COMensarations
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
What Little Brothers Could Teach Muslim Extremists
If someone’s making smart remarks about you, it’s extremely important not to prove their point with your response.
I was blessed with a little brother. Little brothers are put into our lives to teach us how to react to name calling, teasing, and smart-alecky remarks. And if we don’t figure it out, some of us are blessed with moms who teach us how to react very bluntly: “Ignore him. He’s just trying to get a rise out of you. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you react.”
Learning this lesson stood me in good stead when coworkers, even one or two of my college professors, would try to distract me with some smart remark as I was doing a presentation. On the other hand I had friends, usually feminists, who stepped in the trap every time, shrilling like wounded harpies every time someone made a sexist crack, which usually just illustrated their tormenter’s point. Occasionally one of my hecklers would say, “Didn’t you understand what I said?” To which I would reply, “Yes, I understood what you said. But that doesn’t mean I find it worthy of response.” At that point most of the other people in the room would mentally give me a brownie point and smile, and the heckler would realize he was just making himself look bad.
Apparently Muslims do not have little brothers or moms who teach them how to handle the brats.
A Danish newspaper published now infamous political cartoons which included depictions of the prophet Mohammed. Muslims were offended. However, instead of ignoring the cartoons and keeping the amount of the offense confined to Denmark, they reproduced the cartoons, spread them throughout just about every country with a sizable Muslim population, shrilling like wounded harpies, making sure a lot more people were offended and instigating riots. And, incidentally, provoking a lot of cartoons about the cartoons.
All things considered, the Danish cartoons might be the most successful political cartoons on record, since the purpose of a political cartoon is to get a reaction.
Now we have Mr. Chuck Green, late of the Denver Post, who, in today’s Pueblo Chieftain, seems to be telling the Danish newspaper, “Now see what you’ve done!” He says a journalist should “never make fun of someone’s religion”. And, if the Danish newspaper had followed this rule, “Copenhagen wouldn’t have been so rudely awakened from its perpetual slumber this month by angry Islamic extremists armed with torches and guns.”
Okay. It’s impolite for anyone, not just journalists, to make fun of another’s religion. But it’s merely being rude, not a crime. The riots are crimes. To imply that Denmark, and the rest of the Western World, are getting what they deserve with riots protesting what one newspaper did is offensive. If, after all, the cartoons are so offensive that they provoke violence, why didn’t the riots occur the day after they were published last October, instead of now?
The cartoons were a paper offense and, at most, deserve a paper response. The offense was committed by a newspaper, and the response should be confined to the newspaper, not every country that a Scandinavian has ever visited. A nice letter to the editor, explaining the source of the offense and asking that such things not be published in future, is all that should be done. As it is, Muslims all over the world are proving the cartoons’ point, that they are violent.
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