Liberty's Blog

Cartoon Anger

I have been standing on the sidelines, watching the anger and outrage grow over in the Middle East over some Danish Cartoons. The reaction from many bloggers is to post the offencive cartoons. Michelle Malkin has been a big clearing house. This is important and needed to be done. Folks everywhere need to know what all the controversery is all about. I did not participate, perhaps I should have, perhaps I should.

I was in Saudi Arabia for a couple of months in the 80s. The Arab press used cartoons to make editorial points. The cartoons I saw were in English language papers and were pretty mild compared what went out on their local media. The ones I recall were images that suggested New Yorkers and Jews were particularly evil, and the poor Palistinian young woman was the victim of all the injustices caused by New Yorkers and Isrealis. The Moslem world understands the context of these cartoons and they know how to use them to express their point of view.

My thought as the Danish cartoons were revealed were that they weren't that funny, didn't make much of a point, but by western standards not out of line.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt were the first to pull their diplomats out out, after the Danish Courts ruled that the newspapers were allowed to publish the silly cartoons. This was just the beggining begginning. Huge protest in in Syria, and the burning of the the embassy in Lebbonan. London protesters sported signs such shown here.
By posting the cartoons we have gained an understanding of how these nuts think, and we understand the matereal which has caused such a powerful reaction. My reluctance to post such cartoons is my distaste for others to satire my religion. Most people find it distasteful to have their beliefs mocked. I do believe that in this case mocking these people has demonstrated just how unreasonable and irrationasl these people are.

Lawrence Simon has run a series of cartoons "Ask the Prophet" and he has decided to not only end the series, but to pull them from the blog. I'm going to miss them, they at least were funny.

posted by Liberty @ 8:37 AM