The outrageous cartoons and the outrageous response

The world is going to the dogs - some claim. Although I usually brush away such remarks as incoherent utterings of the pessimists, some recent events make me doubt my stand. The cartoons that were published in European newspapers depicting Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and the reaction to it in the Muslim and Western countries are few such events.

Firstly, the cartoons are abhorable. What they do is to typecast all muslims of the world as terrorists and conveys an impression that violence is basis of islam. That is of course, not true and Islam does not promote violence. It stands for peace as much as any other religion in the world. The media should behave responsibly and not stereotype millions of people in this world as evil. The parallel I can find to these cartoons is depicting people of African orgin as mentally degenerate and evolutionally backward. If you can brand the latter act as racism and ban it from public discourse why can't you do the same about the former act.

For people who would not be offended, the contoversial cartoons can be found here

Secondly, the response to it in Muslim countries was unacceptably violent. Vandalizing embassies, threatening to kill innocent people, returning the insult with anti-jew remarks are all barbaric acts.

Thirdly, the justification of the cartoons in the Western countries as "freedom of speech" is despicable. All rights come with responsibilities and no person has the right to demean the faith of another person. The comments that I read in this blog on CNN website, made me bristle with anger. And I am not even Muslim.

All this reflects only one thing. The deep cleft between the Western and the middle-eastern world. Or more specifically between Muslims and Christians-Jews. Put in another way, the world is going to the dogs.