I totally agree - it appears that most Muslims seem to remain mum - if not openly rejoicing - another terrorist bombing of an Israeli school bus or commercial center, or the 9/11 attacks, or the Madrid and London bombings, etc. However, when some little newspaper satirizes that and ridicules that apparent fact, it's a horrible thing and it's time to call for a holy war against all Danes and Europeans and others who support it.
Now, I don't necessarily agree with the apparent portayal of Muslims as terrorists in those cartoons, but then again I step back, look at the context of the world we live in, and I do also have to acknowledge that radical Islamism has been on the rise and that it is in fact, unfortunately, becoming increasingly difficult to identify Islam the religion separately from Islamism the extremist/terroristic ideology.
I have a Palestinian classmate, and she's my friend and all, but recently in our Spanish class we had to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper about why a hypothetical person should not have been selected "Person of the Year" - it was no surprise to any of us when she chose Ariel Sharon. The things she said - that he's a devil and stuff like that... I could not help but take note of the total hypocrisy. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but this past year has it not been Sharon who practically isolated himself from his own political party when he pulled out troops and settlements from Gaza and the West Bank, in the hope of finding peace and compromise with the Palestinians? She mentioned he ordered the killing of many innocent Palestinians and uprooted many from their homes during raids that were carried out after every terrorist bombing. But was it not Palestinian groups that were responsible, likewise, for the deaths of other innocents - among them children as well - when schoolbuses, markets, cafes, and other Israeli venues were suicide-bombed?
And during the week that Sharon was hospitalized and comatose for a few days, she was all happy and stuff and we asked her why is she so happy that a man is comatose, perhaps on the verge of dying and her response was, in an outraged tone as if it was the worst thing anyone could ask her, "Why would I pray for my enemy?". Hmm... I don't think God or Allah or whatever you wanna name the divine powers would condone this kind of statement - if anything, the divine power would preach that you pray even for your enemies.
I mean if she condemned Sharon for the bad things he did while acknowledging that the suicide-bombers were no angels either, then fine - it would be objective and there would be significantly less bias in it. But she blatantly has bias and I mean there are times when I wonder... if a radical Islamist came into her mosque and told the attendees to go kill non-Muslim "infidels", would she be willing to do it and kill her own friends?
And it's like she thinks she's holier than us and that we're on the wrong path or some thing like that and she seems an almost-fanatical believer, so it's kind of like wondering if I might one day go to school and never come back home because she blew herself up in our classroom, wondering if the person I call my friend might one day turn around and kill me "because her religion wanted it to happen".
