Offending Religious Sensibilities

photo of St. Maron (Maronite Catholic) church in Beruit from Catholic Online


As much of the Islamic world writhes in ugly anger over some Danish political cartoons they find to be offensive to Islam, we here in the true north strong and free have an opportunity to consider what is really going on out there beyond the tundra.

We are told by sympathetic commentators in the main-stream media that there are essentially two reasonable reasons why Muslims are offended by the cartoons. First, we are told that Islam does not permit depictions of their prophet, as this might lead to idolatry. As medieval Islamic paintings exist that clearly depict their prophet, this would appear to be a spurious argument.

Second, we are told that Muslim's are simply outraged by the portrayal of Muhammed in the cartoons. In the most egregious cartoon Muhammed is drawn wearing a turban shaped like a bomb thereby, for some unknown reason, drawing a connection between terrorism and Islam. Muslims assert that their religion is a religion of peace and many are deeply offended by any suggestion to the contrary.

One can see how this insult might lead peace loving Muslims to prove the Danish cartoonists wrong by spontaneously burning Danish embassies to the ground, demanding that heads be cut off the offending cartoonists, newspaper publishers and editors, stomping on the Danish flag (which contains a cross), boycotting European goods in general and denouncing the Americans, ransacking a Maronite Catholic church and the chancery of the Greek Orthodox bishop in Beruit.

To be fair, in the Maronite Catholic church attack one Muslim cleric shouted, "Do not harm the holy church; the anger is against Denmark and not Christians." One man who tried to plant a bomb was thwarted when a church window would not open. It seems there is diversity in Islamic beliefs, after all.

What have the Americans got to do with the cartoon frenzy you ask (a factoid noted no doubt by my American readers)? It is enough to know that it is all George Bush's fault. In this matter, rioting Muslim mobs converge with latte drinking western liberals everywhere.

Of course, it simply beggars reason to hold that all these Muslims are ranting, rioting, burning and bullying, in the hundreds of thousands, in numerous countries around the world, just because of those dumb ass cartoons.

If offending another religion is the issue, Muslims would not be regularly burning Christian churches around the world. If it were the issue, Muslims would march in the streets to denounce these burnings. If it were the issue, newspapers in the Muslim world would not regularly publish much worse political cartoons about Jews; cartoons akin to the worst anti-Semitic hate ravings of Hitler's Nazi regime. If giving religious offence is the issue, Christian schoolgirls would not have be beheaded on their way to school in Indonesia by Islamic fanatics. If it were the issue, Muslims would march in the streets to protest murders of such innocents by their co-religionists.

Did I mention the murder (shot in the back) of Father Andrea Santoro, in Santa Maria Church in Trabzon, Turkey? It is said that the murderer fled the scene shouting "Allah Akbar." Indeed he is, as the killer will find out one day when he meets Him.

What is to be done? According to the Associated press in today's Jerusalem Post, the leader of Hizbullah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has a way to end the mob violence. Leading a march of some 700,000 or more outraged Muslim's in Beruit he opined:

"There can be no settlement before an apology and there can be no settlement
before laws are legislated by the European Parliament and the parliaments of
European countries," Nasrallah said.

Islamic nations should demand "a law committing the press and the media in the West that proscribes insulting our prophet. If this matter cannot be achieved that means [the West] insists on continuing this," he added.

All I can say is that Muslims now hold the world's record for the ease with which they are offended and humiliated; a status which heretofore I believed to be the sole purview of French speaking Quebecois separatists.

At least Sheik Nasrallah clarified the real agenda here. The issue, in case you missed it, is the demand that Europeans submit to Islam. That is the agenda of the Islamic puppeteers who manipulate the mobs in the streets. This demand is entirely consistent with the Islamic concept of dhimmitude, whereby non-Muslims must submit and recognize their inferiority to the Islamic faith. Through such measures they intend to prevail.

The question is, will Europe submit, or has it now fully awakened to the peril facing us all?