unsurprisingly, turned to violence and destruction to voice their displeasure.--------

Should the newspaper have run the cartoons? No. Without actually having seen the cartoons (only reading a description of the most inflammatory one, a drawing of Mohammed with a bomb-like turban), the newspaper probably should not have printed them. With rights come responsibilities, and no one would, for instance, condone stereotypical, Jim Crow-era depicitons of blacks as a legitimate exercise of free speech.----------

Have the Arabs overreacted? Yes. Apparently drawings or deciptions of Muhammed are forbidden in Islam lest they lead to idolatry. Okay, fair enough. However, the publishing of such drawings neither justifies torching a Danish embassy, nor a wholesale boycott of all Danish goods. --------

Unfortunately, open political discourse, a free press and basic freedoms are unavailable in the Arab world, and thus people have no other outlet for their frustrations and discontents other than the blunt instrument of violence. (e.g. what good would it do to write a letter to the editor of a state-run paper criticizing government policy?). The fact that such cultures glorify the gun over the book, the knife over knowledge, only embeds the problem further.---------

The biggest outrage in regard to the Arab reaction to the Danish cartoon is this: the Arab press routinely runs vicious, derogatory anti-Semitic cartoons which depict Jewish people in a manner (malicious) and with an ultimate intent (murderous) no different than the Nazis. I don't think that papers should run any kind of anti-religious cartoons. Until the Arabs stop doing so, they have no right to complain whatsoever.

To read more about the transformation of Europe into Eurabia, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/international/europe/08islam.html?ei=5094&en=102c025d3704270c&hp=&ex=1139374800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all