Once again, publicity-hungry fanatics are trying to "save Islam" from the mortal threat of publicity-hungry Scandinavian cartoonists. If saving the image of Islam required murdering every feeble-minded attempt to demean Islam, with friends like these violent terrorists, Islam would need no enemies. To paraphrase the U.S. general justifying imperialist genocide in Vietnam in the 1960's, the fanatics seem to be saying that "It became necessary to destroy the image of Islam in order to save it." Murder and mayhem in the name of a religion of peace?

According to the fanatics, Islam - a religion which historically came to liberate and free the minds as witnessed by the extraordinary enlightenment it brought with it to medieval Spain, helping trigger the European Renaissance – is now too weak to withstand even the most pathetic of slurs against it. Notwithstanding the fact that the murderous psychopaths of Al Qaeda in Iraq represent no one but themselves and despite the fact that Islam expressly and absolutely forbids the killing of civilians under any circumstances, the same European cartoonists who, in the past, demonized an entire faith (Judaism) when it was safe to do so, now feel empowered to dehumanize another Semitic religion (Islam) instead, portraying it as a somehow inherently – and uniquely – bloodthirsty and warlike.

If Islam is too often distorted by violent, self-appointed defenders, how does the concept of free speech in the West fare in the current context? Ironically, absolutism in the name of free speech closely mirrors absolutism in the name of religious intolerance: xenophobic hate speech and self-righteous religious intolerance are twins which only a mother could tell apart, and if these gratuitous cartoons didn't exist surely the intolerant fanatics would have to invent them to justify their demented take on Islam.

Too often, right behind the banner of freedom of speech lurks a much darker agenda propagated by a terminally consolidated corporate, rightwing Western mass media subtly – and sometimes not so subtly - cheerleading the western re-conquest of the Middle East, as seen in the current U.S. military depredations in Iraq. In a world where NBC now belongs to arms dealer General Electric, half the French media to the likes of Dassault (another armament giant) and where Al Jazeera International (in English) has been pointedly kept out American television, is it any wonder that Islam would regularly come under attack as a convenient scapegoat for militarization and the further hijacking of public resources for the benefit of private interests?

There is of course, a genuine concern among those of us attached to the notion that democracy is crucially dependent on untrammelled freedom of expression, but to my fellow free-speechers throughout the world, I would humbly submit that the much greater threat comes from a lack of diversity of ideas resulting from decades of rapid concentration of the international mass media in the (not-so invisible) hands of powerful pro-war interests mascarading as a "free market place of ideas."

Stuck between the deranged threats of a perverted brand of Islam on the one hand and the vile taunts of nostalgic, neo-colonialist Western interests re-branding intolerance as freedom of speech on the other hand, what are sincere advocates of democracy and universal human rights to do?

Perhaps putting the horse back in front of the cart might be a good first step. Instead of fixating - as our Western media would have us do - on the red herring of an external evil (no longer the Red menace of international communism but now the Green threat of fundamentalist Islam), how about focusing our energies on the more immediate threat of another form an intolerant, absolutist belief system: the globalizing neo-liberal "free market" fundamentalism that threatens to eradicate all that is precious to freedom lovers everywhere?

I am currently involved with the Muslim community on the 3-D virtual reality Second Life, where a French "caricaturist" has set up a sim (area of virtual land) where both sets of Scandanavian cartoons are the centrepiece. Linden Labs, owners of Second Life, maintain that tolerance is the "cornerstone" of their community regulations which aim to manage the behaviour of avatars in-world; regulation are also supposed to restrict potentially offensive content to its host region. However, Islamophobes can now purchase a 3-D avatar of Muhammad (aws)with a bomb on his head and tour Second Life in that form. The response of Linden Labs to Muslim complaints? What response?

Its prejudice and we need to discredit prejudice the way our Prophet SAW did. By being patient, kind, sincere and understanding. Let the persercutor reflect on your better character and he will find youvinstead worthy of praise. maybe .. thats how it works in my head.

The base and evil side of me wants to offend in a similar fashion (ie the tasteless iranian toon contest), but how can one offend those who hold nothing sacred but their will to offend?

