Email From a Reader…
When there is an act of terrorism committed somewhere in the world by ONE Islamic extremist, aren’t we all cautioned by Muslims (and others) to not lump them all together? Blame the terrorist, they say, not the religion as a whole. Then why aren’t Muslims themselves now practicing what they preach? TWELVE people drew these cartoons, yet a great many Muslims are taking it out on nations as a whole. Danish tourists are now warned their lives are in danger when travelling to predominately Islamic nations. My point? Why aren’t these same Muslims who have warned us not to judge someone based on their religion, now doing the exact same thing by judging someone based on their nationality? Hypocrisy.There’s more hypocrisy to be found when you look at the issued of how often some Muslims speak offensively about other religions. Most of us in the western world have no idea how much other religions and peoples are slandered, degraded, and insulted on a daily basis in much of the Islamic world. Insulted in their schools, their mosques, in their newspapers, and in countless other forums. It seems to me that if they don’t want others to insult their religion, a good place for them to start would be to stop insulting and degrading other religions, themselves. Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric is calling for the author and publishers of the cartoon to be put on trial and punished. Why doesn’t this same chief cleric call on the Muslim authors and publishers of books and newspapers that slander non-Islamic religions to be put on trial and punished? Hypocrisy.
Uh no.
You would have a parallel if Moslems in general had said the 9/11 attacks were "of course offensive, but not a crime." But they didn't -- the majority of Moslems say that terrorism is wrong, and their countries consider it a crime.
So the "stereotype" or "generalization" that Westerners don't consider blasphemy a crime and don't believe it should be prevented or punished is correct. We do in fact say that blasphemous cartoons are offensive but not criminal.
Not all Westerners believe in free speech, unfortunately, but most of us do, and so we deserve to be painted with that broad brush.
As far as that other thing, well thinking your own religion is special is kind of the definition of a true believer, isn't it? If you think Islam is the one and only truth, then what harm is there in putting down all those other false beliefs? It's only unbelievers like me who think of Islam as just another religion that should be given equal respect or disrespect as all the others.
So, nice try, but I don't think we can all just get along.