Silly Little Country

Cartoons, all Cartoons

Some of the most interesting viewpoints I have read of late come from Harry's Place. This comment by dan to this post is a useful perspective:

You look at the "protestors" and they are the same old faces of the jihadist right-wing, whose support in places such as Indonesia and Malaysia is high localised. I am in Kolkata right now and the only protests going on are against airport privatisation. The Muslim population of West Bengal is about 25% - West Bengal's population is the same size as Germany, about 80 million, which means there are more Muslims here than in the entire European Union. Nobody is burning Danish flags, going on marches or even particularly interested. I am sure that if an Indian newspaper published these cartoons, it would be a different matter. But on the whole, Indian Muslims see it as another country's affairs and while they may object to the cartoons, it is not the most pressing issue facing them. Compared to the Gujarat massacre, the cartoons are small-fry.

The fundamentalists involved in flag burning and kalashnikov waving do not represent a "tide of anger". The Western media is really acting as a loud-hailer for extremists on this issue. Moreover, they confirm the prejudices against Islamic cultures. They should be ignored and we should get on with our lives. People do silly things and cartoonists earn their living from being silly and these cartoon are stupid and Muslims are not stupid enough to get as easily offended as the fundamentalists would like them to be.

I'd like to believe this.

In another post there is an interesting suggestion about how to keep the discussion going - rather than posting the original cartoons, try some others.

UPDATE: Helping my belief is this post from John Chilton at the Emirates Economist.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:10 PM