About whether or not the Danish cartoons should have been published, and whether or not the Islamic response to the cartoons is appropriate, reasonable people may differ. One thing is irrefutable: the Muslim response is different in character from the responses of Christians and Jews when faced with similar or even greater affronts. It may be accurate to call this hypocrisy, but that explains nothing.
That Christians and Jews suffer greater indignities than those inflicted by the cartoonists is irrefutable, the examples so common and readily available that it is redundant to enumerate them. Yet it is simply not possible to identify an instance of Christian or Jewish protest that even begins to approach the outrage evinced by the Islamic community.
This seems important.
What is different about Muslims, that they should take such offense and express it so violently? What is different about Christians and Jews that they don’t? Is this something that we must come to understand if Muslims, Christians, and Jews are to peacefully coexist?
And if we do not try to understand this difference, is it because we are privately reconciled to the idea that peaceful coexistence is not an option?
February 8, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Is it reasonable to think Muslims can peacefully exist at all, much less coexist? While Western military forces may be engaged in battles with which many disagree, as individuals, by and large, Westerners are peaceful. Can we say this about Muslims? It is their /individual/ violence that sets them apart, and makes them a uniquely challenging enemy. For whatever reason, their fundamental code of behavior is one we would describe as barbaric. Peaceful coexistence and barbarism are not compatible.