"Islamo-fascist" you sound like tasteless jewish extremist.

Islamo-Facist,

The Iranian Cartoon COntest was not what the mainstream media portrayed it to be. It did not make fun of the victims of the Holocaust. It made fun of how the Holocaust was used to make excuses to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homes. Here are the winners of the Iranian cartoon contest. http://www.irancartoon.com/120/holocaust/index.htm

Thank you RandallJones. I was mistaken in thinking that the Iranian cartoons were those such as Hitler in bed with Anne Frank ("put that in your diary"), of the Blood Libel, and other anti-semitic depictions, mocking the victims of the Holocaust.

And to the preceding poster,

Does my hate of racism make me a jewish extremist? What say you of our mother, Saffiyah bint Huyy, or Abdullah bin Salam, radiAllahu anhum? How did Rasool Allah, salallahu alayhi wasalam, deal with the old jewish woman who threw garbage on him, or the jewish boy who was sick? Answer me these if you know.

The second time I've been accused of being a jewish extremist... (The first when countering a jihadi that suicide bombing and murder of civilians is haram. The end does NOT justify the means.)

Islamo-Facist,

There are plenty of cartoons that make fun of the victims of the Iraqi genocide. Here’s a couple of them http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/IraqViolence/ViolenceGifs/best/cam.gif and
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/IraqViolence/ViolenceGifs/best/horsey.gif
The media often calls Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad crazy or evil because he denies the Holocaust, but at least it wasn’t Iran that committed the Holocaust.

You have many Americans you are in denial of the genocide in Iraq, but the U.S. is responsible for it. The U.S. had helped Saddam get into power and supported him, strategically and financially, when he was committing his worst atrocities. Millions of Iraqis have died by the bombings of two invasions, the sanctions and the use of chemical weapons. The Iraqis are scapegoats of U.S. foreign policy.

Americans are in denial of the 3 to 5 million killed when the United States bombed Vietnam and Cambodia. Why should we expect them to acknowledge the genocide in Iraq? Even those in the political left are in denial of these genocides. There are a handful that acknowledge it. See http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/none-dare-call-genocide.html

It is interesting that Jews always demand explanations of hateful or controversial parts of Muslim scripture, but they don’t feel obligated to explain the hateful scriptures or actions of Jews. Most Jews are in denial or ignorant of the hateful messages in Jewish writings. Here are two books that discuss it.
Judaism’s Strange Gods by Michael A. Hoffman
and Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak

I don't understand this. Crying at the injustice doesn't necessarily make it mutually inexclusive or the urgency to educate Americans about the truth (and ourselves for that matter) any less. If the well of ignorance is full, its because its tapping from the same source of uninspiring racism on both the muslim and non-muslim segment of this debate.

And the Holocaust did happen and it was far more horrific than can be understood (current Iraqi war included) and Muslims were in no way responsible for that mess. Europeans were, by fomenting the hatred and decrepit condition of the Germans after World War 1 with the humiliating and destructive terms of that victory.

Ghulam,

There have been many horrific atrocities but it is the Holocaust that gets the most attention.

In the United States we have a government funded Holocaust museum, only recently were there museums to memorialize the genocide of Native Americans and Africans built. But they do not get the same millions of dollars of government funding as the Holocaust Museum.

Thats because the holocaust was a symptom of the largest and deadliest formal war ever fought in the history of mankind and involved the entire planet including the United States. WORLD WAR 2.

Without excusing the colonization of the Americas, Why should the US government build monuments to their failures? If Muslims did this, who knows when we'd stop. Would Muslims build museums to remind us of the atrocities of the colonization of India by Persians and Arabs? What about the apartheid system of Arabs in Africa and India?

If we held ourselves as a group equally accountable (because we are Muslim and that is what people who seek justice will do) I think we'd find ourselves acknowledging the horror and magnitude of the holocaust instead of justifying malicious behavior because we are held at the yoke of Zionism. So in my view, the education regarding the Holocaust as initiated by Iran ... Muslims require it because the tyrannies that caused it are directly linked to the tyrannies that prevail within our communities and the Human Beings at large. And Zionism and Political Islamism are but two heads of the same monster.

