Furore

Is there no end to insults hurled to the Muslims? There is no one word to describe the newspaper cartoons depicting our beloved Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him] - sacrilegious, blasphemous, made in very poor taste, offensive and downright insulting. Surely there is a line between free speech/press freedom and religious beliefs.

I came across this entry posted by someone from Hong Kong. She's neither Muslim nor Christian and this is what she said [reproduced without editing]:

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freedom vs. respect

Recently there is a very disappointing news regarding a Denmark newspaper published the comic of Mohammed, and even more disappointing, several press in Europe copied that comics and even described Mahomet as a terrorist. Although they defended that this is to reflect the freedom of press, but no doubt this is a bull shit.

Everyone should know, at least press should know, this is really an insult in drawing the face of Mohammed, you can indigest why they are thinking in this way, but you should show your deference, this is what we called taboo.

I was very angry with what they have done, although I am not a Muslim, nor a Christian. What I believe, that people should respect each others, and never abuse others right and freedom and belief. Right should always come together with responsibility. If we want our rights to be protected, we shall then responsible for defencing others right first. And the most stupid thing is that mass media is ever thinking their freedom of press is someway higher and more important than Muslims' freedom of religion? Highly absurd!!!

Westerners (no matter Americans and Europeans) are always so arrogant that they believe they are the most civilized and never respect others culture. Dont know start from when, they do not respect the Middle East culture the most, and after 911 incident, naive westerners even linked Muslims as terrorists. From my eyes, what they thought is just too naive, too uncivilized.

I have been to Middle East before, what I met, what I saw, Muslims are nice, pure and peaceful. There are some radical ones, but radical peoples appear in all nations, all places, not only in Islamic world. Like George Bush should be one of the most radical people in Western world.

Sadly, Western mass media never give correct message to people the real face of Muslim faith, and even mislead the idea of "Holy War", and many many. If they are able to know Muslim culture better, they are able to publish something much better, not some rubbish like this.

If these people never adjust their arrogant mind against other cultures, I am so persimistic about the world peace ever.

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As for me, it is very clear what I shall do: refrain from buying any products from Denmark, Germany or even France, until a public apology is issued [and even then, it is still not enough to erase this outrageous and despicable act from the mind]. In the words of a friend, this is the very least I can do to protect the honour of our Prophet and 'to support the outrage at the supposed 'democratic right to blasphemy' nonsense over printing drawings depicting our holy Prophet S.A.W.' After all, I've already stopped patronising some American establishments as a protest against the war on Iraq. I can only hope that my small acts can be likened to the little bird which helped Prophet Ibrahim [peace be upon him].

The story about the little bird, the fire and Prophet Ibrahim: When Prophet Ibrahim [peace be upon him] was thrown into a fire that filled up two valleys by the evil ruler Namrod, some birds were flying overhead. Some of the larger birds saw this little bird that kept on flying to the ocean to scoop up some water, bring the water in its tiny beak and then flying back to drop the water onto the fire. After seeing the small bird going back and forth a few times, the larger birds made fun of it and asked him why he was doing that, as such tiny drops of water could not possibly put out such a large fire. The small bird replied that it wanted to do its share so that on the Day of Judgement it could go before Allah with a clear conscience, because on the Day of Judgement, God would ask him what he did when Ibrahim was in the fire, and he wanted to be able to answer that he did everything within his ability to extinguish the fire. Wallahu'alam.

The bird, in its own little way, did something against evil, gifted as it was with such clear conscience that wondered about its actions in such a way. Can we say the same about ourselves? Sadly, there are so few of us in this world who think beyond our own selves.

A-dor, the world needs more people like you.