I normally dislike dudes named Anders...

Right, so the following is my own opinion. I won't go all PoMo self-righteous and pretend my opinion isn't any more valid than yours, so understand that I have thought a lot about this in the recent months.

Hypocrisy is one of the worst sins, and most people would agree. So why are we allowing this complete Bull-shizzle from the press on the whole cartoon thing? I remember when I first read about this months ago. I was interested in it because I had read about the murder of Theo Van Gogh and suddenly realized I had little knowledge of the Scandinavian-Muslim situation.

Turns out that Denmark had one of the most liberal and extremely open immigration policies, coupled with a bleeding heart socialist government. By the end of the millennium, they had large Muslim/Arab ghettos. Like many Western European countries, they have a large Arab and/or Muslim population. But unlike previous immigrants, these communities have secluded and sequestered their population from integration with the host country. And before anyone makes any self-righteous comments on how people shouldn't have to give up their beliefs and traditions just because they move to a different country, that's not what I'm talking about.

When a population exists like separate country within a country, there is no cohesion, no chance for shared experience, no chance for broadened horizons(for either the host country or migrant), and there is much less opportunity for the migrants to contribute to society. Now back to the original rant.

So what happened is that a country that has welcomed Muslim/Arabs into it's country, and welfare system, had a relatively small-circulation newspaper print some editorial cartoons of Mohammed. Seeing as how "Mo to the hammed" is the main justification, if only as a figurehead, of Islamofascism, then it is only appropriate that public debate take place. And in most politically charged public debate(at least at the Star-Tribune offices) there are illustrations both metaphorical and literal. So when the Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten offered a contest last September for artists to provide an editorial cartoon showing Islam and it's connection to terror, very little happened. There was a group of Danish-Muslims who were critical of it, some ambassadors sent letters of disapproval(this happens almost daily), and Denmark refused to censor one of it's newspapers.

What happened next is the thing I have issue with. The group of Danish-Muslims toured the middle east eliciting support for their outrage at the publication of cartoons of "Mo to the hammed" and spreading across the Muslim world outrageous, and sometimes outright false, accusations. The issue at hand is that according to Islam, images of the "Prophet" cannot be created, so therefore to avoid idolatry. I can't argue with that either. It's a good rule.

Now, does anyone think that those crazy Danes were looking to create an idol of "Mo to the hammed"? No, yet as the Muslim world was whipped into a frenzy(over the course of three months) by religious Idealogues and political hacks they continually cite how these cartoons are offensive for two reasons:
1.) the illustrations are against Islamic teaching because it's wrong to make pictures of Mo, to prevent Idolatry
2.) the images are insulting to their greatest religious and cultural icon(kinda makes the whole idolatry thing pointless then)

So which is it, because these are mutually exclusive arguments.

But on to the real hypocrisy...

Muslim/Arabs can riot and destroy and loot because of some cartoons, and the media largely ignores or is sympathetic to their viewpoint. Contrast with the reactions when a Christian group used legal and peaceful protest to keep a stupid and insulting episode of Will and Grace from airing.

This article, and this opinion piece, show the reaction when a group that is not a "victim" seeks to change things it doesn't like without death and fire and guns etc. Now given that Muslim/Arabs have rioted and ransacked for several different reasons in the last year, don't you think it's about time that we talked about what could be at the heart of the issue?
Think about scientific reasoning, logic, and these statements:
French prejudice+unemployment= Muslim/Arab riots
Fake news reports+Muslim prisoners= Muslim/Arab riots
Arab streetgangs+Arab gang rapists=Muslim/Arab riots
Newspaper editorials about Islamic Extremism+cartoons=Muslim/Arab riots

Now, there is probably a lot of circumstance and backstory involved in all of these incidents. But I don't want to talk about it anymore in case it causes more riots.