The trans-atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native Americans is the true definition of a holocaust. "Islamo=fascist" is not an opponent of racism, but a promoter of it against his perceived enemies.

>> The trans-atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native Americans is the true definition of a holocaust <<

And the Nazi holocaust of Jews and Gypsies and other European minorities is in fact amongst the worst examples of a holocaust. We shouldn't even compare the holocaust to occupation because they are two different monsters. It would be like comparing the plague to cancer.

>And the Nazi holocaust of Jews and Gypsies and other European minorities is in fact amongst the worst examples of a holocaust.<

That is your opinion, and a poor one at that. The trans-atlantic slave trade took over a 100 million lives. The genocide of Native Americans remains the worst attempt to wipe out an entire people of the face of the earth.
Its not Holocaust denial to add context and sanity to the subject. Are you a zionist?

>> That is your opinion, and a poor one at that.

So 6 million Jews killed and about 5 million other minorities who are ethnically no different than their persecutors, LEGISLATED social genocide that happened in a matter of about 5 years is somehow an insignificant example of genocide to you? There is NO OTHER EXAMPLE of such a LARGE VOLUME IN SUCH A SMALL AMOUNT OF TIME (RATE OF DEATH) in the worlds history. So if being called a zionist for admitting that the holocaust was pure evil is what goes for takfir these days, then all I can say to you is LailahaIllAllah.

You would do well to remember that Shariah considers the slave trade exactly that ... TRADE. And that many of the willing participants in that TRADE were Muslim (how much is too much?). It also lasted 400 years and took an estimated 20 million lives, please check your very very very loose facts before you revise the entire history of the world to suit your vision of it. Thats what Zionists do.

SO don't go around making up stuff to justify your Jewish hatred. It did not befit Prophet SAW to rob the Yahud of one cent (despite the betrayals amongst certain tribes), yet it somehow befits you to rob them of their very grief and sorrow i.e. humanity.

Ghulam,

It is interesting that we have an exact number for the number of Jews who died but not of non-Jews that also died during World War II.
There is an estimation that Joseph Stalin is responsible for 100 million deaths.

There is an estimation of 3 to 5 million people killed when the United States bombed Vietnam and Cambodia.

After the United states and Europe outlawed slavery in their own countries, they went to Africa where they exploited the slave labor there retrieving the diamonds, ivory, rubber and other natural resources. It is estimated over 10 million Africans were killed due to their harsh treatment. Such as in the Congo, hands were chopped off if they did not harvest a certain amount of rubber each day.

You and other people keep on claiming that the Holocaust was the worst event that ever happened. But that is what the media and certain scholars keep on claiming and you accept it without investigating what has happened during other atrocites.

As a Catholic of Jewish origin I thank you, Ghulam, for you objektive view of Holocaust. I am pleased knowing that there are such Muslims as you in the world.:)

Ghulam, please refrain from lying and putting words in my mouth. I am not a Muslim, nor am I going play theological musical chairs with you. You are an apologist for zionism, and their misuse of the Holocaust to justify their crimes against the Palestinian people, including dismissing and minimizing the genocide against African slaves and the Native American peoples. What about their humanity and suffering? Raising these questions and adding context to the debate is not "jew hatred" by any means. The Holocaust is not a religion, so stop treating it like one.
Don't ever try to hijack and manipulate my views and the suffering of others. Consider this your first and final warning. I will not tolerate being labeled an anti-semite by the likes of you.

I thought this might amuse you guys! The Dawn: Oct 1 2007:

No more beard at cadet college

By Our Correspondent

TAXILA, Sept 30: Amid much talk of “Talibanisation” and “enlightened moderation”, the administration of Cadet College Hassanabdal has come up with its own controversial rules restricting the cadets, other than Hafiz-i-Quran, from sporting beards.

In an order issued on August 31, a copy of which is available with Dawn, the college principal notified that cadets looking forward to growing beards must seek permission, otherwise they would face the music.

