Islamic Outrage
Four grave issues arise from the Islamic furor about cartoons.
These are their:
[a] highly selective outrage,
[b] total lack of proportionality,
[c] methods of protest, and
[d] rights as inhering in citizens or residents, not in private/voluntary
societies or faiths.
As regards [a], what group of Moslems protested publicly, if not violently,
about any of the following 12 murderous bombings — by fanatical Islamic
"Jihadi" fringe?
[1] Casablanca,
[2] Istanbul,
[3] Bali,
[4] Madrid trains,
[5] London Underground and bus,
[6] Shia Mosques in Iraq,
[7] Mosques in Pakistan,
[8] Lower Manhattan Twin Towers,
[9] Sudanese massacres in Darfur,
[10] Beslan school massacre,
[11] Nairobi, and
[12] visitors at Egyptian pyramids
Add to that list the murder of young Arabs [along with young Jews] in a
Tel Aviv disco in 2001. Or the mass murder of 5,000 Sunni Kurdish Moslems
Saddam gassed at Halabja. Or the murder of Egyptian (Muslim) President Anwar
Sadat. Or the attempted assassination of another in Pakistan.
Which Imams travelled the world to stir up passion about any of these crimes?
Regarding [b], does the deliberate murder of innocent civilians, including
Moslems, never produce the same level of heat and even violence as this
world-wide reaction to drawings in an obscure paper that almost no-one heard
of, even in Denmark, or had seen?
What are the real priorities in modern Moslem morality? Is there even
one crime which, when committed by Moslems, can generate the same heat
from Moslem protesters? Or is much of this really hysteria, carefully
orchestrated by some within Islam with their own hidden agenda?
As regards [c], when London "protesters" carry placards with
"Behead those who disrespect Islam", or "Mock to-day and die
tomorrow", or appear dressed as a "suicide-bomber", we have
simply criminal intimidation which needs urgent and firm police action. As
we had with the Iranian "fatwa" threat to murder Rushdie.
As regards [d], Islamic or Jewish or Hindu rules, or RC Canon Law, these are
of no more concern to, or binding force in, any free, democratic civil
society, than golf-club rules. There never was any right, much less some
absolute or over-riding one, in the Irish Constitutions or laws, the UN
Declaration of Human Rights, or European Convention, to freedom from
challenge, rejection, disrespect or ridicule, be it for any individual,
official, preacher, politician, or even celebrity. Or for any body of such.
And the dead " of any faith " cannot be libelled. We throughout
Europe, either hold firm in the face of this orchestrated, global campaign
of escalating intimidation, or we lurch into an Islamic theocracy.
Tom Carew,
Ranelagh,
Dublin, 6,
Ireland.
e-mail: tmcarew@yahoo.com
Our special thanks to the author for submitting this article.
A. G. S.