The cartoon wars claimed three more lives today, when Afghan police fired at a crowd trying to storm a U.S. military base. These deaths bring the total number of Afghans killed in protests this week to 10.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blames and Syria for deliberately inciting Muslim anger over cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad that has sparked deadly protests.
"I don't have any doubt that ... and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes. And the world ought to call them on it," she said.
The Wall Street Journal has published an article explaining how Muslim clerics stirred up the cartoon wars:
Under pressure from young radicals for results, Mr. Abu-Laban, the Copenhagen cleric at the forefront of the campaign, and several others formed the "European Committee for Honoring the Prophet," an umbrella group that now claims to represent 27 organizations across a wide spectrum of the Islamic community. (Moderate Muslims dispute this and say the group has been hijacked by radicals.)
Frustrated by the Danish government's response, the committee decided after a series of meetings in October and November that "our only option was take our case outside Denmark," Mr. Abu-Laban says. There was growing interest from Muslim ambassadors in Copenhagen and their home governments, including Egypt.
[. . .]
"Egypt's embassy played a fundamental role," he says. Egypt and other Arab regimes saw the furor as a good opportunity "to counteract pressure from the West" and "to show people they are good Muslims," he says.
[. . .]
One member of the Danish delegation, Ahmed Harby, an Egyptian who runs a cleaning business in Copenhagen, says the trip wasn't designed to stir hatred against Denmark. It was intended, he says, to appease hotheads in Copenhagen and elsewhere who might take violent action if Jyllands-Posten wasn't forced to apologize.
There seems little doubt that extremists seeking a clash of cultures are exploiting the situation. Once again there is no outrage from the so-called moderates condemning the violence.
Actually, Big Pharoah, Roba from "and far away...", Ahmed Humeid from "360 East" and a few other middle eastern bloggers decry both the violence and the entire islamic response. Their comments sections provide a reasoned and civil discussion of Egyptian thought on the matter from all sides. I was both pleased and surprised by the general air of reason even from those who disagreed fundamentally on both free speech and proper response to the Danish cartoons.
Whether these blogs represent a real and deep school of thought ignored by the antique media with a story to tell, or are merely a westernised veneer I don't know. But they do know the truth, that this matter was blown out of proportion by outside parties for political purposes, and that the Danish Imams presented fraudulent additional material and had a different set of facts and opinions for the Muslim and western press. Even their more conservative commenters acknowledge this.
Ultimately, those with the truth on their side will prevail.
Posted by: Bruce Dearborn Walker | Thursday, February 09, 2006 at 05:57 AM