Talking to reporters, a number of students, who were accompanied by their parents, opined that the step had been taken to discourage religious tendency among the cadets and to enforce the government’s vision of “enlightened moderation”.
The order says: “Only those cadets who are Hafiz-i-Quran will be allowed to keep beards in the future.

“Other than these, no additional cadet will be permitted to grow or keep a beard unless he is a Hafiz, for which he will produce a certificate of having done Hafizul Quran and application from his parents for growing a beard.”

The principal also tasked all house masters with conducting a survey and enlisting the cadets with beards. They are to submit the names to the principal as soon as possible.

Taking exception to the order, a number of cadets and their parents expressed anger at the decision forcefully imposed by the college administration.

“The college administration wants to secularise the institution and we condemn the order, which is in sheer violation of the spirit of Islam and human rights.”

MPA Prof Mohammad Waqas Khan, who was also accompanying the group, said he would take up the issue on the floor of Punjab Assembly during its next session.

Mr Khan said the principal should be removed from the office without any further delay for issuing the order that discouraged observance of Sunnah.

Cadet College Hassanabdal Principal Tayyab N. Akhtar, when contacted, said according to the policy introduced in the college, all cadets who wanted to have beards should apply and then the administration would allow or disallow after case-to- case study of every application in a meeting.

He said: “We normally discourage cadets to have beards.”

Mr Akhtar said the order should be followed by the cadets as they had given an undertaken at the time of admission that they would abide and follow all the rules introduced by the college administration, adding that those who did not follow the order would be treated accordingly.

The parents of the cadets have called upon Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, who is also the chairman of the college’s Board of Governors, to intervene in the matter and remove the ban on growing beards.

They also demanded necessary action against the college administration for issuing such disputed orders.

>> The trans-atlantic slave trade took over a 100 million lives.
>> The genocide of Native Americans remains the worst attempt to wipe out an entire people of the face of the earth.
>> Consider this your first and final warning.

BushTerrorWarForMakeBenefitGloriousNationOfIsrael ~ I don't have to lie for you. You do it all by yourself. Don't confuse fact with myth and opinion (100 million trillion Africans ground to dust to make the giants bread o_0). Don't confuse your ability to speak freely with your ability to act freely. Very American trait. You can't really do anything to me or to Zionists or for Africans (of which I am one) or for Muslims (of which I am one too).

>> You are an apologist for zionism..

You actually infer that the holocaust is a minor incident by abusing the dehumanisation of Native Americans. At the slightest whiff of FACTUAL disagreement, you get off by saying I am a zionist apologist (very familiar tactic except that anti-semitism is the usual label). Its not just unfair to Native Americans to have their victimisation used opportunistically, but it also proves that you don't understand the social and historical underpinnings of either groups suffering or even the factual background to them. The Palestinians don't get off on Jewish hatred. They're a proudly humanistic people who left without options resort to their limited options.

>> “The college administration wants to secularise the institution and we condemn the order, which is in sheer violation of the spirit of Islam and human rights.”

The old government discriminated against those who shaved and the new one discriminates against those who have beards. And western ideology has us trapped forever. Whether its the Taliban creating western styled governments to assert Islam or its the current Afghan government styling Islam with a western asserted government, Muslims are being embroiled in fitnah till there will be no Ummah left.

>> As a Catholic of Jewish origin I thank you, Ghulam, for you objektive view of Holocaust. I am pleased knowing that there are such Muslims as you in the world.:)

Catholic Jew. Thats got to be confusing. But if you must know, majority of the worlds Muslims are too poor and too grief stricken to even bother trying to understand the anti-jewish prejudice of Europe. And the Palestinian cause is for us a very personal reflection of the condition we find ourselves in.

This is pointless, ghulam. I never said the Holocaust was a minor incident, nor did I justify it. Don't put words in my mouth and think you're going to get away with it. You're the one denying and minimizing the suffering of other groups. Your tactics are those of a standard zionist liar. Whether you're an African or a Muslim is irrelevant to the fact that you are a dishonest sycophant cherry picking your way through history.