by NorthView » Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:52 pm
From the point of view of the West, the difference between making some poor taste cartoons and flying aircraft into a building killing thousands is quite large; but from the point of view of devoutly religious Muslims, the former is a terrible attack on a whole system of belief... as you could say the events of 11th September were.
My point about the reaction to 9th September was relating to a comparison of the numbers of lives lost by both the initial action and the reaction to it.
Of course, it goes without saying that those who've published the cartoons are merely exercising their right to freedom of speech... but you could exercise your right to freedom of movement by jumping into a lion's den and no one would have much sympathy for you if you were eaten alive.
With feeedom comes responsibility, and I think those who published pictures of Mohammed as a suicide bomber were acting within their rights, but were being irresponsible. For their part, I wish that all the fundamentalists in the world (Mulsim, Jewish, Christian, the whole rotten lot of them) would go and jump in the f-ing sea and leave the world to the rest of us who are better able to understand and respect the opinions of others.