Danish Muslims in cartoon protest

Joseph Borawski, Friday February 15^sth 2008, 10:12 PM, Global Social Protests Current Event

This week in Copenhagen, hundreds of Danish Muslims demonstrated against the reprinting of an offensive cartoon depicting a bomb in the turban of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. This comes after the Danish intelligence services uncovered a plot to kill one of the cartoonists responsible for this depiction recently, which prompted al of the major Danish newspapers to republish the offensive comic.

Those who marched in the capital’s streets were shouting things such as “God is Great!” and “Freedom of speech is like a plague!” in addition to this many protestors carried black and white flags which are significant of the radical Islamic party called Hizb ut-Tahrir, which calls for the creation of a religious state. Ultimately many Danish Muslims, moderate to radical, are expressing frustration that this cartoon could have been reprinted again, as if nothing was learned from the first time. Many have also said they simply could not understand the motive for reprinting these cartoons other than hatred for Islam, but its important to state that these feelings are not pointed at the general Danish public, but instead to the countries media, which has just perpetuated the controversy instead of trying to repair relations.

I feel that extremists on either side of an argument are not only generally wrong, but indeed quite contrary and difficult to the process of discussion and getting things done. Of course this issue isn’t quite as simple as just Radical Muslims vs. Radical Freedom of Speech proponents, as everyone in-between both sides are caught up in it, but I think this is a good situation where both sides exacerbate an issue and the majority of the population is caught in between. A fanatic is never good, and while I support freedom of speech, while you can say certain things, doesn’t mean you should, especially when they are not conducive to resolving issues. Read more here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7247817.stm