Religion riots
For the last three weeks, there have been daily updates in the various protests and riots against Denmark and its embassies all over the world. Riots as a result of the publication of a series of cartoons depicting Islam, some of them even featuring the prophet Mohammad.
The caricatures from Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten paper included drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers.
In Libya, Pakistan, Iran and Africa, protests have erupting left and right — Danish embassies fire-bombed, and Danish products being boycotted in the rest of the Arab and Muslim world.
The debate has now forked into two avenues; one is over the continuing discrimination against Muslims; the other is on freedom of the press/freedom of expression.
Regarding the first,what can I say? At the risk of being labelled a terrorist, I cannot help but understand the outrage of the fundamentalists against decades and centuries of persecution and oppression of Muslims. This, I think, also reveals the enormity of the challenge to give correct political direction and guidance to the anger and outrage. Civilians are always the victims of riots when the protests should be wholly directed against governments.
I cannot wholly condemn the protests, but this is what I think: Revolutionary violence, not mere mob violence.
"They’re a pretty touchy race," I heard one BBC commentator say about Muslims.
Who wouldn’t be touchy when the governments of the most powerful nations of the world target your people – kick them out of their jobs, beat and arrest their children, and bomb their houses - and twist, demonize your religion as one that rests on the principles of retribution and revenge?
The Danish government is now at the centre of demonstrations by Muslims all over the world. In a Belgian documentary I saw last night, it was reported that there’s a strong rightist bloc in the parliament, and its main representative is vocal in her opposition to the continuing and growing presence of Muslim in Denmark. This legislator has been quoted as saying "200 Muslims,that’s not a problem; but when you have 200,000 of them, that’s something else."
These racist and bigotted legisators want to impose laws that will crackdown on the entry of Muslim migrants, and to limit the welfare benefits that they get from the government.
In the meantime, the Bush government is increasing pressure on Iran, demanding that the country scrap all nuclear research. Iran is arguing that its nuclear research is not directed towards increasing Iran’s nuclear weapon capability, but to develop its energy resources for the benefit of its own economy and technological progress.
Ang kapal ng US! All it wants is to maintain its monopoly over nuclear reasearch and continue being the biggest superpower, nuclear weapons manufacturer and dealer in the world. Yet here it is, saying that Iran is potentially a terrorist nation and all measures must be made to stop it from arming itself.
"Muslims, terrorists, same difference. "
Who wouldn’t fight back if their religious belies were being attacked?
I have been told that Muslims do not only consider Islamas a religion — it is their way of life. Islam is their guide to how they should live their lives the best possible way, respecting self and others; developing ones gifts and abilities for the greater glory of Allah and all Muslims.
To attack Islam is to attack Muslims.
(As an aside, am supposed to be Christian, but heck, I find so many hyprocrites among Christians — the likes of Macapagal-Arroyo, for instance, who prays 24-7 that all her political problems just dry up and go away — that it’s hard to not want to upchuck when I sometimes catch televised mass. Pero ibang usapin pa yan. Why blame Jesus for the failings of his followers? The Man let himself be flogged and crucified already, for crying out loud.)
On the second point: freedom of the press.
Utang na loob. Luma nang debate na yan. Sinabi na nga ni Peter Parker aka Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility."
Journalists should also have limits. Why print materials that do not aim to build bridges of unity, or provide alternatives, or expose the harsh and cruel realities that confront Muslims because of the doings of the US and Brittain?
Hel-lo! What does printing cartoons depicting Mohammad as a terrorist aim to achieve?
