Response to SandMonkey's Rantings

This guy argues here that it was wrong to publish cartoons by the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Fagr in October, a month after they were originally published in a Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten. He had earlier taken snaps of the Egyptian newspaper showing the offensive cartoons. He argued that Muslims were being hypocritical by overlooking the same offense by an Egpytian newspaper and since Egypt is a Muslim nation, Egypt should be boycotted too.

Well, too me it seems stupid for him to say that, especially when he agrees that the Egyptian newspaper printed them to spread awareness amongst the Muslims of the world about these cartoons. Like every newspaper and television, they wanted to show visual evidence to the world by reprinting them. Now some may argue that the newspaper should have made its readers aware by writing an editorial on it, depicting the cartoons in writing. Sure, an article could have been written about it, but how effective would that be?

Imagine this, after the unfortunate event of 9/11, one newspaper writes an article on the monumental tragedy that occured on the day, without images. Does anyone think that would be effective? I certainly do not think so, at least not in todays world. Todays news media thrives on images, videos, and of course, written compositions. Some may say this was never such a major issue, but they would be wrong again, due to lack of knowledge this time. Blasphemy is considered a huge crime in the Islamic code of law, simply because respect for God, His Holy Book (The Qur'an) and His Prophets are all extremely important components of the religion.

If there are Muslims who are protesting because the cartoons were printed at all, then in that case, they should, according to SandMonkey, protest against the Egyptian newspaper and their government. If the Norwegian, French and German newspapers were republishing those cartoons to make people aware of what the cartoons entailed, then in that case, I personally do not have a problem with it, but perhaps there may be other Muslims who do not want the cartoons printed at all.

Being a pacifist, I think it is extremely wrong to anger someone by attacking or offending them personally (especially in the presence of other people), and then expecting them to take it as a joke. Any self-respectful person would find that offensive, and a knee-jerk reaction to such an action would obviously be an undesirable one. It is in human nature to be defensive or offended when something they cherish so much is made a mocker of, in front of the entire world. People without faith would never understand why this issue has been exaggerated to such a point.

Place yourselves in the position of a person who is assaulted from all sides of the world, mocked, provoked, and yet told to keep silent, not protest and accept it as humor. That is the position of Muslims today.