Cartoon Rage-A Double Standard
I came across a blog by Sandmonkey. He pointed out the the terribly offensive cartoons of Mohammad were also published by an Egyptian Newspaper. Click here to see-Cartoons of Mohammad in a Muslim Newspaper.
The current protests are about showing the image of Mohammad. Period. So to show the image in an Egyptian newspaper should be just as sacreligious as to show in in an American or French one. But apparently, images of Mohammad become invisible in Muslim newspapers.
One of the acts that seemed to enrage the muslim activists even further was the fact that the cartoons were reprinted by a French newspaper. This was just in support of free speech..or was it?
Another blogger, The Arabist, reveals this interesting fact:
“I would have dropped the issue altogether were it not from this BBC report which reveals an amusing fact about France Soir, the French daily that republished the cartoons: it is owned by Rami Lakah, French-Egyptian runaway businessman and politician extraordinaire”
Other bloggers also report that many muslims are being incited by text and phone messages recieved over mobile phones.
“It is also worth mentioning that mobile phone text messages (SMS) played an important part in inflaming public opinion throughout the Arab world and circulating rumors, such as the one claiming groups intended to burn the Quran in the center of Copenhagen.:”
More than one source among middle Eastern bloggers are now viewing this as a directed campaign rather than sporadic and spontaneous outbursts from the truely offended faithful. The salient question here is who is behind trying to accelarate the level of this madness. The phone service often mentioned is Vodaphone. I imagine that the source of such messages are quite traceable. I wonder if anyone has asked them?
I also recently discovered a cartoon called Jesus and Mo.
Now if we could only get the two of them together to draft a message to the faithful on both sides!
But speaking of cartoons, in response to this Iran is hosting its own cartoon contest to mock the holocast. But not to be outdone, the Israelis are holding their own cartoon contest, because they think they can do a better job. Probably.
The results of this creative genius will be shown on Boomka.