by Tavis Adibudeen, Staff Writer
The news around the Muslim world is filled with protests about the recent publication of offensive cartoons, directly aimed at Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and grant him peace). Many Muslims have taken to the streets in their outrage, and numerous Muslim countries have closed off ties to Denmark. As a result, other European news outlets have decided to republish the cartoons as an "expression of freedom of speech."
As some have already pointed out, the absurdity of this logic is like the person who runs into a crowded theater and yells out, "Fire!" causing people to panic, trample over each other, and possibly even cost lives.
In reality, those secularists who, as they said, "can even caricature God," have little interests in defending freedom of expression. There are much more productive, and less damaging ways to go about such a task. Their true intent is to further the "clash of civilizations" between the secular zealots and the traditional Islamic world. It is not a "war on terror" as they say, but is truly a war against Islam.
If you walk up to a stranger on the street and continuously poke him in the arm, over and over again, eventually he is going to get upset and demand to know why you're doing it. If your answer to him is, "I am poking you to make you a better person, to make you free." He will first think you're insane and then try to stop you from poking him. If you continue to poke him, eventually he will probably do something much more violent back to you. Instead of stopping your poking, however, you decide to escalate the violence and kill him and his whole family.
The western secularists are the pokers, and they have now moved into their escalation phase. They have forced Muslims into a corner, pushing them, hoping that they'll crack and start an all-out war that will, in their minds, spell the end of Islam as we know it. Only a handful of Muslims have cracked under the pressure, much to the chagrin of the secularists. Most Muslims are used to such oppression and are comfortable practicing their religion under duress.
If, however, they insist on bringing us a war, we will give them a war. But our hope and prayer is that we can resolve this "clash of civilizations" peacefully, that they will realize that Islam can coexist with freedom and democracy, that we have no interest in taking away anything from them and only want to live peacefully, that, if we are given our freedom, they too will prosper dealing and trading with Islamic civilization, just as the western Renaissance of old was catapulted into hyperdrive, by the "golden era" of Islamic science and thought.
A pinch of advice for the western world: you can only poke someone for so long.
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