Religion, Ignorance, Intolerance and Freedom

I always tell my Muslim friends: The Islamic world has abandoned its Prophet, how can it expect others to welcome him?

History and Islamic tradition hold many accounts on how humanistic the Prophet was; he spared the lives of the ones who sought his head and did good and cared for the ones who hated him.

Abusing its influence and de facto position, Saudi Arabia chose the negative approach announcing a boycott followed by other Arab and Islamic countries only at a superficial level, and this culminated in insane mob action which burned down embassies in some countries further complicating the already saturated international attitude, where, instead of feeding the uproar from the street they could contain it and support the case with a variety of methods through media and diplomatic communications, cultural exchange and other civil activities that serve the ultimate purpose of showing the insignificance of the cartoons against the teachings and the message of the Prophet. None of these happened to any significant degree and Islamic countries are currently seeking international laws to protect religions against offense unbelievably overlooking the fact that what is considered offensive in one religion is sometimes not even pertinent to the teachings of another.

The reasons behind the current cultural status of Islamic countries that often brought shame and tarnished the image of Islam and Arabs are too many and too profound to be summarized in this column. However Europe and the US cannot get away with their fundamental role in it; modern history is cast-iron. Europeans in particular must stand up against the fact that Muslim Arabs and even non-Muslims originating from Middle-Eastern Arab countries, although officially citizens, suffer discrimination and live on the edge of society in many European countries. Jillands-Posten must stand up to the fact that it already set double standards publishing the cartoons of the Prophet where it had rejected similar cartoons of Jesus Christ in the past. The 2004 report by ENAR, the European Network Against Racism, already showed that the line between freedom of speech and intolerance had been crossed in Denmark.

The world is better without “freedoms” that spread controversy and hostility among nations.