Are Moslems necessary

Are Moslems necessary?
By:Ahmed Tharwat

A lot has been said about the so-called “Moslem reaction” to the Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist--from clash of values to clash of stupidity, freedom of expression to freedom of protecting the sacred!

In actuality, more people protested in the anniversary of the Harreiri assassinations in the small country of Lebanon this week (more than a half million) than all the cartoon protesters put together.

The 24/7 TV images of angry Moslems in the streets protesting and screaming out of control at god knows what were presented without much context or depth analysis, without reference to history, in short, with little perspective beyond the events at hand.

The un-humorous Moslems appeared to go nuts overnight over one tasteless and excessively offensive cartoon (which would make a sequel to the Albert Brooks’ movie “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” seemingly impossible).

However, if you listen closely when Moslems get together privately, they are very funny (if you don’t believe me ask, President Bush; he probably has overheard enough private religious jokes from Americans-Moslems already.)

In fact, the Arab/Moslem press reaction to the cartoon fiasco is diverse and complex, ranging from blaming Arab business opportunists to the inept Moslem governments.

The Christians tradition of humiliating Moslems symbol runs deep in the Moslems psyche and as Dr. Ahmad Ahmad an assistant professor of religious studies at Macalester college pointed out. “The image of Muhammad as a heresiarch has a long history. John of Damascus (8^th century), he depicted Muhammad as a Nestorian Christian who deviated from the correct Christian doctrines in order to promote a religion of his own. 500 years later, this image finds its way into Dante’s (died 1321) Divine Comedy, where the Prophet appears in Inferno (Hellfire) with his belly open and his intestines coming out of it”. That may explain why we don’t see many Moslems participating in the winter Olympic in Italy.

When you look deeper at the so-called Moslem world reaction to the cartoon humiliation of their prophet, there is a political undertone, which came out in burning flags, attacks on embassies and boycotts of Danish products. We do not see Moslem cartoonists fighting back by portraying Jesus with a Hitler mustache or dropping bomb over Hiroshima as symbol of the ugly Christian west.

Even the most idiotic Moslem reactions, to test the spirit of the western absolute freedom of expression, the Holocaust cartoon contest still addressing a human tragedy and the European Muslim group posted on their Web a cartoon of Anne Frank and not the Virgin Mary in bed with Hitler. The Moslem street feels frustrated and under assault from the west from all directions, politically, culturally, economically and globally, the Danish cartoon was just the last straw.

The west reacted to WWII by helping establishing a Jewish state at the heart of the Arab Moslem world. And the American reaction after 9/11 tragedy we have a born-again Christian president who takes his guidance from god and a whipping $500 billions military budget to fight the evil doers Islamists, invading and destroying two Moslem countries in two years. What is more fundamentalist than that!